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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20359-8.txt b/20359-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e084d4e --- /dev/null +++ b/20359-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5882 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lovely Lady, by Mary Austin + +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 Lovely Lady + +Author: Mary Austin + +Illustrator: Gordon Grant + +Release Date: January 14, 2007 [EBook #20359] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVELY LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Hillie Plantinga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + +Transcriber's notes: + +Four typographical errors have been corrected: + Page 88, "seemes" changed to "seems" (it seems such a wasteful way + to live somehow,) + Page 162, "Ellen" changed to "Ellen," ("I'm very glad you feel that way + about it, Ellen,") + Page 199, "accomodating" changed to "accommodating" (He felt his mind + accommodating to) + Page 252, "Weatherall" changed to "Weatheral" (Mr. Weatheral had some + papers) + + + + + +THE LOVELY LADY + + + + +_By the same author_ + +A WOMAN OF GENIUS + +THE ARROW MAKER + +THE GREEN BOUGH + +CHRIST IN ITALY + + + + +[Illustration: _"It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of +burnished light...."_] + + + + +THE LOVELY LADY + +BY MARY AUSTIN + +[Illustration: ] + +_Frontispiece by Gordon Grant_ + +GARDEN CITY NEW YORK + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + +1913 + + + + +_Copyright, 1913, by_ + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + +_All rights reserved, including that of +translation into Foreign Languages, +including the Scandinavian._ + + + + +To + +J. AND E. + +THE COMPANIONS OF THE GONDOLA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +PART ONE + +In which Peter meets a Dragon, and the Lovely +Lady makes her appearance. 3 + +PART TWO + +In which Peter becomes invisible on the way to +growing rich. 37 + +PART THREE + +In which Peter becomes a bachelor. 59 + +PART FOUR + +In which the Lovely Lady makes a final appearance. 107 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of +burnished light...." + + + + +PART ONE + +IN WHICH PETER +MEETS A DRAGON, AND +THE LOVELY LADY +MAKES HER APPEARANCE + + + + +PART ONE + +IN WHICH PETER MEETS A DRAGON, AND THE +LOVELY LADY MAKES HER APPEARANCE + + + + +I + + +The walls of the Wonderful House rose up straight and shining, pale +greenish gold as the slant sunlight on the orchard grass under the apple +trees; the windows that sprang arching to the summer blueness let in the +scent of the cluster rose at the turn of the fence, beginning to rise +above the dusty smell of the country roads, and the evening clamour of +the birds in Bloombury wood. As it dimmed and withdrew, the shining of +the walls came out more clearly. Peter saw then that they were all of +coloured pictures wrought flat upon the gold, and as the glow of it +increased they began to swell and stir like a wood waking. They leaned +out from the walls, looking all one way toward the increasing light and +tap-tap of the Princess' feet along the halls. + +"Peter, oh, Peter!" + +The tap-tapping grew sharp and nearer like the sound of a crutch on a +wooden veranda, and the voice was Ellen's. + +"Oh, Peter, you are always a-reading and a-reading!" + +Peter rolled off the long settle where he had been stretched and put the +book in his pocket apologetically. + +"I was just going to quit," he said; "did you want anything, Ellen?" + +"The picnic is coming back; I thought we could go down to the turn to +meet them. Mrs. Sibley said she would save me some things from the +luncheon." + +If there was a little sting to Peter in Ellen's eagerness, it was +evidence at least, how completely he and his mother had kept her from +realizing that it was chiefly because of their not being able to afford +the well-filled basket demanded by a Bloombury picnic that they had not +accepted the invitation. Ellen had thought it was because Bet, the mare, +could not be spared all day from the ploughing nor Peter from hoeing +the garden, and her mother was too busy with the plaid gingham dress she +was making for the minister's wife, to do any baking. It meant to Ellen, +the broken fragments of the luncheon, just so much of what a picnic +should mean: the ride in the dusty morning, swings under the trees, easy +games that she could play, lemonade, pails and pails of it, pink ham +sandwiches and frosted cake; and if Ellen could have any of these, she +was having a little piece of the picnic. What it would have meant +particularly to Peter over and above a day let loose, the arching elms, +the deep fern of Bloombury wood, might have been some passages, perhaps, +which could be taken home and made over into the groundwork of new and +interesting adventures in the House from which Ellen had recalled him. +There was a girl with June apple cheeks and bright brown eyes at that +picnic, who could have given points to princesses. + +He followed the tapping of his sister's crutch along the thick, bitter +smelling dust of the road, rising more and more heavily as the dew +gathered, until they came to the turn by the cluster rose and heard +below them on the bridge, the din of the wheels and the gay laughter of +the picnickers. + +"Hi, Peter!" + +"Hello, Ellen!" + +"Awful sorry you couldn't come ... had a bully time.... Killed a +copperhead and two water snakes." + +"Here, Ellen, catch ahold of this!" + +And while she was about it the June apple girl leaned over the end-board +of the wagon, and spoke softly to Peter. + +"We're going over to Harvey's pasture next Wednesday afternoon, +berrying, in the Democrat wagon with our team; Jim Harvey's going to +drive. We made it up to-day. Surely you can get away for an afternoon?" +That was what the voice said. "To be with me," the eyes added. + +"I don't know.... I'd like it...." + +It was not altogether the calculation as to how much earlier he would +have to get up that morning to be able to take an hour off in the +afternoon, that made Peter hesitate, but the sudden swimming of his +senses about the point of meeting eyes. "I'll tell you what," he said, +"you come by for Ellen, and I'll walk over about four and ride home with +you." + +"Oh," said the girl; she did not know quite whether to triumph at having +gained so much or to be disappointed at so little. "I'll be expecting +you." + +The horses creaked forward in the harness, the dust puffed up from under +the wheels and drowned the smell of the wilding rose, it fell thick on +the petals and a little on Peter's spirit, too, as he followed Ellen +back to the house, though it never occurred to him to think any more of +it than that he had been working too long in the hot sun and was very +tired. It did not, however, prevent his eating his share of the picnic +dainties as he sat with his mother and Ellen on the veranda. Then as the +soft flitter of the bats' wings began in the dusk, he kissed them both +and went early up to bed. + +Peter's room was close under the roof and that was close under the elm +boughs; all hours he could hear them finger it with soft rustling +touches. The bed was pulled to the window that gave upon the downslope +of the hill; at the foot of it one saw the white bloom-faces of the +alders lift and bow above the folded leaves, and the rising of the river +damp across the pastures. All the light reflected from the sky above +Bloombury wood was no more than enough to make a glimmer on the glass of +a picture that hung at the foot of Peter's bed. It served to show the +gilt of the narrow frame and the soft black of the print upon which +Peter had looked so many times that he thought now he was still seeing +it as he lay staring in the dusk--a picture of a young man in bright +armour with loosened hair, riding down a particularly lumpy and swollen +dragon. Flames came out of the creature's mouth in the immemorial +fashion of dragons, but the young man was not hurt by them. He sat there +lightly, his horse curvetting, his lance thrust down the dragon's throat +and coming out of the back of his head, doing a great deed easily, the +way people like to think of great things being done. It was a very +narrow picture, so narrow that you might think that it had something to +do with the dragon's doubling on himself and the charger's forefeet +being up in the air to keep within the limits of the frame, and the +exclusion from it of the Princess whom, as his father had told him the +story, the young knight George had rescued from those devouring jaws. It +came out now, quite clearly, that she must have had cheeks as red as +June apples and eyes like the pools of spring rain in Bloombury wood, +and her not being there in the picture was only a greater security for +her awaiting him at this moment in the House with the Shining Walls. + +There was, for the boy still staring at it through the dusk, something +particularly personal in the picture, for ever since his father had +died, three years ago, Peter had had a dragon of his own to fight. Its +name was Mortgage. It had its lair in Lawyer Keplinger's office, from +which it threatened twice yearly to come out and eat up his mother and +Ellen and the little house and farm, and required to have its mouth +stopped with great wads of interest which took all Peter's laborious +days to scrape together. This year, however, he had hopes, if the garden +turned out well, of lopping off a limb or a claw of the dragon by way +of a payment on the principal, which somehow seemed to bring the +Princess so much nearer, that as Peter lay quite comfortably staring up +at the glimmer on the wall, the four gold lines of the frame began to +stretch up and out and the dark block of the picture to recede until it +became the great hall of a palace again, and there was the Princess +coming toward him in a golden shimmer. + +There was just such another glow on the afternoon when Peter walked over +to the berrying and came up with the apple-cheeked girl whose name was +Ada, a good half mile from the others. As they climbed together over +uneven ground she gave him her hand to hold, and there was very little +to say and no need of saying it until they came to the hill overlooking +the pasture, yellowing toward the end of summer, full of late bloom and +misty colour passing insensibly into light. Threads of gossamer caught +on the ends of the scrub or floated free, glinting as they turned and +bellied in the windless air, to trick the imagination with the hint of +robed, invisible presences. + +"Oh, Peter, don't you wish it would stay like this always?" + +"Like this," Peter gave her hand the tiniest squeeze to show what there +was about this that he would like to keep. "It's just as good to look at +any season though," he insisted. "I was here hunting rabbits last +winter, in February, and you could find all sorts of things in the +runways where the brambles bent over and kept off the snow; bunches of +berries and coloured leaves, and little green fern, and birds hopping in +and out." + +Ada spread her skirts as she sat on a flat boulder and began sticking +leaves into Peter's hat. + +"Peter, what are you going to do this winter?" + +"I don't know, I should like to go over to the high school at Harmony, +but I suppose I'll try to get a place to work near home." + +"We've been getting up a dancing and singing school, to begin in +October. The teacher is coming from Dassonville. It will be once a week; +we sing for an hour and then have dancing. It will be cheap as +cheap--only two dollars a month. I hope you can come." + +"I don't know; I'll think about it." He was thinking then that two +dollars did not sound much, but when you come to subtract it from the +interest it was a great deal, and then there would be Ellen to pay for, +and perhaps a dress for her, and dancing shoes for himself and singing +books. And no doubt at the dances there would be basket suppers. + +"I should think you could come if you wanted to. Jim Harvey's getting it +up.... He wants to keep company with me this winter." Ada was a little +nervous about this, but as she stole a glance at Peter's face as he lay +biting at a stem of grass, she grew quite comfortable again. "But I +don't know as I will," she said. "I don't care very much for Jim +Harvey." + +Peter picked up a stone and shied it joyously at a thrush in the bushes. + +"And I don't know as I want you to," he declared boldly. "I'll come to +that dancing school if I possibly can, Ada, and if I can't you'll know +it isn't because I don't wish to." + +"You must want to with all your might and that'll make it come true. You +can wish it on my amethyst ring." + +"You won't take it off until October, Ada?" + +"I truly won't." And it took Peter such a long time to get the ring on +and held in place while the wish was properly made, that it was +practically no time at all until the others found them on the way home +as they came laughing up the hill. + +As it happened, however, Peter did not get to the dancing school once +that winter. The first of the cold spell Ellen had slipped on the ice, +to the further trying of her lame back, and there were things to be done +to it which the doctor said could not possibly be put off, so it +happened that the mortgage dragon did not get his payment and Peter gave +up the high school to get a place in Greenslet's grocery at Bloombury. +And since there were the books to be made up after supper, and as Bet, +the mare, after being driven in the delivery wagon all day, could not be +let stand half the night in the cold at the schoolhouse door, it turned +out that Peter had not been once to the dancing school. In the beginning +he had done something for himself in the way of a hall for dancing, +thrown out from the House of the Shining Walls, in which he and the +Princess Ada, to lovely, soundless strains, had whirled away, and found +occasion to say things to each other such as no ballroom could +afford;--bright star pointed occasions which broke and scattered before +the little hints of sound that crept up the stair to advise him that +Ellen was stifling back the pain for fear of waking him. They had moved +Ellen's bed downstairs as a way of getting on better with the +possibility of her being bedridden all that winter, and the tiny +whispered moan recalled him to the dread that as the half yearly term +came around, what with doctor's bills and delicacies, the mortgage +dragon would have not even his sop of interest, and remain whole and +threatening as before. + +When Ellen was able to sit up in bed the mother moved her sewing in +beside it. Then Peter would sit on the other side of the lamp with a +book, and the walls of the House rose up from its pages gilded finely, +and the lights would come out and the dancing begin, but before he could +get more than a word with the Princess, he would hear Ellen: + +"Peter, oh, Peter! I wish you wouldn't be always with your nose in a +book. I wish you would talk sometimes." + +"What about, Ellen?" + +"Oh, Peter, you are the _worst_. I should think you would take some +interest in things." + +"What sort of things?" Peter wished to know. + +"Why, who comes in the store, and what they say, and everything." + +"Mrs. Sleason wanted us to open a kit of mackerel to see if she'd like +it," began Peter literally, "and we persuaded her to take two cans of +sardines instead. Does that interest you?" + +"Have you sold any of the blue tartan yet?" + +"Ada Brown bought seven yards of it." + +"Oh, Peter! And trimmings?" + +"Six yards of black velvet ribbon--yes, I forgot--Mrs. Blackman is to +make it up for her. I heard Mrs. Brown say she would call for the +linings." + +"She's having it made up for Jim Harvey's birthday," Ellen guessed +shrewdly. "He's twenty-one, you know.... People say she's engaged to +him." + +Peter felt the walls of the House which had stood out waiting for him +during this interlude, fall inward into the gulf of blackness. Nobody +said anything for two or three ticks of the large kitchen clock, and +then Ellen burst out: + +"I think she's a nasty, flirty, stuck-up _thing_; that's what I think!" + +"Shs--hss! Ellen," said her mother. + +"Peter," demanded Ellen, "are you reading again?" + +"I beg your pardon, Ellen." Peter did not know that he had turned a +page. + +"Don't you ever wish for anything for yourself, Peter? Don't you wish +you were rich?" + +"No, Ellen, I don't know that I ever do." + +But as the winter got on and the news of Ada Brown's engagement was +confirmed, he must have wished it a great many times. + +One evening late in January he was sitting with his mother very quietly +by the kitchen stove, the front of which was opened to throw out the +heat; there was the good smell of the supper in the room, for though he +had a meal with the Greenslets at six, his mother always made a point of +having something hot for him when he came in from bedding down the +mare, and the steam of it on the window-panes made dull smears of the +reflected light. The shade of the lamp was drawn down until the ceiling +of the room was all in shadow save for the bright escape from the +chimney which shone directly overhead, round and yellow as twenty +dollars, and as Peter leaned back in his chair, looking up, it might +have been that resemblance which gave a turn to his thoughts and led him +to say to his mother: + +"Why did my father never get rich?" + +"I hardly know, Peter. He used to say that he couldn't afford it. There +were so many other things he wished to do; and I wished them, too. When +we were young we did them together. Then your father was the sort of man +who always gave too much and took too little. I remember his saying once +that no one who loved his fellowman very much, _could_ get rich." + +"Do you wish he had?" + +"I don't know that either. No, not if he was happier the way he was. And +we _were_ happy. Things would have come out all right if it hadn't been +for the accident when the thresher broke, and his being ill so long +afterward. And my people weren't so kind as they might have been. You +see, they always thought him a little queer. Before we were married, +before we were even engaged, he had had a little money. It had been left +him, and instead of investing it as anybody in Bloombury would, he spent +it in travel. I remember his saying that his memories of Italy were the +best investment he could have made. But afterward, when he was in +trouble, they threw it up to him. We had never got in debt before ... +and then just as he was getting round, he took bronchitis and died." + +She wiped her eyes quietly for a while, and the kettle on the stove +began to sing soothingly, and presently Peter ventured: + +"Do you wish I would get rich?" + +"Yes, Peter, I do. We are all like that, I suppose, we grown-ups. Things +we manage to get along without ourselves, we want for our children. I +hope you will be a rich man some day; but, Peter, I don't want you to +think it a reflection on your father that he wasn't. He had what he +thought was best. He might have left me with more money and fewer happy +memories--and that is what women value most, Peter;--the right sort of +women. There are some who can't get along without _things_: clothes, and +furniture, and carriages. Ada Brown is that kind; sometimes I'm afraid +Ellen is a little. She takes after my family." + +"It is partly on account of Ellen that I want to get rich." + +"You mustn't take it too hard, Peter; we've always got along somehow, +and nobody in Bloombury is very rich." + +Peter turned that over in his mind the whole of a raw and sleety +February. And one day when nobody came into the store from ten till +four, and loose winds went in a pack about the village streets, casting +up dry, icy dust where now and then some sharp muzzle reared out of the +press as they turned the corners, he spoke to Mr. Greenslet about it. It +was so cold that day that neither the red apples in the barrels nor the +crimson cranberries nor the yellowing hams on the rafters could +contribute any appearance of warmth to the interior of the grocery. A +kind of icy varnish of cold overlaid the gay lables of the canned +goods; the remnants of red and blue tartan exposed for sale looked +coarse-grained with the cold, and cold slips of ribbons clung to the +glass of the cases like the tongues of children tipped to the frosted +panes. Even the super-heated stove took on a purplish tinge of +chilblains, roughed by the wind. + +A kind of arctic stillness pervaded the place, out of which the two men +hailed each other at intervals as from immeasurable deeps of space. + +"Mr. Greenslet," ventured Peter at last, "are you a rich man?" + +"Not by a long sight." + +"Why?" questioned Peter. + +"Not built that way." + +The grocer lapsed back into the silence and seemed to lean against it +meditatively. The wolf wind howled about the corners and cast snow like +powdered glass upon the windows contemptuously, and time went by with a +large deliberate movement like a fat man turning over, before Peter +hailed again. + +"Did you ever want to be?" + +Mr. Greenslet reached out for the damper of the stove ostensibly to +shake down the ashes, but really to pull himself up out of the soundless +spaces of thought. + +"When I was your age, yes. Thought I was going to be." The shaking of +the damper seemed to loosen the springs of speech in him. "I was up in +the city working for Siegel Brothers; began as a bundle boy and meant to +be one of the partners. But by the time I worked up to fancy goods I +realized that I would have to be as old as Methuselah to make it at that +rate. And Mrs. Greenslet didn't like the city; she was a Bloombury girl. +It wasn't any place for the children." + +"So you came back?" + +"We had saved a little. I bought out this place and put in a few notions +I'd got from Siegel's. I'm comfortably off, but I'm not rich." + +"Would you like to be?" + +"I don' know, I don' know. I'd like to give the boys a better start than +I had, but I'm my own boss here and one of the leading men. That's +always something." + +Peter went and looked out of the smudged windows while he considered +this. The long scrapes of the wind in the loose snow were like the +scratches of great claws. It was now about mail time and a few people +began to stir in the street; the clear light and the cold gave them a +poverty-bitten look. + +"Does anybody ever get rich in Bloombury?" + +"Not that I know of. There's Mr. Dassonville in Harmony--Dave +Dassonville, the richest man in these parts." + +"I suppose he could tell me how to go about it?" + +"I suppose he would if he knows. Mostly these things just happen." + +Peter did not say anything more just then; he was watching a man and a +girl of about his own age who had come out of a frame house farther down +the street. The young man was walking so as to shield her from the wind, +her rosy cheek was at his shoulder, and she smiled up at him over her +muff, from dark, bright eyes. + +"What's set you on to talk about riches? Thinking of doing something in +that line yourself?" + +"Yes," said Peter, kicking at the baseboard with his toes. "I don't know +how it is to be done, but I've got to be rich. I've just simply got to." + + + + +II + + +It was along in the beginning of spring on a day full of wet cloud and +clearing wind, that Peter walked over to Harmony to inquire of Mr. David +Dassonville the way to grow rich. It was Sunday afternoon and the air +sweet with the sap adrip from the orchards lately pruned and the smell +of the country road dried to elasticity by the winds of March. + +Between timidity and the conviction that a week day would have been +better suited to his business, he drew on to the place of his errand +very slowly, for he was sore with the raking of the dragon's claws, and +unrested. It had been a terrible scrape to get together the last +instalment of interest, and since Ellen had shattered it with the gossip +about Ada Brown's engagement, there had been no House with Shining Walls +for Peter to withdraw into out of the dragon's breath of poverty; above +all, no Princess. + +He did not know where the House had come from any more than he knew now +where it had gone. It was a gift out of his childhood to his shy, +unfriended youth, but he understood that if ever its walls should waver +and rise again to enclose his dreams, there would be no Princess. Never +any more. Princesses were for fairy tales; girls wanted Things. There +was his mother too--he had wished so to get her a new dress this winter. +It was an ache to him to cut off yards and yards of handsome stuffs at +Mr. Greenslet's, and all the longing in the world had not availed to get +one of them for his mother. Plainly the mastery of Things was +accomplished by being rich; he was on his way to Mr. Dassonville to find +out how it was done. + +It was quite four of the clock when he paused at the bottom of the +Dassonville lawn to look up at the lace curtains at the tall French +windows. Nobody in Bloombury was rich enough to have lace curtains at +all the windows, and the boy's spirit rose at the substantial evidence +of being at last fairly in the track of his desire. + +He found Mr. Dassonville willing to receive him in quite a friendly way, +sitting in his library, keeping the place with his finger in the book he +had been reading to his wife. Peter also found himself a little at a +loss to know how to begin in the presence of this lady, for he +considered it a matter quite between men, but suddenly she looked up and +smiled. It came out on her face fresh and delicately as an apple orchard +breaking to bloom, and besides making it quite spring in the room, +discovered in herself a new evidence of the competency of Mr. David +Dassonville to advise the way of riches. She looked fragile and +expensive as she sat in her silken shawl, her dark hair lifted up in a +half moon from her brow, her hands lying in her lap half-covered with +the lace of her sleeves, white and perfect like twin flowers. He saw +rings flashing on the one she lifted to motion to the maid to bring a +chair. + +"If you have walked over from Bloombury you must be tired," she said, +"and chilled, perhaps. Come nearer the fire." + +"No, thank you," Peter had managed, "I am quite warm," as in fact he +was, and a little flushed. He sat down provisionally on the edge of the +chair and looked at Mr. Dassonville. + +"I came on business. I don't know if you will mind its being Sunday, but +I couldn't get away from the store on other days." + +"Quite right, quite right." Mr. Dassonville had lost his place in the +book and laid it on his knee. "Private business? My dear, perhaps----" + +"Oh, no--no," protested Peter handsomely. "I'd rather she stayed. It +isn't. At least ... I don't know if you will consider it private or +not." + +"Go on," urged Mr. Dassonville. + +"I just came to ask you," Peter explained, "if you don't mind telling +me, how you got rich?" + +"But bless you, young man," exclaimed Mr. Dassonville, "I'm not rich." + +This for a beginning, was, on the face of it, disconcerting. Peter +looked about at the rows of books, at the thick, soft carpet and the +leather-covered furniture, and at the rings on Mrs. Dassonville's hand. +If Mr. Dassonville were not rich, how then--unless---- + +"I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought--that is, everybody says you are +the richest man in these parts." + +"As to that, well, perhaps, I have a little more money than my +neighbours." + +Peter breathed relief. The beautiful Mrs. Dassonville's rings were paid +for, then. + +"But as to being _rich_, why, when you come to a really rich man all +I've got wouldn't be a pinch to him." Mr. Dassonville illustrated with +his own thumb and fingers how little that would be. "We don't have +really rich men in a place like Harmony," he concluded. "You have to go +to the city for that." + +"You've got everything you want, haven't you?" + +Mr. Dassonville looked over at his wife, and the smile bloomed again; he +smiled quietly to himself as he admitted it. "Yes, I've got everything I +want." + +They were quiet, all of them, for a little while, with Peter turning his +hat over in his hands and Mr. Dassonville laying the tips of his fingers +together before him, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair. + +"I wish," said Peter at last, "you would tell me how you did it." + +"How I got more money than my neighbours? Well, I wasn't born with it." + +This was distinctly encouraging. Neither was Peter. + +"No two men, I suppose, make money in the same way," went on the man who +had, "but there are three or four things to be observed by all of them. +In the first place one must be very hard-working." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"And one must never lose sight of the object worked for. Not"--as if he +had followed the boy's inward drop of dismay--"that a man should think +of nothing but getting money. On the contrary, I consider it very +essential for a man to have some escape from his business, some change +of pasture to run his mind in. He comes fresher to his work so. What I +mean is that _when_ he works he must make every stroke count toward the +end he has in view. Do you understand?" + +"I think so." The House and the Shining Walls were safe, at any rate. + +"And then," Mr. Dassonville checked off the points on his fingers, "he +must always save something from his income, no matter how small it is." + +"I try to do that," confessed Peter, "but what with Ellen's back being +bad, and the interest on the mortgage, it's not so easy." + +"Is there a mortgage? I am sorry for that, for the next thing I was +going to say is that he must never go into debt, never on any account." + +"My father was sick; it was an accident," Peter protested loyally. + +"So! I think I remember. Well, it is unfortunate, but where there is a +debt the only thing is to reduce it as steadily as possible, and if this +mortgage teaches you the trick of saving it may not be such a bad thing +for you. But when a man works and saves for a long time without getting +any sensible benefit, he sometimes thinks that saving and working are +not worth while. You must never make that mistake." + +"Oh, no," said Peter. It seemed to him that they were getting on very +well indeed. + +"There is another thing I should like to say," Mr. Dassonville went on, +"but I am not sure I can put it plainly. It is that you must not try to +be too wise." He smiled a little to Peter's blankness. "I believe in +Harmony it is called looking on all sides of a thing, but there is +always one side of everything like the moon which is turned from us. You +must just start from where you are and keep moving." + +"I see," said Peter, looking thoughtfully into the fire, in imitation of +Mr. Dassonville. And there being no more advice forthcoming he began to +wonder if he ought to sit a while from politeness, as people did in +Bloombury, or go at once. Mrs. Dassonville got up and came behind her +husband's chair. + +"Don't you think you ought to tell him, David, that there are other +things worth having besides money; better worth?" + +"You, perhaps." Mr. Dassonville took the hand of his wife laid on his +shoulder and held it against his cheek; it brought out for Peter +suddenly, how many years younger she was, and what he had heard of Mr. +Dassonville having married her from among the summer folk who came to +Harmony for the pine woods and the sea air. "Ah, but I'm not sure I'd +have you without a great deal of it. It takes money to raise rare plants +like you. But I ought to say," still holding his wife's hand to his +cheek and watching Peter across it, "that I think it is a very good sign +that you are willing to ask. The most of poor men will sit about and +rail and envy the rich, but hardly one would think to ask how it is +done, or believe if he were told. They've a notion it's all gouging and +luck, and you couldn't beat that out of them if you tried. Very few of +them understand how simple success is; it isn't easy often, but it is +always simple." + +Peter supposed that he really ought to go after that, though he did not +know how to manage it until Mrs. Dassonville smiled at him over her +husband's shoulder and asked him what sort of work he did. "Oh, if you +know about gardens," she interrupted him, "you can help a little. There +are such a lot of things coming up in mine that I don't know the names +of." + +It flashed out to Peter long afterward that she had simply provided an +easy way for him to get out of the house now that his visit was +terminated. She held the white fold of her shawl over her head with one +hand and gathered the trailing skirts with the other. They rustled as +she moved like the leaves of the elms at night above the roof, as she +led him along the walk where little straight spears of green and blunt +flower crowns faintly tinged with colour came up thickly in the borders. +So by degrees she got him down past the hyacinth beds and the nodding +buds of the daffodils to the gate and on the road again, walking home in +the chill early twilight with the pricking of a pleasant excitement in +his veins. + +It was that, perhaps, and the sense of having got so much more out of it +than any account of his visit would justify, that kept Peter from saying +much to his mother that night about his talk with the rich man; he asked +her instead if she had ever seen Mrs. Dassonville. + +"Yes," she assured him. "Mr. Dassonville drove her over to Mrs. +Tillinghurst's funeral in October. They had only been married a little +while then; she is the second Mrs. Dassonville, you know; the first died +years ago. I thought her a very lovely lady." + +"A lovely lady," Peter said the phrase under his breath. The sound of it +was like the soft drawing of silken skirts. + +His mother looked at him across the supper table and was pleased to see +the renewal of cheerfulness, and then, motherlike, sighed to think that +Peter was getting so old now that if he didn't choose to tell her things +she had no right to ask him. "Your walk has done you good," was all she +said, and it must have been the case, for that very night as soon as his +head had touched the pillow he was off again, as he hadn't been since +Ellen fell ill, to the House of the Shining Walls. It rose stately +against a blur of leafless woods and crocus-coloured sky. The garden +before it was all full of spring bulbs and the scent of daffodils. The +Princess came walking in it as before, but she was no Princess now, +merely a woman with her dark hair brushed up in a half moon from her +brow and her skirts drawing after her with a silken rustle; her face was +dim and sweet, with only a faint, a very faint, reminder of Ada, and her +name was the Lovely Lady. + + + + +PART TWO + + +IN WHICH PETER +BECOMES INVISIBLE ON THE +WAY TO GROWING RICH + + + + +PART TWO + +IN WHICH PETER BECOMES INVISIBLE ON +THE WAY TO GROWING RICH + + +In the late summer of that year Peter went up to the city with Mr. +Greenslet to lay in his winter stock and remained in canned goods with +Siegel Brothers' Household Emporium. That his mother had rented the +farming land for cash was the immediate occasion of his setting out, but +there were several other reasons and a great many opinions. Mr. +Greenslet had a boy of his own coming on for Peter's place; Bet, the +mare, had died, and the farm implements wanted renewing; in spite of +which Mrs. Weatheral could hardly have made up her mind to spare him +except for the opportune appearance of the cash renter. With that and +the chickens and the sewing, she and Ellen could take care of themselves +and the interest, which would leave all that Peter could make to count +against the mortgage. + +They put it hopefully to one another so, as they sat about the kitchen +stove, all three of them holding hands, on the evening before his +departure. But the opinions, which were rather thicker at Bloombury than +opportunities, were by no means so confident as Peter could have wished +if he had known them. Mr. Greenslet thought it couldn't be much worse +than Peter's present situation, and the neighbours were sure it wasn't +much better. The minister had a great deal to say of the temptations of +a young man in the city, which was afterward invalidated by the city's +turning out quite another place than he described it. + +It was left for Ellen and Mrs. Jim Harvey to make the happy +prognostication. "You can trust Peter," Ada was confident. + +"But you got to be mighty cute to get in with those city fellows," her +husband warned her, "and Peter's so dashed simple; never sees anything +except what's right in front of him. Now a man"--Jim assumed this estate +for himself in the right of being three months married--"has got to look +on all sides of a thing." + +As for Ellen, she hadn't the slightest doubt that Peter was shortly to +become immensely wealthy and she was to go up and keep house for him. + +"There'll be gold chairs in the parlour and real Brussels," she +anticipated. Peter affected to think it unlikely that she could be +spared by the highly mythical person who was to carry her off to keep +house for himself. Somehow Peter could never fall into the normal +Bloombury attitude of thinking that if you had hip disease, your life +was bound to be different from everybody's and you might as well say so +right out, flat-footed, and be done with it. + +With all this, finally he was got off to the city in the wake of Mr. +Greenslet, and the first discovery he made there was that outside of +Siegel Brothers, and a collarless man with a discouraged moustache who +appeared in the hall of his lodging-house when the rent was due, he was +practically invisible. As he went up and down the stairs sodden with +scrub water which never by any possible chance left them scrubbed, +nobody spoke to him. Nobody in the street saw him walking to and fro in +his young loneliness. There were men passing there with faces like Mr. +Dassonville's, keen and competent, and lovely ladies in soft becoming +wraps and bright winged hats--such hats! Peter would like to have hailed +some of these as one immeasurably behind but still in the way, seized of +that precious inward quality which manifests itself in competency and +brightness. He would have liked to feel them looking on friendlily at +his business of becoming rich; but he remained, as far as any word from +them was concerned, completely invisible. He came after a while to the +conclusion that most of those who went up and down with him were in the +same unregarded condition. + +The city appeared quite habituated to this state of affairs; hordes of +them came and went unconfronted between banked windows of warmth and +loveliness, past doors from which light and music overflowed into the +dim street in splashes of colour and sound, where people equally under +the prohibition lapped them up hungrily like dogs at puddles. Sometimes +in the street cars or subways he brushed against fair girls from whom +the delicate aroma of personality was like a waft out of that country +of which his preferences and appreciations acknowledged him a native, +but no smallest flutter of kinship ever put forth from them to Peter. +The place was crammed full of everything that anybody could want and +nobody could get at it, at least not Peter, nor anybody he knew at +Siegel Brothers. And at the lodging house they seemed never to have +heard of the undiminished heaps of splendour that lay piled behind plate +glass and polished counters. It was extraordinary, incredible, that he +wasn't to have the least of them. + +As the winter closed in on him, the restrictions of daily living rose so +thick upon him that they began to prevent him from his dreams. He could +no longer get through them to the House with the Shining Walls. Often as +he lay in his bed trying to believe he was warm enough, he would set off +for it down the lanes of blinding city light through which the scream of +the trolley pursued him, only to see it glimmer palely on him through +impenetrable plate glass, or defended from him by huge trespass signs +that appeared to have some relation to the fact that he was not yet so +rich as he expected to be. Times when he would wake out of his sleep, +it would be to a strange sense of severances and loss, and though he did +not know exactly what ailed him, it was the loss of all his dreams. +After a while the whole city seemed to ache with that loss. He would lie +in his narrow bed and think that if he did not see his mother and +Bloombury again he would probably die of it. + +Then along in the beginning of April somebody saw him. It was in the +dusk between supper and bed time, walking on the viaduct where he had +the park below him. There was a wash of blue still in the sky and a thin +blade of a moon tinging it with citron; here and there the light +glittered on the trickle of sap on the chafed boughs. It was just here +that he met her. She was about his own age, and she was walking oddly, +as though unconscious of the city all about her, with short picked +steps, and her hat with the tilt to it of a girl who knows herself +admired. She had a rose at her breast which she straightened now and +then, or smoothed a fold of her dress and hummed as she walked. Her +cheeks were bright even in the dusk, and some strange, quick fear kept +pace with her glancing. Peter was walking heavily himself, as the young +do when the dreams have gone out of them, and as they passed in the +light of the arc that danced delicately to the wandering air, the girl's +look skimmed him like a swallow. She must have turned just behind him, +for in a moment she drifted past his shoulder. + +"Hello!" she said. + +"Hello!" said Peter, but, in the moment it had taken to drag that up +from under his astonishment, she had passed him; her laugh as she went +brushed the tip of his youth like a swallow's wing. It remained with him +as a little, far spark; it seemed as if a dream was about to spin itself +out from it. He went around that way several times on his evening walks +in hopes that he might meet her again. + +As though the spark had lightened a little of the blank unrecognition +with which the city met him, he was seen that day and in no unfriendly +aspect by "our Mr. Croker" of Siegel Brothers. The running gear of a +great concern like the Household Emporium pressed, in the days of +Peter's apprenticeship, unequally at times on its employees, and the +galled spot of the canned goods department was Blinders the bundle boy. +His other name was Horace and he was chiefly remarkable for pimples +which he seemed to think interesting, and for a state of active +resentment against anybody who gave him anything to do. The world for +Horace was a dark jungle full of grouches and pulls and privilege and +devious guile. + +That the propensity which Peter had developed for inquiring every half +hour or so if he hadn't got that done yet, could be nothing else but a +cabal directed against Blinders' four dollars and a half a week, he was +convinced. In all the time that he could spare from his pimples, Horace +rehearsed a martyr's air designed to convey to Mr. Croker that though he +would suffer in silence he was none the less suffering. It being +precisely Mr. Croker's business to rap out grouches as an expert +mechanician taps defective cogs, it happened the day after Peter's +meeting with the girl that the worst hopes of Horace were realized. + +"Aw, they're always a pickin' on me, Mr. Croker, that's what they are, +Mr. Croker," Horace defended himself, preparing to snivel if the +occasion seemed to demand it, by taking out his gum and sticking it on +the inside of his sleeve. "I can't handle 'em no faster, Mr. Croker." + +"Not the way you go at it," Peter assured him. Anybody could have told +by the way he included Mr. Croker in his cheerfulness that there was +something between them. "You turn 'em over too many times and you use +too much paper and too much string." Suddenly Peter reddened with +embarrassment. "Not that that makes any difference to a big firm like +this," he apologized, "but in a small place every little counts." He +turned the package deftly and began to illustrate his method. "When +you're tying up calico with one hand and taking in eggs and butter with +the other and telling three people the price of things at the same +time," he explained, "you have to notice things like this." + +"I see," said Mr. Croker. "You try it, Blinders." + +"Aw, what's the matter with the way I was doin' it?" wailed Horace. + +"If you don't feel quite up to it----" Mr. Croker hinted. Horace did, he +wrapped with alacrity and Peter showed him how to hold the string. + +"You come along with me, Weatheral," Mr. Croker commanded. Horace took +his gum out of his cuff and made dark prognostication as to what was +probably to be done to Peter. + +What Peter thought was that he should probably become very unpopular +with his fellow clerks. Croker took him across to dry goods, where girls +were tying bundles in little cages over the sales ladies' heads, and had +him repeat the method of handling string. Except that he thought he +should get to like Mr. Croker, the incident made no particular +impression on Peter--so dulled were all his senses for want of +dreams,--and passed wholly out of mind. + +It was two or three days after that he saw the girl again, nearer the +end of the viaduct, where four or five streets poured light and +confusion into Venable Square. She was going on ahead, hurrying and +pretending not to hurry to overtake a man to whom she wished to speak. +She was quite close to him, she was speaking, and suddenly he gave a +little outward jerk with his elbow which caught hers unexpectedly and +whirled her back against the parapet. The little purse she was carrying +fell from her hand. The man gave a quick laugh over his shoulder and +ploughed his way across the street. + +"The skunk!" Peter's list of expletives was not extensive. He picked up +the flat little purse and handed it back to her. "Shall I go after him? +Did you know him?" + +The girl was holding on to the parapet with a little choky laugh. "Oh, +yes, I know that kind. No, I don't want him!" + +"He ought to have a good thrashing," Peter was convinced. The girl +looked up at him with a sudden curiosity. + +"You're from the country, ain't you? I thought so the other night. I can +always tell." + +"I guess you're from the country yourself," Peter hazarded. She was +prettier even than he had thought. Her glance had left his, however, and +was roving up and down the hurrying crowd as though testing it for some +plunge she was about to make. + +"If you wanted me to see you home----" Peter hinted; he did not know +quite what was expected of him. She answered with a little sharp noise +which ended in a cough. + +"I guess you're real kind," she admitted, "but I ain't goin' home just +yet. I got a date." She moved off then, and since it was in the +direction he was going, there was nothing for Peter to do but move with +her, on the other side of the wide pavement. At the turn she drifted +back to his side again; it seemed to Peter there was amusement in her +tone. + +"You got anything to do Saturday about this time?" Peter hadn't. "Well, +I'll be here--savvy?" But before he could make her any assurance she +laughed again and slipped into the crowd. + +Peter knew a great many facts about life. There were human failings even +in Bloombury, and what Peter didn't know about the city had been largely +made up to him by the choice conversation of J. Wilkinson Cohn, in +staples, at the next counter to him. Anybody who listened long enough +to J. Wilkinson's personal reminiscences would have found himself fully +instructed for every possible contingency likely to arise between a +gentleman of undoubted attractions and the ladies, but there are forces +in youth that are stronger than experience. It is a very old, old way of +the world for young things to walk abroad in the spring and meet one +another. + +Peter strolled along the viaduct Saturday and felt his youth beat in him +pleasantly when he saw her come. She had on a different hat, and the +earlier hour showed him the shining of her eyes above the raddled +cheeks. + +"We could go down in the park a piece," he suggested as they turned in +together along the parapet. There was a delicate damp smell coming up +from it on the night, like the Bloombury lanes. + +"You're regular country, aren't you?" There was an accent of impatience +in her tone, "I haven't had my supper yet." + +"Well, what do you say to a piece of roast beef and a cup of coffee?" +Peter had planned this magnificence as he came along fingering his pay +envelope. He knew just the place, he told her. The feeling of his proper +male ascendency as he drew her through the crowd was a tonic to him; the +man tossing pancakes in the window where he hesitated looking for the +ladies' entrance seemed quite to enjoy doing it, as though he had known +all along there was to be company. + +"Oh, I don't care for any of these places." Peter felt her pull at his +elbow. "I'll show you." They went along then, brushing lightly shoulder +to shoulder until they came to one of those revolving doors from which +gusts of music issued. There was a girl standing up to sing as they sat +down and the whole air of the place was beyond even the retailed +splendour of J. Wilkinson. The girl threw back her wraps and began to +order freely. Peter, who had a glimpse of the card, stiffened. + +"I--I guess I'm not so very hungry," he cautioned. She looked up from +the menu sharply and her face softened; she made one or two deft changes +in it. + +"This is Dutch, you know," she threw out. "Oh, I know you invited me, +but you didn't think I was one of the kind that let a strange gentleman +pay for my dinner, did you?" Peter denied it, stricken with +embarrassment. She seemed in the light, to take him in more completely. + +"Say, would you have licked that fellow the other night, honest?" + +"Well, if he was disrespectful to a lady----" Peter began. + +"Oh, _excuse_ me!" She turned her head aside for a moment in her long +gloves. "You _are_ country!" she said again, but it seemed not to +displease her. "I don't care so much for her voice, do you?" She turned +on the singer. They discussed the entertainment and the dinner. They +were a long time about it. The orchestra played a waltz at last, and +Ethel--she had told him to call her that--put her arms on the table and +leaned across to him, and though Peter knew by this time that her cheeks +were painted, he didn't somehow mind it. + +"What's it like up in the country where you lived?" she wished to know. + +"Hills mostly, little wooded ones, and high pastures, and the apple +orchards going right up over them...." + +"I know," she nodded. "I guess it's them I been smelling ... or +laylocks." + +"Things coming up in the garden," Peter contributed: "peonies, and long +rows of daffodils...." He did not realize it, but he had described to +her no place that he had known but the way to the House. The girl cut +him off. + +"Don't!" she said sharply. "You know," she half apologized, "you kind of +remind me of somebody ... a boy I knew up country. It was him that got +me here----" She made her little admission quietly, the horror of it +long worn down to daily habit. "That first time I saw you, it seemed +almost as if it was him ... I ain't never blamed him--much. He didn't +mean to be bad, but when the trouble came he couldn't help none.... I +guess real help is about the hardest thing to find there is." + +"I guess it is." + +"Oh, well, we gotta make the best of it." She glanced at Peter with her +head on one side as she twiddled her fingers across the cloth to the +tune of the orchestra. + +They went out at last and walked in the least frequented streets, and +Peter held her hand; the warmth of it ran with a pleasant tingling in +his veins. He seemed to have touched in her palm the point at which the +city came alive to him. They walked and walked and yet it seemed that +something lacked to bring the evening to a finish; it was incredible to +Peter that after all his loneliness he should have to let her go. + +"We could go up to my place," Ethel suggested. "It's up here." He hadn't +suspected that she had been guiding him. + +"I guess not to-night." Peter's blood was singing in his ears. In the +dark of the unfrequented street he could feel her young body leaning +toward his. + +"Say, you know I ain't after the money the way some girls are; I like +you ... honest----" + +"I guess I'd better go home." But they went on up the side street a +little farther. "Good-bye," he said, but he did not let her go. + +She shook her hand free at last. + +"Oh, well, of course, if you don't want to...." He felt her soft hands +fumbling at his face; she drew him down to a kiss. Suddenly she sprang +away, laughing. "Go, you silly!" + +"Ethel!" he cried, but he lost her in the dark. He should have let her +go at that; he knew he should. In spite of her paying half, his dinner +had cost him more than two ordinary dinners ... and besides.... He +couldn't help, however, walking around by the viaduct for several +evenings the next week, and at last he saw her. She was going by without +speaking, but he got squarely in front of her. + +"Ethel!" + +She pretended just to have recognized him. + +"Oh, you here? I thought you'd gone back to the country!" + +"You aren't mad with me about ... the other night?" He did not quite +know how to express the quality of his desertion. + +"Who? Me?" airily. "Oh, I guess there's just as good fish in the +sea----" She changed all at once under his young hunger for +companionship. "You're good," she said; "you're the real thing." + +"You're good, too," he was certain, "when you're with me." + +"Oh, it rubs off. Say, kid, I guess you got folks at home you're sending +money to and all that, and you got to get ahead in the world. Well, you +don't want to have nothing to do with my kind, and that's straight." The +deviltry she put on toward him failed pitifully. "Chase yourself, kid; I +just ain't good for you any more." Nevertheless they moved along the +parapet to the dark interval between the lights and there they kissed +again, this time with no undercurrent. + +"Good-bye, Ethel." + +"Good-bye, boy." The little spark was out. + + + + +PART THREE + +IN WHICH PETER +BECOMES A BACHELOR + + + + +PART THREE + +IN WHICH PETER BECOMES A BACHELOR + + + + +I + + +The day before leaving for his summer vacation Peter was notified that +he was wanted in his private office by the younger Siegel Brother. +Though he couldn't quite fall in with the dark prognostications of +Blinders that he was about to be mulcted of his salary by a plot which +had been plainly indicated by the marked partiality of our Mr. Croker, +the incident gave him some uneasiness. The young Siegel Brother must +have been younger than somebody of course, though it couldn't have been +by more than a scratch, and he might have been any age without betraying +it, so deeply was he sunk in the evidence of the surpassing quality of +the grocery department. However, there was something surprisingly young +looking out at Peter from the junior brother's red and white rotundity, +at which he took heart immensely. + +"Weatheral, Peter, canned goods, recommended by Mr. Greenslet," Siegel +Brother ticked him off from a manilla envelope. "Just a little +honorarium, Mr. Weatheral, we are in the habit of distributing to such +of our employees as make practical suggestions to the advantage of the +business." Contriving to make his hands meet in front of him by clasping +them very high up on his chest, Siegel Brother assumed that he had +folded his arms, and waited to see what Peter would do about it. + +"We have also a little savings bank for the benefit of our employees +which pays 3 per cent., yet I believe we have you not among our +depositors." There was the slightest possible burr to his speech as +though it were blunted by so much fatness. + +"Well, you see, sir--there's a mortgage." Peter was afraid he should +damage himself by the admission, but the firm heard him out. + +"How much?" + +"It was a thousand, but we've got it down to seven hundred--six hundred +and sixty," Peter corrected himself with a glance at his honorarium. + +"And the farm, it is worth----" Siegel Brother parted his hands slightly +to admit of any valuation. + +"Two thousand." + +"So! Well, Mr. Weatheral, that is not so bad, and if I were you, when I +had occasion to speak of it I would say, not 'I am paying a mortgage,' +that is dead work, Mr. Weatheral, but 'I am buying a farm.' It goes +easier so." + +"Thank you, sir, I'll remember." He supposed his employer was done with +him, but as he turned to go he heard his name again. + +"You will report to our Mr. Croker when you return, Mr. Weatheral; he +thinks he can use you." + +Two weeks later when he came back rested from Bloombury, Peter found +himself visible to at least ten persons, all of whom pertained to the +boarding-house of the exclusive Mrs. Blodgett, where, by the advice of +J. Wilkinson Cohn, he engaged a small room on the third floor with a +window opening some six feet from the rear wall of a wholesale +stationery, and one electric light discreetly placed to discourage the +habit of reading in bed. + +From this time on he was visible to Mrs. Blodgett and Aggie and Miss +Thatcher, whom he already knew as the pure food demonstrator in dairy +products, to two inconsiderable young women from the wholesale +stationer's, and a gentleman from a shoe store, the whole of whose +physiognomy appeared to be occupied with the effort to express an +engaging youthfulness which the crown of his head explicitly denied. He +was occasionally visible to the representative of gentlemen's outfitters +who was engaged to Aggie and took Sunday dinners with them, and he was +particularly and pleasingly visible to J. Wilkinson Cohn and Miss Minnie +Havens. The rest of his fellow boarders were so much of a likeness, a +kind of family likeness that spread all over Siegel Brothers and such +parts of the city as Peter had been admitted to, that it was a relief to +Peter to realize from his profile that J. Wilkinson's last name probably +ought to have been spelled Cohen. The determinedly young gentleman +explained to him that J. Wilkinson's intrusion into the exclusiveness of +Blodgett's was largely a concession to Aggie's being as good as married +and not liable to social contamination, and to the fact that the little +Jew was amusing and pretty near white, anyway. + +Miss Minnie Havens did typewriting and stenography in a downtown office +and was understood to be in search of economic independence, rather than +under the necessity of making a living. She had a high fluffy pompadour +and a half discoverable smile which could be brought to a very agreeable +laugh if one spent a little pains at it. J. Wilkinson Cohn appeared to +find it worth the pains. + +The particular advantage of Blodgett's, besides the fact that you could +have two helps of everything without paying extra for it, was that it +was exclusive and social. Mrs. Blodgett had collected her family of +boarders on the principle of not having anybody who wasn't a suitable +companion for Aggie. There was also a pianola which gave the place a +tone. + +There was fire and light in the dining-room at Blodgett's from seven to +nine always, and in the parlour with the pianola on Saturday evening +and all day Sunday. Sometimes, even on week days after supper, J. +Wilkinson would open the door into the darkened room, push away the +pianola and sing topical songs to his own accompaniment until his +stiffened fingers clattered on the keys. Other times he would give +imitations of popular stage celebrities until Blodgett's shouted with +laughter. At all times they appeared to have a great many engagements. +Peter was advised to join this or that organization, and to enter upon +social occasions that unfortunately presented themselves in the light of +occasions to spend money. Apparently there were no dragons tracking the +path of Blodgett's boarders. Miss Havens did better than any of them for +him. She explained to him how to get books from the circulating library, +and let him read hers until he could arrange for a card. She said it was +a pleasure to think there was going to be somebody in the house who was +congenial. It wasn't that she had anything against Miss Thatcher and the +rest of them--they just didn't have the same tastes. She thought a +person ought to spend some of the time improving their minds. Although +the expression was ambiguous, it served as a sort of sedative to the +aching vacuity of the hours which Peter spent away from Siegel Brothers. +He found himself spending as many as possible of them with Miss Havens. +She had a way of making the frivolling talk of the supper table appear a +warrantable substitute for the things that Peter knew, even while he +echoed her phrases, that he wasn't getting. He found himself skidding on +the paths of self-improvement and the obligations of seeing life, along +the edges of desolation. He immersed himself as far as possible in the +atmosphere of Blodgett's in order that he needn't have any time left in +which to consider how far it fell short of what he had come to find. For +this reason he was usually the last at the supper table, but there were +occasions when he found it discreet to slip away as early and quietly as +possible. + +It was one evening about two months after his instalment at Blodgett's. +Peter was sitting in his room when he heard them yammering at his door +with so much hilarious insistence that he found himself getting up to +open it, without giving himself time to put down the book he was reading +or to take off the overcoat he had put on for want of a fire, and +finding himself in some embarrassment because of the misapprehension +which this fact involved. + +"Ready, Peter?" + +"Come along, Peter!" + +"I ... I'm not going," said Peter. + +"What? Not going to the rink with us to-night? Why, you said----" The +bright group of his fellow boarders hung upon the narrow landing like +bees at the threshold of a hive. + +"I said I'd go if I could--" protested Peter, "and I can't." + +"Gee! What's the matter with you?" + +"Don't be a beastly stiff!" + +"Come on, fellows, we'll miss the car. Let him be a stiff if he wants +to." + +Peter heard their feet retreating on the stairs, and then he saw that +Minnie Havens still hesitated at the landing. She had on her best silk +waist and her blond pompadour was brushed higher than ever. Her eyes, +which were blue, were fixed directly on him with something in the +meeting that gave him the impression, gaspingly, of being about to step +off into space. He seemed suddenly to see a path opening directly +through the skating rink and the Saturday Social Club to the House of +the Shining Walls, and Minnie Havens walking in it beside him. He +wrenched his mind away forcibly from that and fixed it on the figure of +his weekly salary. + +"Couldn't you?" she persuaded. + +"No," said Peter. "I'm much obliged to you, but I really couldn't." + +But before he had time to take up his reading, which somehow he was not +able to do immediately, he heard Mrs. Blodgett, who made a point of +being as kind to her boarders as she could afford to be, tapping at his +door. + +"I thought you'd be going to the rink to-night." + +"No," said Peter. + +"You don't think it's wrong, or anything?" + +"Oh, no, not in the least." + +"Well, Mr. Weatheral, I've seen a power of young folks, comin' and +goin', in my business and it don't pay for 'em to get too stodgy like. +They need livenin' up." She hung upon the door as Peter waited for her +to go. "Miss Havens is a nice girl," she ventured. + +Peter admitted it. "I've my mother and sister to think of," he told her, +and presently he found he had told her a great deal more. + +"Well," commented Mrs. Blodgett, "you do have a lot to carry.... Was you +readin' now, Mr. Weatheral? ... because it's warmer down in my sittin' +room, and there's only Aggie and me sewin'.... Besides," she argued +triumphantly, "it's savin' light." + +First and last he heard a great deal about saving at Blodgett's. Aggie, +who was making up her white things, had something to tell every evening +almost, about the price of insertion. But it was saving for a purpose; +they were in the way, most of them, of being investors. J. Wilkinson had +sixty dollars in his brother's cigar stand on Fifty-fourth street. He +used to let his brother off for Sunday afternoons with quite a +proprietary air. The shoe gentleman, whose very juvenile name was Wally +Whitaker, didn't believe in such a mincing at prosperity. He talked +freely about tips and corners and margins and had been known to make +twenty-seven dollars in copper once. He offered Peter some exclusive +inside information in B and C's before he had been in the house a month. + +"Well, you see," Peter explained himself, "I'm buying a farm up our +way!" His fellow boarders laid down their forks to look at him; he could +see reflected from their several angles how he had placed himself by the +mere statement of his situation. He felt at once the resistance it gave +him, the sense of something to pull against, of having got his feet +under him. It was the point at which the conquest of the mortgage dragon +began to present itself to him as a thing accomplished rather than a +thing escaped. + +It must have been this feeling of release which opened up for him, from +pictures that he saw occasionally with Miss Havens on Sundays, from +books he read and discussed with her, avenues that appeared to lead more +or less directly to the House. There were times when he found himself +walking in them with Miss Minnie Havens, and yet always curiously +expecting the Lovely Lady when they found her there, to be quite another +person. He came within an inch of telling her about it on the occasion +on which she presented him with an embroidered hat marker for Christmas, +and when he took her to the theatre with tickets the floor walker had +presented to him on account of Mrs. Floor Walker not feeling up to it. +It appeared, further, that Miss Havens had a way of falling into +profound psychological difficulties which required a vast amount of +talking over, and a great many appeals to Peter's disinterested judgment +to extract her, not without some subtle intimations of dizzying escapes +for himself. Peter supposed that was always the way with girls. It came +to a crisis later where Miss Havens' whole destiny hung upon the point +as to whether she could accept a situation offered her in her own town, +or should stay on in the city and see what came of it. + +"You'd get more salary there, and be able to live cheaper?" Peter wished +to know. + +"Oh, yes." The implication of her tone was that she didn't see what +that had to do with it. It was toward the end of June, and she was +looking very pretty in a white dress and a hat that set off her +pompadour to advantage, and there was no special reason, as they had the +afternoon before them, why they should not have taken some of the +by-paths that the girl perceived to lead out from the subject into +breathless wonder. She had ways, which were maidenly and good, of +opening up to Peter comfortable little garden plots of existence which, +though they lay far this side of the House and the Lovely Lady, had in +the monotony of the long climb up the scale of Siegel Brothers, moments +of importunate invitation. + +"And you came up to the city," Peter went on in the gravelled walk of +fact, "just to improve yourself in shorthand so you could get such a +situation? I don't see why you hesitate." + +Miss Havens could hardly say why herself. + +"There were so many ways of bettering one's self in the city. I've a +great many friends here," she hinted. + +"Not so many," Peter reminded her, "as you'd have where you were brought +up." + +"You are staying in the city?" Miss Havens suggested. + +"That's different. I have to." He had already told her about Ellen and +also about his mother. + +"And are you always going to stay on here like this, working and working +and never taking any time for yourself? Aren't you ever going to ... +marry?" + +"I know too much what poverty is like to ask any woman to share it," +Peter protested. + +"Suppose she should ask you?" + +"They don't do that; the right sort." + +"I don't see why ... if some girl ... cared ... and if she saw ... +anybody struggling along under burdens she would be glad to share, and +she knew because of that he didn't mean to ask her ... You think she +ought not to let him know?" + +"I think it wouldn't be best," said Peter. + +"You think the man would despise her?" + +"Not that; but if he liked her a little ... he might consent to it ... +just because he liked her and was tired maybe ... and that wouldn't be +good for either of them." + +"Well, anyway, it doesn't concern either of us," said Miss Havens. + +The next evening as Peter was letting himself in at his own door--he had +moved to the second floor front by this time--Mrs. Blodgett stopped him. + +"Miss Havens left her regards for you," she explained. "She went +to-day." + +"Oh," said Peter, "wasn't it sudden?" + +"Sort of. She'd been considerin' of it for some time, and last night she +made up her mind. But I did think," said Mrs. Blodgett, "that she'd have +said good-bye to _you_." And not eliciting anything by way of a reply, +she added: "Miss Havens is a nice girl. I hate to think of her slavin' +her life out in an office. She'd ought to get married." + +"A girl has ever so many more chances in her home town," Peter offered +hopefully. + +"Yes, I suppose so." Mrs. Blodgett sighed. "Is there anything I can do +for you, Mr. Weatheral?" + +"Nothing, thank you." He was lingering still on the landing on Mrs. +Blodgett's account, but he found his finger slipping between the leaves +of the volume he had brought from the library. + +"Ah," she warned him, "readin' is an improvin' occupation, but there's a +book we hadn't any of us ought to miss, and that's the Book of Life, Mr. +Weatheral." And somehow with that ringing in his ears, Peter spent +several minutes walking up and down in his room before he could settle +to his book again. + + + + +II + + +It was a week or ten days after Miss Havens left, before Peter went down +to Bloombury for his midsummer vacation, a week in which he had the +greatest difficulty in getting back to the House of the Shining Walls. +He set out for it almost immediately with a feeling akin to the release +with which one returns to daily habit after the departure of an +unexpected guest. But his thought would no sooner strike into the +accustomed paths than Miss Minnie Havens would meet him there +unaccountably, to begin again those long intimate conversations which +led toward and about the House, but never quite to it. Peter found +himself looking out for those meetings with some notion of dodging them, +and yet once they were fairly off, he owned them a great relief from +Blodgett's. Now that it was withdrawn, he realized in the girl's bright +companionship the effect of the rose-red glow of the shade that Aggie +drew down over the front parlour lamp on the evenings when the +Gentlemen's Outfitter called. It had prevented his seeing until now, +that the chief difference between himself and his fellow boarders, was +that for most of them, this was a place where they had come to stay. +Having let Miss Havens go on alone to the place she was bound for, he +had moments of dreadful sinking, as it occurred to him to wonder if he +hadn't made a mistake in the nature of his own destination. Suppose, +after all, he should find himself castaway in some oasis of determined +sprightliness with Wally Whitaker in whose pocket pretenses of tips and +margins he began to discern a poorer sort of substitute for the House. +He was as much bored by the permanently young shoe-salesman after this +discovery as before it, but obliged to set a watch on himself lest in a +moment of finding himself too much in the same case, he should make the +mistake of inviting Wally to Bloombury for his vacation. + +He was relieved, when at last he had got away without it, to be saved +from such a misadventure, for he found his mother not standing the heat +well, and Ellen anxious. He had never definitely shaped to himself the +idea that there could anything happen to his mother; she was as much a +part of his life as the aging apple trees and the hills that climbed, +with low, gnarled pines to the sky's edge beyond the marshes, a point +from which to take distance and direction. He began to note now the +graying hair, the shrunken breast and the worn hands, so blue veined for +all their brownness, and he could not sleep of nights because of the +sweat that was on his soul, for fear of what might come to her. He would +lie in the little room under the roof and hear the elms moving like the +riffle of silence into sound, thinking of his mother until at last he +would be obliged to rise and move softly about the place, as if by the +mere assertion of himself he could make her safer in it. He wished +nothing so much as not to disturb her, but she must have been lying +awake often herself, for the second or third time this happened, she +called to him. He came, half dressed as he was and drew the covers up +close about her shoulders, and was exceedingly gay and tender with her. + +"There's nothing troubling you, son?" + +"Nothing--except to be sure there's nothing troubling _you_." + +She gave a little, low laugh like a girl. + +"That's so like your father. I remember he would get up in the night +when you were little, and go prowling about ... he used to say he was +afraid the roof tree would fall in and kill you. And yet here you +are...." She reached out to give him a little pat, as if somehow to +reassure him. The low dropping moon made a square block of light on +the uncarpeted floor; outside, the orchard waited for the dawn, and +the fields brimmed life up to their very doors. + +"You're like him in other ways," she went on. "Somehow it's brought him +back wonderfully the last two or three days, and especially at night +when I'd hear you creaking down the stair. There's a board there which +always does creak, and I'd hear you trying to remember which it was, the +same as _he_ used to----" + +"I haven't meant to keep you awake, mother." + +"I've been awake. When you're getting along like, you don't sleep much, +Peter. Sleep is for dreaming, some of it, and the old don't dream." + +"You're not to go calling yourself old, mother!" + +"And me with a son going twenty-three! We weren't so young either when +we were married, your father and I ... but I want you should sleep, +Peter, and dream when you can. You have pleasant dreams, son?" + +"Any amount of them." He was going off into one of those bright +fantasies of what he should do when he was rich as he meant to be, with +which he had so often beguiled Ellen's pain, but she kissed him and sent +him to bed again lest Ellen should hear them. + +It was not more than a day or two after that the minister's wife caught +young Mr. Weatheral walking with his mother in the back pasture with his +arm about her, and was slightly shocked by it, for though it was thought +highly commendable in him to have paid off the mortgage and managed a +silk dress for her and Ellen besides, Bloombury was not habituated to a +lively expression of family affection. Peter had consented to gather the +huckleberries which Ellen insisted were of a superior flavour in the +back pasture, on the sole condition that his mother should come with +him, and the minister's wife had just stepped aside on her way to the +Tillinghurst's to gather the southerwood which grew there, for the +minister's winter cough, when she caught sight of them. + +"She couldn't have stared more if she'd caught me with a girl." Peter +protested. + +"It's only that she'd have thought it more likely," his mother +extenuated. "I hope you aren't going to be a girl-hater, Peter. I want +you should marry some time, and if I haven't seemed anxious about it +before now, you mustn't think it's because I want to keep you for Ellen +and me. What I don't want is that you should take to it just _because_ +there's a girl. Not but what that's natural, but there's more to it than +that, Peter. For you," she supplemented. She sat down on a gray, round +stone while Peter stripped the bushes at her feet, and watched to see if +his colour rose while she talked, or his gaze failed to meet hers at any +point. + +"I'd have liked to have Ellen marry," said Ellen's mother, "she's that +kind. Having a man of her own, most any kind of a man so as he would be +good to her, would mean such a lot. If Ellen can have a little of what +everybody's having, she's satisfied. But there are some who can get a +great deal more out of it than that ... and if they don't the rest of it +is a drag and a weariness." He left off stripping the bushes and turned +contentedly against her knees. + +"You're my home, Mumsey." + +"And not even," she gently insisted, "when I'm not here to make it for +you. There's a kind of life goes with loving; it's like--like the +lovely inside colour of a shell, and somehow, this winter I've wondered +if you'd got to the place where you knew what that would be like if you +should find it." She turned his face up to her with a tender anxiety and +yet with a little timidity; they did not talk much of such things in +Bloombury. + +"I know, mother." + +"Yes...." after a long look, "you would; you're so like your father. But +if you know, you mustn't ever be led by dullness or loneliness into +anything less, Peter. Not that I'm afraid you'll be led into anything +wrong ... but there are things that are almost more wrong than downright +wickedness.... + +"I've been thinking a great deal lately about when I was your age, and +there didn't seem anything for me but to marry one of the neighbour's +boys that I'd known always, or a long plain piece of school teaching. It +wasn't easy with everybody egging me on--but I stuck it out, and at the +last along came your father ... I'd like you to have something like +that, Peter,--and your son coming to you the way you came to me, like +it was through a cloud of glory...." He looked up presently on her +silence, silver tipped now with the hope of renewal, and he saw her as a +man sometimes when he is young and clean, sees his mother, the Sacred +Door ... and he did not observe at all that her hands were berry stained +and the nails broken, nor that her cheek had fallen in and her hair gray +and wispy. But being a young man and never good at talking, it made no +difference with him except that as they walked home across the pastures +he was more than ever careful of her and teased her more whimsically. + +He forgot, after he had settled in his room again at Blodgett's, that +Miss Minnie Havens had ever walked with him in the purlieus of the +House, for he was quite taken up with a new set of rooms he had thrown +out from it for his mother. She was always there with him now until the +day of her death and long after, made a part of all his dreaming by the +touch with which she had limned in herself for him, the feature of all +Lovely Ladies. + +He would write her long letters into which crept much that had been +uttered only in the House, which that winter became an estate in +Florida, moved there because of Mrs. Weatheral's need of mild climate. +They went abroad after the Christmas Holidays in which she had coughed +more than usual and consented to have her breakfast brought up to bed, +setting out every evening from Peter's reading-lamp and arriving very +shortly at Italian Cathedrals and old Roman seaport towns that smelled +of history. + +Dreaming of lovely ladies who have no face or form other than they +borrow from the passing incident is a very pleasant way of passing the +time, and does not necessarily lead to anything; but when a man goes +about afraid lest his mother should die for lack of something he might +have got for her, he dreams closer at home. More than ever since the +revelation of his mother's frailness, Peter dreamed of being rich, and +since there was nothing nearer to him than the way Siegel Brothers had +managed it, he devoted so much time to the scrutiny of their methods +that he passed in a very short time from being head of the delivery +department to the right hand of Mr. Croker. Even Blinders could not +recall, in the three years he had been bundle boy, so marked an example +of favouritism. + +"They don't make partners any more out of underlings," Croker let him +know confidentially. "What do you think you're headed for?" Peter +explained himself. + +"I wanted to find out how they did it." + +"And when you find out," Croker wagged at him, "you won't be able to do +anything with it. You have to have capital. Look at the time I've been +with them!" + +"How long is that?" Peter was interested. + +"Twenty years." Croker told him. + +"In twenty years," Peter was confident, "a man ought to be able to find +some capital." After that he began to observe Mr. Croker. + +It is probable at this time that if he had not been concerned for his +mother's health, he might have grown as dry and uninteresting as at +Blodgett's they began to think him. + +He was a thin young man with hair of no particular colour, and eyes +that were good and rather shy about women. He went out very little and +had not, Miss Thatcher who sat opposite him was sure, a mind above his +business. Aggie had married her Outfitter, and J. Wilkinson Cohn, who +had become a full partner in his brother's cigar stand, had moved out to +Fifty-fourth Street, so that there was nobody who could have +contradicted her. But lying awake planning how he might piece out life +for his mother with comforts, and hearing in every knock the precursor +of what might have happened to her, his heart was exercised as it is +good for the heart to be even with pain and anxiety. And beyond the +heart stretching there was always the House. He could seldom get away to +it in his waking hours, but he knew it was there for him, and visiting +it in dreams he kept in spite of the anxiety and Mr. Croker, his young +resiliency. Along in December, about two weeks before his midwinter +holiday, Ellen sent for him. + +"It's not as if there hadn't been time for everything. You must think of +that, Peter. And your being able to come down every Saturday since the +first stroke. There's plenty that are hurried away without a good-bye or +anything." + +"I know, Ellen." + +"And it isn't as if there hadn't been plenty to say, either. Six weeks +would have been too long for anybody less loving than mother. They +wouldn't have known how to go through your life and say just the things +you'll be glad to remember when the time comes for them. You've got to +keep your mind on those things, Peter." + +"Yes, Ellen." + +The front room had been well rid up after the funeral and everybody at +Ellen's earnest entreaty had left them quite alone. Although there was +fire in the base burner, they were sitting together by the kitchen +stove, the front of which was thrown open for the sake of the warm glow +of the coals. By and by the kettle began to sing and the bare tips of +the lilac scratched on the pane like a live thing waiting to be let in. +The little familiar sounds refilled for them the empty room. + +Outside it was every way such a day as a well-spent life might slip +away in; the tracks in the deep-rutted February snow might have been +worn there by the habit of sixty years. There was no hint of the spring +yet, but here and there in the bare patches on the hills and the frayed +icy edges of the drifts, the sign that the weight of the winter was +behind them. There would be a little quiet time yet and then the +resurrection. The brother and sister had taken it all very quietly. +Nobody had ever taken anything in any other way in the presence of Mrs. +Weatheral, and that she was there still for them, that she would always +be present in their lives, a warm determining influence, was witnessed +by that absence of violence which empties too soon the cup of grief. The +loss of their mother had at least brought them no sense of leaving her +behind. They were going on with their life so soon because she was going +with them. + +"That was why I wanted them all to go away," Ellen took up the thought +again. "I've been thinking all day about mother being with father and +how glad he'll be to see her, and yet it seems as if I can feel her +here. I thought if we kept still a while she'd make us understand what +she wanted us to do." + +"About what, Ellen?" + +"About my going up to the city with you to board--it seems such a +wasteful way to live somehow, just sitting around!" + +"It isn't as expensive as keeping house," Peter told her, "and I want +you to sit around, Ellen; women in Bloombury don't get enough of that +I'm afraid." + +"They don't. Did you see Ada Harvey to-day? Four children and two teeth +out, and her not thirty. I guess you'd take better care of me than that, +Peter,--only----" + +"You think _she_ wouldn't like it for you?" + +"She thought such a lot of keeping up a home, Peter. It was like--like +those Catholics burning candles. It seemed as if she thought you'd get +something out of it if it was just going on, even if you didn't visit it +more than two or three times a year. Lots of women feel that way, Peter, +and I guess there must be something in it." + +"There _is_ something in it," Peter assured her. + +"And if I go and board with you we'd have to break up everything----" +She looked about on all the familiar mould of daily habit that was her +world, and tears started afresh. "And we've got all this furniture." She +moved her head toward the door of the front room and the parlour set +that had been Peter's Christmas gift to them two years ago. "For all it +was such a comfort to her to have it, it's as good as new. It seemed as +if she thought you were the only one good enough to sit in it." + +"Don't, Ellen." + +"I know, Peter." They were silent a while until the deep wells of grief +had stilled in the sense of that sustaining presence. "I only wanted to +be sure I wouldn't be going against her, breaking up the home. It seems +like anything she set such store by oughtn't to stop just because she +isn't here to take care of it." They had to come back to that the next +day and the next. + +"I only want to do what is best for you, Ellen." + +"I'd be best off if I was making you happy, Peter--and I'd feel such a +burden somehow, just boarding." + +"The rents _are_ cheaper in the suburbs," Peter went so far as to admit. +It was all so inarticulate in him; how could he explain to Ellen the +feeling that he had, that settling down to a home with her would somehow +put an end to any dreams he had had of a home of his own, persistent but +unshaped visions that vanished before the sudden brightening of Ellen's +face at his least concession. + +"We could have somebody in to clean," she reminded him, "and I hardly +ever have to be in bed now." + +The fact was that Peter had the very place in mind; he had often walked +out there on Sundays from Blodgett's; he thought the neighbourhood had a +clean and healthy look. He went up on Tuesday to see what could be done +about it. + +Lessing, who rented him the apartment, made the natural mistake about it +that Peter's age and his inexperience as a householder invited. He said +the neighbours were all a most desirable class of people, and Peter +could see for himself that the city was bound to build out that way in a +few years. As for what Pleasanton could do in the way of climate, well, +Lessing told him, with the air of being only a little less interested +than he credited Peter with being, look at the perambulators. + +They were as fine a lot of wellfilled vehicles as could be produced by +any suburb anywhere, and Ellen for one was never tired of looking at +them. But Peter couldn't understand why Ellen insisted on walking home +from church Sunday morning the wrong way of the pavement. + +"I suppose we do get in the way," she admitted after he had explained to +her that they wouldn't be crowded off so frequently if they moved with +the nurse-maid's parade and not against it, "but if we go this way we +can see all the little faces." + +"I didn't know you cared so much for babies." + +"Well, you see it isn't as if I was to have any of my own----" Something +in the tone with which she admitted the restraining fact of her +affliction brought out for Peter how she had fitted her life to it, like +a plant growing hardily out of a rock, climbing over and around it +without rancour or rebellion. As he turned now to look at her long, +plain face in the light of what had been going on in himself lately, he +recalled that the determining influence which had drawn her thick hair +into that unbecoming knot at the back of her neck had been the pain it +had given her when she first began to put up her hair, to do it higher. + +She was watching the bright little bonneted heads go by with the same +detachment that he had learned to look at the shop windows, without +thinking of appropriating any of their splendour for himself, and when +she spoke again it was without any sensible connection with the present +occasion. + +"Peter, do you remember Willy Shakeley?" + +"Shakey Willy, we used to call him. I remember his freckles; they were +the biggest thing about him." He waited for the communicating thread, +but nothing came except what presently reached him out of his own young +recollections. "He wasn't good enough for you, Ellen," he said at last +for all comment. + +"He was kind, and he wouldn't have minded about my being lame, but a man +has to have a healthy wife if he's a farmer." How completely she had +accepted the deprivation for herself, he saw by her not wasting a sigh +over it; she had schooled herself so long to go no further in her +thought than she went on the crutch which tapped now on the pavement +beside him. As if to stop his going any further on her account she +smiled up at him. "Peter, if you were to meet any of the things you +thought you'd grow up to be, do you suppose you'd know them?" + +At least he could have told her that he didn't meet any of them on his +way between Siegel Brothers and the flat in Pleasanton. + +There are many things which if a young man goes without until he is +twenty-five he can very well do without, but the one thing he cannot +leave off without hurting him is the expectation of some time doing +them. The obligation of the mortgage and Ellen's lameness had been a +sort of bridge for Peter, a high airy structure which engaged the best +of him and so carried him safely over Blodgett's without once letting +him fall into the unlovely vein of life there, its narrowness, its +commonness. He had known, even when he had known it most inaccessible, +that there was another life which answered to every instinct of his for +beauty and fitness. He waited only for the release from strain for his +entry with it. Now by the shock of his mother's death he found himself +precipitated in a frame of living where a parlour set out of Siegel +Brothers' Household Emporium was the limit of taste and understanding. +The worst thing about Siegel Brothers' parlour sets was that he sold +them. He knew it was his particular value to Siegel Brothers that he had +always known what sort of things were acceptable to the out-of-town +trade. He had selected this one distinctly with an eye to the pleasure +his mother and Ellen would get out of what Bloombury would think of it. +He hadn't expected it would turn and rend him. That it was distinctly +better than anything he had had at Blodgett's was inconsiderable beside +the fact that Blodgett's hadn't owned him. That he was owned now by his +sister and the furniture, was plain to him the first time he sat down to +figure out the difference between his salary and what it would cost him +to let Ellen be a burden to him in the way that made her happiest. Not +that he thought of Ellen in that way; he was glad when he thought of it +at all articulately, to be able to make life so little of a burden to +her. But though he saw quite clearly how, without some fortunate +accident, the rest of his life would be taken up with making a home for +Ellen and making it secure for her in case anything happened to him, he +saw too, that there was no room in it for the Lovely Lady. The worst of +all this was that he did not see how he was to go on without her. + +He had fled to her from the inadequacy of all substitutes for her that +his life afforded, and she had ended by making him over into the sort of +man who could never be satisfied with anything less. Something he owed, +no doubt, to that trait of his father's which made his memories of Italy +more to him than his inheritance, but there it was, a world Peter had +built up out of books and pictures and music, more real and habitable +than that in which he went about in a gray business suit and a pleasant +ready manner; a world from which, every time he fitted his key in the +latch of the little flat in Pleasanton, he felt himself suddenly +dispossessed. + +It was not that he failed to get a proper pleasure out of being a +householder, in being able to take a certain tone with the butcher and +discuss water rates and rents with other householders going to and fro +on his train. Ellen's cooking tasted good to him and it was very +pleasant to see the pleasure it gave her to have Burnell of the +hardware, out to supper occasionally. He made friends with Lessing, +whose natty and determinedly architectural office with its air of being +somehow akin to Wally Whitaker, occupied the corner where Peter waited +every morning for his car. Lessing began it by coming out on the very +first occasion to ask him how his sister did, in an effort to correct +any impression of a want of perspicuity in his first estimate of Peter's +situation. He kept it up for the reason perhaps that men friends are +meant for each other from the beginning of time quite as much as we are +accustomed to thinking of them as being meant for the lovely ladies whom +they so frequently miss. Lessing was about Peter's own age and had large +and cheerful notions of the probable increase of real-estate values in +Pleasanton, combined with a just appreciation of the simple shrewdness +which had so recommended Peter to his employers. + +"You'd be a crackerjack to talk to the old ladies," Lessing generously +praised him. "I scare 'em; they think I'm too hopeful." That he didn't, +however, have the same effect on young ladies was apparent from the very +pretty one whom Peter used to see about, especially on early closing +Saturday afternoons, helping him to shut up the office and get off to +the ball game. He couldn't have told why, but those were the days when +Peter allowed the car to carry him on to the next block, before +alighting, after which he would make a point of being particularly kind +to Ellen. It would never do for her to get a notion that the tapping of +her crutch beside him had scared anything out of Peter's life which he +might think worth having in it. + +Along toward Thanksgiving time, on an occasion when Peter had just +missed his car and had to wait for another one, Lessing--J. B. on the +door sign, though he was the sort that everybody who knew him called +Julian--came quite out to the pavement and stood there with his hands +in his pockets and his hair beginning to curl boyishly in the dampness, +quite brimming over with good fortune. Singularly he didn't mention it +at once, but began to complain about the low state of the market in real +estate. + +"Not but that the values are all right," he was careful to explain; +"it's just that they _are_ all right makes it so trying. If a fellow had +a little capital now, he could do wonders. The deuce of a chap like me +is that he hasn't any capital unless there's some buying." + +"You think it's a good time then to lay out a little money?" + +"Good! _Good!