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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Builders, by Ellen Glasgow
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Builders
+
+Author: Ellen Glasgow
+
+Release Date: September 17, 2011 [EBook #37463]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUILDERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    THE BUILDERS
+
+   BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+  ANCIENT LAW, THE
+  THE BATTLE-GROUND, THE
+  THE DELIVERANCE, THE
+  THE FREEMAN AND OTHER POEMS, THE
+  THE LIFE AND GABRIELLA
+  MILLER OF OLD CHURCH, THE
+  THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN, THE
+  THE VIRGINIA
+  VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, THE
+  THE WHEEL OF LIFE
+
+
+
+
+THE BUILDERS
+
+BY
+ELLEN GLASGOW
+
+[Illustration: colophon]
+
+GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
+
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+1919
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
+
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
+
+TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
+
+INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK FIRST
+
+APPEARANCES
+
+
+CHAPTER                                          PAGE
+
+I. CAROLINE                                         3
+
+II. THE TIME                                       20
+
+III. BRIARLAY                                      25
+
+IV. ANGELICA                                       44
+
+V. THE FIRST NIGHT                                 59
+
+VI. LETTY                                          70
+
+VII. CAROLINE MAKES DISCOVERIES                    84
+
+VIII. BLACKBURN                                   102
+
+IX. ANGELICA'S CHARITY                            122
+
+X. OTHER DISCOVERIES                              142
+
+XI. THE SACRED CULT                               165
+
+XII. THE WORLD'S VIEW OF AN UNFORTUNATE MARRIAGE  176
+
+XIII. INDIRECT INFLUENCE                          194
+
+
+BOOK SECOND
+
+REALITIES
+
+I. IN BLACKBURN'S LIBRARY                         219
+
+II. READJUSTMENTS                                 231
+
+III. MAN'S WOMAN                                  245
+
+IV. THE MARTYR                                    257
+
+V. THE CHOICE                                     268
+
+VI. ANGELICA'S TRIUMPH                            281
+
+VII. COURAGE                                      293
+
+VIII. THE CEDARS                                  310
+
+IX. THE YEARS AHEAD                               324
+
+X. THE LIGHT ON THE ROAD                          339
+
+XI. THE LETTER                                    348
+
+XII. THE VISION                                   359
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIRST
+
+APPEARANCES
+
+
+
+
+THE BUILDERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CAROLINE
+
+
+The train was late that day, and when the old leather mail pouch was
+brought in, dripping wet, by Jonas, the negro driver, Mrs. Meade put
+down the muffler she was knitting, and received it reluctantly.
+
+"At least there aren't any bills at this time of the month," she
+observed, with the manner of one who has been designed by Providence to
+repel disaster.
+
+While she unbuckled the clammy straps, her full, round face, which was
+still fresh and pretty in spite of her seventy years, shone like an
+auspicious moon in the dusky glow of the fire. Since wood was scarce,
+and this particular strip of southside Virginia grew poorer with each
+year's harvest, the only fire at The Cedars was the one in "the
+chamber," as Mrs. Meade's bedroom was called. It was a big, shabby room,
+combining, as successfully as its owner, an aspect of gaiety with a
+conspicuous absence of comforts. There were no curtains at the windows,
+and the rugs, made from threadbare carpets, had faded to indeterminate
+patterns; but the cracked mahogany belonged to a good period, and if the
+colours had worn dim, they were harmonious and restful. The house,
+though scarred, still held to its high standards. The spirit of the
+place was the spirit of generous poverty, of cheerful fortitude.
+
+The three girls on the hearthrug, knitting busily for the War Relief
+Association, were so much alike in colouring, shape, and feature, that
+it was difficult at a casual glance to distinguish Maud, who was almost,
+if not quite, a beauty, from Margaret and Diana, who were merely pretty
+and intelligent. They were all natural, kind-hearted girls, who had been
+trained from infancy to make the best of things and to laugh when they
+were hurt. From the days when they had played with ears of corn instead
+of dolls, they had acquired ingenuity and philosophy. For Mrs. Meade,
+who derived her scant income from a plantation cultivated "on shares" by
+negro tenants, had brought up her girls to take life gaily, and to rely
+on their own resourcefulness rather than on fortuitous events.