_ Oh, Lord, it's so good that if a fellow had a few +thousands just put around judiciously, he wouldn't be able to sleep +nights for hearing it turn over." He kicked the gravel in sheer +impatience. "How's your sister?" + +It was a formula that he had kept on with because to have dropped it +immediately might have betrayed the extenuating nature of its inception, +and besides there were so many directions in which one might start +conversationally off from it. He made use of it now without waiting for +Peter's habitual "Very well, thank you," by a burst into confidence. + +"You see I'm engaged to be married--yes, I guess you've seen me with +her. Fact is, I haven't cared how much people have seen so long as she's +seen it, too; and now we've got it all fixed up, naturally I'm on the +make. I'm dashed if I don't think I'll have to take a partner." + +"I've been wanting to speak to you about some property of mine," Peter +ventured. "It's a farm up country." + +"What's it worth?" + +"Well, I've added to it some the last ten years and made considerable +improvement. I ought to get three thousand." + +"That's for farming? For summer residence it ought to bring more than +that. Any scenery?" + +"Plenty," Peter satisfied him on that score. "I've been thinking," he +let out shyly, "that if I could put the price of it in some place where +I could watch it, the money would do me more good...." + +Lessing turned on him a suddenly brightening eye. + +"That's the talk--say, you know I think I could get you forty-five +hundred for that farm of yours anyway." They looked at one another on +the verge of things hopeful and considerable. As Peter's car swung +around the curve, suddenly they blushed, both of them, and reached out +and shook hands. + +That evening as Peter came home he saw Lessing buying chrysanthemums at +the florist's with a happy countenance, and to master the queer pang it +gave him, Peter got off the car and walked a long way out on the dim wet +pavement. He was looking at the bright picture of Lessing and the +girl--she was really very pretty--and seeing instead, himself, quite the +bachelor, and his lame sister taking their blameless dull way in the +world. He couldn't any more for the life of him, get a picture of +himself without Ellen in it; the tapping of her crutch sounded even in +the House when he visited it in his dreams. It was well on this occasion +that he had Ellen beside him, for she showed him the way presently to +take it, as he knew she would take it as soon as he went home and told +her--as another door by which they could enter sympathetically in the +joyousness they were denied. She would be so pleased for Julian's sake, +in whom, by Peter's account of him, she took the greatest interest, and +so pleased for the girl to have such a handsome, capable lover. It made, +for Ellen, a better thing of life if somebody could have him. + +Peter went back after a while with that thought to the florist's and +bought chrysanthemums, taking care to ask for the same kind Mr. Lessing +had just ordered. He was feeling quite cheerful even, as he ran up the +steps with them a few minutes later, and saw the square of light under +the half-drawn curtain, and heard the tap of Ellen's crutch coming to +meet him. + +That night after he had gone to bed a very singular thing happened. The +Princess out of the picture visited him. It was there at the foot of his +bed in a new frame where Ellen had hung it--the young knight riding down +the old, lumpy dragon, but with an air that Peter hadn't for a long time +been able to manage for himself, doing a great thing easily the way one +knew perfectly great things couldn't. The assistant sales manager of +Siegel Brothers had been lying staring up at it for some time when the +Princess spoke to him. He knew it was she, though there was no face nor +form that he could remember in his waking hours, except that it was +familiar. + +"Ellen is right," she told him; "it doesn't really matter so long as +somebody finds me." + +"But what have _I_ done?" Peter was sore with a sense of personal +slight. "It wasn't in the story that there should be a whole crop of +dragons." + +"All dragons are made so that where one head comes off there are seven +in its place; and you must remember if somebody didn't go about slaying +them, I couldn't be at all." This as she said it had a deep meaning for +Peter that afterward escaped him. "And you can hold the dream. It takes +a lot of dreaming to bring one like me to pass." + +"I'm sick of dreams," said Peter. "A man dies after a little who is fed +on nothing else." + +"They die quicker if they stop dreaming; on those that have the gift for +it the business of dreaming falls. Listen! How many that you know have +found me?" + +"A great many think they have; it comes to the same thing." + +"The same for them; but you must see that I can never really _be_ until +I am for those outside the dream. The trouble with you is that you'd +wake up after a while and you would _know_." + +"Yes," Peter admitted, "I should know." + +"Well, then," she was oh, so gentle about it, "yours is the better part. +If you can't have me, at least you're not stopping me by leaving off for +something else. In the dream I can live and grow, and you can grow to +me. Do you remember what happened to Ada Harvey? I've saved you from +that at any rate." + +"No," said Peter, "it was the dragon saved me. I thought you were she. +It's saved me from lots of things, now that I think of it." + +"Ah, that's what we have to do between us, Peter, we have to save you. +You're worth saving." + +"Save me for what?" Peter cried out to her and so strongly in his +loneliness that he found himself starting up from his bed with it. He +could see the dragon spitting flames as before, and the pale light from +the swinging street lamp gilding the frame of the picture. Though he +did not understand all that had happened to him, as he lay down again he +was more comforted than he had been at any time since he had made up his +mind that he was to be a bachelor. + + + + +PART FOUR + +IN WHICH THE LOVELY +LADY MAKES A +FINAL APPEARANCE + + + + +PART FOUR + +IN WHICH THE LOVELY LADY MAKES A +FINAL APPEARANCE + + + + +I + + +On the day that the silver-laced maple, then in fullest leaf, had passed +by the space of three delicate palm-shaped banners the sill of the +third-story office window, Lessing, of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., Brokers +in Real Estate, crossed over to his partner's desk before sitting down +at his own, and remained quietly leaning against it and looking out of +the window without a word. He remained there staring out over the new, +orderly growth of the suburb, toward the river, until the stenographer +from the outer room had come in with the vase which she had been filling +with great golden roses, and gone out again, after placing it carefully +in the exact middle of the top of the junior partner's desk. By that +time Lessing's rather plump, practical hand had crept out along the rim +of the desk until it was covered by Peter's lean one, and still neither +of them had said a word. The roses had come in from Lessing's country +place that morning in Lessing's car, and Lessing's wife had gathered +them. There were exactly seventeen, full-blown and fragrant, and one +small bud of promise which Peter presently removed from its vase to his +button hole. The act had almost the significance of a ritual, a thing +done many times with particular meaning. + +"Somehow," Peter said as he fastened it with a pin underneath his lapel, +"seventeen years seems a shorter time to look back on than to look +forward to." + +"Well, when we've put twenty-five years of work into it--and that's +nothing to what we'll get into the next seventeen." Lessing's tone keyed +admirably with the bright ample day outside, the rapid glint of the +river and the tips of the maple all a-tremble with the urgency of new +growth. The senior partner's eye roved from that to the restrained +richness of the office furniture from which the new was not yet worn, +and returned to the contemplation of the towering white cumuli beginning +to pile up beyond the farther bank of the river. "There's no end to what +a man can lift," he asserted confidently, "once he's got his feet under +him." + +"We've carried a lot," Peter assented cheerfully, "and sometimes it was +rather steep going, but now it's carrying us. The question is"--and here +his voice fell off a shade and a slight gathering appeared between his +eyes--"the real question is, I suppose, what it is carrying us _to_." + +"Where's the good of that?" Julian protested. "It's only a limitation to +set out for a particular place. The fun is in the going. You keep right +along with the procession until old age gets you. The thing is just to +keep it up as long as you can." He swung himself into a sitting posture +on the edge of the desk and noted that the slight pucker had not left +his partner's eyes. "What's the idea?" he wished affectionately to know. + +"Oh, nothing much, but I sort of grew up with the idea of +Duty--something you had to do because there was nobody else to do it. +You had not only to do it but you had to like it, not because it was +likable, but because it was your duty. It was always right in front of +me: I couldn't see over or around it; I just had to do it." + +"Well, you did it," Lessing corroborated. "Clarice says the way you've +taken care of Ellen----" + +"And the way Ellen has taken care of me--but then Ellen was all the +woman I had." He caught himself up swiftly after that; it was seldom +even to his partner that anything escaped him in reference to the +interior life of dreams which had gone on in him, quite happily behind +his undistinguished exterior. "But somehow it hasn't seemed to come out +anywhere. I've done my duty ... and when I'm dead and Ellen's dead, +where is it? After all, what have I done?" + +"Ah, look at Pleasanton," Julian reminded him; "do you call that +nothing?" They looked together toward the esplanade along the river, +beginning at this hour to be flecked with the white aprons of +nurse-maids and their charges. "We've given them clean water to drink +and clean streets, and a safe place for the children to play in. The +fight we had with the city council for _that_...!" He waved his arm +again toward the well-parked river front. "Ever since I sold your farm +for you and you began putting your money into the business, we've walked +right along with it. Even before you left Siegel Brothers and we used to +sit up nights with the map, planning where to put our money like a +checker-board, we saw things like this for the town, and now we've made +'em true. And you say we've done nothing!" The senior partner was +touched a little in his tenderest susceptibilities. + +"Oh, well," Peter admitted with a shamed laugh, "I suppose man is an +incurable egotist. I was thinking of something more personal, something +_mine_, the way a book or a picture belongs to the man who makes it." + +"The game isn't over yet," Lessing reminded him, with a glance at the +unfolding bud which Clarice had sent as a symbol of the opening year; +"you're only forty. And, anyway, the money's yours; you made it." +Something in the word recalled him to a thought that had been earlier +in his mind. "Clarice wanted me to ask you to-day if you had any idea +how much you are worth." + +Peter's attention came back from the window with a start. "Does that +mean the Fresh Air Fund or the Association for the Protection of +Ownerless Pups?" + +Julian grinned. "Ownerless bachelors rather. Clarice has an idea you are +well enough off to marry." + +"If it were a proposition of my being married to Clarice I should +consider myself well enough off without anything else----" Peter dropped +the light, accustomed banter for a sober tone. "How well off does your +wife think I ought to be?" + +"She's got it figured out that all you've spent on making Ellen +comfortable for life isn't a patch on what she and the boys cost me, so +it's high time you set about your natural destiny of making some woman +happy." + +"Look here, Julian, _is_ it an object for a man to live for, making some +woman happy?" + +"Well, it keeps you on the jump all right," Lessing assured him. "What +else is there? It's a way of making yourself happy when you come to +look at it; keeping her and the kids so that you leave the world better +off than you found it. It suits _me_." He was looking, indeed, +particularly well suited, in spite of a disposition to portliness and a +suspicion of thinning hair, with what the seventeen years just past had +brought him. A warm appreciation of what those things were touched his +regard for his companion with a sober affectionateness. "I reckon +Clarice is right: a wife and a couple of kids is the prescription for +your case. That's why she wanted me to remind you that you could afford +'em." + +"And has she named the day?" Peter wished to know whimsically. + +"Oh, I say, Weatheral----" + +"My dear Julian, if I hadn't been able to see what Clarice has been up +to for the last six months, at least I could have depended on Ellen to +see it for me." + +"She doesn't object, does she?" + +"Oh, if you think the privilege of being aunt to your children has made +up to her for not being aunt to mine----" + +"The privilege is on the other side. But anyway, I'm glad you got on to +it. I didn't want to be a spoil sport. I suppose women's instincts can +be trusted in these things, but I hated to see Clarice coming it over +you blind." + +Peter wondered to himself a little, which of the charming ladies to whom +he had been introduced lately, Clarice had selected for him. He wasn't, +however, concerned about her coming it blind over anybody but the senior +partner who got down now from the desk, whistling softly and walking +with a wide step as a man will in June when affairs go well with him, +and he feels that if there are still some things which he desires he is +able to get them for himself. + +"Don't forget you're coming to us on Saturday; and we dine together +to-night as usual." + +"As usual." Always on the anniversary of their beginning business +together Weatheral and Lessing, who were still, in spite of seeing one +another daily for seventeen years, able to be interested in one another, +dined apart from their families, savouring pleasantly that essential +essence of maleness, the mutual power of work well accomplished. It was +the best tribute that Clarice and Ellen could pay to the occasion that +they understood that, much as their several lives had profited by the +partnership, they were still and naturally outside of it. + +On this occasion, however, it was impossible for Peter to keep Mrs. +Lessing out of the background of his consciousness, because of the part +her suggestion of the morning played in new realization of himself as +the rich Mr. Weatheral of Pleasanton. He credited her with sufficient +knowledge of his character to have egged Julian on to the reminder as a +part of the game she had played with him for the past two or three +years, by which Peter was to be instated in a life more in keeping with +his opportunities. + +It was a game Clarice played with life everywhere, coaxing it to yield +its choicest bloom to her. She had an instinct for choiceness like a +hummingbird, darting here and there for sweetness. Her flutterings were +never of uncertainty but such as kept her in the perfect airy poise. If +she wanted marriage for Peter it was because she could imagine nothing +better for anybody than a marriage like hers, and if she chose this +time for letting him know that she was thinking of it, it was because in +those terms she could bring closest to him his new-found possibilities. +If she could have reached Peter with the personal certainty of riches by +explaining to him how far his dollars would stretch end to end, or how +many acres of postage stamps he could buy with them, she might have +thought less of him on that account, but she would have helped him to +understanding even on those terms. You couldn't have made Clarice +Lessing believe that whatever their limitations, people weren't entitled +to help simply because they needed it. + +It had come upon Peter by leaps and bounds during the last two or three +years, both the wealth and the necessity of putting it to himself in +terms of personal expression. During the first ten years of the +partnership, the only use for money the simple needs of Ellen and +himself had established was to put it back into the business; a use +which had become almost an obligation during the time when both children +and opportunity were coming to Julian faster than the cash to meet them. +It was due to the high ground that Clarice had made for them all out of +what she and the children stood for, that Peter's superior cash +contribution to the firm had become a privilege. They had had, he and +Ellen, their stringent occasions; it had been Clarice's part to see that +since they endured the pinch of poverty they should at least get +something human out of it. It came out for Peter pleasantly as he walked +home through the mild June evening, just how much they had had. Much, +much more than they would have been able to buy with the money they +might in strict equity have withdrawn from the business. Nothing, he had +long admitted, that he could have purchased for his sister would have +been so satisfying as what Clarice contributed, pressing the full cup of +her motherhood to Ellen's thirsty lips. They might have grown sleek, he +and Ellen, without exceeding a proper ratio of expenditure, and if in +the end they had been a little less rich, they would still have had +enough to go on being sleek and comfortable to the end. That he was +still fit, as Mrs. Lessing's transparent efforts to marry him to her +friends guaranteed him to be, he felt was owing greatly to the terms on +which Clarice had admitted him to the adventure of bringing up a family. +That a special fitness was required for admission to Mrs. Lessing's +circle he would have guessed even without the aid of print which +consistently described it as Our Best Society, for it was a Best +attested to by all the marks by which Clarice herself expressed the +essential fineness of things. + +One couldn't have told, from anything that appeared on the surface of +the Lessing's social environment, that life did not proceed there as it +did between Clarice and the Weatherals, by means of its subtler +sympathies, and proceed, at least so far as the women were concerned, on +a still higher plane of grace and harmony. It moved about her table and +across the lawns of Lessing's handsome country place, with such +soundless ease and perfection as it had glided for Peter through the +House with the Shining Walls. Or at least so it had seemed on those +occasions during the last few years when he had found himself wondrously +inside it. + +It had been accepted by Ellen on the mere certainty of Clarice's mother +having been one of the Thatcher Inwoods, that Clarice should enlarge +her social borders with Lessing's increasing means until they included +people among whom Ellen would have been miserably shy and out of tune. +But not Ellen herself guessed how much of Peter's admission to its +inaccessibility was owing to the returns from hardly snatched options +and long-nursed opportunities, coming in in checks of six figures. +Perhaps Clarice herself never knew. It was one of the things that went +with being a Thatcher Inwood, wherever an occasion presented a handle of +nobility, to seize by that and maintain it in the face of any contingent +smallness. Clarice wouldn't have introduced Peter to her friends if he +hadn't been fit, and it was part of the social creed of women like +Clarice Lessing, which takes almost the authority of religion, that he +wouldn't have been in a position to be introduced if he hadn't been fit. +So it had happened for the past two years that Peter had found himself +skirting the fringe of Best Society, and identifying it with the life he +had lived so long, sitting with his book open on his knees in their +little flat, with Ellen across the fire from him knitting white things +for Julian's children. But the idea that having come into this +neighbourhood of fine appreciations he was to take up his home and live +there, opened more slowly. It required more than one of Clarice's swift +hummingbird darts, more than the flutter of suggestion to brush its +petals awake for him. + +It lay so deep under all the years, the power of loving. He knew almost +nothing about it except that he had had it once, and that marriage +without it would be unthinkable, even such a marriage as Mrs. Lessing +had let him see was now possible to him. She had called with all her +delicate friendly skill, on something which only now under that summons +he began to miss. It was like a lost word in every sentence in which the +ordinary hopes of men are to be read, and he felt that until he found it +again all the help Mrs. Lessing could afford him would not enable him to +think of marriage as a thing desirable in itself. It was missing in him +still, when he came that night rather late to the apartment where only +the Japanese houseboy awaited him. One of the first things he had done +for Ellen with his increasing means, had been to buy back for her the +house at Bloombury with the garden and a bit of the orchard. She had +been there now since Decoration Day, retiring more and more into the +kindly village life as a point of vantage from which to mark with pride +the social distance that Peter travelled from her. It had been +understood from the beginning that she wasn't to go with him. The +tapping of her crutch was no more to be heard in the new gracious +existence than in the House where she had never followed him. Life for +Ellen was lived close at hand. There were hollyhocks and currant bushes +in her garden and Julian's children overran it. + +It was not Ellen then that Peter missed as he sat alone in the house +that night with his back to the lowered light and his gaze seeking the +river and the flitting shapes of boats that went up and down on it, +freighted with young voices and laughter. He missed the Lovely Lady. He +knew now why he had not been able to think of marriage in the way +Clarice held it out to him, as a happy contingency of his now being as +rich as he had intended to be. It was because he had not thought of her +clearly for a long time. + +There had been a period in the beginning of his life with Ellen, when +the lady of his dreams had been so near the surface of all his thinking +that she took on form and likeness from anything that was lovely and +young in his neighbourhood, but as things lovely and young drifted from +him with the years; and as the business took deeper and deeper hold on +his attention, she had become a mere floating figment, a live fluttering +spark in the very core of all his imaginings. + +She had been beside him, a pleasant, indeterminate presence in the long +journey she travelled from the printed page to the accompanying click of +Ellen's needles. Sometimes at the opera she took on a gossamer tint from +the singer's face, and longer ago than he could afford operas, he had +understood that all the beauty of the world, bursting apple buds, the +great curve of the surf that set the beaches trembling, derived somehow +its pertinence from her. Now at the age of forty he had ceased to think +very much about the Lovely Lady. + +It occurred to him that this might have something to do with his failure +to get a new relation to life out of his new wealth. + +It had struck Peter rather forlornly during the past few years that +there was little use he could put money to, except to make more money. +He could see by turning his head to the room behind him how little there +was there of what he had fancied once riches would bring him. The lines +of the room were good, the amount of the annual rent assured that to +him, the furniture was good and the rugs expensive. Ellen believed that +money in rugs was a good investment, particularly if the colours were +strong and would stand fading. There were some choice things here and +there, a vase and pictures which Peter had chosen for himself, though he +was aware, as he took them in under the dull glow, that Ellen had +arranged them in strict reference to the size of the frames, and that +the whole effect failed of satisfaction. He thought his life might be +somewhat like that room, full of good things but lacking the touch that +should set them in fruitful order. It stole over him as persuasively as +the warm growing smell of the park below him that the something missed +might be the touch and presence of the Lovely Lady. + + + + +II + + +It was the late end of the afternoon when Peter stepped off the train at +the Lessing's station and into the trap that was waiting for him. He +learned from Lessing's man that the family had been kept by the tennis +match at Maplemont and he was to come on to the house at his leisure. +That being the case, Peter took the reins himself and made a long detour +through the dust-smelling country roads, so that it was quite six when +he reached the house, and everybody dressing for the early dinner. + +He made so hasty a change himself in his fear of being late, that when +he came down to the living-room in a quarter of an hour there was no one +there to meet him. Absorbed particles of the bright day gave off in the +dusk and made it golden. There were honeysuckles on the pergola outside, +and in the room beyond a girl singing a quiet air, half-trilled and +half-forgotten. He heard the singer moving toward him through the vacant +house, of which the doors stood open to the evening coolness, and the +click of the electric button as she passed, and saw the rooms burst one +by one into the bloom of shaded lights. So she came, busy with the +hummed fragments of her songs, and turned the lamp full on Peter before +she was aware of him, but she was not half so much disconcerted. + +"You must be Mr. Weatheral," she said. "Mrs. Lessing sent me to say she +expected you. I am Miss Goodward." + +She gave him her hand for a gracious moment before she turned to what +had brought her so early down, the arrangement of two great bowls of +wild ferns and vines which a servant had just placed on either end of +the low mantlepiece. + +"We brought them in from Archer's Glen on the way home," she told him +over her shoulder, her hands busy with deft, quick touches. She was all +in white, which took a pearly lustre from the lamps, and for the moment +she was as beautiful as Peter believed her. A tiny unfinished phrase of +the song floated half consciously from her lips as a bubble. "They look +better so, don't you think?" As she stood off to measure the effect, it +seemed to Peter that the Spirit of the House had received him; it was so +men dream of home-coming, without sensible displacement of a life going +on in it, lovely and secure, as a bark slips into some still pool to its +moorings. He yielded himself naturally to the impersonal intimacy of her +welcome and all the sordid ways of his life led up to her. + +It was not all at once he saw it so. He kept watching her all that +evening as one watches a perfect thing, a bird or a dancer, sensing in +the slim turn of her ankle, the lithe throat, the delicate perfume that +she shook from her summer draperies, so many strokes of a master hand. +She was evidently on terms with the Lessings which permitted her +acceptance of him at the family valuation, but the perfection of her +method was such that it never quite sunk his identity as the junior +partner in his character of Uncle Peter. + +This was a nuance, if Peter had but known it, which Eunice Goodward +could have no more missed than she could have eaten with her knife. She +had been trained to the finer social adjustments as to a cult: Clarice's +game of persuading life to present itself with a smiling countenance, +played all in the key of personal relations. It was as if Nature, having +tried her hand at a great many ordinary persons, each with one gift of +sympathy or graciousness, had culled and compacted the best of them into +Eunice Goodward; which was precisely the case except that Peter through +his unfamiliarity with the Best Society couldn't be expected to know +that the intelligence which had put together so much perfectness was no +less calculating than that which goes to the matching of a string of +pearls. All that he got from it was precisely all that he was meant to +receive--namely, the conviction that she couldn't have charmed him so +had she not been altogether charming. + +And as yet he did not know what had happened to him. He thought, when he +awoke in the morning to a new realization of the satisfactoriness of +living, that the fresh air had done it, the breath of the nearby +untrimmed forest, the loose-leaved roses pressed against the pane +beginning to give off warm odours in the sun. Then he came out on the +terrace and saw Eunice Goodward, looking like a thin slip of the morning +herself, in a blue dress buttoned close to her figure with wide white +buttons and a tiny froth of white at the short sleeves and open throat. +Across her bosom it was caught with a blue stone set in dull silver, +which served also to hold in place a rose that matched the morning tint +of her skin. She was talking with the Lessings' chauffeur as Peter came +up with her and all her accents were of dismay. They were to have driven +over to Maplemont that afternoon, she explained to Peter, for the last +of the tennis sets, and now Gilmore had just told her that the car must +go to the shop for two or three days. She was so much more charming in +the way she forgave Gilmore for her evident disappointment that he, +being a young man and troubled by a sense of moral responsibility, was +quite overcome by it. + +"But, nonsense"; Peter was certain "there is always something can be +done to cars." There was, Gilmore assured him, but it took time to do +it, and to-morrow would be Sunday. "If you'd only thought to come down +in the motor yourself, sir----" the chauffeur reproached him. The truth +was that Peter hadn't a car of his own and Gilmore knew it. There was an +electric runabout which had gone down to Bloombury with Ellen, and a +serviceable roadster which was part of the office equipment, but the +rich Mr. Weatheral had never taken the pains to own a private car. Now, +as he hastily drew out his watch, it occurred to him that Lessing's +chauffeur was a fellow of more perspicuity than he had given him credit +for. The two men communicated wordlessly across the cool width of the +terrace steps. + +"At what hour," Peter wished to know, "would we have to leave here to +reach Maplemont in good time? Then if you can be ready to leave the +moment my car gets here...." He excused himself to go to the telephone; +half an hour later when he joined the family at breakfast he had +discovered some of the things that, besides making more money with it, +can be done with money. + +The knowledge suited him like his own garment, as if it had been lying +ready for him to put on when the occasion required it, and now became +him admirably. He perceived it to be a proper male function to produce +easily and with precision whatever utterly charming young ladies might +reasonably require. He appreciated Miss Goodward's acceptance of it as +she came down from the house bewilderingly tied into soft veils for the +afternoon's drive, as a part of her hall-marked fineness. If she +couldn't help knowing, taking in the car's glittering newness from point +to point, that its magnificence had materialized out of her simple wish +for it, she at least didn't allow him to think it was any more than she +would have expected of him. So completely did he yield himself to this +new sense of the fitness of things that it came as a shock to have her, +as soon as they had joined themselves to the holiday-coloured crowd that +streamed and shifted under the bright boughs of Maplemont, reft from him +by friendly, compelling voices, and particularly by Burton Henderson, +who played singles and went about bareheaded and singularly +self-possessed. It was unthinkable to Peter that, in view of her +recently discovered importance in putting him at rights with himself, +that he hadn't arranged with her that they were to be more together. For +the moment it was almost a derogation of her charm that she shouldn't +herself have recognized by some overt act her extraordinary opportunity. +And then in a moment more he perceived that she had recognized it. He +had only to wait, as he saw, and he would find himself pleasantly beside +her, and at each renewal of the excluding companionship, he was more +subtly aware that it was accorded not to anything he was but to what she +had it in her power so beautifully to make of him. + +So perfectly did she strike the key with him, when, in the intervals of +the afternoon's entertainment they found themselves sitting or walking +together, that he could not have imagined her to have been out of it, +not even in a rather long session after tea with Burton Henderson among +the rhododendrons, in which it was apparent from the young man's manner +that she hadn't at least been in tune with him. It occurred just as they +were leaving and served in the flutter of delay it occasioned to fix +the attention of all their party on Eunice coming out of the shrubbery +with young Henderson in her wake, batting aimlessly at the grass-tops +with the racquet which he still carried. There was an air of sulkiness +about him which caused Mrs. Lessing enigmatically to say that Eunice was +altogether too good to that young man. To which Lessing's "Well, if she +is, he doesn't seem to appreciate," served also to confirm Peter in the +rôle which the effect she produced on himself had created for him. He at +least appreciated the way in which she had made him feel himself the +Distributer of Benefits, to a degree which made it almost obligatory of +her to go on with it. + +Successfully as Miss Goodward had kept for Peter during the day his new +relation to his wealth on the one hand and society on the other, she +seemed that evening quite to have abandoned him. While the family was +having coffee on the terrace after dinner, she slipped away from them to +reappear lower down among the rose trees, her white dress gathering all +that was left of the lingering glow. The junior partner, feeling himself +never so much junior, though he knew it was but a scant year or two, +sat on through Lessing's inconsequential comment on business and the +day's adventures, hearing not a word; now and then his chair creaked +with the intensity of his preoccupation. It grew dusk and the lamps +blossomed in the house behind them; presently Clarice slipped away to +the children and the evening damp fell over the rose garden. Peter could +endure it no longer. He believed as he rose suddenly with a stretching +movement that he meant merely to relieve the tension of sitting by +pacing up and down; it was unaccountable therefore that he should find +himself at the edge of the terrace. He wondered why on earth Clarice +couldn't have helped him a little, and then as if in response to his +deep instinctive demand upon her, he heard her call softly to her +husband from the door of the house. At the scrape of Julian's chair on +the terrace tiling, Peter cast away his cigar and hurried into the dusk +of the garden. + +He found her at last by the herbacious border, keeping touch with the +flight of a sphinx-head moth along the tall white rockets of phlox. +Peter whipped out his handkerchief and dropped it deftly over the +fluttering wings. In a moment he had stilled them in his hand. Miss +Goodward cried out to him: + +"You've spoiled his happy evening!" + +"He's not hurt...." Peter laid the moth gently on a feathery flower +head, and the tiny whispering whirr began again. "I thought you wanted +him." + +"I did--but not to catch him," Miss Goodward explained. "I wanted just +to want him." + +"Ah, I'm afraid I'm one of those people with whom to want a thing is to +go after it," Peter justified himself. + +"So one gathers from what one hears." She brushed him as lightly with +the compliment as with the wings of a moth. "I wasn't really wanting him +so much as I was wanting to _be_ him for a while. Just to pass from one +lovely hour to another and nothing to pay! But we humans have always to +pay something." + +"Or some one pays for us." + +"Well, isn't that worse ... taking it out of somebody else?" + +"I'm not so sure; some people enjoy paying. It's not a bad feeling, I +assure you: being able to pay. Haven't you found that out yet?" + +"Not in Trethgarten Square." Mrs. Lessing had managed to let him know +during the day that her guest had been reared within the sacred pale of +those first families in whom the choice stock of humanness is refined by +being maintained at precisely the same level for at least three +generations. + +"In Trethgarten Square," Peter reminded her, "we are told that you +settle your account just by _being_; that you manage somehow to become +something so superior and delectable that the rest of us are willing to +pay for the privilege of having you about." He would have liked to add +that recently, no later in fact than the evening before, he had come to +think that this was so, but as she hesitated in her walk beside him, he +saw that she was concerned in putting the case to herself quite as much +as to him. + +"It's not that exactly; more perhaps that our whole thought about life +is to live it so that there won't be anything to pay. We have to manage +to add things up like a column of figures with nothing to carry. +Perhaps that's why we get so little out of it." + +"Don't you?"--he was genuinely surprised, "get anything out of it, I +mean." + +"Oh, but I'm a selfish beast, I suppose! I want more--more!" They swung +as she spoke into a broad beam of yellow light raying out from the +library window, and he saw by it that with the word she flung out her +arms with a lovely upward motion that lifted his mood to the crest of +audacity. + +"If you keep on looking like that," Peter assured her, "you'll get it." +He was struck dumb immediately after with apprehension. It sounded +daring, like a thing said in a book; but she took it as it came lightly +off the tip of his impulse, laughing. "Yes ... the great difficulty is +choosing which of so many things one really wants." They walked on then +in silence, the air darkling after the sudden shaft of illumination, the +light folds of her scarf brushing his sleeve. Peter was considering how +he might say, without precipitation, how suddenly she had limited and +defined all the things that he wanted by expressing them so perfectly +in herself, when she interrupted him. + +"There's our moth again," she pointed; "he settles it by taking all of +them. It's a possibility denied to us." + +"Even he," Peter insisted, "has to reckon with such incidents as my +dropping on him just now. I might have wanted him for a collection." + +"Oh, if he takes us into account it must be as men used to think of the +gods walking." Suddenly the familiar beds and hedges widened for Peter; +they stretched warm and tender to the borders of youth and the unmatched +Wonder.... It was so they had talked when they walked together in the +Garden which was about the House.... + +For some time after Miss Goodward left him Peter remained walking up and +down, thinking of many things and unable to think of them clearly +because of a pleasant blur of excitement in his brain. As he came +finally back to the house he heard the Lessings talking from behind one +of the open windows. + +"My word, that car was never out of the shop before," Julian was saying. +"He's a _goner!_" + +"And that lovely, dusty, brown colour that goes so well with her hair! +Who would have thought Peter would be so noticing." + +"It couldn't have cost him a cent under seven thousand." Julian was +certain, "and carrying it off with me the way he did--bought the six +cylinder after all, he had.... I'll bet old Peter don't know a cylinder +from a stomach pump." + +Clarice was evidently going on with her own line of thought. "It will be +the best thing that ever happened to Eunice if she can only be got to +see it." + +"Well, if she don't her mother will see it for her." Lessing's voice +died into a subdued chuckle as Peter passed under it on the dew-damp +lawn, but there was no revelation in it for the junior partner. He had +already found out what was the matter with him and what he meant to do +about it. + + + + +III + + +Whatever the process of becoming engaged to Eunice Goodward lacked of +dramatic interest, it made up to Peter by being such a tremendous +adventure for him to become engaged to anybody. + +He had gone through life much as his unfriended youth had strayed +through the city streets, aching for the walled-up splendour--all the +world's chivalries, tendernesses, passions--known to him only by +glimmers and reflections on the plain glass of duty. Now at a word the +glass dissolved and he was free to wander through the rooms crammed with +imperishable poets' wares. He walked there not only as one who has the +price to buy, but himself made one of the splendid things of earth by +this same word which her mere being pronounced to him. + +He paid himself for years of denials and repressions by the discovery of +being able to love in such a key. For he meant quite simply to marry +Eunice Goodward if she would have him, and it was no vanity which gave +him hope, but a tribute to her fineness as being able to see herself so +absolutely the one thing his life waited for. He knew himself, modestly, +no prize for her except as he was added to by inestimable passion. +Whatever she saw in him as a man, for her not to recognize the immortal +worth of what he was able to become under her hand, was to subtract +something from her perfections. In her acceptance would lie the Queen's +touch, redeeming him from all commonness. + +He made his first venture within a week after their first meeting, in a +call on Miss Goodward and her mother in Trethgarten Square, where he +found their red brick, vine-masked front distinguishable among half a +hundred others by being kept open as late as the middle of June. To +their being marooned thus in a desert of boarded-up doors and shuttered +windows, due, as Eunice had frankly and charmingly let him know, to +their being poor among their kind, he doubtless owed it that no other +callers came to disturb the languid afternoon. Seen against her proper +background of things precious but worn, and in the style of a preceding +generation, the girl showed even lovelier than before, with the rich, +perfumed quality of a flower held in a chipped porcelain vase, a flower +moreover secure in its own perfectness, waiting only to be worn, +disdaining alike to offer or resist. Her very quietness--she left him, +in fact, almost wholly to her mother--had the air of condoning his +state, of understanding what he was there for and of finding it somehow +an accentuation of the interest they let him see that he had for them. +He found them, mother and daughter, more alike, in spite of their +natural and evident difference of years, more of a degree than he was +accustomed to find mother and daughters in the few houses where the +business of growing rich had admitted him, as though they had been +carved out of the same material, by the same distinguished artist, at +different times in his career. + +It contributed to the effect of his having found, not by accident, but +by seeking, a frame of life kept waiting for him, kept warm and +conscious. Presently Eunice poured tea for them, and the intimacy of her +remembering as she did, how he took it, had its part in the freedom +which he presently found for offering hospitality on his own account, +not at his home, as he explained to them, his sister being away, but say +a dinner at Briar Crest to which they might motor out pleasantly +Saturday afternoon, returning by moonlight. He offered Briar Crest +tentatively on the strength of the Lessings having once given a dinner +there, and was relieved to find that he had made no mistake. + +"A great many of your friends go there," Mrs. Goodward allowed; "the Van +Stitarts, Eunice, you remember." + +"The Gherberdings are there now, mamma; I'm sure we shall enjoy it." + +Having crossed thus at one fortunate stroke the frontiers of social +observance, to which Clarice had but edged her way in the right of being +a Thatcher Inwood, Peter ventured on Friday to suggest by telephone that +since dinner must be late, the ladies should meet him at what he had +taken pains to ascertain was the correct one of huge uptown hotels, for +tea before starting. It was Mrs. Goodward who answered him and she whom +he met in the white, marble tessellated tea-room, explaining that Eunice +had had some shopping to do--they were really leaving on Saturday--and +Mr. Weatheral was to order tea without waiting. They had time, however, +for the tea to be drunk and for Mrs. Goodward to become anxious in a +gentle, ladylike way, before it occurred to Peter to suggest that Miss +Goodward might be lurking anywhere in the potted palm and marble +pillared labyrinth, waiting for _them_, suffering equal anxieties, and +dreadful to think of in their present replete condition, languishing for +tea. His proposal to go and look for her was accepted with just the +shade of deprecation which admitted him to an amused tolerance of the +girl's delinquencies, as if somehow Eunice wouldn't have dared to be +late with him had she not had reason more than ordinary for counting on +his indulgence. + +"You'll find," Mrs. Goodward let him know, "that we require a deal of +looking after, Eunice and I." + +"Ah, I only hope you'll find that I'm equal to it." Peter had answered +her with so little indirection that it drew from the older woman a +quick, mute flush of sympathy. For a moment the homeliness of his lean +countenance was relieved with so redeeming a touch of what all women +most wish for in all men that she met it with an equal simplicity. "For +myself I am sure of it," but lifted next moment to a lighter key, with +a smile very like her daughter's dragged a little awry by the use of +years, "as for Eunice, you'll first have to lay hands on her." + +With this permission he rose and made the circuit of the semi-divided +rooms, coming out at last into the dim rotunda, forested with clustered +porphyry columns, and there at last he caught sight of her. She had but +just stepped into its shaded coolness out of the hot, bright day, and +hung for a moment, in the act of furling her parasol, in which he was +about to hail her, until he discovered by his stepping into range from +behind one of the green pillars, that she was also in the act of saying +good-bye to Burton Henderson. There was a certain finality in the way +she held out her hand to him which checked Peter in the hospitable +impulse to include the younger man in the afternoon's diversion. He +stepped back the moment he saw that she was having trouble with her +escort, defending herself by her manner from something accusing in his. +Not to seem to spy upon her, Weatheral made his way back though the +coatroom without disclosing himself. From the door of it he timed his +return so as to meet her face to face as she came up with Mrs. Goodward +and was rewarded for it by the gayety of her greeting and the +unaffectedness of her attack of the fresh relay of toasted muffins and +tea. + +"Absolutely famished," she told them, "and the shops are _so_ +fascinating! You'd forgive me, Mr. Weatheral, if you could see the heaps +and heaps of lovely things simply begging to be bought; it seemed +positively unkind to come away and leave any of them." As she said +nothing whatever about the young man, it seemed unlikely that she could +have him much on her mind. She had a new way, very charming to Peter, of +surrendering the afternoon into his hands; let him ask nothing of her +she seemed to say, but to enjoy herself. She built out of their being +there before her, a very delightful supposition of her mother and Mr. +Weatheral, between them having made a little space for her to be gay in +and simple and lovely after her own kind. If she took any account of +them it was such as a dancer might who, practising a few steps for the +mere joy and pride of it, finds herself unexpectedly surrounded by an +interested and smiling audience. + +If, however, with the memory of that afternoon upon him, Peter had gone +down to Fairport in the latter part of July with the expectation of +resuming the part of impresario to her charm, he suffered a sharp +disappointment. He found the Goodwards, not in the expensive caravansary +in which he installed himself, but in a smaller tributary house set back +from the main hotel though not quite disconnected with it; for quiet, +Mrs. Goodward told him, though he guessed quite as much from economy. + +"It's wonderful, really, what they do with so little," Clarice, with her +fine discriminations in the obligations of friendship, had generously +let him know. "Eunice hasn't anything, positively not _any_thing in +comparison with what people of her class usually have. And with her +taste, you know, there must be things she's just aching for, that +somehow you can't give her." You couldn't, indeed. Though Peter made +excuses enough for giving her the use of his car, and giving it to her +shorn even of the implication of his society, there were few occasions +when he could do even so much as that. He couldn't even give her his +appreciations. + +For at Fairport the Goodwards were quite in the heart of all that Peter +himself failed to understand that he couldn't possibly be. It was not +that he wasn't to the extent at least of sundry invitations given and +accepted, "in" as much of the Best Society as Fairport afforded. Mrs. +Goodward saw to that, and there were two or three whom he had met at the +Lessings' as well as men to whom the figure of his income was the cachet +of eligibility. It wasn't indeed that he wasn't liked, and that quite at +his proper worth, but that he couldn't somehow manage it so that the +Best Society cared in the least whether he liked it. He could see, in a +way, where Clarice had been at work for him; but the poison that was +dropped in his cup was the certainty that the way for him had to be +"worked." The discovery that he couldn't just find his way to Eunice +Goodward's side by the same qualities that had placed him beside the +males of her circle in point of property and power, that he couldn't +without admission to that circle, properly court her, hemmed him in +bewilderingly. + +Her method of eluding him, if there were method in it, left him feeling +not so much avoided as prevented by the moves of a game he hadn't meant +to play. So greatly it irked his natural simplicity to be banded about +by the social observances of the place, that it might have led him to +irrecoverable mistakes had it not been for the hand held out to him by +Mrs. Goodward. + +He perceived on closer acquaintance, that this lady's fine serenity of +manner was due largely to her never admitting to her mind the upsetting +possibility. She thought her world into acceptable shape and held it +there by the simple process of ignoring the eccentricities of its axis. + +Peter would have admired, if his unsophistication had allowed him, the +facility with which she made it revolve now about their mutual pursuit +of Eunice through the rattle and cheapness of what was known as "the +Burton Henderson set." As it was against just such social inconsequence +that Peter felt himself strong to defend her, he fell easily into the +key of crediting the girl's sudden, bewildering flight to it as a mere +midsummer madness. + +"It's the way with girls, I fancy," Mrs. Goodward had said to him, +strolling up and down the hotel veranda where through the wide French +windows they had glimpses of Eunice whirling away on the ice polished +floor of the ballroom within; "they cling the more to gayety as they see +the graver things of life bearing down upon them." + +"You think she sees that?" + +"Ah, there's much a mother sees, Mr. Weatheral----" + +"You would, of course," he accepted. + +"It's a woman's part, seeing; there's an instinct in us not to see too +soon." She gave him the benefit of her sweet weighted smile. + +Peter lived greatly on these things. He was so sure of himself, of the +reality and strength of his passion; he had a feeling of its being quite +enough for them to go on, an inexhaustible, fairy capital out of which +almost anything that Eunice Goodward desired might be drawn. It was +fortunate that he found his passion so self-sufficing, for there was +little enough that Eunice afforded it by way of sustenance. For a week +he no more than kept in sight of her in the inevitable summer round; he +did not dance and the game of cards he could play was gauged to what +Ellen could manage in an occasional quiet evening at the Lessings'. + +"I suppose," Eunice had said to him on an occasion when he had known +enough to decline an invitation for an afternoon's play to which Burton +Henderson was carrying her away, "that the stakes we play for aren't any +temptation to _you_." + +"I think that they're out of proportion to the trouble you have to be at +to win them." + +"Oh, if you don't care for the game----" + +"I don't." And then casting about for a phrase that explained him more +happily, "Put it that I like to cut out my job and go to it." She gave +him a quick, condoning flash of laughter; the phrase was Lessing's and +out of her recognition of it he drew, loverlike, that assurance of +common understanding so dear to lovers. "Put it," he ventured further, +"that I don't like to see myself balked of the prize by the way the +cards are dealt." + +"Ah, but that's what makes it a game. I'd no idea you were such +a--revolutionist." + +"Evolutionist," he corrected, happy in having touched the subtler note +behind their persiflage. "I've all science on my side for the most +direct method." After all, why should he let even the Best Society deal +the cards for him? Should not a man sweep the boards of whatever kept +him from his natural mate? + +That was on Tuesday, and the Thursday following he had asked the +Goodwards to motor over to Lighthouse Reef with him. He did not know +quite what he meant to bring about on this occasion; he had so much the +feeling of its being an occasion, the invitation had been so pointedly +given and accepted, it was with difficulty he adjusted himself to the +discovery on arriving at their hotel with the car, that Eunice had gone +to play tennis instead. + +"The time is so short," Mrs. Goodward apologized; "she felt she must +make the most of it." She had to leave it there, not being able to make +a game of tennis in the hot sun seem more of a diversion than the steady +pacing of the luxurious car along the road which laced the forest to +the singing beaches. She had to let her sidewise smile do what it could +toward making the girl's bald evasion of her engagement seem the mere +flutter and hesitancy of besieged femininity. For the moment she was as +much "outside" so far as her daughter was concerned as Peter was of the +select bright circle in which she moved. + +The way opened before them, beautiful in late bloom and heavy fern, +above which the sea wind kept a perpetual movement of aliveness. + +"Eunice _will_ miss it," Mrs. Goodward rallied; "such a perfect +afternoon!" She gave him the oblique smile again, weighted this time +with the knowledge of all that Peter hadn't been able or hadn't tried to +keep from her. "It isn't easy, is it," she went on addressing her speech +to whatever, at the mention of her daughter's name, hung in the air +between them, "to stand by and see other people's great moments hover +over them. One would like so to lend a hand. And one is sure of nothing +so much as that if they are really to _be_ big, one mustn't." + +"If you feel that," Peter snatched at encouragement, "that it is really +the big thing for her--what I'm sure you can't help knowing what I +mean--what I hope." + +"What _I_ feel----? After all, it's _her_ feeling, my dear Mr. +Weatheral, that we have to take into account. It wouldn't be fair for me +to attempt to answer to you for that!" + +"And of course if I can't _make_ her feel...." He did not trust himself +to a conclusion. + +They found, however, when the road issued on the coast opposite the +great bursting bulks of spray, that Eunice's desertion and the +extenuation of it to which they had lent themselves, had put them out of +the mood for the high wind and warring surf of the Reef. Accordingly +they turned aside at Peter's suggestion to have tea at a little country +inn farther back in the hills, where the pound of the sea was reduced to +a soft, organ-booming bass to which the shrill note of the needles +countered in perfect tune. The tea garden, the favourite port of call +for afternoon drives from the resorts hereabouts, lay back of the +hostelry in a narrow, ferny glen from which springs issued. As Peter led +the way up its rocky stair, they could hear the light laughter of a +party just rising from one of the round rustic tables. The group +descending poured past them a summer-coloured runnel down the little +glen, and left them face to face with Eunice, who had lingered, her +dress caught on a point of the rustic chair. + +"Mamma--you!" She looked trapped, accused, though sheer astonishment +held the others dumb. "We finished the game----" she began and stopped +short; after all, her manner seemed to say, why shouldn't she have tea +there with her friends? She made as if to sweep past after them but Mrs. +Goodward never moved from the narrow path. She was more embarrassed, +Peter saw, than her daughter, and as plainly at bay. + +"Now that we are here----" she began in her turn. + +"Now that you have followed me here," the girl rang out, "what is it +that you have to say to me?" She was white and a bright flame spot +showed on either cheek. + +"I--oh," the elder woman by an effort drew the remnant of the grand +manner about her; "it is Mr. Weatheral, I think, who might have +something to say." She caught the occasion as it were on the wing. Peter +heard the quick breath behind him with which she grasped it. "Now that +you are here, however, I'll tell your party that you will be driving +home with us." She gathered up her draperies and was gone down the path +she had come before either of the others thought to stop her. Eunice had +not made a move to do so. She stood clasping the back of the chair from +which she had freed her dress, and looked across it mutinously at Peter. + +"And what," she quivered, "has Mr. Weatheral to say to me?" + +"There is nothing," he told her, "that I would say to you, Miss +Goodward, unless you wished to hear it." His magnanimity shamed her a +little. + +"I broke my engagement to you," she admitted, "broke it to come here +with--the others. I haven't any excuse to offer you." + +"And when," Peter demanded of her, "have I asked any other excuse of you +for anything that you chose to do except that you chose it. There _was_ +something I wished to say to you, that I hoped for a more auspicious +occasion...." He hurried on with it suddenly as a thing to be got over +with at all hazards. "It was to say that I hoped you might not find it +utterly beyond you to think of marrying me." He saw her sway a little, +holding still to her chair, and moved toward her a step, dizzy himself +with the sudden onset of emotion. "But now that it is said, if it +distresses you we will say no more about it." She waved him back for a +moment without altering her strained, trapped attitude. + +"Have you said this to mamma? And has she--has she said anything to you? +About me, I mean; how I might take it, or anything?" + +"She said that she couldn't answer for you; that it was your feeling +that must be taken into account. She put me, so to speak, on my own feet +in so far as _that_ was concerned." He waited for her answer to that, +and none coming, though he saw that she grew a little easier, he went on +presently. "There is, however, much that I feel ought to be said about +my feeling for you, what it means to me, what I hoped----" She stopped +him with a gesture; he could see her lovely manner coming back to her as +quiet comes to the surface of a smitten pool. + +"That--one may take for granted, may one not? Since you _have_ asked me, +that the feeling that goes to it is all I have a right to ask?" + +"Quite, quite," he assured her. "It may be," he managed to smile upon +her here for the easing of her sweet discomposure, "it may very easily +be that I was thinking too much of my pleasure in saying it." + +"It would, then, be a pleasure?" She had the air of snatching at that as +something concrete, graspable. + +"It would, and it wouldn't. I mean if you were bothered by it. You could +take everything for granted, everything." + +"Even," she insisted, "to the point of taking it for granted that you +would take things for granted from me: that you wouldn't expect +anything--any expression, anything more than just accepting you?" + +"Ah!" he cried, the wonder, the amazement of success breaking upon him. +"If you accepted me what more _could_ I expect." He had clasped the hand +which she held out to check him and held it against his heart firmly +that she shouldn't see how he trembled. + +"I haven't, you know," she reminded him, "but if I was sure--very sure +that you wouldn't ask any more of me than thinking, I ... might think +about it." She was trembling now, though her hand was so cold, and +suddenly a tear gathered and dropped, splashing her fine wrist. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" he cried, moved more than he had thought it +possible to be; "you can be perfectly sure that there will never be +anything between you and me that shall not be exactly as you wish." He +suited his action to the word, kissing the wet splash and letting her +go. + +"Why, then," she recovered herself with the smile that was now strangely +like her mother's, sweeter for being smiled a little awry, "the best +thing you can do is to find poor mamma and let us give her a cup of +tea." + + + + +IV + + +"Peter, have you any idea what I am thinking about?" + +"Not in the least, Ellen," which was not strictly the truth. He +supposed she must be thinking naturally of the news he had told her not +an hour since, of his engagement to Eunice Goodward. It lay so close to +the surface of his own mind at all times that the slightest stir of +conversation, like the wind above a secret rose, seemed always about to +disclose it. They were sitting on the porch at Bloombury and the pointed +swallows pitched and darted about the eaves. + +"It was the smell of the dust that reminded me," said Ellen, "and the +wild rose at the turn of the road; you can smell it as plain as plain +when the air lifts a little. Do you remember a picnic that we were +invited to and couldn't go? It was on account of being poor ... and I +was just finding it out. I found out a good many things that summer; +about my always going to be lame and what it would mean to us. It was +dreadful to me that I couldn't be lame just by myself, but I had to mix +up you and mother in it." + +"We were glad, Ellen, to be mixed up in it if it made things easier for +you." + +"I know ... times I felt that way about it too, but that was when I was +older ... as if it sort of held us all together; like somebody who had +belonged to us all and had died. Only it was me that died, the me that +would have been if I hadn't been lame.... Well, I hadn't thought it out +so far that first summer; I just hated it because it kept us from doing +things like other people. You were fond of Ada Brown, I remember, and it +was because I was lame and we were so poor and all, that you couldn't go +with her and she got engaged to Jim Harvey. I hope you don't think I +have a bad heart, Peter, but I was always glad that Ada didn't turn out +very well. Every time I saw her getting homelier and kind of bedraggled +like, I said to myself, well, I've saved Peter from that at any rate. I +couldn't have borne it if she had turned out the kind of a person you +ought to have married." + +"You shouldn't have worried, Ellen; very few men marry the first woman +they are interested in." + +"There was a girl you used to write home about--at that boarding-house. +I used to get you to write. I daresay you thought I was just curious. +But I was trying to find out something that would make me perfectly sure +she wasn't good enough for you. She was a typewriter, wasn't she?" + +"Something of that sort." + +"Well!" Ellen took him up triumphantly, "you wouldn't have wanted to be +married to a typewriter _now!"_ + +"I never really thought of marrying one, Ellen. I'm sure everything has +turned out for the best." + +"That's what I'm trying to tell you. You see I was determined it should +turn out that way. I said, what was the use of being lame and being a +burden to you unless there was something _meant_ by it. I'd have fretted +dreadfully if I hadn't felt that there was something to come out of it. +And it has come.... Peter, you'd rather I'd saved you for this than +anything that might have happened?" + +"Much rather, Ellen." + +It had surprised him in the telling, to see how accurately his sister +had gauged the worldly advantage of his marriage. If Eunice Goodward had +been a piece of furniture, Ellen couldn't have appraised her better at +her obvious worth: beauty and character and family and the mysterious +cachet of society. Clarice had been at work there, too, he suspected. +Miss Goodward fitted in Ellen's mind's eye into her brother's life and +fortune as a picture into its frame. + +"I'm very glad you feel that way about it, Ellen," he said again; he was +on the point of telling her about the House of Shining Walls. The +material from which he had drawn its earliest furnishings lay all about +them, the receding blue of the summer sky, the aged, arching apple +boughs. The scent of the wilding rose came faintly in from the country +road--suddenly his sister surprised him with a flash of rare insight. + +"I guess there can't anything keep us from the best except ourselves," +she said. "Being willing to put up with the second best gives us more +trouble than the Lord ever meant for us. Think of the way I've always +wanted children--but if they'd been my real own, they'd have been +sickly, likely, or even lame like me, or just ordinary like the only +kind of man who would have married me. As it is, I've had Clarice's and +now----" She broke off with a quick, old-maidish colour. + +Ellen had gone so far as to name all of Peter's children in the days +when nothing seemed so unlikely; now in the face of his recent +engagement she would have thought it indelicate. + +"_She_ would have liked you marrying so well, Peter," she finished with +a backward motion of her head toward the room where the parlour set, +banished long ago from the town house, symbolized for Ellen the brooding +maternal presence. + +"Yes, she would have liked it." There came back to him with deep +satisfaction his mother's appraisement of young Mrs. Dassonville, who +must, as he recalled her, have been shaped by much the same frame of +life as Eunice Goodward--the Lovely Lady. The long unused phrase had +risen unconsciously to his lips on the day that he had brought Eunice +her ring. He had spent a whole week in the city choosing it; three +little flawless, oblong emeralds set with diamonds, almost encircling +her finger with the mystic number seven. He had discovered on the day +that she had accepted him, that it had to be emeralds to match the +green lights that her eyes took on in the glen from the deep fern, the +mossy bank and the green boughs overhead. On the terrace at Lessings' +under a wide June sky he had supposed them to be blue; but there was no +blue stone of that sky colour of sufficient preciousness for Eunice +Goodward. + +She had been very sweet about the ring, touched with grateful surprise +for its beauty and its taste. Something he could see of relief, of +assurance, flashed and fell between the two women as she showed it to +her mother. They had taken him so beautifully on trust, they couldn't +have known, he reflected, whether he would rise at all to the delicate, +balanced observation of life among them; it was evidence, the emerald +circlet, of how satisfyingly he had risen. The look that passed between +mother and daughter was like a spark that lighted as it fell, an +unsuspected need of him as man merely, the male element, security, +dependability, care. His first response to it was that of a swimmer who +has struck earth under him; he knew in that flash where he was, by what +familiar shores; and the whole effect, in spite of him was of the +sudden shrinkage of that lustrous sea in which his soul and sense had +floated. It steadied him, but it also for the moment narrowed a little +the horizon of adventure. It was the occasion that Eunice took to define +for him his status as an engaged man. + +He kept as far as he was able his compact of expecting nothing of her, +except of course that he couldn't avoid expecting that their arrangement +would lead in the natural course to marriage. She had met him more than +halfway in that, agreeing to an earlier date than he had thought +compatible with the ritual of engagements in the Best Society. She had +managed, however, that Peter should present her with her summer freedom: +the engagement was not even to be announced until their return to town. +And in the meantime Peter was to find a house. He had offered her travel +for that first year. Europe, which he had scarcely glimpsed, glittered +and allured. But travel, Eunice let him know, went much better when you +had a place to come back to. He saw at once how right was everything she +did. Well, then, a house on Fillmore Avenue? + +"Oh--shall we be so rich as that, Peter?" He divined some embarrassment +in her as to the scale in which they were to live. "We'll want something +in the country, too," she reminded him. + +"I've a couple of options at Maplemont----" + +"Oh, Maplemont----" She liked that also, he perceived. + +"And a place in Florida. Lessing and I bought it the winter the children +had the diphtheria. They've a very pretty bungalow; we could put up +something like it for ourselves--if you wouldn't mind my sister +occasionally. Ellen isn't happy at hotels." + +"Mind! with all you're giving me! You won't think it's just the money, +Peter;" she had a very charming hesitancy about it. "It's what money +stands for, beauty, and suitability--and--everything." He was very +tender with her. + +"It's not that I have such a pile of it either," he assured her, "though +I turn over a great deal in the course of a year. It's easier making +money than people think." + +"Easier for everybody?" There was a certain eagerness in the look and +voice. + +"Easier for those who know how. I'm only forty, and I've learned; +there's not much I couldn't get if I set about it. It's a kind of a +gift, perhaps, like painting or music, but there's a great deal to be +learned, too." + +"And some haven't the gift to learn, perhaps." For some reason she +sighed.... He was turning all this over in his mind when suddenly Ellen +recalled him. + +"Have you told Clarice yet?" + +"I mean to, Sunday, if you don't mind my not coming down to you. Miss +Goodward is spending the week end at Maplemont, and by staying at +Julian's----" + +"Of _course_." Ellen sympathized. "I shall want to know what Clarice +says." She never did know exactly, for when Clarice gave Peter her +congratulations in the terrace garden after dinner, she missed, +extraordinarily for her, the felicitous note. + +"I'm so happy for Eunice, you can't imagine," she insisted. "I've always +said we've none of us known what Eunice can do until she's had her +opportunity. And now with all the background you can give her---- You'll +see!" + +He didn't quite know what he was to see except that if Eunice were to be +in the picture it was bound to be satisfying. But Mrs. Lessing was not +done with him. "For all her being so beautiful and so well placed," she +went on, "Eunice has never had any life at all, not what you might call +a life. And she might so easily have missed this. It is hard for girls +to realize sometimes that the success of marriage depends on real +qualities in the man, in mastery over things and not just over her +susceptibilities. It is quite the most sensible thing I've known Eunice +to do." + +"Only," Peter reminded her for his part, "I'm not just exactly doing it +because it is sensible." Her "of course not" was convinced enough to +have stilled the vague ruffling of his mind, without doing it. He didn't +object to having his qualifications as Eunice Goodward's husband taken +solidly, but why dwell upon them when it was just the particular +distinction of his engagement that it had the intensity, the spiritual +extension which was supposed to put it out of reach of material +considerations. Even Ellen had done better by him than this. + +He was forced, however, to come back to the substance of Mrs. Lessing's +comment a few days later when he was being dined at the club by a +twice-removed cousin of the Goodward's, the upright, elderly symbol of +the male sanction which was the most that his fiancée's fatherless +condition could furnish forth. The man was cordial enough; he was even +prepared to find Peter likable; but even more on that account to measure +his relation to Miss Goodward in terms of its being a "good thing." + +"It's not, you know," his host couldn't forebear to remind him, "exactly +the sort of a marriage we expected of Eunice; but if the girl is +satisfied----" + +"If I hadn't satisfied myself on that point----" Peter reminded him in +his turn. + +"Quite so, quite so ... girls have notions sometimes; one never quite +knows ... You'll keep on with your--just _what_ is it you do such +tremendous things with; one hears of course that you _do_ do them----" + +"Real estate, brokerage," Peter enlightened him. "I shall certainly keep +on with it. Isn't one supposed to have all the more need of it when +there's an establishment to keep up?" + +The symbol waved a deprecating hand. "You'll find it rather an +occupation to keep up with Eunice, I'm thinking. I've a notion she'll go +it, once she has the chance." + +"If by going it, you mean going out a great deal, seeing the world and +having it in to see her, well, why shouldn't she, so long as I have the +price?" He could only take it good-naturedly. It was amusing when you +came to think of it, that a man who would contribute to the sum of his +wife's future perhaps, the price of a silver tea salver, should so hold +him to account for it. Nevertheless the talk left a faint savour of +dryness. It was part of his new pride in himself as a possession of hers +that he should in all things come up to the measure of men, but the one +thing which should justify his being so ticketed and set aside by them +as the Provider, the Footer-up of Accounts, was the assurance which only +she could give, of his being the one thing, good or bad, which could be +made to answer for her happiness. + +Walking home by the river to avoid as far as possible the baked, +oven-smelling streets, he was aware how strangely the whole earth ached +for her. He was here walking, as he had been since his first seeing her, +at the core of a great light and harmony, and walking alone in it. If +just loving her had been sufficient occupation for his brief courtship, +for the present it failed him. For he was not only alone but lonely. He +saw her swept aside by the calculating crowd--strange that Ellen and +Clarice should be a part of it--not only out of reach of his live +passion, but beyond all speech. Alone in his room he felt suddenly faint +for the want of her. He turned off the light with which he had first +flooded it, for the flare of the street came feebly in through the +summer leafage, and sat sensing the need of her as a thing to be handled +and measured, a benumbing, suffocating presence. As he sat, a sound of +music floated by, and a thin pencil of light from a pleasure barge on +the river flitted from window to window, travelling the gilt line of a +picture-frame and the dark block of a picture that hung over his bed. +And as it touched in passing the high ramping figure of a knight in +armour, the old magic worked. He felt himself flung as it were across +great distances, and dizzy with the turn, to her side. He was there to +maintain in the face of all worldly reckoning, the excluding, spiritual +quality of their relation. The more his engagement to Eunice Goodward +failed of being the usual, the expected thing, the more authority it +derived for its supernal sources. It took the colour of true romance +from its unlikelihood. Peter turned on the light, and drawing paper to +him, began to write. + +"Lovely Lady," the letter began, and as if the words had been an +incantation, the room was full and palpitating with his stored-up +dreams. They came waking and crowding to fill out the measure of his +unconsummated passion, and they had all one face and one likeness. Late, +late he was still going on with it.... + +"And so," he wrote, "I have come to the part of the story that was not +in the picture, that I never knew. The dragon is slain and the knight +has just begun to understand that the Princess for whom it was done is +still a Princess; and though you have fought and bled for them, +princesses must be approached humbly. And he did not know in the least +how to go about it for in all his life the knight could never have +spoken to one before. You have to think of that when you think of him at +all, and of how he must stand even with his heart at her feet, hardly +daring to so much as call her attention to it. For though he knows very +well that it is quite enough to hope for and more than he deserves, to +be able to spend his whole life serving her, love, great love such as +one may have for princesses, aches, aches, my dear, and needs a +comforting touch sometimes and a word of recognition to make it beat +more steadily and more serviceably for every day." + +He went out that night to post his letter when it was done, for though +there was not time for an answer to it, he was going down to her on +Saturday, he liked to think of it running before him as a torch to light +the way which, even while he slept, he was so happily traversing. He was +quite trembling with the journey he had come, when on Saturday she met +him, floating in summer draperies and holding out a slim ringed hand, +and a cool cheek to glance past his lips like a swallow. + +"You had my letter, dear?" + +"Such a lovely letter, Peter, I couldn't think of trying to answer it." + +"Oh, it wasn't to be answered--at least not by another----" He released +her lest she should be troubled by his trembling. + +"I should think not!" She was more than gracious to him. "It's a wonder +to me, Peter, you never thought of writing. You have such a beautiful +vocabulary." But even that did not daunt him, for he knew as soon as he +had looked on her again, that loving Eunice Goodward was enough of an +occupation. + + + + +V + + +The senior partner of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., was exactly the sort of +man, when his physicians ordered him abroad for two years, with the +intimation that there might even worse happen to him, to make so little +fuss about it that he got four inches of type in a leading paper the +morning of his departure and very little more. Lessing would certainly +have been at the steamer to see him off, except for being so much taken +up with adjustments of the business made necessary by Peter's going out +of it; and his sister Ellen never went out in foggy weather, seldom so +far from the house in any case. Besides, she declared that if she once +saw Peter disappearing down the widening water she should never be able +to rid herself of the notion of his being quite overwhelmed by it, +whereas if he sent on his trunks the day before, and walked quietly out +in the morning with his suitcase, she could persuade herself that he had +merely run down to Bloombury for a few days and would be back on Monday. +And having managed his leave-taking as he did most personal matters, to +please Ellen, who though she had never been credited with an +imagination, seemed likely to develop one in the exigencies of getting +along without Peter, he had no sense of having done anything other than +to please himself. He found a man to carry his suitcase as soon as he +was out of the house, and walked the whole way to the steamer; for if +one has been ordered out of all activity there is still a certain +satisfaction in going out on your own feet. + +It was an extremely ill-considered day, wet fog drawn up to the high +shouldering roofs and shrugged off, like a nervous woman's shawl. But +whether it sulked over his departure or smiled on him for remembrance, +would not have made any difference to Peter, who, whatever the papers +said of the reason for his going abroad, knew that there would be +neither shade nor shine for him, nor principalities nor powers until he +had found again the House of the Shining Walls. As soon as he had +bestowed his belongings in his stateroom, he went out on the side of the +deck farthest from the groups of leave-taking, and stood staring down, +as if he considered whether the straightest route might not lie in that +direction, into the greasy, shallow hollows of the harbour water, at the +very moment when the Burton Hendersons, over their very late coffee, had +discovered the item of his departure. + +Mrs. Henderson balanced her spoon on the edge of her cup while her +husband read the paragraph aloud to her. + +"You don't suppose," she said, as if it might be an interesting even if +regrettable possibility, "that _I_--that our affair--had anything to do +with it?" + +"If it did," admitted her husband, with the air of not thinking it +likely, but probably served him right, "it has taken a long time to get +at him. Two years, isn't it, since you threw him over for a better man?" + +"Oh, I'm not so sure of your being a better man, Bertie; I liked you +better----" + +Mr. Burton Henderson accepted his wife's amendment with complacency. + +"I don't believe Weatheral appreciated the distinction. Men like that +have a sort of money crust that prevents the ordinary perceptions from +getting through to them." This illustration appeared on second thoughts +so illuminating that it carried him a little further. "Perhaps that's +the reason it has taken him so long to tumble after he has been hit; it +has just got through to him. It would be interesting to know, though, if +he is still a little in love with you." + +There was a fair amount of speculation in Mr. Burton Henderson's tone +that did not appear to have its seat in any apprehension. + +"Just as if you rather hoped it," his wife protested. + +"Well, I was only wondering if his health is so bad as the papers +say--it seldom is, you know--but if he were to go off all of a sudden +one of these days, whether he mightn't take it into his head now to +leave you a legacy." + +"I don't believe it was personal enough with Peter for that. It wasn't +me he wanted so much as just to be married. And, besides, I did come +down on him rather hard." Mrs. Burton Henderson smiled a little +reminiscently as if she still saw herself in the process of coming down +on Peter and thought rather well of it. + +"Well, anyway," her husband finished, "we could have managed with a +legacy." + +"Yes, we do need money dreadfully, don't we, Bertie?" she sighed. "But I +don't believe I had anything to do with it." + +That was all very well for Mrs. Burton Henderson, but Peter's sister +Ellen had a different opinion. "Peter," she had said the evening after +Peter had sent his trunk out of the house and locked up his suitcase to +keep her from putting anything more into it, "you're not thinking of +_her_, are you? You're not going to take that abroad with you." + +"No, Ellen, I haven't thought of her for a long time except to wish her +happiness. You mustn't let that worry you." + +"Just the same," said Ellen, "if anything happens to you over there--if +you never come back to me, I shall never forgive her." + +"I shall come back. I am sorry you should feel so bitter about it." + +He could not, especially now that it was gone, very well explain to +Ellen about the House; for all the years that it had stood there just +beyond the edge of dreams with the garden spread around it and a lovely +wood before, she had never heard of it. There had been so many ways to +it once, paths to it began in pictures, great towered gates of music +gave upon its avenues, and if he had not spoken of it, it was because as +he had made himself believe when she did come, that Eunice Goodward +would come into it of first right. He could not have blamed her for not +wishing to live in it--from the first he had never blamed her. He might +have managed even had she pulled it about his ears to rebuild it in +some fashion, but this was the bitterest, that he knew now for a +certainty there had never been any House and the certainty made him +ridiculous. + +It had been rather the worse that, with all the suddenness of this +discovery, he had not been able to avoid the habit of setting out for +it, seeking in dreams the relief of desolation in knowing that no dreams +could come. As often as he heard music or saw in the soft turn of a +cheek or the slender line of a wrist, what had moved him so in hers he +felt himself urged forward on old trails, only to be scared from them by +the apparition of himself as Eunice had evoked it from her bright +surpassing surfaces, as a man unaccomplished in passion, unprovocative. +All the gates to the House opened upon dreadful hollows of +self-despising into which Peter fell and floundered, so that he took to +going that way as little as possible, taking wide circuits about it +continually in the way of business, being rather pleased with himself +when at the end of two years he could no longer feel any pang of loss +nor any remembering thrill of what the House had been--until he +discovered that also he could not feel some other things, the pen +between his fingers and the rise of the stairs under him. He forgot +Eunice Goodward, and then one day he forgot to go home after office +hours, and they found him sitting still at his desk in the dark, trying +to remember whether he ought to put down the blotting-pad and the paper +weight on top of that, or if, on the whole, it were not better to put +the paper weight, as being the heavier article, first. + +It was after that the doctor told him to go as far away from his +business as possible and keep on staying away. + +"But if I am going to die, doctor," Peter carefully explained, "I would +much rather do it in my own country." + +"Ah," the doctor warned him, "that's just the difficulty. You won't +die." + +And that was how Peter happened to be leaning over the forward rail of +an Atlantic steamer on his way to Italy, which he had chosen because the +date of sailing happened to be convenient. But he knew, as he stood +looking down at the surface of the water, rough-hewn by the wind, that +whatever the doctor said to Lessing, or Ellen surmised, he would get no +good there except as it showed him the way to the House of the Shining +Walls. + +He did not remember where in the blind pointless ring through which the +steamer chugged and wallowed as though it were a superior sort of water +beetle and the horizon a circle of its own making, he began to get +sufficiently acquainted with his fellow passengers, to understand that +they were most of them going abroad in the interest of unrealized +estates, and abounded in confidence. To see them forever forward and +agaze at the lit shores of Spain and the Islands of Desire, roused in +him the faint savour of expectation. Which, however, did not prevent him +from finding Naples squalid, and Rome, where he arrived in the middle of +the tourist season, too modern in a cheap, second-rate sort of way. He +could remember when Rome had furnished some excellent company for the +House, and suffered in the places of renown an indeterminable pang like +the ache of an amputated stump. It seemed, on occasion, as if the old +trails might lie down the hollow of the Forum, under the arch of that +broken aqueduct, beside the dark Volsinian mere; but when Peter arrived +at any of these places he found them prepossessed by Germans gabbling +out of _Baedekers_. The Sistine Chapel made the back of his neck ache +and he came no nearer than seven tourists to the noble quietude of the +Vatican can marbles. + +"I must remember," said Peter to himself, "that I am a very sick man, +and crowds annoy me." + +Then he went into the country and saw the gray of the olives above the +springing grass, like the silver bloom on a green plum, and began to +experience the pangs of recovery. He found Hadrian's Villa and the +garden of the Villa d'Este, and remembered other things. He remembered +the flat malachite-coloured pools, the definite, pointed cypresses and +the fountain's soft incessant rain--as it had been in the House. As it +_was_ in the House. For he understood in Italy what was still the most +bitter to know, that though it might yet be somewhere in the world, he +was never to find it any more. Toward all that once had led him thither, +his sense was locked and sealed. He remembered Eunice Goodward--the +fact of her--how tall she was as she walked beside him--but not how at +the soft brushing of her hair as she turned, his blood had sung to her; +nor all the weeks of their engagement like a morning full of wings. And +he could not yet recall so much as the bare reasons for her break with +him except that they had been unhappy ones. + +It had been a part of a long plan that he and Eunice should have seen +Italy together, but for the moment he did not wish her there. He was +sure she would have been in the way of his getting something that +glimmered at him from the coign of castellated walls all awash about +their base with purpled shadow, that strove to say itself in intricate +fine tracery of tower and shrine, and failed and fell away before the +sodden quality of his mind. + +So he drifted northward with the spring, and saw the anemones blowing +and the bloomy violet wonder the world, suffering incredible aching +intimations of the recrudescence of desire. Afterward he came to +Florence, where he had heard there were pictures, and hoped to have some +peace; but at Florence they were all too busy being painted or prayed +to, the remote Madonnas, the wounded Saints, the comfortable plump +Venuses; the lean Christs too stupefied with candle smoke to take any +account of an American gentleman in a plain business suit, who looked +homely and ill and competent. Sometimes in Santa Croce or in the long +gallery over the bridge, the noise of the city would remove from him and +the faces would waver and lean out of their frames, as if, had the +occasion allowed, they would have said the word to set him on his way. +But there was always a guard about or a tourist stalking some +uncatalogued prey and it never came to anything. + +"What you really want," said a man at his hotel to whom he had half +whimsically complained of their inarticulateness--one of those +remarkable individuals who had done nothing so successfully in so many +cities of Europe that he was supposed to know the exact month for doing +it most delightfully in any one of them--"what you really want is +Venice. It's an off season there; you'll meet nobody but Germans, and if +you go about in your own gondola you needn't mind them." + +So Peter went to Venice, and on the way there he met the Girl from Home. + + + + +VI + + +He knew at once that she was from Home, though as she sat opposite him +with the fingers of her mended gloves laced under her chin and her face +turned away to miss no point of the cypresses and warm, illumined walls, +there was nothing to prove that any one of a hundred towns might not +have produced her. Peter remembered what sort of people wore gloves like +that in Bloombury--the minister's wife, the school teacher, his mother +and Ellen--and was instantly sure she would not have been travelling +through Italy first-class except at the instigation of the large, +widowed and distrustful woman with whom she got on at Padua. This lady, +also, Peter understood very well. He thought it likely she sat in +rocking chairs a great deal at home and travelled to improve her mind. +She had, moreover, a general air of proclaiming the unwarrantableness of +railway acquaintances, which alone would have prevented Peter from +asking the girl, as he absurdly wanted to, if they had painted the new +school-house yet, and if there had been much water that year in Miller's +pond. + +As she sat so with her round hat pushed askew by the window-glass, there +was some delicate reminder about her that streaked the rich Italian +landscape with vestiges of Bloombury. + +He looked out of the window where she looked and saw the white +straight-sided villas change to green-shuttered farmhouses, and fine old +Roman roads lead on to Harmony. It was all there for him in its +unexpectedness, as freshly touching as those reminders of his mother +which he came upon occasionally where Ellen kept them laid by in +lavender; as if the girl had shaken from the folds of her jacket of +unmistakable Bloombury cut, Youth for him--his own--anybody's Youth--no +limp and yellowed keepsake, but all crisply done up and ready for +putting on. So sharp for the moment was his sense of accepting the +invitation to put it on with her as the best possible traveller's guise, +especially for seeing Venice in, that catching the speculative eye of +the large lady turned upon him, he quailed sensibly. She had the air of +having detected him in an attempt to establish a relation with her +companion on the ground of their common youngness, and finding herself +much more a match for him both in years and in respect to their common +origin. Whatever passed between the two women, and something did pass +wordlessly, with hardly so much substance as a look, remained there, not +intrusively, but as proof that what he had been seeking was still going +on in some far but attainable place. It was the first movement of an +accomplished recovery, for Peter to find himself resisting the +implication of his appearance in favour of what was coming to him out of +the retouched, sensitive surfaces of his past. + +He knew so well as he looked at the girl, what had produced her. She was +leaning a little from the window in a way that brought more of her face +into view, and though from where he sat Peter could have very little +notion of the points of the nearing landscape, he knew by what he saw of +her, that somewhere across the low runnels in the windy reeds she had +caught sight of the "sea birds' nest." + +He did not on that account change his position so that he might have a +glimpse of the dark hills of Arqua or the towers of Venice repeating +themselves in the lustrous, spacious sea. Sitting opposite the girl, he +saw in her following eyes the silver trails of water and the dim +procession down them of old loves, old wars, old splendours, much better +than the thin line of the landscape presented them to his weary sense. +He leaned back as far as the stiff seat allowed, watching the Old World +shine on her face, where the low light, striking obliquely on the water, +turned it white above black shoals of weed. For the first time since his +illness his mind slipped the leash of maimed desire, and as if it parted +for him there beyond the window of the railway carriage, struck into the +trail to the House. The walls of it rose up straight and shining, gilded +purely; the windows arching to summer blueness, let in with them the +smell of the wilding rose at the turn of the road and the evening +clamour of the birds in Bloombury wood. + +All this time Peter had been sitting in an Italian railway carriage, +knee to knee with a pirate bearded Austrian Jew who gave him the +greatest possible occasion for wishing the window opened, and when the +jar of the checked train drew him into consciousness again, he was at a +loss to know what had set him off so far until he caught sight of the +girl. She was buttoning on her jacket with fingers that trembled with +excitement as she constrained herself to the recapitulation of the two +suitcases, the hat box and three parcels which her companion in order to +have well in hand, had been alternately picking up and dropping ever +since they sighted the tower of San Georgio dark against the sea +streaked west. + +"Two and one is three and three is six and the _'Baedeker'_ and the +umbrellas," said the girl. "No, I don't have to look in the address +book. I have it by heart. Casa Frolli, the Zattera." Then the roar of +the train split into the sharp cries of the _facchinos_ that carried +them forward like an explosion into Venice as it rose statelily from the +rippling lustre. Around it wove the black riders with still, +communicating prows, so buoyant, so mysteriously alive and peering, like +some superior sea creatures risen magically from below the frayed +reflection of the station lights. Much as Peter felt that he owed to the +vivid presence of the girl, his new capacity to see and feel it so as it +burst upon them, he hadn't found the courage to address her. So it was +with a distinct sense of deprivation that he saw her with her companion +grasping the side of the gondola as if by that method to keep it afloat, +disappearing down the dim water lanes in the direction of the Zattera. + + + + +VII + + +It was the evidence of how far he had come on the road to recovery that +he was able, when he woke in his bed at the _Britania_, to allow full +play to the suggestion that he had experienced nothing more than the +natural reversion of age to the bright vividness of the past. "Though I +didn't expect," he admitted as he lay fronting in the wide old mirrors, +interminable reflections of a pillow dinted by his too-early whitened +head, "I really did not expect to have it begin at forty-two." Having +made this concession to his acceptance of himself as a man done with +youngness of any sort, he lay listening to the lip-lapping of the water +and the sounds that came up from the garden just below him, the clink of +cups and the women's easy laughter, and wondered what it could have been +about that girl to set him dreaming of all the women who had ever +interested him. + +It did not occur to him then, nor in the interval in which the tang of +his dream intervened between him and the full flavour of Venice, that he +had not thought once of Eunice Goodward, but only of those who had +touched his life without hurting it. He was so far indeed from thinking +of women again as beings from whom hurts were expected to come, that he +blamed himself for not having made an occasion out of their enforced +companionship, for speaking to the girl in the train if he should meet +her again. + +"I must be twice her age," he told himself determinedly, "and no doubt +she has been brought up to be respectful to her elders." + +He looked out very carefully, therefore, as he drifted about the canals, +for a large, widowed lady and a girl in a round hat who might have come +from Bloombury, but he did not find her that day nor the next, nor the +day after, and in the meantime Venice took him. + +The ineffable consolation of its beauty stole upon him like the breath +of its gardens, as it rose delicately from its sea station, murmurous +like a shell with the whisper of joyous adventure. It was, as he told +himself, a part of the sense of renewal which the girl had afforded him, +that he was able to accept its incomparable charm as the evidence of the +continuity of the world of youth and passion. His being able to see it +so was a sort of consolation for having, by the illusive quality of his +dreams, missed them both on his own account. + +It was not, however, until the morning of the fourth day that it drew +him as he had known in the beginning it inevitably must, to the core of +Venice, where in the wide piazza full of sleepy light, the great banners +dropped from their staves broad splashes of colour between the slaty +droves of doves. High over the door the gold horses of Lysippus +breasted the gold air made shadowless by the approaching _temporale_. He +was so far then from anything that had to do with his dream that it was +not for some moments after he had turned into St. Mark's, obsessed of +the sense of life unconquerable and pervading, that he began to take +notice of what he saw there in the dim wonder. It was first of all the +smell of stale incense and the mutter of the mass, and then as he bowed +instinctively to the elevated Host, the snare of the intricate mosaic +pavement; so by degrees appreciation cleared to the seductive polish of +the pillars, the rows of starred candles, and beyond that to the clear +gold of the walls, with all the pictures wrought flatly upon them ... as +it had been in the House! + +It was some time before he was able to draw up out of his boyhood +memories, so newly made a gift to him, the stray, elucidating fact of +his father's early visit to this spot and the possibility of his dream +having shaped itself about some unremembered account of it. He climbed +up to the galleries to give himself room to that wonder of memory which +had failed to preserve to him any image of how his father looked, and +yet had so furnished all his imagination. Which didn't make any less of +a wonder of his knowing as he stood there, Peter Weatheral, of the firm +of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., Real Estate Brokers, what it was all about. + +"It's a picture-book of the heart of man," he concluded, and no sooner +had he shaped this thought in his mind than he heard it uttered for him +on the opposite side of the pillar in a voice made soft by indulgent +tenderness, "Just a great picture-book." He leaned forward at the sound +far enough to have a glimpse of the Girl from Home, and smiled at her. + +"So you've found that out, have you?" It was not strange to find himself +addressing her friendlily nor to hear her answer him. + +"Just a picture-book," she repeated. "It explains so much. What the +saints were to them, and the Holy Personages. Monkish tales to prey upon +their superstition, we were taught. But you can see here what they +really were, the wonder tales of a people, the fairy wonder and the +blessed happenings come true as they do in dreams. Oh, it must have been +a good time when the saints were on the earth." + +"You believe in them, then?" + +"Here in San Marco, yes. But not when I am in Bloombury." + +"Oh!" cried Peter, "are you really from Bloombury? I knew you were from +up country but I hardly dared to hope--if you will permit me----" He +searched for his card which she accepted without looking at it. + +"You are Mr. Peter Weatheral, aren't you? Mrs. Merrithew thought she +recognized you yesterday." + +"Is that why she glared at me so? But anyway I am obliged to her, though +I haven't vestige of a recollection of her." + +"She didn't suppose you had. Her husband sold you some land once. But of +course everybody in Bloombury knows the Mr. Weatheral who went from +there to the city and made his fortune." + +"A sorry one," said Peter. "But if you are really from Bloombury why +don't I remember you? I go there with Ellen every summer, and _she_ +knows everybody." + +"Yes; she is so kind. Everybody says that. But I'm really from Harmony. +I taught the Bloombury school last year. I am Savilla Dassonville." + +"Oh, I knew your father then! Now that I come to think of it, it was he +who laid the foundation of my greatness," Peter smiled whimsically. "And +I knew your mother; she was a very lovely lady." + +He realized as the girl's eyes filled with tears, that this must have +been the child at whose birth, he had heard, the mother had died. "But I +suppose we mustn't talk about Bloombury in San Marco," he blamed his +inadvertence, "though that doesn't seem to want talking about either. +When you said that just now about its being a picture-book, I was +thinking how like it was to one of those places I used to go to in my +youth--you know where you go in your mind when you don't like the place +where you are. So like. I used to call it the House of the Shining +Walls." + +"I know," she nodded, "mine is a garden." + +"_Is?_" said Peter. "There's where you have the advantage of me." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, spreading her hands toward the pictured wall and +the springing domes, "isn't this the evidence that it _is_ always. Let +us look." + +The mass was over and the crowd departing; they moved from page to page +to the storied wall and identified in it the springs of a common +experience. + +"It's like nothing so much," said Miss Dassonville, "as the things I've +seen the children make at school, with bits of coloured stone and broken +china and rags of tinsel or whatever treasures, laid out in a pattern on +the ground." + +"Something like that," admitted Peter. + +"And that's why," said Miss Dassonville, "it doesn't make me feel at +_all_ religious. Just--just--maternal." + +It appeared by this time they had become well enough acquainted for +Peter to remark that she didn't seem to feel under any obligation to +experience the prescribed and traditional thrill. + +"Well, I'm divided in my mind. I don't want to overlook any of the +facts, and I want to give the poor imprisoned things a chance, if they +have anything to say that the guide books have missed, to get it off +their minds. I've always heard that celebrities grow tired of being +forever taken at their public valuation. I've got a _Baedeker_ and a +_Hare_ and _The Stones of Venice_ but I neglect them quite as much as I +read them, don't you?" + +They had come down into the nave and she went about stroking the fair +marbles delicately as though there sprang a conscious communication from +the touch. He felt his mind accommodating to the ease of hers with a +movement of release. They spent so much time in the church that when +they issued on the Piazza at last it was with amazement to discern that +the cloud mass which an hour before had piled ethereal tones of blueness +above Frauli, lit cavernously by soundless flashes, had dissolved in +rain. + +"And I haven't even an umbrella," explained Miss Dassonville with a real +dismay. + +"But I'll take you home in my gondola," it appeared to him +providentially provided for this contingency; "it is here at the +Piazzetta." + +"Oh, have you a gondola, and is it as much of a help as people say? Mrs. +Merrithew hates walking, but we didn't know if we should like it." + +They whisked around the corner under the arcade of the ducal palace, +and almost before they reached the _traghetto_ the shower was stayed and +the sun came out on the lucent water. Peter allowed Miss Dassonville to +give the direction lest she should think it a liberty of him to have +noticed and remembered it, but he added something to it that caused her, +as they swung out into the canal, to enter an expostulation. + +"But this is not the way to the Casa Frolli!" + +"It's one way; besides, it isn't raining any more, and if you are +thinking of taking a gondola you ought to make a trial trip or two, and +it's worth seeing how the palace looks from the canal." + +The rain began again in a little while, whitening the water; the depth +of it blackened to the cloud but the surface frothed like quicksilver +under the steady patter. The awning was up and they were safe against a +wetting, but Peter saw the girl shiver in the slight chill, and looking +at her more attentively he perceived that she might recently have been +ill. The likeness to her mother came out then in spite of her plainness, +the hands, the eyes, the pleasant way of smiling; it was that no doubt +which had set him on the trail of his old dreams. He tried, more for the +purpose of avoiding it than for any curiosity, to remember what he had +ever heard of David Dassonville that would account for his daughter's +teaching school when she evidently wasn't able for it, but he talked of +Mrs. Merrithew. + +"I must call on her," he said, "as soon as she will permit me. But tell +me, what business did I do with her husband?" + +"It was a mortgage--those poor McGuires, you know, were in such trouble, +and you----" + +"Yes, I was always nervous about mortgages. I was bitten by one once. +But dear me, I did not expect to have my youthful indiscretions coming +out like this. What else did she tell you?" + +The girl laughed delightedly. "Well, we did rather talk you over. She +said you were such a good son. Even when you were a young man on a +salary your mother had a best black silk and a second best." + +"Women are the queerest!" Peter commented at large. "It was always such +a comfort to Ellen that mother had a good silk to be buried in. Now +what is there talismanic about silk?" + +"It's evidence," she smiled, "and that's what women require most." + +"Well, I hope Mrs. Merrithew will accept it as evidence that I am a +suitable person to take you out in a gondola this evening. You haven't +seen Venice by night?" + +"Only as we came from the station. I'm sure she would like you to call, +and I hope she will like the gondola." + +"Oh, she will like it," Peter assured Miss Dassonville as he helped her +out in front of the Casa Frolli; "it will remind her of a rocking +chair." + +Mrs. Merrithew did like the gondola; she liked everything:--the spacious +dark, the scudding forms like frightened swans, the sound of singing on +the water, the soft bulks of foliage that overhung them in the narrow +_calle_, the soundless hatchet-faced prows that rounded on them from +behind dim palaces; and she liked the gondola so much that she asked +Peter "right out" what it cost him. + +"We would have taken one ourselves," she explained without waiting, +"only we didn't feel able to afford it. Fifty francs a week they wanted +to charge us, but maybe that was because we were Americans; they think +Americans can do everything over here. But I suppose you get yours cheap +at the hotel?" + +"Oh, much cheaper." + +"How much?" + +"Forty francs," hazarded Peter. "I'm sure I could get you one for that. +Unless ... if you don't mind...." He made what he hadn't done yet under +any circumstances, a case out of his broken health to explain how by not +getting up very early and by taking some prescribed exercise, Giuseppe +and the gondola had to lie unused half the mornings, which was very bad +for them.... "So," he persuaded them, "if you would be satisfied with it +for half a day, I would be very much obliged to you if you would take +it ... share and share alike." There was as much hesitation in Peter's +speech as if it had really been the favour he seemed to make it, though +in fact it grew out of his attempt to fashion his offer by what he saw +in the dusk of Miss Dassonville's face. "In the evenings," he finished, +"we could take it turn about. There are a great many evenings when I +don't go out at all." + +"Me, too," consented Mrs. Merrithew cheerfully. "I get tired easy, but +you and Savilla could go." The proposal appealed to her as neighbourly, +and it was quite in keeping with the character of a successful business +man, as he was projected on the understanding of Bloombury, to wish not +to keep paying for a thing of which he had no use. "I think we might as +well close with it at once, don't you, Savilla?" + +"If you are sure it's only forty francs----" Miss Dassonville was +doubtful. + +"Quite sure," Peter was very prompt. "You see they keep them so +constantly employed at the hotel"--which seemed satisfactorily to make +way for the arrangement that the gondola was to call for the two ladies +the next morning. + +"Giuseppe," Weatheral demanded as he stepped out of the gondola at the +hotel landing, "how much do I pay you?" + +"Sixty francs, _Signore_." + +Peter had no doubt the extra ten was divided between his own man and the +gondolier, but he was not thinking of that. + +"I have a very short memory," he said, "and I have told the _Signora_ +and the _Signorina_ forty francs. If they ask you, you are to tell them +forty francs; and listen, Beppe, every franc over that you tell them, I +shall deduct from your _pourboire_ when I leave, do you understand?" + +"_Si, Signore_." + + + + +VIII + + +A morning or two after the arrangement about the gondola Peter was +leaning over the bridge of San Moise watching the sun on the copper +vessels the women brought to the fountain, when his man came to him. +This Luigi he had picked up at Naples for the chief excellence of his +English and a certain seraphic bearing that led Peter to say to him that +he would cheerfully pay a much larger wage if he could only be certain +Luigi would not cheat him. + +"Oh _Signore!_ In Italy? _Impossible!_" + +"In that case," said Peter, "if you can't be honest with me, be as +honest as you can"--but he had to accept the lifted shoulders and the +Raphael smile as his only security. However, Luigi had made him +comfortable and as he approached him now it was without any misgiving. + +"I have just seen Giuseppe and the gondola," he announced. "They are at +the Palazza Rezzonico, and after that they go to San Georgio degli +Sclavoni. There are pictures there." + +"Oh!" said Peter. + +"It is a very little way to the San Georgio," volunteered Luigi as they +remained, master and man, looking down into the water in the leisurely +Venetian fashion. "Across the Piazza," said Luigi, "a couple of turns, a +bridge or two and there you are;" and after a long pause, "_The signore_ +is looking very well this morning. Exercise in the sea air is excellent +for the health." + +"Very," said Peter. "I shall go for a walk, I think. I shall not need +you, Luigi." + +Nevertheless Luigi did not lose sight of him until he was well on his +way to Saint George of the Sclavoni which announced itself by the +ramping fat dragon over the door. There was the young knight riding him +down as of old, and still no Princess. + +"She must be somewhere on the premises," said Peter to himself. "No +doubt she has preserved the traditions of her race by remaining +indoors." He had not, however, accustomed his eyes to the dusk of the +little room when he heard at the landing the scrape of the gondola and +the voices of the women disembarking. + +"If we'd known you wanted to come," explained Mrs. Merrithew heartily, +"we could have brought you in the boat." That was the way she oftenest +spoke of it, and other times it was the gon_do_la. + +Peter explained his old acquaintance with the charging saint and his +curiosity about the lady, but when the custodian had brought a silver +paper screen to gather the little light there was upon the mellow old +Carpaccio, he looked upon her with a vague dissatisfaction. + +"It's the same dragon and the same young man," he admitted. "I know him +by the hair and by the determined expression. But I'm not sure about the +young lady." + +"You are looking for a fairy-tale Princess," Miss Dassonville declared, +"but you have to remember that the knight didn't marry this one; he only +made a Christian of her." + +They came back to it again when they had looked at all the others and +speculated as to whether Carpaccio knew how funny he was when he painted +Saint Jerome among the brethren, and whether in the last picture he was +really in heaven as Ruskin reported. + +"So you think," said Peter, "she'd have been more satisfactory if the +painter had thought Saint George meant to marry her?" + +"More personal and convincing," the girl maintained. + +"There's one in the Belle Arti that's a lot better looking to my +notion," contributed Mrs. Merrithew. + +"Oh, but that Princess is running away," the girl protested. + +"It's what any well brought up young female would be expected to do +under the circumstances," declared the elder lady; "just look at them +fragments. It's enough to turn the strongest." + +"It does look a sort of 'After the Battle,'" Peter admitted. "But I +should like to see the other one," and he fell in very readily with Mrs. +Merrithew's suggestion that he should come in the gondola with them and +drop into the Academy on the way home. They found the Saint George with +very little trouble and sat down on one of the red velvet divans, +looking a long time at the fleeing lady. + +"And you think," said Peter, "she would not have run away?" + +"I think she shouldn't; when it's done for her." + +"But isn't that--the running away I mean--the evidence of her being +worth doing it for, of her fineness, of her superior delicacy?" + +"Well," Miss Dassonville was not disposed to take it lightly, "if a +woman has a right to a fineness that's bought at another's expense. They +can't all run away, you know, and I can't think it right for a woman to +evade the disagreeable things just because some man makes it possible." + +"I believe," laughed Peter, "if you had been the Princess you would have +killed the dragon yourself. You'd have taken a little bomb up your +sleeve and thrown it at him." He had to take that note to cover a +confused sense he had of the conversation being more pertinent than he +could at that moment remember a reason for its being. + +"Oh, I've been delivered to the dragons before now," she said. "It's +going on all the time." She moved a little away from the picture as if +to avoid the personal issue. + +"What beats me," commented Mrs. Merrithew, "is that there has to be a +young lady. You'd think a likely young man, if he met one of them +things, would just kill it on general principles, the same as a snake or +a spider." + +"Oh," said Peter, "it's chiefly because they are terrifying to young +ladies that we kill them at all. Yes, there has to be a young lady." He +was aware of an accession of dreariness in the certainty that in his +case there never could be a young lady. But Miss Dassonville as she +began to walk toward the entrance gave it another turn. + +"There _is_ always a young lady. The difficulty is that it must be a +particular one. No one takes any account of those who were eaten up +before the Princess appeared." + +"But you must grant," said Peter, with an odd sense of defending his own +position, "that when one got done with a fight like that, one would be +entitled to something particular." + +"Oh, if it came as a reward," she laughed. "But nowadays we've reversed +the process. One makes sure of the Princess first, lest when the dragon +is killed she should prove to have gone away with one of the +bystanders." + +Something that clicked in Peter's mind led him to look sharply from one +to the other of the two women. In Bloombury they had a way, he knew, of +not missing any point of their neighbours' affairs, but their faces +expressed no trace of an appreciation of anything in the subject being +applicable to his. The flick of memory passed and left him wondering why +it should be. + +He caught himself looking covertly at the girl as the gondola swung into +open water, to discover in her the springs of an experience such as lay +at the source of his own desolation. He perceived instead under her +slight appearance a certain warmth and colour like a light behind a +breathed-on window-pane. Illness, overwork, whatever dragon's breath had +dimmed her surfaces, she gave the impression of being inwardly +inexhaustibly alight and alive. Something in her leaped to the day, to +the steady pacing of the gondola on the smooth water tessellated by the +sun in blue and bronze and amber, to the arched and airy palaces that +rose above it. + +The awning was up; there was strong sun and pleasant wind: from hidden +gardens they smelled the oleanders. Peter felt the faint stir of +rehabilitation like the breath of passing presences. + +The mood augmented in him as he drifted late that evening on the lagoon +beyond the Guidecca, after the sun was gone down and the sea and the sky +reflected each to each, one roseate glow like a hollow shell of pearl. +Lit peaks of the Alps ranged in the upper heaven, and nearer the great +dome of the Saluti signalled whitely; below them, all the islands near +and far floated in twilit blueness on the flat lagoon. There was by +times, a long sea swell, and no sound but the tread of the oar behind +like a woman's silken motion. It drew with it films of recollection in +which his mood suspended like gossamer, a mood capable of going on +independently of his idea of himself as a man cut off from those +experiences, intimations of which pressed upon him everywhere by line +and form and colour. + +It had come back, the precious intimacy of beauty, with that fullness +sitting there in the gondola, he realized with the intake of the breath +to express it and the curious throbbing of the palms to grasp. He was +able to identify in his bodily response to all that charged the decaying +wonder of Venice with opulent personality, the source of his boyish +dreams. It was no woman, he told himself, who had gone off with the +bystanders while he had been engaged with the dragons of poverty and +obligation, but merely the appreciations of beauty. There had never been +any woman, there was never going to be. He began to plan how he should +explain his discovery and the bearing of it, to Miss Dassonville. It +would be a pity if she were making the same mistake about it. He leaned +back in the cushioned seat and watched the silver shine of the prow +delicately peering out its way among the shadowy islands; lay so still +and absorbed that he did not know which way they went nor what his +gondolier inquired of him, and presently realized without surprise that +the Princess was speaking to him. + +He felt her first, warm and friendlily, and then he heard her laughing. +He knew she was the Princess though she had no form or likeness. + +"But which are you?" he whispered to the laughter. + +"The right one." + +"The one who stayed or the one who ran away?" + +"Oh, if you don't know by this time! I have come to take you to the +House." + +"Are you the one who was always there?" + +"The Lovely Lady; there was never any other." + +"And shall I go there as I used?" asked Peter, "and be happy there?" + +"You are free to go; do you not feel it?" + +"Oh, here--I feel many things. I am just beginning to understand how I +came to lose the way to it." + +"Are you so sure?" + +"Quite." Peter's new-found certainty was strong in him. "I made the +mistake of thinking that the House was the House of Love, and it is +really the House of Beauty. I thought if I found the one to love, I +should live in it forever. But now that I have found the way back to it +I see that was a mistake." + +"How did you find it?" + +"Well, there is a girl here----" + +"Ah!" said the Princess. + +"She is young," Peter explained; "she looks at things the way I used to, +and that somehow brought me around to the starting-point again." + +"I see," said the Princess; the look she turned on him was full of a +strange, secret intelligence which as he returned it without knowing +what it was about, afforded Peter the greatest satisfaction. "Do you +know me now," she said at last, "which one I am?" + +"The right one, I am sure of that." + +"But which?" + +"I know now," Peter answered, "but I am certain that in the morning I +shall not be able to remember." + +It was true as Peter had said that the next morning he was in as much +doubt as ever about the princesses. He thought he would go and have a +look at them but forgot what he had come for once he had entered the +spacious quiet of the Academy. Warmed still from his contact of the +night before he found the pictures sentient and friendly. He found +trails in them that led he knew now where, and painted waters that +lapped the fore-shore of remembrance. + +After an hour in which he had seen the meaning of the pictures emerge +from the frontier of mysticism which he knew now for the reflection of +his own unstable state, and proceed toward him by way of his +intelligence, he heard the Princess say at his shoulder, at least he +thought it might have been the Princess for the first word or two, until +he turned and saw Miss Dassonville. She was staring at the dim old +canvases patched with saints, and her eyes were tender. + +"They are not really saints, you know, they are only a sort of +hieroglyphics that spell devotion. It isn't as though they had the +breath of life breathed into them and could come down from their +canvases as some of them do." + +"Oh," he protested, "did you think of that for yourself? It was the +Princess who said it to me." + +"The Princess of the Dragon?" + +"She came to me last night on the lagoon. It was wonderful,--the water +shine and the rosy glow. I was wishing I had insisted on your coming, +and all at once there was the Princess." + +"The one who stayed or the one who ran away?" + +"She declined to commit herself. I suppose it's one of the things a man +has to find out." He experienced a great lift of his spirit in the +girl's light acceptance of his whimsicality, it was the sort of thing +that Eunice Goodward used to be afraid to have any one hear him say lest +they should think it odd. It occurred to him as he turned and walked +beside Miss Dassonville that if he had come to Italy with Eunice there +might have been a great deal that she would not have liked to hear. He +could think things of that sort of her now with a queer lightness as of +ease after strain, and yet not think it a merit of Miss Dassonville's so +to ease him. They walked through the rooms full of the morning coolness, +and let the pictures say what they would to them. + +"It is strange to me," said the girl, "the reality of pictures; as if +they had reached a point under the artist's hand where they became +suddenly independent of him and went about saying a great deal more than +he meant and perhaps more than he could understand. I am sure they must +have a world of their own of picture rock and tree and stone, where they +go when they are not being looked at on their canvases." + +"Oh, haven't you found them, then?" + +"In dreams you mean? Not in Bloombury; they don't get so far from home. +One of these little islands I suspect, that lie so low and look so blue +and airy." + +"Will you go with me in the gondola to discover it?" + +"To-night?" + +"To-morrow." He was full of a plan to take her and Mrs. Merrithew to the +Lido that same evening to have dinner, and to come home after moonrise, +to discover Venice. She agreed to that, subject to Mrs. Merrithew's +consent, and they went out to find that lady at a bead shop where she +spent a great many hours in a state of delightful indecision. + +Mrs. Merrithew proving quite in the mood for it, they went to the Lido +with an extra gondolier--Miss Dassonville had stipulated for one who +could sing--and came home in time to see Venice all a-flower, with the +continual slither of the gondolas about it like some slim sort of moth. +They explored Saint George of the Sea Weed after that, took tea in the +public gardens and had a day at Torcello. On such occasions when Peter +and Mrs. Merrithew talked apart, the good lady who got on excellently +with the rich Mr. Weatheral grew more than communicative on the subject +of Savilla Dassonville. It was not that she talked of the girl so much +nor so freely, but that she left him with the sense of her own +exasperation at the whole performance. It was a thin little waif of a +story as it came from Mrs. Merrithew, needing to be taken in and +comforted before it would yield even to Peter, who as a rich man had +come to have a fair discernment in pitiable cases, the faint hope of a +rescue. There had been, to begin with, the death of the girl's mother at +her birth, followed by long years of neglect growing out of just that +likeness to the beloved wife which first excited her father's aversion +and afterward became the object of a jealous, insistent tenderness. + +After his wife's death, Dave Dassonville had lost his grip on his +property as he had on all the means of living. Later he was visited by a +stringency which Mrs. Merrithew was inclined to impute to a Providence, +which, however prompt it had been in the repayment of the slight to the +motherless infant, had somehow failed to protect her from its +consequences. Savilla's girlhood had been devoted to nursing her father +to his grave, to which he had gone down panting for release; after that +she had taught the village school. + +The winter before, tramping through the heavy snow, she had contracted a +bronchitis that had developed so alarmingly as to demand, by the +authority of the local doctor, "a trip somewhere"--"and nobody," said +Mrs. Merrithew, "but me to go with her." + +"Not," she added, "that I'm complainin'. Merrithew left me well off, and +there's no denyin' travellin's improvin' to the mind, though at my age +it's some wearin' to the body. I'm glad," she further confided to Peter +at Torcello, "she takes so to Venice. It's a lot more comfortable goin' +about in a gondola. At Rome, now, I nearly run my legs off." + +It was later when Savilla had been kept at home by a slight +indisposition from a shower that caught them unprepared, she expressed +her doubt of a winter in Italy being anything more than a longer stick +with which to beat a dog. + +"She will have spent all her money on it, and the snow will be just as +deep in Bloombury next year. There isn't anything _really_ the matter +with her, but she's just too fine for it. It's like seeing a clumsy +person handlin' one of them spun glass things, the way I have to sit +still and see Providence dealing with Savilla Dassonville. It may be +sort of sacrilegious to say so, but I declare it gives me the fidgets." + +It ought of course to have given Peter, seeing the interest he took in +her, a like uneasiness; but there was something in the unmitigated +hardness of her situation that afforded him the sort of easement he had, +inexplicably, in the plainness of her dress. His memory was not working +well enough yet for him to realize that it was relief from the strain of +the secondary feminity that had fluttered and allured in Eunice +Goodward. + +It was even more unclearly that he recognized that it had been a strain. +All this time he had been forgetting her--and how completely he had +forgotten her this new faculty for comparison was proof--he had still +been enslaved by her appearance. It was an appearance, that of Eunice's, +which he admired still in the young American women at the expensive +hotels where he had put up, and admitted as the natural, the inevitable +sign of an inward preciousness. But if he allowed to himself that he +would never have spoken to Savilla Dassonville that day at San Marco, if +she had been to the eye anything that Eunice Goodward was, he told +himself it was because he was not sure from behind which of those +charming ambuscades the arrows of desolation might be shot. If he gave +himself up now to the play of the girl's live fancy he did so in the +security of her plainness, out of which no disturbing surprises might +come. And she left him, in respect to her hard conditions, without even +the excuse for an attitude. Eunice had been poor in her world, and had +carried it with just that admixture of bright frankness and proud +reserve which, in her world, supported such a situation with most charm. +She made as much use of her difficulties as a Spanish dancer of her +shawl; but Savilla Dassonville was just poor, and that was the end of +it. That he got on with her so well by the simple process of talking out +whatever he was most interested in, occurred to Peter as her natural +limitation. It was not until they had been going out together for a week +or more, in such fashion as his mending health allowed, that he had +moments of realizing, in her swift appropriations of Venice, rich +possibilities of the personal relations with which he believed himself +forever done. Oddly it provoked in him the wish to protect, when the +practical situation had left him dry and bare. + +It was the evening of the _Serenata_. They were all there in the +gondola, Mrs. Merrithew and the girl, with Luigi squatting by Giuseppe, +not too far from the music float that sprang mysteriously from the black +water in arching boughs of red and gold and pearly Aladdin's fruit. +Behind them the lurking prows rustled and rocked drunkenly with the +swell to which they seemed at times attentively to lean. They could make +out heads crowded in the gondolas, and silver gleams of the prows as +they drifted past palaces lit intermittently by a red flare that wiped +out for the moment, the seastain and disfiguring patches of restoration. + +They had passed the palace of Camerleigh. The jewel-fruited arbour +folded and furled upon itself to pass the slow curve of the Rialto, and +suddenly, Peter's attention, drawn momentarily from the music, was +caught by that other bright company leaning from deserted balconies, +swarming like the summer drift between the pillars of dark loggias. They +were all there, knights and saints and ladies, out of print and paint +and marble, and presently he made out the Princess. She was leaning out +of one of the high, floriated windows, looking down on him with pleased, +secret understanding as she might have smiled from her palace walls on +the festival that brought the young knight George home with the +conquered dragon. It was the compressed and pregnant meaning of her gaze +that drew his own upward, and it was then when the Lovely Lady turned +and waved her hand at him that he felt the girl stir strangely beside +him. + +"How full the night is of the sense of presences," she said, "as if all +the loved marbles came to life and the adored had left their canvases. I +cannot think but it is so." + +"Oh, I am sure of it." + +She moved again with the vague restlessness of one stared upon by +innumerable eyes. "How one would like to speak," she said. "They seem so +near us." + +There was a warm tide of that nearness rising in Peter's blood. As the +music flowed out again in summer fullness, he put out his arm along the +back of the seat instinctively in answer to the girl's shy turning, the +natural movement of their common equity in the night's unrealized +wonder. + + + + +IX + + +"Peter! oh, Peter!" + +It was dark in the room when Peter awoke, but he knew it was morning by +the salt smell which he thought came into the room from the cove beyond +Bloombury pastures, until he roused in his bed and knew it for the smell +of the lagoons. He looked out to see the beginning of rose light on the +world and understood that he was called. He did not hear the voice again +but out there in the shimmering space the call awaited him. It might be +the Princess. + +He dressed and got down quietly into the shadowed city and waked a +frowsy gondolier asleep in his gondola. They spoke softly, both of them, +before the morning hush, as they swung out into the open water between +the towers of San Georgio fairily dim, and the pillars of the saints; +the city floated in a mist of blueness, the dome of the Saluti faintly +pearled. + +"_Dove, Signore?_" The gondolier feathered his oar. + +"_Un giro_"--Peter waved his arm seaward; the dip of the oar had a +stealthy sound in the deserted dawning. They passed the public gardens +and saw the sea widen and the morning quicken. Islands swam up out of +silver space, took form and colour, and there between the islands he saw +the girl. She had gotten another oar from Giuseppe and stood delighting +in the free motion; her sleeves were rolled up, her hat was off, her +hair blew out; alive and pliant she bent to the long sweep of it, and +her eyes were on the morning wonder. But when she caught sight of Peter +she looked only at him and he knew that her seeing him appearing thus on +the shining water was its chief and exquisite wonder, and that she did +not know what he saw. The gondolier steered straight for the girl +without advice; he had thought privately that the _Signore Americano_ +was a little mad, but he knew now with what manner of madness. + +They drew close and drifted alongside. Peter did not take his eyes from +the girl's eyes lest for her to look away ever so slightly from there +to his face would be to discover that he knew; and he did not know how +he stood with himself toward that knowledge. + +"Oh," she said breathlessly, "I wanted you--I called you--and you came! +You did not know where I was and yet you came?" + +"I heard you calling." + +She left her oar and sat down; Peter laid his hand on the edge of her +gondola and they drifted side by side. + +"May I come with you?" he asked presently. + +She made a little gesture, past all speech. Peter held up a hand full of +silver toward his gondolier and laid it on the seat as he stepped +lightly over. The man slid away from them without word or motion, and +together they faced the morning. It was one thin web of rose and gold +over lakes of burnished light; islands lifted in mirage, floated +miraculously upon the verge of space. Behind them the mainland banked +like a new created world over which waited the Hosts of the ranked Alps. +Winged boats from Murano slid through the flat lagoons. + +There was very little to say. Peter was aware chiefly, in what came from +her to him, of the wish to be very tender toward it, of having it in +hand to support her securely above the abyss into which he felt at the +least rude touch of his, she must immeasurably fall. At the best he +could but keep with her there at the point of her unconsciousness by +knowing the truth himself, as he felt amazingly that he did know it with +all the completeness of his stripped and beggared past. + +They drifted and saw the morning widen into the working-day. Market +boats piled with fruit, fish in shining heaps, wood boats of Istria, +went by with Madonna painted sails. Among the crowded goods the women +sat Madonna-wise and nursed their bambini, or cherishing the recurrent +hope, knitted interminably. If he wanted any evidence of what he +admitted between the girl and himself it flashed out for him in the +faces of the market wives, on whom labour and maternity sat not too +heavily to cloud the primal radiance. It was there in their soft _Buon +giorno_ in the way they did not, as the gondola drew beside them, cover +their fruitful breasts from her tender eyes, in the way most fall, they +grasped in the high mood of the _forestieri_ a sublimity untouched by +the niceties of bargaining. A man in the state of mind to which the +girl's visible shine confessed, could hardly be expected to stickle at +the price of the few figs and roses which served as an easy passage from +the wonder of their meeting to the ground of their accustomed gay +pretences. They made of Peter's purchases of fruit and flowers a market +garden of their own from which they had but just come on hopeful +errands. They made believe again as boats thickened like winged things +in a summer garden, to be bent upon discovery, and slid with pretended +caution under the great ships stationed by the Giudecca, from which they +heard sailors singing. They shot with exaggerated shivers past a slim +cruiser and suddenly Miss Dassonville clutched Peter by the arm. + +"Oh!" she cried: "Do you see it? That little dark, impudent-looking one, +and _the_ flag?" + +Peter saw; he was not quite, he reminded her, even in the intoxication +of a morning on the lagoons with her, quite in that state where he +couldn't see his country's flag when it was pointed out to him. They +came alongside with long strokes, and sniffed deliciously. + +"Ah--um--um----" said Miss Dassonville. "I know what that is. It's ham +and eggs. How long since you've had a real American breakfast?" + +"Not since I left the steamer," Peter confessed. "Now if I were to smell +hot cakes I shouldn't be able to stand it. I should go aboard her." + +Miss Dassonville saluted softly as they went under the bright banner. + +"'Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light,'" she began to sing and +immediately a large, blooming face rose through a mist of faded whisker +at the prow and they saw all the coast of Maine looking down on them +from the rail of the _Merrythought_. + +"United States, ahoy?" it said. + +They came close under and Miss Dassonville hailed in return; as soon as +the captain saw her face smiling up at him he beamed on it as the women +in the boats had done. + +"We smelled your breakfast," she explained, and the man laughed +delightedly. + +"I know what kind these Dagoes give ye. Come up and have some." + +Peter and the girl consulted with their eyes. + +"Are you going to have hot cakes?" she demanded. + +"I will if you come; darned if I don't." + +"We're coming, then." + +It was part of the task that Peter had set himself, to persevere for +Savilla Dassonville the film of unconsciousness that lay delicately like +the bloom of a rare fruit over all that was at that moment going on in +her, that made him hasten as soon as Captain Dunham had announced +himself, to introduce her particularly by name. To forestall in the +jolly sailor the natural interpretation of their appearance together at +this hour and occasion, he had to lend himself to the only other +reasonable surmise. If they were not, as he saw it on the tip of the +good captain's tongue to propose, newly married, they were in a hopeful +way to be. The consciousness of himself as accessory to so delightful an +arrangement passed from the captain to Peter with almost the +obviousness of a wink, as he surrendered himself to the charm of the +girl's ethereal excitement. + +He understood perfectly that his not being able to feel more of a drop +from the pregnant mystery of her call and his high response to it, to +the homely incident of breakfast, was due to Miss Dassonville's +obliviousness of its being one. It was for her, in fact, no drop at all +but rather as if they had pulled out for a moment into this little shoal +of neighbourly interest and comfortable food, the better to look back at +the perfect wonder of it, as from the deck of the _Merrythought_ toward +the fair front of the ducal palace and the blue domes of St. Mark's +behind the rearing lion. + +Although he had parted from her that morning with no hint of an +arrangement for a next meeting, it had become a part of the day's +performance for Peter to call for the two ladies in the afternoon, so +much so that his own sense of the unusualness of finally letting the +gondola go off without him, and his particular wish at this juncture not +to mark his intercourse with any unusualness, led him to send off with +it as many roses as Luigi could find at that season on the Piazza. +Afterward, as he recalled that he had never sent flowers to Miss +Dassonville before, and as he had that morning furnished her from the +market boats past her protesting limitation, it was perhaps a greater +emphasis to his desertion. + +However, it seemed that the roses and nothing but the roses might serve +as a bridge, delicate and dizzying, to support them from the realization +of their situation, into which he had no intention of letting Miss +Dassonville fall. He stayed in his room most of that afternoon, knowing +that he was shut up with a very great matter, not able to feel it so +because of the dryness of his heart, nor to think what was to be done +about it because of the lightness of his brain. + +It occurred to him at last that at St. Mark's there might be reflective +silences and perhaps resolution. He felt it warm from the stored-up +veneration of the world, and though he said to himself, as he climbed to +the galleries, that it was to give himself the more room to think, he +knew that it must have been in his mind all the time that the girl was +there, as it was natural she should have come to the place where they +had met. Even before he caught the outline of her dress against the +pillar he found himself crossing over to the organ loft the better to +observe her. Knowledge reached him incredibly across the empty space, as +to what, over and above the pictured saints, she faced there in the +vault, lit so faintly by the shining of its golden walls. The service of +the benediction going on in the church below furnished him with the +figure of what came to him from her as she laid up her thoughts on an +altar before that mysterious intimation of maternity which presages in +right women the movement of passion. He felt himself caught up in it +purely above all sense of his personal insufficiency. + +Back in his hotel after dinner he found he had still to let the roses +answer for him as he sat out on his balcony and realized oddly that +though he had no right to go to Miss Dassonville again until he had +thought out to its furthermost his relation to her, he could, +incontinently, think better in her company. + +It was not wholly then with surprise, since he felt himself so much in +need of some compelling touch, that he heard, after an hour of futile +battling, the Princess speak to him. + +She stood just beyond him in the shadow of the wistaria that went up all +the front of the balcony, and called him by his name. + +"Ah," said Peter "I know now who you are. You are the one who stayed." + +"How did you find out?" + +"Because the one who ran away was the one he would have married." + +He did not look at the Princess, but he saw the shadow of her that the +moon made, mixed with the lace of the wistaria leaves, tremble. + +"Well," said she, "and what are you going to do about it?" + +"You know then...?" + +"I was there on the water with you this morning.... It was I that showed +you the way, but you had no eyes for anything." + +It was the swift recurrent start of what he _had_ had eyes for that kept +Peter silent long enough for the Princess to have asked him again what +he was going to do about it, and then---- + +"The other night--with the music--she knew that I was there?" + +"Oh--she!" He was taken all at once with the completeness with which in +his intimate attitude to things, Savilla did know. "She knows +everything." + +"What was there so different about the other one?" + +"Everything ... she was beautiful ... she was air and fire ... she made +the earth rock under me." + +"And did you go to her calling?" + +"I would have risen out of death and dust at her slightest word ... I +would have followed where her feet went over all the world." + +"And why did you never?" + +"I suppose," said Peter, "it was because she never called." + +"This one," suggested the Princess, "would be prettier if she were not +so thin; and she wouldn't have to wear shirtwaists if you married her. +She makes them herself, you know. Why did the other one run away?" + +"That's just the difficulty. I can't remember." He wished sincerely +within himself that he might; it seemed it would have served him somehow +with Miss Dassonville. "I've been very ill," he apologized. + +"Anyway, you'd be getting what everybody wants." + +"And that is----" + +"A woman of your own ... understanding and care ... and children. I was +in the church with you ... you saw----" + +"But I don't want to talk about it." + +"What do you want then?" + +"To be the prince in a fairy tale, I suppose," Peter sighed. + +"Oh, you're all of that to _her_. The half god--the unmatched wonder. +When she watched your coming across the water this morning--_I_ know the +look that should go to a slayer of dragons. It seems to me," said the +Princess severely, "it is you who are running away." + +She was wise enough to leave him with that view of it though it was not +by any means leaving him more comfortable. He tried for relief to +figure himself as by the Princess' suggestion, he must seem to Savilla +Dassonville. But if he was really such to her why could he not then play +the Deliverer in fact, rescue her from untended illness, from meagreness +and waste? Why not, in short, marry her, except for a reason--oh, there +was reason enough if he could only remember it! + +He heard Luigi moving softly in the room behind, and presently when the +door clicked he rose and went in and taking the lamp held it high over +him, turning with it fronting the huge mirror in its gilded frame. If +there were a good reason why he couldn't marry Savilla Dassonville, he +ought to have found it in his own lean frame, the face more drawn than +was justified by his years, lined about the eyes, the hand that held the +accusing lamp broadened by labours that no scrupulosity of care denied. +Weatheral, of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., unaccomplished, unaccustomed. He +put down the lamp heavily, leaning forward in his chair as he covered +his face with his hands and groaned in them, fully remembering. + + + + +X + + +He had been sitting just so in his library with the lamp behind him and +the hollow flare of the coals making an excellent starting place for the +House which was now so near him that the mere exhibition in shop windows +of the stuffs with which it was being modernly renewed, was enough to +set him off for it. It was so near now, that since the announcement of +their engagement in September, he had moved through all its obligations +benumbed by the white, blinding flash thrown backward from its +consummating moment, the moment of her cry to him, of their welding at +the core of light and harmony, bounded inevitably by the approaching +date of marriage. It had been, he recalled on some one of those +occasions of social approval by which it appeared engagements in the +Best Society proceeded, that he had sat thus, waiting until the clock +ticked on the moment when he might properly join her, sat so full of the +sense of her that for the instant he accepted her unannounced appearance +at the darkened doorway as the mere extension of his white-heated +fancy. The next moment as she charged into the circle of the lamp he saw +that the umbra of some strange electrical excitement hung about her. It +fairly crackled between them as he rose hurriedly to his feet. + +"You have come, Eunice! You have come----" + +But he saw well enough what she had come for. She laid the case on the +table, but as she tugged impatiently at her glove, the fringe of her +wrap caught the clasp of it and scattered the jewels on the cloth. She +tried then to put the ring beside them, but her hand shook so that it +fell and rolled upon the floor behind them. Peter picked it up quietly, +but he did not offer it to her hand again. + +"I have come," said Eunice, "to say what in my mother's house I was +afraid of being interrupted in saying; what you must see, what my mother +won't see." + +"I see you are greatly excited about something!" + +"I'm not, I'm not.... That is ... I am, but not in the way you think," +she was sharp with insistence; "that is what you and mother always say, +that I'm nervous or excited, and all the time you don't _see_." + +"What is it I don't see, Eunice?" + +"That I can't stand it, that I can't go on with it, that it is dreadful +to me,--_dreadful!_" + +"What is dreadful?" + +"Everything, being engaged--being married and giving up...." It was +fairly racked out of her by some inward torture to which he had not the +key. + +"Of course, Eunice, if you don't wish to be married so soon----" Peter +was all at sea. He brought a chair for her, and perceiving that he would +go on standing as long as she did, she sat upon the edge of it but kept +both the arms as a measure of defence. The slight act of doing something +for her restored him for the moment to reality; he bent over her. "I've +never wanted to hurry you, dearest---- It shall be when you say." She +put up her hands suddenly with a shivering movement. + +"Oh, never, never at all; never to you!" + +Peter could feel that working its track of desolation inward, but the +first instinctive movement of his surface was to close over the wound. +He took it as he knew he could only take it: as the explosive crisis of +the virginal resistance which he remembered he had heard came to girls +when marriage loomed upon them. He took a turn down the room to steady +himself, praying dumbly for the right word. + +"It isn't as if I didn't respect you"--she was eager in explanation, +hurried and stumbling--"as if I didn't know how good you are ... it is +only, because we are so different." + +"How different, Eunice?" + +"Oh ... older, I suppose." She grew quieter; it appeared on the whole +they were getting on. "I care for so many things, you know--dancing--and +bridge--_young_ things--and you are always reading and reading. Oh! I +couldn't stand it." + +So it was out now. She was jealous of his books, a little. Well, he had +been self-absorbed. It occurred to him dimly that the thing to have done +if he had known a little more about women, had practised with them, was +to have provoked her at this point to the tears which should have sealed +the renewal of his claim to her. What he said was, very quietly: + +"Of course I never meant, Eunice, that you shouldn't have everything you +want." + +"Oh," she seemed to have found a suffocating quality in his gentleness, +against which she struck out with drowning gestures, "if you could only +understand what it would mean to me never to have anybody I liked to +talk to about things,--anybody I liked to be with all the time!" She was +choked and aghast at the enormity of it. + + +"But I thought...." Peter was not able to go on with that. "Isn't there +anybody you like to be with, Eunice?" + +"Yes," said Eunice. "Burton Henderson." + +Mutinous and bright she looked at him out of the chair with a hand on +either arm of it poised for flight or defence. After an interval Peter +heard his own voice out of a fog rising to the conventional utterance. + +"Of course, if you have learned to love him----" + +"I've loved him all the time." She was so bent on making this clear to +him that she was careless what went down before her. "From the very +beginning," she said, "but he had so little money, and mother ... I +promised you, I know, but it's not as if I ever said I loved you." + +She should have spared him that! He had not put out a hand to hold her +that he should be so pierced through with needless cruelty. But she was +bent on clearing her skirts of him. + +"Do you think," she expostulated to his stricken silence, "that if I'd +cared in the least I'd have made it so easy for you? Can't you see that +it was all arranged, that we _jumped_ at you?" All the time she sat +opposite him, thrusting swift and hard, there was no diminution of her +appealing beauty, the flaming rose of her cheeks and the soft, dark +flare of her hair. As if she felt how it belied at every turn the +quality of her unyielding intention, her voice railed against him +feverishly. "I suppose you think I'm mercenary, and I thought I was, +too. You don't know how people like us _need_ money sometimes. All the +things we like _cost_ so--all the real things. And poor mamma, she +needed things; she'd never had them, and I thought that I could stand +being married to you if I could get them that way.... Maybe I could, +you know, if you'd been different, more like us I mean. But there was +such a lot you didn't understand ... things you hadn't even heard about. +I found that out as soon as we were engaged. There wasn't a thing +between us; not a _thing_." + +It poured scalding hot on Peter's sensitive surfaces: made sensitive by +the way in which even in this hour her beauty moved him. He felt tears +starting in his heart and prayed they might not come to his face. "So +you see as we hadn't anything in common it would be better for us not to +go on with it even"--she broke a little at this--"even if there hadn't +been anybody else. You see that, don't you?" She dared him to deny it +rather than begged the concession of him as she gathered herself for +departure. + +"I see that." + +"You never really belonged to our set, you know----" She rose now and he +rose blindly with her; he hoped that she was done, but there was +something still. "It hasn't been easy to go through with it.... Mother +isn't going to make it any easier. It's natural for her to want me to +have everything that money would mean, and I thought that if you would +just keep away from her ... you owe something to Burton and me for what +we've been through, I think ... just leave it to me to manage in my own +way...." + +"I shall never trouble you, Eunice." + +He came close to her then to open the door, seeing that she was to leave +him, and he saw too that she had suffered, was at the very ebb and stony +bottom of emotion as she hung for the moment in the doorway searching +for some winged shaft of separation that should cut her off from the +remotest implication of the situation. She found at last the barbedest. +All the succeeding time after he closed the door on her was marked for +Peter, not by the ticked moments but by successive waves of anguish as +that poisoned arrow worked its way to his secret places. + +"It isn't as if I had ever loved you; I owe it to Mr. Henderson to +remind you that I never said I did.... You know I never liked to have +you kiss me." + +He had in the months that succeeded to that last sight of Eunice +Goodward, moments of unbearably wanting to go to her to try for a little +to ease his torment in a more tender recognition of it--days when he +would have taken from her, gratefully even if she had fooled him and he +had seen her do it, whatever would have saved him from the certainty +that never even in those first exquisite moments had she been his. The +sharp edge of her young sufficiency had lopped off the right limb of his +manhood. Never, even in his dreams, if life had allowed him to dream +again, should he be able to see himself in any other guise than the +meagre, austere front which his obligation to his mother and Ellen had +obliged him to present to destiny. She had beggared him of all those +aptitudes for passionate relations, by the faith in which he had kept +himself inwardly alive. The capacity for loving died in him with the +knowledge of not being able to be loved. + +Out of the anæsthesia of exhaustion from which Italy had revived him, it +rolled back upon him that by just the walled imperviousness that shut +Eunice Goodward from the appreciation of his passion, he was prevented +now from Savilla Dassonville. + + + + +XI + + +It was odd, then, having come to this conclusion in the middle of the +night, that when he joined the ladies in the morning he should have +experienced a sinking pang in not being able any longer to be sure what +Miss Dassonville thought of him. There was in her manner, as she thanked +him for the flowers, nothing to ruffle the surface of the bright, +impersonal companionship which she had afforded him for weeks past. + +The occasion which brought them together was an agreement entered into +some days earlier, to go and look at palaces, and as they turned past +the Saluti to the Grand Canal, he found himself wondering if there had +not been a touch of fatuity in his reading of the incident of the +morning before. He had gone so far in the night as to think even of +leaving Venice, and saw himself now forlornly wishing for some renewal +of yesterday's mood to excuse him from the caddishness that such a +flight implied. + +It came out a little later, perhaps, when after traversing many high and +resounding marble halls, with a great many rooms opening into one +another in a way that suggested rather the avoidance of privacy than its +security, they found themselves in one of those gardens of shut delight +of which the exteriors of Venetian houses give so little intimation. + +As she went about from bough to bough of the neglected roses, turned all +inward as if they took their florescence from that still lighted human +passion which had found its release and centre there, her face glowed +for the moment with the colour of her quick sympathies. She turned it on +him with an unconscious, tender confidence, which not to meet seemed to +Peter, in that gentle enclosure full of warmth and fragrance, to assume +the proportions of a betrayal. + +He did meet it there as she came back to him for the last look from the +marble balustrade by which they had descended, covering her hand, there +resting, lingeringly with his own. He was awakened only to the +implication of this movement by the discovery that she had deeply and +exquisitely blushed. + +It was a further singularity in view of the conviction with which Peter +had come through the night, that the mood of protectingness which the +girl provoked in him should have multiplied itself in pointing out to +him how many ways, if he had not made up his mind not to marry her at +all, such a marriage could be made to serve its primal uses. She had +turned up her cuff to trail her hand overside as they slid through the +lucent water, and the pretty feminine curve of it had brought to mind +what the Princess had told him of the shirt-waists she made herself. He +decided that she made them very well. But she was too thin for their +severity--and if he married her he would have insisted on her wearing +them now and then as a tender way to prevent her suspecting that it was +on their account he had thought of not marrying her. The revealed +whiteness of her wrist, the intimacy of her relaxed posture, for though +her mind had played into his as freely as a child in a meadow, she had +been always, as regards her person, a little prim with him, had lent to +their errand of house visiting a personal note in which it was absurdly +apt for them to have run across Captain Dunham of the _Merrythought_ at +the door of the Consulate. Mr. Weatheral had some papers which Lessing +had sent him to acknowledge there, and it was a piece of the morning's +performance, when he had come back from that business, to find that the +meeting had taken on--from some mutual discovery of the captain's and +Mrs. Merrithew's of a cousin's wife's sister who had married one of the +Applegates who was a Dunham on the mother's side--quite the aspect of a +family party. It came in the end to the four of them going off at +Peter's invitation to have lunch together in a café overhanging the +_calle_. He told himself afterward that he would not have done it if he +had recalled in time the friendly seaman's romantic appreciation of the +situation between himself and Miss Dassonville. He saw himself so +intrigued by it that, by the time lunch was over, he felt himself in a +position which to his own sensitiveness, demanded that he must +immediately leave Venice or propose to Miss Dassonville. To see the way +he was going and to go on in it, had for him the fascination of the +abyss. He caught himself in the act even of trying to fix Miss +Dassonville's eye to include her by complicity in the beguilement of the +captain, a business which she seemed to have undertaken on her own +account on quite other grounds. He perceived with a kind of pride for +her that she had the ways of elderly sea-going gentlemen by heart. It +was something even if she had failed to charm Peter, that she shouldn't +be found quite wanting in it by other men. + +When they had put him back aboard of the _Merrythought_ they had come to +such a pitch among them all, that as the captain leaned above the rail +to launch an invitation, he addressed it to Miss Dassonville, as, if not +quite the giver of the feast, the mistress of the situation. + +"When are you coming to lunch with me?" demanded the captain. + +"Never!" declared Miss Dassonville. "It would be quite out of the +question to have hot cakes for luncheon, and I absolutely refuse to +come for anything less." + +"There's something quite as good," asserted the captain, "that I'll bet +you haven't had in as long." + +"Better than hot cakes?" Miss Dassonville was skeptical. + +"Pie," said the captain. + +"Oh, _Pie!_" in mock ecstasy. "Well, I'd come for pie," and with that +they parted. + +Peter had plenty of time for considering where he found himself that +afternoon, for the ladies were bent on a shopping expedition on which +they had rather pointedly given him to understand he was not expected to +attend. He had tried that once, and had hit upon the excellent device, +in face of the outrageous prices proposed by the dealers, of having them +settle upon what they would like and sending Luigi back to bargain for +it. All of which would have gone very well if Mrs. Merrithew, in the +delight of his amazing success, had not gone back to the shop the next +day to duplicate his purchases. Peter had never heard what occurred on +that occasion, but he had noticed that they never talked in his +presence of buying anything again. Bloombury people, he should have +remembered, had perfectly definite notions about having things done for +them. + +He walked, therefore, on this afternoon in the Public Gardens and tried +to reconstruct in their original force the reasons for his not marrying +Savilla Dassonville. They had come upon him overwhelmingly in the +recrudescence of memory, reasons rooted very simply in his man's hunger +for the lift, the dizzying eminence of desire. He liked the girl well +enough but he did not want her as he had wanted Eunice Goodward, as he +wanted expansively at this moment to want something, somebody--who was +not Eunice--he was perfectly clear on this point--but should be in a +measure all she stood for to him. He had renewed in the night, though in +so short a time, not less acutely, all the wounded misery of what Eunice +had forced upon him. He was there between the dark and dawn, and here +again in the cool of the garden, to taste the full bitterness of the +conviction that he was not good enough to be loved. He was not to be +helped from that by the thought, which came hurrying on the heels of +the other, that Savilla Dassonville loved him. He had a moment of almost +hating her as she seemed to plead with him, by no motion of her own he +was obliged to confess for those raptures, leaping fires, winged rushes, +which should have been his portion of their situation. + +He hated her for the certainty that if he went away now quietly without +saying anything, it would be to visit on her undeservedly all that had +come to him from Eunice. For she would know; she would not, as he had +been, be blind to the point of requiring the spoken word. If he left her +now it would be to the unavoidable knowledge that, as the Princess had +said of him, he would be running away. He would be running from the +evidences of a moneyless, self-abnegating youth, from the plain surfaces +of efficiency and womanliness, not hedged about and enfolded, but pushed +to the extremity of its use. He had, however, when he had taken that in +from every side, the grace to be ashamed of it. + +He was ashamed, too, of finding himself at their next meeting involved +in a wordless appeal to be helped from his state to some larger grounds. +If the girl had but appealed to him he could have done with a fine +generosity what he felt was beyond him to invite. He could have married +Savilla Dassonville to be kind to her; what he didn't enjoy was putting +it on a basis of her being kind to him. + +Miss Dassonville, however, afforded him no help beyond the negative one +of not talking too much and taking perhaps a shade less interest in +Venice. They had two quiet days together in which it was evident, +whatever Peter settled with himself as to his relation to the girl, it +had taken on for Mrs. Merrithew the pointedness known in Bloombury as +"attentions." She paid in to the possibilities of the situation the +tribute of her absence for long sessions in which, so far as Peter could +discover, the situation rather fell to the ground. It began to appear +that he had missed as he was doomed with women, the crucial instant, and +was to come out of this as of other encounters, empty. And then quite +suddenly the girl put out a hand to him. + +It was along about the end of the afternoon they had come out of the +church of Saint George the Greater, which as being most accessible had +been left to the latter end of their explorations. Mrs. Merrithew had +just sent Giuseppe back for a shawl which she had dropped in the +cloister. They sat rocking in the gondola looking toward the fairy +arcade of the ducal palace and the pillars of the saints, and suddenly +Miss Dassonville spoke to excuse her quietness. + +"I must look all I can," she said; "we are leaving the day after +to-morrow." + +If she had retired behind Mrs. Merrithew's comfortable breadth in order +to deliver her shot the more effectively, she missed seeing how plumply +it landed in the midst of Peter's defences and scattered them. + +"Leaving Venice?" he said. "Leaving me?" It took a moment for that fact, +dropping the depth of his indecision, to show him where he stood. "But I +thought you understood," he protested, "that I wanted you to stay ... to +stay with me...." He leaned across Mrs. Merrithew's broad lap in a great +fear of not being sufficiently plain. "Make her understand," he said, +"that I want her to stay always." + +"I guess," said Mrs. Merrithew, a dry smile twinkling in the placidity +of her countenance, "you'd better take me right home first, and then you +can explain to her yourself." + + + + +XII + + +"And you are sure," asked Peter, "that you are not going to mind my +being so much older?" + +"Oh, I'm going to mind it: There will be times when I shall be afraid of +not living up to it. But the most part of my minding will be, since you +are so much better acquainted with life than I am, that in any matter in +which we shouldn't agree I shall be so much the more sure of your being +right. It's going to be a great help to us, having something like that +to go by." + +"Oh," said Peter, "you put it very prettily, my dear." + +He was aware as soon as he had said it, that she would have a way always +of putting things prettily, and that not for the sake of any +prettiness, but because it was so intrinsically she saw them. It would +make everything much simpler that she was always sufficiently to be +believed. + +"It isn't, you know," she went on, "as if I should have continually to +prop up my confidence with my affection as I might with a man of less +experience. Oh!" she threw out her arms with a beautiful upward motion, +"you give me so much room, Peter." + +"Well, more than I would give you at this moment if we were not in a +gondola on a public highway!" + +He amazed himself at the felicity with which during the three days of +their engagement he had been able to take that note with her, still more +at the entertainment of her shy response. It gave him a new and enlarged +perception of himself as a man acquainted with passion. All that had +been withheld from him, by the mere experience of missing, he was able +to bestow with largesse. The witchery and charm that had been done on +him, he worked--if he were but to put his arm about her now, to draw +her so that her head rested on his shoulder, with a certain pressure, +he could feel all her being flower delicately to that beguilement. He +had promised himself, when he had her promise, that she should never +miss anything, and he had a certain male satisfaction in being able to +make good. What he did now, in deference to their being as they were in +the full light of day and the plying traffic, was to say: + +"Then if I were to put it to you in the light of my superior experience, +that I considered it best for us to be married right away, I shouldn't +expect you to contradict me." + +"Oh, Peter!" + +"We can't keep Mrs. Merrithew on forever, you know," he suggested, "and +we've such a lot to do--there's Greece and Egypt and the Holy Land----" + +"But can we--be married in Venice, I mean?" + +"That," said Peter, "is what I'm waiting your permission to find out." + +He spent the greater part of the afternoon at that business without, +however, getting satisfaction. "Marriage in Italy," the consul told +him, "is a sort of world-without-end affair. Even if you cable for the +necessary papers it will be a matter of a month or six weeks before the +ceremony could be accomplished. You'll do better to go to Switzerland +with the young lady." + +For the present he went back to her with a list of the required +certificates, and another item which he brought out later as a +corrective for the disappointment for the first. + +"My birth and baptismal certificates? I haven't any," said Miss +Dassonville, "and I don't believe you have either; and I don't want to +go to Switzerland." + +"No," said Peter, "even that takes three weeks." + +"Why can't he marry us himself--the consul, I mean? I thought wherever +the flag went up was territory of the United States." + +"If you will come along with me in the morning we can ask him," Peter +suggested, and on the way there he loosed for her benefit the second +item of his yesterday's discovery. They slid past the façade of a +certain palace and she kissed the tip of her finger to it lightly. "It's +as if we had a secret between us," she explained, "the secret of the +garden. Besides, I shall always love it because it was there I first +suspected that you--cared. When did you begin to care, Peter?" + +"Since before I can remember. Would you like to live in it?" + +"In this palace? Here in Venice?" + +"It's for rent," he told her; "the consul has it." + +"But could we afford it?" + +"Well," said Peter, "if you like it so much, at the rate things are +here, we can pull it up by the roots and take it back to Bloombury." + +They lost themselves in absurd speculations as to the probable effect on +the villagers of that, and so failed to take note as their gondola nosed +into the green shadow under the consulate, of the _Merrythought's_ +launch athwart the landing, until the captain himself hailed them. + +"This port," he declared, "is under embargo. I have been waiting here +since half tide and there's nothing doing. Somebody's in there chewing +red tape, but I don't calculate to let anybody else have a turn at it +until I get my bit wound up an' tied in a knot. Now don't tell me you've +got business in there?" + +"We want to find out something." + +"Well, when ye find it, it won't be what ye want," asserted the captain +gloomily. "It never is in these Dago countries." He motioned his own +boat aside from the landing. "If ye want to go inside and set on a +chair," he suggested, "I'll not hender ye. I like the water best myself. +I hope your business will stand waiting." + +"To everybody but ourselves," said Peter. "You see," he caught the +permission lightly from Miss Dassonville's eyes, "we want to get +married." + +"Ho!" said the captain, chirking up. "I could 'a' told ye that the fust +time I laid eyes on ye. But I'll tell ye this: ye can't do nothing in a +hurry in this country. The only place where a man can do things up as +soon as he thinks of 'em is on the blue water. We don't have red tape on +shipboard, I can tell you. The skipper's the law and the government." + +"Could you marry people?" + +"Well, I ain't to say in the habit of it, but it's the law that I +could." + +"Then if we get tangled up with the consul," said Peter, "we'll have to +fall back on you," and they took it as an excellent piece of fooling +which they were later to come back to as a matter of serious resort. + +"Of course," said the consul, "I could marry you and it would be legal +if you chose to count it so at home, but if you are thinking of taking a +house here and of making an extended residence I shouldn't advise it. As +to Captain Dunham's suggestion, it's not wholly a bad one. Not being in +Italy, the Italians can't take exception to it, and if it is properly +witnessed and recorded at home it ought to stand." + +They couldn't of course take it in all at once that they were simply to +sail out there into the ethereal blueness and to come back from it with +the right to live together. However, it made for a great unanimity of +opinion as they talked it over on the way home, that, since so much was +lacking from Peter's marriage that he had dreamed went to it, and so +much more had come into Savilla's than she had dared to imagine, it +mattered very little what else was added or left out. + +"I suppose," suggested Miss Dassonville, "Mrs. Merrithew will think it +dreadful." But as it turned out Mrs. Merrithew thought very well of it. + +"On a United States boat with a United States minister--there is one +here I've found out--it seems a lot safer than to trust to these foreign +ways. If you was to be married in Italian I should never be certain you +wouldn't wake up some morning and find yourself not married. And then +how should I feel!" As to the palace plan, she threw herself into it +with heavy alacrity. "I s'pose I've got to see you through," she said, +"and it will give me something to think about. I don't suppose you have +any intention that way, but an engaged couple isn't very good company." + +It transpired that the _Merrythought_ would put out to the high seas on +the twenty-second, and it was in the flutter of their practical +adjustments to meet this date that Peter found the ten days of his +engagement move so swiftly; to engage servants, to interview +tradespeople, to prune the neglected garden--it was Savilla's notion +that they should do this themselves--all the stir of domestic life made +so many points of advantage to support him above that dryness of despair +from which he had moments of feeling himself all too hardly rescued. He +had come up out of it sufficiently by the help that Italy afforded, to +glimpse once more the country of his dreams, only by this act of his +marriage to turn his back on it forever. Savilla Dassonville was a dear +little thing; if it came to that, a revered and valued thing, but she +was not, he had never pretended it, the Lovely Lady, and the door that +shut them in as man and wife was to shut _her_ forever out of his life. +And yet though this was his accepted, his official position, it was +remarkable even to himself how much less frequently as the preparations +for his marriage went forward, he found himself obliged to fall back +upon it; how much more he projected himself into his future as the +adored and protecting male. He recalled in this connection that the +Princess had said to him that he should visit his House no more, and it +was part of the proof of the notion he entertained toward himself as a +man done with the imaginative life, that he accepted it with no more +fuss about it. He had in fact his mind's eye on a piece of ground which +Lessing could buy for him, on the river, an hour from the city, where he +could manage for Savilla at least, a generous substitute for dreams, and +a situation for himself for which he began to discover more appetite +than he would have believed. It was likely, he thought, that he would +himself take a turn at planning the garden. + +It was very early in the morning when the wedding party which had been +reinforced by the consul, the mistress of Casa Frolli, and the minister, +who had turned out to be exactly of Mrs. Merrithew's persuasion, went +aboard the _Merrythought_, blooming out amazingly in bunting and roses +for the occasion. The morning blueness had drained out from the city and +stained the waters eastward as they put out between the red and yellow +sails of the fishing fleet. They saw the cypress-towered islands of +romance melt in the morning haze. The steam launch which was to take +them ashore again ploughed alongside, and there was a pleasant sort of +home smell from the cook's quarters. + +Peter sat forward with the bride's hand tucked under his arm and +presently he heard her laughing softly, delightedly. + +"Peter, do you know what that is, that good smell I mean?" + +"What do you think it is?" + +"It's pie baking. Truly, don't you think I'm enough of a housewife to +know that?" + +"I know you're everything you ought to be." + +"It is pie, there's no doubt about it, but we must pretend to be awfully +surprised when the captain brings it out. But Peter, don't you like it?" + +"Pie, my dear?" + +"No, but like having everything so homey and--and--so genuine at our +wedding?" + +"I hope," said Peter, "it's genuine pie, but I see what you mean, my +dear." + +"It's an omen, almost, that we'll always have the good, comfortable, +common things to fall back upon, if our marriage should not prove quite +all we've dreamed it. It's been so perfect up to now; it must drop down +out of the clouds some time." + +It seemed rather to have taken a sweep upward when, with sails swelling +over them and the beat of the sea under the bows, they stood up to be +married, and to exhibit capacities of sustaining itself at a level from +which not the very soggy and sallow complexioned pie with the cook +grinning behind it, could dislodge the two most concerned in it. It wore +through the day to a contained and quiet gayety at a dinner which took +place in the _ristoranta_ over the water where they had once lunched +with the captain, and lasted until Peter had brought his wife home again +to the refurnished palace. It had gone, as he told himself, remarkably +well, with every intimation, as he had time to tell himself in his last +hours in the garden with his cigar, of going much better, of becoming as +the place gave him occasion to indulge the figure, an enclosed and +fragrant garden, in which if no flaming angel of desire kept the gate +for him, he had at least the promise of refreshment. + +That old passion for Eunice Goodward, all his feelings for all the women +he had known, served to show him what Savilla had meant when she said he +"gave her so much room"--the renewed sense of the spaciousness of life. + +It would be there for his wife at the completest, and if she had, as it +seemed, turned him out of the Wonderful House in order to live in it +herself, he at least kept the gates. And was not this the proper +business for a man? He recalled what the Princess had said to him so +long ago when he had first begun to think of himself as a bachelor. "It +takes a lot of dreaming to bring one like me to pass." Well, he had +dreamed and he had slain some dragons. Later there would be children +playing in the House, daughters perhaps ... Lovely Ladies. The world +would be a better place for them to walk about in because of all that he +had lost and been. + +When he went into the garden he had half expected that the Princess +would speak to him; the place was full of hints of her, faint and +persuasive as the scent of the flowers in the dark, little riffles of +his pulse, flushed surfaces, the tingling of his palms which announced +her, but she did not speak. He said to himself that he was now a well +man and had seen the last of her. Never before had he felt so very +well. + +He saw the light moving in the palace behind him as his wife moved to +complete some of her arrangements; he heard her then pacing along the +marble floor of the great hall which went quite through the middle of +it--she must be going to her room, and in a little while he would go in +to her--he heard the light tapping of her feet and then he saw her come, +the lit lamp in her hand. + +She had on still the white dress in which she had been married, and over +it she had thrown the silver-woven scarf which had been one of his first +gifts to her, and as she came the light glittered on it; it drew from +the polished walls bright reflections in which, amid the gilded frames, +he saw the dim old pictures start and waver--and as he saw her coming +so, Peter threw away his cigar and gripped suddenly at the balustrade to +steady him where he stood, against what out of some far spring of his +youth rushed upon him, as he saw her come--as he had always seen her, as +he knew now he was to see her always--his wife and the Lovely Lady. + + +THE END + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS +GARDEN CITY, N.Y. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lovely Lady, by Mary Austin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVELY LADY *** + +***** This file should be named 20359-8.txt or 20359-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20359/ + +Produced by Hillie Plantinga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 Lovely Lady + +Author: Mary Austin + +Illustrator: Gordon Grant + +Release Date: January 14, 2007 [EBook #20359] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVELY LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Hillie Plantinga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="padding"> + +<div class="trnote"> +<p>Transcriber's notes</p> + +<p>Four typographical errors have been corrected, this is indicated in the +html <ins class="typo" title="Typographical error">like this</ins>, hover with the +mouse over the word for an explanation.</p></div></div> + +<h1>THE LOVELY LADY</h1> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="center"><i>By the same author</i></div> +<div class="center"><span class="smcap">A Woman of Genius</span> </div> +<div class="center"><span class="smcap">The Arrow Maker</span> </div> +<div class="center"><span class="smcap">The Green Bough</span> </div> +<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Christ in Italy</span> </div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 381px;"> +<a name="boat" id="boat"></a> +<img src="images/illus-005.jpg" width="381" height="631" alt=""It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of burnished light...."" title=""It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of burnished light...."" /> +<span class="caption">"It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of burnished light...."</span> +</div> + +<h1>THE LOVELY LADY</h1> + +<h2>By Mary Austin</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 197px;"> +<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="197" height="218" alt="Frontispiece" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="center"><i>Frontispiece by Gordon Grant</i></div> + +<h3>Garden City New York</h3> +<h3>DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</h3> +<h3>1913</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="center"><i>Copyright, 1913, by</i></div> +<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Doubleday, Page & Company</span> </div> +<div class="center"><i>All rights reserved, including that of</i></div> +<div class="center"><i>translation into Foreign Languages,</i></div> +<div class="center"><i>including the Scandinavian.</i></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="center">To</div> +<div class="center">J. <span class="smcap">and</span> E.</div> +<div class="center">THE COMPANIONS OF THE GONDOLA</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<pre> + PAGE + +<span class="smcap"><big>Part One</big></span> + +In which Peter meets a Dragon, and the Lovely +Lady makes her appearance. <a href="#Page_3">3</a> + +<span class="smcap"><big>Part Two</big></span> + +In which Peter becomes invisible on the way to +growing rich. <a href="#Page_37">37</a> + +<span class="smcap"><big>Part Three</big></span> + +In which Peter becomes a bachelor. <a href="#Page_59">59</a> + +<span class="smcap"><big>Part Four</big></span> + +In which the Lovely Lady makes a final appearance. <a href="#Page_107">107</a> +</pre> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<p><a href="#boat">"It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of burnished light...."</a></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART ONE</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH PETER</h4> +<h4>MEETS A DRAGON, AND</h4> +<h4>THE LOVELY LADY</h4> +<h4>MAKES HER APPEARANCE</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<pre><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></pre> + +<h2>PART ONE</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH PETER MEETS A DRAGON, AND THE</h4> +<h4>LOVELY LADY MAKES HER APPEARANCE</h4> + + +<h2>I</h2> + + +<p>The walls of the Wonderful House rose up +straight and shining, pale greenish gold as the +slant sunlight on the orchard grass under the +apple trees; the windows that sprang arching to +the summer blueness let in the scent of the +cluster rose at the turn of the fence, beginning to +rise above the dusty smell of the country roads, +and the evening clamour of the birds in Bloombury +wood. As it dimmed and withdrew, the +shining of the walls came out more clearly. +Peter saw then that they were all of coloured +pictures wrought flat upon the gold, and as the +glow of it increased they began to swell and +stir like a wood waking. They leaned out from +the walls, looking all one way toward the increasing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +light and tap-tap of the Princess' feet +along the halls.</p> + +<p>"Peter, oh, Peter!"</p> + +<p>The tap-tapping grew sharp and nearer like +the sound of a crutch on a wooden veranda, +and the voice was Ellen's.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter, you are always a-reading and +a-reading!"</p> + +<p>Peter rolled off the long settle where he had +been stretched and put the book in his pocket +apologetically.</p> + +<p>"I was just going to quit," he said; "did you +want anything, Ellen?"</p> + +<p>"The picnic is coming back; I thought we +could go down to the turn to meet them. Mrs. +Sibley said she would save me some things +from the luncheon."</p> + +<p>If there was a little sting to Peter in Ellen's +eagerness, it was evidence at least, how completely +he and his mother had kept her from +realizing that it was chiefly because of their +not being able to afford the well-filled basket +demanded by a Bloombury picnic that they +had not accepted the invitation. Ellen had +thought it was because Bet, the mare, could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +be spared all day from the ploughing nor Peter +from hoeing the garden, and her mother was +too busy with the plaid gingham dress she was +making for the minister's wife, to do any baking. +It meant to Ellen, the broken fragments of the +luncheon, just so much of what a picnic should +mean: the ride in the dusty morning, swings +under the trees, easy games that she could play, +lemonade, pails and pails of it, pink ham sandwiches +and frosted cake; and if Ellen could +have any of these, she was having a little piece +of the picnic. What it would have meant +particularly to Peter over and above a day let +loose, the arching elms, the deep fern of Bloombury +wood, might have been some passages, +perhaps, which could be taken home and made +over into the groundwork of new and interesting +adventures in the House from which Ellen +had recalled him. There was a girl with June +apple cheeks and bright brown eyes at that +picnic, who could have given points to princesses.</p> + +<p>He followed the tapping of his sister's crutch +along the thick, bitter smelling dust of the +road, rising more and more heavily as the dew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +gathered, until they came to the turn by the +cluster rose and heard below them on the bridge, +the din of the wheels and the gay laughter of the +picnickers.</p> + +<p>"Hi, Peter!"</p> + +<p>"Hello, Ellen!"</p> + +<p>"Awful sorry you couldn't come ... +had a bully time.... Killed a copperhead +and two water snakes."</p> + +<p>"Here, Ellen, catch ahold of this!"</p> + +<p>And while she was about it the June apple +girl leaned over the end-board of the wagon, +and spoke softly to Peter.</p> + +<p>"We're going over to Harvey's pasture next +Wednesday afternoon, berrying, in the Democrat +wagon with our team; Jim Harvey's going +to drive. We made it up to-day. Surely you +can get away for an afternoon?" That was +what the voice said. "To be with me," the +eyes added.</p> + +<p>"I don't know.... I'd like it...."</p> + +<p>It was not altogether the calculation as to +how much earlier he would have to get up that +morning to be able to take an hour off in the +afternoon, that made Peter hesitate, but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +sudden swimming of his senses about the point +of meeting eyes. "I'll tell you what," he said, +"you come by for Ellen, and I'll walk over +about four and ride home with you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the girl; she did not know quite +whether to triumph at having gained so much +or to be disappointed at so little. "I'll be expecting +you."</p> + +<p>The horses creaked forward in the harness, +the dust puffed up from under the wheels and +drowned the smell of the wilding rose, it fell +thick on the petals and a little on Peter's spirit, +too, as he followed Ellen back to the house, +though it never occurred to him to think any +more of it than that he had been working too +long in the hot sun and was very tired. It did +not, however, prevent his eating his share of the +picnic dainties as he sat with his mother and +Ellen on the veranda. Then as the soft flitter +of the bats' wings began in the dusk, he kissed +them both and went early up to bed.</p> + +<p>Peter's room was close under the roof and +that was close under the elm boughs; all +hours he could hear them finger it with soft +rustling touches. The bed was pulled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +the window that gave upon the downslope +of the hill; at the foot of it one saw the +white bloom-faces of the alders lift and bow +above the folded leaves, and the rising of the +river damp across the pastures. All the light +reflected from the sky above Bloombury wood +was no more than enough to make a glimmer on +the glass of a picture that hung at the foot of +Peter's bed. It served to show the gilt of the +narrow frame and the soft black of the print +upon which Peter had looked so many times +that he thought now he was still seeing it as he +lay staring in the dusk—a picture of a young +man in bright armour with loosened hair, riding +down a particularly lumpy and swollen dragon. +Flames came out of the creature's mouth +in the immemorial fashion of dragons, but +the young man was not hurt by them. He +sat there lightly, his horse curvetting, his lance +thrust down the dragon's throat and coming +out of the back of his head, doing a great deed +easily, the way people like to think of great +things being done. It was a very narrow picture, +so narrow that you might think that it had +something to do with the dragon's doubling on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +himself and the charger's forefeet being up in +the air to keep within the limits of the frame, +and the exclusion from it of the Princess whom, +as his father had told him the story, the young +knight George had rescued from those devouring +jaws. It came out now, quite clearly, that +she must have had cheeks as red as June apples +and eyes like the pools of spring rain in Bloombury +wood, and her not being there in the picture +was only a greater security for her awaiting +him at this moment in the House with the +Shining Walls.</p> + +<p>There was, for the boy still staring at it +through the dusk, something particularly +personal in the picture, for ever since his father +had died, three years ago, Peter had had a +dragon of his own to fight. Its name was +Mortgage. It had its lair in Lawyer Keplinger's +office, from which it threatened twice +yearly to come out and eat up his mother and +Ellen and the little house and farm, and required +to have its mouth stopped with great +wads of interest which took all Peter's laborious +days to scrape together. This year, however, +he had hopes, if the garden turned out well, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +lopping off a limb or a claw of the dragon by way +of a payment on the principal, which somehow +seemed to bring the Princess so much nearer, +that as Peter lay quite comfortably staring up +at the glimmer on the wall, the four gold lines +of the frame began to stretch up and out and +the dark block of the picture to recede until it +became the great hall of a palace again, and +there was the Princess coming toward him in a +golden shimmer.</p> + +<p>There was just such another glow on the +afternoon when Peter walked over to the +berrying and came up with the apple-cheeked +girl whose name was Ada, a good half mile +from the others. As they climbed together +over uneven ground she gave him her hand to +hold, and there was very little to say and no +need of saying it until they came to the hill +overlooking the pasture, yellowing toward the +end of summer, full of late bloom and misty +colour passing insensibly into light. Threads +of gossamer caught on the ends of the scrub or +floated free, glinting as they turned and bellied +in the windless air, to trick the imagination with +the hint of robed, invisible presences.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter, don't you wish it would stay +like this always?"</p> + +<p>"Like this," Peter gave her hand the tiniest +squeeze to show what there was about this that +he would like to keep. "It's just as good to +look at any season though," he insisted. "I +was here hunting rabbits last winter, in February, +and you could find all sorts of things in the +runways where the brambles bent over and +kept off the snow; bunches of berries and coloured +leaves, and little green fern, and birds +hopping in and out."</p> + +<p>Ada spread her skirts as she sat on a flat +boulder and began sticking leaves into Peter's +hat.</p> + +<p>"Peter, what are you going to do this winter?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I should like to go over to the +high school at Harmony, but I suppose I'll +try to get a place to work near home."</p> + +<p>"We've been getting up a dancing and singing +school, to begin in October. The teacher +is coming from Dassonville. It will be once a +week; we sing for an hour and then have dancing. +It will be cheap as cheap—only two dollars +a month. I hope you can come."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know; I'll think about it." He was +thinking then that two dollars did not sound +much, but when you come to subtract it from +the interest it was a great deal, and then there +would be Ellen to pay for, and perhaps a dress +for her, and dancing shoes for himself and singing +books. And no doubt at the dances there +would be basket suppers.</p> + +<p>"I should think you could come if you wanted +to. Jim Harvey's getting it up.... He +wants to keep company with me this winter." +Ada was a little nervous about this, but as she +stole a glance at Peter's face as he lay biting at +a stem of grass, she grew quite comfortable +again. "But I don't know as I will," she said. +"I don't care very much for Jim Harvey."</p> + +<p>Peter picked up a stone and shied it joyously +at a thrush in the bushes.</p> + +<p>"And I don't know as I want you to," he +declared boldly. "I'll come to that dancing +school if I possibly can, Ada, and if I can't +you'll know it isn't because I don't wish to."</p> + +<p>"You must want to with all your might and +that'll make it come true. You can wish it on +my amethyst ring."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You won't take it off until October, Ada?"</p> + +<p>"I truly won't." And it took Peter such a +long time to get the ring on and held in place +while the wish was properly made, that it was +practically no time at all until the others found +them on the way home as they came laughing +up the hill.</p> + +<p>As it happened, however, Peter did not get +to the dancing school once that winter. The +first of the cold spell Ellen had slipped on the +ice, to the further trying of her lame back, and +there were things to be done to it which the +doctor said could not possibly be put off, so it +happened that the mortgage dragon did not +get his payment and Peter gave up the high +school to get a place in Greenslet's grocery at +Bloombury. And since there were the books +to be made up after supper, and as Bet, the +mare, after being driven in the delivery wagon +all day, could not be let stand half the night +in the cold at the schoolhouse door, it turned +out that Peter had not been once to the dancing +school. In the beginning he had done something +for himself in the way of a hall for dancing, +thrown out from the House of the Shining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +Walls, in which he and the Princess Ada, to +lovely, soundless strains, had whirled away, and +found occasion to say things to each other such +as no ballroom could afford;—bright star +pointed occasions which broke and scattered +before the little hints of sound that crept up +the stair to advise him that Ellen was stifling +back the pain for fear of waking him. They +had moved Ellen's bed downstairs as a way of +getting on better with the possibility of her +being bedridden all that winter, and the tiny +whispered moan recalled him to the dread that +as the half yearly term came around, what with +doctor's bills and delicacies, the mortgage +dragon would have not even his sop of interest, +and remain whole and threatening as before.</p> + +<p>When Ellen was able to sit up in bed the +mother moved her sewing in beside it. Then +Peter would sit on the other side of the lamp +with a book, and the walls of the House rose up +from its pages gilded finely, and the lights would +come out and the dancing begin, but before he +could get more than a word with the Princess, +he would hear Ellen:</p> + +<p>"Peter, oh, Peter! I wish you wouldn't be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +always with your nose in a book. I wish you +would talk sometimes."</p> + +<p>"What about, Ellen?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter, you are the <i>worst</i>. I should +think you would take some interest in things."</p> + +<p>"What sort of things?" Peter wished to know.</p> + +<p>"Why, who comes in the store, and what +they say, and everything."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Sleason wanted us to open a kit of +mackerel to see if she'd like it," began Peter +literally, "and we persuaded her to take two +cans of sardines instead. Does that interest +you?"</p> + +<p>"Have you sold any of the blue tartan yet?"</p> + +<p>"Ada Brown bought seven yards of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter! And trimmings?"</p> + +<p>"Six yards of black velvet ribbon—yes, I +forgot—Mrs. Blackman is to make it up for +her. I heard Mrs. Brown say she would call +for the linings."</p> + +<p>"She's having it made up for Jim Harvey's +birthday," Ellen guessed shrewdly. "He's +twenty-one, you know.... People say +she's engaged to him."</p> + +<p>Peter felt the walls of the House which had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +stood out waiting for him during this interlude, +fall inward into the gulf of blackness. Nobody +said anything for two or three ticks of the large +kitchen clock, and then Ellen burst out:</p> + +<p>"I think she's a nasty, flirty, stuck-up <i>thing</i>; +that's what I think!"</p> + +<p>"Shs—hss! Ellen," said her mother.</p> + +<p>"Peter," demanded Ellen, "are you reading +again?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Ellen." Peter did not +know that he had turned a page.</p> + +<p>"Don't you ever wish for anything for yourself, +Peter? Don't you wish you were rich?"</p> + +<p>"No, Ellen, I don't know that I ever do."</p> + +<p>But as the winter got on and the news of +Ada Brown's engagement was confirmed, he +must have wished it a great many times.</p> + +<p>One evening late in January he was sitting +with his mother very quietly by the kitchen +stove, the front of which was opened to throw +out the heat; there was the good smell of the +supper in the room, for though he had a meal +with the Greenslets at six, his mother always +made a point of having something hot for him +when he came in from bedding down the mare,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +and the steam of it on the window-panes made +dull smears of the reflected light. The shade +of the lamp was drawn down until the ceiling +of the room was all in shadow save for the +bright escape from the chimney which shone +directly overhead, round and yellow as twenty +dollars, and as Peter leaned back in his chair, +looking up, it might have been that resemblance +which gave a turn to his thoughts and +led him to say to his mother:</p> + +<p>"Why did my father never get rich?"</p> + +<p>"I hardly know, Peter. He used to say +that he couldn't afford it. There were so +many other things he wished to do; and I +wished them, too. When we were young we +did them together. Then your father was +the sort of man who always gave too much and +took too little. I remember his saying once +that no one who loved his fellowman very +much, <i>could</i> get rich."</p> + +<p>"Do you wish he had?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that either. No, not if he +was happier the way he was. And we <i>were</i> +happy. Things would have come out all right +if it hadn't been for the accident when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +thresher broke, and his being ill so long afterward. +And my people weren't so kind as they +might have been. You see, they always +thought him a little queer. Before we were +married, before we were even engaged, he had +had a little money. It had been left him, and +instead of investing it as anybody in Bloombury +would, he spent it in travel. I remember +his saying that his memories of Italy were the +best investment he could have made. But +afterward, when he was in trouble, they threw +it up to him. We had never got in debt +before ... and then just as he was getting +round, he took bronchitis and died."</p> + +<p>She wiped her eyes quietly for a while, and +the kettle on the stove began to sing soothingly, +and presently Peter ventured:</p> + +<p>"Do you wish I would get rich?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Peter, I do. We are all like that, I +suppose, we grown-ups. Things we manage to +get along without ourselves, we want for our +children. I hope you will be a rich man some +day; but, Peter, I don't want you to think it a +reflection on your father that he wasn't. He +had what he thought was best. He might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +have left me with more money and fewer happy +memories—and that is what women value +most, Peter;—the right sort of women. There +are some who can't get along without <i>things</i>: +clothes, and furniture, and carriages. Ada +Brown is that kind; sometimes I'm afraid +Ellen is a little. She takes after my family."</p> + +<p>"It is partly on account of Ellen that I want +to get rich."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't take it too hard, Peter; we've +always got along somehow, and nobody in +Bloombury is very rich."</p> + +<p>Peter turned that over in his mind the whole +of a raw and sleety February. And one day +when nobody came into the store from ten till +four, and loose winds went in a pack about the +village streets, casting up dry, icy dust where +now and then some sharp muzzle reared out +of the press as they turned the corners, he spoke +to Mr. Greenslet about it. It was so cold that +day that neither the red apples in the barrels +nor the crimson cranberries nor the yellowing +hams on the rafters could contribute any +appearance of warmth to the interior of the +grocery. A kind of icy varnish of cold overlaid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +the gay lables of the canned goods; the remnants +of red and blue tartan exposed for sale +looked coarse-grained with the cold, and cold +slips of ribbons clung to the glass of the cases +like the tongues of children tipped to the frosted +panes. Even the super-heated stove took on a +purplish tinge of chilblains, roughed by the +wind.</p> + +<p>A kind of arctic stillness pervaded the place, +out of which the two men hailed each other at +intervals as from immeasurable deeps of space.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Greenslet," ventured Peter at last, +"are you a rich man?"</p> + +<p>"Not by a long sight."</p> + +<p>"Why?" questioned Peter.</p> + +<p>"Not built that way."</p> + +<p>The grocer lapsed back into the silence and +seemed to lean against it meditatively. The +wolf wind howled about the corners and cast +snow like powdered glass upon the windows +contemptuously, and time went by with a large +deliberate movement like a fat man turning +over, before Peter hailed again.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever want to be?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Greenslet reached out for the damper of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +the stove ostensibly to shake down the ashes, +but really to pull himself up out of the soundless +spaces of thought.</p> + +<p>"When I was your age, yes. Thought I was +going to be." The shaking of the damper +seemed to loosen the springs of speech in him. +"I was up in the city working for Siegel Brothers; +began as a bundle boy and meant to be one +of the partners. But by the time I worked up +to fancy goods I realized that I would have to +be as old as Methuselah to make it at that rate. +And Mrs. Greenslet didn't like the city; she +was a Bloombury girl. It wasn't any place +for the children."</p> + +<p>"So you came back?"</p> + +<p>"We had saved a little. I bought out this +place and put in a few notions I'd got from +Siegel's. I'm comfortably off, but I'm not +rich."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to be?"</p> + +<p>"I don' know, I don' know. I'd like to give +the boys a better start than I had, but I'm my +own boss here and one of the leading men. +That's always something."</p> + +<p>Peter went and looked out of the smudged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +windows while he considered this. The long +scrapes of the wind in the loose snow were like +the scratches of great claws. It was now about +mail time and a few people began to stir in the +street; the clear light and the cold gave them a +poverty-bitten look.</p> + +<p>"Does anybody ever get rich in Bloombury?"</p> + +<p>"Not that I know of. There's Mr. Dassonville +in Harmony—Dave Dassonville, the richest +man in these parts."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he could tell me how to go about +it?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose he would if he knows. Mostly +these things just happen."</p> + +<p>Peter did not say anything more just then; +he was watching a man and a girl of about his +own age who had come out of a frame house +farther down the street. The young man was +walking so as to shield her from the wind, her +rosy cheek was at his shoulder, and she smiled +up at him over her muff, from dark, bright eyes.</p> + +<p>"What's set you on to talk about riches? +Thinking of doing something in that line yourself?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter, kicking at the baseboard +with his toes. "I don't know how it is to be +done, but I've got to be rich. I've just simply +got to."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>II</h2> + +<p>It was along in the beginning of spring on a +day full of wet cloud and clearing wind, that +Peter walked over to Harmony to inquire of Mr. +David Dassonville the way to grow rich. It +was Sunday afternoon and the air sweet with +the sap adrip from the orchards lately pruned +and the smell of the country road dried to +elasticity by the winds of March.</p> + +<p>Between timidity and the conviction that a +week day would have been better suited to his +business, he drew on to the place of his errand +very slowly, for he was sore with the raking of +the dragon's claws, and unrested. It had been +a terrible scrape to get together the last instalment +of interest, and since Ellen had shattered +it with the gossip about Ada Brown's engagement, +there had been no House with Shining +Walls for Peter to withdraw into out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +dragon's breath of poverty; above all, no Princess.</p> + +<p>He did not know where the House had come +from any more than he knew now where it had +gone. It was a gift out of his childhood to his +shy, unfriended youth, but he understood that +if ever its walls should waver and rise again to +enclose his dreams, there would be no Princess. +Never any more. Princesses were for fairy +tales; girls wanted Things. There was his +mother too—he had wished so to get her a +new dress this winter. It was an ache to him +to cut off yards and yards of handsome stuffs +at Mr. Greenslet's, and all the longing in the +world had not availed to get one of them for his +mother. Plainly the mastery of Things was +accomplished by being rich; he was on his way +to Mr. Dassonville to find out how it was done.</p> + +<p>It was quite four of the clock when he paused +at the bottom of the Dassonville lawn to look +up at the lace curtains at the tall French windows. +Nobody in Bloombury was rich enough +to have lace curtains at all the windows, and +the boy's spirit rose at the substantial evidence +of being at last fairly in the track of his desire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>He found Mr. Dassonville willing to receive +him in quite a friendly way, sitting in his library, +keeping the place with his finger in the book +he had been reading to his wife. Peter also +found himself a little at a loss to know how to +begin in the presence of this lady, for he considered +it a matter quite between men, but +suddenly she looked up and smiled. It came +out on her face fresh and delicately as an apple +orchard breaking to bloom, and besides making +it quite spring in the room, discovered in herself +a new evidence of the competency of Mr. David +Dassonville to advise the way of riches. She +looked fragile and expensive as she sat in her +silken shawl, her dark hair lifted up in a half +moon from her brow, her hands lying in her +lap half-covered with the lace of her sleeves, +white and perfect like twin flowers. He saw +rings flashing on the one she lifted to motion to +the maid to bring a chair.</p> + +<p>"If you have walked over from Bloombury +you must be tired," she said, "and chilled, perhaps. +Come nearer the fire."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," Peter had managed, "I +am quite warm," as in fact he was, and a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +flushed. He sat down provisionally on the edge +of the chair and looked at Mr. Dassonville.</p> + +<p>"I came on business. I don't know if you +will mind its being Sunday, but I couldn't get +away from the store on other days."</p> + +<p>"Quite right, quite right." Mr. Dassonville +had lost his place in the book and laid it on his +knee. "Private business? My dear, perhaps——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no—no," protested Peter handsomely. +"I'd rather she stayed. It isn't. At least ... I +don't know if you will consider it +private or not."</p> + +<p>"Go on," urged Mr. Dassonville.</p> + +<p>"I just came to ask you," Peter explained, +"if you don't mind telling me, how you got +rich?"</p> + +<p>"But bless you, young man," exclaimed Mr. +Dassonville, "I'm not rich."</p> + +<p>This for a beginning, was, on the face of it, +disconcerting. Peter looked about at the rows +of books, at the thick, soft carpet and the leather-covered +furniture, and at the rings on Mrs. +Dassonville's hand. If Mr. Dassonville were +not rich, how then—unless—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought—that +is, everybody says you are the richest man in +these parts."</p> + +<p>"As to that, well, perhaps, I have a little +more money than my neighbours."</p> + +<p>Peter breathed relief. The beautiful Mrs. +Dassonville's rings were paid for, then.</p> + +<p>"But as to being <i>rich</i>, why, when you come +to a really rich man all I've got wouldn't be a +pinch to him." Mr. Dassonville illustrated +with his own thumb and fingers how little that +would be. "We don't have really rich men in +a place like Harmony," he concluded. "You +have to go to the city for that."</p> + +<p>"You've got everything you want, haven't +you?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Dassonville looked over at his wife, +and the smile bloomed again; he smiled quietly +to himself as he admitted it. "Yes, I've got +everything I want."</p> + +<p>They were quiet, all of them, for a little while, +with Peter turning his hat over in his hands +and Mr. Dassonville laying the tips of his +fingers together before him, resting his elbows +on the arms of the chair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wish," said Peter at last, "you would tell +me how you did it."</p> + +<p>"How I got more money than my neighbours? +Well, I wasn't born with it."</p> + +<p>This was distinctly encouraging. Neither +was Peter.</p> + +<p>"No two men, I suppose, make money in the +same way," went on the man who had, "but +there are three or four things to be observed +by all of them. In the first place one must be +very hard-working."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"And one must never lose sight of the object +worked for. Not"—as if he had followed +the boy's inward drop of dismay—"that a +man should think of nothing but getting money. +On the contrary, I consider it very essential for +a man to have some escape from his business, +some change of pasture to run his mind in. He +comes fresher to his work so. What I mean is +that <i>when</i> he works he must make every stroke +count toward the end he has in view. Do you +understand?"</p> + +<p>"I think so." The House and the Shining +Walls were safe, at any rate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And then," Mr. Dassonville checked off +the points on his fingers, "he must always save +something from his income, no matter how +small it is."</p> + +<p>"I try to do that," confessed Peter, "but what +with Ellen's back being bad, and the interest on +the mortgage, it's not so easy."</p> + +<p>"Is there a mortgage? I am sorry for that, +for the next thing I was going to say is that he +must never go into debt, never on any account."</p> + +<p>"My father was sick; it was an accident," +Peter protested loyally.</p> + +<p>"So! I think I remember. Well, it is unfortunate, +but where there is a debt the only +thing is to reduce it as steadily as possible, and +if this mortgage teaches you the trick of saving +it may not be such a bad thing for you. But +when a man works and saves for a long time +without getting any sensible benefit, he sometimes +thinks that saving and working are not +worth while. You must never make that +mistake."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," said Peter. It seemed to him that +they were getting on very well indeed.</p> + +<p>"There is another thing I should like to say,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +Mr. Dassonville went on, "but I am not sure +I can put it plainly. It is that you must not +try to be too wise." He smiled a little to +Peter's blankness. "I believe in Harmony it is +called looking on all sides of a thing, but there is +always one side of everything like the moon +which is turned from us. You must just start +from where you are and keep moving."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Peter, looking thoughtfully into +the fire, in imitation of Mr. Dassonville. And +there being no more advice forthcoming he +began to wonder if he ought to sit a while from +politeness, as people did in Bloombury, or go +at once. Mrs. Dassonville got up and came +behind her husband's chair.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think you ought to tell him, +David, that there are other things worth having +besides money; better worth?"</p> + +<p>"You, perhaps." Mr. Dassonville took the +hand of his wife laid on his shoulder and held it +against his cheek; it brought out for Peter +suddenly, how many years younger she was, +and what he had heard of Mr. Dassonville +having married her from among the summer +folk who came to Harmony for the pine woods<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +and the sea air. "Ah, but I'm not sure I'd +have you without a great deal of it. It takes +money to raise rare plants like you. But I +ought to say," still holding his wife's hand to +his cheek and watching Peter across it, "that I +think it is a very good sign that you are willing +to ask. The most of poor men will sit about +and rail and envy the rich, but hardly one would +think to ask how it is done, or believe if he +were told. They've a notion it's all gouging +and luck, and you couldn't beat that out of +them if you tried. Very few of them understand +how simple success is; it isn't easy often, +but it is always simple."</p> + +<p>Peter supposed that he really ought to go +after that, though he did not know how to manage +it until Mrs. Dassonville smiled at him over +her husband's shoulder and asked him what +sort of work he did. "Oh, if you know about +gardens," she interrupted him, "you can help +a little. There are such a lot of things coming +up in mine that I don't know the names of."</p> + +<p>It flashed out to Peter long afterward that +she had simply provided an easy way for him +to get out of the house now that his visit was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +terminated. She held the white fold of her +shawl over her head with one hand and gathered +the trailing skirts with the other. They rustled +as she moved like the leaves of the elms at night +above the roof, as she led him along the walk +where little straight spears of green and blunt +flower crowns faintly tinged with colour came +up thickly in the borders. So by degrees she +got him down past the hyacinth beds and the +nodding buds of the daffodils to the gate and +on the road again, walking home in the chill +early twilight with the pricking of a pleasant +excitement in his veins.</p> + +<p>It was that, perhaps, and the sense of having +got so much more out of it than any account of +his visit would justify, that kept Peter from +saying much to his mother that night about his +talk with the rich man; he asked her instead if +she had ever seen Mrs. Dassonville.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she assured him. "Mr. Dassonville +drove her over to Mrs. Tillinghurst's funeral +in October. They had only been married a +little while then; she is the second Mrs. Dassonville, +you know; the first died years ago. I +thought her a very lovely lady."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A lovely lady," Peter said the phrase under +his breath. The sound of it was like the soft +drawing of silken skirts.</p> + +<p>His mother looked at him across the supper +table and was pleased to see the renewal of +cheerfulness, and then, motherlike, sighed to +think that Peter was getting so old now that if +he didn't choose to tell her things she had no +right to ask him. "Your walk has done you +good," was all she said, and it must have been +the case, for that very night as soon as his head +had touched the pillow he was off again, as he +hadn't been since Ellen fell ill, to the House of +the Shining Walls. It rose stately against +a blur of leafless woods and crocus-coloured +sky. The garden before it was all full of spring +bulbs and the scent of daffodils. The Princess +came walking in it as before, but she was no +Princess now, merely a woman with her dark +hair brushed up in a half moon from her brow +and her skirts drawing after her with a silken +rustle; her face was dim and sweet, with only a +faint, a very faint, reminder of Ada, and her +name was the Lovely Lady.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART TWO</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH PETER</h4> +<h4>BECOMES INVISIBLE ON THE</h4> +<h4>WAY TO GROWING RICH</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<h2>PART TWO</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH PETER BECOMES INVISIBLE ON</h4> +<h4>THE WAY TO GROWING RICH</h4> + +<p>In the late summer of that year Peter went up +to the city with Mr. Greenslet to lay in his +winter stock and remained in canned goods with +Siegel Brothers' Household Emporium. That +his mother had rented the farming land for cash +was the immediate occasion of his setting out, +but there were several other reasons and a great +many opinions. Mr. Greenslet had a boy of his +own coming on for Peter's place; Bet, the mare, +had died, and the farm implements wanted renewing; +in spite of which Mrs. Weatheral could +hardly have made up her mind to spare him +except for the opportune appearance of the cash +renter. With that and the chickens and the +sewing, she and Ellen could take care of themselves +and the interest, which would leave all that +Peter could make to count against the mortgage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>They put it hopefully to one another so, as +they sat about the kitchen stove, all three of +them holding hands, on the evening before his +departure. But the opinions, which were rather +thicker at Bloombury than opportunities, were +by no means so confident as Peter could have +wished if he had known them. Mr. Greenslet +thought it couldn't be much worse than Peter's +present situation, and the neighbours were sure +it wasn't much better. The minister had a +great deal to say of the temptations of a young +man in the city, which was afterward invalidated +by the city's turning out quite another +place than he described it.</p> + +<p>It was left for Ellen and Mrs. Jim Harvey +to make the happy prognostication. "You +can trust Peter," Ada was confident.</p> + +<p>"But you got to be mighty cute to get in +with those city fellows," her husband warned +her, "and Peter's so dashed simple; never sees +anything except what's right in front of him. +Now a man"—Jim assumed this estate for +himself in the right of being three months married—"has +got to look on all sides of a thing."</p> + +<p>As for Ellen, she hadn't the slightest doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +that Peter was shortly to become immensely +wealthy and she was to go up and keep house +for him.</p> + +<p>"There'll be gold chairs in the parlour and +real Brussels," she anticipated. Peter affected +to think it unlikely that she could be spared by +the highly mythical person who was to carry +her off to keep house for himself. Somehow +Peter could never fall into the normal Bloombury +attitude of thinking that if you had hip +disease, your life was bound to be different from +everybody's and you might as well say so right +out, flat-footed, and be done with it.</p> + +<p>With all this, finally he was got off to the city +in the wake of Mr. Greenslet, and the first discovery +he made there was that outside of +Siegel Brothers, and a collarless man with a discouraged +moustache who appeared in the hall of +his lodging-house when the rent was due, he was +practically invisible. As he went up and down +the stairs sodden with scrub water which never +by any possible chance left them scrubbed, +nobody spoke to him. Nobody in the street +saw him walking to and fro in his young loneliness. +There were men passing there with faces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +like Mr. Dassonville's, keen and competent, +and lovely ladies in soft becoming wraps and +bright winged hats—such hats! Peter would +like to have hailed some of these as one immeasurably +behind but still in the way, seized +of that precious inward quality which manifests +itself in competency and brightness. +He would have liked to feel them looking on +friendlily at his business of becoming rich; but +he remained, as far as any word from them was +concerned, completely invisible. He came after +a while to the conclusion that most of those +who went up and down with him were in the +same unregarded condition.</p> + +<p>The city appeared quite habituated to this +state of affairs; hordes of them came and went +unconfronted between banked windows of +warmth and loveliness, past doors from which +light and music overflowed into the dim street +in splashes of colour and sound, where people +equally under the prohibition lapped them up +hungrily like dogs at puddles. Sometimes in +the street cars or subways he brushed against +fair girls from whom the delicate aroma of +personality was like a waft out of that country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +of which his preferences and appreciations +acknowledged him a native, but no smallest +flutter of kinship ever put forth from them to +Peter. The place was crammed full of everything +that anybody could want and nobody +could get at it, at least not Peter, nor anybody +he knew at Siegel Brothers. And at the lodging +house they seemed never to have heard of +the undiminished heaps of splendour that lay +piled behind plate glass and polished counters. +It was extraordinary, incredible, that he wasn't +to have the least of them.</p> + +<p>As the winter closed in on him, the restrictions +of daily living rose so thick upon him that +they began to prevent him from his dreams. +He could no longer get through them to the +House with the Shining Walls. Often as he +lay in his bed trying to believe he was warm +enough, he would set off for it down the lanes +of blinding city light through which the scream +of the trolley pursued him, only to see it glimmer +palely on him through impenetrable plate +glass, or defended from him by huge trespass +signs that appeared to have some relation to +the fact that he was not yet so rich as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +expected to be. Times when he would wake +out of his sleep, it would be to a strange sense +of severances and loss, and though he did not +know exactly what ailed him, it was the loss of +all his dreams. After a while the whole city +seemed to ache with that loss. He would lie +in his narrow bed and think that if he did not +see his mother and Bloombury again he would +probably die of it.