+
+"Here is a nice fat letter for Caroline, and it looks as if it weren't
+an advertisement." With one plump hand she held out the letter, while
+she handed the dripping mail bag to Jonas. "Bring some wood for the
+fire, Jonas, and be sure to shut the door after you."
+
+"Dar ain' no mo' wood, ole Miss."
+
+For an instant Mrs. Meade stopped to think. "Well, the garden fence is
+falling down by the smoke-house. Split up some of the rails. Here is
+your letter, Caroline."
+
+A woman's figure, outlined against the rocking branches of an old cedar
+beyond the window, turned slowly toward the group on the hearthrug. In
+Caroline's movements, while she lingered there for a moment, there was
+something gallant and free and spirited, which was a part of the world
+outside and the swaying boughs. Though she was older than the three
+girls by the fire, she was young with an illusive and indestructible
+grace of the soul. At thirty-two, in spite of the stern sweetness about
+her thin red lips, and the defiant courage which flashed now and then
+from the shadowy pallor of her face, one felt that the flame and ardour
+of her glance flowed not from inward peace, but from an unconquerable
+and adventurous spirit. Against the grey rain her face seemed the face
+of some swiftly changing idea, so expressive of an intangible beauty was
+the delicate curve of the cheek and the broad, clear forehead beneath
+the dark hair, which grew low in a "widow's peak" above the arched
+eyebrows and the vivid blue of the eyes. If there was austerity in the
+lines of her mouth, her eyes showed gaiety, humour, and tenderness. Long
+ago, before the wreck of her happiness, her father, who had a taste for
+the striking in comparisons, had said that Caroline's eyes were like
+bluebirds flying.
+
+The letter could wait. She was not interested in letters now, rarely as
+they came to her. It was, she knew, only the call to a patient, and
+after nearly eight years of nursing, she had learned that nothing varied
+the monotonous personalities of patients. They were all alike, united in
+their dreadful pathos by the condition of illness--and as a mere matter
+of excitement there was little to choose between diphtheria and
+pneumonia. Yet if it were a call, of course she would go, and her brief
+vacation would be over. Turning away from the firelight, she deferred as
+long as possible the descent from her thoughts to the inevitable bondage
+of the actuality.
+
+Beyond the window, veiled in rain, she could see the pale quivering
+leaves of the aspens on the lawn, and the bend in the cedar avenue,
+which led to the big white gate and the private road that ran through
+the farm until it joined the turnpike at the crossroads. Ever since she
+was born, it seemed to her, for almost thirty-two years, she had watched
+like this for something that might come up that long empty road. Even in
+the years that she had spent away, she had felt that her soul waited
+there, tense and expectant, overlooking the bend in the avenue and the
+white gate, and then the road over which "the something different," if
+it came at all, must come at last to The Cedars. Nothing, not change,
+not work, not travel, could detach the invisible tendrils of her life
+from the eager, brooding spirit of the girl who had once watched there
+at the window. She had been watching--watching--she remembered, when the
+letter that broke her heart had come in the old mail pouch, up the road
+beyond, and through the gate, and on into the shadows and stillness of
+the avenue. That was how the blow had come to her, without warning,
+while she waited full of hope and expectancy and the ardent sweetness of
+dreams.
+
+"My poor child, your heart is broken!" her mother had cried through her
+tears, and the girl, with the letter still in her hands, had faced her
+defiantly.
+
+"Yes, but my head and my hands are whole," she had replied with a laugh.
+
+Then, while the ruins of her happiness lay at her feet, she began
+rebuilding her house of life with her head and her hands. She would
+accept failure on its own terms, completely, exultantly, and by the very
+audacity of her acceptance, she would change defeat into victory. She
+would make something out of nothing; she would wring peace, not from
+joy, but from the heart of an incredible cruelty; she would build with
+courage, not with gladness, but she would build her house toward the
+stars.
+
+"There must be something one can live on besides love," she thought, "or
+half the world would go famished."
+
+"Come and read your letter, Caroline," called Maud, as she reached the
+end of a row. "There isn't anything for the rest of us."
+
+"I am so afraid it is a call, dear," said Mrs. Meade; and then, as
+Caroline left the window and passed into the firelight, the old lady
+found herself thinking a little vaguely, "Poor child, the hard work is
+beginning to show in her face--but she has never been the same since
+that unfortunate experience. I sometimes wonder why a just Providence
+lets such things happen." Aloud she added, while her beaming face
+clouded slightly, "I hope and pray that it isn't anything catching."
+
+As Caroline bent over the letter, the three younger girls put down their
+knitting and drew closer, while their charming faces, brown, flushed,
+and sparkling, appeared to catch and hold the glow of the flames. They
+were so unlike Caroline, that she might have been mistaken, by a
+stranger, for a woman of a different race. While she bent there in the
+firelight, her slender figure, in its cambric blouse and skirt of faded
+blue serge, flowed in a single lovely curve from her drooping dark head
+to her narrow feet in their worn russet shoes.
+
+"It is from an old friend of yours, mother," she said presently, "Mrs.
+Colfax."
+
+"Lucy Colfax! Why, what on earth is she writing to you about? I hope
+there isn't anything wrong with her."
+
+"Read it aloud, Caroline," said Diana. "Mother, this fire will go out
+before Jonas can fix it."
+
+"He has to split the wood, dear. Look out on the back porch and see if
+you can find some chips. They'll be nice and dry." Mrs. Meade spoke with
+authority, for beneath her cheerful smile there was the heart of a
+fighter, and like all good fighters, she fought best when she was driven
+against the wall. "Now, Caroline, I am listening."
+
+"She wants me to take a case. It sounds queer, but I'll read you what
+she says. 'Dear Caroline'--she calls me 'Caroline.'"
+
+"That's natural, dear. We were like sisters, and perhaps she took a
+fancy to you the time she met you in Richmond. It would be just like her
+to want to do something for you." The sprightly old lady, who was
+constitutionally incapable of seeing any prospect in subdued colours,
+was already weaving a brilliant tapestry of Caroline's future.
+
+"'Dear Caroline:
+
+"'My cousin, Angelica Blackburn, has asked me to recommend a trained
+nurse for her little girl, who is delicate, and I am wondering if you
+would care to take the case. She particularly wishes a self-reliant and
+capable person, and Doctor Boland tells me you have inherited your
+mother's sweet and unselfish nature (I don't see how he knows. Everybody
+is unselfish in a sick-room. One has to be.)'"
+
+"Well, I'm sure you have a lovely nature," replied Mrs. Meade tenderly.
+"I was telling the girls only yesterday that you never seemed to think
+of yourself a minute." In her own mind she added, "Any other girl would
+have been embittered by that unfortunate experience" (the phrase
+covered Caroline's blighted romance) "and it shows how much character
+she has that she was able to go on just as if nothing had happened. I
+sometimes think a sense of humour does as much for you as religion."
+
+"'I remember my poor father used to say,'" Caroline read on smoothly,
+"'that in hard dollars and cents Carrie Warwick's disposition was worth
+a fortune.'"
+
+"That's very sweet of Lucy," murmured Mrs. Meade deprecatingly.
+
+"'As you are the daughter of my old friend, I feel I ought not to let
+you take the case without giving you all the particulars. I don't know
+whether or not you ever heard of David Blackburn--but your mother will
+remember his wife, for she was a Fitzhugh, the daughter of Champ
+Fitzhugh, who married Bessie Ludwell.'"
+
+"Of course I remember Bessie. She was my bosom friend at Miss Braxton's
+school in Petersburg."
+
+"Let me go on, mother darling. If you interrupt me so often I'll never
+get to the interesting part."
+
+"Very well, go on, my dear, but it does seem just like Providence. When
+the flour gave out in the barrel last night, I knew something would
+happen." For Mrs. Meade had begun life with the shining certainty that
+"something wonderful" would happen to her in the future, and since she
+was now old and the miracle had never occurred, she had transferred her
+hopes to her children. Her optimism was so elastic that it stretched
+over a generation without breaking.
+
+"'Mrs. Blackburn--Angelica Fitzhugh, she was--though her name is really
+Anna Jeannette, and they called her Angelica as a child because she
+looked so like an angel--well, Mrs. Blackburn is the cousin I spoke of,
+whose little girl is so delicate.' She is all tangled up, isn't she,
+mother?"
+
+"Lucy always wrote like that," said Mrs. Meade. "As a girl she was a
+scatterbrain."
+
+"'I do not know exactly what is wrong with the child,'" Caroline resumed
+patiently, "'but as long as you may go into the family, I think I ought
+to tell you that I have heard it whispered that her father injured her
+in a fit of temper when she was small.'"
+
+"How horrible!" exclaimed Diana. "Caroline, you couldn't go there!"