</p> + +<p>Then along in the beginning of April somebody +saw him. It was in the dusk between +supper and bed time, walking on the viaduct +where he had the park below him. There was +a wash of blue still in the sky and a thin blade +of a moon tinging it with citron; here and there +the light glittered on the trickle of sap on the +chafed boughs. It was just here that he met her. +She was about his own age, and she was walking +oddly, as though unconscious of the city all +about her, with short picked steps, and her hat +with the tilt to it of a girl who knows herself admired. +She had a rose at her breast which she +straightened now and then, or smoothed a fold +of her dress and hummed as she walked. Her +cheeks were bright even in the dusk, and some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +strange, quick fear kept pace with her glancing. +Peter was walking heavily himself, as the young +do when the dreams have gone out of them, and +as they passed in the light of the arc that danced +delicately to the wandering air, the girl's look +skimmed him like a swallow. She must have +turned just behind him, for in a moment she +drifted past his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" said Peter, but, in the moment it +had taken to drag that up from under his +astonishment, she had passed him; her laugh as she +went brushed the tip of his youth like a swallow's +wing. It remained with him as a little, +far spark; it seemed as if a dream was about to +spin itself out from it. He went around that +way several times on his evening walks in hopes +that he might meet her again.</p> + +<p>As though the spark had lightened a little of +the blank unrecognition with which the city +met him, he was seen that day and in no unfriendly +aspect by "our Mr. Croker" of Siegel +Brothers. The running gear of a great concern +like the Household Emporium pressed, in +the days of Peter's apprenticeship, unequally at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +times on its employees, and the galled spot of +the canned goods department was Blinders the +bundle boy. His other name was Horace and +he was chiefly remarkable for pimples which he +seemed to think interesting, and for a state of +active resentment against anybody who gave +him anything to do. The world for Horace +was a dark jungle full of grouches and pulls +and privilege and devious guile.</p> + +<p>That the propensity which Peter had developed +for inquiring every half hour or so if he +hadn't got that done yet, could be nothing else +but a cabal directed against Blinders' four +dollars and a half a week, he was convinced. In +all the time that he could spare from his pimples, +Horace rehearsed a martyr's air designed +to convey to Mr. Croker that though +he would suffer in silence he was none the less +suffering. It being precisely Mr. Croker's +business to rap out grouches as an expert +mechanician taps defective cogs, it happened +the day after Peter's meeting with the girl that +the worst hopes of Horace were realized.</p> + +<p>"Aw, they're always a pickin' on me, Mr. +Croker, that's what they are, Mr. Croker,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +Horace defended himself, preparing to snivel +if the occasion seemed to demand it, by taking +out his gum and sticking it on the inside of his +sleeve. "I can't handle 'em no faster, Mr. +Croker."</p> + +<p>"Not the way you go at it," Peter assured +him. Anybody could have told by the way he +included Mr. Croker in his cheerfulness that +there was something between them. "You +turn 'em over too many times and you use too +much paper and too much string." Suddenly +Peter reddened with embarrassment. "Not +that that makes any difference to a big firm +like this," he apologized, "but in a small place +every little counts." He turned the package +deftly and began to illustrate his method. +"When you're tying up calico with one hand +and taking in eggs and butter with the other +and telling three people the price of things at +the same time," he explained, "you have to +notice things like this."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Mr. Croker. "You try it, +Blinders."</p> + +<p>"Aw, what's the matter with the way I was +doin' it?" wailed Horace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If you don't feel quite up to it——" +Mr. Croker hinted. Horace did, he wrapped +with alacrity and Peter showed him how to hold +the string.</p> + +<p>"You come along with me, Weatheral," +Mr. Croker commanded. Horace took his +gum out of his cuff and made dark prognostication +as to what was probably to be done to +Peter.</p> + +<p>What Peter thought was that he should +probably become very unpopular with his +fellow clerks. Croker took him across to dry +goods, where girls were tying bundles in little +cages over the sales ladies' heads, and had him +repeat the method of handling string. Except +that he thought he should get to like Mr. +Croker, the incident made no particular impression +on Peter—so dulled were all his senses +for want of dreams,—and passed wholly out of +mind.</p> + +<p>It was two or three days after that he saw +the girl again, nearer the end of the viaduct, +where four or five streets poured light and confusion +into Venable Square. She was going +on ahead, hurrying and pretending not to hurry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +to overtake a man to whom she wished to speak. +She was quite close to him, she was speaking, +and suddenly he gave a little outward jerk with +his elbow which caught hers unexpectedly and +whirled her back against the parapet. The little +purse she was carrying fell from her hand. The +man gave a quick laugh over his shoulder and +ploughed his way across the street.</p> + +<p>"The skunk!" Peter's list of expletives was +not extensive. He picked up the flat little +purse and handed it back to her. "Shall I go +after him? Did you know him?"</p> + +<p>The girl was holding on to the parapet with +a little choky laugh. "Oh, yes, I know that +kind. No, I don't want him!"</p> + +<p>"He ought to have a good thrashing," Peter +was convinced. The girl looked up at him +with a sudden curiosity.</p> + +<p>"You're from the country, ain't you? I +thought so the other night. I can always +tell."</p> + +<p>"I guess you're from the country yourself," +Peter hazarded. She was prettier even than +he had thought. Her glance had left his, +however, and was roving up and down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +hurrying crowd as though testing it for some +plunge she was about to make.</p> + +<p>"If you wanted me to see you home——" +Peter hinted; he did not know quite what was +expected of him. She answered with a little +sharp noise which ended in a cough.</p> + +<p>"I guess you're real kind," she admitted, +"but I ain't goin' home just yet. I got a date." +She moved off then, and since it was in the +direction he was going, there was nothing for +Peter to do but move with her, on the other side +of the wide pavement. At the turn she drifted +back to his side again; it seemed to Peter there +was amusement in her tone.</p> + +<p>"You got anything to do Saturday about this +time?" Peter hadn't. "Well, I'll be here—savvy?" +But before he could make her +any assurance she laughed again and slipped +into the crowd.</p> + +<p>Peter knew a great many facts about life. +There were human failings even in Bloombury, +and what Peter didn't know about the city had +been largely made up to him by the choice +conversation of J. Wilkinson Cohn, in staples, +at the next counter to him. Anybody who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +listened long enough to J. Wilkinson's personal +reminiscences would have found himself fully +instructed for every possible contingency likely +to arise between a gentleman of undoubted +attractions and the ladies, but there are forces +in youth that are stronger than experience. It +is a very old, old way of the world for young +things to walk abroad in the spring and meet +one another.</p> + +<p>Peter strolled along the viaduct Saturday +and felt his youth beat in him pleasantly when +he saw her come. She had on a different hat, +and the earlier hour showed him the shining +of her eyes above the raddled cheeks.</p> + +<p>"We could go down in the park a piece," he +suggested as they turned in together along the +parapet. There was a delicate damp smell +coming up from it on the night, like the Bloombury +lanes.</p> + +<p>"You're regular country, aren't you?" There +was an accent of impatience in her tone, "I +haven't had my supper yet."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you say to a piece of roast +beef and a cup of coffee?" Peter had planned +this magnificence as he came along fingering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +his pay envelope. He knew just the place, he +told her. The feeling of his proper male +ascendency as he drew her through the crowd +was a tonic to him; the man tossing pancakes +in the window where he hesitated looking for +the ladies' entrance seemed quite to enjoy doing +it, as though he had known all along there was +to be company.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't care for any of these places." +Peter felt her pull at his elbow. "I'll show +you." They went along then, brushing lightly +shoulder to shoulder until they came to one of +those revolving doors from which gusts of +music issued. There was a girl standing up to +sing as they sat down and the whole air of the +place was beyond even the retailed splendour of +J. Wilkinson. The girl threw back her wraps +and began to order freely. Peter, who had +a glimpse of the card, stiffened.</p> + +<p>"I—I guess I'm not so very hungry," he +cautioned. She looked up from the menu +sharply and her face softened; she made one or +two deft changes in it.</p> + +<p>"This is Dutch, you know," she threw out. +"Oh, I know you invited me, but you didn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +think I was one of the kind that let a strange +gentleman pay for my dinner, did you?" +Peter denied it, stricken with embarrassment. +She seemed in the light, to take him in more +completely.</p> + +<p>"Say, would you have licked that fellow the +other night, honest?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if he was disrespectful to a lady——" +Peter began.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>excuse</i> me!" She turned her head aside +for a moment in her long gloves. "You <i>are</i> +country!" she said again, but it seemed not to +displease her. "I don't care so much for her +voice, do you?" She turned on the singer. +They discussed the entertainment and the +dinner. They were a long time about it. The +orchestra played a waltz at last, and Ethel—she +had told him to call her that—put her +arms on the table and leaned across to him, and +though Peter knew by this time that her +cheeks were painted, he didn't somehow mind +it.</p> + +<p>"What's it like up in the country where you +lived?" she wished to know.</p> + +<p>"Hills mostly, little wooded ones, and high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +pastures, and the apple orchards going right up +over them...."</p> + +<p>"I know," she nodded. "I guess it's them +I been smelling ... or laylocks."</p> + +<p>"Things coming up in the garden," Peter +contributed: "peonies, and long rows of daffodils...." +He did not realize it, but +he had described to her no place that he had +known but the way to the House. The girl +cut him off.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" she said sharply. "You know," +she half apologized, "you kind of remind me of +somebody ... a boy I knew up country. +It was him that got me here——" She made +her little admission quietly, the horror of it +long worn down to daily habit. "That first +time I saw you, it seemed almost as if it was +him ... I ain't never blamed him—much. +He didn't mean to be bad, but when the +trouble came he couldn't help none.... I +guess real help is about the hardest thing to find +there is."</p> + +<p>"I guess it is."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, we gotta make the best of it." +She glanced at Peter with her head on one side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +as she twiddled her fingers across the cloth to +the tune of the orchestra.</p> + +<p>They went out at last and walked in the least +frequented streets, and Peter held her hand; +the warmth of it ran with a pleasant tingling in +his veins. He seemed to have touched in her +palm the point at which the city came alive to +him. They walked and walked and yet it +seemed that something lacked to bring the +evening to a finish; it was incredible to Peter +that after all his loneliness he should have to let +her go.</p> + +<p>"We could go up to my place," Ethel suggested. +"It's up here." He hadn't suspected +that she had been guiding him.</p> + +<p>"I guess not to-night." Peter's blood was +singing in his ears. In the dark of the unfrequented +street he could feel her young body +leaning toward his.</p> + +<p>"Say, you know I ain't after the money +the way some girls are; I like you ... +honest——"</p> + +<p>"I guess I'd better go home." But they +went on up the side street a little farther. +"Good-bye," he said, but he did not let her go.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>She shook her hand free at last.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, of course, if you don't want +to...." He felt her soft hands fumbling +at his face; she drew him down to a kiss. Suddenly +she sprang away, laughing. "Go, you +silly!"</p> + +<p>"Ethel!" he cried, but he lost her in the dark. +He should have let her go at that; he knew +he should. In spite of her paying half, his +dinner had cost him more than two ordinary +dinners ... and besides.... He +couldn't help, however, walking around by the +viaduct for several evenings the next week, and +at last he saw her. She was going by without +speaking, but he got squarely in front of her.</p> + +<p>"Ethel!"</p> + +<p>She pretended just to have recognized him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you here? I thought you'd gone back to +the country!"</p> + +<p>"You aren't mad with me about ... +the other night?" He did not quite know how +to express the quality of his desertion.</p> + +<p>"Who? Me?" airily. "Oh, I guess there's +just as good fish in the sea——" She changed +all at once under his young hunger for companionship.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +"You're good," she said; "you're +the real thing."</p> + +<p>"You're good, too," he was certain, "when +you're with me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it rubs off. Say, kid, I guess you got +folks at home you're sending money to and all +that, and you got to get ahead in the world. +Well, you don't want to have nothing to do with +my kind, and that's straight." The deviltry +she put on toward him failed pitifully. "Chase +yourself, kid; I just ain't good for you any +more." Nevertheless they moved along the +parapet to the dark interval between the lights +and there they kissed again, this time with +no undercurrent.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Ethel."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, boy." The little spark was out.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART THREE</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH PETER</h4> +<h4>BECOMES A BACHELOR</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> +<h2>PART THREE</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH PETER BECOMES A BACHELOR</h4> + +<h2>I</h2> + +<p>The day before leaving for his summer vacation +Peter was notified that he was wanted in +his private office by the younger Siegel Brother. +Though he couldn't quite fall in with the +dark prognostications of Blinders that he was +about to be mulcted of his salary by a plot +which had been plainly indicated by the marked +partiality of our Mr. Croker, the incident gave +him some uneasiness. The young Siegel Brother +must have been younger than somebody of +course, though it couldn't have been by more +than a scratch, and he might have been any +age without betraying it, so deeply was he sunk +in the evidence of the surpassing quality of the +grocery department. However, there was something +surprisingly young looking out at Peter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +from the junior brother's red and white rotundity, +at which he took heart immensely.</p> + +<p>"Weatheral, Peter, canned goods, recommended +by Mr. Greenslet," Siegel Brother +ticked him off from a manilla envelope. "Just +a little honorarium, Mr. Weatheral, we are in +the habit of distributing to such of our employees +as make practical suggestions to the +advantage of the business." Contriving to +make his hands meet in front of him by clasping +them very high up on his chest, Siegel Brother +assumed that he had folded his arms, and waited +to see what Peter would do about it.</p> + +<p>"We have also a little savings bank for the +benefit of our employees which pays 3 per +cent., yet I believe we have you not among our +depositors." There was the slightest possible +burr to his speech as though it were blunted by +so much fatness.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, sir—there's a mortgage." +Peter was afraid he should damage himself by +the admission, but the firm heard him out.</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"It was a thousand, but we've got it down to +seven hundred—six hundred and sixty,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +Peter corrected himself with a glance at his +honorarium.</p> + +<p>"And the farm, it is worth——" Siegel +Brother parted his hands slightly to admit of +any valuation.</p> + +<p>"Two thousand."</p> + +<p>"So! Well, Mr. Weatheral, that is not so +bad, and if I were you, when I had occasion to +speak of it I would say, not 'I am paying a +mortgage,' that is dead work, Mr. Weatheral, +but 'I am buying a farm.' It goes easier so."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir, I'll remember." He supposed +his employer was done with him, but +as he turned to go he heard his name again.</p> + +<p>"You will report to our Mr. Croker when +you return, Mr. Weatheral; he thinks he can +use you."</p> + +<p>Two weeks later when he came back rested +from Bloombury, Peter found himself visible +to at least ten persons, all of whom pertained +to the boarding-house of the exclusive Mrs. +Blodgett, where, by the advice of J. Wilkinson +Cohn, he engaged a small room on the third floor +with a window opening some six feet from the +rear wall of a wholesale stationery, and one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +electric light discreetly placed to discourage the +habit of reading in bed.</p> + +<p>From this time on he was visible to Mrs. +Blodgett and Aggie and Miss Thatcher, whom +he already knew as the pure food demonstrator +in dairy products, to two inconsiderable young +women from the wholesale stationer's, and a +gentleman from a shoe store, the whole of whose +physiognomy appeared to be occupied with the +effort to express an engaging youthfulness which +the crown of his head explicitly denied. He +was occasionally visible to the representative of +gentlemen's outfitters who was engaged to Aggie +and took Sunday dinners with them, and he +was particularly and pleasingly visible to J. +Wilkinson Cohn and Miss Minnie Havens. +The rest of his fellow boarders were so much of a +likeness, a kind of family likeness that spread +all over Siegel Brothers and such parts of the +city as Peter had been admitted to, that it was +a relief to Peter to realize from his profile that +J. Wilkinson's last name probably ought to have +been spelled Cohen. The determinedly young +gentleman explained to him that J. Wilkinson's +intrusion into the exclusiveness of Blodgett's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +was largely a concession to Aggie's being +as good as married and not liable to social +contamination, and to the fact that the little +Jew was amusing and pretty near white, +anyway.</p> + +<p>Miss Minnie Havens did typewriting and +stenography in a downtown office and was +understood to be in search of economic independence, +rather than under the necessity of making +a living. She had a high fluffy pompadour +and a half discoverable smile which could be +brought to a very agreeable laugh if one spent +a little pains at it. J. Wilkinson Cohn appeared +to find it worth the pains.</p> + +<p>The particular advantage of Blodgett's, +besides the fact that you could have two helps +of everything without paying extra for it, was +that it was exclusive and social. Mrs. Blodgett +had collected her family of boarders on the +principle of not having anybody who wasn't a +suitable companion for Aggie. There was also +a pianola which gave the place a tone.</p> + +<p>There was fire and light in the dining-room +at Blodgett's from seven to nine always, and in +the parlour with the pianola on Saturday evening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +and all day Sunday. Sometimes, even on +week days after supper, J. Wilkinson would +open the door into the darkened room, push away +the pianola and sing topical songs to his own +accompaniment until his stiffened fingers clattered +on the keys. Other times he would give +imitations of popular stage celebrities until +Blodgett's shouted with laughter. At all times +they appeared to have a great many engagements. +Peter was advised to join this or that +organization, and to enter upon social occasions +that unfortunately presented themselves in the +light of occasions to spend money. Apparently +there were no dragons tracking the path of +Blodgett's boarders. Miss Havens did better +than any of them for him. She explained to +him how to get books from the circulating +library, and let him read hers until he could +arrange for a card. She said it was a pleasure +to think there was going to be somebody in the +house who was congenial. It wasn't that she +had anything against Miss Thatcher and the +rest of them—they just didn't have the same +tastes. She thought a person ought to spend +some of the time improving their minds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +Although the expression was ambiguous, it +served as a sort of sedative to the aching vacuity +of the hours which Peter spent away +from Siegel Brothers. He found himself spending +as many as possible of them with Miss +Havens. She had a way of making the frivolling +talk of the supper table appear a warrantable +substitute for the things that Peter knew, +even while he echoed her phrases, that he +wasn't getting. He found himself skidding on +the paths of self-improvement and the obligations +of seeing life, along the edges of desolation. +He immersed himself as far as possible in the +atmosphere of Blodgett's in order that he +needn't have any time left in which to consider +how far it fell short of what he had come to find. +For this reason he was usually the last at the +supper table, but there were occasions when he +found it discreet to slip away as early and +quietly as possible.</p> + +<p>It was one evening about two months after +his instalment at Blodgett's. Peter was sitting +in his room when he heard them yammering +at his door with so much hilarious +insistence that he found himself getting up to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +open it, without giving himself time to put +down the book he was reading or to take off +the overcoat he had put on for want of a fire, +and finding himself in some embarrassment +because of the misapprehension which this fact +involved.</p> + +<p>"Ready, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Come along, Peter!"</p> + +<p>"I ... I'm not going," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"What? Not going to the rink with us to-night? +Why, you said——" The bright group +of his fellow boarders hung upon the narrow +landing like bees at the threshold of a hive.</p> + +<p>"I said I'd go if I could—" protested Peter, +"and I can't."</p> + +<p>"Gee! What's the matter with you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be a beastly stiff!"</p> + +<p>"Come on, fellows, we'll miss the car. Let +him be a stiff if he wants to."</p> + +<p>Peter heard their feet retreating on the stairs, +and then he saw that Minnie Havens still hesitated +at the landing. She had on her best silk +waist and her blond pompadour was brushed +higher than ever. Her eyes, which were blue, +were fixed directly on him with something in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +the meeting that gave him the impression, +gaspingly, of being about to step off into space. +He seemed suddenly to see a path opening +directly through the skating rink and the Saturday +Social Club to the House of the Shining +Walls, and Minnie Havens walking in it beside +him. He wrenched his mind away forcibly +from that and fixed it on the figure of his +weekly salary.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you?" she persuaded.</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter. "I'm much obliged to +you, but I really couldn't."</p> + +<p>But before he had time to take up his reading, +which somehow he was not able to do immediately, +he heard Mrs. Blodgett, who made +a point of being as kind to her boarders as she +could afford to be, tapping at his door.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd be going to the rink to-night."</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"You don't think it's wrong, or anything?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, not in the least."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Weatheral, I've seen a power of +young folks, comin' and goin', in my business +and it don't pay for 'em to get too stodgy like.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +They need livenin' up." She hung upon the +door as Peter waited for her to go. "Miss +Havens is a nice girl," she ventured.</p> + +<p>Peter admitted it. "I've my mother and +sister to think of," he told her, and presently +he found he had told her a great deal more.</p> + +<p>"Well," commented Mrs. Blodgett, "you +do have a lot to carry.... Was you +readin' now, Mr. Weatheral? ... because +it's warmer down in my sittin' room, and +there's only Aggie and me sewin'.... +Besides," she argued triumphantly, "it's +savin' light."</p> + +<p>First and last he heard a great deal about +saving at Blodgett's. Aggie, who was making +up her white things, had something to tell +every evening almost, about the price of insertion. +But it was saving for a purpose; they +were in the way, most of them, of being investors. +J. Wilkinson had sixty dollars in his +brother's cigar stand on Fifty-fourth street. +He used to let his brother off for Sunday afternoons +with quite a proprietary air. The shoe +gentleman, whose very juvenile name was Wally +Whitaker, didn't believe in such a mincing at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +prosperity. He talked freely about tips and +corners and margins and had been known to +make twenty-seven dollars in copper once. +He offered Peter some exclusive inside information +in B and C's before he had been in the +house a month.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see," Peter explained himself, +"I'm buying a farm up our way!" His fellow +boarders laid down their forks to look at him; +he could see reflected from their several angles +how he had placed himself by the mere statement +of his situation. He felt at once the resistance +it gave him, the sense of something to pull +against, of having got his feet under him. It +was the point at which the conquest of the +mortgage dragon began to present itself to him +as a thing accomplished rather than a thing +escaped.</p> + +<p>It must have been this feeling of release +which opened up for him, from pictures that +he saw occasionally with Miss Havens on Sundays, +from books he read and discussed with +her, avenues that appeared to lead more or less +directly to the House. There were times when +he found himself walking in them with Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +Minnie Havens, and yet always curiously +expecting the Lovely Lady when they found +her there, to be quite another person. He came +within an inch of telling her about it on the +occasion on which she presented him with an +embroidered hat marker for Christmas, and +when he took her to the theatre with tickets +the floor walker had presented to him on account +of Mrs. Floor Walker not feeling up to +it. It appeared, further, that Miss Havens +had a way of falling into profound psychological +difficulties which required a vast amount of +talking over, and a great many appeals to +Peter's disinterested judgment to extract her, +not without some subtle intimations of dizzying +escapes for himself. Peter supposed that was +always the way with girls. It came to a crisis +later where Miss Havens' whole destiny hung +upon the point as to whether she could accept +a situation offered her in her own town, or +should stay on in the city and see what came +of it.</p> + +<p>"You'd get more salary there, and be able +to live cheaper?" Peter wished to know.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes." The implication of her tone was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +that she didn't see what that had to do with it. +It was toward the end of June, and she was +looking very pretty in a white dress and a hat +that set off her pompadour to advantage, and +there was no special reason, as they had the +afternoon before them, why they should not +have taken some of the by-paths that the girl +perceived to lead out from the subject into +breathless wonder. She had ways, which were +maidenly and good, of opening up to Peter +comfortable little garden plots of existence +which, though they lay far this side of the House +and the Lovely Lady, had in the monotony of +the long climb up the scale of Siegel Brothers, +moments of importunate invitation.</p> + +<p>"And you came up to the city," Peter went +on in the gravelled walk of fact, "just to improve +yourself in shorthand so you could get +such a situation? I don't see why you hesitate."</p> + +<p>Miss Havens could hardly say why herself.</p> + +<p>"There were so many ways of bettering one's +self in the city. I've a great many friends +here," she hinted.</p> + +<p>"Not so many," Peter reminded her, "as +you'd have where you were brought up."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are staying in the city?" Miss Havens +suggested.</p> + +<p>"That's different. I have to." He had already +told her about Ellen and also about his +mother.</p> + +<p>"And are you always going to stay on here +like this, working and working and never taking +any time for yourself? Aren't you ever going +to ... marry?"</p> + +<p>"I know too much what poverty is like to +ask any woman to share it," Peter protested.</p> + +<p>"Suppose she should ask you?"</p> + +<p>"They don't do that; the right sort."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why ... if some +girl ... cared ... and if she saw ... +anybody struggling along under burdens she +would be glad to share, and she knew because +of that he didn't mean to ask her ... +You think she ought not to let him know?"</p> + +<p>"I think it wouldn't be best," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"You think the man would despise her?"</p> + +<p>"Not that; but if he liked her a little ... +he might consent to it ... just because +he liked her and was tired maybe ... and +that wouldn't be good for either of them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, it doesn't concern either of +us," said Miss Havens.</p> + +<p>The next evening as Peter was letting himself +in at his own door—he had moved to the +second floor front by this time—Mrs. Blodgett +stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Miss Havens left her regards for you," she +explained. "She went to-day."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Peter, "wasn't it sudden?"</p> + +<p>"Sort of. She'd been considerin' of it for +some time, and last night she made up her +mind. But I did think," said Mrs. Blodgett, +"that she'd have said good-bye to <i>you</i>." And +not eliciting anything by way of a reply, she +added: "Miss Havens is a nice girl. I hate to +think of her slavin' her life out in an office. +She'd ought to get married."</p> + +<p>"A girl has ever so many more chances in her +home town," Peter offered hopefully.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so." Mrs. Blodgett sighed. +"Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. +Weatheral?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, thank you." He was lingering +still on the landing on Mrs. Blodgett's account, +but he found his finger slipping between the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +leaves of the volume he had brought from the +library.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she warned him, "readin' is an +improvin' occupation, but there's a book we +hadn't any of us ought to miss, and that's the +Book of Life, Mr. Weatheral." And somehow +with that ringing in his ears, Peter spent several +minutes walking up and down in his room +before he could settle to his book again.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>II</h2> + +<p>It was a week or ten days after Miss Havens +left, before Peter went down to Bloombury +for his midsummer vacation, a week in which +he had the greatest difficulty in getting back +to the House of the Shining Walls. He set +out for it almost immediately with a feeling +akin to the release with which one returns +to daily habit after the departure of an unexpected +guest. But his thought would no +sooner strike into the accustomed paths than +Miss Minnie Havens would meet him there unaccountably, +to begin again those long intimate +conversations which led toward and about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +House, but never quite to it. Peter found +himself looking out for those meetings with +some notion of dodging them, and yet once +they were fairly off, he owned them a great +relief from Blodgett's. Now that it was withdrawn, +he realized in the girl's bright companionship +the effect of the rose-red glow of +the shade that Aggie drew down over the front +parlour lamp on the evenings when the Gentlemen's +Outfitter called. It had prevented his +seeing until now, that the chief difference between +himself and his fellow boarders, was +that for most of them, this was a place where +they had come to stay. Having let Miss +Havens go on alone to the place she was +bound for, he had moments of dreadful sinking, +as it occurred to him to wonder if he hadn't +made a mistake in the nature of his own destination. +Suppose, after all, he should find +himself castaway in some oasis of determined +sprightliness with Wally Whitaker in whose +pocket pretenses of tips and margins he began +to discern a poorer sort of substitute for the +House. He was as much bored by the permanently +young shoe-salesman after this discovery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +as before it, but obliged to set a watch +on himself lest in a moment of finding himself +too much in the same case, he should make the +mistake of inviting Wally to Bloombury for +his vacation.</p> + +<p>He was relieved, when at last he had got +away without it, to be saved from such a +misadventure, for he found his mother not +standing the heat well, and Ellen anxious. +He had never definitely shaped to himself the +idea that there could anything happen to his +mother; she was as much a part of his life as +the aging apple trees and the hills that climbed, +with low, gnarled pines to the sky's edge beyond +the marshes, a point from which to take +distance and direction. He began to note +now the graying hair, the shrunken breast +and the worn hands, so blue veined for all +their brownness, and he could not sleep of nights +because of the sweat that was on his soul, for +fear of what might come to her. He would +lie in the little room under the roof and hear +the elms moving like the riffle of silence into +sound, thinking of his mother until at last +he would be obliged to rise and move softly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +about the place, as if by the mere assertion +of himself he could make her safer in it. He +wished nothing so much as not to disturb her, +but she must have been lying awake often +herself, for the second or third time this happened, +she called to him. He came, half +dressed as he was and drew the covers up close +about her shoulders, and was exceedingly gay +and tender with her.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing troubling you, son?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—except to be sure there's nothing +troubling <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>She gave a little, low laugh like a girl.</p> + +<p>"That's so like your father. I remember +he would get up in the night when you were +little, and go prowling about ... he +used to say he was afraid the roof tree +would fall in and kill you. And yet here you +are...." She reached out to give him +a little pat, as if somehow to reassure him. +The low dropping moon made a square block +of light on the uncarpeted floor; outside, the +orchard waited for the dawn, and the fields +brimmed life up to their very doors.</p> + +<p>"You're like him in other ways," she went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +on. "Somehow it's brought him back wonderfully +the last two or three days, and especially +at night when I'd hear you creaking down the +stair. There's a board there which always +does creak, and I'd hear you trying to remember +which it was, the same as <i>he</i> used to——"</p> + +<p>"I haven't meant to keep you awake, +mother."</p> + +<p>"I've been awake. When you're getting +along like, you don't sleep much, Peter. Sleep +is for dreaming, some of it, and the old don't +dream."</p> + +<p>"You're not to go calling yourself old, +mother!"</p> + +<p>"And me with a son going twenty-three! +We weren't so young either when we were +married, your father and I ... but +I want you should sleep, Peter, and dream +when you can. You have pleasant dreams, son?"</p> + +<p>"Any amount of them." He was going off +into one of those bright fantasies of what he +should do when he was rich as he meant to be, +with which he had so often beguiled Ellen's +pain, but she kissed him and sent him to bed +again lest Ellen should hear them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was not more than a day or two after +that the minister's wife caught young Mr. +Weatheral walking with his mother in the +back pasture with his arm about her, and was +slightly shocked by it, for though it was thought +highly commendable in him to have paid off +the mortgage and managed a silk dress for +her and Ellen besides, Bloombury was not +habituated to a lively expression of family affection. +Peter had consented to gather the +huckleberries which Ellen insisted were of a +superior flavour in the back pasture, on the sole +condition that his mother should come with +him, and the minister's wife had just stepped +aside on her way to the Tillinghurst's to gather +the southerwood which grew there, for the +minister's winter cough, when she caught sight +of them.</p> + +<p>"She couldn't have stared more if she'd +caught me with a girl." Peter protested.</p> + +<p>"It's only that she'd have thought it more +likely," his mother extenuated. "I hope you +aren't going to be a girl-hater, Peter. I want +you should marry some time, and if I haven't +seemed anxious about it before now, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +mustn't think it's because I want to keep you +for Ellen and me. What I don't want is that +you should take to it just <i>because</i> there's a girl. +Not but what that's natural, but there's more +to it than that, Peter. For you," she supplemented. +She sat down on a gray, round stone +while Peter stripped the bushes at her feet, +and watched to see if his colour rose while she +talked, or his gaze failed to meet hers at any +point.</p> + +<p>"I'd have liked to have Ellen marry," said +Ellen's mother, "she's that kind. Having a +man of her own, most any kind of a man so +as he would be good to her, would mean such +a lot. If Ellen can have a little of what +everybody's having, she's satisfied. But there +are some who can get a great deal more out of +it than that ... and if they don't the +rest of it is a drag and a weariness." He +left off stripping the bushes and turned contentedly +against her knees.</p> + +<p>"You're my home, Mumsey."</p> + +<p>"And not even," she gently insisted, "when +I'm not here to make it for you. There's a +kind of life goes with loving; it's like—like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +the lovely inside colour of a shell, and somehow, +this winter I've wondered if you'd got to the +place where you knew what that would be +like if you should find it." She turned his +face up to her with a tender anxiety and yet +with a little timidity; they did not talk much +of such things in Bloombury.</p> + +<p>"I know, mother."</p> + +<p>"Yes...." after a long look, "you +would; you're so like your father. But if you +know, you mustn't ever be led by dullness or +loneliness into anything less, Peter. Not that +I'm afraid you'll be led into anything wrong ... +but there are things that are almost +more wrong than downright wickedness....</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking a great deal lately about +when I was your age, and there didn't seem +anything for me but to marry one of the neighbour's +boys that I'd known always, or a long +plain piece of school teaching. It wasn't easy +with everybody egging me on—but I stuck +it out, and at the last along came your +father ... I'd like you to have something +like that, Peter,—and your son coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +to you the way you came to me, like it +was through a cloud of glory...." He +looked up presently on her silence, silver tipped +now with the hope of renewal, and he saw +her as a man sometimes when he is young and +clean, sees his mother, the Sacred Door ... +and he did not observe at all that her hands +were berry stained and the nails broken, nor +that her cheek had fallen in and her hair gray +and wispy. But being a young man and +never good at talking, it made no difference +with him except that as they walked home +across the pastures he was more than ever +careful of her and teased her more whimsically.</p> + +<p>He forgot, after he had settled in his room +again at Blodgett's, that Miss Minnie Havens +had ever walked with him in the purlieus of +the House, for he was quite taken up with a +new set of rooms he had thrown out from it +for his mother. She was always there with +him now until the day of her death and long +after, made a part of all his dreaming by the +touch with which she had limned in herself +for him, the feature of all Lovely Ladies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>He would write her long letters into which +crept much that had been uttered only in the +House, which that winter became an estate +in Florida, moved there because of Mrs. +Weatheral's need of mild climate. They went +abroad after the Christmas Holidays in which +she had coughed more than usual and consented +to have her breakfast brought up to bed, +setting out every evening from Peter's reading-lamp +and arriving very shortly at Italian Cathedrals +and old Roman seaport towns that smelled of history.</p> + +<p>Dreaming of lovely ladies who have no face +or form other than they borrow from the passing +incident is a very pleasant way of passing +the time, and does not necessarily lead to anything; +but when a man goes about afraid lest +his mother should die for lack of something he +might have got for her, he dreams closer at +home. More than ever since the revelation +of his mother's frailness, Peter dreamed of +being rich, and since there was nothing nearer +to him than the way Siegel Brothers had managed +it, he devoted so much time to the scrutiny +of their methods that he passed in a very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +short time from being head of the delivery department +to the right hand of Mr. Croker. +Even Blinders could not recall, in the three +years he had been bundle boy, so marked an +example of favouritism.</p> + +<p>"They don't make partners any more out +of underlings," Croker let him know confidentially. +"What do you think you're headed +for?" Peter explained himself.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to find out how they did it."</p> + +<p>"And when you find out," Croker wagged +at him, "you won't be able to do anything with +it. You have to have capital. Look at the +time I've been with them!"</p> + +<p>"How long is that?" Peter was interested.</p> + +<p>"Twenty years." Croker told him.</p> + +<p>"In twenty years," Peter was confident, +"a man ought to be able to find some capital." +After that he began to observe Mr. +Croker.</p> + +<p>It is probable at this time that if he had +not been concerned for his mother's health, +he might have grown as dry and uninteresting +as at Blodgett's they began to think him.</p> + +<p>He was a thin young man with hair of no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +particular colour, and eyes that were good and +rather shy about women. He went out very +little and had not, Miss Thatcher who sat +opposite him was sure, a mind above his business. +Aggie had married her Outfitter, and +J. Wilkinson Cohn, who had become a full +partner in his brother's cigar stand, had moved +out to Fifty-fourth Street, so that there was +nobody who could have contradicted her. +But lying awake planning how he might piece +out life for his mother with comforts, and hearing +in every knock the precursor of what might +have happened to her, his heart was exercised +as it is good for the heart to be even with pain +and anxiety. And beyond the heart stretching +there was always the House. He could seldom +get away to it in his waking hours, but he +knew it was there for him, and visiting it in +dreams he kept in spite of the anxiety and Mr. +Croker, his young resiliency. Along in December, +about two weeks before his midwinter +holiday, Ellen sent for him.</p> + +<p>"It's not as if there hadn't been time for +everything. You must think of that, Peter. +And your being able to come down every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +Saturday since the first stroke. There's plenty +that are hurried away without a good-bye or +anything."</p> + +<p>"I know, Ellen."</p> + +<p>"And it isn't as if there hadn't been plenty to +say, either. Six weeks would have been too +long for anybody less loving than mother. +They wouldn't have known how to go through +your life and say just the things you'll be glad to +remember when the time comes for them. +You've got to keep your mind on those things, +Peter."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Ellen."</p> + +<p>The front room had been well rid up after +the funeral and everybody at Ellen's earnest +entreaty had left them quite alone. Although +there was fire in the base burner, they were sitting +together by the kitchen stove, the front +of which was thrown open for the sake of the +warm glow of the coals. By and by the kettle +began to sing and the bare tips of the lilac +scratched on the pane like a live thing waiting +to be let in. The little familiar sounds refilled +for them the empty room.</p> + +<p>Outside it was every way such a day as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +well-spent life might slip away in; the tracks +in the deep-rutted February snow might have +been worn there by the habit of sixty years. +There was no hint of the spring yet, but here +and there in the bare patches on the hills and +the frayed icy edges of the drifts, the sign that +the weight of the winter was behind them. +There would be a little quiet time yet and then +the resurrection. The brother and sister had +taken it all very quietly. Nobody had ever +taken anything in any other way in the presence +of Mrs. Weatheral, and that she was there still +for them, that she would always be present in +their lives, a warm determining influence, was +witnessed by that absence of violence which +empties too soon the cup of grief. The loss +of their mother had at least brought them no +sense of leaving her behind. They were going +on with their life so soon because she was going +with them.</p> + +<p>"That was why I wanted them all to go +away," Ellen took up the thought again. +"I've been thinking all day about mother being +with father and how glad he'll be to see her, +and yet it seems as if I can feel her here. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +thought if we kept still a while she'd make us +understand what she wanted us to do."</p> + +<p>"About what, Ellen?"</p> + +<p>"About my going up to the city with you to +board—it <ins class="typo" title="seemes">seems</ins> such a wasteful way to live +somehow, just sitting around!"</p> + +<p>"It isn't as expensive as keeping house," +Peter told her, "and I want you to sit around, +Ellen; women in Bloombury don't get enough of +that I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"They don't. Did you see Ada Harvey +to-day? Four children and two teeth out, and +her not thirty. I guess you'd take better care +of me than that, Peter,—only——"</p> + +<p>"You think <i>she</i> wouldn't like it for you?"</p> + +<p>"She thought such a lot of keeping up a +home, Peter. It was like—like those Catholics +burning candles. It seemed as if she +thought you'd get something out of it if it was +just going on, even if you didn't visit it more +than two or three times a year. Lots of women +feel that way, Peter, and I guess there must +be something in it."</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> something in it," Peter assured her.</p> + +<p>"And if I go and board with you we'd have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +to break up everything——" She looked +about on all the familiar mould of daily habit +that was her world, and tears started afresh. +"And we've got all this furniture." She moved +her head toward the door of the front room and +the parlour set that had been Peter's Christmas +gift to them two years ago. "For all it was +such a comfort to her to have it, it's as good +as new. It seemed as if she thought you were +the only one good enough to sit in it."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Ellen."</p> + +<p>"I know, Peter." They were silent a while +until the deep wells of grief had stilled in the +sense of that sustaining presence. "I only +wanted to be sure I wouldn't be going against +her, breaking up the home. It seems like anything +she set such store by oughtn't to stop just +because she isn't here to take care of it." +They had to come back to that the next day +and the next.</p> + +<p>"I only want to do what is best for you, +Ellen."</p> + +<p>"I'd be best off if I was making you happy, +Peter—and I'd feel such a burden somehow, +just boarding."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The rents <i>are</i> cheaper in the suburbs," Peter +went so far as to admit. It was all so inarticulate +in him; how could he explain to Ellen the +feeling that he had, that settling down to a +home with her would somehow put an end to +any dreams he had had of a home of his own, +persistent but unshaped visions that vanished +before the sudden brightening of Ellen's face +at his least concession.</p> + +<p>"We could have somebody in to clean," she +reminded him, "and I hardly ever have to be +in bed now."</p> + +<p>The fact was that Peter had the very place in +mind; he had often walked out there on Sundays +from Blodgett's; he thought the neighbourhood +had a clean and healthy look. He went up on +Tuesday to see what could be done about it.</p> + +<p>Lessing, who rented him the apartment, made +the natural mistake about it that Peter's age +and his inexperience as a householder invited. +He said the neighbours were all a most desirable +class of people, and Peter could see for himself +that the city was bound to build out that way +in a few years. As for what Pleasanton could +do in the way of climate, well, Lessing told him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +with the air of being only a little less interested +than he credited Peter with being, look at the +perambulators.</p> + +<p>They were as fine a lot of wellfilled vehicles as +could be produced by any suburb anywhere, and +Ellen for one was never tired of looking at them. +But Peter couldn't understand why Ellen insisted +on walking home from church Sunday +morning the wrong way of the pavement.</p> + +<p>"I suppose we do get in the way," she admitted +after he had explained to her that they +wouldn't be crowded off so frequently if they +moved with the nurse-maid's parade and not +against it, "but if we go this way we can see all +the little faces."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you cared so much for babies."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see it isn't as if I was to have any +of my own——" Something in the tone with +which she admitted the restraining fact of her +affliction brought out for Peter how she had +fitted her life to it, like a plant growing hardily +out of a rock, climbing over and around it without +rancour or rebellion. As he turned now to +look at her long, plain face in the light of what +had been going on in himself lately, he recalled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +that the determining influence which had drawn +her thick hair into that unbecoming knot at +the back of her neck had been the pain it had +given her when she first began to put up her hair, +to do it higher.</p> + +<p>She was watching the bright little bonneted +heads go by with the same detachment that +he had learned to look at the shop windows, +without thinking of appropriating any of their +splendour for himself, and when she spoke again +it was without any sensible connection with the +present occasion.</p> + +<p>"Peter, do you remember Willy Shakeley?"</p> + +<p>"Shakey Willy, we used to call him. I +remember his freckles; they were the biggest +thing about him." He waited for the communicating +thread, but nothing came except what +presently reached him out of his own young +recollections. "He wasn't good enough for +you, Ellen," he said at last for all comment.</p> + +<p>"He was kind, and he wouldn't have minded +about my being lame, but a man has to have a +healthy wife if he's a farmer." How completely +she had accepted the deprivation for +herself, he saw by her not wasting a sigh over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +it; she had schooled herself so long to go no +further in her thought than she went on the +crutch which tapped now on the pavement +beside him. As if to stop his going any further +on her account she smiled up at him. "Peter, +if you were to meet any of the things you +thought you'd grow up to be, do you suppose +you'd know them?"</p> + +<p>At least he could have told her that he didn't +meet any of them on his way between Siegel +Brothers and the flat in Pleasanton.</p> + +<p>There are many things which if a young man +goes without until he is twenty-five he can very +well do without, but the one thing he cannot +leave off without hurting him is the expectation +of some time doing them. The obligation +of the mortgage and Ellen's lameness had been +a sort of bridge for Peter, a high airy structure +which engaged the best of him and so carried +him safely over Blodgett's without once letting +him fall into the unlovely vein of life there, its +narrowness, its commonness. He had known, +even when he had known it most inaccessible, +that there was another life which answered to +every instinct of his for beauty and fitness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +He waited only for the release from strain +for his entry with it. Now by the shock +of his mother's death he found himself precipitated +in a frame of living where a parlour set +out of Siegel Brothers' Household Emporium +was the limit of taste and understanding. The +worst thing about Siegel Brothers' parlour sets +was that he sold them. He knew it was his +particular value to Siegel Brothers that he +had always known what sort of things were +acceptable to the out-of-town trade. He had +selected this one distinctly with an eye to the +pleasure his mother and Ellen would get out +of what Bloombury would think of it. He +hadn't expected it would turn and rend him. +That it was distinctly better than anything he +had had at Blodgett's was inconsiderable beside +the fact that Blodgett's hadn't owned him. +That he was owned now by his sister and the +furniture, was plain to him the first time he sat +down to figure out the difference between his +salary and what it would cost him to let Ellen be +a burden to him in the way that made her +happiest. Not that he thought of Ellen in that +way; he was glad when he thought of it at all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +articulately, to be able to make life so little of +a burden to her. But though he saw quite +clearly how, without some fortunate accident, +the rest of his life would be taken up with +making a home for Ellen and making it secure +for her in case anything happened to him, he +saw too, that there was no room in it for the +Lovely Lady. The worst of all this was that +he did not see how he was to go on without +her.</p> + +<p>He had fled to her from the inadequacy +of all substitutes for her that his life afforded, +and she had ended by making him over +into the sort of man who could never be satisfied +with anything less. Something he owed, +no doubt, to that trait of his father's which made +his memories of Italy more to him than his inheritance, +but there it was, a world Peter had +built up out of books and pictures and music, +more real and habitable than that in which he +went about in a gray business suit and a pleasant +ready manner; a world from which, every time +he fitted his key in the latch of the little flat +in Pleasanton, he felt himself suddenly dispossessed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was not that he failed to get a proper +pleasure out of being a householder, in being +able to take a certain tone with the butcher and +discuss water rates and rents with other householders +going to and fro on his train. Ellen's +cooking tasted good to him and it was very +pleasant to see the pleasure it gave her to have +Burnell of the hardware, out to supper occasionally. +He made friends with Lessing, whose +natty and determinedly architectural office with +its air of being somehow akin to Wally Whitaker, +occupied the corner where Peter waited every +morning for his car. Lessing began it by coming +out on the very first occasion to ask him how his +sister did, in an effort to correct any impression +of a want of perspicuity in his first estimate of +Peter's situation. He kept it up for the reason +perhaps that men friends are meant for each +other from the beginning of time quite as much +as we are accustomed to thinking of them as +being meant for the lovely ladies whom they +so frequently miss. Lessing was about Peter's +own age and had large and cheerful notions of +the probable increase of real-estate values in +Pleasanton, combined with a just appreciation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +of the simple shrewdness which had so recommended +Peter to his employers.</p> + +<p>"You'd be a crackerjack to talk to the old +ladies," Lessing generously praised him. "I +scare 'em; they think I'm too hopeful." That +he didn't, however, have the same effect on +young ladies was apparent from the very pretty +one whom Peter used to see about, especially on +early closing Saturday afternoons, helping him +to shut up the office and get off to the ball +game. He couldn't have told why, but those +were the days when Peter allowed the car to +carry him on to the next block, before alighting, +after which he would make a point of being +particularly kind to Ellen. It would +never do for her to get a notion that the +tapping of her crutch beside him had scared +anything out of Peter's life which he might +think worth having in it.</p> + +<p>Along toward Thanksgiving time, on an +occasion when Peter had just missed his car +and had to wait for another one, Lessing—J. +B. on the door sign, though he was the +sort that everybody who knew him called +Julian—came quite out to the pavement and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +stood there with his hands in his pockets and +his hair beginning to curl boyishly in the dampness, +quite brimming over with good fortune. +Singularly he didn't mention it at once, but +began to complain about the low state of the +market in real estate.</p> + +<p>"Not but that the values are all right," he +was careful to explain; "it's just that they <i>are</i> +all right makes it so trying. If a fellow had +a little capital now, he could do wonders. The +deuce of a chap like me is that he hasn't any +capital unless there's some buying."</p> + +<p>"You think it's a good time then to lay out +a little money?"</p> + +<p>"Good! <i>Good!</i> Oh, Lord, it's so good that +if a fellow had a few thousands just put around +judiciously, he wouldn't be able to sleep nights +for hearing it turn over." He kicked the gravel +in sheer impatience. "How's your sister?"</p> + +<p>It was a formula that he had kept on with +because to have dropped it immediately might +have betrayed the extenuating nature of its +inception, and besides there were so many directions +in which one might start conversationally +off from it. He made use of it now without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +waiting for Peter's habitual "Very well, thank +you," by a burst into confidence.</p> + +<p>"You see I'm engaged to be married—yes, +I guess you've seen me with her. Fact is, I +haven't cared how much people have seen so +long as she's seen it, too; and now we've got it +all fixed up, naturally I'm on the make. I'm +dashed if I don't think I'll have to take a +partner."</p> + +<p>"I've been wanting to speak to you about +some property of mine," Peter ventured. "It's +a farm up country."</p> + +<p>"What's it worth?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've added to it some the last ten +years and made considerable improvement. I +ought to get three thousand."</p> + +<p>"That's for farming? For summer residence +it ought to bring more than that. Any scenery?"</p> + +<p>"Plenty," Peter satisfied him on that score. +"I've been thinking," he let out shyly, "that +if I could put the price of it in some place where +I could watch it, the money would do me more +good...."</p> + +<p>Lessing turned on him a suddenly brightening eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's the talk—say, you know I think I +could get you forty-five hundred for that farm +of yours anyway." They looked at one another +on the verge of things hopeful and considerable. +As Peter's car swung around the +curve, suddenly they blushed, both of them, and +reached out and shook hands.</p> + +<p>That evening as Peter came home he saw +Lessing buying chrysanthemums at the florist's +with a happy countenance, and to master the +queer pang it gave him, Peter got off the car +and walked a long way out on the dim wet +pavement. He was looking at the bright picture +of Lessing and the girl—she was really very +pretty—and seeing instead, himself, quite the +bachelor, and his lame sister taking their blameless +dull way in the world. He couldn't any +more for the life of him, get a picture of himself +without Ellen in it; the tapping of her crutch +sounded even in the House when he visited it +in his dreams. It was well on this occasion that +he had Ellen beside him, for she showed him the +way presently to take it, as he knew she would +take it as soon as he went home and told her—as +another door by which they could enter sympathetically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +in the joyousness they were denied. +She would be so pleased for Julian's sake, in +whom, by Peter's account of him, she took the +greatest interest, and so pleased for the girl to +have such a handsome, capable lover. It made, +for Ellen, a better thing of life if somebody +could have him.</p> + +<p>Peter went back after a while with that +thought to the florist's and bought chrysanthemums, +taking care to ask for the same kind +Mr. Lessing had just ordered. He was feeling +quite cheerful even, as he ran up the steps with +them a few minutes later, and saw the square +of light under the half-drawn curtain, and heard +the tap of Ellen's crutch coming to meet him.</p> + +<p>That night after he had gone to bed a very +singular thing happened. The Princess out of +the picture visited him. It was there at the +foot of his bed in a new frame where Ellen had +hung it—the young knight riding down the +old, lumpy dragon, but with an air that Peter +hadn't for a long time been able to manage for +himself, doing a great thing easily the way one +knew perfectly great things couldn't. The +assistant sales manager of Siegel Brothers had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +been lying staring up at it for some time when +the Princess spoke to him. He knew it was she, +though there was no face nor form that he could +remember in his waking hours, except that it +was familiar.</p> + +<p>"Ellen is right," she told him; "it doesn't +really matter so long as somebody finds me."</p> + +<p>"But what have <i>I</i> done?" Peter was sore +with a sense of personal slight. "It wasn't in +the story that there should be a whole crop of +dragons."</p> + +<p>"All dragons are made so that where one +head comes off there are seven in its place; +and you must remember if somebody didn't go +about slaying them, I couldn't be at all." This +as she said it had a deep meaning for Peter that +afterward escaped him. "And you can hold +the dream. It takes a lot of dreaming to bring +one like me to pass."</p> + +<p>"I'm sick of dreams," said Peter. "A man +dies after a little who is fed on nothing else."</p> + +<p>"They die quicker if they stop dreaming; on +those that have the gift for it the business of +dreaming falls. Listen! How many that you +know have found me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A great many think they have; it comes to +the same thing."</p> + +<p>"The same for them; but you must see that +I can never really <i>be</i> until I am for those outside +the dream. The trouble with you is that you'd +wake up after a while and you would <i>know</i>."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peter admitted, "I should know."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," she was oh, so gentle about it, +"yours is the better part. If you can't have +me, at least you're not stopping me by leaving +off for something else. In the dream I can +live and grow, and you can grow to me. Do +you remember what happened to Ada Harvey? +I've saved you from that at any rate."</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter, "it was the dragon saved +me. I thought you were she. It's saved me +from lots of things, now that I think of it."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's what we have to do between us, +Peter, we have to save you. You're worth +saving."</p> + +<p>"Save me for what?" Peter cried out to her +and so strongly in his loneliness that he found +himself starting up from his bed with it. He +could see the dragon spitting flames as before, +and the pale light from the swinging street lamp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +gilding the frame of the picture. Though he +did not understand all that had happened to +him, as he lay down again he was more comforted +than he had been at any time since he had +made up his mind that he was to be a bachelor.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART FOUR</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH THE LOVELY</h4> +<h4>LADY MAKES A</h4> +<h4>FINAL APPEARANCE</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<h2>PART FOUR</h2> +<h4>IN WHICH THE LOVELY LADY MAKES A</h4> +<h4>FINAL APPEARANCE</h4> + +<h2>I</h2> + +<p>On the day that the silver-laced maple, then +in fullest leaf, had passed by the space of three +delicate palm-shaped banners the sill of the +third-story office window, Lessing, of Weatheral, +Lessing & Co., Brokers in Real Estate, crossed +over to his partner's desk before sitting down at +his own, and remained quietly leaning against +it and looking out of the window without a +word. He remained there staring out over +the new, orderly growth of the suburb, toward +the river, until the stenographer from the outer +room had come in with the vase which she had +been filling with great golden roses, and gone +out again, after placing it carefully in the exact +middle of the top of the junior partner's desk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +By that time Lessing's rather plump, practical +hand had crept out along the rim of the desk +until it was covered by Peter's lean one, and still +neither of them had said a word. The roses +had come in from Lessing's country place that +morning in Lessing's car, and Lessing's wife +had gathered them. There were exactly seventeen, +full-blown and fragrant, and one small +bud of promise which Peter presently removed +from its vase to his button hole. The +act had almost the significance of a ritual, +a thing done many times with particular meaning.</p> + +<p>"Somehow," Peter said as he fastened it +with a pin underneath his lapel, "seventeen +years seems a shorter time to look back on than +to look forward to."</p> + +<p>"Well, when we've put twenty-five years of +work into it—and that's nothing to what we'll +get into the next seventeen." Lessing's tone +keyed admirably with the bright ample day +outside, the rapid glint of the river and the tips +of the maple all a-tremble with the urgency of +new growth. The senior partner's eye roved +from that to the restrained richness of the office<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +furniture from which the new was not yet worn, +and returned to the contemplation of the towering +white cumuli beginning to pile up beyond +the farther bank of the river. "There's no +end to what a man can lift," he asserted confidently, +"once he's got his feet under him."</p> + +<p>"We've carried a lot," Peter assented cheerfully, +"and sometimes it was rather steep going, +but now it's carrying us. The question is"—and +here his voice fell off a shade and a slight +gathering appeared between his eyes—"the real +question is, I suppose, what it is carrying us <i>to</i>."</p> + +<p>"Where's the good of that?" Julian protested. +"It's only a limitation to set out for a particular +place. The fun is in the going. You +keep right along with the procession until old +age gets you. The thing is just to keep it up as +long as you can." He swung himself into a +sitting posture on the edge of the desk and +noted that the slight pucker had not left his +partner's eyes. "What's the idea?" he wished +affectionately to know.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much, but I sort of grew up +with the idea of Duty—something you had to +do because there was nobody else to do it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +You had not only to do it but you had to like +it, not because it was likable, but because it was +your duty. It was always right in front of me: +I couldn't see over or around it; I just had to do +it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you did it," Lessing corroborated. +"Clarice says the way you've taken care of +Ellen——"</p> + +<p>"And the way Ellen has taken care of me—but +then Ellen was all the woman I had." He +caught himself up swiftly after that; it was +seldom even to his partner that anything +escaped him in reference to the interior life of +dreams which had gone on in him, quite happily +behind his undistinguished exterior. "But +somehow it hasn't seemed to come out anywhere. +I've done my duty ... and when +I'm dead and Ellen's dead, where is it? After +all, what have I done?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, look at Pleasanton," Julian reminded +him; "do you call that nothing?" They +looked together toward the esplanade along the +river, beginning at this hour to be flecked with +the white aprons of nurse-maids and their charges. +"We've given them clean water to drink and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +clean streets, and a safe place for the children +to play in. The fight we had with the city +council for <i>that</i> ...!" He waved his +arm again toward the well-parked river front. +"Ever since I sold your farm for you and you +began putting your money into the business, +we've walked right along with it. Even before +you left Siegel Brothers and we used to sit up +nights with the map, planning where to put +our money like a checker-board, we saw things +like this for the town, and now we've made 'em +true. And you say we've done nothing!" +The senior partner was touched a little in his +tenderest susceptibilities.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," Peter admitted with a shamed +laugh, "I suppose man is an incurable egotist. +I was thinking of something more personal, +something <i>mine</i>, the way a book or a picture +belongs to the man who makes it."</p> + +<p>"The game isn't over yet," Lessing reminded +him, with a glance at the unfolding bud which +Clarice had sent as a symbol of the opening +year; "you're only forty. And, anyway, the +money's yours; you made it." Something in +the word recalled him to a thought that had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +been earlier in his mind. "Clarice wanted me +to ask you to-day if you had any idea how much +you are worth."</p> + +<p>Peter's attention came back from the window +with a start. "Does that mean the Fresh +Air Fund or the Association for the Protection +of Ownerless Pups?"</p> + +<p>Julian grinned. "Ownerless bachelors rather. +Clarice has an idea you are well enough off to +marry."</p> + +<p>"If it were a proposition of my being married +to Clarice I should consider myself well enough +off without anything else——" Peter dropped +the light, accustomed banter for a sober tone. +"How well off does your wife think I ought to +be?"</p> + +<p>"She's got it figured out that all you've spent +on making Ellen comfortable for life isn't a +patch on what she and the boys cost me, so it's +high time you set about your natural destiny +of making some woman happy."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Julian, <i>is</i> it an object for a +man to live for, making some woman happy?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it keeps you on the jump all right," +Lessing assured him. "What else is there?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +It's a way of making yourself happy when you +come to look at it; keeping her and the kids so +that you leave the world better off than you +found it. It suits <i>me</i>." He was looking, indeed, +particularly well suited, in spite of a disposition +to portliness and a suspicion of thinning +hair, with what the seventeen years just +past had brought him. A warm appreciation +of what those things were touched his regard +for his companion with a sober affectionateness. +"I reckon Clarice is right: a wife and a couple +of kids is the prescription for your case. That's +why she wanted me to remind you that you +could afford 'em."</p> + +<p>"And has she named the day?" Peter +wished to know whimsically.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say, Weatheral——"</p> + +<p>"My dear Julian, if I hadn't been able to see +what Clarice has been up to for the last six +months, at least I could have depended on +Ellen to see it for me."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't object, does she?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you think the privilege of being aunt +to your children has made up to her for not +being aunt to mine——"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The privilege is on the other side. But +anyway, I'm glad you got on to it. I didn't +want to be a spoil sport. I suppose women's +instincts can be trusted in these things, but I +hated to see Clarice coming it over you blind."</p> + +<p>Peter wondered to himself a little, which of the +charming ladies to whom he had been introduced +lately, Clarice had selected for him. He +wasn't, however, concerned about her coming +it blind over anybody but the senior partner +who got down now from the desk, whistling +softly and walking with a wide step as a man +will in June when affairs go well with him, and +he feels that if there are still some things which +he desires he is able to get them for himself.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget you're coming to us on Saturday; +and we dine together to-night as usual."</p> + +<p>"As usual." Always on the anniversary of +their beginning business together Weatheral +and Lessing, who were still, in spite of seeing +one another daily for seventeen years, able to +be interested in one another, dined apart from +their families, savouring pleasantly that essential +essence of maleness, the mutual power of +work well accomplished. It was the best tribute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +that Clarice and Ellen could pay to the +occasion that they understood that, much as +their several lives had profited by the partnership, +they were still and naturally outside +of it.</p> + +<p>On this occasion, however, it was impossible +for Peter to keep Mrs. Lessing out of the background +of his consciousness, because of the part +her suggestion of the morning played in new +realization of himself as the rich Mr. Weatheral +of Pleasanton. He credited her with sufficient +knowledge of his character to have egged Julian +on to the reminder as a part of the game she +had played with him for the past two or three +years, by which Peter was to be instated in a +life more in keeping with his opportunities.</p> + +<p>It was a game Clarice played with life everywhere, +coaxing it to yield its choicest bloom to +her. She had an instinct for choiceness like +a hummingbird, darting here and there for +sweetness. Her flutterings were never of uncertainty +but such as kept her in the perfect +airy poise. If she wanted marriage for Peter +it was because she could imagine nothing better +for anybody than a marriage like hers, and if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +she chose this time for letting him know that +she was thinking of it, it was because in those +terms she could bring closest to him his new-found +possibilities. If she could have reached +Peter with the personal certainty of riches by +explaining to him how far his dollars would +stretch end to end, or how many acres of postage +stamps he could buy with them, she might +have thought less of him on that account, but +she would have helped him to understanding +even on those terms. You couldn't have made +Clarice Lessing believe that whatever their +limitations, people weren't entitled to help simply +because they needed it.</p> + +<p>It had come upon Peter by leaps and bounds +during the last two or three years, both the +wealth and the necessity of putting it to himself +in terms of personal expression. During +the first ten years of the partnership, the only +use for money the simple needs of Ellen and +himself had established was to put it back into +the business; a use which had become almost +an obligation during the time when both children +and opportunity were coming to Julian +faster than the cash to meet them. It was due<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +to the high ground that Clarice had made for +them all out of what she and the children stood +for, that Peter's superior cash contribution to +the firm had become a privilege. They had +had, he and Ellen, their stringent occasions; +it had been Clarice's part to see that since they +endured the pinch of poverty they should at +least get something human out of it. It came +out for Peter pleasantly as he walked home +through the mild June evening, just how much +they had had. Much, much more than they +would have been able to buy with the money +they might in strict equity have withdrawn +from the business. Nothing, he had long +admitted, that he could have purchased for his +sister would have been so satisfying as what +Clarice contributed, pressing the full cup of +her motherhood to Ellen's thirsty lips. They +might have grown sleek, he and Ellen, without +exceeding a proper ratio of expenditure, and if +in the end they had been a little less rich, they +would still have had enough to go on being sleek +and comfortable to the end. That he was still +fit, as Mrs. Lessing's transparent efforts to +marry him to her friends guaranteed him to be,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +he felt was owing greatly to the terms on which +Clarice had admitted him to the adventure of +bringing up a family. That a special fitness +was required for admission to Mrs. Lessing's +circle he would have guessed even without the +aid of print which consistently described it as +Our Best Society, for it was a Best attested to +by all the marks by which Clarice herself expressed +the essential fineness of things.</p> + +<p>One couldn't have told, from anything that +appeared on the surface of the Lessing's social +environment, that life did not proceed there as +it did between Clarice and the Weatherals, by +means of its subtler sympathies, and proceed, at +least so far as the women were concerned, on a +still higher plane of grace and harmony. It +moved about her table and across the lawns of +Lessing's handsome country place, with such +soundless ease and perfection as it had glided for +Peter through the House with the Shining Walls. +Or at least so it had seemed on those occasions +during the last few years when he had found +himself wondrously inside it.</p> + +<p>It had been accepted by Ellen on the mere +certainty of Clarice's mother having been one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +of the Thatcher Inwoods, that Clarice should +enlarge her social borders with Lessing's increasing +means until they included people +among whom Ellen would have been miserably +shy and out of tune. But not Ellen herself +guessed how much of Peter's admission to its +inaccessibility was owing to the returns from +hardly snatched options and long-nursed opportunities, +coming in in checks of six figures. +Perhaps Clarice herself never knew. It was +one of the things that went with being a Thatcher +Inwood, wherever an occasion presented a +handle of nobility, to seize by that and maintain +it in the face of any contingent smallness. +Clarice wouldn't have introduced Peter to her +friends if he hadn't been fit, and it was part of +the social creed of women like Clarice Lessing, +which takes almost the authority of religion, +that he wouldn't have been in a position to be +introduced if he hadn't been fit. So it had +happened for the past two years that Peter had +found himself skirting the fringe of Best Society, +and identifying it with the life he had lived so +long, sitting with his book open on his knees +in their little flat, with Ellen across the fire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +from him knitting white things for Julian's +children. But the idea that having come into +this neighbourhood of fine appreciations he +was to take up his home and live there, opened +more slowly. It required more than one of +Clarice's swift hummingbird darts, more than +the flutter of suggestion to brush its petals +awake for him.</p> + +<p>It lay so deep under all the years, the power +of loving. He knew almost nothing about it +except that he had had it once, and that marriage +without it would be unthinkable, even +such a marriage as Mrs. Lessing had let him see +was now possible to him. She had called with +all her delicate friendly skill, on something +which only now under that summons he began +to miss. It was like a lost word in every sentence +in which the ordinary hopes of men are to +be read, and he felt that until he found it again +all the help Mrs. Lessing could afford him would +not enable him to think of marriage as a thing +desirable in itself. It was missing in him still, +when he came that night rather late to the +apartment where only the Japanese houseboy +awaited him. One of the first things he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +done for Ellen with his increasing means, had +been to buy back for her the house at Bloombury +with the garden and a bit of the orchard. +She had been there now since Decoration +Day, retiring more and more into the kindly +village life as a point of vantage from which to +mark with pride the social distance that Peter +travelled from her. It had been understood +from the beginning that she wasn't to go with +him. The tapping of her crutch was no more +to be heard in the new gracious existence than +in the House where she had never followed him. +Life for Ellen was lived close at hand. There +were hollyhocks and currant bushes in her +garden and Julian's children overran it.</p> + +<p>It was not Ellen then that Peter missed as +he sat alone in the house that night with his +back to the lowered light and his gaze seeking +the river and the flitting shapes of boats that +went up and down on it, freighted with young +voices and laughter. He missed the Lovely +Lady. He knew now why he had not been +able to think of marriage in the way Clarice +held it out to him, as a happy contingency of his +now being as rich as he had intended to be. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +was because he had not thought of her clearly +for a long time.</p> + +<p>There had been a period in the beginning of +his life with Ellen, when the lady of his dreams +had been so near the surface of all his thinking +that she took on form and likeness from anything +that was lovely and young in his neighbourhood, +but as things lovely and young +drifted from him with the years; and as the +business took deeper and deeper hold on his +attention, she had become a mere floating figment, +a live fluttering spark in the very core of +all his imaginings.</p> + +<p>She had been beside him, a pleasant, indeterminate +presence in the long journey she travelled +from the printed page to the accompanying click +of Ellen's needles. Sometimes at the opera she +took on a gossamer tint from the singer's face, +and longer ago than he could afford operas, +he had understood that all the beauty of the +world, bursting apple buds, the great curve +of the surf that set the beaches trembling, +derived somehow its pertinence from her. Now +at the age of forty he had ceased to think very +much about the Lovely Lady.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>It occurred to him that this might have something +to do with his failure to get a new relation +to life out of his new wealth.</p> + +<p>It had struck Peter rather forlornly during +the past few years that there was little use he +could put money to, except to make more +money. He could see by turning his head to +the room behind him how little there was there +of what he had fancied once riches would bring +him. The lines of the room were good, the +amount of the annual rent assured that to him, +the furniture was good and the rugs expensive. +Ellen believed that money in rugs was a good +investment, particularly if the colours were +strong and would stand fading. There were +some choice things here and there, a vase and +pictures which Peter had chosen for himself, +though he was aware, as he took them in under +the dull glow, that Ellen had arranged them in +strict reference to the size of the frames, and +that the whole effect failed of satisfaction. He +thought his life might be somewhat like that +room, full of good things but lacking the touch +that should set them in fruitful order. It stole +over him as persuasively as the warm growing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +smell of the park below him that the something +missed might be the touch and presence of the +Lovely Lady.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>II</h2> + +<p>It was the late end of the afternoon when +Peter stepped off the train at the Lessing's +station and into the trap that was waiting for +him. He learned from Lessing's man that +the family had been kept by the tennis match +at Maplemont and he was to come on to the +house at his leisure. That being the case, +Peter took the reins himself and made a long +detour through the dust-smelling country roads, +so that it was quite six when he reached the +house, and everybody dressing for the early +dinner.</p> + +<p>He made so hasty a change himself in his fear +of being late, that when he came down to the +living-room in a quarter of an hour there was +no one there to meet him. Absorbed particles +of the bright day gave off in the dusk and made +it golden. There were honeysuckles on the pergola +outside, and in the room beyond a girl singing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +a quiet air, half-trilled and half-forgotten. +He heard the singer moving toward him through +the vacant house, of which the doors stood open +to the evening coolness, and the click of the +electric button as she passed, and saw the rooms +burst one by one into the bloom of shaded lights. +So she came, busy with the hummed fragments +of her songs, and turned the lamp full on Peter +before she was aware of him, but she was not +half so much disconcerted.</p> + +<p>"You must be Mr. Weatheral," she said. +"Mrs. Lessing sent me to say she expected you. +I am Miss Goodward."</p> + +<p>She gave him her hand for a gracious moment +before she turned to what had brought her so +early down, the arrangement of two great +bowls of wild ferns and vines which a servant +had just placed on either end of the low mantlepiece.</p> + +<p>"We brought them in from Archer's Glen on +the way home," she told him over her shoulder, +her hands busy with deft, quick touches. She +was all in white, which took a pearly lustre from +the lamps, and for the moment she was as +beautiful as Peter believed her. A tiny unfinished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +phrase of the song floated half consciously +from her lips as a bubble. "They look +better so, don't you think?" As she stood off to +measure the effect, it seemed to Peter that the +Spirit of the House had received him; it was so +men dream of home-coming, without sensible +displacement of a life going on in it, lovely and +secure, as a bark slips into some still pool to its +moorings. He yielded himself naturally to the +impersonal intimacy of her welcome and all the +sordid ways of his life led up to her.</p> + +<p>It was not all at once he saw it so. He kept +watching her all that evening as one watches a +perfect thing, a bird or a dancer, sensing in the +slim turn of her ankle, the lithe throat, the +delicate perfume that she shook from her summer +draperies, so many strokes of a master hand. +She was evidently on terms with the Lessings +which permitted her acceptance of him at the +family valuation, but the perfection of her +method was such that it never quite sunk his +identity as the junior partner in his character +of Uncle Peter.</p> + +<p>This was a nuance, if Peter had but known it, +which Eunice Goodward could have no more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +missed than she could have eaten with her +knife. She had been trained to the finer social +adjustments as to a cult: Clarice's game +of persuading life to present itself with a smiling +countenance, played all in the key of personal +relations. It was as if Nature, having tried her +hand at a great many ordinary persons, each with +one gift of sympathy or graciousness, had culled +and compacted the best of them into Eunice +Goodward; which was precisely the case except +that Peter through his unfamiliarity with the +Best Society couldn't be expected to know that +the intelligence which had put together so much +perfectness was no less calculating than that +which goes to the matching of a string of pearls. +All that he got from it was precisely all that he +was meant to receive—namely, the conviction +that she couldn't have charmed him so had she +not been altogether charming.</p> + +<p>And as yet he did not know what had happened +to him. He thought, when he awoke in +the morning to a new realization of the satisfactoriness +of living, that the fresh air had done +it, the breath of the nearby untrimmed forest, +the loose-leaved roses pressed against the pane<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +beginning to give off warm odours in the sun. +Then he came out on the terrace and saw Eunice +Goodward, looking like a thin slip of the morning +herself, in a blue dress buttoned close to her +figure with wide white buttons and a tiny froth +of white at the short sleeves and open throat. +Across her bosom it was caught with a blue +stone set in dull silver, which served also to +hold in place a rose that matched the morning +tint of her skin. She was talking with the +Lessings' chauffeur as Peter came up with her +and all her accents were of dismay. They +were to have driven over to Maplemont that +afternoon, she explained to Peter, for the last +of the tennis sets, and now Gilmore had just +told her that the car must go to the shop for two +or three days. She was so much more charming +in the way she forgave Gilmore for her +evident disappointment that he, being a young +man and troubled by a sense of moral responsibility, +was quite overcome by it.</p> + +<p>"But, nonsense"; Peter was certain "there +is always something can be done to cars." +There was, Gilmore assured him, but it took +time to do it, and to-morrow would be Sunday.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +"If you'd only thought to come down in the +motor yourself, sir——" the chauffeur reproached +him. The truth was that Peter hadn't +a car of his own and Gilmore knew it. There +was an electric runabout which had gone down +to Bloombury with Ellen, and a serviceable +roadster which was part of the office equipment, +but the rich Mr. Weatheral had never taken +the pains to own a private car. Now, as he +hastily drew out his watch, it occurred to him +that Lessing's chauffeur was a fellow of more +perspicuity than he had given him credit for. +The two men communicated wordlessly across +the cool width of the terrace steps.</p> + +<p>"At what hour," Peter wished to know, +"would we have to leave here to reach Maplemont +in good time? Then if you can be ready +to leave the moment my car gets here...." +He excused himself to go to the telephone; half +an hour later when he joined the family at +breakfast he had discovered some of the things +that, besides making more money with it, can be +done with money.</p> + +<p>The knowledge suited him like his own garment, +as if it had been lying ready for him to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +put on when the occasion required it, and now +became him admirably. He perceived it to be +a proper male function to produce easily and +with precision whatever utterly charming +young ladies might reasonably require. He +appreciated Miss Goodward's acceptance of it +as she came down from the house bewilderingly +tied into soft veils for the afternoon's +drive, as a part of her hall-marked fineness. +If she couldn't help knowing, taking in the +car's glittering newness from point to point, +that its magnificence had materialized out of +her simple wish for it, she at least didn't allow +him to think it was any more than she would +have expected of him. So completely did he +yield himself to this new sense of the fitness of +things that it came as a shock to have her, as +soon as they had joined themselves to the +holiday-coloured crowd that streamed and +shifted under the bright boughs of Maplemont, +reft from him by friendly, compelling voices, +and particularly by Burton Henderson, who +played singles and went about bareheaded and +singularly self-possessed. It was unthinkable +to Peter that, in view of her recently discovered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +importance in putting him at rights with himself, +that he hadn't arranged with her that they +were to be more together. For the moment it +was almost a derogation of her charm that she +shouldn't herself have recognized by some +overt act her extraordinary opportunity. And +then in a moment more he perceived that she +had recognized it. He had only to wait, as +he saw, and he would find himself pleasantly +beside her, and at each renewal of the excluding +companionship, he was more subtly aware that +it was accorded not to anything he was but to +what she had it in her power so beautifully to +make of him.</p> + +<p>So perfectly did she strike the key with him, +when, in the intervals of the afternoon's entertainment +they found themselves sitting or +walking together, that he could not have +imagined her to have been out of it, not even +in a rather long session after tea with Burton +Henderson among the rhododendrons, in which +it was apparent from the young man's manner +that she hadn't at least been in tune with him. +It occurred just as they were leaving and served +in the flutter of delay it occasioned to fix the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +attention of all their party on Eunice coming +out of the shrubbery with young Henderson in +her wake, batting aimlessly at the grass-tops +with the racquet which he still carried. There +was an air of sulkiness about him which caused +Mrs. Lessing enigmatically to say that Eunice +was altogether too good to that young man. To +which Lessing's "Well, if she is, he doesn't seem +to appreciate," served also to confirm Peter +in the rôle which the effect she produced on +himself had created for him. He at least +appreciated the way in which she had made +him feel himself the Distributer of Benefits, to +a degree which made it almost obligatory of +her to go on with it.</p> + +<p>Successfully as Miss Goodward had kept for +Peter during the day his new relation to his +wealth on the one hand and society on the +other, she seemed that evening quite to have +abandoned him. While the family was having +coffee on the terrace after dinner, she slipped +away from them to reappear lower down among +the rose trees, her white dress gathering all +that was left of the lingering glow. The junior +partner, feeling himself never so much junior,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +though he knew it was but a scant year or two, +sat on through Lessing's inconsequential comment +on business and the day's adventures, +hearing not a word; now and then his chair +creaked with the intensity of his preoccupation. +It grew dusk and the lamps blossomed in the +house behind them; presently Clarice slipped +away to the children and the evening damp fell +over the rose garden. Peter could endure it no +longer. He believed as he rose suddenly with +a stretching movement that he meant merely +to relieve the tension of sitting by pacing up +and down; it was unaccountable therefore that +he should find himself at the edge of the terrace. +He wondered why on earth Clarice couldn't +have helped him a little, and then as if in response +to his deep instinctive demand upon +her, he heard her call softly to her husband from +the door of the house. At the scrape of Julian's +chair on the terrace tiling, Peter cast away his +cigar and hurried into the dusk of the garden.</p> + +<p>He found her at last by the herbacious border, +keeping touch with the flight of a sphinx-head +moth along the tall white rockets of phlox. +Peter whipped out his handkerchief and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +dropped it deftly over the fluttering wings. In a +moment he had stilled them in his hand. Miss +Goodward cried out to him:</p> + +<p>"You've spoiled his happy evening!"</p> + +<p>"He's not hurt...." Peter laid the +moth gently on a feathery flower head, and the +tiny whispering whirr began again. "I thought +you wanted him."</p> + +<p>"I did—but not to catch him," Miss Goodward +explained. "I wanted just to want +him."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I'm afraid I'm one of those people with +whom to want a thing is to go after it," Peter +justified himself.</p> + +<p>"So one gathers from what one hears." She +brushed him as lightly with the compliment as +with the wings of a moth. "I wasn't really +wanting him so much as I was wanting to <i>be</i> +him for a while. Just to pass from one lovely +hour to another and nothing to pay! But we +humans have always to pay something."</p> + +<p>"Or some one pays for us."</p> + +<p>"Well, isn't that worse ... taking it +out of somebody else?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure; some people enjoy paying.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +It's not a bad feeling, I assure you: being able +to pay. Haven't you found that out yet?"</p> + +<p>"Not in Trethgarten Square." Mrs. Lessing +had managed to let him know during the +day that her guest had been reared within the +sacred pale of those first families in whom the +choice stock of humanness is refined by being +maintained at precisely the same level for at +least three generations.</p> + +<p>"In Trethgarten Square," Peter reminded +her, "we are told that you settle your account +just by <i>being</i>; that you manage somehow to +become something so superior and delectable +that the rest of us are willing to pay for the +privilege of having you about." He would +have liked to add that recently, no later in fact +than the evening before, he had come to think +that this was so, but as she hesitated in her +walk beside him, he saw that she was concerned +in putting the case to herself quite as +much as to him.</p> + +<p>"It's not that exactly; more perhaps that our +whole thought about life is to live it so that there +won't be anything to pay. We have to manage +to add things up like a column of figures with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +nothing to carry. Perhaps that's why we get so +little out of it."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?"—he was genuinely surprised, +"get anything out of it, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I'm a selfish beast, I suppose! I +want more—more!" They swung as she +spoke into a broad beam of yellow light raying +out from the library window, and he saw by it +that with the word she flung out her arms with +a lovely upward motion that lifted his mood to +the crest of audacity.</p> + +<p>"If you keep on looking like that," Peter +assured her, "you'll get it." He was struck +dumb immediately after with apprehension. +It sounded daring, like a thing said in a book; +but she took it as it came lightly off the tip of +his impulse, laughing. "Yes ... the +great difficulty is choosing which of so many +things one really wants." They walked on +then in silence, the air darkling after the sudden +shaft of illumination, the light folds of her scarf +brushing his sleeve. Peter was considering +how he might say, without precipitation, how +suddenly she had limited and defined all the +things that he wanted by expressing them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +so perfectly in herself, when she interrupted +him.</p> + +<p>"There's our moth again," she pointed; "he +settles it by taking all of them. It's a possibility +denied to us."</p> + +<p>"Even he," Peter insisted, "has to reckon with +such incidents as my dropping on him just now. +I might have wanted him for a collection."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if he takes us into account it must be as +men used to think of the gods walking." Suddenly +the familiar beds and hedges widened +for Peter; they stretched warm and tender +to the borders of youth and the unmatched +Wonder.... It was so they had talked +when they walked together in the Garden which +was about the House....</p> + +<p>For some time after Miss Goodward left +him Peter remained walking up and down, +thinking of many things and unable to think +of them clearly because of a pleasant blur of +excitement in his brain. As he came finally +back to the house he heard the Lessings talking +from behind one of the open windows.</p> + +<p>"My word, that car was never out of the +shop before," Julian was saying. "He's a <i>goner!</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And that lovely, dusty, brown colour that +goes so well with her hair! Who would have +thought Peter would be so noticing."</p> + +<p>"It couldn't have cost him a cent under +seven thousand." Julian was certain, "and +carrying it off with me the way he did—bought +the six cylinder after all, he had.... I'll +bet old Peter don't know a cylinder from a +stomach pump."</p> + +<p>Clarice was evidently going on with her own +line of thought. "It will be the best thing +that ever happened to Eunice if she can only +be got to see it."</p> + +<p>"Well, if she don't her mother will see it for +her." Lessing's voice died into a subdued +chuckle as Peter passed under it on the dew-damp +lawn, but there was no revelation in it for +the junior partner. He had already found out +what was the matter with him and what he +meant to do about it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>III</h2> + +<p>Whatever the process of becoming engaged +to Eunice Goodward lacked of dramatic interest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +it made up to Peter by being such a tremendous +adventure for him to become engaged to anybody.</p> + +<p>He had gone through life much as his unfriended +youth had strayed through the city +streets, aching for the walled-up splendour—all +the world's chivalries, tendernesses, passions—known +to him only by glimmers and reflections +on the plain glass of duty. Now at a +word the glass dissolved and he was free to +wander through the rooms crammed with imperishable +poets' wares. He walked there not +only as one who has the price to buy, but himself +made one of the splendid things of earth +by this same word which her mere being pronounced +to him.</p> + +<p>He paid himself for years of denials and +repressions by the discovery of being able to +love in such a key. For he meant quite simply +to marry Eunice Goodward if she would have +him, and it was no vanity which gave him hope, +but a tribute to her fineness as being able to +see herself so absolutely the one thing his life +waited for. He knew himself, modestly, no +prize for her except as he was added to by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> +inestimable passion. Whatever she saw in him +as a man, for her not to recognize the immortal +worth of what he was able to become under +her hand, was to subtract something from her +perfections. In her acceptance would lie the +Queen's touch, redeeming him from all commonness.</p> + +<p>He made his first venture within a week after +their first meeting, in a call on Miss Goodward +and her mother in Trethgarten Square, where +he found their red brick, vine-masked front distinguishable +among half a hundred others by +being kept open as late as the middle of June. +To their being marooned thus in a desert of +boarded-up doors and shuttered windows, due, +as Eunice had frankly and charmingly let him +know, to their being poor among their kind, he +doubtless owed it that no other callers came to +disturb the languid afternoon. Seen against +her proper background of things precious but +worn, and in the style of a preceding generation, +the girl showed even lovelier than before, +with the rich, perfumed quality of a flower held +in a chipped porcelain vase, a flower moreover +secure in its own perfectness, waiting only to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +worn, disdaining alike to offer or resist. Her +very quietness—she left him, in fact, almost +wholly to her mother—had the air of condoning +his state, of understanding what he was there +for and of finding it somehow an accentuation +of the interest they let him see that he had for +them. He found them, mother and daughter, +more alike, in spite of their natural and evident +difference of years, more of a degree than he +was accustomed to find mother and daughters +in the few houses where the business of growing +rich had admitted him, as though they had +been carved out of the same material, by the +same distinguished artist, at different times in +his career.</p> + +<p>It contributed to the effect of his having +found, not by accident, but by seeking, a frame +of life kept waiting for him, kept warm and conscious. +Presently Eunice poured tea for them, +and the intimacy of her remembering as she did, +how he took it, had its part in the freedom which +he presently found for offering hospitality on +his own account, not at his home, as he explained +to them, his sister being away, but say +a dinner at Briar Crest to which they might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +motor out pleasantly Saturday afternoon, returning +by moonlight. He offered Briar Crest +tentatively on the strength of the Lessings +having once given a dinner there, and was relieved +to find that he had made no mistake.</p> + +<p>"A great many of your friends go there," +Mrs. Goodward allowed; "the Van Stitarts, +Eunice, you remember."</p> + +<p>"The Gherberdings are there now, mamma; +I'm sure we shall enjoy it."</p> + +<p>Having crossed thus at one fortunate stroke +the frontiers of social observance, to which +Clarice had but edged her way in the right of +being a Thatcher Inwood, Peter ventured on +Friday to suggest by telephone that since dinner +must be late, the ladies should meet him +at what he had taken pains to ascertain was +the correct one of huge uptown hotels, for tea +before starting. It was Mrs. Goodward who +answered him and she whom he met in the +white, marble tessellated tea-room, explaining +that Eunice had had some shopping to +do—they were really leaving on Saturday—and +Mr. Weatheral was to order tea without +waiting. They had time, however, for the tea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +to be drunk and for Mrs. Goodward to become +anxious in a gentle, ladylike way, before it occurred +to Peter to suggest that Miss Goodward +might be lurking anywhere in the potted palm +and marble pillared labyrinth, waiting for <i>them</i>, +suffering equal anxieties, and dreadful to think +of in their present replete condition, languishing +for tea. His proposal to go and look for her +was accepted with just the shade of deprecation +which admitted him to an amused tolerance of +the girl's delinquencies, as if somehow Eunice +wouldn't have dared to be late with him had +she not had reason more than ordinary for +counting on his indulgence.</p> + +<p>"You'll find," Mrs. Goodward let him know, +"that we require a deal of looking after, Eunice +and I."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I only hope you'll find that I'm equal to +it." Peter had answered her with so little indirection +that it drew from the older woman a +quick, mute flush of sympathy. For a moment +the homeliness of his lean countenance was +relieved with so redeeming a touch of what all +women most wish for in all men that she met it +with an equal simplicity. "For myself I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +sure of it," but lifted next moment to a lighter +key, with a smile very like her daughter's +dragged a little awry by the use of years, +"as for Eunice, you'll first have to lay hands +on her."</p> + +<p>With this permission he rose and made the +circuit of the semi-divided rooms, coming out +at last into the dim rotunda, forested with +clustered porphyry columns, and there at last +he caught sight of her. She had but just +stepped into its shaded coolness out of the hot, +bright day, and hung for a moment, in the act of +furling her parasol, in which he was about to +hail her, until he discovered by his stepping +into range from behind one of the green pillars, +that she was also in the act of saying good-bye +to Burton Henderson. There was a certain +finality in the way she held out her hand to him +which checked Peter in the hospitable impulse +to include the younger man in the afternoon's +diversion. He stepped back the moment he +saw that she was having trouble with her escort, +defending herself by her manner from something +accusing in his. Not to seem to spy upon her, +Weatheral made his way back though the coatroom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +without disclosing himself. From the +door of it he timed his return so as to meet her +face to face as she came up with Mrs. Goodward +and was rewarded for it by the gayety of her +greeting and the unaffectedness of her attack +of the fresh relay of toasted muffins and +tea.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely famished," she told them, "and +the shops are <i>so</i> fascinating! You'd forgive me, +Mr. Weatheral, if you could see the heaps and +heaps of lovely things simply begging to be +bought; it seemed positively unkind to come +away and leave any of them." As she said +nothing whatever about the young man, it +seemed unlikely that she could have him much +on her mind. She had a new way, very charming +to Peter, of surrendering the afternoon into +his hands; let him ask nothing of her she seemed +to say, but to enjoy herself. She built out of +their being there before her, a very delightful +supposition of her mother and Mr. Weatheral, +between them having made a little space for +her to be gay in and simple and lovely after +her own kind. If she took any account of them +it was such as a dancer might who, practising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +a few steps for the mere joy and pride of it, +finds herself unexpectedly surrounded by an +interested and smiling audience.</p> + +<p>If, however, with the memory of that afternoon +upon him, Peter had gone down to Fairport +in the latter part of July with the expectation +of resuming the part of impresario to her +charm, he suffered a sharp disappointment. He +found the Goodwards, not in the expensive +caravansary in which he installed himself, but +in a smaller tributary house set back from the +main hotel though not quite disconnected with +it; for quiet, Mrs. Goodward told him, though +he guessed quite as much from economy.</p> + +<p>"It's wonderful, really, what they do with so +little," Clarice, with her fine discriminations in +the obligations of friendship, had generously +let him know. "Eunice hasn't anything, positively +not <i>any</i>thing in comparison with what +people of her class usually have. And with +her taste, you know, there must be things she's +just aching for, that somehow you can't give +her." You couldn't, indeed. Though Peter +made excuses enough for giving her the use of his +car, and giving it to her shorn even of the implication<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +of his society, there were few occasions +when he could do even so much as that. He +couldn't even give her his appreciations.</p> + +<p>For at Fairport the Goodwards were quite +in the heart of all that Peter himself failed to +understand that he couldn't possibly be. It +was not that he wasn't to the extent at least +of sundry invitations given and accepted, "in" +as much of the Best Society as Fairport afforded. +Mrs. Goodward saw to that, and there +were two or three whom he had met at the +Lessings' as well as men to whom the figure of +his income was the cachet of eligibility. It +wasn't indeed that he wasn't liked, and that +quite at his proper worth, but that he couldn't +somehow manage it so that the Best Society +cared in the least whether he liked it. He could +see, in a way, where Clarice had been at work +for him; but the poison that was dropped in his +cup was the certainty that the way for him +had to be "worked." The discovery that he +couldn't just find his way to Eunice Goodward's +side by the same qualities that had +placed him beside the males of her circle in +point of property and power, that he couldn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +without admission to that circle, properly court +her, hemmed him in bewilderingly.</p> + +<p>Her method of eluding him, if there were +method in it, left him feeling not so much +avoided as prevented by the moves of a game he +hadn't meant to play. So greatly it irked his +natural simplicity to be banded about by the +social observances of the place, that it might +have led him to irrecoverable mistakes had it +not been for the hand held out to him by Mrs. +Goodward.</p> + +<p>He perceived on closer acquaintance, that this +lady's fine serenity of manner was due largely +to her never admitting to her mind the upsetting +possibility. She thought her world into +acceptable shape and held it there by the simple +process of ignoring the eccentricities of its axis.</p> + +<p>Peter would have admired, if his unsophistication +had allowed him, the facility with which +she made it revolve now about their mutual pursuit +of Eunice through the rattle and cheapness +of what was known as "the Burton Henderson +set." As it was against just such social inconsequence +that Peter felt himself strong to +defend her, he fell easily into the key of crediting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +the girl's sudden, bewildering flight to it as +a mere midsummer madness.</p> + +<p>"It's the way with girls, I fancy," Mrs. Goodward +had said to him, strolling up and down the +hotel veranda where through the wide French +windows they had glimpses of Eunice whirling +away on the ice polished floor of the ballroom +within; "they cling the more to gayety as they +see the graver things of life bearing down upon +them."</p> + +<p>"You think she sees that?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, there's much a mother sees, Mr. +Weatheral——"</p> + +<p>"You would, of course," he accepted.</p> + +<p>"It's a woman's part, seeing; there's an instinct +in us not to see too soon." She gave +him the benefit of her sweet weighted smile.</p> + +<p>Peter lived greatly on these things. He was +so sure of himself, of the reality and strength of +his passion; he had a feeling of its being quite +enough for them to go on, an inexhaustible, +fairy capital out of which almost anything that +Eunice Goodward desired might be drawn. It +was fortunate that he found his passion so self-sufficing, +for there was little enough that Eunice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +afforded it by way of sustenance. For a week +he no more than kept in sight of her in the +inevitable summer round; he did not dance and +the game of cards he could play was gauged to +what Ellen could manage in an occasional quiet +evening at the Lessings'.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," Eunice had said to him on an +occasion when he had known enough to decline +an invitation for an afternoon's play to which +Burton Henderson was carrying her away, +"that the stakes we play for aren't any temptation +to <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"I think that they're out of proportion to the +trouble you have to be at to win them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you don't care for the game——"</p> + +<p>"I don't." And then casting about for a +phrase that explained him more happily, +"Put it that I like to cut out my job and go to +it." She gave him a quick, condoning flash of +laughter; the phrase was Lessing's and out of +her recognition of it he drew, loverlike, that +assurance of common understanding so dear to +lovers. "Put it," he ventured further, "that +I don't like to see myself balked of the prize +by the way the cards are dealt."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, but that's what makes it a game. I'd +no idea you were such a—revolutionist."</p> + +<p>"Evolutionist," he corrected, happy in having +touched the subtler note behind their persiflage. +"I've all science on my side for the +most direct method." After all, why should +he let even the Best Society deal the cards for +him? Should not a man sweep the boards of +whatever kept him from his natural mate?</p> + +<p>That was on Tuesday, and the Thursday +following he had asked the Goodwards to motor +over to Lighthouse Reef with him. He did not +know quite what he meant to bring about on +this occasion; he had so much the feeling of its +being an occasion, the invitation had been so +pointedly given and accepted, it was with difficulty +he adjusted himself to the discovery on +arriving at their hotel with the car, that Eunice +had gone to play tennis instead.</p> + +<p>"The time is so short," Mrs. Goodward +apologized; "she felt she must make the most of +it." She had to leave it there, not being able +to make a game of tennis in the hot sun seem +more of a diversion than the steady pacing of the +luxurious car along the road which laced the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +forest to the singing beaches. She had to let +her sidewise smile do what it could toward making +the girl's bald evasion of her engagement +seem the mere flutter and hesitancy of besieged +femininity. For the moment she was as much +"outside" so far as her daughter was concerned +as Peter was of the select bright circle in which +she moved.</p> + +<p>The way opened before them, beautiful in +late bloom and heavy fern, above which the sea +wind kept a perpetual movement of aliveness.</p> + +<p>"Eunice <i>will</i> miss it," Mrs. Goodward +rallied; "such a perfect afternoon!" She gave +him the oblique smile again, weighted this time +with the knowledge of all that Peter hadn't +been able or hadn't tried to keep from her. +"It isn't easy, is it," she went on addressing her +speech to whatever, at the mention of her daughter's +name, hung in the air between them, "to +stand by and see other people's great moments +hover over them. One would like so to lend a +hand. And one is sure of nothing so much as +that if they are really to <i>be</i> big, one mustn't."</p> + +<p>"If you feel that," Peter snatched at encouragement, +"that it is really the big thing for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +her—what I'm sure you can't help knowing +what I mean—what I hope."</p> + +<p>"What <i>I</i> feel——? After all, it's <i>her</i> feeling, +my dear Mr. Weatheral, that we have to take +into account. It wouldn't be fair for me to +attempt to answer to you for that!"</p> + +<p>"And of course if I can't <i>make</i> her feel...." +He did not trust himself to a conclusion.</p> + +<p>They found, however, when the road issued +on the coast opposite the great bursting bulks +of spray, that Eunice's desertion and the extenuation +of it to which they had lent themselves, +had put them out of the mood for the +high wind and warring surf of the Reef. Accordingly +they turned aside at Peter's suggestion +to have tea at a little country inn farther +back in the hills, where the pound of the sea was +reduced to a soft, organ-booming bass to which +the shrill note of the needles countered in perfect +tune. The tea garden, the favourite port of +call for afternoon drives from the resorts hereabouts, +lay back of the hostelry in a narrow, +ferny glen from which springs issued. As Peter +led the way up its rocky stair, they could hear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> +the light laughter of a party just rising from +one of the round rustic tables. The group +descending poured past them a summer-coloured +runnel down the little glen, and left them face to +face with Eunice, who had lingered, her dress +caught on a point of the rustic chair.</p> + +<p>"Mamma—you!" She looked trapped, +accused, though sheer astonishment held the +others dumb. "We finished the game——" +she began and stopped short; after all, her +manner seemed to say, why shouldn't she have +tea there with her friends? She made as if to +sweep past after them but Mrs. Goodward never +moved from the narrow path. She was more +embarrassed, Peter saw, than her daughter, and +as plainly at bay.</p> + +<p>"Now that we are here——" she began in +her turn.</p> + +<p>"Now that you have followed me here," the +girl rang out, "what is it that you have to say to +me?" She was white and a bright flame spot +showed on either cheek.</p> + +<p>"I—oh," the elder woman by an effort drew +the remnant of the grand manner about her; +"it is Mr. Weatheral, I think, who might have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +something to say." She caught the occasion +as it were on the wing. Peter heard the quick +breath behind him with which she grasped it. +"Now that you are here, however, I'll tell your +party that you will be driving home with us." +She gathered up her draperies and was gone +down the path she had come before either of the +others thought to stop her. Eunice had not +made a move to do so. She stood clasping the +back of the chair from which she had freed her +dress, and looked across it mutinously at Peter.</p> + +<p>"And what," she quivered, "has Mr. Weatheral +to say to me?"</p> + +<p>"There is nothing," he told her, "that I +would say to you, Miss Goodward, unless you +wished to hear it." His magnanimity shamed +her a little.</p> + +<p>"I broke my engagement to you," she admitted, +"broke it to come here with—the +others. I haven't any excuse to offer you."</p> + +<p>"And when," Peter demanded of her, "have +I asked any other excuse of you for anything +that you chose to do except that you chose it. +There <i>was</i> something I wished to say to you, that +I hoped for a more auspicious occasion...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +He hurried on with it suddenly as a thing to be +got over with at all hazards. "It was to say +that I hoped you might not find it utterly beyond +you to think of marrying me." He saw +her sway a little, holding still to her chair, and +moved toward her a step, dizzy himself with the +sudden onset of emotion. "But now that it is +said, if it distresses you we will say no more about +it." She waved him back for a moment without +altering her strained, trapped attitude.</p> + +<p>"Have you said this to mamma? And has +she—has she said anything to you? About +me, I mean; how I might take it, or anything?"</p> + +<p>"She said that she couldn't answer for you; +that it was your feeling that must be taken into +account. She put me, so to speak, on my own +feet in so far as <i>that</i> was concerned." He waited +for her answer to that, and none coming, +though he saw that she grew a little easier, he +went on presently. "There is, however, much +that I feel ought to be said about my feeling +for you, what it means to me, what I hoped——" +She stopped him with a gesture; he +could see her lovely manner coming back to her +as quiet comes to the surface of a smitten pool.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That—one may take for granted, may one +not? Since you <i>have</i> asked me, that the feeling +that goes to it is all I have a right to ask?"</p> + +<p>"Quite, quite," he assured her. "It may +be," he managed to smile upon her here for the +easing of her sweet discomposure, "it may very +easily be that I was thinking too much of my +pleasure in saying it."</p> + +<p>"It would, then, be a pleasure?" She had +the air of snatching at that as something concrete, +graspable.</p> + +<p>"It would, and it wouldn't. I mean if you +were bothered by it. You could take everything +for granted, everything."</p> + +<p>"Even," she insisted, "to the point of taking +it for granted that you would take things for +granted from me: that you wouldn't expect +anything—any expression, anything more than +just accepting you?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he cried, the wonder, the amazement +of success breaking upon him. "If you accepted +me what more <i>could</i> I expect." He had +clasped the hand which she held out to check +him and held it against his heart firmly that +she shouldn't see how he trembled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I haven't, you know," she reminded him, +"but if I was sure—very sure that you +wouldn't ask any more of me than thinking, +I ... might think about it." She was +trembling now, though her hand was so cold, +and suddenly a tear gathered and dropped, +splashing her fine wrist.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, my dear!" he cried, moved +more than he had thought it possible to be; +"you can be perfectly sure that there will never +be anything between you and me that shall not +be exactly as you wish." He suited his action +to the word, kissing the wet splash and letting +her go.</p> + +<p>"Why, then," she recovered herself with the +smile that was now strangely like her mother's, +sweeter for being smiled a little awry, "the best +thing you can do is to find poor mamma and +let us give her a cup of tea."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>IV</h2> + +<p>"Peter, have you any idea what I am thinking +about?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least, Ellen," which was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +strictly the truth. He supposed she must be +thinking naturally of the news he had told her +not an hour since, of his engagement to Eunice +Goodward. It lay so close to the surface of his +own mind at all times that the slightest stir of +conversation, like the wind above a secret rose, +seemed always about to disclose it. They were +sitting on the porch at Bloombury and the +pointed swallows pitched and darted about the +eaves.</p> + +<p>"It was the smell of the dust that reminded +me," said Ellen, "and the wild rose at the turn +of the road; you can smell it as plain as plain +when the air lifts a little. Do you remember a +picnic that we were invited to and couldn't +go? It was on account of being poor ... and +I was just finding it out. I found out a +good many things that summer; about my +always going to be lame and what it would +mean to us. It was dreadful to me that +I couldn't be lame just by myself, but I had to +mix up you and mother in it."</p> + +<p>"We were glad, Ellen, to be mixed up in it +if it made things easier for you."</p> + +<p>"I know ... times I felt that way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +about it too, but that was when I was older ... as +if it sort of held us all together; like +somebody who had belonged to us all and had +died. Only it was me that died, the me that +would have been if I hadn't been lame.... +Well, I hadn't thought it out so far that first +summer; I just hated it because it kept us from +doing things like other people. You were fond +of Ada Brown, I remember, and it was because +I was lame and we were so poor and all, that +you couldn't go with her and she got engaged to +Jim Harvey. I hope you don't think I have a +bad heart, Peter, but I was always glad that +Ada didn't turn out very well. Every time I +saw her getting homelier and kind of bedraggled +like, I said to myself, well, I've saved Peter from +that at any rate. I couldn't have borne it if +she had turned out the kind of a person you +ought to have married."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't have worried, Ellen; very +few men marry the first woman they are +interested in."</p> + +<p>"There was a girl you used to write home +about—at that boarding-house. I used to get +you to write. I daresay you thought I was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +just curious. But I was trying to find out +something that would make me perfectly sure +she wasn't good enough for you. She was a +typewriter, wasn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Something of that sort."</p> + +<p>"Well!" Ellen took him up triumphantly, +"you wouldn't have wanted to be married to a +typewriter <i>now!"</i></p> + +<p>"I never really thought of marrying one, Ellen. +I'm sure everything has turned out for the +best."</p> + +<p>"That's what I'm trying to tell you. You +see I was determined it should turn out that +way. I said, what was the use of being lame +and being a burden to you unless there was +something <i>meant</i> by it. I'd have fretted dreadfully +if I hadn't felt that there was something +to come out of it. And it has come.... +Peter, you'd rather I'd saved you for this than +anything that might have happened?"</p> + +<p>"Much rather, Ellen."</p> + +<p>It had surprised him in the telling, to see how +accurately his sister had gauged the worldly +advantage of his marriage. If Eunice Goodward +had been a piece of furniture, Ellen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +couldn't have appraised her better at her obvious +worth: beauty and character and family +and the mysterious cachet of society. Clarice +had been at work there, too, he suspected. Miss +Goodward fitted in Ellen's mind's eye into her +brother's life and fortune as a picture into its +frame.</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad you feel that way about it, +<ins class="typo" title="Ellen">Ellen,</ins>" he said again; he was on the point of +telling her about the House of Shining Walls. +The material from which he had drawn its +earliest furnishings lay all about them, the +receding blue of the summer sky, the aged, arching +apple boughs. The scent of the wilding +rose came faintly in from the country road—suddenly +his sister surprised him with a flash of +rare insight.</p> + +<p>"I guess there can't anything keep us from +the best except ourselves," she said. "Being +willing to put up with the second best gives us +more trouble than the Lord ever meant for us. +Think of the way I've always wanted children—but +if they'd been my real own, they'd have +been sickly, likely, or even lame like me, or just +ordinary like the only kind of man who would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +have married me. As it is, I've had Clarice's +and now——" She broke off with a quick, +old-maidish colour.</p> + +<p>Ellen had gone so far as to name all of Peter's +children in the days when nothing seemed so +unlikely; now in the face of his recent engagement +she would have thought it indelicate.</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i> would have liked you marrying so well, +Peter," she finished with a backward motion of +her head toward the room where the parlour set, +banished long ago from the town house, symbolized +for Ellen the brooding maternal presence.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she would have liked it." There came +back to him with deep satisfaction his mother's +appraisement of young Mrs. Dassonville, who +must, as he recalled her, have been shaped by +much the same frame of life as Eunice Goodward—the +Lovely Lady. The long unused +phrase had risen unconsciously to his lips on the +day that he had brought Eunice her ring. He +had spent a whole week in the city choosing it; +three little flawless, oblong emeralds set with +diamonds, almost encircling her finger with the +mystic number seven. He had discovered on +the day that she had accepted him, that it had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +to be emeralds to match the green lights that +her eyes took on in the glen from the deep fern, +the mossy bank and the green boughs overhead. +On the terrace at Lessings' under a wide June +sky he had supposed them to be blue; but +there was no blue stone of that sky colour of +sufficient preciousness for Eunice Goodward.</p> + +<p>She had been very sweet about the ring, +touched with grateful surprise for its beauty +and its taste. Something he could see of relief, +of assurance, flashed and fell between the two +women as she showed it to her mother. They +had taken him so beautifully on trust, they +couldn't have known, he reflected, whether he +would rise at all to the delicate, balanced observation +of life among them; it was evidence, the +emerald circlet, of how satisfyingly he had risen. +The look that passed between mother and +daughter was like a spark that lighted as it fell, +an unsuspected need of him as man merely, the +male element, security, dependability, care. +His first response to it was that of a swimmer +who has struck earth under him; he knew in +that flash where he was, by what familiar +shores; and the whole effect, in spite of him was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +of the sudden shrinkage of that lustrous sea in +which his soul and sense had floated. It +steadied him, but it also for the moment narrowed +a little the horizon of adventure. It was +the occasion that Eunice took to define for +him his status as an engaged man.</p> + +<p>He kept as far as he was able his compact of +expecting nothing of her, except of course that +he couldn't avoid expecting that their arrangement +would lead in the natural course to marriage. +She had met him more than halfway in +that, agreeing to an earlier date than he had +thought compatible with the ritual of engagements +in the Best Society. She had managed, +however, that Peter should present her with her +summer freedom: the engagement was not even +to be announced until their return to town. +And in the meantime Peter was to find a house. +He had offered her travel for that first year. +Europe, which he had scarcely glimpsed, glittered +and allured. But travel, Eunice let him +know, went much better when you had a place +to come back to. He saw at once how right +was everything she did. Well, then, a house on +Fillmore Avenue?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh—shall we be so rich as that, Peter?" +He divined some embarrassment in her as to +the scale in which they were to live. "We'll +want something in the country, too," she reminded +him.</p> + +<p>"I've a couple of options at Maplemont——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maplemont——" She liked that also, +he perceived.</p> + +<p>"And a place in Florida. Lessing and I +bought it the winter the children had the +diphtheria. They've a very pretty bungalow; +we could put up something like it for ourselves—if +you wouldn't mind my sister occasionally. +Ellen isn't happy at hotels."</p> + +<p>"Mind! with all you're giving me! You +won't think it's just the money, Peter;" she had +a very charming hesitancy about it. "It's what +money stands for, beauty, and suitability—and—everything." +He was very tender with her.</p> + +<p>"It's not that I have such a pile of it either," +he assured her, "though I turn over a great deal +in the course of a year. It's easier making +money than people think."</p> + +<p>"Easier for everybody?" There was a +certain eagerness in the look and voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Easier for those who know how. I'm only +forty, and I've learned; there's not much I +couldn't get if I set about it. It's a kind of a +gift, perhaps, like painting or music, but there's +a great deal to be learned, too."</p> + +<p>"And some haven't the gift to learn, perhaps." +For some reason she sighed.... +He was turning all this over in his mind when +suddenly Ellen recalled him.</p> + +<p>"Have you told Clarice yet?"</p> + +<p>"I mean to, Sunday, if you don't mind my +not coming down to you. Miss Goodward is +spending the week end at Maplemont, and by +staying at Julian's——"</p> + +<p>"Of <i>course</i>." Ellen sympathized. "I shall +want to know what Clarice says." She never +did know exactly, for when Clarice gave Peter +her congratulations in the terrace garden after +dinner, she missed, extraordinarily for her, the +felicitous note.</p> + +<p>"I'm so happy for Eunice, you can't imagine," +she insisted. "I've always said we've none of +us known what Eunice can do until she's had +her opportunity. And now with all the background +you can give her—— You'll see!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>He didn't quite know what he was to see +except that if Eunice were to be in the picture +it was bound to be satisfying. But Mrs. +Lessing was not done with him. "For all her +being so beautiful and so well placed," she went +on, "Eunice has never had any life at all, not +what you might call a life. And she might so +easily have missed this. It is hard for girls to +realize sometimes that the success of marriage +depends on real qualities in the man, in mastery +over things and not just over her susceptibilities. +It is quite the most sensible thing I've +known Eunice to do."</p> + +<p>"Only," Peter reminded her for his part, +"I'm not just exactly doing it because it is +sensible." Her "of course not" was convinced +enough to have stilled the vague ruffling of his +mind, without doing it. He didn't object to +having his qualifications as Eunice Goodward's +husband taken solidly, but why dwell upon them +when it was just the particular distinction of his +engagement that it had the intensity, the +spiritual extension which was supposed to put it +out of reach of material considerations. Even +Ellen had done better by him than this.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>He was forced, however, to come back to the +substance of Mrs. Lessing's comment a few +days later when he was being dined at the club +by a twice-removed cousin of the Goodward's, +the upright, elderly symbol of the male sanction +which was the most that his fiancée's +fatherless condition could furnish forth. The +man was cordial enough; he was even prepared +to find Peter likable; but even more on that +account to measure his relation to Miss +Goodward in terms of its being a "good +thing."</p> + +<p>"It's not, you know," his host couldn't forebear +to remind him, "exactly the sort of a marriage +we expected of Eunice; but if the girl is +satisfied——"</p> + +<p>"If I hadn't satisfied myself on that +point——" Peter reminded him in his turn.</p> + +<p>"Quite so, quite so ... girls have notions +sometimes; one never quite knows ... +You'll keep on with your—just <i>what</i> is it you +do such tremendous things with; one hears of +course that you <i>do</i> do them——"</p> + +<p>"Real estate, brokerage," Peter enlightened +him. "I shall certainly keep on with it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +Isn't one supposed to have all the more need of +it when there's an establishment to keep up?"</p> + +<p>The symbol waved a deprecating hand. +"You'll find it rather an occupation to keep up +with Eunice, I'm thinking. I've a notion +she'll go it, once she has the chance."</p> + +<p>"If by going it, you mean going out a great +deal, seeing the world and having it in to see her, +well, why shouldn't she, so long as I have the +price?" He could only take it good-naturedly. +It was amusing when you came to think of it, +that a man who would contribute to the sum of +his wife's future perhaps, the price of a silver +tea salver, should so hold him to account for +it. Nevertheless the talk left a faint savour of +dryness. It was part of his new pride in himself +as a possession of hers that he should in all +things come up to the measure of men, but the +one thing which should justify his being so +ticketed and set aside by them as the Provider, +the Footer-up of Accounts, was the assurance +which only she could give, of his being the one +thing, good or bad, which could be made to +answer for her happiness.</p> + +<p>Walking home by the river to avoid as far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +as possible the baked, oven-smelling streets, +he was aware how strangely the whole earth +ached for her. He was here walking, as he had +been since his first seeing her, at the core of a +great light and harmony, and walking alone in +it. If just loving her had been sufficient occupation +for his brief courtship, for the present it +failed him. For he was not only alone but +lonely. He saw her swept aside by the calculating +crowd—strange that Ellen and Clarice +should be a part of it—not only out of reach +of his live passion, but beyond all speech. +Alone in his room he felt suddenly faint for the +want of her. He turned off the light with +which he had first flooded it, for the flare of the +street came feebly in through the summer leafage, +and sat sensing the need of her as a thing to +be handled and measured, a benumbing, suffocating +presence. As he sat, a sound of music +floated by, and a thin pencil of light from a +pleasure barge on the river flitted from window +to window, travelling the gilt line of a picture-frame +and the dark block of a picture that hung +over his bed. And as it touched in passing the +high ramping figure of a knight in armour, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +old magic worked. He felt himself flung as it +were across great distances, and dizzy with the +turn, to her side. He was there to maintain in +the face of all worldly reckoning, the excluding, +spiritual quality of their relation. The more +his engagement to Eunice Goodward failed of +being the usual, the expected thing, the more +authority it derived for its supernal sources. +It took the colour of true romance from its +unlikelihood. Peter turned on the light, and +drawing paper to him, began to write.</p> + +<p>"Lovely Lady," the letter began, and as if the +words had been an incantation, the room was full +and palpitating with his stored-up dreams. +They came waking and crowding to fill out the +measure of his unconsummated passion, and they +had all one face and one likeness. Late, late +he was still going on with it....</p> + +<p>"And so," he wrote, "I have come to the part +of the story that was not in the picture, that I +never knew. The dragon is slain and the +knight has just begun to understand that the +Princess for whom it was done is still a Princess; +and though you have fought and bled for them, +princesses must be approached humbly. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +he did not know in the least how to go about it +for in all his life the knight could never have +spoken to one before. You have to think of that +when you think of him at all, and of how he +must stand even with his heart at her feet, +hardly daring to so much as call her attention +to it. For though he knows very well that +it is quite enough to hope for and more than he +deserves, to be able to spend his whole life serving +her, love, great love such as one may have +for princesses, aches, aches, my dear, and needs +a comforting touch sometimes and a word of +recognition to make it beat more steadily and +more serviceably for every day."</p> + +<p>He went out that night to post his letter +when it was done, for though there was not time +for an answer to it, he was going down to her on +Saturday, he liked to think of it running before +him as a torch to light the way which, even while +he slept, he was so happily traversing. He was +quite trembling with the journey he had come, +when on Saturday she met him, floating in summer +draperies and holding out a slim ringed +hand, and a cool cheek to glance past his lips +like a swallow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You had my letter, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Such a lovely letter, Peter, I couldn't think +of trying to answer it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it wasn't to be answered—at least +not by another——" He released her lest +she should be troubled by his trembling.</p> + +<p>"I should think not!" She was more than +gracious to him. "It's a wonder to me, Peter, +you never thought of writing. You have such +a beautiful vocabulary." But even that did not +daunt him, for he knew as soon as he had looked +on her again, that loving Eunice Goodward was +enough of an occupation.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>V</h2> + +<p>The senior partner of Weatheral, Lessing & +Co., was exactly the sort of man, when his physicians +ordered him abroad for two years, with +the intimation that there might even worse +happen to him, to make so little fuss about it +that he got four inches of type in a leading paper +the morning of his departure and very little +more. Lessing would certainly have been at +the steamer to see him off, except for being so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +much taken up with adjustments of the business +made necessary by Peter's going out of it; and +his sister Ellen never went out in foggy weather, +seldom so far from the house in any case. Besides, +she declared that if she once saw Peter +disappearing down the widening water she +should never be able to rid herself of the notion of +his being quite overwhelmed by it, whereas if +he sent on his trunks the day before, and +walked quietly out in the morning with his suitcase, +she could persuade herself that he had +merely run down to Bloombury for a few days +and would be back on Monday. And having +managed his leave-taking as he did most personal +matters, to please Ellen, who though she +had never been credited with an imagination, +seemed likely to develop one in the exigencies +of getting along without Peter, he had no sense +of having done anything other than to please +himself. He found a man to carry his suitcase +as soon as he was out of the house, and walked +the whole way to the steamer; for if one has +been ordered out of all activity there is still a +certain satisfaction in going out on your own +feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was an extremely ill-considered day, wet +fog drawn up to the high shouldering roofs and +shrugged off, like a nervous woman's shawl. +But whether it sulked over his departure or +smiled on him for remembrance, would not +have made any difference to Peter, who, whatever +the papers said of the reason for his going +abroad, knew that there would be neither shade +nor shine for him, nor principalities nor powers +until he had found again the House of the Shining +Walls. As soon as he had bestowed his +belongings in his stateroom, he went out on the +side of the deck farthest from the groups of +leave-taking, and stood staring down, as if he +considered whether the straightest route might +not lie in that direction, into the greasy, shallow +hollows of the harbour water, at the very +moment when the Burton Hendersons, over +their very late coffee, had discovered the item +of his departure.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henderson balanced her spoon on the +edge of her cup while her husband read the +paragraph aloud to her.</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose," she said, as if it might +be an interesting even if regrettable possibility,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +"that <i>I</i>—that our affair—had anything +to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"If it did," admitted her husband, with the +air of not thinking it likely, but probably served +him right, "it has taken a long time to get at +him. Two years, isn't it, since you threw him +over for a better man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not so sure of your being a better +man, Bertie; I liked you better——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Burton Henderson accepted his wife's +amendment with complacency.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe Weatheral appreciated the +distinction. Men like that have a sort of +money crust that prevents the ordinary perceptions +from getting through to them." This +illustration appeared on second thoughts so +illuminating that it carried him a little further. +"Perhaps that's the reason it has taken him +so long to tumble after he has been hit; it has +just got through to him. It would be interesting +to know, though, if he is still a little in love +with you."</p> + +<p>There was a fair amount of speculation in Mr. +Burton Henderson's tone that did not appear +to have its seat in any apprehension.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Just as if you rather hoped it," his wife +protested.</p> + +<p>"Well, I was only wondering if his health is +so bad as the papers say—it seldom is, you +know—but if he were to go off all of a sudden +one of these days, whether he mightn't take it +into his head now to leave you a legacy."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it was personal enough with +Peter for that. It wasn't me he wanted so +much as just to be married. And, besides, I +did come down on him rather hard." Mrs. +Burton Henderson smiled a little reminiscently +as if she still saw herself in the process of coming +down on Peter and thought rather well of it.</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway," her husband finished, "we +could have managed with a legacy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we do need money dreadfully, don't +we, Bertie?" she sighed. "But I don't believe +I had anything to do with it."</p> + +<p>That was all very well for Mrs. Burton Henderson, +but Peter's sister Ellen had a different +opinion. "Peter," she had said the evening +after Peter had sent his trunk out of the house +and locked up his suitcase to keep her from +putting anything more into it, "you're not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +thinking of <i>her</i>, are you? You're not going to +take that abroad with you."</p> + +<p>"No, Ellen, I haven't thought of her for a +long time except to wish her happiness. You +mustn't let that worry you."</p> + +<p>"Just the same," said Ellen, "if anything +happens to you over there—if you never come +back to me, I shall never forgive her."</p> + +<p>"I shall come back. I am sorry you should +feel so bitter about it."</p> + +<p>He could not, especially now that it was gone, +very well explain to Ellen about the House; for +all the years that it had stood there just beyond +the edge of dreams with the garden spread +around it and a lovely wood before, she had +never heard of it. There had been so many +ways to it once, paths to it began in pictures, +great towered gates of music gave upon its +avenues, and if he had not spoken of it, it was +because as he had made himself believe when +she did come, that Eunice Goodward would +come into it of first right. He could not have +blamed her for not wishing to live in it—from +the first he had never blamed her. He might +have managed even had she pulled it about his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +ears to rebuild it in some fashion, but this was +the bitterest, that he knew now for a certainty +there had never been any House and the certainty +made him ridiculous.</p> + +<p>It had been rather the worse that, with all +the suddenness of this discovery, he had not +been able to avoid the habit of setting out for +it, seeking in dreams the relief of desolation in +knowing that no dreams could come. As often +as he heard music or saw in the soft turn of a +cheek or the slender line of a wrist, what had +moved him so in hers he felt himself urged forward +on old trails, only to be scared from them +by the apparition of himself as Eunice had +evoked it from her bright surpassing surfaces, +as a man unaccomplished in passion, unprovocative. +All the gates to the House opened upon +dreadful hollows of self-despising into which +Peter fell and floundered, so that he took to going +that way as little as possible, taking wide circuits +about it continually in the way of business, +being rather pleased with himself when at the +end of two years he could no longer feel any pang +of loss nor any remembering thrill of what the +House had been—until he discovered that also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +he could not feel some other things, the pen between +his fingers and the rise of the stairs under +him. He forgot Eunice Goodward, and then +one day he forgot to go home after office hours, +and they found him sitting still at his desk in +the dark, trying to remember whether he ought +to put down the blotting-pad and the paper +weight on top of that, or if, on the whole, it +were not better to put the paper weight, as +being the heavier article, first.</p> + +<p>It was after that the doctor told him to go +as far away from his business as possible and +keep on staying away.</p> + +<p>"But if I am going to die, doctor," Peter +carefully explained, "I would much rather do +it in my own country."</p> + +<p>"Ah," the doctor warned him, "that's just +the difficulty. You won't die."</p> + +<p>And that was how Peter happened to be +leaning over the forward rail of an Atlantic +steamer on his way to Italy, which he had +chosen because the date of sailing happened to +be convenient. But he knew, as he stood looking +down at the surface of the water, rough-hewn +by the wind, that whatever the doctor said to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +Lessing, or Ellen surmised, he would get no +good there except as it showed him the way to +the House of the Shining Walls.</p> + +<p>He did not remember where in the blind +pointless ring through which the steamer +chugged and wallowed as though it were a superior +sort of water beetle and the horizon a circle +of its own making, he began to get sufficiently +acquainted with his fellow passengers, to understand +that they were most of them going +abroad in the interest of unrealized estates, and +abounded in confidence. To see them forever +forward and agaze at the lit shores of Spain and +the Islands of Desire, roused in him the faint +savour of expectation. Which, however, did not +prevent him from finding Naples squalid, and +Rome, where he arrived in the middle of the +tourist season, too modern in a cheap, second-rate +sort of way. He could remember when +Rome had furnished some excellent company for +the House, and suffered in the places of renown +an indeterminable pang like the ache of an +amputated stump. It seemed, on occasion, as +if the old trails might lie down the hollow of the +Forum, under the arch of that broken aqueduct,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +beside the dark Volsinian mere; but when Peter +arrived at any of these places he found them +prepossessed by Germans gabbling out of +<i>Baedekers</i>. The Sistine Chapel made the back +of his neck ache and he came no nearer than +seven tourists to the noble quietude of the Vatican +can marbles.</p> + +<p>"I must remember," said Peter to himself, +"that I am a very sick man, and crowds annoy +me."</p> + +<p>Then he went into the country and saw the +gray of the olives above the springing grass, like +the silver bloom on a green plum, and began to +experience the pangs of recovery. He found +Hadrian's Villa and the garden of the Villa +d'Este, and remembered other things. He +remembered the flat malachite-coloured pools, +the definite, pointed cypresses and the fountain's +soft incessant rain—as it had been in +the House. As it <i>was</i> in the House. For he +understood in Italy what was still the most +bitter to know, that though it might yet be +somewhere in the world, he was never to find it +any more. Toward all that once had led him +thither, his sense was locked and sealed. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +remembered Eunice Goodward—the fact of +her—how tall she was as she walked beside him—but +not how at the soft brushing of her hair +as she turned, his blood had sung to her; nor +all the weeks of their engagement like a morning +full of wings. And he could not yet recall so +much as the bare reasons for her break with him +except that they had been unhappy ones.</p> + +<p>It had been a part of a long plan that he and +Eunice should have seen Italy together, but +for the moment he did not wish her there. He +was sure she would have been in the way of his +getting something that glimmered at him from +the coign of castellated walls all awash about +their base with purpled shadow, that strove to +say itself in intricate fine tracery of tower and +shrine, and failed and fell away before the sodden +quality of his mind.</p> + +<p>So he drifted northward with the spring, and +saw the anemones blowing and the bloomy +violet wonder the world, suffering incredible +aching intimations of the recrudescence of desire. +Afterward he came to Florence, where he had +heard there were pictures, and hoped to have +some peace; but at Florence they were all too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +busy being painted or prayed to, the remote +Madonnas, the wounded Saints, the comfortable +plump Venuses; the lean Christs too stupefied +with candle smoke to take any account of +an American gentleman in a plain business suit, +who looked homely and ill and competent. +Sometimes in Santa Croce or in the long gallery +over the bridge, the noise of the city would +remove from him and the faces would waver and +lean out of their frames, as if, had the occasion +allowed, they would have said the word to set +him on his way. But there was always a guard +about or a tourist stalking some uncatalogued +prey and it never came to anything.</p> + +<p>"What you really want," said a man at his +hotel to whom he had half whimsically complained +of their inarticulateness—one of those +remarkable individuals who had done nothing +so successfully in so many cities of Europe that +he was supposed to know the exact month for +doing it most delightfully in any one of them—"what +you really want is Venice. It's an off +season there; you'll meet nobody but Germans, +and if you go about in your own gondola you +needn't mind them."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>So Peter went to Venice, and on the way there +he met the Girl from Home.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>VI</h2> + +<p>He knew at once that she was from Home, +though as she sat opposite him with the fingers +of her mended gloves laced under her chin and +her face turned away to miss no point of the +cypresses and warm, illumined walls, there was +nothing to prove that any one of a hundred +towns might not have produced her. Peter remembered +what sort of people wore gloves like +that in Bloombury—the minister's wife, the +school teacher, his mother and Ellen—and was +instantly sure she would not have been travelling +through Italy first-class except at the instigation +of the large, widowed and distrustful woman +with whom she got on at Padua. This lady, +also, Peter understood very well. He thought it +likely she sat in rocking chairs a great deal at +home and travelled to improve her mind. She +had, moreover, a general air of proclaiming the +unwarrantableness of railway acquaintances, +which alone would have prevented Peter from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +asking the girl, as he absurdly wanted to, if +they had painted the new school-house yet, and +if there had been much water that year in +Miller's pond.</p> + +<p>As she sat so with her round hat pushed askew +by the window-glass, there was some delicate +reminder about her that streaked the rich +Italian landscape with vestiges of Bloombury.</p> + +<p>He looked out of the window where she +looked and saw the white straight-sided villas +change to green-shuttered farmhouses, and fine +old Roman roads lead on to Harmony. It was +all there for him in its unexpectedness, as +freshly touching as those reminders of his mother +which he came upon occasionally where Ellen +kept them laid by in lavender; as if the girl +had shaken from the folds of her jacket of +unmistakable Bloombury cut, Youth for him—his +own—anybody's Youth—no limp and +yellowed keepsake, but all crisply done up and +ready for putting on. So sharp for the moment +was his sense of accepting the invitation to put +it on with her as the best possible traveller's +guise, especially for seeing Venice in, that catching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +the speculative eye of the large lady turned +upon him, he quailed sensibly. She had the air +of having detected him in an attempt to establish +a relation with her companion on the +ground of their common youngness, and finding +herself much more a match for him both +in years and in respect to their common +origin. Whatever passed between the two +women, and something did pass wordlessly, +with hardly so much substance as a look, remained +there, not intrusively, but as proof that +what he had been seeking was still going on in +some far but attainable place. It was the first +movement of an accomplished recovery, for Peter +to find himself resisting the implication of his appearance +in favour of what was coming to him +out of the retouched, sensitive surfaces of his +past.</p> + +<p>He knew so well as he looked at the girl, what +had produced her. She was leaning a little +from the window in a way that brought +more of her face into view, and though from +where he sat Peter could have very little notion +of the points of the nearing landscape, he knew +by what he saw of her, that somewhere across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +the low runnels in the windy reeds she had +caught sight of the "sea birds' nest."</p> + +<p>He did not on that account change his position +so that he might have a glimpse of the +dark hills of Arqua or the towers of Venice +repeating themselves in the lustrous, spacious +sea. Sitting opposite the girl, he saw in her +following eyes the silver trails of water and the +dim procession down them of old loves, old +wars, old splendours, much better than the thin +line of the landscape presented them to his +weary sense. He leaned back as far as the stiff +seat allowed, watching the Old World shine on +her face, where the low light, striking obliquely +on the water, turned it white above black shoals +of weed. For the first time since his illness his +mind slipped the leash of maimed desire, and +as if it parted for him there beyond the window +of the railway carriage, struck into the trail +to the House. The walls of it rose up straight +and shining, gilded purely; the windows arching +to summer blueness, let in with them the +smell of the wilding rose at the turn of the road +and the evening clamour of the birds in +Bloombury wood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> + +<p>All this time Peter had been sitting in an +Italian railway carriage, knee to knee with a +pirate bearded Austrian Jew who gave him the +greatest possible occasion for wishing the window +opened, and when the jar of the checked +train drew him into consciousness again, he +was at a loss to know what had set him off +so far until he caught sight of the girl. She was +buttoning on her jacket with fingers that trembled +with excitement as she constrained herself +to the recapitulation of the two suitcases, the +hat box and three parcels which her companion +in order to have well in hand, had been alternately +picking up and dropping ever since they +sighted the tower of San Georgio dark against +the sea streaked west.</p> + +<p>"Two and one is three and three is six and +the <i>'Baedeker'</i> and the umbrellas," said the +girl. "No, I don't have to look in the address +book. I have it by heart. Casa Frolli, the +Zattera." Then the roar of the train split into +the sharp cries of the <i>facchinos</i> that carried +them forward like an explosion into Venice +as it rose statelily from the rippling lustre. +Around it wove the black riders with still,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +communicating prows, so buoyant, so mysteriously +alive and peering, like some superior +sea creatures risen magically from below the +frayed reflection of the station lights. Much +as Peter felt that he owed to the vivid presence +of the girl, his new capacity to see and feel it so +as it burst upon them, he hadn't found the +courage to address her. So it was with a distinct +sense of deprivation that he saw her with +her companion grasping the side of the gondola +as if by that method to keep it afloat, disappearing +down the dim water lanes in the direction of +the Zattera.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>VII</h2> + +<p>It was the evidence of how far he had come +on the road to recovery that he was able, when +he woke in his bed at the <i>Britania</i>, to allow full +play to the suggestion that he had experienced +nothing more than the natural reversion of age +to the bright vividness of the past. "Though +I didn't expect," he admitted as he lay fronting +in the wide old mirrors, interminable reflections +of a pillow dinted by his too-early whitened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +head, "I really did not expect to have it +begin at forty-two." Having made this concession +to his acceptance of himself as a man +done with youngness of any sort, he lay listening +to the lip-lapping of the water and the +sounds that came up from the garden just below +him, the clink of cups and the women's easy +laughter, and wondered what it could have been +about that girl to set him dreaming of all the +women who had ever interested him.</p> + +<p>It did not occur to him then, nor in the interval +in which the tang of his dream intervened +between him and the full flavour of Venice, +that he had not thought once of Eunice Goodward, +but only of those who had touched his +life without hurting it. He was so far indeed +from thinking of women again as beings from +whom hurts were expected to come, that he +blamed himself for not having made an occasion +out of their enforced companionship, for +speaking to the girl in the train if he should +meet her again.</p> + +<p>"I must be twice her age," he told himself +determinedly, "and no doubt she has been +brought up to be respectful to her elders."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>He looked out very carefully, therefore, as +he drifted about the canals, for a large, widowed +lady and a girl in a round hat who might have +come from Bloombury, but he did not find her +that day nor the next, nor the day after, and in +the meantime Venice took him.</p> + +<p>The ineffable consolation of its beauty stole +upon him like the breath of its gardens, as it +rose delicately from its sea station, murmurous +like a shell with the whisper of joyous adventure. +It was, as he told himself, a part of the +sense of renewal which the girl had afforded +him, that he was able to accept its incomparable +charm as the evidence of the continuity of +the world of youth and passion. His being able +to see it so was a sort of consolation for having, +by the illusive quality of his dreams, missed +them both on his own account.</p> + +<p>It was not, however, until the morning of the +fourth day that it drew him as he had known in +the beginning it inevitably must, to the core of +Venice, where in the wide piazza full of sleepy +light, the great banners dropped from their +staves broad splashes of colour between the +slaty droves of doves. High over the door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +the gold horses of Lysippus breasted the gold +air made shadowless by the approaching <i>temporale</i>. +He was so far then from anything +that had to do with his dream that it was not +for some moments after he had turned into St. +Mark's, obsessed of the sense of life unconquerable +and pervading, that he began to take notice +of what he saw there in the dim wonder. It +was first of all the smell of stale incense and +the mutter of the mass, and then as he bowed +instinctively to the elevated Host, the snare of +the intricate mosaic pavement; so by degrees +appreciation cleared to the seductive polish of +the pillars, the rows of starred candles, and +beyond that to the clear gold of the walls, with +all the pictures wrought flatly upon them ... as +it had been in the House!</p> + +<p>It was some time before he was able to draw +up out of his boyhood memories, so newly made +a gift to him, the stray, elucidating fact of his +father's early visit to this spot and the possibility +of his dream having shaped itself about +some unremembered account of it. He climbed +up to the galleries to give himself room to that +wonder of memory which had failed to preserve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +to him any image of how his father looked, +and yet had so furnished all his imagination. +Which didn't make any less of a wonder of his +knowing as he stood there, Peter Weatheral, of +the firm of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., Real +Estate Brokers, what it was all about.</p> + +<p>"It's a picture-book of the heart of man," he +concluded, and no sooner had he shaped this +thought in his mind than he heard it uttered +for him on the opposite side of the pillar in a +voice made soft by indulgent tenderness, "Just +a great picture-book." He leaned forward at the +sound far enough to have a glimpse of the Girl +from Home, and smiled at her.</p> + +<p>"So you've found that out, have you?" It +was not strange to find himself addressing her +friendlily nor to hear her answer him.</p> + +<p>"Just a picture-book," she repeated. "It +explains so much. What the saints were to +them, and the Holy Personages. Monkish +tales to prey upon their superstition, we were +taught. But you can see here what they really +were, the wonder tales of a people, the fairy +wonder and the blessed happenings come true +as they do in dreams. Oh, it must have been a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +good time when the saints were on the earth."</p> + +<p>"You believe in them, then?"</p> + +<p>"Here in San Marco, yes. But not when I +am in Bloombury."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried Peter, "are you really from +Bloombury? I knew you were from up country +but I hardly dared to hope—if you will +permit me——" He searched for his card +which she accepted without looking at it.</p> + +<p>"You are Mr. Peter Weatheral, aren't you? +Mrs. Merrithew thought she recognized you +yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Is that why she glared at me so? But +anyway I am obliged to her, though I haven't +vestige of a recollection of her."</p> + +<p>"She didn't suppose you had. Her husband +sold you some land once. But of course +everybody in Bloombury knows the Mr. +Weatheral who went from there to the city +and made his fortune."</p> + +<p>"A sorry one," said Peter. "But if you are +really from Bloombury why don't I remember +you? I go there with Ellen every summer, and +<i>she</i> knows everybody."</p> + +<p>"Yes; she is so kind. Everybody says that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +But I'm really from Harmony. I taught the +Bloombury school last year. I am Savilla +Dassonville."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I knew your father then! Now that I +come to think of it, it was he who laid the +foundation of my greatness," Peter smiled +whimsically. "And I knew your mother; she +was a very lovely lady."</p> + +<p>He realized as the girl's eyes filled with tears, +that this must have been the child at whose +birth, he had heard, the mother had died. +"But I suppose we mustn't talk about Bloombury +in San Marco," he blamed his inadvertence, +"though that doesn't seem to want +talking about either. When you said that just +now about its being a picture-book, I was thinking +how like it was to one of those places I used +to go to in my youth—you know where you go +in your mind when you don't like the place +where you are. So like. I used to call it the +House of the Shining Walls."</p> + +<p>"I know," she nodded, "mine is a garden."</p> + +<p>"<i>Is?</i>" said Peter. "There's where you have +the advantage of me."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed, spreading her hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +toward the pictured wall and the springing +domes, "isn't this the evidence that it <i>is</i> +always. Let us look."</p> + +<p>The mass was over and the crowd departing; +they moved from page to page to the storied +wall and identified in it the springs of a common +experience.</p> + +<p>"It's like nothing so much," said Miss +Dassonville, "as the things I've seen the children +make at school, with bits of coloured stone +and broken china and rags of tinsel or whatever +treasures, laid out in a pattern on the ground."</p> + +<p>"Something like that," admitted Peter.</p> + +<p>"And that's why," said Miss Dassonville, +"it doesn't make me feel at <i>all</i> religious. Just—just—maternal."</p> + +<p>It appeared by this time they had become well +enough acquainted for Peter to remark that +she didn't seem to feel under any obligation to +experience the prescribed and traditional thrill.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm divided in my mind. I don't +want to overlook any of the facts, and I want to +give the poor imprisoned things a chance, if they +have anything to say that the guide books have +missed, to get it off their minds. I've always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +heard that celebrities grow tired of being forever +taken at their public valuation. I've got a +<i>Baedeker</i> and a <i>Hare</i> and <i>The Stones of +Venice</i> but I neglect them quite as much as I +read them, don't you?"</p> + +<p>They had come down into the nave and she +went about stroking the fair marbles delicately +as though there sprang a conscious communication +from the touch. He felt his mind <ins class="typo" title="accomodating">accommodating</ins> +to the ease of hers with a movement of +release. They spent so much time in the church +that when they issued on the Piazza at last it +was with amazement to discern that the cloud +mass which an hour before had piled ethereal +tones of blueness above Frauli, lit cavernously +by soundless flashes, had dissolved in rain.</p> + +<p>"And I haven't even an umbrella," explained +Miss Dassonville with a real dismay.</p> + +<p>"But I'll take you home in my gondola," it +appeared to him providentially provided for +this contingency; "it is here at the Piazzetta."</p> + +<p>"Oh, have you a gondola, and is it as much +of a help as people say? Mrs. Merrithew hates +walking, but we didn't know if we should like it."</p> + +<p>They whisked around the corner under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +arcade of the ducal palace, and almost before +they reached the <i>traghetto</i> the shower was +stayed and the sun came out on the lucent +water. Peter allowed Miss Dassonville to give +the direction lest she should think it a liberty of +him to have noticed and remembered it, but he +added something to it that caused her, as they +swung out into the canal, to enter an expostulation.</p> + +<p>"But this is not the way to the Casa Frolli!"</p> + +<p>"It's one way; besides, it isn't raining any +more, and if you are thinking of taking a gondola +you ought to make a trial trip or two, and +it's worth seeing how the palace looks from the +canal."</p> + +<p>The rain began again in a little while, whitening +the water; the depth of it blackened to the +cloud but the surface frothed like quicksilver +under the steady patter. The awning was up +and they were safe against a wetting, but Peter +saw the girl shiver in the slight chill, and looking +at her more attentively he perceived that she +might recently have been ill. The likeness to +her mother came out then in spite of her plainness, +the hands, the eyes, the pleasant way of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +smiling; it was that no doubt which had set +him on the trail of his old dreams. He tried, +more for the purpose of avoiding it than for +any curiosity, to remember what he had ever +heard of David Dassonville that would account +for his daughter's teaching school when she +evidently wasn't able for it, but he talked of +Mrs. Merrithew.</p> + +<p>"I must call on her," he said, "as soon as she +will permit me. But tell me, what business did +I do with her husband?"</p> + +<p>"It was a mortgage—those poor McGuires, +you know, were in such trouble, and you——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was always nervous about mortgages. +I was bitten by one once. But dear +me, I did not expect to have my youthful indiscretions +coming out like this. What else did she tell you?"</p> + +<p>The girl laughed delightedly. "Well, we +did rather talk you over. She said you were such +a good son. Even when you were a young man +on a salary your mother had a best black silk +and a second best."</p> + +<p>"Women are the queerest!" Peter commented +at large. "It was always such a comfort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +to Ellen that mother had a good silk to be +buried in. Now what is there talismanic about +silk?"</p> + +<p>"It's evidence," she smiled, "and that's +what women require most."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope Mrs. Merrithew will accept it +as evidence that I am a suitable person to take +you out in a gondola this evening. You haven't +seen Venice by night?"</p> + +<p>"Only as we came from the station. I'm sure +she would like you to call, and I hope she will +like the gondola."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she will like it," Peter assured Miss +Dassonville as he helped her out in front of the +Casa Frolli; "it will remind her of a rocking +chair."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrithew did like the gondola; she +liked everything:—the spacious dark, the scudding +forms like frightened swans, the sound of +singing on the water, the soft bulks of foliage +that overhung them in the narrow <i>calle</i>, the +soundless hatchet-faced prows that rounded on +them from behind dim palaces; and she liked +the gondola so much that she asked Peter +"right out" what it cost him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We would have taken one ourselves," she +explained without waiting, "only we didn't feel +able to afford it. Fifty francs a week they +wanted to charge us, but maybe that was because +we were Americans; they think Americans +can do everything over here. But I suppose +you get yours cheap at the hotel?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, much cheaper."</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Forty francs," hazarded Peter. "I'm sure +I could get you one for that. Unless ... +if you don't mind...." He made what +he hadn't done yet under any circumstances, a +case out of his broken health to explain how by +not getting up very early and by taking some +prescribed exercise, Giuseppe and the gondola +had to lie unused half the mornings, which was +very bad for them.... "So," he persuaded +them, "if you would be satisfied with it +for half a day, I would be very much obliged to +you if you would take it ... share and +share alike." There was as much hesitation in +Peter's speech as if it had really been the favour +he seemed to make it, though in fact it grew +out of his attempt to fashion his offer by what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +he saw in the dusk of Miss Dassonville's face. +"In the evenings," he finished, "we could take +it turn about. There are a great many evenings +when I don't go out at all."</p> + +<p>"Me, too," consented Mrs. Merrithew cheerfully. +"I get tired easy, but you and Savilla +could go." The proposal appealed to her as +neighbourly, and it was quite in keeping with +the character of a successful business man, as +he was projected on the understanding of +Bloombury, to wish not to keep paying for a +thing of which he had no use. "I think we +might as well close with it at once, don't you, +Savilla?"</p> + +<p>"If you are sure it's only forty francs——" +Miss Dassonville was doubtful.</p> + +<p>"Quite sure," Peter was very prompt. +"You see they keep them so constantly employed +at the hotel"—which seemed satisfactorily +to make way for the arrangement that +the gondola was to call for the two ladies the +next morning.</p> + +<p>"Giuseppe," Weatheral demanded as he +stepped out of the gondola at the hotel landing, +"how much do I pay you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sixty francs, <i>Signore</i>."</p> + +<p>Peter had no doubt the extra ten was divided +between his own man and the gondolier, but he +was not thinking of that.</p> + +<p>"I have a very short memory," he said, "and +I have told the <i>Signora</i> and the <i>Signorina</i> forty +francs. If they ask you, you are to tell them +forty francs; and listen, Beppe, every franc over +that you tell them, I shall deduct from your +<i>pourboire</i> when I leave, do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Si, Signore</i>."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<p>A morning or two after the arrangement +about the gondola Peter was leaning over the +bridge of San Moise watching the sun on the +copper vessels the women brought to the fountain, +when his man came to him. This Luigi +he had picked up at Naples for the chief excellence +of his English and a certain seraphic bearing +that led Peter to say to him that he would +cheerfully pay a much larger wage if he could +only be certain Luigi would not cheat him.</p> + +<p>"Oh <i>Signore!</i> In Italy? <i>Impossible!</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>"In that case," said Peter, "if you can't be +honest with me, be as honest as you can"—but +he had to accept the lifted shoulders and +the Raphael smile as his only security. However, +Luigi had made him comfortable and as he +approached him now it was without any misgiving.</p> + +<p>"I have just seen Giuseppe and the gondola," +he announced. "They are at the Palazza Rezzonico, +and after that they go to San Georgio +degli Sclavoni. There are pictures there."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Peter.</p> + +<p>"It is a very little way to the San Georgio," +volunteered Luigi as they remained, master +and man, looking down into the water in the +leisurely Venetian fashion. "Across the Piazza," +said Luigi, "a couple of turns, a bridge or two +and there you are;" and after a long pause, +"<i>The signore</i> is looking very well this morning. +Exercise in the sea air is excellent for the health."</p> + +<p>"Very," said Peter. "I shall go for a walk, I +think. I shall not need you, Luigi."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless Luigi did not lose sight of him +until he was well on his way to Saint George +of the Sclavoni which announced itself by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +ramping fat dragon over the door. There was +the young knight riding him down as of old, +and still no Princess.</p> + +<p>"She must be somewhere on the premises," +said Peter to himself. "No doubt she has preserved +the traditions of her race by remaining +indoors." He had not, however, accustomed his +eyes to the dusk of the little room when he +heard at the landing the scrape of the gondola +and the voices of the women disembarking.</p> + +<p>"If we'd known you wanted to come," explained +Mrs. Merrithew heartily, "we could +have brought you in the boat." That was the +way she oftenest spoke of it, and other times it +was the gon<i>do</i>la.</p> + +<p>Peter explained his old acquaintance with the +charging saint and his curiosity about the lady, +but when the custodian had brought a silver +paper screen to gather the little light there was +upon the mellow old Carpaccio, he looked upon +her with a vague dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>"It's the same dragon and the same young +man," he admitted. "I know him by the +hair and by the determined expression. But +I'm not sure about the young lady."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are looking for a fairy-tale Princess," +Miss Dassonville declared, "but you have to +remember that the knight didn't marry this +one; he only made a Christian of her."</p> + +<p>They came back to it again when they had +looked at all the others and speculated as to +whether Carpaccio knew how funny he was +when he painted Saint Jerome among the +brethren, and whether in the last picture he was +really in heaven as Ruskin reported.</p> + +<p>"So you think," said Peter, "she'd have been +more satisfactory if the painter had thought +Saint George meant to marry her?"</p> + +<p>"More personal and convincing," the girl +maintained.</p> + +<p>"There's one in the Belle Arti that's a lot +better looking to my notion," contributed Mrs. +Merrithew.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but that Princess is running away," +the girl protested.</p> + +<p>"It's what any well brought up young female +would be expected to do under the circumstances," +declared the elder lady; "just look +at them fragments. It's enough to turn the +strongest."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It does look a sort of 'After the Battle,'" +Peter admitted. "But I should like to see the +other one," and he fell in very readily with Mrs. +Merrithew's suggestion that he should come +in the gondola with them and drop into the +Academy on the way home. They found the +Saint George with very little trouble and sat +down on one of the red velvet divans, looking a +long time at the fleeing lady.</p> + +<p>"And you think," said Peter, "she would not +have run away?"</p> + +<p>"I think she shouldn't; when it's done for +her."</p> + +<p>"But isn't that—the running away I mean—the +evidence of her being worth doing it for, of +her fineness, of her superior delicacy?"</p> + +<p>"Well," Miss Dassonville was not disposed +to take it lightly, "if a woman has a right to a +fineness that's bought at another's expense. +They can't all run away, you know, and I can't +think it right for a woman to evade the disagreeable +things just because some man makes it possible."</p> + +<p>"I believe," laughed Peter, "if you had been +the Princess you would have killed the dragon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +yourself. You'd have taken a little bomb up +your sleeve and thrown it at him." He had +to take that note to cover a confused sense he +had of the conversation being more pertinent +than he could at that moment remember a +reason for its being.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've been delivered to the dragons before +now," she said. "It's going on all the time." +She moved a little away from the picture as if +to avoid the personal issue.</p> + +<p>"What beats me," commented Mrs. Merrithew, +"is that there has to be a young lady. +You'd think a likely young man, if he met one +of them things, would just kill it on general +principles, the same as a snake or a spider."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Peter, "it's chiefly because they +are terrifying to young ladies that we kill them +at all. Yes, there has to be a young lady." He +was aware of an accession of dreariness in the +certainty that in his case there never could be a +young lady. But Miss Dassonville as she +began to walk toward the entrance gave it another +turn.</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> always a young lady. The difficulty +is that it must be a particular one. No<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +one takes any account of those who were eaten +up before the Princess appeared."</p> + +<p>"But you must grant," said Peter, with an +odd sense of defending his own position, "that +when one got done with a fight like that, one +would be entitled to something particular."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if it came as a reward," she laughed. +"But nowadays we've reversed the process. +One makes sure of the Princess first, lest when +the dragon is killed she should prove to have +gone away with one of the bystanders."</p> + +<p>Something that clicked in Peter's mind led +him to look sharply from one to the other of +the two women. In Bloombury they had a way, +he knew, of not missing any point of their +neighbours' affairs, but their faces expressed no +trace of an appreciation of anything in the subject +being applicable to his. The flick of +memory passed and left him wondering why it +should be.</p> + +<p>He caught himself looking covertly at the +girl as the gondola swung into open water, to +discover in her the springs of an experience +such as lay at the source of his own desolation. +He perceived instead under her slight appearance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +a certain warmth and colour like a light +behind a breathed-on window-pane. Illness, +overwork, whatever dragon's breath had +dimmed her surfaces, she gave the impression of +being inwardly inexhaustibly alight and alive. +Something in her leaped to the day, to the +steady pacing of the gondola on the smooth +water tessellated by the sun in blue and bronze +and amber, to the arched and airy palaces that +rose above it.</p> + +<p>The awning was up; there was strong sun +and pleasant wind: from hidden gardens they +smelled the oleanders. Peter felt the faint stir of +rehabilitation like the breath of passing presences.</p> + +<p>The mood augmented in him as he drifted +late that evening on the lagoon beyond the +Guidecca, after the sun was gone down and the +sea and the sky reflected each to each, one +roseate glow like a hollow shell of pearl. Lit +peaks of the Alps ranged in the upper heaven, +and nearer the great dome of the Saluti signalled +whitely; below them, all the islands near +and far floated in twilit blueness on the flat +lagoon. There was by times, a long sea swell,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +and no sound but the tread of the oar behind like +a woman's silken motion. It drew with it films +of recollection in which his mood suspended like +gossamer, a mood capable of going on independently +of his idea of himself as a man cut off +from those experiences, intimations of which +pressed upon him everywhere by line and form +and colour.</p> + +<p>It had come back, the precious intimacy of +beauty, with that fullness sitting there in +the gondola, he realized with the intake of the +breath to express it and the curious throbbing +of the palms to grasp. He was able to identify +in his bodily response to all that charged the +decaying wonder of Venice with opulent personality, +the source of his boyish dreams. It +was no woman, he told himself, who had gone +off with the bystanders while he had been engaged +with the dragons of poverty and obligation, +but merely the appreciations of beauty. +There had never been any woman, there was +never going to be. He began to plan how he +should explain his discovery and the bearing of +it, to Miss Dassonville. It would be a pity if +she were making the same mistake about it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +He leaned back in the cushioned seat and +watched the silver shine of the prow delicately +peering out its way among the shadowy islands; +lay so still and absorbed that he did not +know which way they went nor what his gondolier +inquired of him, and presently realized +without surprise that the Princess was speaking +to him.</p> + +<p>He felt her first, warm and friendlily, and then +he heard her laughing. He knew she was the +Princess though she had no form or likeness.</p> + +<p>"But which are you?" he whispered to the +laughter.</p> + +<p>"The right one."</p> + +<p>"The one who stayed or the one who ran +away?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you don't know by this time! I have +come to take you to the House."</p> + +<p>"Are you the one who was always there?"</p> + +<p>"The Lovely Lady; there was never any +other."</p> + +<p>"And shall I go there as I used?" asked Peter, +"and be happy there?"</p> + +<p>"You are free to go; do you not feel it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, here—I feel many things. I am just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +beginning to understand how I came to lose the +way to it."</p> + +<p>"Are you so sure?"</p> + +<p>"Quite." Peter's new-found certainty was +strong in him. "I made the mistake of thinking +that the House was the House of Love, and +it is really the House of Beauty. I thought if I +found the one to love, I should live in it forever. +But now that I have found the way back to it I +see that was a mistake."</p> + +<p>"How did you find it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, there is a girl here——"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the Princess.</p> + +<p>"She is young," Peter explained; "she looks +at things the way I used to, and that somehow +brought me around to the starting-point again."</p> + +<p>"I see," said the Princess; the look she turned +on him was full of a strange, secret intelligence +which as he returned it without knowing +what it was about, afforded Peter the greatest +satisfaction. "Do you know me now," she +said at last, "which one I am?"</p> + +<p>"The right one, I am sure of that."</p> + +<p>"But which?"</p> + +<p>"I know now," Peter answered, "but I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +certain that in the morning I shall not be able +to remember."</p> + +<p>It was true as Peter had said that the next +morning he was in as much doubt as ever about +the princesses. He thought he would go and +have a look at them but forgot what he had +come for once he had entered the spacious quiet +of the Academy. Warmed still from his contact +of the night before he found the pictures +sentient and friendly. He found trails in them +that led he knew now where, and painted +waters that lapped the fore-shore of remembrance.</p> + +<p>After an hour in which he had seen the meaning +of the pictures emerge from the frontier +of mysticism which he knew now for the reflection +of his own unstable state, and proceed +toward him by way of his intelligence, he heard +the Princess say at his shoulder, at least he +thought it might have been the Princess for the +first word or two, until he turned and saw Miss +Dassonville. She was staring at the dim old +canvases patched with saints, and her eyes +were tender.</p> + +<p>"They are not really saints, you know, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +are only a sort of hieroglyphics that spell devotion. +It isn't as though they had the breath +of life breathed into them and could come down +from their canvases as some of them do."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he protested, "did you think of that +for yourself? It was the Princess who said it +to me."</p> + +<p>"The Princess of the Dragon?"</p> + +<p>"She came to me last night on the lagoon. +It was wonderful,—the water shine and the rosy +glow. I was wishing I had insisted on your +coming, and all at once there was the Princess."</p> + +<p>"The one who stayed or the one who ran +away?"</p> + +<p>"She declined to commit herself. I suppose +it's one of the things a man has to find out." +He experienced a great lift of his spirit in the +girl's light acceptance of his whimsicality, it +was the sort of thing that Eunice Goodward +used to be afraid to have any one hear him say +lest they should think it odd. It occurred to +him as he turned and walked beside Miss +Dassonville that if he had come to Italy with +Eunice there might have been a great deal that +she would not have liked to hear. He could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +think things of that sort of her now with a +queer lightness as of ease after strain, and yet +not think it a merit of Miss Dassonville's so to +ease him. They walked through the rooms full +of the morning coolness, and let the pictures say +what they would to them.</p> + +<p>"It is strange to me," said the girl, "the +reality of pictures; as if they had reached a point +under the artist's hand where they became suddenly +independent of him and went about saying a great +deal more than he meant and perhaps +more than he could understand. I am sure +they must have a world of their own of picture +rock and tree and stone, where they go when +they are not being looked at on their canvases."</p> + +<p>"Oh, haven't you found them, then?"</p> + +<p>"In dreams you mean? Not in Bloombury; +they don't get so far from home. One of +these little islands I suspect, that lie so low and +look so blue and airy."</p> + +<p>"Will you go with me in the gondola to discover it?"</p> + +<p>"To-night?"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow." He was full of a plan to take +her and Mrs. Merrithew to the Lido that same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +evening to have dinner, and to come home after +moonrise, to discover Venice. She agreed to +that, subject to Mrs. Merrithew's consent, and +they went out to find that lady at a bead shop +where she spent a great many hours in a state +of delightful indecision.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Merrithew proving quite in the mood +for it, they went to the Lido with an extra +gondolier—Miss Dassonville had stipulated +for one who could sing—and came home in time +to see Venice all a-flower, with the continual +slither of the gondolas about it like some slim +sort of moth. They explored Saint George of +the Sea Weed after that, took tea in the public +gardens and had a day at Torcello. On such +occasions when Peter and Mrs. Merrithew +talked apart, the good lady who got on excellently +with the rich Mr. Weatheral grew more +than communicative on the subject of Savilla +Dassonville. It was not that she talked of the +girl so much nor so freely, but that she left him +with the sense of her own exasperation at the +whole performance. It was a thin little waif of a +story as it came from Mrs. Merrithew, needing +to be taken in and comforted before it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +yield even to Peter, who as a rich man had +come to have a fair discernment in pitiable +cases, the faint hope of a rescue. There had +been, to begin with, the death of the girl's +mother at her birth, followed by long years of +neglect growing out of just that likeness to the +beloved wife which first excited her father's +aversion and afterward became the object of a +jealous, insistent tenderness.</p> + +<p>After his wife's death, Dave Dassonville had +lost his grip on his property as he had on all +the means of living. Later he was visited by a +stringency which Mrs. Merrithew was inclined +to impute to a Providence, which, however +prompt it had been in the repayment of the +slight to the motherless infant, had somehow +failed to protect her from its consequences. +Savilla's girlhood had been devoted to nursing +her father to his grave, to which he had gone +down panting for release; after that she had +taught the village school.</p> + +<p>The winter before, tramping through the +heavy snow, she had contracted a bronchitis +that had developed so alarmingly as to demand, +by the authority of the local doctor, "a trip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +somewhere"—"and nobody," said Mrs. Merrithew, +"but me to go with her."</p> + +<p>"Not," she added, "that I'm complainin'. +Merrithew left me well off, and there's no +denyin' travellin's improvin' to the mind, +though at my age it's some wearin' to the body. +I'm glad," she further confided to Peter at +Torcello, "she takes so to Venice. It's a lot +more comfortable goin' about in a gondola. At +Rome, now, I nearly run my legs off."</p> + +<p>It was later when Savilla had been kept at +home by a slight indisposition from a shower +that caught them unprepared, she expressed her +doubt of a winter in Italy being anything more +than a longer stick with which to beat a dog.</p> + +<p>"She will have spent all her money on it, and +the snow will be just as deep in Bloombury next +year. There isn't anything <i>really</i> the matter +with her, but she's just too fine for it. It's like +seeing a clumsy person handlin' one of them +spun glass things, the way I have to sit still and +see Providence dealing with Savilla Dassonville. +It may be sort of sacrilegious to say so, but I +declare it gives me the fidgets."</p> + +<p>It ought of course to have given Peter, seeing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +the interest he took in her, a like uneasiness; +but there was something in the unmitigated +hardness of her situation that afforded him the +sort of easement he had, inexplicably, in the +plainness of her dress. His memory was not +working well enough yet for him to realize that +it was relief from the strain of the secondary +feminity that had fluttered and allured in +Eunice Goodward.</p> + +<p>It was even more unclearly that he recognized +that it had been a strain. All this time he had +been forgetting her—and how completely he had +forgotten her this new faculty for comparison +was proof—he had still been enslaved by her +appearance. It was an appearance, that of +Eunice's, which he admired still in the young +American women at the expensive hotels where +he had put up, and admitted as the natural, the +inevitable sign of an inward preciousness. But +if he allowed to himself that he would never +have spoken to Savilla Dassonville that day at +San Marco, if she had been to the eye anything +that Eunice Goodward was, he told himself it +was because he was not sure from behind which +of those charming ambuscades the arrows of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +desolation might be shot. If he gave himself +up now to the play of the girl's live fancy he +did so in the security of her plainness, out of +which no disturbing surprises might come. +And she left him, in respect to her hard conditions, +without even the excuse for an attitude. +Eunice had been poor in her world, and had +carried it with just that admixture of bright +frankness and proud reserve which, in her +world, supported such a situation with most +charm. She made as much use of her difficulties +as a Spanish dancer of her shawl; but Savilla +Dassonville was just poor, and that was the end +of it. That he got on with her so well by the +simple process of talking out whatever he was +most interested in, occurred to Peter as her natural +limitation. It was not until they had been +going out together for a week or more, in such +fashion as his mending health allowed, that he +had moments of realizing, in her swift appropriations +of Venice, rich possibilities of the personal +relations with which he believed himself +forever done. Oddly it provoked in him the +wish to protect, when the practical situation +had left him dry and bare.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was the evening of the <i>Serenata</i>. They +were all there in the gondola, Mrs. Merrithew +and the girl, with Luigi squatting by Giuseppe, +not too far from the music float that sprang +mysteriously from the black water in arching +boughs of red and gold and pearly Aladdin's fruit. +Behind them the lurking prows +rustled and rocked drunkenly with the swell to +which they seemed at times attentively to lean. +They could make out heads crowded in the +gondolas, and silver gleams of the prows as +they drifted past palaces lit intermittently by a +red flare that wiped out for the moment, the +seastain and disfiguring patches of restoration.</p> + +<p>They had passed the palace of Camerleigh. +The jewel-fruited arbour folded and furled +upon itself to pass the slow curve of the Rialto, +and suddenly, Peter's attention, drawn momentarily +from the music, was caught by that +other bright company leaning from deserted +balconies, swarming like the summer drift between +the pillars of dark loggias. They were +all there, knights and saints and ladies, out of +print and paint and marble, and presently he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +made out the Princess. She was leaning out +of one of the high, floriated windows, looking +down on him with pleased, secret understanding +as she might have smiled from her palace walls +on the festival that brought the young knight +George home with the conquered dragon. It +was the compressed and pregnant meaning of +her gaze that drew his own upward, and it +was then when the Lovely Lady turned and +waved her hand at him that he felt the girl +stir strangely beside him.</p> + +<p>"How full the night is of the sense of presences," +she said, "as if all the loved marbles +came to life and the adored had left their canvases. +I cannot think but it is so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am sure of it."</p> + +<p>She moved again with the vague restlessness +of one stared upon by innumerable eyes. +"How one would like to speak," she said. +"They seem so near us."</p> + +<p>There was a warm tide of that nearness rising +in Peter's blood. As the music flowed out +again in summer fullness, he put out his arm +along the back of the seat instinctively in answer +to the girl's shy turning, the natural movement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +of their common equity in the night's +unrealized wonder.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>IX</h2> + +<p>"Peter! oh, Peter!"</p> + +<p>It was dark in the room when Peter awoke, +but he knew it was morning by the salt smell +which he thought came into the room from the +cove beyond Bloombury pastures, until he +roused in his bed and knew it for the smell of +the lagoons. He looked out to see the beginning +of rose light on the world and understood +that he was called. He did not hear the voice +again but out there in the shimmering space +the call awaited him. It might be the Princess.</p> + +<p>He dressed and got down quietly into the +shadowed city and waked a frowsy gondolier +asleep in his gondola. They spoke softly, both +of them, before the morning hush, as they swung +out into the open water between the towers +of San Georgio fairily dim, and the pillars of the +saints; the city floated in a mist of blueness, +the dome of the Saluti faintly pearled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>Dove, Signore?</i>" The gondolier feathered +his oar.</p> + +<p>"<i>Un giro</i>"—Peter waved his arm seaward; +the dip of the oar had a stealthy sound in the +deserted dawning. They passed the public +gardens and saw the sea widen and the morning +quicken. Islands swam up out of silver space, +took form and colour, and there between the +islands he saw the girl. She had gotten another +oar from Giuseppe and stood delighting in the +free motion; her sleeves were rolled up, her hat +was off, her hair blew out; alive and pliant she +bent to the long sweep of it, and her eyes were +on the morning wonder. But when she caught +sight of Peter she looked only at him and he +knew that her seeing him appearing thus on the +shining water was its chief and exquisite +wonder, and that she did not know what he saw. +The gondolier steered straight for the girl without +advice; he had thought privately that the +<i>Signore Americano</i> was a little mad, but he +knew now with what manner of madness.</p> + +<p>They drew close and drifted alongside. Peter +did not take his eyes from the girl's eyes lest +for her to look away ever so slightly from there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +to his face would be to discover that he knew; +and he did not know how he stood with himself +toward that knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said breathlessly, "I wanted you—I +called you—and you came! You did +not know where I was and yet you came?"</p> + +<p>"I heard you calling."</p> + +<p>She left her oar and sat down; Peter laid his +hand on the edge of her gondola and they +drifted side by side.</p> + +<p>"May I come with you?" he asked presently.</p> + +<p>She made a little gesture, past all speech. +Peter held up a hand full of silver toward his +gondolier and laid it on the seat as he stepped +lightly over. The man slid away from them +without word or motion, and together they faced +the morning. It was one thin web of rose and +gold over lakes of burnished light; islands lifted +in mirage, floated miraculously upon the verge of +space. Behind them the mainland banked like +a new created world over which waited the +Hosts of the ranked Alps. Winged boats from +Murano slid through the flat lagoons.</p> + +<p>There was very little to say. Peter was +aware chiefly, in what came from her to him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +of the wish to be very tender toward it, of having +it in hand to support her securely above the +abyss into which he felt at the least rude touch +of his, she must immeasurably fall. At the +best he could but keep with her there at the +point of her unconsciousness by knowing the +truth himself, as he felt amazingly that he did +know it with all the completeness of his stripped +and beggared past.</p> + +<p>They drifted and saw the morning widen +into the working-day. Market boats piled +with fruit, fish in shining heaps, wood boats of +Istria, went by with Madonna painted sails. +Among the crowded goods the women sat +Madonna-wise and nursed their bambini, or +cherishing the recurrent hope, knitted interminably. +If he wanted any evidence of what +he admitted between the girl and himself it +flashed out for him in the faces of the market +wives, on whom labour and maternity sat not +too heavily to cloud the primal radiance. It +was there in their soft <i>Buon giorno</i> in the way +they did not, as the gondola drew beside them, +cover their fruitful breasts from her tender eyes, +in the way most fall, they grasped in the high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +mood of the <i>forestieri</i> a sublimity untouched +by the niceties of bargaining. A man in the +state of mind to which the girl's visible shine +confessed, could hardly be expected to stickle +at the price of the few figs and roses which +served as an easy passage from the wonder of +their meeting to the ground of their accustomed +gay pretences. They made of Peter's purchases +of fruit and flowers a market garden of their +own from which they had but just come on +hopeful errands. They made believe again as +boats thickened like winged things in a summer +garden, to be bent upon discovery, and slid with +pretended caution under the great ships stationed +by the Giudecca, from which they heard +sailors singing. They shot with exaggerated +shivers past a slim cruiser and suddenly Miss +Dassonville clutched Peter by the arm.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she cried: "Do you see it? That +little dark, impudent-looking one, and <i>the</i> +flag?"</p> + +<p>Peter saw; he was not quite, he reminded her, +even in the intoxication of a morning on the +lagoons with her, quite in that state where he +couldn't see his country's flag when it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +pointed out to him. They came alongside with +long strokes, and sniffed deliciously.</p> + +<p>"Ah—um—um——" said Miss Dassonville. +"I know what that is. It's ham and +eggs. How long since you've had a real American +breakfast?"</p> + +<p>"Not since I left the steamer," Peter confessed. +"Now if I were to smell hot cakes I +shouldn't be able to stand it. I should go +aboard her."</p> + +<p>Miss Dassonville saluted softly as they went +under the bright banner.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early +light,'" she began to sing and immediately a +large, blooming face rose through a mist of +faded whisker at the prow and they saw all the +coast of Maine looking down on them from the +rail of the <i>Merrythought</i>.</p> + +<p>"United States, ahoy?" it said.</p> + +<p>They came close under and Miss Dassonville +hailed in return; as soon as the captain saw her +face smiling up at him he beamed on it as the +women in the boats had done.</p> + +<p>"We smelled your breakfast," she explained, +and the man laughed delightedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know what kind these Dagoes give ye. +Come up and have some."</p> + +<p>Peter and the girl consulted with their +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to have hot cakes?" she +demanded.</p> + +<p>"I will if you come; darned if I don't."</p> + +<p>"We're coming, then."</p> + +<p>It was part of the task that Peter had set +himself, to persevere for Savilla Dassonville the +film of unconsciousness that lay delicately like +the bloom of a rare fruit over all that was at that +moment going on in her, that made him hasten +as soon as Captain Dunham had announced +himself, to introduce her particularly by name. +To forestall in the jolly sailor the natural +interpretation of their appearance together +at this hour and occasion, he had to lend +himself to the only other reasonable surmise. +If they were not, as he saw it on the tip of +the good captain's tongue to propose, newly +married, they were in a hopeful way to be. +The consciousness of himself as accessory to +so delightful an arrangement passed from the +captain to Peter with almost the obviousness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +of a wink, as he surrendered himself to the +charm of the girl's ethereal excitement.</p> + +<p>He understood perfectly that his not being +able to feel more of a drop from the pregnant +mystery of her call and his high response to it, +to the homely incident of breakfast, was due +to Miss Dassonville's obliviousness of its being +one. It was for her, in fact, no drop at all but +rather as if they had pulled out for a moment +into this little shoal of neighbourly interest and +comfortable food, the better to look back at the +perfect wonder of it, as from the deck of the +<i>Merrythought</i> toward the fair front of the ducal +palace and the blue domes of St. Mark's behind +the rearing lion.</p> + +<p>Although he had parted from her that morning +with no hint of an arrangement for a next +meeting, it had become a part of the day's performance +for Peter to call for the two ladies in +the afternoon, so much so that his own sense +of the unusualness of finally letting the gondola +go off without him, and his particular wish at this +juncture not to mark his intercourse with any +unusualness, led him to send off with it as +many roses as Luigi could find at that season<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +on the Piazza. Afterward, as he recalled that +he had never sent flowers to Miss Dassonville +before, and as he had that morning +furnished her from the market boats past her +protesting limitation, it was perhaps a greater +emphasis to his desertion.</p> + +<p>However, it seemed that the roses and nothing +but the roses might serve as a bridge, delicate +and dizzying, to support them from the realization +of their situation, into which he had no intention +of letting Miss Dassonville fall. He +stayed in his room most of that afternoon, +knowing that he was shut up with a very great +matter, not able to feel it so because of the dryness +of his heart, nor to think what was to be +done about it because of the lightness of his +brain.</p> + +<p>It occurred to him at last that at St. Mark's +there might be reflective silences and perhaps +resolution. He felt it warm from the stored-up +veneration of the world, and though he said +to himself, as he climbed to the galleries, that +it was to give himself the more room to think, +he knew that it must have been in his mind all +the time that the girl was there, as it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +natural she should have come to the place +where they had met. Even before he caught the +outline of her dress against the pillar he found +himself crossing over to the organ loft the better +to observe her. Knowledge reached him incredibly +across the empty space, as to what, +over and above the pictured saints, she faced +there in the vault, lit so faintly by the shining +of its golden walls. The service of the benediction +going on in the church below furnished +him with the figure of what came to him from +her as she laid up her thoughts on an altar +before that mysterious intimation of maternity +which presages in right women the movement +of passion. He felt himself caught up in it +purely above all sense of his personal insufficiency.</p> + +<p>Back in his hotel after dinner he found he had +still to let the roses answer for him as he sat out +on his balcony and realized oddly that though +he had no right to go to Miss Dassonville +again until he had thought out to its furthermost +his relation to her, he could, incontinently, +think better in her company.</p> + +<p>It was not wholly then with surprise, since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +he felt himself so much in need of some compelling +touch, that he heard, after an hour +of futile battling, the Princess speak to +him.</p> + +<p>She stood just beyond him in the shadow of +the wistaria that went up all the front of the +balcony, and called him by his name.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Peter "I know now who you are. +You are the one who stayed."</p> + +<p>"How did you find out?"</p> + +<p>"Because the one who ran away was the one +he would have married."</p> + +<p>He did not look at the Princess, but he saw +the shadow of her that the moon made, mixed +with the lace of the wistaria leaves, tremble.</p> + +<p>"Well," said she, "and what are you going +to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"You know then ...?"</p> + +<p>"I was there on the water with you this +morning.... It was I that showed you +the way, but you had no eyes for anything."</p> + +<p>It was the swift recurrent start of what he +<i>had</i> had eyes for that kept Peter silent long +enough for the Princess to have asked him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +again what he was going to do about it, and +then——</p> + +<p>"The other night—with the music—she +knew that I was there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—she!" He was taken all at once with +the completeness with which in his intimate +attitude to things, Savilla did know. "She +knows everything."</p> + +<p>"What was there so different about the other +one?"</p> + +<p>"Everything ... she was beautiful ... she +was air and fire ... she +made the earth rock under me."</p> + +<p>"And did you go to her calling?"</p> + +<p>"I would have risen out of death and dust at +her slightest word ... I would have followed +where her feet went over all the world."</p> + +<p>"And why did you never?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Peter, "it was because +she never called."</p> + +<p>"This one," suggested the Princess, "would +be prettier if she were not so thin; and she +wouldn't have to wear shirtwaists if you married +her. She makes them herself, you know. +Why did the other one run away?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's just the difficulty. I can't remember." +He wished sincerely within himself +that he might; it seemed it would have served +him somehow with Miss Dassonville. "I've +been very ill," he apologized.</p> + +<p>"Anyway, you'd be getting what everybody +wants."</p> + +<p>"And that is——"</p> + +<p>"A woman of your own ... understanding +and care ... and children. I +was in the church with you ... you +saw——"</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to talk about it."</p> + +<p>"What do you want then?"</p> + +<p>"To be the prince in a fairy tale, I suppose," +Peter sighed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're all of that to <i>her</i>. The half +god—the unmatched wonder. When she +watched your coming across the water this +morning—<i>I</i> know the look that should go to a +slayer of dragons. It seems to me," said the +Princess severely, "it is you who are running +away."</p> + +<p>She was wise enough to leave him with that +view of it though it was not by any means<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> +leaving him more comfortable. He tried for +relief to figure himself as by the Princess' suggestion, +he must seem to Savilla Dassonville. +But if he was really such to her why could he +not then play the Deliverer in fact, rescue her +from untended illness, from meagreness and +waste? Why not, in short, marry her, except +for a reason—oh, there was reason enough if +he could only remember it!</p> + +<p>He heard Luigi moving softly in the room +behind, and presently when the door clicked he +rose and went in and taking the lamp held it +high over him, turning with it fronting the +huge mirror in its gilded frame. If there were +a good reason why he couldn't marry Savilla +Dassonville, he ought to have found it in his +own lean frame, the face more drawn than was +justified by his years, lined about the eyes, the +hand that held the accusing lamp broadened +by labours that no scrupulosity of care denied. +Weatheral, of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., unaccomplished, +unaccustomed. He put down +the lamp heavily, leaning forward in his chair +as he covered his face with his hands and +groaned in them, fully remembering.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>X</h2> + + +<p>He had been sitting just so in his library +with the lamp behind him and the hollow flare +of the coals making an excellent starting place +for the House which was now so near him that +the mere exhibition in shop windows of the +stuffs with which it was being modernly renewed, +was enough to set him off for it. It +was so near now, that since the announcement +of their engagement in September, he had +moved through all its obligations benumbed +by the white, blinding flash thrown backward +from its consummating moment, the moment +of her cry to him, of their welding at the core +of light and harmony, bounded inevitably by +the approaching date of marriage. It had +been, he recalled on some one of those occasions +of social approval by which it appeared engagements +in the Best Society proceeded, that he +had sat thus, waiting until the clock ticked on +the moment when he might properly join her, +sat so full of the sense of her that for the instant +he accepted her unannounced appearance at +the darkened doorway as the mere extension of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +his white-heated fancy. The next moment as +she charged into the circle of the lamp he saw +that the umbra of some strange electrical excitement +hung about her. It fairly crackled between +them as he rose hurriedly to his feet.</p> + +<p>"You have come, Eunice! You have +come——"</p> + +<p>But he saw well enough what she had come +for. She laid the case on the table, but as she +tugged impatiently at her glove, the fringe of +her wrap caught the clasp of it and scattered +the jewels on the cloth. She tried then to put +the ring beside them, but her hand shook so +that it fell and rolled upon the floor behind +them. Peter picked it up quietly, but he did +not offer it to her hand again.</p> + +<p>"I have come," said Eunice, "to say what +in my mother's house I was afraid of being interrupted +in saying; what you must see, what my +mother won't see."</p> + +<p>"I see you are greatly excited about something!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not, I'm not.... That is ... +I am, but not in the way you think," she was +sharp with insistence; "that is what you and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +mother always say, that I'm nervous or excited, +and all the time you don't <i>see</i>."</p> + +<p>"What is it I don't see, Eunice?"</p> + +<p>"That I can't stand it, that I can't go on +with it, that it is dreadful to me,—<i>dreadful!</i>"</p> + +<p>"What is dreadful?"</p> + +<p>"Everything, being engaged—being married +and giving up...." It was fairly +racked out of her by some inward torture to +which he had not the key.</p> + +<p>"Of course, Eunice, if you don't wish to be +married so soon——" Peter was all at sea. +He brought a chair for her, and perceiving that +he would go on standing as long as she did, she +sat upon the edge of it but kept both the arms +as a measure of defence. The slight act of +doing something for her restored him for the +moment to reality; he bent over her. "I've +never wanted to hurry you, dearest—— It +shall be when you say." She put up her hands +suddenly with a shivering movement.</p> + +<p>"Oh, never, never at all; never to you!"</p> + +<p>Peter could feel that working its track of +desolation inward, but the first instinctive +movement of his surface was to close over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +wound. He took it as he knew he could only +take it: as the explosive crisis of the virginal +resistance which he remembered he had heard +came to girls when marriage loomed upon them. +He took a turn down the room to steady himself, +praying dumbly for the right word.</p> + +<p>"It isn't as if I didn't respect you"—she +was eager in explanation, hurried and stumbling—"as +if I didn't know how good you are ... it +is only, because we are so different."</p> + +<p>"How different, Eunice?"</p> + +<p>"Oh ... older, I suppose." She grew +quieter; it appeared on the whole they were getting +on. "I care for so many things, you know—dancing—and +bridge—<i>young</i> things—and +you are always reading and reading. Oh! +I couldn't stand it."</p> + +<p>So it was out now. She was jealous of his +books, a little. Well, he had been self-absorbed. +It occurred to him dimly that the thing +to have done if he had known a little more +about women, had practised with them, was to +have provoked her at this point to the tears +which should have sealed the renewal of his +claim to her. What he said was, very quietly:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Of course I never meant, Eunice, that you +shouldn't have everything you want."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she seemed to have found a suffocating +quality in his gentleness, against which she +struck out with drowning gestures, "if you +could only understand what it would mean to +me never to have anybody I liked to talk to +about things,—anybody I liked to be with all +the time!" She was choked and aghast at the +enormity of it.</p> + +<p>"But I thought...." Peter was not +able to go on with that. "Isn't there anybody +you like to be with, Eunice?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Eunice. "Burton Henderson."</p> + +<p>Mutinous and bright she looked at him out +of the chair with a hand on either arm of it +poised for flight or defence. After an interval +Peter heard his own voice out of a fog rising +to the conventional utterance.</p> + +<p>"Of course, if you have learned to love +him——"</p> + +<p>"I've loved him all the time." She was so +bent on making this clear to him that she was +careless what went down before her. "From +the very beginning," she said, "but he had so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +little money, and mother ... I promised +you, I know, but it's not as if I ever said I loved +you."</p> + +<p>She should have spared him that! He had +not put out a hand to hold her that he should +be so pierced through with needless cruelty. +But she was bent on clearing her skirts of +him.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," she expostulated to his +stricken silence, "that if I'd cared in the least +I'd have made it so easy for you? Can't you +see that it was all arranged, that we <i>jumped</i> +at you?" All the time she sat opposite him, +thrusting swift and hard, there was no diminution +of her appealing beauty, the flaming rose +of her cheeks and the soft, dark flare of her +hair. As if she felt how it belied at every +turn the quality of her unyielding intention, +her voice railed against him feverishly. "I +suppose you think I'm mercenary, and I thought +I was, too. You don't know how people +like us <i>need</i> money sometimes. All the things +we like <i>cost</i> so—all the real things. And poor +mamma, she needed things; she'd never had +them, and I thought that I could stand being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +married to you if I could get them that way.... +Maybe I could, you know, if you'd +been different, more like us I mean. But there +was such a lot you didn't understand ... +things you hadn't even heard about. I found +that out as soon as we were engaged. There +wasn't a thing between us; not a <i>thing</i>."</p> + +<p>It poured scalding hot on Peter's sensitive +surfaces: made sensitive by the way in which +even in this hour her beauty moved him. He +felt tears starting in his heart and prayed they +might not come to his face. "So you see as we +hadn't anything in common it would be better +for us not to go on with it even"—she broke +a little at this—"even if there hadn't been +anybody else. You see that, don't you?" She +dared him to deny it rather than begged the +concession of him as she gathered herself for +departure.</p> + +<p>"I see that."</p> + +<p>"You never really belonged to our set, you +know——" She rose now and he rose blindly +with her; he hoped that she was done, but there +was something still. "It hasn't been easy to +go through with it.... Mother isn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +going to make it any easier. It's natural for +her to want me to have everything that money +would mean, and I thought that if you would +just keep away from her ... you owe +something to Burton and me for what we've +been through, I think ... just leave it +to me to manage in my own way...."</p> + +<p>"I shall never trouble you, Eunice."</p> + +<p>He came close to her then to open the door, +seeing that she was to leave him, and he saw +too that she had suffered, was at the very ebb +and stony bottom of emotion as she hung for +the moment in the doorway searching for some +winged shaft of separation that should cut her +off from the remotest implication of the situation. +She found at last the barbedest. All +the succeeding time after he closed the door on +her was marked for Peter, not by the ticked +moments but by successive waves of anguish as +that poisoned arrow worked its way to his +secret places.</p> + +<p>"It isn't as if I had ever loved you; I owe it +to Mr. Henderson to remind you that I never +said I did.... You know I never liked +to have you kiss me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<p>He had in the months that succeeded to that +last sight of Eunice Goodward, moments of +unbearably wanting to go to her to try for a +little to ease his torment in a more tender +recognition of it—days when he would have +taken from her, gratefully even if she had fooled +him and he had seen her do it, whatever would +have saved him from the certainty that never +even in those first exquisite moments had she +been his. The sharp edge of her young sufficiency +had lopped off the right limb of his +manhood. Never, even in his dreams, if life +had allowed him to dream again, should he be +able to see himself in any other guise than the +meagre, austere front which his obligation to his +mother and Ellen had obliged him to present +to destiny. She had beggared him of all those +aptitudes for passionate relations, by the faith +in which he had kept himself inwardly alive. +The capacity for loving died in him with +the knowledge of not being able to be +loved.</p> + +<p>Out of the anæsthesia of exhaustion from +which Italy had revived him, it rolled back +upon him that by just the walled imperviousness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +that shut Eunice Goodward from +the appreciation of his passion, he was prevented +now from Savilla Dassonville.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>XI</h2> + +<p>It was odd, then, having come to this conclusion +in the middle of the night, that when he +joined the ladies in the morning he should have +experienced a sinking pang in not being able +any longer to be sure what Miss Dassonville +thought of him. There was in her manner, as +she thanked him for the flowers, nothing to +ruffle the surface of the bright, impersonal companionship +which she had afforded him for +weeks past.</p> + +<p>The occasion which brought them together +was an agreement entered into some days earlier, +to go and look at palaces, and as they +turned past the Saluti to the Grand Canal, he +found himself wondering if there had not been a +touch of fatuity in his reading of the incident +of the morning before. He had gone so far in +the night as to think even of leaving Venice, +and saw himself now forlornly wishing for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +some renewal of yesterday's mood to excuse +him from the caddishness that such a flight +implied.</p> + +<p>It came out a little later, perhaps, when +after traversing many high and resounding +marble halls, with a great many rooms opening +into one another in a way that suggested rather +the avoidance of privacy than its security, +they found themselves in one of those gardens +of shut delight of which the exteriors of Venetian +houses give so little intimation.</p> + +<p>As she went about from bough to bough of +the neglected roses, turned all inward as if they +took their florescence from that still lighted +human passion which had found its release and +centre there, her face glowed for the moment +with the colour of her quick sympathies. She +turned it on him with an unconscious, tender +confidence, which not to meet seemed to Peter, +in that gentle enclosure full of warmth and +fragrance, to assume the proportions of a betrayal.</p> + +<p>He did meet it there as she came back to +him for the last look from the marble balustrade +by which they had descended, covering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +her hand, there resting, lingeringly with his +own. He was awakened only to the implication +of this movement by the discovery that +she had deeply and exquisitely blushed.</p> + +<p>It was a further singularity in view of the +conviction with which Peter had come through +the night, that the mood of protectingness +which the girl provoked in him should have +multiplied itself in pointing out to him how +many ways, if he had not made up his mind +not to marry her at all, such a marriage could +be made to serve its primal uses. She had +turned up her cuff to trail her hand overside +as they slid through the lucent water, and the +pretty feminine curve of it had brought to mind +what the Princess had told him of the shirt-waists +she made herself. He decided that she +made them very well. But she was too thin +for their severity—and if he married her he +would have insisted on her wearing them now +and then as a tender way to prevent her suspecting +that it was on their account he had +thought of not marrying her. The revealed +whiteness of her wrist, the intimacy of her +relaxed posture, for though her mind had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +played into his as freely as a child in a meadow, +she had been always, as regards her person, a +little prim with him, had lent to their errand +of house visiting a personal note in which it +was absurdly apt for them to have run across +Captain Dunham of the <i>Merrythought</i> at the +door of the Consulate. Mr. <ins class="typo" title="Weatherall">Weatheral</ins> had +some papers which Lessing had sent him to +acknowledge there, and it was a piece of the +morning's performance, when he had come back +from that business, to find that the meeting had +taken on—from some mutual discovery of the +captain's and Mrs. Merrithew's of a cousin's +wife's sister who had married one of the Applegates +who was a Dunham on the mother's side—quite +the aspect of a family party. It came +in the end to the four of them going off at +Peter's invitation to have lunch together in a +café overhanging the <i>calle</i>. He told himself +afterward that he would not have done it if he +had recalled in time the friendly seaman's +romantic appreciation of the situation between +himself and Miss Dassonville. He saw himself +so intrigued by it that, by the time lunch was +over, he felt himself in a position which to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +own sensitiveness, demanded that he must immediately +leave Venice or propose to Miss +Dassonville. To see the way he was going and +to go on in it, had for him the fascination of the +abyss. He caught himself in the act even of +trying to fix Miss Dassonville's eye to include +her by complicity in the beguilement of the +captain, a business which she seemed to have +undertaken on her own account on quite other +grounds. He perceived with a kind of pride +for her that she had the ways of elderly sea-going +gentlemen by heart. It was something +even if she had failed to charm Peter, that she +shouldn't be found quite wanting in it by other +men.</p> + +<p>When they had put him back aboard of the +<i>Merrythought</i> they had come to such a pitch +among them all, that as the captain leaned +above the rail to launch an invitation, he addressed +it to Miss Dassonville, as, if not quite the +giver of the feast, the mistress of the situation.</p> + +<p>"When are you coming to lunch with me?" +demanded the captain.</p> + +<p>"Never!" declared Miss Dassonville. "It +would be quite out of the question to have hot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +cakes for luncheon, and I absolutely refuse to +come for anything less."</p> + +<p>"There's something quite as good," asserted +the captain, "that I'll bet you haven't had in +as long."</p> + +<p>"Better than hot cakes?" Miss Dassonville +was skeptical.</p> + +<p>"Pie," said the captain.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Pie!</i>" in mock ecstasy. "Well, I'd +come for pie," and with that they parted.</p> + +<p>Peter had plenty of time for considering where +he found himself that afternoon, for the ladies +were bent on a shopping expedition on which +they had rather pointedly given him to understand +he was not expected to attend. He had +tried that once, and had hit upon the excellent +device, in face of the outrageous prices proposed +by the dealers, of having them settle upon what +they would like and sending Luigi back to bargain +for it. All of which would have gone very +well if Mrs. Merrithew, in the delight of his +amazing success, had not gone back to the shop +the next day to duplicate his purchases. Peter +had never heard what occurred on that occasion, +but he had noticed that they never talked in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +presence of buying anything again. Bloombury +people, he should have remembered, had +perfectly definite notions about having things +done for them.</p> + +<p>He walked, therefore, on this afternoon in the +Public Gardens and tried to reconstruct in their +original force the reasons for his not marrying +Savilla Dassonville. They had come upon +him overwhelmingly in the recrudescence of +memory, reasons rooted very simply in his +man's hunger for the lift, the dizzying eminence +of desire. He liked the girl well enough +but he did not want her as he had wanted +Eunice Goodward, as he wanted expansively +at this moment to want something, somebody—who +was not Eunice—he was perfectly +clear on this point—but should be in a +measure all she stood for to him. He had +renewed in the night, though in so short a time, +not less acutely, all the wounded misery of what +Eunice had forced upon him. He was there +between the dark and dawn, and here again in +the cool of the garden, to taste the full bitterness +of the conviction that he was not good +enough to be loved. He was not to be helped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +from that by the thought, which came hurrying +on the heels of the other, that Savilla +Dassonville loved him. He had a moment of +almost hating her as she seemed to plead with +him, by no motion of her own he was obliged +to confess for those raptures, leaping fires, +winged rushes, which should have been his portion +of their situation.</p> + +<p>He hated her for the certainty that if +he went away now quietly without saying +anything, it would be to visit on her undeservedly +all that had come to him from Eunice. +For she would know; she would not, as he had +been, be blind to the point of requiring the +spoken word. If he left her now it would be to +the unavoidable knowledge that, as the Princess +had said of him, he would be running away. +He would be running from the evidences of a +moneyless, self-abnegating youth, from the +plain surfaces of efficiency and womanliness, +not hedged about and enfolded, but pushed to +the extremity of its use. He had, however, +when he had taken that in from every side, the +grace to be ashamed of it.</p> + +<p>He was ashamed, too, of finding himself at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +their next meeting involved in a wordless appeal +to be helped from his state to some larger +grounds. If the girl had but appealed to him he +could have done with a fine generosity what he +felt was beyond him to invite. He could have +married Savilla Dassonville to be kind to her; +what he didn't enjoy was putting it on a basis +of her being kind to him.</p> + +<p>Miss Dassonville, however, afforded him no +help beyond the negative one of not talking +too much and taking perhaps a shade less interest +in Venice. They had two quiet days +together in which it was evident, whatever +Peter settled with himself as to his relation to +the girl, it had taken on for Mrs. Merrithew +the pointedness known in Bloombury as "attentions." +She paid in to the possibilities of the +situation the tribute of her absence for long sessions +in which, so far as Peter could discover, +the situation rather fell to the ground. It began +to appear that he had missed as he was doomed +with women, the crucial instant, and was to +come out of this as of other encounters, empty. +And then quite suddenly the girl put out a +hand to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was along about the end of the afternoon +they had come out of the church of Saint +George the Greater, which as being most accessible +had been left to the latter end of their explorations. +Mrs. Merrithew had just sent +Giuseppe back for a shawl which she had +dropped in the cloister. They sat rocking in +the gondola looking toward the fairy arcade of +the ducal palace and the pillars of the saints, +and suddenly Miss Dassonville spoke to excuse +her quietness.</p> + +<p>"I must look all I can," she said; "we are +leaving the day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>If she had retired behind Mrs. Merrithew's +comfortable breadth in order to deliver her +shot the more effectively, she missed seeing how +plumply it landed in the midst of Peter's +defences and scattered them.</p> + +<p>"Leaving Venice?" he said. "Leaving me?" +It took a moment for that fact, dropping the +depth of his indecision, to show him where he +stood. "But I thought you understood," he +protested, "that I wanted you to stay ... +to stay with me...." He leaned across +Mrs. Merrithew's broad lap in a great fear of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +not being sufficiently plain. "Make her understand," +he said, "that I want her to stay +always."</p> + +<p>"I guess," said Mrs. Merrithew, a dry smile +twinkling in the placidity of her countenance, +"you'd better take me right home first, and +then you can explain to her yourself."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>XII</h2> + +<p>"And you are sure," asked Peter, "that you +are not going to mind my being so much older?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm going to mind it: There will be +times when I shall be afraid of not living up to +it. But the most part of my minding will be, +since you are so much better acquainted with +life than I am, that in any matter in which we +shouldn't agree I shall be so much the more +sure of your being right. It's going to be a +great help to us, having something like that to +go by."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Peter, "you put it very prettily, +my dear."</p> + +<p>He was aware as soon as he had said it, +that she would have a way always of putting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +things prettily, and that not for the sake of any +prettiness, but because it was so intrinsically +she saw them. It would make everything much +simpler that she was always sufficiently to be +believed.</p> + +<p>"It isn't, you know," she went on, "as if I +should have continually to prop up my confidence +with my affection as I might with a man of +less experience. Oh!" she threw out her arms +with a beautiful upward motion, "you give +me so much room, Peter."</p> + +<p>"Well, more than I would give you at this +moment if we were not in a gondola on a public +highway!"</p> + +<p>He amazed himself at the felicity with which +during the three days of their engagement he +had been able to take that note with her, still +more at the entertainment of her shy response. +It gave him a new and enlarged perception of +himself as a man acquainted with passion. +All that had been withheld from him, by the +mere experience of missing, he was able to bestow +with largesse. The witchery and charm that +had been done on him, he worked—if he were +but to put his arm about her now, to draw her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +so that her head rested on his shoulder, with a +certain pressure, he could feel all her being +flower delicately to that beguilement. He had +promised himself, when he had her promise, +that she should never miss anything, and he +had a certain male satisfaction in being able +to make good. What he did now, in deference +to their being as they were in the full light of +day and the plying traffic, was to say:</p> + +<p>"Then if I were to put it to you in the light +of my superior experience, that I considered +it best for us to be married right away, I +shouldn't expect you to contradict me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter!"</p> + +<p>"We can't keep Mrs. Merrithew on forever, +you know," he suggested, "and we've such a +lot to do—there's Greece and Egypt and the +Holy Land——"</p> + +<p>"But can we—be married in Venice, I +mean?"</p> + +<p>"That," said Peter, "is what I'm waiting +your permission to find out."</p> + +<p>He spent the greater part of the afternoon at +that business without, however, getting satisfaction. +"Marriage in Italy," the consul told him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +"is a sort of world-without-end affair. Even if +you cable for the necessary papers it will be a +matter of a month or six weeks before the ceremony +could be accomplished. You'll do better +to go to Switzerland with the young lady."</p> + +<p>For the present he went back to her with +a list of the required certificates, and another +item which he brought out later as a +corrective for the disappointment for the first.</p> + +<p>"My birth and baptismal certificates? I +haven't any," said Miss Dassonville, "and I +don't believe you have either; and I don't +want to go to Switzerland."</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter, "even that takes three +weeks."</p> + +<p>"Why can't he marry us himself—the +consul, I mean? I thought wherever the flag +went up was territory of the United States."</p> + +<p>"If you will come along with me in the morning +we can ask him," Peter suggested, and on +the way there he loosed for her benefit the +second item of his yesterday's discovery. +They slid past the façade of a certain palace +and she kissed the tip of her finger to it lightly. +"It's as if we had a secret between us," she explained,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +"the secret of the garden. Besides, +I shall always love it because it was there I first +suspected that you—cared. When did you +begin to care, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Since before I can remember. Would you +like to live in it?"</p> + +<p>"In this palace? Here in Venice?"</p> + +<p>"It's for rent," he told her; "the consul has it."</p> + +<p>"But could we afford it?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Peter, "if you like it so much, +at the rate things are here, we can pull it up by +the roots and take it back to Bloombury."</p> + +<p>They lost themselves in absurd speculations +as to the probable effect on the villagers of that, +and so failed to take note as their gondola +nosed into the green shadow under the consulate, +of the <i>Merrythought's</i> launch athwart the +landing, until the captain himself hailed them.</p> + +<p>"This port," he declared, "is under embargo. +I have been waiting here since half +tide and there's nothing doing. Somebody's +in there chewing red tape, but I don't calculate +to let anybody else have a turn at it until I get +my bit wound up an' tied in a knot. Now don't +tell me you've got business in there?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We want to find out something."</p> + +<p>"Well, when ye find it, it won't be what ye +want," asserted the captain gloomily. "It +never is in these Dago countries." He motioned +his own boat aside from the landing. "If +ye want to go inside and set on a chair," he +suggested, "I'll not hender ye. I like the water +best myself. I hope your business will stand +waiting."</p> + +<p>"To everybody but ourselves," said Peter. +"You see," he caught the permission lightly +from Miss Dassonville's eyes, "we want to get +married."</p> + +<p>"Ho!" said the captain, chirking up. "I +could 'a' told ye that the fust time I laid eyes +on ye. But I'll tell ye this: ye can't do nothing +in a hurry in this country. The only place +where a man can do things up as soon as he +thinks of 'em is on the blue water. We don't +have red tape on shipboard, I can tell you. +The skipper's the law and the government."</p> + +<p>"Could you marry people?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't to say in the habit of it, but +it's the law that I could."</p> + +<p>"Then if we get tangled up with the consul,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +said Peter, "we'll have to fall back on you," +and they took it as an excellent piece of fooling +which they were later to come back to as a +matter of serious resort.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said the consul, "I could marry +you and it would be legal if you chose to count +it so at home, but if you are thinking of taking +a house here and of making an extended residence +I shouldn't advise it. As to Captain +Dunham's suggestion, it's not wholly a bad +one. Not being in Italy, the Italians can't +take exception to it, and if it is properly +witnessed and recorded at home it ought to +stand."</p> + +<p>They couldn't of course take it in all at once +that they were simply to sail out there into the +ethereal blueness and to come back from it with +the right to live together. However, it made +for a great unanimity of opinion as they talked +it over on the way home, that, since so much +was lacking from Peter's marriage that he had +dreamed went to it, and so much more had +come into Savilla's than she had dared to +imagine, it mattered very little what else was +added or left out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I suppose," suggested Miss Dassonville, +"Mrs. Merrithew will think it dreadful." But +as it turned out Mrs. Merrithew thought very +well of it.</p> + +<p>"On a United States boat with a United +States minister—there is one here I've found +out—it seems a lot safer than to trust to these +foreign ways. If you was to be married in +Italian I should never be certain you wouldn't +wake up some morning and find yourself not +married. And then how should I feel!" As +to the palace plan, she threw herself into it with +heavy alacrity. "I s'pose I've got to see you +through," she said, "and it will give me something +to think about. I don't suppose you +have any intention that way, but an engaged +couple isn't very good company."</p> + +<p>It transpired that the <i>Merrythought</i> would +put out to the high seas on the twenty-second, +and it was in the flutter of their practical +adjustments to meet this date that Peter found +the ten days of his engagement move so swiftly; +to engage servants, to interview tradespeople, +to prune the neglected garden—it was Savilla's +notion that they should do this themselves—all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +the stir of domestic life made so many +points of advantage to support him above that +dryness of despair from which he had moments +of feeling himself all too hardly rescued. He had +come up out of it sufficiently by the help that +Italy afforded, to glimpse once more the country +of his dreams, only by this act of his marriage +to turn his back on it forever. Savilla +Dassonville was a dear little thing; if it came to +that, a revered and valued thing, but she was not, +he had never pretended it, the Lovely Lady, and +the door that shut them in as man and wife was +to shut <i>her</i> forever out of his life. And yet +though this was his accepted, his official position, +it was remarkable even to himself how +much less frequently as the preparations for +his marriage went forward, he found himself +obliged to fall back upon it; how much more he +projected himself into his future as the adored +and protecting male. He recalled in this connection +that the Princess had said to him that +he should visit his House no more, and it was +part of the proof of the notion he entertained +toward himself as a man done with the imaginative +life, that he accepted it with no more fuss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +about it. He had in fact his mind's eye on a +piece of ground which Lessing could buy for +him, on the river, an hour from the city, where +he could manage for Savilla at least, a generous +substitute for dreams, and a situation for himself +for which he began to discover more appetite +than he would have believed. It was likely, +he thought, that he would himself take a turn +at planning the garden.</p> + +<p>It was very early in the morning when the +wedding party which had been reinforced by +the consul, the mistress of Casa Frolli, and the +minister, who had turned out to be exactly of +Mrs. Merrithew's persuasion, went aboard +the <i>Merrythought</i>, blooming out amazingly +in bunting and roses for the occasion. +The morning blueness had drained out from +the city and stained the waters eastward as +they put out between the red and yellow sails +of the fishing fleet. They saw the cypress-towered +islands of romance melt in the morning +haze. The steam launch which was to take +them ashore again ploughed alongside, and +there was a pleasant sort of home smell from +the cook's quarters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<p>Peter sat forward with the bride's hand +tucked under his arm and presently he heard +her laughing softly, delightedly.</p> + +<p>"Peter, do you know what that is, that good +smell I mean?"</p> + +<p>"What do you think it is?"</p> + +<p>"It's pie baking. Truly, don't you think +I'm enough of a housewife to know that?"</p> + +<p>"I know you're everything you ought to be."</p> + +<p>"It is pie, there's no doubt about it, but we +must pretend to be awfully surprised when the +captain brings it out. But Peter, don't you +like it?"</p> + +<p>"Pie, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"No, but like having everything so homey +and—and—so genuine at our wedding?"</p> + +<p>"I hope," said Peter, "it's genuine pie, +but I see what you mean, my dear."</p> + +<p>"It's an omen, almost, that we'll always have +the good, comfortable, common things to fall +back upon, if our marriage should not prove +quite all we've dreamed it. It's been so perfect +up to now; it must drop down out of the clouds +some time."</p> + +<p>It seemed rather to have taken a sweep upward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> +when, with sails swelling over them and +the beat of the sea under the bows, they stood +up to be married, and to exhibit capacities of +sustaining itself at a level from which not the very +soggy and sallow complexioned pie with the cook +grinning behind it, could dislodge the two most +concerned in it. It wore through the day to a +contained and quiet gayety at a dinner which +took place in the <i>ristoranta</i> over the water +where they had once lunched with the captain, +and lasted until Peter had brought his wife +home again to the refurnished palace. It had +gone, as he told himself, remarkably well, with +every intimation, as he had time to tell himself +in his last hours in the garden with his cigar, of +going much better, of becoming as the place +gave him occasion to indulge the figure, an +enclosed and fragrant garden, in which if no +flaming angel of desire kept the gate for him, +he had at least the promise of refreshment.</p> + +<p>That old passion for Eunice Goodward, all +his feelings for all the women he had known, +served to show him what Savilla had meant +when she said he "gave her so much room"—the +renewed sense of the spaciousness of life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<p>It would be there for his wife at the completest, +and if she had, as it seemed, turned him +out of the Wonderful House in order to live in +it herself, he at least kept the gates. And was +not this the proper business for a man? He +recalled what the Princess had said to him so +long ago when he had first begun to think of +himself as a bachelor. "It takes a lot of dreaming +to bring one like me to pass." Well, he +had dreamed and he had slain some dragons. +Later there would be children playing in the +House, daughters perhaps ... Lovely +Ladies. The world would be a better place for +them to walk about in because of all that he had +lost and been.</p> + +<p>When he went into the garden he had +half expected that the Princess would speak +to him; the place was full of hints of her, +faint and persuasive as the scent of the flowers +in the dark, little riffles of his pulse, flushed +surfaces, the tingling of his palms which announced +her, but she did not speak. He said +to himself that he was now a well man and had +seen the last of her. Never before had he felt +so very well.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>He saw the light moving in the palace behind +him as his wife moved to complete some +of her arrangements; he heard her then pacing +along the marble floor of the great hall which +went quite through the middle of it—she +must be going to her room, and in a little while +he would go in to her—he heard the light +tapping of her feet and then he saw her come, +the lit lamp in her hand.</p> + +<p>She had on still the white dress in which she +had been married, and over it she had thrown +the silver-woven scarf which had been one of +his first gifts to her, and as she came the light +glittered on it; it drew from the polished walls +bright reflections in which, amid the gilded +frames, he saw the dim old pictures start and +waver—and as he saw her coming so, Peter +threw away his cigar and gripped suddenly at +the balustrade to steady him where he stood, +against what out of some far spring of his youth +rushed upon him, as he saw her come—as he +had always seen her, as he knew now he was +to see her always—his wife and the Lovely +Lady.</p> + +<pre><br /></pre> + +<h4>THE END</h4> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 193px;"> +<img src="images/country.jpg" width="193" height="198" alt="The Country Life Press" title="" /> +</div> +<h4>THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS</h4> +<h4>GARDEN CITY, N.Y.</h4> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lovely Lady, by Mary Austin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVELY LADY *** + +***** This file should be named 20359-h.htm or 20359-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20359/ + +Produced by Hillie Plantinga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 Lovely Lady + +Author: Mary Austin + +Illustrator: Gordon Grant + +Release Date: January 14, 2007 [EBook #20359] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVELY LADY *** + + + + +Produced by Hillie Plantinga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + +Transcriber's notes: + +Four typographical errors have been corrected: + Page 88, "seemes" changed to "seems" (it seems such a wasteful way + to live somehow,) + Page 162, "Ellen" changed to "Ellen," ("I'm very glad you feel that way + about it, Ellen,") + Page 199, "accomodating" changed to "accommodating" (He felt his mind + accommodating to) + Page 252, "Weatherall" changed to "Weatheral" (Mr. Weatheral had some + papers) + + + + + +THE LOVELY LADY + + + + +_By the same author_ + +A WOMAN OF GENIUS + +THE ARROW MAKER + +THE GREEN BOUGH + +CHRIST IN ITALY + + + + +[Illustration: _"It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of +burnished light...."_] + + + + +THE LOVELY LADY + +BY MARY AUSTIN + +[Illustration: ] + +_Frontispiece by Gordon Grant_ + +GARDEN CITY NEW YORK + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + +1913 + + + + +_Copyright, 1913, by_ + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + +_All rights reserved, including that of +translation into Foreign Languages, +including the Scandinavian._ + + + + +To + +J. AND E. + +THE COMPANIONS OF THE GONDOLA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +PART ONE + +In which Peter meets a Dragon, and the Lovely +Lady makes her appearance. 3 + +PART TWO + +In which Peter becomes invisible on the way to +growing rich. 37 + +PART THREE + +In which Peter becomes a bachelor. 59 + +PART FOUR + +In which the Lovely Lady makes a final appearance. 107 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"It was one thin web of rose and gold over lakes of +burnished light...." + + + + +PART ONE + +IN WHICH PETER +MEETS A DRAGON, AND +THE LOVELY LADY +MAKES HER APPEARANCE + + + + +PART ONE + +IN WHICH PETER MEETS A DRAGON, AND THE +LOVELY LADY MAKES HER APPEARANCE + + + + +I + + +The walls of the Wonderful House rose up straight and shining, pale +greenish gold as the slant sunlight on the orchard grass under the apple +trees; the windows that sprang arching to the summer blueness let in the +scent of the cluster rose at the turn of the fence, beginning to rise +above the dusty smell of the country roads, and the evening clamour of +the birds in Bloombury wood. As it dimmed and withdrew, the shining of +the walls came out more clearly. Peter saw then that they were all of +coloured pictures wrought flat upon the gold, and as the glow of it +increased they began to swell and stir like a wood waking. They leaned +out from the walls, looking all one way toward the increasing light and +tap-tap of the Princess' feet along the halls. + +"Peter, oh, Peter!" + +The tap-tapping grew sharp and nearer like the sound of a crutch on a +wooden veranda, and the voice was Ellen's. + +"Oh, Peter, you are always a-reading and a-reading!" + +Peter rolled off the long settle where he had been stretched and put the +book in his pocket apologetically. + +"I was just going to quit," he said; "did you want anything, Ellen?" + +"The picnic is coming back; I thought we could go down to the turn to +meet them. Mrs. Sibley said she would save me some things from the +luncheon." + +If there was a little sting to Peter in Ellen's eagerness, it was +evidence at least, how completely he and his mother had kept her from +realizing that it was chiefly because of their not being able to afford +the well-filled basket demanded by a Bloombury picnic that they had not +accepted the invitation. Ellen had thought it was because Bet, the mare, +could not be spared all day from the ploughing nor Peter from hoeing +the garden, and her mother was too busy with the plaid gingham dress she +was making for the minister's wife, to do any baking. It meant to Ellen, +the broken fragments of the luncheon, just so much of what a picnic +should mean: the ride in the dusty morning, swings under the trees, easy +games that she could play, lemonade, pails and pails of it, pink ham +sandwiches and frosted cake; and if Ellen could have any of these, she +was having a little piece of the picnic. What it would have meant +particularly to Peter over and above a day let loose, the arching elms, +the deep fern of Bloombury wood, might have been some passages, perhaps, +which could be taken home and made over into the groundwork of new and +interesting adventures in the House from which Ellen had recalled him. +There was a girl with June apple cheeks and bright brown eyes at that +picnic, who could have given points to princesses. + +He followed the tapping of his sister's crutch along the thick, bitter +smelling dust of the road, rising more and more heavily as the dew +gathered, until they came to the turn by the cluster rose and heard +below them on the bridge, the din of the wheels and the gay laughter of +the picnickers. + +"Hi, Peter!" + +"Hello, Ellen!" + +"Awful sorry you couldn't come ... had a bully time.... Killed a +copperhead and two water snakes." + +"Here, Ellen, catch ahold of this!" + +And while she was about it the June apple girl leaned over the end-board +of the wagon, and spoke softly to Peter. + +"We're going over to Harvey's pasture next Wednesday afternoon, +berrying, in the Democrat wagon with our team; Jim Harvey's going to +drive. We made it up to-day. Surely you can get away for an afternoon?" +That was what the voice said. "To be with me," the eyes added. + +"I don't know.... I'd like it...." + +It was not altogether the calculation as to how much earlier he would +have to get up that morning to be able to take an hour off in the +afternoon, that made Peter hesitate, but the sudden swimming of his +senses about the point of meeting eyes. "I'll tell you what," he said, +"you come by for Ellen, and I'll walk over about four and ride home with +you." + +"Oh," said the girl; she did not know quite whether to triumph at having +gained so much or to be disappointed at so little. "I'll be expecting +you." + +The horses creaked forward in the harness, the dust puffed up from under +the wheels and drowned the smell of the wilding rose, it fell thick on +the petals and a little on Peter's spirit, too, as he followed Ellen +back to the house, though it never occurred to him to think any more of +it than that he had been working too long in the hot sun and was very +tired. It did not, however, prevent his eating his share of the picnic +dainties as he sat with his mother and Ellen on the veranda. Then as the +soft flitter of the bats' wings began in the dusk, he kissed them both +and went early up to bed. + +Peter's room was close under the roof and that was close under the elm +boughs; all hours he could hear them finger it with soft rustling +touches. The bed was pulled to the window that gave upon the downslope +of the hill; at the foot of it one saw the white bloom-faces of the +alders lift and bow above the folded leaves, and the rising of the river +damp across the pastures. All the light reflected from the sky above +Bloombury wood was no more than enough to make a glimmer on the glass of +a picture that hung at the foot of Peter's bed. It served to show the +gilt of the narrow frame and the soft black of the print upon which +Peter had looked so many times that he thought now he was still seeing +it as he lay staring in the dusk--a picture of a young man in bright +armour with loosened hair, riding down a particularly lumpy and swollen +dragon. Flames came out of the creature's mouth in the immemorial +fashion of dragons, but the young man was not hurt by them. He sat there +lightly, his horse curvetting, his lance thrust down the dragon's throat +and coming out of the back of his head, doing a great deed easily, the +way people like to think of great things being done. It was a very +narrow picture, so narrow that you might think that it had something to +do with the dragon's doubling on himself and the charger's forefeet +being up in the air to keep within the limits of the frame, and the +exclusion from it of the Princess whom, as his father had told him the +story, the young knight George had rescued from those devouring jaws. It +came out now, quite clearly, that she must have had cheeks as red as +June apples and eyes like the pools of spring rain in Bloombury wood, +and her not being there in the picture was only a greater security for +her awaiting him at this moment in the House with the Shining Walls. + +There was, for the boy still staring at it through the dusk, something +particularly personal in the picture, for ever since his father had +died, three years ago, Peter had had a dragon of his own to fight. Its +name was Mortgage. It had its lair in Lawyer Keplinger's office, from +which it threatened twice yearly to come out and eat up his mother and +Ellen and the little house and farm, and required to have its mouth +stopped with great wads of interest which took all Peter's laborious +days to scrape together. This year, however, he had hopes, if the garden +turned out well, of lopping off a limb or a claw of the dragon by way +of a payment on the principal, which somehow seemed to bring the +Princess so much nearer, that as Peter lay quite comfortably staring up +at the glimmer on the wall, the four gold lines of the frame began to +stretch up and out and the dark block of the picture to recede until it +became the great hall of a palace again, and there was the Princess +coming toward him in a golden shimmer. + +There was just such another glow on the afternoon when Peter walked over +to the berrying and came up with the apple-cheeked girl whose name was +Ada, a good half mile from the others. As they climbed together over +uneven ground she gave him her hand to hold, and there was very little +to say and no need of saying it until they came to the hill overlooking +the pasture, yellowing toward the end of summer, full of late bloom and +misty colour passing insensibly into light. Threads of gossamer caught +on the ends of the scrub or floated free, glinting as they turned and +bellied in the windless air, to trick the imagination with the hint of +robed, invisible presences. + +"Oh, Peter, don't you wish it would stay like this always?" + +"Like this," Peter gave her hand the tiniest squeeze to show what there +was about this that he would like to keep. "It's just as good to look at +any season though," he insisted. "I was here hunting rabbits last +winter, in February, and you could find all sorts of things in the +runways where the brambles bent over and kept off the snow; bunches of +berries and coloured leaves, and little green fern, and birds hopping in +and out." + +Ada spread her skirts as she sat on a flat boulder and began sticking +leaves into Peter's hat. + +"Peter, what are you going to do this winter?" + +"I don't know, I should like to go over to the high school at Harmony, +but I suppose I'll try to get a place to work near home." + +"We've been getting up a dancing and singing school, to begin in +October. The teacher is coming from Dassonville. It will be once a week; +we sing for an hour and then have dancing. It will be cheap as +cheap--only two dollars a month. I hope you can come." + +"I don't know; I'll think about it." He was thinking then that two +dollars did not sound much, but when you come to subtract it from the +interest it was a great deal, and then there would be Ellen to pay for, +and perhaps a dress for her, and dancing shoes for himself and singing +books. And no doubt at the dances there would be basket suppers. + +"I should think you could come if you wanted to. Jim Harvey's getting it +up.... He wants to keep company with me this winter." Ada was a little +nervous about this, but as she stole a glance at Peter's face as he lay +biting at a stem of grass, she grew quite comfortable again. "But I +don't know as I will," she said. "I don't care very much for Jim +Harvey." + +Peter picked up a stone and shied it joyously at a thrush in the bushes. + +"And I don't know as I want you to," he declared boldly. "I'll come to +that dancing school if I possibly can, Ada, and if I can't you'll know +it isn't because I don't wish to." + +"You must want to with all your might and that'll make it come true. You +can wish it on my amethyst ring." + +"You won't take it off until October, Ada?" + +"I truly won't." And it took Peter such a long time to get the ring on +and held in place while the wish was properly made, that it was +practically no time at all until the others found them on the way home +as they came laughing up the hill. + +As it happened, however, Peter did not get to the dancing school once +that winter. The first of the cold spell Ellen had slipped on the ice, +to the further trying of her lame back, and there were things to be done +to it which the doctor said could not possibly be put off, so it +happened that the mortgage dragon did not get his payment and Peter gave +up the high school to get a place in Greenslet's grocery at Bloombury. +And since there were the books to be made up after supper, and as Bet, +the mare, after being driven in the delivery wagon all day, could not be +let stand half the night in the cold at the schoolhouse door, it turned +out that Peter had not been once to the dancing school. In the beginning +he had done something for himself in the way of a hall for dancing, +thrown out from the House of the Shining Walls, in which he and the +Princess Ada, to lovely, soundless strains, had whirled away, and found +occasion to say things to each other such as no ballroom could +afford;--bright star pointed occasions which broke and scattered before +the little hints of sound that crept up the stair to advise him that +Ellen was stifling back the pain for fear of waking him. They had moved +Ellen's bed downstairs as a way of getting on better with the +possibility of her being bedridden all that winter, and the tiny +whispered moan recalled him to the dread that as the half yearly term +came around, what with doctor's bills and delicacies, the mortgage +dragon would have not even his sop of interest, and remain whole and +threatening as before. + +When Ellen was able to sit up in bed the mother moved her sewing in +beside it. Then Peter would sit on the other side of the lamp with a +book, and the walls of the House rose up from its pages gilded finely, +and the lights would come out and the dancing begin, but before he could +get more than a word with the Princess, he would hear Ellen: + +"Peter, oh, Peter! I wish you wouldn't be always with your nose in a +book. I wish you would talk sometimes." + +"What about, Ellen?" + +"Oh, Peter, you are the _worst_. I should think you would take some +interest in things." + +"What sort of things?" Peter wished to know. + +"Why, who comes in the store, and what they say, and everything." + +"Mrs. Sleason wanted us to open a kit of mackerel to see if she'd like +it," began Peter literally, "and we persuaded her to take two cans of +sardines instead. Does that interest you?" + +"Have you sold any of the blue tartan yet?" + +"Ada Brown bought seven yards of it." + +"Oh, Peter! And trimmings?" + +"Six yards of black velvet ribbon--yes, I forgot--Mrs. Blackman is to +make it up for her. I heard Mrs. Brown say she would call for the +linings." + +"She's having it made up for Jim Harvey's birthday," Ellen guessed +shrewdly. "He's twenty-one, you know.... People say she's engaged to +him." + +Peter felt the walls of the House which had stood out waiting for him +during this interlude, fall inward into the gulf of blackness. Nobody +said anything for two or three ticks of the large kitchen clock, and +then Ellen burst out: + +"I think she's a nasty, flirty, stuck-up _thing_; that's what I think!" + +"Shs--hss! Ellen," said her mother. + +"Peter," demanded Ellen, "are you reading again?" + +"I beg your pardon, Ellen." Peter did not know that he had turned a +page. + +"Don't you ever wish for anything for yourself, Peter? Don't you wish +you were rich?" + +"No, Ellen, I don't know that I ever do." + +But as the winter got on and the news of Ada Brown's engagement was +confirmed, he must have wished it a great many times. + +One evening late in January he was sitting with his mother very quietly +by the kitchen stove, the front of which was opened to throw out the +heat; there was the good smell of the supper in the room, for though he +had a meal with the Greenslets at six, his mother always made a point of +having something hot for him when he came in from bedding down the +mare, and the steam of it on the window-panes made dull smears of the +reflected light. The shade of the lamp was drawn down until the ceiling +of the room was all in shadow save for the bright escape from the +chimney which shone directly overhead, round and yellow as twenty +dollars, and as Peter leaned back in his chair, looking up, it might +have been that resemblance which gave a turn to his thoughts and led him +to say to his mother: + +"Why did my father never get rich?" + +"I hardly know, Peter. He used to say that he couldn't afford it. There +were so many other things he wished to do; and I wished them, too. When +we were young we did them together. Then your father was the sort of man +who always gave too much and took too little. I remember his saying once +that no one who loved his fellowman very much, _could_ get rich." + +"Do you wish he had?" + +"I don't know that either. No, not if he was happier the way he was. And +we _were_ happy. Things would have come out all right if it hadn't been +for the accident when the thresher broke, and his being ill so long +afterward. And my people weren't so kind as they might have been. You +see, they always thought him a little queer. Before we were married, +before we were even engaged, he had had a little money. It had been left +him, and instead of investing it as anybody in Bloombury would, he spent +it in travel. I remember his saying that his memories of Italy were the +best investment he could have made. But afterward, when he was in +trouble, they threw it up to him. We had never got in debt before ... +and then just as he was getting round, he took bronchitis and died." + +She wiped her eyes quietly for a while, and the kettle on the stove +began to sing soothingly, and presently Peter ventured: + +"Do you wish I would get rich?" + +"Yes, Peter, I do. We are all like that, I suppose, we grown-ups. Things +we manage to get along without ourselves, we want for our children. I +hope you will be a rich man some day; but, Peter, I don't want you to +think it a reflection on your father that he wasn't. He had what he +thought was best. He might have left me with more money and fewer happy +memories--and that is what women value most, Peter;--the right sort of +women. There are some who can't get along without _things_: clothes, and +furniture, and carriages. Ada Brown is that kind; sometimes I'm afraid +Ellen is a little. She takes after my family." + +"It is partly on account of Ellen that I want to get rich." + +"You mustn't take it too hard, Peter; we've always got along somehow, +and nobody in Bloombury is very rich." + +Peter turned that over in his mind the whole of a raw and sleety +February. And one day when nobody came into the store from ten till +four, and loose winds went in a pack about the village streets, casting +up dry, icy dust where now and then some sharp muzzle reared out of the +press as they turned the corners, he spoke to Mr. Greenslet about it. It +was so cold that day that neither the red apples in the barrels nor the +crimson cranberries nor the yellowing hams on the rafters could +contribute any appearance of warmth to the interior of the grocery. A +kind of icy varnish of cold overlaid the gay lables of the canned +goods; the remnants of red and blue tartan exposed for sale looked +coarse-grained with the cold, and cold slips of ribbons clung to the +glass of the cases like the tongues of children tipped to the frosted +panes. Even the super-heated stove took on a purplish tinge of +chilblains, roughed by the wind. + +A kind of arctic stillness pervaded the place, out of which the two men +hailed each other at intervals as from immeasurable deeps of space. + +"Mr. Greenslet," ventured Peter at last, "are you a rich man?" + +"Not by a long sight." + +"Why?" questioned Peter. + +"Not built that way." + +The grocer lapsed back into the silence and seemed to lean against it +meditatively. The wolf wind howled about the corners and cast snow like +powdered glass upon the windows contemptuously, and time went by with a +large deliberate movement like a fat man turning over, before Peter +hailed again. + +"Did you ever want to be?" + +Mr. Greenslet reached out for the damper of the stove ostensibly to +shake down the ashes, but really to pull himself up out of the soundless +spaces of thought. + +"When I was your age, yes. Thought I was going to be." The shaking of +the damper seemed to loosen the springs of speech in him. "I was up in +the city working for Siegel Brothers; began as a bundle boy and meant to +be one of the partners. But by the time I worked up to fancy goods I +realized that I would have to be as old as Methuselah to make it at that +rate. And Mrs. Greenslet didn't like the city; she was a Bloombury girl. +It wasn't any place for the children." + +"So you came back?" + +"We had saved a little. I bought out this place and put in a few notions +I'd got from Siegel's. I'm comfortably off, but I'm not rich." + +"Would you like to be?" + +"I don' know, I don' know. I'd like to give the boys a better start than +I had, but I'm my own boss here and one of the leading men. That's +always something." + +Peter went and looked out of the smudged windows while he considered +this. The long scrapes of the wind in the loose snow were like the +scratches of great claws. It was now about mail time and a few people +began to stir in the street; the clear light and the cold gave them a +poverty-bitten look. + +"Does anybody ever get rich in Bloombury?" + +"Not that I know of. There's Mr. Dassonville in Harmony--Dave +Dassonville, the richest man in these parts." + +"I suppose he could tell me how to go about it?" + +"I suppose he would if he knows. Mostly these things just happen." + +Peter did not say anything more just then; he was watching a man and a +girl of about his own age who had come out of a frame house farther down +the street. The young man was walking so as to shield her from the wind, +her rosy cheek was at his shoulder, and she smiled up at him over her +muff, from dark, bright eyes. + +"What's set you on to talk about riches? Thinking of doing something in +that line yourself?" + +"Yes," said Peter, kicking at the baseboard with his toes. "I don't know +how it is to be done, but I've got to be rich. I've just simply got to." + + + + +II + + +It was along in the beginning of spring on a day full of wet cloud and +clearing wind, that Peter walked over to Harmony to inquire of Mr. David +Dassonville the way to grow rich. It was Sunday afternoon and the air +sweet with the sap adrip from the orchards lately pruned and the smell +of the country road dried to elasticity by the winds of March. + +Between timidity and the conviction that a week day would have been +better suited to his business, he drew on to the place of his errand +very slowly, for he was sore with the raking of the dragon's claws, and +unrested. It had been a terrible scrape to get together the last +instalment of interest, and since Ellen had shattered it with the gossip +about Ada Brown's engagement, there had been no House with Shining Walls +for Peter to withdraw into out of the dragon's breath of poverty; above +all, no Princess. + +He did not know where the House had come from any more than he knew now +where it had gone. It was a gift out of his childhood to his shy, +unfriended youth, but he understood that if ever its walls should waver +and rise again to enclose his dreams, there would be no Princess. Never +any more. Princesses were for fairy tales; girls wanted Things. There +was his mother too--he had wished so to get her a new dress this winter. +It was an ache to him to cut off yards and yards of handsome stuffs at +Mr. Greenslet's, and all the longing in the world had not availed to get +one of them for his mother. Plainly the mastery of Things was +accomplished by being rich; he was on his way to Mr. Dassonville to find +out how it was done. + +It was quite four of the clock when he paused at the bottom of the +Dassonville lawn to look up at the lace curtains at the tall French +windows. Nobody in Bloombury was rich enough to have lace curtains at +all the windows, and the boy's spirit rose at the substantial evidence +of being at last fairly in the track of his desire. + +He found Mr. Dassonville willing to receive him in quite a friendly way, +sitting in his library, keeping the place with his finger in the book he +had been reading to his wife. Peter also found himself a little at a +loss to know how to begin in the presence of this lady, for he +considered it a matter quite between men, but suddenly she looked up and +smiled. It came out on her face fresh and delicately as an apple orchard +breaking to bloom, and besides making it quite spring in the room, +discovered in herself a new evidence of the competency of Mr. David +Dassonville to advise the way of riches. She looked fragile and +expensive as she sat in her silken shawl, her dark hair lifted up in a +half moon from her brow, her hands lying in her lap half-covered with +the lace of her sleeves, white and perfect like twin flowers. He saw +rings flashing on the one she lifted to motion to the maid to bring a +chair. + +"If you have walked over from Bloombury you must be tired," she said, +"and chilled, perhaps. Come nearer the fire." + +"No, thank you," Peter had managed, "I am quite warm," as in fact he +was, and a little flushed. He sat down provisionally on the edge of the +chair and looked at Mr. Dassonville. + +"I came on business. I don't know if you will mind its being Sunday, but +I couldn't get away from the store on other days." + +"Quite right, quite right." Mr. Dassonville had lost his place in the +book and laid it on his knee. "Private business? My dear, perhaps----" + +"Oh, no--no," protested Peter handsomely. "I'd rather she stayed. It +isn't. At least ... I don't know if you will consider it private or +not." + +"Go on," urged Mr. Dassonville. + +"I just came to ask you," Peter explained, "if you don't mind telling +me, how you got rich?" + +"But bless you, young man," exclaimed Mr. Dassonville, "I'm not rich." + +This for a beginning, was, on the face of it, disconcerting. Peter +looked about at the rows of books, at the thick, soft carpet and the +leather-covered furniture, and at the rings on Mrs. Dassonville's hand. +If Mr. Dassonville were not rich, how then--unless---- + +"I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought--that is, everybody says you are +the richest man in these parts." + +"As to that, well, perhaps, I have a little more money than my +neighbours." + +Peter breathed relief. The beautiful Mrs. Dassonville's rings were paid +for, then. + +"But as to being _rich_, why, when you come to a really rich man all +I've got wouldn't be a pinch to him." Mr. Dassonville illustrated with +his own thumb and fingers how little that would be. "We don't have +really rich men in a place like Harmony," he concluded. "You have to go +to the city for that." + +"You've got everything you want, haven't you?" + +Mr. Dassonville looked over at his wife, and the smile bloomed again; he +smiled quietly to himself as he admitted it. "Yes, I've got everything I +want." + +They were quiet, all of them, for a little while, with Peter turning his +hat over in his hands and Mr. Dassonville laying the tips of his fingers +together before him, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair. + +"I wish," said Peter at last, "you would tell me how you did it." + +"How I got more money than my neighbours? Well, I wasn't born with it." + +This was distinctly encouraging. Neither was Peter. + +"No two men, I suppose, make money in the same way," went on the man who +had, "but there are three or four things to be observed by all of them. +In the first place one must be very hard-working." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"And one must never lose sight of the object worked for. Not"--as if he +had followed the boy's inward drop of dismay--"that a man should think +of nothing but getting money. On the contrary, I consider it very +essential for a man to have some escape from his business, some change +of pasture to run his mind in. He comes fresher to his work so. What I +mean is that _when_ he works he must make every stroke count toward the +end he has in view. Do you understand?" + +"I think so." The House and the Shining Walls were safe, at any rate. + +"And then," Mr. Dassonville checked off the points on his fingers, "he +must always save something from his income, no matter how small it is." + +"I try to do that," confessed Peter, "but what with Ellen's back being +bad, and the interest on the mortgage, it's not so easy." + +"Is there a mortgage? I am sorry for that, for the next thing I was +going to say is that he must never go into debt, never on any account." + +"My father was sick; it was an accident," Peter protested loyally. + +"So! I think I remember. Well, it is unfortunate, but where there is a +debt the only thing is to reduce it as steadily as possible, and if this +mortgage teaches you the trick of saving it may not be such a bad thing +for you. But when a man works and saves for a long time without getting +any sensible benefit, he sometimes thinks that saving and working are +not worth while. You must never make that mistake." + +"Oh, no," said Peter. It seemed to him that they were getting on very +well indeed. + +"There is another thing I should like to say," Mr. Dassonville went on, +"but I am not sure I can put it plainly. It is that you must not try to +be too wise." He smiled a little to Peter's blankness. "I believe in +Harmony it is called looking on all sides of a thing, but there is +always one side of everything like the moon which is turned from us. You +must just start from where you are and keep moving." + +"I see," said Peter, looking thoughtfully into the fire, in imitation of +Mr. Dassonville. And there being no more advice forthcoming he began to +wonder if he ought to sit a while from politeness, as people did in +Bloombury, or go at once. Mrs. Dassonville got up and came behind her +husband's chair. + +"Don't you think you ought to tell him, David, that there are other +things worth having besides money; better worth?" + +"You, perhaps." Mr. Dassonville took the hand of his wife laid on his +shoulder and held it against his cheek; it brought out for Peter +suddenly, how many years younger she was, and what he had heard of Mr. +Dassonville having married her from among the summer folk who came to +Harmony for the pine woods and the sea air. "Ah, but I'm not sure I'd +have you without a great deal of it. It takes money to raise rare plants +like you. But I ought to say," still holding his wife's hand to his +cheek and watching Peter across it, "that I think it is a very good sign +that you are willing to ask. The most of poor men will sit about and +rail and envy the rich, but hardly one would think to ask how it is +done, or believe if he were told. They've a notion it's all gouging and +luck, and you couldn't beat that out of them if you tried. Very few of +them understand how simple success is; it isn't easy often, but it is +always simple." + +Peter supposed that he really ought to go after that, though he did not +know how to manage it until Mrs. Dassonville smiled at him over her +husband's shoulder and asked him what sort of work he did. "Oh, if you +know about gardens," she interrupted him, "you can help a little. There +are such a lot of things coming up in mine that I don't know the names +of." + +It flashed out to Peter long afterward that she had simply provided an +easy way for him to get out of the house now that his visit was +terminated. She held the white fold of her shawl over her head with one +hand and gathered the trailing skirts with the other. They rustled as +she moved like the leaves of the elms at night above the roof, as she +led him along the walk where little straight spears of green and blunt +flower crowns faintly tinged with colour came up thickly in the borders. +So by degrees she got him down past the hyacinth beds and the nodding +buds of the daffodils to the gate and on the road again, walking home in +the chill early twilight with the pricking of a pleasant excitement in +his veins. + +It was that, perhaps, and the sense of having got so much more out of it +than any account of his visit would justify, that kept Peter from saying +much to his mother that night about his talk with the rich man; he asked +her instead if she had ever seen Mrs. Dassonville. + +"Yes," she assured him. "Mr. Dassonville drove her over to Mrs. +Tillinghurst's funeral in October. They had only been married a little +while then; she is the second Mrs. Dassonville, you know; the first died +years ago. I thought her a very lovely lady." + +"A lovely lady," Peter said the phrase under his breath. The sound of it +was like the soft drawing of silken skirts. + +His mother looked at him across the supper table and was pleased to see +the renewal of cheerfulness, and then, motherlike, sighed to think that +Peter was getting so old now that if he didn't choose to tell her things +she had no right to ask him. "Your walk has done you good," was all she +said, and it must have been the case, for that very night as soon as his +head had touched the pillow he was off again, as he hadn't been since +Ellen fell ill, to the House of the Shining Walls. It rose stately +against a blur of leafless woods and crocus-coloured sky. The garden +before it was all full of spring bulbs and the scent of daffodils. The +Princess came walking in it as before, but she was no Princess now, +merely a woman with her dark hair brushed up in a half moon from her +brow and her skirts drawing after her with a silken rustle; her face was +dim and sweet, with only a faint, a very faint, reminder of Ada, and her +name was the Lovely Lady. + + + + +PART TWO + + +IN WHICH PETER +BECOMES INVISIBLE ON THE +WAY TO GROWING RICH + + + + +PART TWO + +IN WHICH PETER BECOMES INVISIBLE ON +THE WAY TO GROWING RICH + + +In the late summer of that year Peter went up to the city with Mr. +Greenslet to lay in his winter stock and remained in canned goods with +Siegel Brothers' Household Emporium. That his mother had rented the +farming land for cash was the immediate occasion of his setting out, but +there were several other reasons and a great many opinions. Mr. +Greenslet had a boy of his own coming on for Peter's place; Bet, the +mare, had died, and the farm implements wanted renewing; in spite of +which Mrs. Weatheral could hardly have made up her mind to spare him +except for the opportune appearance of the cash renter. With that and +the chickens and the sewing, she and Ellen could take care of themselves +and the interest, which would leave all that Peter could make to count +against the mortgage. + +They put it hopefully to one another so, as they sat about the kitchen +stove, all three of them holding hands, on the evening before his +departure. But the opinions, which were rather thicker at Bloombury than +opportunities, were by no means so confident as Peter could have wished +if he had known them. Mr. Greenslet thought it couldn't be much worse +than Peter's present situation, and the neighbours were sure it wasn't +much better. The minister had a great deal to say of the temptations of +a young man in the city, which was afterward invalidated by the city's +turning out quite another place than he described it. + +It was left for Ellen and Mrs. Jim Harvey to make the happy +prognostication. "You can trust Peter," Ada was confident. + +"But you got to be mighty cute to get in with those city fellows," her +husband warned her, "and Peter's so dashed simple; never sees anything +except what's right in front of him. Now a man"--Jim assumed this estate +for himself in the right of being three months married--"has got to look +on all sides of a thing." + +As for Ellen, she hadn't the slightest doubt that Peter was shortly to +become immensely wealthy and she was to go up and keep house for him. + +"There'll be gold chairs in the parlour and real Brussels," she +anticipated. Peter affected to think it unlikely that she could be +spared by the highly mythical person who was to carry her off to keep +house for himself. Somehow Peter could never fall into the normal +Bloombury attitude of thinking that if you had hip disease, your life +was bound to be different from everybody's and you might as well say so +right out, flat-footed, and be done with it. + +With all this, finally he was got off to the city in the wake of Mr. +Greenslet, and the first discovery he made there was that outside of +Siegel Brothers, and a collarless man with a discouraged moustache who +appeared in the hall of his lodging-house when the rent was due, he was +practically invisible. As he went up and down the stairs sodden with +scrub water which never by any possible chance left them scrubbed, +nobody spoke to him. Nobody in the street saw him walking to and fro in +his young loneliness. There were men passing there with faces like Mr. +Dassonville's, keen and competent, and lovely ladies in soft becoming +wraps and bright winged hats--such hats! Peter would like to have hailed +some of these as one immeasurably behind but still in the way, seized of +that precious inward quality which manifests itself in competency and +brightness. He would have liked to feel them looking on friendlily at +his business of becoming rich; but he remained, as far as any word from +them was concerned, completely invisible. He came after a while to the +conclusion that most of those who went up and down with him were in the +same unregarded condition. + +The city appeared quite habituated to this state of affairs; hordes of +them came and went unconfronted between banked windows of warmth and +loveliness, past doors from which light and music overflowed into the +dim street in splashes of colour and sound, where people equally under +the prohibition lapped them up hungrily like dogs at puddles. Sometimes +in the street cars or subways he brushed against fair girls from whom +the delicate aroma of personality was like a waft out of that country +of which his preferences and appreciations acknowledged him a native, +but no smallest flutter of kinship ever put forth from them to Peter. +The place was crammed full of everything that anybody could want and +nobody could get at it, at least not Peter, nor anybody he knew at +Siegel Brothers. And at the lodging house they seemed never to have +heard of the undiminished heaps of splendour that lay piled behind plate +glass and polished counters. It was extraordinary, incredible, that he +wasn't to have the least of them. + +As the winter closed in on him, the restrictions of daily living rose so +thick upon him that they began to prevent him from his dreams. He could +no longer get through them to the House with the Shining Walls. Often as +he lay in his bed trying to believe he was warm enough, he would set off +for it down the lanes of blinding city light through which the scream of +the trolley pursued him, only to see it glimmer palely on him through +impenetrable plate glass, or defended from him by huge trespass signs +that appeared to have some relation to the fact that he was not yet so +rich as he expected to be. Times when he would wake out of his sleep, +it would be to a strange sense of severances and loss, and though he did +not know exactly what ailed him, it was the loss of all his dreams. +After a while the whole city seemed to ache with that loss. He would lie +in his narrow bed and think that if he did not see his mother and +Bloombury again he would probably die of it. + +Then along in the beginning of April somebody saw him. It was in the +dusk between supper and bed time, walking on the viaduct where he had +the park below him. There was a wash of blue still in the sky and a thin +blade of a moon tinging it with citron; here and there the light +glittered on the trickle of sap on the chafed boughs. It was just here +that he met her. She was about his own age, and she was walking oddly, +as though unconscious of the city all about her, with short picked +steps, and her hat with the tilt to it of a girl who knows herself +admired. She had a rose at her breast which she straightened now and +then, or smoothed a fold of her dress and hummed as she walked. Her +cheeks were bright even in the dusk, and some strange, quick fear kept +pace with her glancing. Peter was walking heavily himself, as the young +do when the dreams have gone out of them, and as they passed in the +light of the arc that danced delicately to the wandering air, the girl's +look skimmed him like a swallow. She must have turned just behind him, +for in a moment she drifted past his shoulder. + +"Hello!" she said. + +"Hello!" said Peter, but, in the moment it had taken to drag that up +from under his astonishment, she had passed him; her laugh as she went +brushed the tip of his youth like a swallow's wing. It remained with him +as a little, far spark; it seemed as if a dream was about to spin itself +out from it. He went around that way several times on his evening walks +in hopes that he might meet her again. + +As though the spark had lightened a little of the blank unrecognition +with which the city met him, he was seen that day and in no unfriendly +aspect by "our Mr. Croker" of Siegel Brothers. The running gear of a +great concern like the Household Emporium pressed, in the days of +Peter's apprenticeship, unequally at times on its employees, and the +galled spot of the canned goods department was Blinders the bundle boy. +His other name was Horace and he was chiefly remarkable for pimples +which he seemed to think interesting, and for a state of active +resentment against anybody who gave him anything to do. The world for +Horace was a dark jungle full of grouches and pulls and privilege and +devious guile. + +That the propensity which Peter had developed for inquiring every half +hour or so if he hadn't got that done yet, could be nothing else but a +cabal directed against Blinders' four dollars and a half a week, he was +convinced. In all the time that he could spare from his pimples, Horace +rehearsed a martyr's air designed to convey to Mr. Croker that though he +would suffer in silence he was none the less suffering. It being +precisely Mr. Croker's business to rap out grouches as an expert +mechanician taps defective cogs, it happened the day after Peter's +meeting with the girl that the worst hopes of Horace were realized. + +"Aw, they're always a pickin' on me, Mr. Croker, that's what they are, +Mr. Croker," Horace defended himself, preparing to snivel if the +occasion seemed to demand it, by taking out his gum and sticking it on +the inside of his sleeve. "I can't handle 'em no faster, Mr. Croker." + +"Not the way you go at it," Peter assured him. Anybody could have told +by the way he included Mr. Croker in his cheerfulness that there was +something between them. "You turn 'em over too many times and you use +too much paper and too much string." Suddenly Peter reddened with +embarrassment. "Not that that makes any difference to a big firm like +this," he apologized, "but in a small place every little counts." He +turned the package deftly and began to illustrate his method. "When +you're tying up calico with one hand and taking in eggs and butter with +the other and telling three people the price of things at the same +time," he explained, "you have to notice things like this." + +"I see," said Mr. Croker. "You try it, Blinders." + +"Aw, what's the matter with the way I was doin' it?" wailed Horace. + +"If you don't feel quite up to it----" Mr. Croker hinted. Horace did, he +wrapped with alacrity and Peter showed him how to hold the string. + +"You come along with me, Weatheral," Mr. Croker commanded. Horace took +his gum out of his cuff and made dark prognostication as to what was +probably to be done to Peter. + +What Peter thought was that he should probably become very unpopular +with his fellow clerks. Croker took him across to dry goods, where girls +were tying bundles in little cages over the sales ladies' heads, and had +him repeat the method of handling string. Except that he thought he +should get to like Mr. Croker, the incident made no particular +impression on Peter--so dulled were all his senses for want of +dreams,--and passed wholly out of mind. + +It was two or three days after that he saw the girl again, nearer the +end of the viaduct, where four or five streets poured light and +confusion into Venable Square. She was going on ahead, hurrying and +pretending not to hurry to overtake a man to whom she wished to speak. +She was quite close to him, she was speaking, and suddenly he gave a +little outward jerk with his elbow which caught hers unexpectedly and +whirled her back against the parapet. The little purse she was carrying +fell from her hand. The man gave a quick laugh over his shoulder and +ploughed his way across the street. + +"The skunk!" Peter's list of expletives was not extensive. He picked up +the flat little purse and handed it back to her. "Shall I go after him? +Did you know him?" + +The girl was holding on to the parapet with a little choky laugh. "Oh, +yes, I know that kind. No, I don't want him!" + +"He ought to have a good thrashing," Peter was convinced. The girl +looked up at him with a sudden curiosity. + +"You're from the country, ain't you? I thought so the other night. I can +always tell." + +"I guess you're from the country yourself," Peter hazarded. She was +prettier even than he had thought. Her glance had left his, however, and +was roving up and down the hurrying crowd as though testing it for some +plunge she was about to make. + +"If you wanted me to see you home----" Peter hinted; he did not know +quite what was expected of him. She answered with a little sharp noise +which ended in a cough. + +"I guess you're real kind," she admitted, "but I ain't goin' home just +yet. I got a date." She moved off then, and since it was in the +direction he was going, there was nothing for Peter to do but move with +her, on the other side of the wide pavement. At the turn she drifted +back to his side again; it seemed to Peter there was amusement in her +tone. + +"You got anything to do Saturday about this time?" Peter hadn't. "Well, +I'll be here--savvy?" But before he could make her any assurance she +laughed again and slipped into the crowd. + +Peter knew a great many facts about life. There were human failings even +in Bloombury, and what Peter didn't know about the city had been largely +made up to him by the choice conversation of J. Wilkinson Cohn, in +staples, at the next counter to him. Anybody who listened long enough +to J. Wilkinson's personal reminiscences would have found himself fully +instructed for every possible contingency likely to arise between a +gentleman of undoubted attractions and the ladies, but there are forces +in youth that are stronger than experience. It is a very old, old way of +the world for young things to walk abroad in the spring and meet one +another. + +Peter strolled along the viaduct Saturday and felt his youth beat in him +pleasantly when he saw her come. She had on a different hat, and the +earlier hour showed him the shining of her eyes above the raddled +cheeks. + +"We could go down in the park a piece," he suggested as they turned in +together along the parapet. There was a delicate damp smell coming up +from it on the night, like the Bloombury lanes. + +"You're regular country, aren't you?" There was an accent of impatience +in her tone, "I haven't had my supper yet." + +"Well, what do you say to a piece of roast beef and a cup of coffee?" +Peter had planned this magnificence as he came along fingering his pay +envelope. He knew just the place, he told her. The feeling of his proper +male ascendency as he drew her through the crowd was a tonic to him; the +man tossing pancakes in the window where he hesitated looking for the +ladies' entrance seemed quite to enjoy doing it, as though he had known +all along there was to be company. + +"Oh, I don't care for any of these places." Peter felt her pull at his +elbow. "I'll show you." They went along then, brushing lightly shoulder +to shoulder until they came to one of those revolving doors from which +gusts of music issued. There was a girl standing up to sing as they sat +down and the whole air of the place was beyond even the retailed +splendour of J. Wilkinson. The girl threw back her wraps and began to +order freely. Peter, who had a glimpse of the card, stiffened. + +"I--I guess I'm not so very hungry," he cautioned. She looked up from +the menu sharply and her face softened; she made one or two deft changes +in it. + +"This is Dutch, you know," she threw out. "Oh, I know you invited me, +but you didn't think I was one of the kind that let a strange gentleman +pay for my dinner, did you?" Peter denied it, stricken with +embarrassment. She seemed in the light, to take him in more completely. + +"Say, would you have licked that fellow the other night, honest?" + +"Well, if he was disrespectful to a lady----" Peter began. + +"Oh, _excuse_ me!" She turned her head aside for a moment in her long +gloves. "You _are_ country!" she said again, but it seemed not to +displease her. "I don't care so much for her voice, do you?" She turned +on the singer. They discussed the entertainment and the dinner. They +were a long time about it. The orchestra played a waltz at last, and +Ethel--she had told him to call her that--put her arms on the table and +leaned across to him, and though Peter knew by this time that her cheeks +were painted, he didn't somehow mind it. + +"What's it like up in the country where you lived?" she wished to know. + +"Hills mostly, little wooded ones, and high pastures, and the apple +orchards going right up over them...." + +"I know," she nodded. "I guess it's them I been smelling ... or +laylocks." + +"Things coming up in the garden," Peter contributed: "peonies, and long +rows of daffodils...." He did not realize it, but he had described to +her no place that he had known but the way to the House. The girl cut +him off. + +"Don't!" she said sharply. "You know," she half apologized, "you kind of +remind me of somebody ... a boy I knew up country. It was him that got +me here----" She made her little admission quietly, the horror of it +long worn down to daily habit. "That first time I saw you, it seemed +almost as if it was him ... I ain't never blamed him--much. He didn't +mean to be bad, but when the trouble came he couldn't help none.... I +guess real help is about the hardest thing to find there is." + +"I guess it is." + +"Oh, well, we gotta make the best of it." She glanced at Peter with her +head on one side as she twiddled her fingers across the cloth to the +tune of the orchestra. + +They went out at last and walked in the least frequented streets, and +Peter held her hand; the warmth of it ran with a pleasant tingling in +his veins. He seemed to have touched in her palm the point at which the +city came alive to him. They walked and walked and yet it seemed that +something lacked to bring the evening to a finish; it was incredible to +Peter that after all his loneliness he should have to let her go. + +"We could go up to my place," Ethel suggested. "It's up here." He hadn't +suspected that she had been guiding him. + +"I guess not to-night." Peter's blood was singing in his ears. In the +dark of the unfrequented street he could feel her young body leaning +toward his. + +"Say, you know I ain't after the money the way some girls are; I like +you ... honest----" + +"I guess I'd better go home." But they went on up the side street a +little farther. "Good-bye," he said, but he did not let her go. + +She shook her hand free at last. + +"Oh, well, of course, if you don't want to...." He felt her soft hands +fumbling at his face; she drew him down to a kiss. Suddenly she sprang +away, laughing. "Go, you silly!" + +"Ethel!" he cried, but he lost her in the dark. He should have let her +go at that; he knew he should. In spite of her paying half, his dinner +had cost him more than two ordinary dinners ... and besides.... He +couldn't help, however, walking around by the viaduct for several +evenings the next week, and at last he saw her. She was going by without +speaking, but he got squarely in front of her. + +"Ethel!" + +She pretended just to have recognized him. + +"Oh, you here? I thought you'd gone back to the country!" + +"You aren't mad with me about ... the other night?" He did not quite +know how to express the quality of his desertion. + +"Who? Me?" airily. "Oh, I guess there's just as good fish in the +sea----" She changed all at once under his young hunger for +companionship. "You're good," she said; "you're the real thing." + +"You're good, too," he was certain, "when you're with me." + +"Oh, it rubs off. Say, kid, I guess you got folks at home you're sending +money to and all that, and you got to get ahead in the world. Well, you +don't want to have nothing to do with my kind, and that's straight." The +deviltry she put on toward him failed pitifully. "Chase yourself, kid; I +just ain't good for you any more." Nevertheless they moved along the +parapet to the dark interval between the lights and there they kissed +again, this time with no undercurrent. + +"Good-bye, Ethel." + +"Good-bye, boy." The little spark was out. + + + + +PART THREE + +IN WHICH PETER +BECOMES A BACHELOR + + + + +PART THREE + +IN WHICH PETER BECOMES A BACHELOR + + + + +I + + +The day before leaving for his summer vacation Peter was notified that +he was wanted in his private office by the younger Siegel Brother. +Though he couldn't quite fall in with the dark prognostications of +Blinders that he was about to be mulcted of his salary by a plot which +had been plainly indicated by the marked partiality of our Mr. Croker, +the incident gave him some uneasiness. The young Siegel Brother must +have been younger than somebody of course, though it couldn't have been +by more than a scratch, and he might have been any age without betraying +it, so deeply was he sunk in the evidence of the surpassing quality of +the grocery department. However, there was something surprisingly young +looking out at Peter from the junior brother's red and white rotundity, +at which he took heart immensely. + +"Weatheral, Peter, canned goods, recommended by Mr. Greenslet," Siegel +Brother ticked him off from a manilla envelope. "Just a little +honorarium, Mr. Weatheral, we are in the habit of distributing to such +of our employees as make practical suggestions to the advantage of the +business." Contriving to make his hands meet in front of him by clasping +them very high up on his chest, Siegel Brother assumed that he had +folded his arms, and waited to see what Peter would do about it. + +"We have also a little savings bank for the benefit of our employees +which pays 3 per cent., yet I believe we have you not among our +depositors." There was the slightest possible burr to his speech as +though it were blunted by so much fatness. + +"Well, you see, sir--there's a mortgage." Peter was afraid he should +damage himself by the admission, but the firm heard him out. + +"How much?" + +"It was a thousand, but we've got it down to seven hundred--six hundred +and sixty," Peter corrected himself with a glance at his honorarium. + +"And the farm, it is worth----" Siegel Brother parted his hands slightly +to admit of any valuation. + +"Two thousand." + +"So! Well, Mr. Weatheral, that is not so bad, and if I were you, when I +had occasion to speak of it I would say, not 'I am paying a mortgage,' +that is dead work, Mr. Weatheral, but 'I am buying a farm.' It goes +easier so." + +"Thank you, sir, I'll remember." He supposed his employer was done with +him, but as he turned to go he heard his name again. + +"You will report to our Mr. Croker when you return, Mr. Weatheral; he +thinks he can use you." + +Two weeks later when he came back rested from Bloombury, Peter found +himself visible to at least ten persons, all of whom pertained to the +boarding-house of the exclusive Mrs. Blodgett, where, by the advice of +J. Wilkinson Cohn, he engaged a small room on the third floor with a +window opening some six feet from the rear wall of a wholesale +stationery, and one electric light discreetly placed to discourage the +habit of reading in bed. + +From this time on he was visible to Mrs. Blodgett and Aggie and Miss +Thatcher, whom he already knew as the pure food demonstrator in dairy +products, to two inconsiderable young women from the wholesale +stationer's, and a gentleman from a shoe store, the whole of whose +physiognomy appeared to be occupied with the effort to express an +engaging youthfulness which the crown of his head explicitly denied. He +was occasionally visible to the representative of gentlemen's outfitters +who was engaged to Aggie and took Sunday dinners with them, and he was +particularly and pleasingly visible to J. Wilkinson Cohn and Miss Minnie +Havens. The rest of his fellow boarders were so much of a likeness, a +kind of family likeness that spread all over Siegel Brothers and such +parts of the city as Peter had been admitted to, that it was a relief to +Peter to realize from his profile that J. Wilkinson's last name probably +ought to have been spelled Cohen. The determinedly young gentleman +explained to him that J. Wilkinson's intrusion into the exclusiveness of +Blodgett's was largely a concession to Aggie's being as good as married +and not liable to social contamination, and to the fact that the little +Jew was amusing and pretty near white, anyway. + +Miss Minnie Havens did typewriting and stenography in a downtown office +and was understood to be in search of economic independence, rather than +under the necessity of making a living. She had a high fluffy pompadour +and a half discoverable smile which could be brought to a very agreeable +laugh if one spent a little pains at it. J. Wilkinson Cohn appeared to +find it worth the pains. + +The particular advantage of Blodgett's, besides the fact that you could +have two helps of everything without paying extra for it, was that it +was exclusive and social. Mrs. Blodgett had collected her family of +boarders on the principle of not having anybody who wasn't a suitable +companion for Aggie. There was also a pianola which gave the place a +tone. + +There was fire and light in the dining-room at Blodgett's from seven to +nine always, and in the parlour with the pianola on Saturday evening +and all day Sunday. Sometimes, even on week days after supper, J. +Wilkinson would open the door into the darkened room, push away the +pianola and sing topical songs to his own accompaniment until his +stiffened fingers clattered on the keys. Other times he would give +imitations of popular stage celebrities until Blodgett's shouted with +laughter. At all times they appeared to have a great many engagements. +Peter was advised to join this or that organization, and to enter upon +social occasions that unfortunately presented themselves in the light of +occasions to spend money. Apparently there were no dragons tracking the +path of Blodgett's boarders. Miss Havens did better than any of them for +him. She explained to him how to get books from the circulating library, +and let him read hers until he could arrange for a card. She said it was +a pleasure to think there was going to be somebody in the house who was +congenial. It wasn't that she had anything against Miss Thatcher and the +rest of them--they just didn't have the same tastes. She thought a +person ought to spend some of the time improving their minds. Although +the expression was ambiguous, it served as a sort of sedative to the +aching vacuity of the hours which Peter spent away from Siegel Brothers. +He found himself spending as many as possible of them with Miss Havens. +She had a way of making the frivolling talk of the supper table appear a +warrantable substitute for the things that Peter knew, even while he +echoed her phrases, that he wasn't getting. He found himself skidding on +the paths of self-improvement and the obligations of seeing life, along +the edges of desolation. He immersed himself as far as possible in the +atmosphere of Blodgett's in order that he needn't have any time left in +which to consider how far it fell short of what he had come to find. For +this reason he was usually the last at the supper table, but there were +occasions when he found it discreet to slip away as early and quietly as +possible. + +It was one evening about two months after his instalment at Blodgett's. +Peter was sitting in his room when he heard them yammering at his door +with so much hilarious insistence that he found himself getting up to +open it, without giving himself time to put down the book he was reading +or to take off the overcoat he had put on for want of a fire, and +finding himself in some embarrassment because of the misapprehension +which this fact involved. + +"Ready, Peter?" + +"Come along, Peter!" + +"I ... I'm not going," said Peter. + +"What? Not going to the rink with us to-night? Why, you said----" The +bright group of his fellow boarders hung upon the narrow landing like +bees at the threshold of a hive. + +"I said I'd go if I could--" protested Peter, "and I can't." + +"Gee! What's the matter with you?" + +"Don't be a beastly stiff!" + +"Come on, fellows, we'll miss the car. Let him be a stiff if he wants +to." + +Peter heard their feet retreating on the stairs, and then he saw that +Minnie Havens still hesitated at the landing. She had on her best silk +waist and her blond pompadour was brushed higher than ever. Her eyes, +which were blue, were fixed directly on him with something in the +meeting that gave him the impression, gaspingly, of being about to step +off into space. He seemed suddenly to see a path opening directly +through the skating rink and the Saturday Social Club to the House of +the Shining Walls, and Minnie Havens walking in it beside him. He +wrenched his mind away forcibly from that and fixed it on the figure of +his weekly salary. + +"Couldn't you?" she persuaded. + +"No," said Peter. "I'm much obliged to you, but I really couldn't." + +But before he had time to take up his reading, which somehow he was not +able to do immediately, he heard Mrs. Blodgett, who made a point of +being as kind to her boarders as she could afford to be, tapping at his +door. + +"I thought you'd be going to the rink to-night." + +"No," said Peter. + +"You don't think it's wrong, or anything?" + +"Oh, no, not in the least." + +"Well, Mr. Weatheral, I've seen a power of young folks, comin' and +goin', in my business and it don't pay for 'em to get too stodgy like. +They need livenin' up." She hung upon the door as Peter waited for her +to go. "Miss Havens is a nice girl," she ventured. + +Peter admitted it. "I've my mother and sister to think of," he told her, +and presently he found he had told her a great deal more. + +"Well," commented Mrs. Blodgett, "you do have a lot to carry.... Was you +readin' now, Mr. Weatheral? ... because it's warmer down in my sittin' +room, and there's only Aggie and me sewin'.... Besides," she argued +triumphantly, "it's savin' light." + +First and last he heard a great deal about saving at Blodgett's. Aggie, +who was making up her white things, had something to tell every evening +almost, about the price of insertion. But it was saving for a purpose; +they were in the way, most of them, of being investors. J. Wilkinson had +sixty dollars in his brother's cigar stand on Fifty-fourth street. He +used to let his brother off for Sunday afternoons with quite a +proprietary air. The shoe gentleman, whose very juvenile name was Wally +Whitaker, didn't believe in such a mincing at prosperity. He talked +freely about tips and corners and margins and had been known to make +twenty-seven dollars in copper once. He offered Peter some exclusive +inside information in B and C's before he had been in the house a month. + +"Well, you see," Peter explained himself, "I'm buying a farm up our +way!" His fellow boarders laid down their forks to look at him; he could +see reflected from their several angles how he had placed himself by the +mere statement of his situation. He felt at once the resistance it gave +him, the sense of something to pull against, of having got his feet +under him. It was the point at which the conquest of the mortgage dragon +began to present itself to him as a thing accomplished rather than a +thing escaped. + +It must have been this feeling of release which opened up for him, from +pictures that he saw occasionally with Miss Havens on Sundays, from +books he read and discussed with her, avenues that appeared to lead more +or less directly to the House. There were times when he found himself +walking in them with Miss Minnie Havens, and yet always curiously +expecting the Lovely Lady when they found her there, to be quite another +person. He came within an inch of telling her about it on the occasion +on which she presented him with an embroidered hat marker for Christmas, +and when he took her to the theatre with tickets the floor walker had +presented to him on account of Mrs. Floor Walker not feeling up to it. +It appeared, further, that Miss Havens had a way of falling into +profound psychological difficulties which required a vast amount of +talking over, and a great many appeals to Peter's disinterested judgment +to extract her, not without some subtle intimations of dizzying escapes +for himself. Peter supposed that was always the way with girls. It came +to a crisis later where Miss Havens' whole destiny hung upon the point +as to whether she could accept a situation offered her in her own town, +or should stay on in the city and see what came of it. + +"You'd get more salary there, and be able to live cheaper?" Peter wished +to know. + +"Oh, yes." The implication of her tone was that she didn't see what +that had to do with it. It was toward the end of June, and she was +looking very pretty in a white dress and a hat that set off her +pompadour to advantage, and there was no special reason, as they had the +afternoon before them, why they should not have taken some of the +by-paths that the girl perceived to lead out from the subject into +breathless wonder. She had ways, which were maidenly and good, of +opening up to Peter comfortable little garden plots of existence which, +though they lay far this side of the House and the Lovely Lady, had in +the monotony of the long climb up the scale of Siegel Brothers, moments +of importunate invitation. + +"And you came up to the city," Peter went on in the gravelled walk of +fact, "just to improve yourself in shorthand so you could get such a +situation? I don't see why you hesitate." + +Miss Havens could hardly say why herself. + +"There were so many ways of bettering one's self in the city. I've a +great many friends here," she hinted. + +"Not so many," Peter reminded her, "as you'd have where you were brought +up." + +"You are staying in the city?" Miss Havens suggested. + +"That's different. I have to." He had already told her about Ellen and +also about his mother. + +"And are you always going to stay on here like this, working and working +and never taking any time for yourself? Aren't you ever going to ... +marry?" + +"I know too much what poverty is like to ask any woman to share it," +Peter protested. + +"Suppose she should ask you?" + +"They don't do that; the right sort." + +"I don't see why ... if some girl ... cared ... and if she saw ... +anybody struggling along under burdens she would be glad to share, and +she knew because of that he didn't mean to ask her ... You think she +ought not to let him know?" + +"I think it wouldn't be best," said Peter. + +"You think the man would despise her?" + +"Not that; but if he liked her a little ... he might consent to it ... +just because he liked her and was tired maybe ... and that wouldn't be +good for either of them." + +"Well, anyway, it doesn't concern either of us," said Miss Havens. + +The next evening as Peter was letting himself in at his own door--he had +moved to the second floor front by this time--Mrs. Blodgett stopped him. + +"Miss Havens left her regards for you," she explained. "She went +to-day." + +"Oh," said Peter, "wasn't it sudden?" + +"Sort of. She'd been considerin' of it for some time, and last night she +made up her mind. But I did think," said Mrs. Blodgett, "that she'd have +said good-bye to _you_." And not eliciting anything by way of a reply, +she added: "Miss Havens is a nice girl. I hate to think of her slavin' +her life out in an office. She'd ought to get married." + +"A girl has ever so many more chances in her home town," Peter offered +hopefully. + +"Yes, I suppose so." Mrs. Blodgett sighed. "Is there anything I can do +for you, Mr. Weatheral?" + +"Nothing, thank you." He was lingering still on the landing on Mrs. +Blodgett's account, but he found his finger slipping between the leaves +of the volume he had brought from the library. + +"Ah," she warned him, "readin' is an improvin' occupation, but there's a +book we hadn't any of us ought to miss, and that's the Book of Life, Mr. +Weatheral." And somehow with that ringing in his ears, Peter spent +several minutes walking up and down in his room before he could settle +to his book again. + + + + +II + + +It was a week or ten days after Miss Havens left, before Peter went down +to Bloombury for his midsummer vacation, a week in which he had the +greatest difficulty in getting back to the House of the Shining Walls. +He set out for it almost immediately with a feeling akin to the release +with which one returns to daily habit after the departure of an +unexpected guest. But his thought would no sooner strike into the +accustomed paths than Miss Minnie Havens would meet him there +unaccountably, to begin again those long intimate conversations which +led toward and about the House, but never quite to it. Peter found +himself looking out for those meetings with some notion of dodging them, +and yet once they were fairly off, he owned them a great relief from +Blodgett's. Now that it was withdrawn, he realized in the girl's bright +companionship the effect of the rose-red glow of the shade that Aggie +drew down over the front parlour lamp on the evenings when the +Gentlemen's Outfitter called. It had prevented his seeing until now, +that the chief difference between himself and his fellow boarders, was +that for most of them, this was a place where they had come to stay. +Having let Miss Havens go on alone to the place she was bound for, he +had moments of dreadful sinking, as it occurred to him to wonder if he +hadn't made a mistake in the nature of his own destination. Suppose, +after all, he should find himself castaway in some oasis of determined +sprightliness with Wally Whitaker in whose pocket pretenses of tips and +margins he began to discern a poorer sort of substitute for the House. +He was as much bored by the permanently young shoe-salesman after this +discovery as before it, but obliged to set a watch on himself lest in a +moment of finding himself too much in the same case, he should make the +mistake of inviting Wally to Bloombury for his vacation. + +He was relieved, when at last he had got away without it, to be saved +from such a misadventure, for he found his mother not standing the heat +well, and Ellen anxious. He had never definitely shaped to himself the +idea that there could anything happen to his mother; she was as much a +part of his life as the aging apple trees and the hills that climbed, +with low, gnarled pines to the sky's edge beyond the marshes, a point +from which to take distance and direction. He began to note now the +graying hair, the shrunken breast and the worn hands, so blue veined for +all their brownness, and he could not sleep of nights because of the +sweat that was on his soul, for fear of what might come to her. He would +lie in the little room under the roof and hear the elms moving like the +riffle of silence into sound, thinking of his mother until at last he +would be obliged to rise and move softly about the place, as if by the +mere assertion of himself he could make her safer in it. He wished +nothing so much as not to disturb her, but she must have been lying +awake often herself, for the second or third time this happened, she +called to him. He came, half dressed as he was and drew the covers up +close about her shoulders, and was exceedingly gay and tender with her. + +"There's nothing troubling you, son?" + +"Nothing--except to be sure there's nothing troubling _you_." + +She gave a little, low laugh like a girl. + +"That's so like your father. I remember he would get up in the night +when you were little, and go prowling about ... he used to say he was +afraid the roof tree would fall in and kill you. And yet here you +are...." She reached out to give him a little pat, as if somehow to +reassure him. The low dropping moon made a square block of light on +the uncarpeted floor; outside, the orchard waited for the dawn, and +the fields brimmed life up to their very doors. + +"You're like him in other ways," she went on. "Somehow it's brought him +back wonderfully the last two or three days, and especially at night +when I'd hear you creaking down the stair. There's a board there which +always does creak, and I'd hear you trying to remember which it was, the +same as _he_ used to----" + +"I haven't meant to keep you awake, mother." + +"I've been awake. When you're getting along like, you don't sleep much, +Peter. Sleep is for dreaming, some of it, and the old don't dream." + +"You're not to go calling yourself old, mother!" + +"And me with a son going twenty-three! We weren't so young either when +we were married, your father and I ... but I want you should sleep, +Peter, and dream when you can. You have pleasant dreams, son?" + +"Any amount of them." He was going off into one of those bright +fantasies of what he should do when he was rich as he meant to be, with +which he had so often beguiled Ellen's pain, but she kissed him and sent +him to bed again lest Ellen should hear them. + +It was not more than a day or two after that the minister's wife caught +young Mr. Weatheral walking with his mother in the back pasture with his +arm about her, and was slightly shocked by it, for though it was thought +highly commendable in him to have paid off the mortgage and managed a +silk dress for her and Ellen besides, Bloombury was not habituated to a +lively expression of family affection. Peter had consented to gather the +huckleberries which Ellen insisted were of a superior flavour in the +back pasture, on the sole condition that his mother should come with +him, and the minister's wife had just stepped aside on her way to the +Tillinghurst's to gather the southerwood which grew there, for the +minister's winter cough, when she caught sight of them. + +"She couldn't have stared more if she'd caught me with a girl." Peter +protested. + +"It's only that she'd have thought it more likely," his mother +extenuated. "I hope you aren't going to be a girl-hater, Peter. I want +you should marry some time, and if I haven't seemed anxious about it +before now, you mustn't think it's because I want to keep you for Ellen +and me. What I don't want is that you should take to it just _because_ +there's a girl. Not but what that's natural, but there's more to it than +that, Peter. For you," she supplemented. She sat down on a gray, round +stone while Peter stripped the bushes at her feet, and watched to see if +his colour rose while she talked, or his gaze failed to meet hers at any +point. + +"I'd have liked to have Ellen marry," said Ellen's mother, "she's that +kind. Having a man of her own, most any kind of a man so as he would be +good to her, would mean such a lot. If Ellen can have a little of what +everybody's having, she's satisfied. But there are some who can get a +great deal more out of it than that ... and if they don't the rest of it +is a drag and a weariness." He left off stripping the bushes and turned +contentedly against her knees. + +"You're my home, Mumsey." + +"And not even," she gently insisted, "when I'm not here to make it for +you. There's a kind of life goes with loving; it's like--like the +lovely inside colour of a shell, and somehow, this winter I've wondered +if you'd got to the place where you knew what that would be like if you +should find it." She turned his face up to her with a tender anxiety and +yet with a little timidity; they did not talk much of such things in +Bloombury. + +"I know, mother." + +"Yes...." after a long look, "you would; you're so like your father. But +if you know, you mustn't ever be led by dullness or loneliness into +anything less, Peter. Not that I'm afraid you'll be led into anything +wrong ... but there are things that are almost more wrong than downright +wickedness.... + +"I've been thinking a great deal lately about when I was your age, and +there didn't seem anything for me but to marry one of the neighbour's +boys that I'd known always, or a long plain piece of school teaching. It +wasn't easy with everybody egging me on--but I stuck it out, and at the +last along came your father ... I'd like you to have something like +that, Peter,--and your son coming to you the way you came to me, like +it was through a cloud of glory...." He looked up presently on her +silence, silver tipped now with the hope of renewal, and he saw her as a +man sometimes when he is young and clean, sees his mother, the Sacred +Door ... and he did not observe at all that her hands were berry stained +and the nails broken, nor that her cheek had fallen in and her hair gray +and wispy. But being a young man and never good at talking, it made no +difference with him except that as they walked home across the pastures +he was more than ever careful of her and teased her more whimsically. + +He forgot, after he had settled in his room again at Blodgett's, that +Miss Minnie Havens had ever walked with him in the purlieus of the +House, for he was quite taken up with a new set of rooms he had thrown +out from it for his mother. She was always there with him now until the +day of her death and long after, made a part of all his dreaming by the +touch with which she had limned in herself for him, the feature of all +Lovely Ladies. + +He would write her long letters into which crept much that had been +uttered only in the House, which that winter became an estate in +Florida, moved there because of Mrs. Weatheral's need of mild climate. +They went abroad after the Christmas Holidays in which she had coughed +more than usual and consented to have her breakfast brought up to bed, +setting out every evening from Peter's reading-lamp and arriving very +shortly at Italian Cathedrals and old Roman seaport towns that smelled +of history. + +Dreaming of lovely ladies who have no face or form other than they +borrow from the passing incident is a very pleasant way of passing the +time, and does not necessarily lead to anything; but when a man goes +about afraid lest his mother should die for lack of something he might +have got for her, he dreams closer at home. More than ever since the +revelation of his mother's frailness, Peter dreamed of being rich, and +since there was nothing nearer to him than the way Siegel Brothers had +managed it, he devoted so much time to the scrutiny of their methods +that he passed in a very short time from being head of the delivery +department to the right hand of Mr. Croker. Even Blinders could not +recall, in the three years he had been bundle boy, so marked an example +of favouritism. + +"They don't make partners any more out of underlings," Croker let him +know confidentially. "What do you think you're headed for?" Peter +explained himself. + +"I wanted to find out how they did it." + +"And when you find out," Croker wagged at him, "you won't be able to do +anything with it. You have to have capital. Look at the time I've been +with them!" + +"How long is that?" Peter was interested. + +"Twenty years." Croker told him. + +"In twenty years," Peter was confident, "a man ought to be able to find +some capital." After that he began to observe Mr. Croker. + +It is probable at this time that if he had not been concerned for his +mother's health, he might have grown as dry and uninteresting as at +Blodgett's they began to think him. + +He was a thin young man with hair of no particular colour, and eyes +that were good and rather shy about women. He went out very little and +had not, Miss Thatcher who sat opposite him was sure, a mind above his +business. Aggie had married her Outfitter, and J. Wilkinson Cohn, who +had become a full partner in his brother's cigar stand, had moved out to +Fifty-fourth Street, so that there was nobody who could have +contradicted her. But lying awake planning how he might piece out life +for his mother with comforts, and hearing in every knock the precursor +of what might have happened to her, his heart was exercised as it is +good for the heart to be even with pain and anxiety. And beyond the +heart stretching there was always the House. He could seldom get away to +it in his waking hours, but he knew it was there for him, and visiting +it in dreams he kept in spite of the anxiety and Mr. Croker, his young +resiliency. Along in December, about two weeks before his midwinter +holiday, Ellen sent for him. + +"It's not as if there hadn't been time for everything. You must think of +that, Peter. And your being able to come down every Saturday since the +first stroke. There's plenty that are hurried away without a good-bye or +anything." + +"I know, Ellen." + +"And it isn't as if there hadn't been plenty to say, either. Six weeks +would have been too long for anybody less loving than mother. They +wouldn't have known how to go through your life and say just the things +you'll be glad to remember when the time comes for them. You've got to +keep your mind on those things, Peter." + +"Yes, Ellen." + +The front room had been well rid up after the funeral and everybody at +Ellen's earnest entreaty had left them quite alone. Although there was +fire in the base burner, they were sitting together by the kitchen +stove, the front of which was thrown open for the sake of the warm glow +of the coals. By and by the kettle began to sing and the bare tips of +the lilac scratched on the pane like a live thing waiting to be let in. +The little familiar sounds refilled for them the empty room. + +Outside it was every way such a day as a well-spent life might slip +away in; the tracks in the deep-rutted February snow might have been +worn there by the habit of sixty years. There was no hint of the spring +yet, but here and there in the bare patches on the hills and the frayed +icy edges of the drifts, the sign that the weight of the winter was +behind them. There would be a little quiet time yet and then the +resurrection. The brother and sister had taken it all very quietly. +Nobody had ever taken anything in any other way in the presence of Mrs. +Weatheral, and that she was there still for them, that she would always +be present in their lives, a warm determining influence, was witnessed +by that absence of violence which empties too soon the cup of grief. The +loss of their mother had at least brought them no sense of leaving her +behind. They were going on with their life so soon because she was going +with them. + +"That was why I wanted them all to go away," Ellen took up the thought +again. "I've been thinking all day about mother being with father and +how glad he'll be to see her, and yet it seems as if I can feel her +here. I thought if we kept still a while she'd make us understand what +she wanted us to do." + +"About what, Ellen?" + +"About my going up to the city with you to board--it seems such a +wasteful way to live somehow, just sitting around!" + +"It isn't as expensive as keeping house," Peter told her, "and I want +you to sit around, Ellen; women in Bloombury don't get enough of that +I'm afraid." + +"They don't. Did you see Ada Harvey to-day? Four children and two teeth +out, and her not thirty. I guess you'd take better care of me than that, +Peter,--only----" + +"You think _she_ wouldn't like it for you?" + +"She thought such a lot of keeping up a home, Peter. It was like--like +those Catholics burning candles. It seemed as if she thought you'd get +something out of it if it was just going on, even if you didn't visit it +more than two or three times a year. Lots of women feel that way, Peter, +and I guess there must be something in it." + +"There _is_ something in it," Peter assured her. + +"And if I go and board with you we'd have to break up everything----" +She looked about on all the familiar mould of daily habit that was her +world, and tears started afresh. "And we've got all this furniture." She +moved her head toward the door of the front room and the parlour set +that had been Peter's Christmas gift to them two years ago. "For all it +was such a comfort to her to have it, it's as good as new. It seemed as +if she thought you were the only one good enough to sit in it." + +"Don't, Ellen." + +"I know, Peter." They were silent a while until the deep wells of grief +had stilled in the sense of that sustaining presence. "I only wanted to +be sure I wouldn't be going against her, breaking up the home. It seems +like anything she set such store by oughtn't to stop just because she +isn't here to take care of it." They had to come back to that the next +day and the next. + +"I only want to do what is best for you, Ellen." + +"I'd be best off if I was making you happy, Peter--and I'd feel such a +burden somehow, just boarding." + +"The rents _are_ cheaper in the suburbs," Peter went so far as to admit. +It was all so inarticulate in him; how could he explain to Ellen the +feeling that he had, that settling down to a home with her would somehow +put an end to any dreams he had had of a home of his own, persistent but +unshaped visions that vanished before the sudden brightening of Ellen's +face at his least concession. + +"We could have somebody in to clean," she reminded him, "and I hardly +ever have to be in bed now." + +The fact was that Peter had the very place in mind; he had often walked +out there on Sundays from Blodgett's; he thought the neighbourhood had a +clean and healthy look. He went up on Tuesday to see what could be done +about it. + +Lessing, who rented him the apartment, made the natural mistake about it +that Peter's age and his inexperience as a householder invited. He said +the neighbours were all a most desirable class of people, and Peter +could see for himself that the city was bound to build out that way in a +few years. As for what Pleasanton could do in the way of climate, well, +Lessing told him, with the air of being only a little less interested +than he credited Peter with being, look at the perambulators. + +They were as fine a lot of wellfilled vehicles as could be produced by +any suburb anywhere, and Ellen for one was never tired of looking at +them. But Peter couldn't understand why Ellen insisted on walking home +from church Sunday morning the wrong way of the pavement. + +"I suppose we do get in the way," she admitted after he had explained to +her that they wouldn't be crowded off so frequently if they moved with +the nurse-maid's parade and not against it, "but if we go this way we +can see all the little faces." + +"I didn't know you cared so much for babies." + +"Well, you see it isn't as if I was to have any of my own----" Something +in the tone with which she admitted the restraining fact of her +affliction brought out for Peter how she had fitted her life to it, like +a plant growing hardily out of a rock, climbing over and around it +without rancour or rebellion. As he turned now to look at her long, +plain face in the light of what had been going on in himself lately, he +recalled that the determining influence which had drawn her thick hair +into that unbecoming knot at the back of her neck had been the pain it +had given her when she first began to put up her hair, to do it higher. + +She was watching the bright little bonneted heads go by with the same +detachment that he had learned to look at the shop windows, without +thinking of appropriating any of their splendour for himself, and when +she spoke again it was without any sensible connection with the present +occasion. + +"Peter, do you remember Willy Shakeley?" + +"Shakey Willy, we used to call him. I remember his freckles; they were +the biggest thing about him." He waited for the communicating thread, +but nothing came except what presently reached him out of his own young +recollections. "He wasn't good enough for you, Ellen," he said at last +for all comment. + +"He was kind, and he wouldn't have minded about my being lame, but a man +has to have a healthy wife if he's a farmer." How completely she had +accepted the deprivation for herself, he saw by her not wasting a sigh +over it; she had schooled herself so long to go no further in her +thought than she went on the crutch which tapped now on the pavement +beside him. As if to stop his going any further on her account she +smiled up at him. "Peter, if you were to meet any of the things you +thought you'd grow up to be, do you suppose you'd know them?" + +At least he could have told her that he didn't meet any of them on his +way between Siegel Brothers and the flat in Pleasanton. + +There are many things which if a young man goes without until he is +twenty-five he can very well do without, but the one thing he cannot +leave off without hurting him is the expectation of some time doing +them. The obligation of the mortgage and Ellen's lameness had been a +sort of bridge for Peter, a high airy structure which engaged the best +of him and so carried him safely over Blodgett's without once letting +him fall into the unlovely vein of life there, its narrowness, its +commonness. He had known, even when he had known it most inaccessible, +that there was another life which answered to every instinct of his for +beauty and fitness. He waited only for the release from strain for his +entry with it. Now by the shock of his mother's death he found himself +precipitated in a frame of living where a parlour set out of Siegel +Brothers' Household Emporium was the limit of taste and understanding. +The worst thing about Siegel Brothers' parlour sets was that he sold +them. He knew it was his particular value to Siegel Brothers that he had +always known what sort of things were acceptable to the out-of-town +trade. He had selected this one distinctly with an eye to the pleasure +his mother and Ellen would get out of what Bloombury would think of it. +He hadn't expected it would turn and rend him. That it was distinctly +better than anything he had had at Blodgett's was inconsiderable beside +the fact that Blodgett's hadn't owned him. That he was owned now by his +sister and the furniture, was plain to him the first time he sat down to +figure out the difference between his salary and what it would cost him +to let Ellen be a burden to him in the way that made her happiest. Not +that he thought of Ellen in that way; he was glad when he thought of it +at all articulately, to be able to make life so little of a burden to +her. But though he saw quite clearly how, without some fortunate +accident, the rest of his life would be taken up with making a home for +Ellen and making it secure for her in case anything happened to him, he +saw too, that there was no room in it for the Lovely Lady. The worst of +all this was that he did not see how he was to go on without her. + +He had fled to her from the inadequacy of all substitutes for her that +his life afforded, and she had ended by making him over into the sort of +man who could never be satisfied with anything less. Something he owed, +no doubt, to that trait of his father's which made his memories of Italy +more to him than his inheritance, but there it was, a world Peter had +built up out of books and pictures and music, more real and habitable +than that in which he went about in a gray business suit and a pleasant +ready manner; a world from which, every time he fitted his key in the +latch of the little flat in Pleasanton, he felt himself suddenly +dispossessed. + +It was not that he failed to get a proper pleasure out of being a +householder, in being able to take a certain tone with the butcher and +discuss water rates and rents with other householders going to and fro +on his train. Ellen's cooking tasted good to him and it was very +pleasant to see the pleasure it gave her to have Burnell of the +hardware, out to supper occasionally. He made friends with Lessing, +whose natty and determinedly architectural office with its air of being +somehow akin to Wally Whitaker, occupied the corner where Peter waited +every morning for his car. Lessing began it by coming out on the very +first occasion to ask him how his sister did, in an effort to correct +any impression of a want of perspicuity in his first estimate of Peter's +situation. He kept it up for the reason perhaps that men friends are +meant for each other from the beginning of time quite as much as we are +accustomed to thinking of them as being meant for the lovely ladies whom +they so frequently miss. Lessing was about Peter's own age and had large +and cheerful notions of the probable increase of real-estate values in +Pleasanton, combined with a just appreciation of the simple shrewdness +which had so recommended Peter to his employers. + +"You'd be a crackerjack to talk to the old ladies," Lessing generously +praised him. "I scare 'em; they think I'm too hopeful." That he didn't, +however, have the same effect on young ladies was apparent from the very +pretty one whom Peter used to see about, especially on early closing +Saturday afternoons, helping him to shut up the office and get off to +the ball game. He couldn't have told why, but those were the days when +Peter allowed the car to carry him on to the next block, before +alighting, after which he would make a point of being particularly kind +to Ellen. It would never do for her to get a notion that the tapping of +her crutch beside him had scared anything out of Peter's life which he +might think worth having in it. + +Along toward Thanksgiving time, on an occasion when Peter had just +missed his car and had to wait for another one, Lessing--J. B. on the +door sign, though he was the sort that everybody who knew him called +Julian--came quite out to the pavement and stood there with his hands +in his pockets and his hair beginning to curl boyishly in the dampness, +quite brimming over with good fortune. Singularly he didn't mention it +at once, but began to complain about the low state of the market in real +estate. + +"Not but that the values are all right," he was careful to explain; +"it's just that they _are_ all right makes it so trying. If a fellow had +a little capital now, he could do wonders. The deuce of a chap like me +is that he hasn't any capital unless there's some buying." + +"You think it's a good time then to lay out a little money?" + +"Good! _Good!_ Oh, Lord, it's so good that if a fellow had a few +thousands just put around judiciously, he wouldn't be able to sleep +nights for hearing it turn over." He kicked the gravel in sheer +impatience. "How's your sister?" + +It was a formula that he had kept on with because to have dropped it +immediately might have betrayed the extenuating nature of its inception, +and besides there were so many directions in which one might start +conversationally off from it. He made use of it now without waiting for +Peter's habitual "Very well, thank you," by a burst into confidence. + +"You see I'm engaged to be married--yes, I guess you've seen me with +her. Fact is, I haven't cared how much people have seen so long as she's +seen it, too; and now we've got it all fixed up, naturally I'm on the +make. I'm dashed if I don't think I'll have to take a partner." + +"I've been wanting to speak to you about some property of mine," Peter +ventured. "It's a farm up country." + +"What's it worth?" + +"Well, I've added to it some the last ten years and made considerable +improvement. I ought to get three thousand." + +"That's for farming? For summer residence it ought to bring more than +that. Any scenery?" + +"Plenty," Peter satisfied him on that score. "I've been thinking," he +let out shyly, "that if I could put the price of it in some place where +I could watch it, the money would do me more good...." + +Lessing turned on him a suddenly brightening eye. + +"That's the talk--say, you know I think I could get you forty-five +hundred for that farm of yours anyway." They looked at one another on +the verge of things hopeful and considerable. As Peter's car swung +around the curve, suddenly they blushed, both of them, and reached out +and shook hands. + +That evening as Peter came home he saw Lessing buying chrysanthemums at +the florist's with a happy countenance, and to master the queer pang it +gave him, Peter got off the car and walked a long way out on the dim wet +pavement. He was looking at the bright picture of Lessing and the +girl--she was really very pretty--and seeing instead, himself, quite the +bachelor, and his lame sister taking their blameless dull way in the +world. He couldn't any more for the life of him, get a picture of +himself without Ellen in it; the tapping of her crutch sounded even in +the House when he visited it in his dreams. It was well on this occasion +that he had Ellen beside him, for she showed him the way presently to +take it, as he knew she would take it as soon as he went home and told +her--as another door by which they could enter sympathetically in the +joyousness they were denied. She would be so pleased for Julian's sake, +in whom, by Peter's account of him, she took the greatest interest, and +so pleased for the girl to have such a handsome, capable lover. It made, +for Ellen, a better thing of life if somebody could have him. + +Peter went back after a while with that thought to the florist's and +bought chrysanthemums, taking care to ask for the same kind Mr. Lessing +had just ordered. He was feeling quite cheerful even, as he ran up the +steps with them a few minutes later, and saw the square of light under +the half-drawn curtain, and heard the tap of Ellen's crutch coming to +meet him. + +That night after he had gone to bed a very singular thing happened. The +Princess out of the picture visited him. It was there at the foot of his +bed in a new frame where Ellen had hung it--the young knight riding down +the old, lumpy dragon, but with an air that Peter hadn't for a long time +been able to manage for himself, doing a great thing easily the way one +knew perfectly great things couldn't. The assistant sales manager of +Siegel Brothers had been lying staring up at it for some time when the +Princess spoke to him. He knew it was she, though there was no face nor +form that he could remember in his waking hours, except that it was +familiar. + +"Ellen is right," she told him; "it doesn't really matter so long as +somebody finds me." + +"But what have _I_ done?" Peter was sore with a sense of personal +slight. "It wasn't in the story that there should be a whole crop of +dragons." + +"All dragons are made so that where one head comes off there are seven +in its place; and you must remember if somebody didn't go about slaying +them, I couldn't be at all." This as she said it had a deep meaning for +Peter that afterward escaped him. "And you can hold the dream. It takes +a lot of dreaming to bring one like me to pass." + +"I'm sick of dreams," said Peter. "A man dies after a little who is fed +on nothing else." + +"They die quicker if they stop dreaming; on those that have the gift for +it the business of dreaming falls. Listen! How many that you know have +found me?" + +"A great many think they have; it comes to the same thing." + +"The same for them; but you must see that I can never really _be_ until +I am for those outside the dream. The trouble with you is that you'd +wake up after a while and you would _know_." + +"Yes," Peter admitted, "I should know." + +"Well, then," she was oh, so gentle about it, "yours is the better part. +If you can't have me, at least you're not stopping me by leaving off for +something else. In the dream I can live and grow, and you can grow to +me. Do you remember what happened to Ada Harvey? I've saved you from +that at any rate." + +"No," said Peter, "it was the dragon saved me. I thought you were she. +It's saved me from lots of things, now that I think of it." + +"Ah, that's what we have to do between us, Peter, we have to save you. +You're worth saving." + +"Save me for what?" Peter cried out to her and so strongly in his +loneliness that he found himself starting up from his bed with it. He +could see the dragon spitting flames as before, and the pale light from +the swinging street lamp gilding the frame of the picture. Though he +did not understand all that had happened to him, as he lay down again he +was more comforted than he had been at any time since he had made up his +mind that he was to be a bachelor. + + + + +PART FOUR + +IN WHICH THE LOVELY +LADY MAKES A +FINAL APPEARANCE + + + + +PART FOUR + +IN WHICH THE LOVELY LADY MAKES A +FINAL APPEARANCE + + + + +I + + +On the day that the silver-laced maple, then in fullest leaf, had passed +by the space of three delicate palm-shaped banners the sill of the +third-story office window, Lessing, of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., Brokers +in Real Estate, crossed over to his partner's desk before sitting down +at his own, and remained quietly leaning against it and looking out of +the window without a word. He remained there staring out over the new, +orderly growth of the suburb, toward the river, until the stenographer +from the outer room had come in with the vase which she had been filling +with great golden roses, and gone out again, after placing it carefully +in the exact middle of the top of the junior partner's desk. By that +time Lessing's rather plump, practical hand had crept out along the rim +of the desk until it was covered by Peter's lean one, and still neither +of them had said a word. The roses had come in from Lessing's country +place that morning in Lessing's car, and Lessing's wife had gathered +them. There were exactly seventeen, full-blown and fragrant, and one +small bud of promise which Peter presently removed from its vase to his +button hole. The act had almost the significance of a ritual, a thing +done many times with particular meaning. + +"Somehow," Peter said as he fastened it with a pin underneath his lapel, +"seventeen years seems a shorter time to look back on than to look +forward to." + +"Well, when we've put twenty-five years of work into it--and that's +nothing to what we'll get into the next seventeen." Lessing's tone keyed +admirably with the bright ample day outside, the rapid glint of the +river and the tips of the maple all a-tremble with the urgency of new +growth. The senior partner's eye roved from that to the restrained +richness of the office furniture from which the new was not yet worn, +and returned to the contemplation of the towering white cumuli beginning +to pile up beyond the farther bank of the river. "There's no end to what +a man can lift," he asserted confidently, "once he's got his feet under +him." + +"We've carried a lot," Peter assented cheerfully, "and sometimes it was +rather steep going, but now it's carrying us. The question is"--and here +his voice fell off a shade and a slight gathering appeared between his +eyes--"the real question is, I suppose, what it is carrying us _to_." + +"Where's the good of that?" Julian protested. "It's only a limitation to +set out for a particular place. The fun is in the going. You keep right +along with the procession until old age gets you. The thing is just to +keep it up as long as you can." He swung himself into a sitting posture +on the edge of the desk and noted that the slight pucker had not left +his partner's eyes. "What's the idea?" he wished affectionately to know. + +"Oh, nothing much, but I sort of grew up with the idea of +Duty--something you had to do because there was nobody else to do it. +You had not only to do it but you had to like it, not because it was +likable, but because it was your duty. It was always right in front of +me: I couldn't see over or around it; I just had to do it." + +"Well, you did it," Lessing corroborated. "Clarice says the way you've +taken care of Ellen----" + +"And the way Ellen has taken care of me--but then Ellen was all the +woman I had." He caught himself up swiftly after that; it was seldom +even to his partner that anything escaped him in reference to the +interior life of dreams which had gone on in him, quite happily behind +his undistinguished exterior. "But somehow it hasn't seemed to come out +anywhere. I've done my duty ... and when I'm dead and Ellen's dead, +where is it? After all, what have I done?" + +"Ah, look at Pleasanton," Julian reminded him; "do you call that +nothing?" They looked together toward the esplanade along the river, +beginning at this hour to be flecked with the white aprons of +nurse-maids and their charges. "We've given them clean water to drink +and clean streets, and a safe place for the children to play in. The +fight we had with the city council for _that_...!" He waved his arm +again toward the well-parked river front. "Ever since I sold your farm +for you and you began putting your money into the business, we've walked +right along with it. Even before you left Siegel Brothers and we used to +sit up nights with the map, planning where to put our money like a +checker-board, we saw things like this for the town, and now we've made +'em true. And you say we've done nothing!" The senior partner was +touched a little in his tenderest susceptibilities. + +"Oh, well," Peter admitted with a shamed laugh, "I suppose man is an +incurable egotist. I was thinking of something more personal, something +_mine_, the way a book or a picture belongs to the man who makes it." + +"The game isn't over yet," Lessing reminded him, with a glance at the +unfolding bud which Clarice had sent as a symbol of the opening year; +"you're only forty. And, anyway, the money's yours; you made it." +Something in the word recalled him to a thought that had been earlier +in his mind. "Clarice wanted me to ask you to-day if you had any idea +how much you are worth." + +Peter's attention came back from the window with a start. "Does that +mean the Fresh Air Fund or the Association for the Protection of +Ownerless Pups?" + +Julian grinned. "Ownerless bachelors rather. Clarice has an idea you are +well enough off to marry." + +"If it were a proposition of my being married to Clarice I should +consider myself well enough off without anything else----" Peter dropped +the light, accustomed banter for a sober tone. "How well off does your +wife think I ought to be?" + +"She's got it figured out that all you've spent on making Ellen +comfortable for life isn't a patch on what she and the boys cost me, so +it's high time you set about your natural destiny of making some woman +happy." + +"Look here, Julian, _is_ it an object for a man to live for, making some +woman happy?" + +"Well, it keeps you on the jump all right," Lessing assured him. "What +else is there? It's a way of making yourself happy when you come to +look at it; keeping her and the kids so that you leave the world better +off than you found it. It suits _me_." He was looking, indeed, +particularly well suited, in spite of a disposition to portliness and a +suspicion of thinning hair, with what the seventeen years just past had +brought him. A warm appreciation of what those things were touched his +regard for his companion with a sober affectionateness. "I reckon +Clarice is right: a wife and a couple of kids is the prescription for +your case. That's why she wanted me to remind you that you could afford +'em." + +"And has she named the day?" Peter wished to know whimsically. + +"Oh, I say, Weatheral----" + +"My dear Julian, if I hadn't been able to see what Clarice has been up +to for the last six months, at least I could have depended on Ellen to +see it for me." + +"She doesn't object, does she?" + +"Oh, if you think the privilege of being aunt to your children has made +up to her for not being aunt to mine----" + +"The privilege is on the other side. But anyway, I'm glad you got on to +it. I didn't want to be a spoil sport. I suppose women's instincts can +be trusted in these things, but I hated to see Clarice coming it over +you blind." + +Peter wondered to himself a little, which of the charming ladies to whom +he had been introduced lately, Clarice had selected for him. He wasn't, +however, concerned about her coming it blind over anybody but the senior +partner who got down now from the desk, whistling softly and walking +with a wide step as a man will in June when affairs go well with him, +and he feels that if there are still some things which he desires he is +able to get them for himself. + +"Don't forget you're coming to us on Saturday; and we dine together +to-night as usual." + +"As usual." Always on the anniversary of their beginning business +together Weatheral and Lessing, who were still, in spite of seeing one +another daily for seventeen years, able to be interested in one another, +dined apart from their families, savouring pleasantly that essential +essence of maleness, the mutual power of work well accomplished. It was +the best tribute that Clarice and Ellen could pay to the occasion that +they understood that, much as their several lives had profited by the +partnership, they were still and naturally outside of it. + +On this occasion, however, it was impossible for Peter to keep Mrs. +Lessing out of the background of his consciousness, because of the part +her suggestion of the morning played in new realization of himself as +the rich Mr. Weatheral of Pleasanton. He credited her with sufficient +knowledge of his character to have egged Julian on to the reminder as a +part of the game she had played with him for the past two or three +years, by which Peter was to be instated in a life more in keeping with +his opportunities. + +It was a game Clarice played with life everywhere, coaxing it to yield +its choicest bloom to her. She had an instinct for choiceness like a +hummingbird, darting here and there for sweetness. Her flutterings were +never of uncertainty but such as kept her in the perfect airy poise. If +she wanted marriage for Peter it was because she could imagine nothing +better for anybody than a marriage like hers, and if she chose this +time for letting him know that she was thinking of it, it was because in +those terms she could bring closest to him his new-found possibilities. +If she could have reached Peter with the personal certainty of riches by +explaining to him how far his dollars would stretch end to end, or how +many acres of postage stamps he could buy with them, she might have +thought less of him on that account, but she would have helped him to +understanding even on those terms. You couldn't have made Clarice +Lessing believe that whatever their limitations, people weren't entitled +to help simply because they needed it. + +It had come upon Peter by leaps and bounds during the last two or three +years, both the wealth and the necessity of putting it to himself in +terms of personal expression. During the first ten years of the +partnership, the only use for money the simple needs of Ellen and +himself had established was to put it back into the business; a use +which had become almost an obligation during the time when both children +and opportunity were coming to Julian faster than the cash to meet them. +It was due to the high ground that Clarice had made for them all out of +what she and the children stood for, that Peter's superior cash +contribution to the firm had become a privilege. They had had, he and +Ellen, their stringent occasions; it had been Clarice's part to see that +since they endured the pinch of poverty they should at least get +something human out of it. It came out for Peter pleasantly as he walked +home through the mild June evening, just how much they had had. Much, +much more than they would have been able to buy with the money they +might in strict equity have withdrawn from the business. Nothing, he had +long admitted, that he could have purchased for his sister would have +been so satisfying as what Clarice contributed, pressing the full cup of +her motherhood to Ellen's thirsty lips. They might have grown sleek, he +and Ellen, without exceeding a proper ratio of expenditure, and if in +the end they had been a little less rich, they would still have had +enough to go on being sleek and comfortable to the end. That he was +still fit, as Mrs. Lessing's transparent efforts to marry him to her +friends guaranteed him to be, he felt was owing greatly to the terms on +which Clarice had admitted him to the adventure of bringing up a family. +That a special fitness was required for admission to Mrs. Lessing's +circle he would have guessed even without the aid of print which +consistently described it as Our Best Society, for it was a Best +attested to by all the marks by which Clarice herself expressed the +essential fineness of things. + +One couldn't have told, from anything that appeared on the surface of +the Lessing's social environment, that life did not proceed there as it +did between Clarice and the Weatherals, by means of its subtler +sympathies, and proceed, at least so far as the women were concerned, on +a still higher plane of grace and harmony. It moved about her table and +across the lawns of Lessing's handsome country place, with such +soundless ease and perfection as it had glided for Peter through the +House with the Shining Walls. Or at least so it had seemed on those +occasions during the last few years when he had found himself wondrously +inside it. + +It had been accepted by Ellen on the mere certainty of Clarice's mother +having been one of the Thatcher Inwoods, that Clarice should enlarge +her social borders with Lessing's increasing means until they included +people among whom Ellen would have been miserably shy and out of tune. +But not Ellen herself guessed how much of Peter's admission to its +inaccessibility was owing to the returns from hardly snatched options +and long-nursed opportunities, coming in in checks of six figures. +Perhaps Clarice herself never knew. It was one of the things that went +with being a Thatcher Inwood, wherever an occasion presented a handle of +nobility, to seize by that and maintain it in the face of any contingent +smallness. Clarice wouldn't have introduced Peter to her friends if he +hadn't been fit, and it was part of the social creed of women like +Clarice Lessing, which takes almost the authority of religion, that he +wouldn't have been in a position to be introduced if he hadn't been fit. +So it had happened for the past two years that Peter had found himself +skirting the fringe of Best Society, and identifying it with the life he +had lived so long, sitting with his book open on his knees in their +little flat, with Ellen across the fire from him knitting white things +for Julian's children. But the idea that having come into this +neighbourhood of fine appreciations he was to take up his home and live +there, opened more slowly. It required more than one of Clarice's swift +hummingbird darts, more than the flutter of suggestion to brush its +petals awake for him. + +It lay so deep under all the years, the power of loving. He knew almost +nothing about it except that he had had it once, and that marriage +without it would be unthinkable, even such a marriage as Mrs. Lessing +had let him see was now possible to him. She had called with all her +delicate friendly skill, on something which only now under that summons +he began to miss. It was like a lost word in every sentence in which the +ordinary hopes of men are to be read, and he felt that until he found it +again all the help Mrs. Lessing could afford him would not enable him to +think of marriage as a thing desirable in itself. It was missing in him +still, when he came that night rather late to the apartment where only +the Japanese houseboy awaited him. One of the first things he had done +for Ellen with his increasing means, had been to buy back for her the +house at Bloombury with the garden and a bit of the orchard. She had +been there now since Decoration Day, retiring more and more into the +kindly village life as a point of vantage from which to mark with pride +the social distance that Peter travelled from her. It had been +understood from the beginning that she wasn't to go with him. The +tapping of her crutch was no more to be heard in the new gracious +existence than in the House where she had never followed him. Life for +Ellen was lived close at hand. There were hollyhocks and currant bushes +in her garden and Julian's children overran it. + +It was not Ellen then that Peter missed as he sat alone in the house +that night with his back to the lowered light and his gaze seeking the +river and the flitting shapes of boats that went up and down on it, +freighted with young voices and laughter. He missed the Lovely Lady. He +knew now why he had not been able to think of marriage in the way +Clarice held it out to him, as a happy contingency of his now being as +rich as he had intended to be. It was because he had not thought of her +clearly for a long time. + +There had been a period in the beginning of his life with Ellen, when +the lady of his dreams had been so near the surface of all his thinking +that she took on form and likeness from anything that was lovely and +young in his neighbourhood, but as things lovely and young drifted from +him with the years; and as the business took deeper and deeper hold on +his attention, she had become a mere floating figment, a live fluttering +spark in the very core of all his imaginings. + +She had been beside him, a pleasant, indeterminate presence in the long +journey she travelled from the printed page to the accompanying click of +Ellen's needles. Sometimes at the opera she took on a gossamer tint from +the singer's face, and longer ago than he could afford operas, he had +understood that all the beauty of the world, bursting apple buds, the +great curve of the surf that set the beaches trembling, derived somehow +its pertinence from her. Now at the age of forty he had ceased to think +very much about the Lovely Lady. + +It occurred to him that this might have something to do with his failure +to get a new relation to life out of his new wealth. + +It had struck Peter rather forlornly during the past few years that +there was little use he could put money to, except to make more money. +He could see by turning his head to the room behind him how little there +was there of what he had fancied once riches would bring him. The lines +of the room were good, the amount of the annual rent assured that to +him, the furniture was good and the rugs expensive. Ellen believed that +money in rugs was a good investment, particularly if the colours were +strong and would stand fading. There were some choice things here and +there, a vase and pictures which Peter had chosen for himself, though he +was aware, as he took them in under the dull glow, that Ellen had +arranged them in strict reference to the size of the frames, and that +the whole effect failed of satisfaction. He thought his life might be +somewhat like that room, full of good things but lacking the touch that +should set them in fruitful order. It stole over him as persuasively as +the warm growing smell of the park below him that the something missed +might be the touch and presence of the Lovely Lady. + + + + +II + + +It was the late end of the afternoon when Peter stepped off the train at +the Lessing's station and into the trap that was waiting for him. He +learned from Lessing's man that the family had been kept by the tennis +match at Maplemont and he was to come on to the house at his leisure. +That being the case, Peter took the reins himself and made a long detour +through the dust-smelling country roads, so that it was quite six when +he reached the house, and everybody dressing for the early dinner. + +He made so hasty a change himself in his fear of being late, that when +he came down to the living-room in a quarter of an hour there was no one +there to meet him. Absorbed particles of the bright day gave off in the +dusk and made it golden. There were honeysuckles on the pergola outside, +and in the room beyond a girl singing a quiet air, half-trilled and +half-forgotten. He heard the singer moving toward him through the vacant +house, of which the doors stood open to the evening coolness, and the +click of the electric button as she passed, and saw the rooms burst one +by one into the bloom of shaded lights. So she came, busy with the +hummed fragments of her songs, and turned the lamp full on Peter before +she was aware of him, but she was not half so much disconcerted. + +"You must be Mr. Weatheral," she said. "Mrs. Lessing sent me to say she +expected you. I am Miss Goodward." + +She gave him her hand for a gracious moment before she turned to what +had brought her so early down, the arrangement of two great bowls of +wild ferns and vines which a servant had just placed on either end of +the low mantlepiece. + +"We brought them in from Archer's Glen on the way home," she told him +over her shoulder, her hands busy with deft, quick touches. She was all +in white, which took a pearly lustre from the lamps, and for the moment +she was as beautiful as Peter believed her. A tiny unfinished phrase of +the song floated half consciously from her lips as a bubble. "They look +better so, don't you think?" As she stood off to measure the effect, it +seemed to Peter that the Spirit of the House had received him; it was so +men dream of home-coming, without sensible displacement of a life going +on in it, lovely and secure, as a bark slips into some still pool to its +moorings. He yielded himself naturally to the impersonal intimacy of her +welcome and all the sordid ways of his life led up to her. + +It was not all at once he saw it so. He kept watching her all that +evening as one watches a perfect thing, a bird or a dancer, sensing in +the slim turn of her ankle, the lithe throat, the delicate perfume that +she shook from her summer draperies, so many strokes of a master hand. +She was evidently on terms with the Lessings which permitted her +acceptance of him at the family valuation, but the perfection of her +method was such that it never quite sunk his identity as the junior +partner in his character of Uncle Peter. + +This was a nuance, if Peter had but known it, which Eunice Goodward +could have no more missed than she could have eaten with her knife. She +had been trained to the finer social adjustments as to a cult: Clarice's +game of persuading life to present itself with a smiling countenance, +played all in the key of personal relations. It was as if Nature, having +tried her hand at a great many ordinary persons, each with one gift of +sympathy or graciousness, had culled and compacted the best of them into +Eunice Goodward; which was precisely the case except that Peter through +his unfamiliarity with the Best Society couldn't be expected to know +that the intelligence which had put together so much perfectness was no +less calculating than that which goes to the matching of a string of +pearls. All that he got from it was precisely all that he was meant to +receive--namely, the conviction that she couldn't have charmed him so +had she not been altogether charming. + +And as yet he did not know what had happened to him. He thought, when he +awoke in the morning to a new realization of the satisfactoriness of +living, that the fresh air had done it, the breath of the nearby +untrimmed forest, the loose-leaved roses pressed against the pane +beginning to give off warm odours in the sun. Then he came out on the +terrace and saw Eunice Goodward, looking like a thin slip of the morning +herself, in a blue dress buttoned close to her figure with wide white +buttons and a tiny froth of white at the short sleeves and open throat. +Across her bosom it was caught with a blue stone set in dull silver, +which served also to hold in place a rose that matched the morning tint +of her skin. She was talking with the Lessings' chauffeur as Peter came +up with her and all her accents were of dismay. They were to have driven +over to Maplemont that afternoon, she explained to Peter, for the last +of the tennis sets, and now Gilmore had just told her that the car must +go to the shop for two or three days. She was so much more charming in +the way she forgave Gilmore for her evident disappointment that he, +being a young man and troubled by a sense of moral responsibility, was +quite overcome by it. + +"But, nonsense"; Peter was certain "there is always something can be +done to cars." There was, Gilmore assured him, but it took time to do +it, and to-morrow would be Sunday. "If you'd only thought to come down +in the motor yourself, sir----" the chauffeur reproached him. The truth +was that Peter hadn't a car of his own and Gilmore knew it. There was an +electric runabout which had gone down to Bloombury with Ellen, and a +serviceable roadster which was part of the office equipment, but the +rich Mr. Weatheral had never taken the pains to own a private car. Now, +as he hastily drew out his watch, it occurred to him that Lessing's +chauffeur was a fellow of more perspicuity than he had given him credit +for. The two men communicated wordlessly across the cool width of the +terrace steps. + +"At what hour," Peter wished to know, "would we have to leave here to +reach Maplemont in good time? Then if you can be ready to leave the +moment my car gets here...." He excused himself to go to the telephone; +half an hour later when he joined the family at breakfast he had +discovered some of the things that, besides making more money with it, +can be done with money. + +The knowledge suited him like his own garment, as if it had been lying +ready for him to put on when the occasion required it, and now became +him admirably. He perceived it to be a proper male function to produce +easily and with precision whatever utterly charming young ladies might +reasonably require. He appreciated Miss Goodward's acceptance of it as +she came down from the house bewilderingly tied into soft veils for the +afternoon's drive, as a part of her hall-marked fineness. If she +couldn't help knowing, taking in the car's glittering newness from point +to point, that its magnificence had materialized out of her simple wish +for it, she at least didn't allow him to think it was any more than she +would have expected of him. So completely did he yield himself to this +new sense of the fitness of things that it came as a shock to have her, +as soon as they had joined themselves to the holiday-coloured crowd that +streamed and shifted under the bright boughs of Maplemont, reft from him +by friendly, compelling voices, and particularly by Burton Henderson, +who played singles and went about bareheaded and singularly +self-possessed. It was unthinkable to Peter that, in view of her +recently discovered importance in putting him at rights with himself, +that he hadn't arranged with her that they were to be more together. For +the moment it was almost a derogation of her charm that she shouldn't +herself have recognized by some overt act her extraordinary opportunity. +And then in a moment more he perceived that she had recognized it. He +had only to wait, as he saw, and he would find himself pleasantly beside +her, and at each renewal of the excluding companionship, he was more +subtly aware that it was accorded not to anything he was but to what she +had it in her power so beautifully to make of him. + +So perfectly did she strike the key with him, when, in the intervals of +the afternoon's entertainment they found themselves sitting or walking +together, that he could not have imagined her to have been out of it, +not even in a rather long session after tea with Burton Henderson among +the rhododendrons, in which it was apparent from the young man's manner +that she hadn't at least been in tune with him. It occurred just as they +were leaving and served in the flutter of delay it occasioned to fix +the attention of all their party on Eunice coming out of the shrubbery +with young Henderson in her wake, batting aimlessly at the grass-tops +with the racquet which he still carried. There was an air of sulkiness +about him which caused Mrs. Lessing enigmatically to say that Eunice was +altogether too good to that young man. To which Lessing's "Well, if she +is, he doesn't seem to appreciate," served also to confirm Peter in the +role which the effect she produced on himself had created for him. He at +least appreciated the way in which she had made him feel himself the +Distributer of Benefits, to a degree which made it almost obligatory of +her to go on with it. + +Successfully as Miss Goodward had kept for Peter during the day his new +relation to his wealth on the one hand and society on the other, she +seemed that evening quite to have abandoned him. While the family was +having coffee on the terrace after dinner, she slipped away from them to +reappear lower down among the rose trees, her white dress gathering all +that was left of the lingering glow. The junior partner, feeling himself +never so much junior, though he knew it was but a scant year or two, +sat on through Lessing's inconsequential comment on business and the +day's adventures, hearing not a word; now and then his chair creaked +with the intensity of his preoccupation. It grew dusk and the lamps +blossomed in the house behind them; presently Clarice slipped away to +the children and the evening damp fell over the rose garden. Peter could +endure it no longer. He believed as he rose suddenly with a stretching +movement that he meant merely to relieve the tension of sitting by +pacing up and down; it was unaccountable therefore that he should find +himself at the edge of the terrace. He wondered why on earth Clarice +couldn't have helped him a little, and then as if in response to his +deep instinctive demand upon her, he heard her call softly to her +husband from the door of the house. At the scrape of Julian's chair on +the terrace tiling, Peter cast away his cigar and hurried into the dusk +of the garden. + +He found her at last by the herbacious border, keeping touch with the +flight of a sphinx-head moth along the tall white rockets of phlox. +Peter whipped out his handkerchief and dropped it deftly over the +fluttering wings. In a moment he had stilled them in his hand. Miss +Goodward cried out to him: + +"You've spoiled his happy evening!" + +"He's not hurt...." Peter laid the moth gently on a feathery flower +head, and the tiny whispering whirr began again. "I thought you wanted +him." + +"I did--but not to catch him," Miss Goodward explained. "I wanted just +to want him." + +"Ah, I'm afraid I'm one of those people with whom to want a thing is to +go after it," Peter justified himself. + +"So one gathers from what one hears." She brushed him as lightly with +the compliment as with the wings of a moth. "I wasn't really wanting him +so much as I was wanting to _be_ him for a while. Just to pass from one +lovely hour to another and nothing to pay! But we humans have always to +pay something." + +"Or some one pays for us." + +"Well, isn't that worse ... taking it out of somebody else?" + +"I'm not so sure; some people enjoy paying. It's not a bad feeling, I +assure you: being able to pay. Haven't you found that out yet?" + +"Not in Trethgarten Square." Mrs. Lessing had managed to let him know +during the day that her guest had been reared within the sacred pale of +those first families in whom the choice stock of humanness is refined by +being maintained at precisely the same level for at least three +generations. + +"In Trethgarten Square," Peter reminded her, "we are told that you +settle your account just by _being_; that you manage somehow to become +something so superior and delectable that the rest of us are willing to +pay for the privilege of having you about." He would have liked to add +that recently, no later in fact than the evening before, he had come to +think that this was so, but as she hesitated in her walk beside him, he +saw that she was concerned in putting the case to herself quite as much +as to him. + +"It's not that exactly; more perhaps that our whole thought about life +is to live it so that there won't be anything to pay. We have to manage +to add things up like a column of figures with nothing to carry. +Perhaps that's why we get so little out of it." + +"Don't you?"--he was genuinely surprised, "get anything out of it, I +mean." + +"Oh, but I'm a selfish beast, I suppose! I want more--more!" They swung +as she spoke into a broad beam of yellow light raying out from the +library window, and he saw by it that with the word she flung out her +arms with a lovely upward motion that lifted his mood to the crest of +audacity. + +"If you keep on looking like that," Peter assured her, "you'll get it." +He was struck dumb immediately after with apprehension. It sounded +daring, like a thing said in a book; but she took it as it came lightly +off the tip of his impulse, laughing. "Yes ... the great difficulty is +choosing which of so many things one really wants." They walked on then +in silence, the air darkling after the sudden shaft of illumination, the +light folds of her scarf brushing his sleeve. Peter was considering how +he might say, without precipitation, how suddenly she had limited and +defined all the things that he wanted by expressing them so perfectly +in herself, when she interrupted him. + +"There's our moth again," she pointed; "he settles it by taking all of +them. It's a possibility denied to us." + +"Even he," Peter insisted, "has to reckon with such incidents as my +dropping on him just now. I might have wanted him for a collection." + +"Oh, if he takes us into account it must be as men used to think of the +gods walking." Suddenly the familiar beds and hedges widened for Peter; +they stretched warm and tender to the borders of youth and the unmatched +Wonder.... It was so they had talked when they walked together in the +Garden which was about the House.... + +For some time after Miss Goodward left him Peter remained walking up and +down, thinking of many things and unable to think of them clearly +because of a pleasant blur of excitement in his brain. As he came +finally back to the house he heard the Lessings talking from behind one +of the open windows. + +"My word, that car was never out of the shop before," Julian was saying. +"He's a _goner!_" + +"And that lovely, dusty, brown colour that goes so well with her hair! +Who would have thought Peter would be so noticing." + +"It couldn't have cost him a cent under seven thousand." Julian was +certain, "and carrying it off with me the way he did--bought the six +cylinder after all, he had.... I'll bet old Peter don't know a cylinder +from a stomach pump." + +Clarice was evidently going on with her own line of thought. "It will be +the best thing that ever happened to Eunice if she can only be got to +see it." + +"Well, if she don't her mother will see it for her." Lessing's voice +died into a subdued chuckle as Peter passed under it on the dew-damp +lawn, but there was no revelation in it for the junior partner. He had +already found out what was the matter with him and what he meant to do +about it. + + + + +III + + +Whatever the process of becoming engaged to Eunice Goodward lacked of +dramatic interest, it made up to Peter by being such a tremendous +adventure for him to become engaged to anybody. + +He had gone through life much as his unfriended youth had strayed +through the city streets, aching for the walled-up splendour--all the +world's chivalries, tendernesses, passions--known to him only by +glimmers and reflections on the plain glass of duty. Now at a word the +glass dissolved and he was free to wander through the rooms crammed with +imperishable poets' wares. He walked there not only as one who has the +price to buy, but himself made one of the splendid things of earth by +this same word which her mere being pronounced to him. + +He paid himself for years of denials and repressions by the discovery of +being able to love in such a key. For he meant quite simply to marry +Eunice Goodward if she would have him, and it was no vanity which gave +him hope, but a tribute to her fineness as being able to see herself so +absolutely the one thing his life waited for. He knew himself, modestly, +no prize for her except as he was added to by inestimable passion. +Whatever she saw in him as a man, for her not to recognize the immortal +worth of what he was able to become under her hand, was to subtract +something from her perfections. In her acceptance would lie the Queen's +touch, redeeming him from all commonness. + +He made his first venture within a week after their first meeting, in a +call on Miss Goodward and her mother in Trethgarten Square, where he +found their red brick, vine-masked front distinguishable among half a +hundred others by being kept open as late as the middle of June. To +their being marooned thus in a desert of boarded-up doors and shuttered +windows, due, as Eunice had frankly and charmingly let him know, to +their being poor among their kind, he doubtless owed it that no other +callers came to disturb the languid afternoon. Seen against her proper +background of things precious but worn, and in the style of a preceding +generation, the girl showed even lovelier than before, with the rich, +perfumed quality of a flower held in a chipped porcelain vase, a flower +moreover secure in its own perfectness, waiting only to be worn, +disdaining alike to offer or resist. Her very quietness--she left him, +in fact, almost wholly to her mother--had the air of condoning his +state, of understanding what he was there for and of finding it somehow +an accentuation of the interest they let him see that he had for them. +He found them, mother and daughter, more alike, in spite of their +natural and evident difference of years, more of a degree than he was +accustomed to find mother and daughters in the few houses where the +business of growing rich had admitted him, as though they had been +carved out of the same material, by the same distinguished artist, at +different times in his career. + +It contributed to the effect of his having found, not by accident, but +by seeking, a frame of life kept waiting for him, kept warm and +conscious. Presently Eunice poured tea for them, and the intimacy of her +remembering as she did, how he took it, had its part in the freedom +which he presently found for offering hospitality on his own account, +not at his home, as he explained to them, his sister being away, but say +a dinner at Briar Crest to which they might motor out pleasantly +Saturday afternoon, returning by moonlight. He offered Briar Crest +tentatively on the strength of the Lessings having once given a dinner +there, and was relieved to find that he had made no mistake. + +"A great many of your friends go there," Mrs. Goodward allowed; "the Van +Stitarts, Eunice, you remember." + +"The Gherberdings are there now, mamma; I'm sure we shall enjoy it." + +Having crossed thus at one fortunate stroke the frontiers of social +observance, to which Clarice had but edged her way in the right of being +a Thatcher Inwood, Peter ventured on Friday to suggest by telephone that +since dinner must be late, the ladies should meet him at what he had +taken pains to ascertain was the correct one of huge uptown hotels, for +tea before starting. It was Mrs. Goodward who answered him and she whom +he met in the white, marble tessellated tea-room, explaining that Eunice +had had some shopping to do--they were really leaving on Saturday--and +Mr. Weatheral was to order tea without waiting. They had time, however, +for the tea to be drunk and for Mrs. Goodward to become anxious in a +gentle, ladylike way, before it occurred to Peter to suggest that Miss +Goodward might be lurking anywhere in the potted palm and marble +pillared labyrinth, waiting for _them_, suffering equal anxieties, and +dreadful to think of in their present replete condition, languishing for +tea. His proposal to go and look for her was accepted with just the +shade of deprecation which admitted him to an amused tolerance of the +girl's delinquencies, as if somehow Eunice wouldn't have dared to be +late with him had she not had reason more than ordinary for counting on +his indulgence. + +"You'll find," Mrs. Goodward let him know, "that we require a deal of +looking after, Eunice and I." + +"Ah, I only hope you'll find that I'm equal to it." Peter had answered +her with so little indirection that it drew from the older woman a +quick, mute flush of sympathy. For a moment the homeliness of his lean +countenance was relieved with so redeeming a touch of what all women +most wish for in all men that she met it with an equal simplicity. "For +myself I am sure of it," but lifted next moment to a lighter key, with +a smile very like her daughter's dragged a little awry by the use of +years, "as for Eunice, you'll first have to lay hands on her." + +With this permission he rose and made the circuit of the semi-divided +rooms, coming out at last into the dim rotunda, forested with clustered +porphyry columns, and there at last he caught sight of her. She had but +just stepped into its shaded coolness out of the hot, bright day, and +hung for a moment, in the act of furling her parasol, in which he was +about to hail her, until he discovered by his stepping into range from +behind one of the green pillars, that she was also in the act of saying +good-bye to Burton Henderson. There was a certain finality in the way +she held out her hand to him which checked Peter in the hospitable +impulse to include the younger man in the afternoon's diversion. He +stepped back the moment he saw that she was having trouble with her +escort, defending herself by her manner from something accusing in his. +Not to seem to spy upon her, Weatheral made his way back though the +coatroom without disclosing himself. From the door of it he timed his +return so as to meet her face to face as she came up with Mrs. Goodward +and was rewarded for it by the gayety of her greeting and the +unaffectedness of her attack of the fresh relay of toasted muffins and +tea. + +"Absolutely famished," she told them, "and the shops are _so_ +fascinating! You'd forgive me, Mr. Weatheral, if you could see the heaps +and heaps of lovely things simply begging to be bought; it seemed +positively unkind to come away and leave any of them." As she said +nothing whatever about the young man, it seemed unlikely that she could +have him much on her mind. She had a new way, very charming to Peter, of +surrendering the afternoon into his hands; let him ask nothing of her +she seemed to say, but to enjoy herself. She built out of their being +there before her, a very delightful supposition of her mother and Mr. +Weatheral, between them having made a little space for her to be gay in +and simple and lovely after her own kind. If she took any account of +them it was such as a dancer might who, practising a few steps for the +mere joy and pride of it, finds herself unexpectedly surrounded by an +interested and smiling audience. + +If, however, with the memory of that afternoon upon him, Peter had gone +down to Fairport in the latter part of July with the expectation of +resuming the part of impresario to her charm, he suffered a sharp +disappointment. He found the Goodwards, not in the expensive caravansary +in which he installed himself, but in a smaller tributary house set back +from the main hotel though not quite disconnected with it; for quiet, +Mrs. Goodward told him, though he guessed quite as much from economy. + +"It's wonderful, really, what they do with so little," Clarice, with her +fine discriminations in the obligations of friendship, had generously +let him know. "Eunice hasn't anything, positively not _any_thing in +comparison with what people of her class usually have. And with her +taste, you know, there must be things she's just aching for, that +somehow you can't give her." You couldn't, indeed. Though Peter made +excuses enough for giving her the use of his car, and giving it to her +shorn even of the implication of his society, there were few occasions +when he could do even so much as that. He couldn't even give her his +appreciations. + +For at Fairport the Goodwards were quite in the heart of all that Peter +himself failed to understand that he couldn't possibly be. It was not +that he wasn't to the extent at least of sundry invitations given and +accepted, "in" as much of the Best Society as Fairport afforded. Mrs. +Goodward saw to that, and there were two or three whom he had met at the +Lessings' as well as men to whom the figure of his income was the cachet +of eligibility. It wasn't indeed that he wasn't liked, and that quite at +his proper worth, but that he couldn't somehow manage it so that the +Best Society cared in the least whether he liked it. He could see, in a +way, where Clarice had been at work for him; but the poison that was +dropped in his cup was the certainty that the way for him had to be +"worked." The discovery that he couldn't just find his way to Eunice +Goodward's side by the same qualities that had placed him beside the +males of her circle in point of property and power, that he couldn't +without admission to that circle, properly court her, hemmed him in +bewilderingly. + +Her method of eluding him, if there were method in it, left him feeling +not so much avoided as prevented by the moves of a game he hadn't meant +to play. So greatly it irked his natural simplicity to be banded about +by the social observances of the place, that it might have led him to +irrecoverable mistakes had it not been for the hand held out to him by +Mrs. Goodward. + +He perceived on closer acquaintance, that this lady's fine serenity of +manner was due largely to her never admitting to her mind the upsetting +possibility. She thought her world into acceptable shape and held it +there by the simple process of ignoring the eccentricities of its axis. + +Peter would have admired, if his unsophistication had allowed him, the +facility with which she made it revolve now about their mutual pursuit +of Eunice through the rattle and cheapness of what was known as "the +Burton Henderson set." As it was against just such social inconsequence +that Peter felt himself strong to defend her, he fell easily into the +key of crediting the girl's sudden, bewildering flight to it as a mere +midsummer madness. + +"It's the way with girls, I fancy," Mrs. Goodward had said to him, +strolling up and down the hotel veranda where through the wide French +windows they had glimpses of Eunice whirling away on the ice polished +floor of the ballroom within; "they cling the more to gayety as they see +the graver things of life bearing down upon them." + +"You think she sees that?" + +"Ah, there's much a mother sees, Mr. Weatheral----" + +"You would, of course," he accepted. + +"It's a woman's part, seeing; there's an instinct in us not to see too +soon." She gave him the benefit of her sweet weighted smile. + +Peter lived greatly on these things. He was so sure of himself, of the +reality and strength of his passion; he had a feeling of its being quite +enough for them to go on, an inexhaustible, fairy capital out of which +almost anything that Eunice Goodward desired might be drawn. It was +fortunate that he found his passion so self-sufficing, for there was +little enough that Eunice afforded it by way of sustenance. For a week +he no more than kept in sight of her in the inevitable summer round; he +did not dance and the game of cards he could play was gauged to what +Ellen could manage in an occasional quiet evening at the Lessings'. + +"I suppose," Eunice had said to him on an occasion when he had known +enough to decline an invitation for an afternoon's play to which Burton +Henderson was carrying her away, "that the stakes we play for aren't any +temptation to _you_." + +"I think that they're out of proportion to the trouble you have to be at +to win them." + +"Oh, if you don't care for the game----" + +"I don't." And then casting about for a phrase that explained him more +happily, "Put it that I like to cut out my job and go to it." She gave +him a quick, condoning flash of laughter; the phrase was Lessing's and +out of her recognition of it he drew, loverlike, that assurance of +common understanding so dear to lovers. "Put it," he ventured further, +"that I don't like to see myself balked of the prize by the way the +cards are dealt." + +"Ah, but that's what makes it a game. I'd no idea you were such +a--revolutionist." + +"Evolutionist," he corrected, happy in having touched the subtler note +behind their persiflage. "I've all science on my side for the most +direct method." After all, why should he let even the Best Society deal +the cards for him? Should not a man sweep the boards of whatever kept +him from his natural mate? + +That was on Tuesday, and the Thursday following he had asked the +Goodwards to motor over to Lighthouse Reef with him. He did not know +quite what he meant to bring about on this occasion; he had so much the +feeling of its being an occasion, the invitation had been so pointedly +given and accepted, it was with difficulty he adjusted himself to the +discovery on arriving at their hotel with the car, that Eunice had gone +to play tennis instead. + +"The time is so short," Mrs. Goodward apologized; "she felt she must +make the most of it." She had to leave it there, not being able to make +a game of tennis in the hot sun seem more of a diversion than the steady +pacing of the luxurious car along the road which laced the forest to +the singing beaches. She had to let her sidewise smile do what it could +toward making the girl's bald evasion of her engagement seem the mere +flutter and hesitancy of besieged femininity. For the moment she was as +much "outside" so far as her daughter was concerned as Peter was of the +select bright circle in which she moved. + +The way opened before them, beautiful in late bloom and heavy fern, +above which the sea wind kept a perpetual movement of aliveness. + +"Eunice _will_ miss it," Mrs. Goodward rallied; "such a perfect +afternoon!" She gave him the oblique smile again, weighted this time +with the knowledge of all that Peter hadn't been able or hadn't tried to +keep from her. "It isn't easy, is it," she went on addressing her speech +to whatever, at the mention of her daughter's name, hung in the air +between them, "to stand by and see other people's great moments hover +over them. One would like so to lend a hand. And one is sure of nothing +so much as that if they are really to _be_ big, one mustn't." + +"If you feel that," Peter snatched at encouragement, "that it is really +the big thing for her--what I'm sure you can't help knowing what I +mean--what I hope." + +"What _I_ feel----? After all, it's _her_ feeling, my dear Mr. +Weatheral, that we have to take into account. It wouldn't be fair for me +to attempt to answer to you for that!" + +"And of course if I can't _make_ her feel...." He did not trust himself +to a conclusion. + +They found, however, when the road issued on the coast opposite the +great bursting bulks of spray, that Eunice's desertion and the +extenuation of it to which they had lent themselves, had put them out of +the mood for the high wind and warring surf of the Reef. Accordingly +they turned aside at Peter's suggestion to have tea at a little country +inn farther back in the hills, where the pound of the sea was reduced to +a soft, organ-booming bass to which the shrill note of the needles +countered in perfect tune. The tea garden, the favourite port of call +for afternoon drives from the resorts hereabouts, lay back of the +hostelry in a narrow, ferny glen from which springs issued. As Peter led +the way up its rocky stair, they could hear the light laughter of a +party just rising from one of the round rustic tables. The group +descending poured past them a summer-coloured runnel down the little +glen, and left them face to face with Eunice, who had lingered, her +dress caught on a point of the rustic chair. + +"Mamma--you!" She looked trapped, accused, though sheer astonishment +held the others dumb. "We finished the game----" she began and stopped +short; after all, her manner seemed to say, why shouldn't she have tea +there with her friends? She made as if to sweep past after them but Mrs. +Goodward never moved from the narrow path. She was more embarrassed, +Peter saw, than her daughter, and as plainly at bay. + +"Now that we are here----" she began in her turn. + +"Now that you have followed me here," the girl rang out, "what is it +that you have to say to me?" She was white and a bright flame spot +showed on either cheek. + +"I--oh," the elder woman by an effort drew the remnant of the grand +manner about her; "it is Mr. Weatheral, I think, who might have +something to say." She caught the occasion as it were on the wing. Peter +heard the quick breath behind him with which she grasped it. "Now that +you are here, however, I'll tell your party that you will be driving +home with us." She gathered up her draperies and was gone down the path +she had come before either of the others thought to stop her. Eunice had +not made a move to do so. She stood clasping the back of the chair from +which she had freed her dress, and looked across it mutinously at Peter. + +"And what," she quivered, "has Mr. Weatheral to say to me?" + +"There is nothing," he told her, "that I would say to you, Miss +Goodward, unless you wished to hear it." His magnanimity shamed her a +little. + +"I broke my engagement to you," she admitted, "broke it to come here +with--the others. I haven't any excuse to offer you." + +"And when," Peter demanded of her, "have I asked any other excuse of you +for anything that you chose to do except that you chose it. There _was_ +something I wished to say to you, that I hoped for a more auspicious +occasion...." He hurried on with it suddenly as a thing to be got over +with at all hazards. "It was to say that I hoped you might not find it +utterly beyond you to think of marrying me." He saw her sway a little, +holding still to her chair, and moved toward her a step, dizzy himself +with the sudden onset of emotion. "But now that it is said, if it +distresses you we will say no more about it." She waved him back for a +moment without altering her strained, trapped attitude. + +"Have you said this to mamma? And has she--has she said anything to you? +About me, I mean; how I might take it, or anything?" + +"She said that she couldn't answer for you; that it was your feeling +that must be taken into account. She put me, so to speak, on my own feet +in so far as _that_ was concerned." He waited for her answer to that, +and none coming, though he saw that she grew a little easier, he went on +presently. "There is, however, much that I feel ought to be said about +my feeling for you, what it means to me, what I hoped----" She stopped +him with a gesture; he could see her lovely manner coming back to her as +quiet comes to the surface of a smitten pool. + +"That--one may take for granted, may one not? Since you _have_ asked me, +that the feeling that goes to it is all I have a right to ask?" + +"Quite, quite," he assured her. "It may be," he managed to smile upon +her here for the easing of her sweet discomposure, "it may very easily +be that I was thinking too much of my pleasure in saying it." + +"It would, then, be a pleasure?" She had the air of snatching at that as +something concrete, graspable. + +"It would, and it wouldn't. I mean if you were bothered by it. You could +take everything for granted, everything." + +"Even," she insisted, "to the point of taking it for granted that you +would take things for granted from me: that you wouldn't expect +anything--any expression, anything more than just accepting you?" + +"Ah!" he cried, the wonder, the amazement of success breaking upon him. +"If you accepted me what more _could_ I expect." He had clasped the hand +which she held out to check him and held it against his heart firmly +that she shouldn't see how he trembled. + +"I haven't, you know," she reminded him, "but if I was sure--very sure +that you wouldn't ask any more of me than thinking, I ... might think +about it." She was trembling now, though her hand was so cold, and +suddenly a tear gathered and dropped, splashing her fine wrist. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" he cried, moved more than he had thought it +possible to be; "you can be perfectly sure that there will never be +anything between you and me that shall not be exactly as you wish." He +suited his action to the word, kissing the wet splash and letting her +go. + +"Why, then," she recovered herself with the smile that was now strangely +like her mother's, sweeter for being smiled a little awry, "the best +thing you can do is to find poor mamma and let us give her a cup of +tea." + + + + +IV + + +"Peter, have you any idea what I am thinking about?" + +"Not in the least, Ellen," which was not strictly the truth. He +supposed she must be thinking naturally of the news he had told her not +an hour since, of his engagement to Eunice Goodward. It lay so close to +the surface of his own mind at all times that the slightest stir of +conversation, like the wind above a secret rose, seemed always about to +disclose it. They were sitting on the porch at Bloombury and the pointed +swallows pitched and darted about the eaves. + +"It was the smell of the dust that reminded me," said Ellen, "and the +wild rose at the turn of the road; you can smell it as plain as plain +when the air lifts a little. Do you remember a picnic that we were +invited to and couldn't go? It was on account of being poor ... and I +was just finding it out. I found out a good many things that summer; +about my always going to be lame and what it would mean to us. It was +dreadful to me that I couldn't be lame just by myself, but I had to mix +up you and mother in it." + +"We were glad, Ellen, to be mixed up in it if it made things easier for +you." + +"I know ... times I felt that way about it too, but that was when I was +older ... as if it sort of held us all together; like somebody who had +belonged to us all and had died. Only it was me that died, the me that +would have been if I hadn't been lame.... Well, I hadn't thought it out +so far that first summer; I just hated it because it kept us from doing +things like other people. You were fond of Ada Brown, I remember, and it +was because I was lame and we were so poor and all, that you couldn't go +with her and she got engaged to Jim Harvey. I hope you don't think I +have a bad heart, Peter, but I was always glad that Ada didn't turn out +very well. Every time I saw her getting homelier and kind of bedraggled +like, I said to myself, well, I've saved Peter from that at any rate. I +couldn't have borne it if she had turned out the kind of a person you +ought to have married." + +"You shouldn't have worried, Ellen; very few men marry the first woman +they are interested in." + +"There was a girl you used to write home about--at that boarding-house. +I used to get you to write. I daresay you thought I was just curious. +But I was trying to find out something that would make me perfectly sure +she wasn't good enough for you. She was a typewriter, wasn't she?" + +"Something of that sort." + +"Well!" Ellen took him up triumphantly, "you wouldn't have wanted to be +married to a typewriter _now!"_ + +"I never really thought of marrying one, Ellen. I'm sure everything has +turned out for the best." + +"That's what I'm trying to tell you. You see I was determined it should +turn out that way. I said, what was the use of being lame and being a +burden to you unless there was something _meant_ by it. I'd have fretted +dreadfully if I hadn't felt that there was something to come out of it. +And it has come.... Peter, you'd rather I'd saved you for this than +anything that might have happened?" + +"Much rather, Ellen." + +It had surprised him in the telling, to see how accurately his sister +had gauged the worldly advantage of his marriage. If Eunice Goodward had +been a piece of furniture, Ellen couldn't have appraised her better at +her obvious worth: beauty and character and family and the mysterious +cachet of society. Clarice had been at work there, too, he suspected. +Miss Goodward fitted in Ellen's mind's eye into her brother's life and +fortune as a picture into its frame. + +"I'm very glad you feel that way about it, Ellen," he said again; he was +on the point of telling her about the House of Shining Walls. The +material from which he had drawn its earliest furnishings lay all about +them, the receding blue of the summer sky, the aged, arching apple +boughs. The scent of the wilding rose came faintly in from the country +road--suddenly his sister surprised him with a flash of rare insight. + +"I guess there can't anything keep us from the best except ourselves," +she said. "Being willing to put up with the second best gives us more +trouble than the Lord ever meant for us. Think of the way I've always +wanted children--but if they'd been my real own, they'd have been +sickly, likely, or even lame like me, or just ordinary like the only +kind of man who would have married me. As it is, I've had Clarice's and +now----" She broke off with a quick, old-maidish colour. + +Ellen had gone so far as to name all of Peter's children in the days +when nothing seemed so unlikely; now in the face of his recent +engagement she would have thought it indelicate. + +"_She_ would have liked you marrying so well, Peter," she finished with +a backward motion of her head toward the room where the parlour set, +banished long ago from the town house, symbolized for Ellen the brooding +maternal presence. + +"Yes, she would have liked it." There came back to him with deep +satisfaction his mother's appraisement of young Mrs. Dassonville, who +must, as he recalled her, have been shaped by much the same frame of +life as Eunice Goodward--the Lovely Lady. The long unused phrase had +risen unconsciously to his lips on the day that he had brought Eunice +her ring. He had spent a whole week in the city choosing it; three +little flawless, oblong emeralds set with diamonds, almost encircling +her finger with the mystic number seven. He had discovered on the day +that she had accepted him, that it had to be emeralds to match the +green lights that her eyes took on in the glen from the deep fern, the +mossy bank and the green boughs overhead. On the terrace at Lessings' +under a wide June sky he had supposed them to be blue; but there was no +blue stone of that sky colour of sufficient preciousness for Eunice +Goodward. + +She had been very sweet about the ring, touched with grateful surprise +for its beauty and its taste. Something he could see of relief, of +assurance, flashed and fell between the two women as she showed it to +her mother. They had taken him so beautifully on trust, they couldn't +have known, he reflected, whether he would rise at all to the delicate, +balanced observation of life among them; it was evidence, the emerald +circlet, of how satisfyingly he had risen. The look that passed between +mother and daughter was like a spark that lighted as it fell, an +unsuspected need of him as man merely, the male element, security, +dependability, care. His first response to it was that of a swimmer who +has struck earth under him; he knew in that flash where he was, by what +familiar shores; and the whole effect, in spite of him was of the +sudden shrinkage of that lustrous sea in which his soul and sense had +floated. It steadied him, but it also for the moment narrowed a little +the horizon of adventure. It was the occasion that Eunice took to define +for him his status as an engaged man. + +He kept as far as he was able his compact of expecting nothing of her, +except of course that he couldn't avoid expecting that their arrangement +would lead in the natural course to marriage. She had met him more than +halfway in that, agreeing to an earlier date than he had thought +compatible with the ritual of engagements in the Best Society. She had +managed, however, that Peter should present her with her summer freedom: +the engagement was not even to be announced until their return to town. +And in the meantime Peter was to find a house. He had offered her travel +for that first year. Europe, which he had scarcely glimpsed, glittered +and allured. But travel, Eunice let him know, went much better when you +had a place to come back to. He saw at once how right was everything she +did. Well, then, a house on Fillmore Avenue? + +"Oh--shall we be so rich as that, Peter?" He divined some embarrassment +in her as to the scale in which they were to live. "We'll want something +in the country, too," she reminded him. + +"I've a couple of options at Maplemont----" + +"Oh, Maplemont----" She liked that also, he perceived. + +"And a place in Florida. Lessing and I bought it the winter the children +had the diphtheria. They've a very pretty bungalow; we could put up +something like it for ourselves--if you wouldn't mind my sister +occasionally. Ellen isn't happy at hotels." + +"Mind! with all you're giving me! You won't think it's just the money, +Peter;" she had a very charming hesitancy about it. "It's what money +stands for, beauty, and suitability--and--everything." He was very +tender with her. + +"It's not that I have such a pile of it either," he assured her, "though +I turn over a great deal in the course of a year. It's easier making +money than people think." + +"Easier for everybody?" There was a certain eagerness in the look and +voice. + +"Easier for those who know how. I'm only forty, and I've learned; +there's not much I couldn't get if I set about it. It's a kind of a +gift, perhaps, like painting or music, but there's a great deal to be +learned, too." + +"And some haven't the gift to learn, perhaps." For some reason she +sighed.... He was turning all this over in his mind when suddenly Ellen +recalled him. + +"Have you told Clarice yet?" + +"I mean to, Sunday, if you don't mind my not coming down to you. Miss +Goodward is spending the week end at Maplemont, and by staying at +Julian's----" + +"Of _course_." Ellen sympathized. "I shall want to know what Clarice +says." She never did know exactly, for when Clarice gave Peter her +congratulations in the terrace garden after dinner, she missed, +extraordinarily for her, the felicitous note. + +"I'm so happy for Eunice, you can't imagine," she insisted. "I've always +said we've none of us known what Eunice can do until she's had her +opportunity. And now with all the background you can give her---- You'll +see!" + +He didn't quite know what he was to see except that if Eunice were to be +in the picture it was bound to be satisfying. But Mrs. Lessing was not +done with him. "For all her being so beautiful and so well placed," she +went on, "Eunice has never had any life at all, not what you might call +a life. And she might so easily have missed this. It is hard for girls +to realize sometimes that the success of marriage depends on real +qualities in the man, in mastery over things and not just over her +susceptibilities. It is quite the most sensible thing I've known Eunice +to do." + +"Only," Peter reminded her for his part, "I'm not just exactly doing it +because it is sensible." Her "of course not" was convinced enough to +have stilled the vague ruffling of his mind, without doing it. He didn't +object to having his qualifications as Eunice Goodward's husband taken +solidly, but why dwell upon them when it was just the particular +distinction of his engagement that it had the intensity, the spiritual +extension which was supposed to put it out of reach of material +considerations. Even Ellen had done better by him than this. + +He was forced, however, to come back to the substance of Mrs. Lessing's +comment a few days later when he was being dined at the club by a +twice-removed cousin of the Goodward's, the upright, elderly symbol of +the male sanction which was the most that his fiancee's fatherless +condition could furnish forth. The man was cordial enough; he was even +prepared to find Peter likable; but even more on that account to measure +his relation to Miss Goodward in terms of its being a "good thing." + +"It's not, you know," his host couldn't forebear to remind him, "exactly +the sort of a marriage we expected of Eunice; but if the girl is +satisfied----" + +"If I hadn't satisfied myself on that point----" Peter reminded him in +his turn. + +"Quite so, quite so ... girls have notions sometimes; one never quite +knows ... You'll keep on with your--just _what_ is it you do such +tremendous things with; one hears of course that you _do_ do them----" + +"Real estate, brokerage," Peter enlightened him. "I shall certainly keep +on with it. Isn't one supposed to have all the more need of it when +there's an establishment to keep up?" + +The symbol waved a deprecating hand. "You'll find it rather an +occupation to keep up with Eunice, I'm thinking. I've a notion she'll go +it, once she has the chance." + +"If by going it, you mean going out a great deal, seeing the world and +having it in to see her, well, why shouldn't she, so long as I have the +price?" He could only take it good-naturedly. It was amusing when you +came to think of it, that a man who would contribute to the sum of his +wife's future perhaps, the price of a silver tea salver, should so hold +him to account for it. Nevertheless the talk left a faint savour of +dryness. It was part of his new pride in himself as a possession of hers +that he should in all things come up to the measure of men, but the one +thing which should justify his being so ticketed and set aside by them +as the Provider, the Footer-up of Accounts, was the assurance which only +she could give, of his being the one thing, good or bad, which could be +made to answer for her happiness. + +Walking home by the river to avoid as far as possible the baked, +oven-smelling streets, he was aware how strangely the whole earth ached +for her. He was here walking, as he had been since his first seeing her, +at the core of a great light and harmony, and walking alone in it. If +just loving her had been sufficient occupation for his brief courtship, +for the present it failed him. For he was not only alone but lonely. He +saw her swept aside by the calculating crowd--strange that Ellen and +Clarice should be a part of it--not only out of reach of his live +passion, but beyond all speech. Alone in his room he felt suddenly faint +for the want of her. He turned off the light with which he had first +flooded it, for the flare of the street came feebly in through the +summer leafage, and sat sensing the need of her as a thing to be handled +and measured, a benumbing, suffocating presence. As he sat, a sound of +music floated by, and a thin pencil of light from a pleasure barge on +the river flitted from window to window, travelling the gilt line of a +picture-frame and the dark block of a picture that hung over his bed. +And as it touched in passing the high ramping figure of a knight in +armour, the old magic worked. He felt himself flung as it were across +great distances, and dizzy with the turn, to her side. He was there to +maintain in the face of all worldly reckoning, the excluding, spiritual +quality of their relation. The more his engagement to Eunice Goodward +failed of being the usual, the expected thing, the more authority it +derived for its supernal sources. It took the colour of true romance +from its unlikelihood. Peter turned on the light, and drawing paper to +him, began to write. + +"Lovely Lady," the letter began, and as if the words had been an +incantation, the room was full and palpitating with his stored-up +dreams. They came waking and crowding to fill out the measure of his +unconsummated passion, and they had all one face and one likeness. Late, +late he was still going on with it.... + +"And so," he wrote, "I have come to the part of the story that was not +in the picture, that I never knew. The dragon is slain and the knight +has just begun to understand that the Princess for whom it was done is +still a Princess; and though you have fought and bled for them, +princesses must be approached humbly. And he did not know in the least +how to go about it for in all his life the knight could never have +spoken to one before. You have to think of that when you think of him at +all, and of how he must stand even with his heart at her feet, hardly +daring to so much as call her attention to it. For though he knows very +well that it is quite enough to hope for and more than he deserves, to +be able to spend his whole life serving her, love, great love such as +one may have for princesses, aches, aches, my dear, and needs a +comforting touch sometimes and a word of recognition to make it beat +more steadily and more serviceably for every day." + +He went out that night to post his letter when it was done, for though +there was not time for an answer to it, he was going down to her on +Saturday, he liked to think of it running before him as a torch to light +the way which, even while he slept, he was so happily traversing. He was +quite trembling with the journey he had come, when on Saturday she met +him, floating in summer draperies and holding out a slim ringed hand, +and a cool cheek to glance past his lips like a swallow. + +"You had my letter, dear?" + +"Such a lovely letter, Peter, I couldn't think of trying to answer it." + +"Oh, it wasn't to be answered--at least not by another----" He released +her lest she should be troubled by his trembling. + +"I should think not!" She was more than gracious to him. "It's a wonder +to me, Peter, you never thought of writing. You have such a beautiful +vocabulary." But even that did not daunt him, for he knew as soon as he +had looked on her again, that loving Eunice Goodward was enough of an +occupation. + + + + +V + + +The senior partner of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., was exactly the sort of +man, when his physicians ordered him abroad for two years, with the +intimation that there might even worse happen to him, to make so little +fuss about it that he got four inches of type in a leading paper the +morning of his departure and very little more. Lessing would certainly +have been at the steamer to see him off, except for being so much taken +up with adjustments of the business made necessary by Peter's going out +of it; and his sister Ellen never went out in foggy weather, seldom so +far from the house in any case. Besides, she declared that if she once +saw Peter disappearing down the widening water she should never be able +to rid herself of the notion of his being quite overwhelmed by it, +whereas if he sent on his trunks the day before, and walked quietly out +in the morning with his suitcase, she could persuade herself that he had +merely run down to Bloombury for a few days and would be back on Monday. +And having managed his leave-taking as he did most personal matters, to +please Ellen, who though she had never been credited with an +imagination, seemed likely to develop one in the exigencies of getting +along without Peter, he had no sense of having done anything other than +to please himself. He found a man to carry his suitcase as soon as he +was out of the house, and walked the whole way to the steamer; for if +one has been ordered out of all activity there is still a certain +satisfaction in going out on your own feet. + +It was an extremely ill-considered day, wet fog drawn up to the high +shouldering roofs and shrugged off, like a nervous woman's shawl. But +whether it sulked over his departure or smiled on him for remembrance, +would not have made any difference to Peter, who, whatever the papers +said of the reason for his going abroad, knew that there would be +neither shade nor shine for him, nor principalities nor powers until he +had found again the House of the Shining Walls. As soon as he had +bestowed his belongings in his stateroom, he went out on the side of the +deck farthest from the groups of leave-taking, and stood staring down, +as if he considered whether the straightest route might not lie in that +direction, into the greasy, shallow hollows of the harbour water, at the +very moment when the Burton Hendersons, over their very late coffee, had +discovered the item of his departure. + +Mrs. Henderson balanced her spoon on the edge of her cup while her +husband read the paragraph aloud to her. + +"You don't suppose," she said, as if it might be an interesting even if +regrettable possibility, "that _I_--that our affair--had anything to do +with it?" + +"If it did," admitted her husband, with the air of not thinking it +likely, but probably served him right, "it has taken a long time to get +at him. Two years, isn't it, since you threw him over for a better man?" + +"Oh, I'm not so sure of your being a better man, Bertie; I liked you +better----" + +Mr. Burton Henderson accepted his wife's amendment with complacency. + +"I don't believe Weatheral appreciated the distinction. Men like that +have a sort of money crust that prevents the ordinary perceptions from +getting through to them." This illustration appeared on second thoughts +so illuminating that it carried him a little further. "Perhaps that's +the reason it has taken him so long to tumble after he has been hit; it +has just got through to him. It would be interesting to know, though, if +he is still a little in love with you." + +There was a fair amount of speculation in Mr. Burton Henderson's tone +that did not appear to have its seat in any apprehension. + +"Just as if you rather hoped it," his wife protested. + +"Well, I was only wondering if his health is so bad as the papers +say--it seldom is, you know--but if he were to go off all of a sudden +one of these days, whether he mightn't take it into his head now to +leave you a legacy." + +"I don't believe it was personal enough with Peter for that. It wasn't +me he wanted so much as just to be married. And, besides, I did come +down on him rather hard." Mrs. Burton Henderson smiled a little +reminiscently as if she still saw herself in the process of coming down +on Peter and thought rather well of it. + +"Well, anyway," her husband finished, "we could have managed with a +legacy." + +"Yes, we do need money dreadfully, don't we, Bertie?" she sighed. "But I +don't believe I had anything to do with it." + +That was all very well for Mrs. Burton Henderson, but Peter's sister +Ellen had a different opinion. "Peter," she had said the evening after +Peter had sent his trunk out of the house and locked up his suitcase to +keep her from putting anything more into it, "you're not thinking of +_her_, are you? You're not going to take that abroad with you." + +"No, Ellen, I haven't thought of her for a long time except to wish her +happiness. You mustn't let that worry you." + +"Just the same," said Ellen, "if anything happens to you over there--if +you never come back to me, I shall never forgive her." + +"I shall come back. I am sorry you should feel so bitter about it." + +He could not, especially now that it was gone, very well explain to +Ellen about the House; for all the years that it had stood there just +beyond the edge of dreams with the garden spread around it and a lovely +wood before, she had never heard of it. There had been so many ways to +it once, paths to it began in pictures, great towered gates of music +gave upon its avenues, and if he had not spoken of it, it was because as +he had made himself believe when she did come, that Eunice Goodward +would come into it of first right. He could not have blamed her for not +wishing to live in it--from the first he had never blamed her. He might +have managed even had she pulled it about his ears to rebuild it in +some fashion, but this was the bitterest, that he knew now for a +certainty there had never been any House and the certainty made him +ridiculous. + +It had been rather the worse that, with all the suddenness of this +discovery, he had not been able to avoid the habit of setting out for +it, seeking in dreams the relief of desolation in knowing that no dreams +could come. As often as he heard music or saw in the soft turn of a +cheek or the slender line of a wrist, what had moved him so in hers he +felt himself urged forward on old trails, only to be scared from them by +the apparition of himself as Eunice had evoked it from her bright +surpassing surfaces, as a man unaccomplished in passion, unprovocative. +All the gates to the House opened upon dreadful hollows of +self-despising into which Peter fell and floundered, so that he took to +going that way as little as possible, taking wide circuits about it +continually in the way of business, being rather pleased with himself +when at the end of two years he could no longer feel any pang of loss +nor any remembering thrill of what the House had been--until he +discovered that also he could not feel some other things, the pen +between his fingers and the rise of the stairs under him. He forgot +Eunice Goodward, and then one day he forgot to go home after office +hours, and they found him sitting still at his desk in the dark, trying +to remember whether he ought to put down the blotting-pad and the paper +weight on top of that, or if, on the whole, it were not better to put +the paper weight, as being the heavier article, first. + +It was after that the doctor told him to go as far away from his +business as possible and keep on staying away. + +"But if I am going to die, doctor," Peter carefully explained, "I would +much rather do it in my own country." + +"Ah," the doctor warned him, "that's just the difficulty. You won't +die." + +And that was how Peter happened to be leaning over the forward rail of +an Atlantic steamer on his way to Italy, which he had chosen because the +date of sailing happened to be convenient. But he knew, as he stood +looking down at the surface of the water, rough-hewn by the wind, that +whatever the doctor said to Lessing, or Ellen surmised, he would get no +good there except as it showed him the way to the House of the Shining +Walls. + +He did not remember where in the blind pointless ring through which the +steamer chugged and wallowed as though it were a superior sort of water +beetle and the horizon a circle of its own making, he began to get +sufficiently acquainted with his fellow passengers, to understand that +they were most of them going abroad in the interest of unrealized +estates, and abounded in confidence. To see them forever forward and +agaze at the lit shores of Spain and the Islands of Desire, roused in +him the faint savour of expectation. Which, however, did not prevent him +from finding Naples squalid, and Rome, where he arrived in the middle of +the tourist season, too modern in a cheap, second-rate sort of way. He +could remember when Rome had furnished some excellent company for the +House, and suffered in the places of renown an indeterminable pang like +the ache of an amputated stump. It seemed, on occasion, as if the old +trails might lie down the hollow of the Forum, under the arch of that +broken aqueduct, beside the dark Volsinian mere; but when Peter arrived +at any of these places he found them prepossessed by Germans gabbling +out of _Baedekers_. The Sistine Chapel made the back of his neck ache +and he came no nearer than seven tourists to the noble quietude of the +Vatican can marbles. + +"I must remember," said Peter to himself, "that I am a very sick man, +and crowds annoy me." + +Then he went into the country and saw the gray of the olives above the +springing grass, like the silver bloom on a green plum, and began to +experience the pangs of recovery. He found Hadrian's Villa and the +garden of the Villa d'Este, and remembered other things. He remembered +the flat malachite-coloured pools, the definite, pointed cypresses and +the fountain's soft incessant rain--as it had been in the House. As it +_was_ in the House. For he understood in Italy what was still the most +bitter to know, that though it might yet be somewhere in the world, he +was never to find it any more. Toward all that once had led him thither, +his sense was locked and sealed. He remembered Eunice Goodward--the +fact of her--how tall she was as she walked beside him--but not how at +the soft brushing of her hair as she turned, his blood had sung to her; +nor all the weeks of their engagement like a morning full of wings. And +he could not yet recall so much as the bare reasons for her break with +him except that they had been unhappy ones. + +It had been a part of a long plan that he and Eunice should have seen +Italy together, but for the moment he did not wish her there. He was +sure she would have been in the way of his getting something that +glimmered at him from the coign of castellated walls all awash about +their base with purpled shadow, that strove to say itself in intricate +fine tracery of tower and shrine, and failed and fell away before the +sodden quality of his mind. + +So he drifted northward with the spring, and saw the anemones blowing +and the bloomy violet wonder the world, suffering incredible aching +intimations of the recrudescence of desire. Afterward he came to +Florence, where he had heard there were pictures, and hoped to have some +peace; but at Florence they were all too busy being painted or prayed +to, the remote Madonnas, the wounded Saints, the comfortable plump +Venuses; the lean Christs too stupefied with candle smoke to take any +account of an American gentleman in a plain business suit, who looked +homely and ill and competent. Sometimes in Santa Croce or in the long +gallery over the bridge, the noise of the city would remove from him and +the faces would waver and lean out of their frames, as if, had the +occasion allowed, they would have said the word to set him on his way. +But there was always a guard about or a tourist stalking some +uncatalogued prey and it never came to anything. + +"What you really want," said a man at his hotel to whom he had half +whimsically complained of their inarticulateness--one of those +remarkable individuals who had done nothing so successfully in so many +cities of Europe that he was supposed to know the exact month for doing +it most delightfully in any one of them--"what you really want is +Venice. It's an off season there; you'll meet nobody but Germans, and if +you go about in your own gondola you needn't mind them." + +So Peter went to Venice, and on the way there he met the Girl from Home. + + + + +VI + + +He knew at once that she was from Home, though as she sat opposite him +with the fingers of her mended gloves laced under her chin and her face +turned away to miss no point of the cypresses and warm, illumined walls, +there was nothing to prove that any one of a hundred towns might not +have produced her. Peter remembered what sort of people wore gloves like +that in Bloombury--the minister's wife, the school teacher, his mother +and Ellen--and was instantly sure she would not have been travelling +through Italy first-class except at the instigation of the large, +widowed and distrustful woman with whom she got on at Padua. This lady, +also, Peter understood very well. He thought it likely she sat in +rocking chairs a great deal at home and travelled to improve her mind. +She had, moreover, a general air of proclaiming the unwarrantableness of +railway acquaintances, which alone would have prevented Peter from +asking the girl, as he absurdly wanted to, if they had painted the new +school-house yet, and if there had been much water that year in Miller's +pond. + +As she sat so with her round hat pushed askew by the window-glass, there +was some delicate reminder about her that streaked the rich Italian +landscape with vestiges of Bloombury. + +He looked out of the window where she looked and saw the white +straight-sided villas change to green-shuttered farmhouses, and fine old +Roman roads lead on to Harmony. It was all there for him in its +unexpectedness, as freshly touching as those reminders of his mother +which he came upon occasionally where Ellen kept them laid by in +lavender; as if the girl had shaken from the folds of her jacket of +unmistakable Bloombury cut, Youth for him--his own--anybody's Youth--no +limp and yellowed keepsake, but all crisply done up and ready for +putting on. So sharp for the moment was his sense of accepting the +invitation to put it on with her as the best possible traveller's guise, +especially for seeing Venice in, that catching the speculative eye of +the large lady turned upon him, he quailed sensibly. She had the air of +having detected him in an attempt to establish a relation with her +companion on the ground of their common youngness, and finding herself +much more a match for him both in years and in respect to their common +origin. Whatever passed between the two women, and something did pass +wordlessly, with hardly so much substance as a look, remained there, not +intrusively, but as proof that what he had been seeking was still going +on in some far but attainable place. It was the first movement of an +accomplished recovery, for Peter to find himself resisting the +implication of his appearance in favour of what was coming to him out of +the retouched, sensitive surfaces of his past. + +He knew so well as he looked at the girl, what had produced her. She was +leaning a little from the window in a way that brought more of her face +into view, and though from where he sat Peter could have very little +notion of the points of the nearing landscape, he knew by what he saw of +her, that somewhere across the low runnels in the windy reeds she had +caught sight of the "sea birds' nest." + +He did not on that account change his position so that he might have a +glimpse of the dark hills of Arqua or the towers of Venice repeating +themselves in the lustrous, spacious sea. Sitting opposite the girl, he +saw in her following eyes the silver trails of water and the dim +procession down them of old loves, old wars, old splendours, much better +than the thin line of the landscape presented them to his weary sense. +He leaned back as far as the stiff seat allowed, watching the Old World +shine on her face, where the low light, striking obliquely on the water, +turned it white above black shoals of weed. For the first time since his +illness his mind slipped the leash of maimed desire, and as if it parted +for him there beyond the window of the railway carriage, struck into the +trail to the House. The walls of it rose up straight and shining, gilded +purely; the windows arching to summer blueness, let in with them the +smell of the wilding rose at the turn of the road and the evening +clamour of the birds in Bloombury wood. + +All this time Peter had been sitting in an Italian railway carriage, +knee to knee with a pirate bearded Austrian Jew who gave him the +greatest possible occasion for wishing the window opened, and when the +jar of the checked train drew him into consciousness again, he was at a +loss to know what had set him off so far until he caught sight of the +girl. She was buttoning on her jacket with fingers that trembled with +excitement as she constrained herself to the recapitulation of the two +suitcases, the hat box and three parcels which her companion in order to +have well in hand, had been alternately picking up and dropping ever +since they sighted the tower of San Georgio dark against the sea +streaked west. + +"Two and one is three and three is six and the _'Baedeker'_ and the +umbrellas," said the girl. "No, I don't have to look in the address +book. I have it by heart. Casa Frolli, the Zattera." Then the roar of +the train split into the sharp cries of the _facchinos_ that carried +them forward like an explosion into Venice as it rose statelily from the +rippling lustre. Around it wove the black riders with still, +communicating prows, so buoyant, so mysteriously alive and peering, like +some superior sea creatures risen magically from below the frayed +reflection of the station lights. Much as Peter felt that he owed to the +vivid presence of the girl, his new capacity to see and feel it so as it +burst upon them, he hadn't found the courage to address her. So it was +with a distinct sense of deprivation that he saw her with her companion +grasping the side of the gondola as if by that method to keep it afloat, +disappearing down the dim water lanes in the direction of the Zattera. + + + + +VII + + +It was the evidence of how far he had come on the road to recovery that +he was able, when he woke in his bed at the _Britania_, to allow full +play to the suggestion that he had experienced nothing more than the +natural reversion of age to the bright vividness of the past. "Though I +didn't expect," he admitted as he lay fronting in the wide old mirrors, +interminable reflections of a pillow dinted by his too-early whitened +head, "I really did not expect to have it begin at forty-two." Having +made this concession to his acceptance of himself as a man done with +youngness of any sort, he lay listening to the lip-lapping of the water +and the sounds that came up from the garden just below him, the clink of +cups and the women's easy laughter, and wondered what it could have been +about that girl to set him dreaming of all the women who had ever +interested him. + +It did not occur to him then, nor in the interval in which the tang of +his dream intervened between him and the full flavour of Venice, that he +had not thought once of Eunice Goodward, but only of those who had +touched his life without hurting it. He was so far indeed from thinking +of women again as beings from whom hurts were expected to come, that he +blamed himself for not having made an occasion out of their enforced +companionship, for speaking to the girl in the train if he should meet +her again. + +"I must be twice her age," he told himself determinedly, "and no doubt +she has been brought up to be respectful to her elders." + +He looked out very carefully, therefore, as he drifted about the canals, +for a large, widowed lady and a girl in a round hat who might have come +from Bloombury, but he did not find her that day nor the next, nor the +day after, and in the meantime Venice took him. + +The ineffable consolation of its beauty stole upon him like the breath +of its gardens, as it rose delicately from its sea station, murmurous +like a shell with the whisper of joyous adventure. It was, as he told +himself, a part of the sense of renewal which the girl had afforded him, +that he was able to accept its incomparable charm as the evidence of the +continuity of the world of youth and passion. His being able to see it +so was a sort of consolation for having, by the illusive quality of his +dreams, missed them both on his own account. + +It was not, however, until the morning of the fourth day that it drew +him as he had known in the beginning it inevitably must, to the core of +Venice, where in the wide piazza full of sleepy light, the great banners +dropped from their staves broad splashes of colour between the slaty +droves of doves. High over the door the gold horses of Lysippus +breasted the gold air made shadowless by the approaching _temporale_. He +was so far then from anything that had to do with his dream that it was +not for some moments after he had turned into St. Mark's, obsessed of +the sense of life unconquerable and pervading, that he began to take +notice of what he saw there in the dim wonder. It was first of all the +smell of stale incense and the mutter of the mass, and then as he bowed +instinctively to the elevated Host, the snare of the intricate mosaic +pavement; so by degrees appreciation cleared to the seductive polish of +the pillars, the rows of starred candles, and beyond that to the clear +gold of the walls, with all the pictures wrought flatly upon them ... as +it had been in the House! + +It was some time before he was able to draw up out of his boyhood +memories, so newly made a gift to him, the stray, elucidating fact of +his father's early visit to this spot and the possibility of his dream +having shaped itself about some unremembered account of it. He climbed +up to the galleries to give himself room to that wonder of memory which +had failed to preserve to him any image of how his father looked, and +yet had so furnished all his imagination. Which didn't make any less of +a wonder of his knowing as he stood there, Peter Weatheral, of the firm +of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., Real Estate Brokers, what it was all about. + +"It's a picture-book of the heart of man," he concluded, and no sooner +had he shaped this thought in his mind than he heard it uttered for him +on the opposite side of the pillar in a voice made soft by indulgent +tenderness, "Just a great picture-book." He leaned forward at the sound +far enough to have a glimpse of the Girl from Home, and smiled at her. + +"So you've found that out, have you?" It was not strange to find himself +addressing her friendlily nor to hear her answer him. + +"Just a picture-book," she repeated. "It explains so much. What the +saints were to them, and the Holy Personages. Monkish tales to prey upon +their superstition, we were taught. But you can see here what they +really were, the wonder tales of a people, the fairy wonder and the +blessed happenings come true as they do in dreams. Oh, it must have been +a good time when the saints were on the earth." + +"You believe in them, then?" + +"Here in San Marco, yes. But not when I am in Bloombury." + +"Oh!" cried Peter, "are you really from Bloombury? I knew you were from +up country but I hardly dared to hope--if you will permit me----" He +searched for his card which she accepted without looking at it. + +"You are Mr. Peter Weatheral, aren't you? Mrs. Merrithew thought she +recognized you yesterday." + +"Is that why she glared at me so? But anyway I am obliged to her, though +I haven't vestige of a recollection of her." + +"She didn't suppose you had. Her husband sold you some land once. But of +course everybody in Bloombury knows the Mr. Weatheral who went from +there to the city and made his fortune." + +"A sorry one," said Peter. "But if you are really from Bloombury why +don't I remember you? I go there with Ellen every summer, and _she_ +knows everybody." + +"Yes; she is so kind. Everybody says that. But I'm really from Harmony. +I taught the Bloombury school last year. I am Savilla Dassonville." + +"Oh, I knew your father then! Now that I come to think of it, it was he +who laid the foundation of my greatness," Peter smiled whimsically. "And +I knew your mother; she was a very lovely lady." + +He realized as the girl's eyes filled with tears, that this must have +been the child at whose birth, he had heard, the mother had died. "But I +suppose we mustn't talk about Bloombury in San Marco," he blamed his +inadvertence, "though that doesn't seem to want talking about either. +When you said that just now about its being a picture-book, I was +thinking how like it was to one of those places I used to go to in my +youth--you know where you go in your mind when you don't like the place +where you are. So like. I used to call it the House of the Shining +Walls." + +"I know," she nodded, "mine is a garden." + +"_Is?_" said Peter. "There's where you have the advantage of me." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, spreading her hands toward the pictured wall and +the springing domes, "isn't this the evidence that it _is_ always. Let +us look." + +The mass was over and the crowd departing; they moved from page to page +to the storied wall and identified in it the springs of a common +experience. + +"It's like nothing so much," said Miss Dassonville, "as the things I've +seen the children make at school, with bits of coloured stone and broken +china and rags of tinsel or whatever treasures, laid out in a pattern on +the ground." + +"Something like that," admitted Peter. + +"And that's why," said Miss Dassonville, "it doesn't make me feel at +_all_ religious. Just--just--maternal." + +It appeared by this time they had become well enough acquainted for +Peter to remark that she didn't seem to feel under any obligation to +experience the prescribed and traditional thrill. + +"Well, I'm divided in my mind. I don't want to overlook any of the +facts, and I want to give the poor imprisoned things a chance, if they +have anything to say that the guide books have missed, to get it off +their minds. I've always heard that celebrities grow tired of being +forever taken at their public valuation. I've got a _Baedeker_ and a +_Hare_ and _The Stones of Venice_ but I neglect them quite as much as I +read them, don't you?" + +They had come down into the nave and she went about stroking the fair +marbles delicately as though there sprang a conscious communication from +the touch. He felt his mind accommodating to the ease of hers with a +movement of release. They spent so much time in the church that when +they issued on the Piazza at last it was with amazement to discern that +the cloud mass which an hour before had piled ethereal tones of blueness +above Frauli, lit cavernously by soundless flashes, had dissolved in +rain. + +"And I haven't even an umbrella," explained Miss Dassonville with a real +dismay. + +"But I'll take you home in my gondola," it appeared to him +providentially provided for this contingency; "it is here at the +Piazzetta." + +"Oh, have you a gondola, and is it as much of a help as people say? Mrs. +Merrithew hates walking, but we didn't know if we should like it." + +They whisked around the corner under the arcade of the ducal palace, +and almost before they reached the _traghetto_ the shower was stayed and +the sun came out on the lucent water. Peter allowed Miss Dassonville to +give the direction lest she should think it a liberty of him to have +noticed and remembered it, but he added something to it that caused her, +as they swung out into the canal, to enter an expostulation. + +"But this is not the way to the Casa Frolli!" + +"It's one way; besides, it isn't raining any more, and if you are +thinking of taking a gondola you ought to make a trial trip or two, and +it's worth seeing how the palace looks from the canal." + +The rain began again in a little while, whitening the water; the depth +of it blackened to the cloud but the surface frothed like quicksilver +under the steady patter. The awning was up and they were safe against a +wetting, but Peter saw the girl shiver in the slight chill, and looking +at her more attentively he perceived that she might recently have been +ill. The likeness to her mother came out then in spite of her plainness, +the hands, the eyes, the pleasant way of smiling; it was that no doubt +which had set him on the trail of his old dreams. He tried, more for the +purpose of avoiding it than for any curiosity, to remember what he had +ever heard of David Dassonville that would account for his daughter's +teaching school when she evidently wasn't able for it, but he talked of +Mrs. Merrithew. + +"I must call on her," he said, "as soon as she will permit me. But tell +me, what business did I do with her husband?" + +"It was a mortgage--those poor McGuires, you know, were in such trouble, +and you----" + +"Yes, I was always nervous about mortgages. I was bitten by one once. +But dear me, I did not expect to have my youthful indiscretions coming +out like this. What else did she tell you?" + +The girl laughed delightedly. "Well, we did rather talk you over. She +said you were such a good son. Even when you were a young man on a +salary your mother had a best black silk and a second best." + +"Women are the queerest!" Peter commented at large. "It was always such +a comfort to Ellen that mother had a good silk to be buried in. Now +what is there talismanic about silk?" + +"It's evidence," she smiled, "and that's what women require most." + +"Well, I hope Mrs. Merrithew will accept it as evidence that I am a +suitable person to take you out in a gondola this evening. You haven't +seen Venice by night?" + +"Only as we came from the station. I'm sure she would like you to call, +and I hope she will like the gondola." + +"Oh, she will like it," Peter assured Miss Dassonville as he helped her +out in front of the Casa Frolli; "it will remind her of a rocking +chair." + +Mrs. Merrithew did like the gondola; she liked everything:--the spacious +dark, the scudding forms like frightened swans, the sound of singing on +the water, the soft bulks of foliage that overhung them in the narrow +_calle_, the soundless hatchet-faced prows that rounded on them from +behind dim palaces; and she liked the gondola so much that she asked +Peter "right out" what it cost him. + +"We would have taken one ourselves," she explained without waiting, +"only we didn't feel able to afford it. Fifty francs a week they wanted +to charge us, but maybe that was because we were Americans; they think +Americans can do everything over here. But I suppose you get yours cheap +at the hotel?" + +"Oh, much cheaper." + +"How much?" + +"Forty francs," hazarded Peter. "I'm sure I could get you one for that. +Unless ... if you don't mind...." He made what he hadn't done yet under +any circumstances, a case out of his broken health to explain how by not +getting up very early and by taking some prescribed exercise, Giuseppe +and the gondola had to lie unused half the mornings, which was very bad +for them.... "So," he persuaded them, "if you would be satisfied with it +for half a day, I would be very much obliged to you if you would take +it ... share and share alike." There was as much hesitation in Peter's +speech as if it had really been the favour he seemed to make it, though +in fact it grew out of his attempt to fashion his offer by what he saw +in the dusk of Miss Dassonville's face. "In the evenings," he finished, +"we could take it turn about. There are a great many evenings when I +don't go out at all." + +"Me, too," consented Mrs. Merrithew cheerfully. "I get tired easy, but +you and Savilla could go." The proposal appealed to her as neighbourly, +and it was quite in keeping with the character of a successful business +man, as he was projected on the understanding of Bloombury, to wish not +to keep paying for a thing of which he had no use. "I think we might as +well close with it at once, don't you, Savilla?" + +"If you are sure it's only forty francs----" Miss Dassonville was +doubtful. + +"Quite sure," Peter was very prompt. "You see they keep them so +constantly employed at the hotel"--which seemed satisfactorily to make +way for the arrangement that the gondola was to call for the two ladies +the next morning. + +"Giuseppe," Weatheral demanded as he stepped out of the gondola at the +hotel landing, "how much do I pay you?" + +"Sixty francs, _Signore_." + +Peter had no doubt the extra ten was divided between his own man and the +gondolier, but he was not thinking of that. + +"I have a very short memory," he said, "and I have told the _Signora_ +and the _Signorina_ forty francs. If they ask you, you are to tell them +forty francs; and listen, Beppe, every franc over that you tell them, I +shall deduct from your _pourboire_ when I leave, do you understand?" + +"_Si, Signore_." + + + + +VIII + + +A morning or two after the arrangement about the gondola Peter was +leaning over the bridge of San Moise watching the sun on the copper +vessels the women brought to the fountain, when his man came to him. +This Luigi he had picked up at Naples for the chief excellence of his +English and a certain seraphic bearing that led Peter to say to him that +he would cheerfully pay a much larger wage if he could only be certain +Luigi would not cheat him. + +"Oh _Signore!_ In Italy? _Impossible!_" + +"In that case," said Peter, "if you can't be honest with me, be as +honest as you can"--but he had to accept the lifted shoulders and the +Raphael smile as his only security. However, Luigi had made him +comfortable and as he approached him now it was without any misgiving. + +"I have just seen Giuseppe and the gondola," he announced. "They are at +the Palazza Rezzonico, and after that they go to San Georgio degli +Sclavoni. There are pictures there." + +"Oh!" said Peter. + +"It is a very little way to the San Georgio," volunteered Luigi as they +remained, master and man, looking down into the water in the leisurely +Venetian fashion. "Across the Piazza," said Luigi, "a couple of turns, a +bridge or two and there you are;" and after a long pause, "_The signore_ +is looking very well this morning. Exercise in the sea air is excellent +for the health." + +"Very," said Peter. "I shall go for a walk, I think. I shall not need +you, Luigi." + +Nevertheless Luigi did not lose sight of him until he was well on his +way to Saint George of the Sclavoni which announced itself by the +ramping fat dragon over the door. There was the young knight riding him +down as of old, and still no Princess. + +"She must be somewhere on the premises," said Peter to himself. "No +doubt she has preserved the traditions of her race by remaining +indoors." He had not, however, accustomed his eyes to the dusk of the +little room when he heard at the landing the scrape of the gondola and +the voices of the women disembarking. + +"If we'd known you wanted to come," explained Mrs. Merrithew heartily, +"we could have brought you in the boat." That was the way she oftenest +spoke of it, and other times it was the gon_do_la. + +Peter explained his old acquaintance with the charging saint and his +curiosity about the lady, but when the custodian had brought a silver +paper screen to gather the little light there was upon the mellow old +Carpaccio, he looked upon her with a vague dissatisfaction. + +"It's the same dragon and the same young man," he admitted. "I know him +by the hair and by the determined expression. But I'm not sure about the +young lady." + +"You are looking for a fairy-tale Princess," Miss Dassonville declared, +"but you have to remember that the knight didn't marry this one; he only +made a Christian of her." + +They came back to it again when they had looked at all the others and +speculated as to whether Carpaccio knew how funny he was when he painted +Saint Jerome among the brethren, and whether in the last picture he was +really in heaven as Ruskin reported. + +"So you think," said Peter, "she'd have been more satisfactory if the +painter had thought Saint George meant to marry her?" + +"More personal and convincing," the girl maintained. + +"There's one in the Belle Arti that's a lot better looking to my +notion," contributed Mrs. Merrithew. + +"Oh, but that Princess is running away," the girl protested. + +"It's what any well brought up young female would be expected to do +under the circumstances," declared the elder lady; "just look at them +fragments. It's enough to turn the strongest." + +"It does look a sort of 'After the Battle,'" Peter admitted. "But I +should like to see the other one," and he fell in very readily with Mrs. +Merrithew's suggestion that he should come in the gondola with them and +drop into the Academy on the way home. They found the Saint George with +very little trouble and sat down on one of the red velvet divans, +looking a long time at the fleeing lady. + +"And you think," said Peter, "she would not have run away?" + +"I think she shouldn't; when it's done for her." + +"But isn't that--the running away I mean--the evidence of her being +worth doing it for, of her fineness, of her superior delicacy?" + +"Well," Miss Dassonville was not disposed to take it lightly, "if a +woman has a right to a fineness that's bought at another's expense. They +can't all run away, you know, and I can't think it right for a woman to +evade the disagreeable things just because some man makes it possible." + +"I believe," laughed Peter, "if you had been the Princess you would have +killed the dragon yourself. You'd have taken a little bomb up your +sleeve and thrown it at him." He had to take that note to cover a +confused sense he had of the conversation being more pertinent than he +could at that moment remember a reason for its being. + +"Oh, I've been delivered to the dragons before now," she said. "It's +going on all the time." She moved a little away from the picture as if +to avoid the personal issue. + +"What beats me," commented Mrs. Merrithew, "is that there has to be a +young lady. You'd think a likely young man, if he met one of them +things, would just kill it on general principles, the same as a snake or +a spider." + +"Oh," said Peter, "it's chiefly because they are terrifying to young +ladies that we kill them at all. Yes, there has to be a young lady." He +was aware of an accession of dreariness in the certainty that in his +case there never could be a young lady. But Miss Dassonville as she +began to walk toward the entrance gave it another turn. + +"There _is_ always a young lady. The difficulty is that it must be a +particular one. No one takes any account of those who were eaten up +before the Princess appeared." + +"But you must grant," said Peter, with an odd sense of defending his own +position, "that when one got done with a fight like that, one would be +entitled to something particular." + +"Oh, if it came as a reward," she laughed. "But nowadays we've reversed +the process. One makes sure of the Princess first, lest when the dragon +is killed she should prove to have gone away with one of the +bystanders." + +Something that clicked in Peter's mind led him to look sharply from one +to the other of the two women. In Bloombury they had a way, he knew, of +not missing any point of their neighbours' affairs, but their faces +expressed no trace of an appreciation of anything in the subject being +applicable to his. The flick of memory passed and left him wondering why +it should be. + +He caught himself looking covertly at the girl as the gondola swung into +open water, to discover in her the springs of an experience such as lay +at the source of his own desolation. He perceived instead under her +slight appearance a certain warmth and colour like a light behind a +breathed-on window-pane. Illness, overwork, whatever dragon's breath had +dimmed her surfaces, she gave the impression of being inwardly +inexhaustibly alight and alive. Something in her leaped to the day, to +the steady pacing of the gondola on the smooth water tessellated by the +sun in blue and bronze and amber, to the arched and airy palaces that +rose above it. + +The awning was up; there was strong sun and pleasant wind: from hidden +gardens they smelled the oleanders. Peter felt the faint stir of +rehabilitation like the breath of passing presences. + +The mood augmented in him as he drifted late that evening on the lagoon +beyond the Guidecca, after the sun was gone down and the sea and the sky +reflected each to each, one roseate glow like a hollow shell of pearl. +Lit peaks of the Alps ranged in the upper heaven, and nearer the great +dome of the Saluti signalled whitely; below them, all the islands near +and far floated in twilit blueness on the flat lagoon. There was by +times, a long sea swell, and no sound but the tread of the oar behind +like a woman's silken motion. It drew with it films of recollection in +which his mood suspended like gossamer, a mood capable of going on +independently of his idea of himself as a man cut off from those +experiences, intimations of which pressed upon him everywhere by line +and form and colour. + +It had come back, the precious intimacy of beauty, with that fullness +sitting there in the gondola, he realized with the intake of the breath +to express it and the curious throbbing of the palms to grasp. He was +able to identify in his bodily response to all that charged the decaying +wonder of Venice with opulent personality, the source of his boyish +dreams. It was no woman, he told himself, who had gone off with the +bystanders while he had been engaged with the dragons of poverty and +obligation, but merely the appreciations of beauty. There had never been +any woman, there was never going to be. He began to plan how he should +explain his discovery and the bearing of it, to Miss Dassonville. It +would be a pity if she were making the same mistake about it. He leaned +back in the cushioned seat and watched the silver shine of the prow +delicately peering out its way among the shadowy islands; lay so still +and absorbed that he did not know which way they went nor what his +gondolier inquired of him, and presently realized without surprise that +the Princess was speaking to him. + +He felt her first, warm and friendlily, and then he heard her laughing. +He knew she was the Princess though she had no form or likeness. + +"But which are you?" he whispered to the laughter. + +"The right one." + +"The one who stayed or the one who ran away?" + +"Oh, if you don't know by this time! I have come to take you to the +House." + +"Are you the one who was always there?" + +"The Lovely Lady; there was never any other." + +"And shall I go there as I used?" asked Peter, "and be happy there?" + +"You are free to go; do you not feel it?" + +"Oh, here--I feel many things. I am just beginning to understand how I +came to lose the way to it." + +"Are you so sure?" + +"Quite." Peter's new-found certainty was strong in him. "I made the +mistake of thinking that the House was the House of Love, and it is +really the House of Beauty. I thought if I found the one to love, I +should live in it forever. But now that I have found the way back to it +I see that was a mistake." + +"How did you find it?" + +"Well, there is a girl here----" + +"Ah!" said the Princess. + +"She is young," Peter explained; "she looks at things the way I used to, +and that somehow brought me around to the starting-point again." + +"I see," said the Princess; the look she turned on him was full of a +strange, secret intelligence which as he returned it without knowing +what it was about, afforded Peter the greatest satisfaction. "Do you +know me now," she said at last, "which one I am?" + +"The right one, I am sure of that." + +"But which?" + +"I know now," Peter answered, "but I am certain that in the morning I +shall not be able to remember." + +It was true as Peter had said that the next morning he was in as much +doubt as ever about the princesses. He thought he would go and have a +look at them but forgot what he had come for once he had entered the +spacious quiet of the Academy. Warmed still from his contact of the +night before he found the pictures sentient and friendly. He found +trails in them that led he knew now where, and painted waters that +lapped the fore-shore of remembrance. + +After an hour in which he had seen the meaning of the pictures emerge +from the frontier of mysticism which he knew now for the reflection of +his own unstable state, and proceed toward him by way of his +intelligence, he heard the Princess say at his shoulder, at least he +thought it might have been the Princess for the first word or two, until +he turned and saw Miss Dassonville. She was staring at the dim old +canvases patched with saints, and her eyes were tender. + +"They are not really saints, you know, they are only a sort of +hieroglyphics that spell devotion. It isn't as though they had the +breath of life breathed into them and could come down from their +canvases as some of them do." + +"Oh," he protested, "did you think of that for yourself? It was the +Princess who said it to me." + +"The Princess of the Dragon?" + +"She came to me last night on the lagoon. It was wonderful,--the water +shine and the rosy glow. I was wishing I had insisted on your coming, +and all at once there was the Princess." + +"The one who stayed or the one who ran away?" + +"She declined to commit herself. I suppose it's one of the things a man +has to find out." He experienced a great lift of his spirit in the +girl's light acceptance of his whimsicality, it was the sort of thing +that Eunice Goodward used to be afraid to have any one hear him say lest +they should think it odd. It occurred to him as he turned and walked +beside Miss Dassonville that if he had come to Italy with Eunice there +might have been a great deal that she would not have liked to hear. He +could think things of that sort of her now with a queer lightness as of +ease after strain, and yet not think it a merit of Miss Dassonville's so +to ease him. They walked through the rooms full of the morning coolness, +and let the pictures say what they would to them. + +"It is strange to me," said the girl, "the reality of pictures; as if +they had reached a point under the artist's hand where they became +suddenly independent of him and went about saying a great deal more than +he meant and perhaps more than he could understand. I am sure they must +have a world of their own of picture rock and tree and stone, where they +go when they are not being looked at on their canvases." + +"Oh, haven't you found them, then?" + +"In dreams you mean? Not in Bloombury; they don't get so far from home. +One of these little islands I suspect, that lie so low and look so blue +and airy." + +"Will you go with me in the gondola to discover it?" + +"To-night?" + +"To-morrow." He was full of a plan to take her and Mrs. Merrithew to the +Lido that same evening to have dinner, and to come home after moonrise, +to discover Venice. She agreed to that, subject to Mrs. Merrithew's +consent, and they went out to find that lady at a bead shop where she +spent a great many hours in a state of delightful indecision. + +Mrs. Merrithew proving quite in the mood for it, they went to the Lido +with an extra gondolier--Miss Dassonville had stipulated for one who +could sing--and came home in time to see Venice all a-flower, with the +continual slither of the gondolas about it like some slim sort of moth. +They explored Saint George of the Sea Weed after that, took tea in the +public gardens and had a day at Torcello. On such occasions when Peter +and Mrs. Merrithew talked apart, the good lady who got on excellently +with the rich Mr. Weatheral grew more than communicative on the subject +of Savilla Dassonville. It was not that she talked of the girl so much +nor so freely, but that she left him with the sense of her own +exasperation at the whole performance. It was a thin little waif of a +story as it came from Mrs. Merrithew, needing to be taken in and +comforted before it would yield even to Peter, who as a rich man had +come to have a fair discernment in pitiable cases, the faint hope of a +rescue. There had been, to begin with, the death of the girl's mother at +her birth, followed by long years of neglect growing out of just that +likeness to the beloved wife which first excited her father's aversion +and afterward became the object of a jealous, insistent tenderness. + +After his wife's death, Dave Dassonville had lost his grip on his +property as he had on all the means of living. Later he was visited by a +stringency which Mrs. Merrithew was inclined to impute to a Providence, +which, however prompt it had been in the repayment of the slight to the +motherless infant, had somehow failed to protect her from its +consequences. Savilla's girlhood had been devoted to nursing her father +to his grave, to which he had gone down panting for release; after that +she had taught the village school. + +The winter before, tramping through the heavy snow, she had contracted a +bronchitis that had developed so alarmingly as to demand, by the +authority of the local doctor, "a trip somewhere"--"and nobody," said +Mrs. Merrithew, "but me to go with her." + +"Not," she added, "that I'm complainin'. Merrithew left me well off, and +there's no denyin' travellin's improvin' to the mind, though at my age +it's some wearin' to the body. I'm glad," she further confided to Peter +at Torcello, "she takes so to Venice. It's a lot more comfortable goin' +about in a gondola. At Rome, now, I nearly run my legs off." + +It was later when Savilla had been kept at home by a slight +indisposition from a shower that caught them unprepared, she expressed +her doubt of a winter in Italy being anything more than a longer stick +with which to beat a dog. + +"She will have spent all her money on it, and the snow will be just as +deep in Bloombury next year. There isn't anything _really_ the matter +with her, but she's just too fine for it. It's like seeing a clumsy +person handlin' one of them spun glass things, the way I have to sit +still and see Providence dealing with Savilla Dassonville. It may be +sort of sacrilegious to say so, but I declare it gives me the fidgets." + +It ought of course to have given Peter, seeing the interest he took in +her, a like uneasiness; but there was something in the unmitigated +hardness of her situation that afforded him the sort of easement he had, +inexplicably, in the plainness of her dress. His memory was not working +well enough yet for him to realize that it was relief from the strain of +the secondary feminity that had fluttered and allured in Eunice +Goodward. + +It was even more unclearly that he recognized that it had been a strain. +All this time he had been forgetting her--and how completely he had +forgotten her this new faculty for comparison was proof--he had still +been enslaved by her appearance. It was an appearance, that of Eunice's, +which he admired still in the young American women at the expensive +hotels where he had put up, and admitted as the natural, the inevitable +sign of an inward preciousness. But if he allowed to himself that he +would never have spoken to Savilla Dassonville that day at San Marco, if +she had been to the eye anything that Eunice Goodward was, he told +himself it was because he was not sure from behind which of those +charming ambuscades the arrows of desolation might be shot. If he gave +himself up now to the play of the girl's live fancy he did so in the +security of her plainness, out of which no disturbing surprises might +come. And she left him, in respect to her hard conditions, without even +the excuse for an attitude. Eunice had been poor in her world, and had +carried it with just that admixture of bright frankness and proud +reserve which, in her world, supported such a situation with most charm. +She made as much use of her difficulties as a Spanish dancer of her +shawl; but Savilla Dassonville was just poor, and that was the end of +it. That he got on with her so well by the simple process of talking out +whatever he was most interested in, occurred to Peter as her natural +limitation. It was not until they had been going out together for a week +or more, in such fashion as his mending health allowed, that he had +moments of realizing, in her swift appropriations of Venice, rich +possibilities of the personal relations with which he believed himself +forever done. Oddly it provoked in him the wish to protect, when the +practical situation had left him dry and bare. + +It was the evening of the _Serenata_. They were all there in the +gondola, Mrs. Merrithew and the girl, with Luigi squatting by Giuseppe, +not too far from the music float that sprang mysteriously from the black +water in arching boughs of red and gold and pearly Aladdin's fruit. +Behind them the lurking prows rustled and rocked drunkenly with the +swell to which they seemed at times attentively to lean. They could make +out heads crowded in the gondolas, and silver gleams of the prows as +they drifted past palaces lit intermittently by a red flare that wiped +out for the moment, the seastain and disfiguring patches of restoration. + +They had passed the palace of Camerleigh. The jewel-fruited arbour +folded and furled upon itself to pass the slow curve of the Rialto, and +suddenly, Peter's attention, drawn momentarily from the music, was +caught by that other bright company leaning from deserted balconies, +swarming like the summer drift between the pillars of dark loggias. They +were all there, knights and saints and ladies, out of print and paint +and marble, and presently he made out the Princess. She was leaning out +of one of the high, floriated windows, looking down on him with pleased, +secret understanding as she might have smiled from her palace walls on +the festival that brought the young knight George home with the +conquered dragon. It was the compressed and pregnant meaning of her gaze +that drew his own upward, and it was then when the Lovely Lady turned +and waved her hand at him that he felt the girl stir strangely beside +him. + +"How full the night is of the sense of presences," she said, "as if all +the loved marbles came to life and the adored had left their canvases. I +cannot think but it is so." + +"Oh, I am sure of it." + +She moved again with the vague restlessness of one stared upon by +innumerable eyes. "How one would like to speak," she said. "They seem so +near us." + +There was a warm tide of that nearness rising in Peter's blood. As the +music flowed out again in summer fullness, he put out his arm along the +back of the seat instinctively in answer to the girl's shy turning, the +natural movement of their common equity in the night's unrealized +wonder. + + + + +IX + + +"Peter! oh, Peter!" + +It was dark in the room when Peter awoke, but he knew it was morning by +the salt smell which he thought came into the room from the cove beyond +Bloombury pastures, until he roused in his bed and knew it for the smell +of the lagoons. He looked out to see the beginning of rose light on the +world and understood that he was called. He did not hear the voice again +but out there in the shimmering space the call awaited him. It might be +the Princess. + +He dressed and got down quietly into the shadowed city and waked a +frowsy gondolier asleep in his gondola. They spoke softly, both of them, +before the morning hush, as they swung out into the open water between +the towers of San Georgio fairily dim, and the pillars of the saints; +the city floated in a mist of blueness, the dome of the Saluti faintly +pearled. + +"_Dove, Signore?_" The gondolier feathered his oar. + +"_Un giro_"--Peter waved his arm seaward; the dip of the oar had a +stealthy sound in the deserted dawning. They passed the public gardens +and saw the sea widen and the morning quicken. Islands swam up out of +silver space, took form and colour, and there between the islands he saw +the girl. She had gotten another oar from Giuseppe and stood delighting +in the free motion; her sleeves were rolled up, her hat was off, her +hair blew out; alive and pliant she bent to the long sweep of it, and +her eyes were on the morning wonder. But when she caught sight of Peter +she looked only at him and he knew that her seeing him appearing thus on +the shining water was its chief and exquisite wonder, and that she did +not know what he saw. The gondolier steered straight for the girl +without advice; he had thought privately that the _Signore Americano_ +was a little mad, but he knew now with what manner of madness. + +They drew close and drifted alongside. Peter did not take his eyes from +the girl's eyes lest for her to look away ever so slightly from there +to his face would be to discover that he knew; and he did not know how +he stood with himself toward that knowledge. + +"Oh," she said breathlessly, "I wanted you--I called you--and you came! +You did not know where I was and yet you came?" + +"I heard you calling." + +She left her oar and sat down; Peter laid his hand on the edge of her +gondola and they drifted side by side. + +"May I come with you?" he asked presently. + +She made a little gesture, past all speech. Peter held up a hand full of +silver toward his gondolier and laid it on the seat as he stepped +lightly over. The man slid away from them without word or motion, and +together they faced the morning. It was one thin web of rose and gold +over lakes of burnished light; islands lifted in mirage, floated +miraculously upon the verge of space. Behind them the mainland banked +like a new created world over which waited the Hosts of the ranked Alps. +Winged boats from Murano slid through the flat lagoons. + +There was very little to say. Peter was aware chiefly, in what came from +her to him, of the wish to be very tender toward it, of having it in +hand to support her securely above the abyss into which he felt at the +least rude touch of his, she must immeasurably fall. At the best he +could but keep with her there at the point of her unconsciousness by +knowing the truth himself, as he felt amazingly that he did know it with +all the completeness of his stripped and beggared past. + +They drifted and saw the morning widen into the working-day. Market +boats piled with fruit, fish in shining heaps, wood boats of Istria, +went by with Madonna painted sails. Among the crowded goods the women +sat Madonna-wise and nursed their bambini, or cherishing the recurrent +hope, knitted interminably. If he wanted any evidence of what he +admitted between the girl and himself it flashed out for him in the +faces of the market wives, on whom labour and maternity sat not too +heavily to cloud the primal radiance. It was there in their soft _Buon +giorno_ in the way they did not, as the gondola drew beside them, cover +their fruitful breasts from her tender eyes, in the way most fall, they +grasped in the high mood of the _forestieri_ a sublimity untouched by +the niceties of bargaining. A man in the state of mind to which the +girl's visible shine confessed, could hardly be expected to stickle at +the price of the few figs and roses which served as an easy passage from +the wonder of their meeting to the ground of their accustomed gay +pretences. They made of Peter's purchases of fruit and flowers a market +garden of their own from which they had but just come on hopeful +errands. They made believe again as boats thickened like winged things +in a summer garden, to be bent upon discovery, and slid with pretended +caution under the great ships stationed by the Giudecca, from which they +heard sailors singing. They shot with exaggerated shivers past a slim +cruiser and suddenly Miss Dassonville clutched Peter by the arm. + +"Oh!" she cried: "Do you see it? That little dark, impudent-looking one, +and _the_ flag?" + +Peter saw; he was not quite, he reminded her, even in the intoxication +of a morning on the lagoons with her, quite in that state where he +couldn't see his country's flag when it was pointed out to him. They +came alongside with long strokes, and sniffed deliciously. + +"Ah--um--um----" said Miss Dassonville. "I know what that is. It's ham +and eggs. How long since you've had a real American breakfast?" + +"Not since I left the steamer," Peter confessed. "Now if I were to smell +hot cakes I shouldn't be able to stand it. I should go aboard her." + +Miss Dassonville saluted softly as they went under the bright banner. + +"'Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light,'" she began to sing and +immediately a large, blooming face rose through a mist of faded whisker +at the prow and they saw all the coast of Maine looking down on them +from the rail of the _Merrythought_. + +"United States, ahoy?" it said. + +They came close under and Miss Dassonville hailed in return; as soon as +the captain saw her face smiling up at him he beamed on it as the women +in the boats had done. + +"We smelled your breakfast," she explained, and the man laughed +delightedly. + +"I know what kind these Dagoes give ye. Come up and have some." + +Peter and the girl consulted with their eyes. + +"Are you going to have hot cakes?" she demanded. + +"I will if you come; darned if I don't." + +"We're coming, then." + +It was part of the task that Peter had set himself, to persevere for +Savilla Dassonville the film of unconsciousness that lay delicately like +the bloom of a rare fruit over all that was at that moment going on in +her, that made him hasten as soon as Captain Dunham had announced +himself, to introduce her particularly by name. To forestall in the +jolly sailor the natural interpretation of their appearance together at +this hour and occasion, he had to lend himself to the only other +reasonable surmise. If they were not, as he saw it on the tip of the +good captain's tongue to propose, newly married, they were in a hopeful +way to be. The consciousness of himself as accessory to so delightful an +arrangement passed from the captain to Peter with almost the +obviousness of a wink, as he surrendered himself to the charm of the +girl's ethereal excitement. + +He understood perfectly that his not being able to feel more of a drop +from the pregnant mystery of her call and his high response to it, to +the homely incident of breakfast, was due to Miss Dassonville's +obliviousness of its being one. It was for her, in fact, no drop at all +but rather as if they had pulled out for a moment into this little shoal +of neighbourly interest and comfortable food, the better to look back at +the perfect wonder of it, as from the deck of the _Merrythought_ toward +the fair front of the ducal palace and the blue domes of St. Mark's +behind the rearing lion. + +Although he had parted from her that morning with no hint of an +arrangement for a next meeting, it had become a part of the day's +performance for Peter to call for the two ladies in the afternoon, so +much so that his own sense of the unusualness of finally letting the +gondola go off without him, and his particular wish at this juncture not +to mark his intercourse with any unusualness, led him to send off with +it as many roses as Luigi could find at that season on the Piazza. +Afterward, as he recalled that he had never sent flowers to Miss +Dassonville before, and as he had that morning furnished her from the +market boats past her protesting limitation, it was perhaps a greater +emphasis to his desertion. + +However, it seemed that the roses and nothing but the roses might serve +as a bridge, delicate and dizzying, to support them from the realization +of their situation, into which he had no intention of letting Miss +Dassonville fall. He stayed in his room most of that afternoon, knowing +that he was shut up with a very great matter, not able to feel it so +because of the dryness of his heart, nor to think what was to be done +about it because of the lightness of his brain. + +It occurred to him at last that at St. Mark's there might be reflective +silences and perhaps resolution. He felt it warm from the stored-up +veneration of the world, and though he said to himself, as he climbed to +the galleries, that it was to give himself the more room to think, he +knew that it must have been in his mind all the time that the girl was +there, as it was natural she should have come to the place where they +had met. Even before he caught the outline of her dress against the +pillar he found himself crossing over to the organ loft the better to +observe her. Knowledge reached him incredibly across the empty space, as +to what, over and above the pictured saints, she faced there in the +vault, lit so faintly by the shining of its golden walls. The service of +the benediction going on in the church below furnished him with the +figure of what came to him from her as she laid up her thoughts on an +altar before that mysterious intimation of maternity which presages in +right women the movement of passion. He felt himself caught up in it +purely above all sense of his personal insufficiency. + +Back in his hotel after dinner he found he had still to let the roses +answer for him as he sat out on his balcony and realized oddly that +though he had no right to go to Miss Dassonville again until he had +thought out to its furthermost his relation to her, he could, +incontinently, think better in her company. + +It was not wholly then with surprise, since he felt himself so much in +need of some compelling touch, that he heard, after an hour of futile +battling, the Princess speak to him. + +She stood just beyond him in the shadow of the wistaria that went up all +the front of the balcony, and called him by his name. + +"Ah," said Peter "I know now who you are. You are the one who stayed." + +"How did you find out?" + +"Because the one who ran away was the one he would have married." + +He did not look at the Princess, but he saw the shadow of her that the +moon made, mixed with the lace of the wistaria leaves, tremble. + +"Well," said she, "and what are you going to do about it?" + +"You know then...?" + +"I was there on the water with you this morning.... It was I that showed +you the way, but you had no eyes for anything." + +It was the swift recurrent start of what he _had_ had eyes for that kept +Peter silent long enough for the Princess to have asked him again what +he was going to do about it, and then---- + +"The other night--with the music--she knew that I was there?" + +"Oh--she!" He was taken all at once with the completeness with which in +his intimate attitude to things, Savilla did know. "She knows +everything." + +"What was there so different about the other one?" + +"Everything ... she was beautiful ... she was air and fire ... she made +the earth rock under me." + +"And did you go to her calling?" + +"I would have risen out of death and dust at her slightest word ... I +would have followed where her feet went over all the world." + +"And why did you never?" + +"I suppose," said Peter, "it was because she never called." + +"This one," suggested the Princess, "would be prettier if she were not +so thin; and she wouldn't have to wear shirtwaists if you married her. +She makes them herself, you know. Why did the other one run away?" + +"That's just the difficulty. I can't remember." He wished sincerely +within himself that he might; it seemed it would have served him somehow +with Miss Dassonville. "I've been very ill," he apologized. + +"Anyway, you'd be getting what everybody wants." + +"And that is----" + +"A woman of your own ... understanding and care ... and children. I was +in the church with you ... you saw----" + +"But I don't want to talk about it." + +"What do you want then?" + +"To be the prince in a fairy tale, I suppose," Peter sighed. + +"Oh, you're all of that to _her_. The half god--the unmatched wonder. +When she watched your coming across the water this morning--_I_ know the +look that should go to a slayer of dragons. It seems to me," said the +Princess severely, "it is you who are running away." + +She was wise enough to leave him with that view of it though it was not +by any means leaving him more comfortable. He tried for relief to +figure himself as by the Princess' suggestion, he must seem to Savilla +Dassonville. But if he was really such to her why could he not then play +the Deliverer in fact, rescue her from untended illness, from meagreness +and waste? Why not, in short, marry her, except for a reason--oh, there +was reason enough if he could only remember it! + +He heard Luigi moving softly in the room behind, and presently when the +door clicked he rose and went in and taking the lamp held it high over +him, turning with it fronting the huge mirror in its gilded frame. If +there were a good reason why he couldn't marry Savilla Dassonville, he +ought to have found it in his own lean frame, the face more drawn than +was justified by his years, lined about the eyes, the hand that held the +accusing lamp broadened by labours that no scrupulosity of care denied. +Weatheral, of Weatheral, Lessing & Co., unaccomplished, unaccustomed. He +put down the lamp heavily, leaning forward in his chair as he covered +his face with his hands and groaned in them, fully remembering. + + + + +X + + +He had been sitting just so in his library with the lamp behind him and +the hollow flare of the coals making an excellent starting place for the +House which was now so near him that the mere exhibition in shop windows +of the stuffs with which it was being modernly renewed, was enough to +set him off for it. It was so near now, that since the announcement of +their engagement in September, he had moved through all its obligations +benumbed by the white, blinding flash thrown backward from its +consummating moment, the moment of her cry to him, of their welding at +the core of light and harmony, bounded inevitably by the approaching +date of marriage. It had been, he recalled on some one of those +occasions of social approval by which it appeared engagements in the +Best Society proceeded, that he had sat thus, waiting until the clock +ticked on the moment when he might properly join her, sat so full of the +sense of her that for the instant he accepted her unannounced appearance +at the darkened doorway as the mere extension of his white-heated +fancy. The next moment as she charged into the circle of the lamp he saw +that the umbra of some strange electrical excitement hung about her. It +fairly crackled between them as he rose hurriedly to his feet. + +"You have come, Eunice! You have come----" + +But he saw well enough what she had come for. She laid the case on the +table, but as she tugged impatiently at her glove, the fringe of her +wrap caught the clasp of it and scattered the jewels on the cloth. She +tried then to put the ring beside them, but her hand shook so that it +fell and rolled upon the floor behind them. Peter picked it up quietly, +but he did not offer it to her hand again. + +"I have come," said Eunice, "to say what in my mother's house I was +afraid of being interrupted in saying; what you must see, what my mother +won't see." + +"I see you are greatly excited about something!" + +"I'm not, I'm not.... That is ... I am, but not in the way you think," +she was sharp with insistence; "that is what you and mother always say, +that I'm nervous or excited, and all the time you don't _see_." + +"What is it I don't see, Eunice?" + +"That I can't stand it, that I can't go on with it, that it is dreadful +to me,--_dreadful!_" + +"What is dreadful?" + +"Everything, being engaged--being married and giving up...." It was +fairly racked out of her by some inward torture to which he had not the +key. + +"Of course, Eunice, if you don't wish to be married so soon----" Peter +was all at sea. He brought a chair for her, and perceiving that he would +go on standing as long as she did, she sat upon the edge of it but kept +both the arms as a measure of defence. The slight act of doing something +for her restored him for the moment to reality; he bent over her. "I've +never wanted to hurry you, dearest---- It shall be when you say." She +put up her hands suddenly with a shivering movement. + +"Oh, never, never at all; never to you!" + +Peter could feel that working its track of desolation inward, but the +first instinctive movement of his surface was to close over the wound. +He took it as he knew he could only take it: as the explosive crisis of +the virginal resistance which he remembered he had heard came to girls +when marriage loomed upon them. He took a turn down the room to steady +himself, praying dumbly for the right word. + +"It isn't as if I didn't respect you"--she was eager in explanation, +hurried and stumbling--"as if I didn't know how good you are ... it is +only, because we are so different." + +"How different, Eunice?" + +"Oh ... older, I suppose." She grew quieter; it appeared on the whole +they were getting on. "I care for so many things, you know--dancing--and +bridge--_young_ things--and you are always reading and reading. Oh! I +couldn't stand it." + +So it was out now. She was jealous of his books, a little. Well, he had +been self-absorbed. It occurred to him dimly that the thing to have done +if he had known a little more about women, had practised with them, was +to have provoked her at this point to the tears which should have sealed +the renewal of his claim to her. What he said was, very quietly: + +"Of course I never meant, Eunice, that you shouldn't have everything you +want." + +"Oh," she seemed to have found a suffocating quality in his gentleness, +against which she struck out with drowning gestures, "if you could only +understand what it would mean to me never to have anybody I liked to +talk to about things,--anybody I liked to be with all the time!" She was +choked and aghast at the enormity of it. + + +"But I thought...." Peter was not able to go on with that. "Isn't there +anybody you like to be with, Eunice?" + +"Yes," said Eunice. "Burton Henderson." + +Mutinous and bright she looked at him out of the chair with a hand on +either arm of it poised for flight or defence. After an interval Peter +heard his own voice out of a fog rising to the conventional utterance. + +"Of course, if you have learned to love him----" + +"I've loved him all the time." She was so bent on making this clear to +him that she was careless what went down before her. "From the very +beginning," she said, "but he had so little money, and mother ... I +promised you, I know, but it's not as if I ever said I loved you." + +She should have spared him that! He had not put out a hand to hold her +that he should be so pierced through with needless cruelty. But she was +bent on clearing her skirts of him. + +"Do you think," she expostulated to his stricken silence, "that if I'd +cared in the least I'd have made it so easy for you? Can't you see that +it was all arranged, that we _jumped_ at you?" All the time she sat +opposite him, thrusting swift and hard, there was no diminution of her +appealing beauty, the flaming rose of her cheeks and the soft, dark +flare of her hair. As if she felt how it belied at every turn the +quality of her unyielding intention, her voice railed against him +feverishly. "I suppose you think I'm mercenary, and I thought I was, +too. You don't know how people like us _need_ money sometimes. All the +things we like _cost_ so--all the real things. And poor mamma, she +needed things; she'd never had them, and I thought that I could stand +being married to you if I could get them that way.... Maybe I could, +you know, if you'd been different, more like us I mean. But there was +such a lot you didn't understand ... things you hadn't even heard about. +I found that out as soon as we were engaged. There wasn't a thing +between us; not a _thing_." + +It poured scalding hot on Peter's sensitive surfaces: made sensitive by +the way in which even in this hour her beauty moved him. He felt tears +starting in his heart and prayed they might not come to his face. "So +you see as we hadn't anything in common it would be better for us not to +go on with it even"--she broke a little at this--"even if there hadn't +been anybody else. You see that, don't you?" She dared him to deny it +rather than begged the concession of him as she gathered herself for +departure. + +"I see that." + +"You never really belonged to our set, you know----" She rose now and he +rose blindly with her; he hoped that she was done, but there was +something still. "It hasn't been easy to go through with it.... Mother +isn't going to make it any easier. It's natural for her to want me to +have everything that money would mean, and I thought that if you would +just keep away from her ... you owe something to Burton and me for what +we've been through, I think ... just leave it to me to manage in my own +way...." + +"I shall never trouble you, Eunice." + +He came close to her then to open the door, seeing that she was to leave +him, and he saw too that she had suffered, was at the very ebb and stony +bottom of emotion as she hung for the moment in the doorway searching +for some winged shaft of separation that should cut her off from the +remotest implication of the situation. She found at last the barbedest. +All the succeeding time after he closed the door on her was marked for +Peter, not by the ticked moments but by successive waves of anguish as +that poisoned arrow worked its way to his secret places. + +"It isn't as if I had ever loved you; I owe it to Mr. Henderson to +remind you that I never said I did.... You know I never liked to have +you kiss me." + +He had in the months that succeeded to that last sight of Eunice +Goodward, moments of unbearably wanting to go to her to try for a little +to ease his torment in a more tender recognition of it--days when he +would have taken from her, gratefully even if she had fooled him and he +had seen her do it, whatever would have saved him from the certainty +that never even in those first exquisite moments had she been his. The +sharp edge of her young sufficiency had lopped off the right limb of his +manhood. Never, even in his dreams, if life had allowed him to dream +again, should he be able to see himself in any other guise than the +meagre, austere front which his obligation to his mother and Ellen had +obliged him to present to destiny. She had beggared him of all those +aptitudes for passionate relations, by the faith in which he had kept +himself inwardly alive. The capacity for loving died in him with the +knowledge of not being able to be loved. + +Out of the anaesthesia of exhaustion from which Italy had revived him, it +rolled back upon him that by just the walled imperviousness that shut +Eunice Goodward from the appreciation of his passion, he was prevented +now from Savilla Dassonville. + + + + +XI + + +It was odd, then, having come to this conclusion in the middle of the +night, that when he joined the ladies in the morning he should have +experienced a sinking pang in not being able any longer to be sure what +Miss Dassonville thought of him. There was in her manner, as she thanked +him for the flowers, nothing to ruffle the surface of the bright, +impersonal companionship which she had afforded him for weeks past. + +The occasion which brought them together was an agreement entered into +some days earlier, to go and look at palaces, and as they turned past +the Saluti to the Grand Canal, he found himself wondering if there had +not been a touch of fatuity in his reading of the incident of the +morning before. He had gone so far in the night as to think even of +leaving Venice, and saw himself now forlornly wishing for some renewal +of yesterday's mood to excuse him from the caddishness that such a +flight implied. + +It came out a little later, perhaps, when after traversing many high and +resounding marble halls, with a great many rooms opening into one +another in a way that suggested rather the avoidance of privacy than its +security, they found themselves in one of those gardens of shut delight +of which the exteriors of Venetian houses give so little intimation. + +As she went about from bough to bough of the neglected roses, turned all +inward as if they took their florescence from that still lighted human +passion which had found its release and centre there, her face glowed +for the moment with the colour of her quick sympathies. She turned it on +him with an unconscious, tender confidence, which not to meet seemed to +Peter, in that gentle enclosure full of warmth and fragrance, to assume +the proportions of a betrayal. + +He did meet it there as she came back to him for the last look from the +marble balustrade by which they had descended, covering her hand, there +resting, lingeringly with his own. He was awakened only to the +implication of this movement by the discovery that she had deeply and +exquisitely blushed. + +It was a further singularity in view of the conviction with which Peter +had come through the night, that the mood of protectingness which the +girl provoked in him should have multiplied itself in pointing out to +him how many ways, if he had not made up his mind not to marry her at +all, such a marriage could be made to serve its primal uses. She had +turned up her cuff to trail her hand overside as they slid through the +lucent water, and the pretty feminine curve of it had brought to mind +what the Princess had told him of the shirt-waists she made herself. He +decided that she made them very well. But she was too thin for their +severity--and if he married her he would have insisted on her wearing +them now and then as a tender way to prevent her suspecting that it was +on their account he had thought of not marrying her. The revealed +whiteness of her wrist, the intimacy of her relaxed posture, for though +her mind had played into his as freely as a child in a meadow, she had +been always, as regards her person, a little prim with him, had lent to +their errand of house visiting a personal note in which it was absurdly +apt for them to have run across Captain Dunham of the _Merrythought_ at +the door of the Consulate. Mr. Weatheral had some papers which Lessing +had sent him to acknowledge there, and it was a piece of the morning's +performance, when he had come back from that business, to find that the +meeting had taken on--from some mutual discovery of the captain's and +Mrs. Merrithew's of a cousin's wife's sister who had married one of the +Applegates who was a Dunham on the mother's side--quite the aspect of a +family party. It came in the end to the four of them going off at +Peter's invitation to have lunch together in a cafe overhanging the +_calle_. He told himself afterward that he would not have done it if he +had recalled in time the friendly seaman's romantic appreciation of the +situation between himself and Miss Dassonville. He saw himself so +intrigued by it that, by the time lunch was over, he felt himself in a +position which to his own sensitiveness, demanded that he must +immediately leave Venice or propose to Miss Dassonville. To see the way +he was going and to go on in it, had for him the fascination of the +abyss. He caught himself in the act even of trying to fix Miss +Dassonville's eye to include her by complicity in the beguilement of the +captain, a business which she seemed to have undertaken on her own +account on quite other grounds. He perceived with a kind of pride for +her that she had the ways of elderly sea-going gentlemen by heart. It +was something even if she had failed to charm Peter, that she shouldn't +be found quite wanting in it by other men. + +When they had put him back aboard of the _Merrythought_ they had come to +such a pitch among them all, that as the captain leaned above the rail +to launch an invitation, he addressed it to Miss Dassonville, as, if not +quite the giver of the feast, the mistress of the situation. + +"When are you coming to lunch with me?" demanded the captain. + +"Never!" declared Miss Dassonville. "It would be quite out of the +question to have hot cakes for luncheon, and I absolutely refuse to +come for anything less." + +"There's something quite as good," asserted the captain, "that I'll bet +you haven't had in as long." + +"Better than hot cakes?" Miss Dassonville was skeptical. + +"Pie," said the captain. + +"Oh, _Pie!_" in mock ecstasy. "Well, I'd come for pie," and with that +they parted. + +Peter had plenty of time for considering where he found himself that +afternoon, for the ladies were bent on a shopping expedition on which +they had rather pointedly given him to understand he was not expected to +attend. He had tried that once, and had hit upon the excellent device, +in face of the outrageous prices proposed by the dealers, of having them +settle upon what they would like and sending Luigi back to bargain for +it. All of which would have gone very well if Mrs. Merrithew, in the +delight of his amazing success, had not gone back to the shop the next +day to duplicate his purchases. Peter had never heard what occurred on +that occasion, but he had noticed that they never talked in his +presence of buying anything again. Bloombury people, he should have +remembered, had perfectly definite notions about having things done for +them. + +He walked, therefore, on this afternoon in the Public Gardens and tried +to reconstruct in their original force the reasons for his not marrying +Savilla Dassonville. They had come upon him overwhelmingly in the +recrudescence of memory, reasons rooted very simply in his man's hunger +for the lift, the dizzying eminence of desire. He liked the girl well +enough but he did not want her as he had wanted Eunice Goodward, as he +wanted expansively at this moment to want something, somebody--who was +not Eunice--he was perfectly clear on this point--but should be in a +measure all she stood for to him. He had renewed in the night, though in +so short a time, not less acutely, all the wounded misery of what Eunice +had forced upon him. He was there between the dark and dawn, and here +again in the cool of the garden, to taste the full bitterness of the +conviction that he was not good enough to be loved. He was not to be +helped from that by the thought, which came hurrying on the heels of +the other, that Savilla Dassonville loved him. He had a moment of almost +hating her as she seemed to plead with him, by no motion of her own he +was obliged to confess for those raptures, leaping fires, winged rushes, +which should have been his portion of their situation. + +He hated her for the certainty that if he went away now quietly without +saying anything, it would be to visit on her undeservedly all that had +come to him from Eunice. For she would know; she would not, as he had +been, be blind to the point of requiring the spoken word. If he left her +now it would be to the unavoidable knowledge that, as the Princess had +said of him, he would be running away. He would be running from the +evidences of a moneyless, self-abnegating youth, from the plain surfaces +of efficiency and womanliness, not hedged about and enfolded, but pushed +to the extremity of its use. He had, however, when he had taken that in +from every side, the grace to be ashamed of it. + +He was ashamed, too, of finding himself at their next meeting involved +in a wordless appeal to be helped from his state to some larger grounds. +If the girl had but appealed to him he could have done with a fine +generosity what he felt was beyond him to invite. He could have married +Savilla Dassonville to be kind to her; what he didn't enjoy was putting +it on a basis of her being kind to him. + +Miss Dassonville, however, afforded him no help beyond the negative one +of not talking too much and taking perhaps a shade less interest in +Venice. They had two quiet days together in which it was evident, +whatever Peter settled with himself as to his relation to the girl, it +had taken on for Mrs. Merrithew the pointedness known in Bloombury as +"attentions." She paid in to the possibilities of the situation the +tribute of her absence for long sessions in which, so far as Peter could +discover, the situation rather fell to the ground. It began to appear +that he had missed as he was doomed with women, the crucial instant, and +was to come out of this as of other encounters, empty. And then quite +suddenly the girl put out a hand to him. + +It was along about the end of the afternoon they had come out of the +church of Saint George the Greater, which as being most accessible had +been left to the latter end of their explorations. Mrs. Merrithew had +just sent Giuseppe back for a shawl which she had dropped in the +cloister. They sat rocking in the gondola looking toward the fairy +arcade of the ducal palace and the pillars of the saints, and suddenly +Miss Dassonville spoke to excuse her quietness. + +"I must look all I can," she said; "we are leaving the day after +to-morrow." + +If she had retired behind Mrs. Merrithew's comfortable breadth in order +to deliver her shot the more effectively, she missed seeing how plumply +it landed in the midst of Peter's defences and scattered them. + +"Leaving Venice?" he said. "Leaving me?" It took a moment for that fact, +dropping the depth of his indecision, to show him where he stood. "But I +thought you understood," he protested, "that I wanted you to stay ... to +stay with me...." He leaned across Mrs. Merrithew's broad lap in a great +fear of not being sufficiently plain. "Make her understand," he said, +"that I want her to stay always." + +"I guess," said Mrs. Merrithew, a dry smile twinkling in the placidity +of her countenance, "you'd better take me right home first, and then you +can explain to her yourself." + + + + +XII + + +"And you are sure," asked Peter, "that you are not going to mind my +being so much older?" + +"Oh, I'm going to mind it: There will be times when I shall be afraid of +not living up to it. But the most part of my minding will be, since you +are so much better acquainted with life than I am, that in any matter in +which we shouldn't agree I shall be so much the more sure of your being +right. It's going to be a great help to us, having something like that +to go by." + +"Oh," said Peter, "you put it very prettily, my dear." + +He was aware as soon as he had said it, that she would have a way always +of putting things prettily, and that not for the sake of any +prettiness, but because it was so intrinsically she saw them. It would +make everything much simpler that she was always sufficiently to be +believed. + +"It isn't, you know," she went on, "as if I should have continually to +prop up my confidence with my affection as I might with a man of less +experience. Oh!" she threw out her arms with a beautiful upward motion, +"you give me so much room, Peter." + +"Well, more than I would give you at this moment if we were not in a +gondola on a public highway!" + +He amazed himself at the felicity with which during the three days of +their engagement he had been able to take that note with her, still more +at the entertainment of her shy response. It gave him a new and enlarged +perception of himself as a man acquainted with passion. All that had +been withheld from him, by the mere experience of missing, he was able +to bestow with largesse. The witchery and charm that had been done on +him, he worked--if he were but to put his arm about her now, to draw +her so that her head rested on his shoulder, with a certain pressure, +he could feel all her being flower delicately to that beguilement. He +had promised himself, when he had her promise, that she should never +miss anything, and he had a certain male satisfaction in being able to +make good. What he did now, in deference to their being as they were in +the full light of day and the plying traffic, was to say: + +"Then if I were to put it to you in the light of my superior experience, +that I considered it best for us to be married right away, I shouldn't +expect you to contradict me." + +"Oh, Peter!" + +"We can't keep Mrs. Merrithew on forever, you know," he suggested, "and +we've such a lot to do--there's Greece and Egypt and the Holy Land----" + +"But can we--be married in Venice, I mean?" + +"That," said Peter, "is what I'm waiting your permission to find out." + +He spent the greater part of the afternoon at that business without, +however, getting satisfaction. "Marriage in Italy," the consul told +him, "is a sort of world-without-end affair. Even if you cable for the +necessary papers it will be a matter of a month or six weeks before the +ceremony could be accomplished. You'll do better to go to Switzerland +with the young lady." + +For the present he went back to her with a list of the required +certificates, and another item which he brought out later as a +corrective for the disappointment for the first. + +"My birth and baptismal certificates? I haven't any," said Miss +Dassonville, "and I don't believe you have either; and I don't want to +go to Switzerland." + +"No," said Peter, "even that takes three weeks." + +"Why can't he marry us himself--the consul, I mean? I thought wherever +the flag went up was territory of the United States." + +"If you will come along with me in the morning we can ask him," Peter +suggested, and on the way there he loosed for her benefit the second +item of his yesterday's discovery. They slid past the facade of a +certain palace and she kissed the tip of her finger to it lightly. "It's +as if we had a secret between us," she explained, "the secret of the +garden. Besides, I shall always love it because it was there I first +suspected that you--cared. When did you begin to care, Peter?" + +"Since before I can remember. Would you like to live in it?" + +"In this palace? Here in Venice?" + +"It's for rent," he told her; "the consul has it." + +"But could we afford it?" + +"Well," said Peter, "if you like it so much, at the rate things are +here, we can pull it up by the roots and take it back to Bloombury." + +They lost themselves in absurd speculations as to the probable effect on +the villagers of that, and so failed to take note as their gondola nosed +into the green shadow under the consulate, of the _Merrythought's_ +launch athwart the landing, until the captain himself hailed them. + +"This port," he declared, "is under embargo. I have been waiting here +since half tide and there's nothing doing. Somebody's in there chewing +red tape, but I don't calculate to let anybody else have a turn at it +until I get my bit wound up an' tied in a knot. Now don't tell me you've +got business in there?" + +"We want to find out something." + +"Well, when ye find it, it won't be what ye want," asserted the captain +gloomily. "It never is in these Dago countries." He motioned his own +boat aside from the landing. "If ye want to go inside and set on a +chair," he suggested, "I'll not hender ye. I like the water best myself. +I hope your business will stand waiting." + +"To everybody but ourselves," said Peter. "You see," he caught the +permission lightly from Miss Dassonville's eyes, "we want to get +married." + +"Ho!" said the captain, chirking up. "I could 'a' told ye that the fust +time I laid eyes on ye. But I'll tell ye this: ye can't do nothing in a +hurry in this country. The only place where a man can do things up as +soon as he thinks of 'em is on the blue water. We don't have red tape on +shipboard, I can tell you. The skipper's the law and the government." + +"Could you marry people?" + +"Well, I ain't to say in the habit of it, but it's the law that I +could." + +"Then if we get tangled up with the consul," said Peter, "we'll have to +fall back on you," and they took it as an excellent piece of fooling +which they were later to come back to as a matter of serious resort. + +"Of course," said the consul, "I could marry you and it would be legal +if you chose to count it so at home, but if you are thinking of taking a +house here and of making an extended residence I shouldn't advise it. As +to Captain Dunham's suggestion, it's not wholly a bad one. Not being in +Italy, the Italians can't take exception to it, and if it is properly +witnessed and recorded at home it ought to stand." + +They couldn't of course take it in all at once that they were simply to +sail out there into the ethereal blueness and to come back from it with +the right to live together. However, it made for a great unanimity of +opinion as they talked it over on the way home, that, since so much was +lacking from Peter's marriage that he had dreamed went to it, and so +much more had come into Savilla's than she had dared to imagine, it +mattered very little what else was added or left out. + +"I suppose," suggested Miss Dassonville, "Mrs. Merrithew will think it +dreadful." But as it turned out Mrs. Merrithew thought very well of it. + +"On a United States boat with a United States minister--there is one +here I've found out--it seems a lot safer than to trust to these foreign +ways. If you was to be married in Italian I should never be certain you +wouldn't wake up some morning and find yourself not married. And then +how should I feel!" As to the palace plan, she threw herself into it +with heavy alacrity. "I s'pose I've got to see you through," she said, +"and it will give me something to think about. I don't suppose you have +any intention that way, but an engaged couple isn't very good company." + +It transpired that the _Merrythought_ would put out to the high seas on +the twenty-second, and it was in the flutter of their practical +adjustments to meet this date that Peter found the ten days of his +engagement move so swiftly; to engage servants, to interview +tradespeople, to prune the neglected garden--it was Savilla's notion +that they should do this themselves--all the stir of domestic life made +so many points of advantage to support him above that dryness of despair +from which he had moments of feeling himself all too hardly rescued. He +had come up out of it sufficiently by the help that Italy afforded, to +glimpse once more the country of his dreams, only by this act of his +marriage to turn his back on it forever. Savilla Dassonville was a dear +little thing; if it came to that, a revered and valued thing, but she +was not, he had never pretended it, the Lovely Lady, and the door that +shut them in as man and wife was to shut _her_ forever out of his life. +And yet though this was his accepted, his official position, it was +remarkable even to himself how much less frequently as the preparations +for his marriage went forward, he found himself obliged to fall back +upon it; how much more he projected himself into his future as the +adored and protecting male. He recalled in this connection that the +Princess had said to him that he should visit his House no more, and it +was part of the proof of the notion he entertained toward himself as a +man done with the imaginative life, that he accepted it with no more +fuss about it. He had in fact his mind's eye on a piece of ground which +Lessing could buy for him, on the river, an hour from the city, where he +could manage for Savilla at least, a generous substitute for dreams, and +a situation for himself for which he began to discover more appetite +than he would have believed. It was likely, he thought, that he would +himself take a turn at planning the garden. + +It was very early in the morning when the wedding party which had been +reinforced by the consul, the mistress of Casa Frolli, and the minister, +who had turned out to be exactly of Mrs. Merrithew's persuasion, went +aboard the _Merrythought_, blooming out amazingly in bunting and roses +for the occasion. The morning blueness had drained out from the city and +stained the waters eastward as they put out between the red and yellow +sails of the fishing fleet. They saw the cypress-towered islands of +romance melt in the morning haze. The steam launch which was to take +them ashore again ploughed alongside, and there was a pleasant sort of +home smell from the cook's quarters. + +Peter sat forward with the bride's hand tucked under his arm and +presently he heard her laughing softly, delightedly. + +"Peter, do you know what that is, that good smell I mean?" + +"What do you think it is?" + +"It's pie baking. Truly, don't you think I'm enough of a housewife to +know that?" + +"I know you're everything you ought to be." + +"It is pie, there's no doubt about it, but we must pretend to be awfully +surprised when the captain brings it out. But Peter, don't you like it?" + +"Pie, my dear?" + +"No, but like having everything so homey and--and--so genuine at our +wedding?" + +"I hope," said Peter, "it's genuine pie, but I see what you mean, my +dear." + +"It's an omen, almost, that we'll always have the good, comfortable, +common things to fall back upon, if our marriage should not prove quite +all we've dreamed it. It's been so perfect up to now; it must drop down +out of the clouds some time." + +It seemed rather to have taken a sweep upward when, with sails swelling +over them and the beat of the sea under the bows, they stood up to be +married, and to exhibit capacities of sustaining itself at a level from +which not the very soggy and sallow complexioned pie with the cook +grinning behind it, could dislodge the two most concerned in it. It wore +through the day to a contained and quiet gayety at a dinner which took +place in the _ristoranta_ over the water where they had once lunched +with the captain, and lasted until Peter had brought his wife home again +to the refurnished palace. It had gone, as he told himself, remarkably +well, with every intimation, as he had time to tell himself in his last +hours in the garden with his cigar, of going much better, of becoming as +the place gave him occasion to indulge the figure, an enclosed and +fragrant garden, in which if no flaming angel of desire kept the gate +for him, he had at least the promise of refreshment. + +That old passion for Eunice Goodward, all his feelings for all the women +he had known, served to show him what Savilla had meant when she said he +"gave her so much room"--the renewed sense of the spaciousness of life. + +It would be there for his wife at the completest, and if she had, as it +seemed, turned him out of the Wonderful House in order to live in it +herself, he at least kept the gates. And was not this the proper +business for a man? He recalled what the Princess had said to him so +long ago when he had first begun to think of himself as a bachelor. "It +takes a lot of dreaming to bring one like me to pass." Well, he had +dreamed and he had slain some dragons. Later there would be children +playing in the House, daughters perhaps ... Lovely Ladies. The world +would be a better place for them to walk about in because of all that he +had lost and been. + +When he went into the garden he had half expected that the Princess +would speak to him; the place was full of hints of her, faint and +persuasive as the scent of the flowers in the dark, little riffles of +his pulse, flushed surfaces, the tingling of his palms which announced +her, but she did not speak. He said to himself that he was now a well +man and had seen the last of her. Never before had he felt so very +well. + +He saw the light moving in the palace behind him as his wife moved to +complete some of her arrangements; he heard her then pacing along the +marble floor of the great hall which went quite through the middle of +it--she must be going to her room, and in a little while he would go in +to her--he heard the light tapping of her feet and then he saw her come, +the lit lamp in her hand. + +She had on still the white dress in which she had been married, and over +it she had thrown the silver-woven scarf which had been one of his first +gifts to her, and as she came the light glittered on it; it drew from +the polished walls bright reflections in which, amid the gilded frames, +he saw the dim old pictures start and waver--and as he saw her coming +so, Peter threw away his cigar and gripped suddenly at the balustrade to +steady him where he stood, against what out of some far spring of his +youth rushed upon him, as he saw her come--as he had always seen her, as +he knew now he was to see her always--his wife and the Lovely Lady. + + +THE END + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS +GARDEN CITY, N.Y. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lovely Lady, by Mary Austin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVELY LADY *** + +***** This file should be named 20359.txt or 20359.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/5/20359/ + +Produced by Hillie Plantinga and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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