+
+"'She has never been able to play with other children, and Doctor Boland
+thinks she has some serious trouble of the spine. I should not call her
+a disagreeable child, or hard to manage, just delicate and rather
+whining--at least she is whenever I see her, which is not often. Her
+mother is one of the loveliest creatures on earth, and I can imagine no
+greater privilege than living in the house with her. She is far from
+strong, but she seems never to think of her health, and all her time is
+devoted to doing good. Doctor Boland was telling me yesterday that he
+had positively forbidden her undertaking any more charitable work. He
+says her nerves are sensitive, and that if she does not stop and rest
+she will break down sooner or later. I cannot help feeling--though of
+course I did not say this to him--that her unhappy marriage is the cause
+of her ill health and her nervousness. She was married very young, and
+they were so desperately poor that it was a choice between marriage and
+school teaching. I cannot blame anybody for not wanting to teach school,
+especially if they have as poor a head for arithmetic as I have, but if
+I had been Angelica, I should have taught until the day of my death
+before I should have married David Blackburn. If she had not been so
+young it would be hard to find an excuse for her. Of course he has an
+immense fortune, and he comes of a good old family in southside
+Virginia--your mother will remember his father--but when you have said
+that, you have said all there is to his credit. The family became so
+poor after the war that the boy had to go to work while he was scarcely
+more than a child, and I believe the only education he has ever had was
+the little his mother taught him, and what he managed to pick up at
+night after the day's work was over. In spite of his birth he has had
+neither the training nor the advantages of a gentleman, and nothing
+proves this so conclusively as the fact that, though he was brought up a
+Democrat, he voted the Republican ticket at the last two Presidential
+elections. There is something black in a man, my dear old father used to
+say, who goes over to the negroes---- '"
+
+"Of course Lucy belongs to the old school," said Mrs. Meade. "She talks
+just as her father used to--but I cannot see any harm in a man's voting
+as he thinks right."
+
+"'I am telling you all this, my dear Caroline, in order that you may
+know exactly what the position is. The salary will be good, just what
+you make in other cases, and I am sure that Angelica will be kindness
+itself to you. As for David Blackburn, I scarcely think he will annoy
+you. He treats his wife abominably, I hear, but you can keep out of his
+way, and it is not likely that he will be openly rude to you when you
+meet. The papers just now are full of him because, after going over to
+the Republicans, he does not seem satisfied with their ways.
+
+"'Give my fondest love to your mother, and tell her how thankful I am
+that she and I are not obliged to live through a second war. One is
+enough for any woman, and I know she will agree with me--especially if
+she could read some of the letters my daughter writes from France. I
+feel every hour I live how thankful we ought to be to a kind Providence
+for giving us a President who has kept us out of this war. Robert says
+if there were not any other reason to vote for Mr. Wilson, that would be
+enough--and with Mr. Hughes in the White House who knows but we should
+be in the midst of it all very soon. David Blackburn is making fiery
+speeches about the duty of America's going in, but some men can never
+have enough of a fight, and I am sure the President knows what is best
+for us, and will do what he thinks is right.
+
+"'Be sure to telegraph me if you can come, and I will meet your train in
+Angelica's car.
+
+"'Your affectionate friend,
+
+      LUCY COLFAX.
+
+"'I forgot to tell you that Doctor Boland says I am prejudiced against
+David Blackburn, but I do not think I am. I tell only what I hear, for
+the stories are all over Richmond.'"
+
+As Caroline finished the letter she raised her head with a laugh.
+
+"It sounds like a good place, and as for Bluebeard--well, he can't kill
+me. I don't happen to be his wife."
+
+Her figure, with its look of relaxed energy, of delicate yet inflexible
+strength, straightened swiftly, while her humorous smile played like an
+edge of light over her features. The old lady, watching her closely,
+remembered the way Caroline's dead father had laughed in his youth.
+"She is as like him as a girl could be," she thought, with her eyes on
+her daughter's wide white brow, which had always seemed to her a shade
+too strong and thoughtful for a woman. Only the softly curving line of
+hair and the large radiant eyes kept the forehead from being almost
+masculine. "She might be as pretty as Maud if only she had more colour
+and her brow and chin were as soft as her eyes. Her mouth isn't full and
+red like Maud's, and her nose isn't nearly so straight, but the girls'
+father used to say that the best nose after all is a nose that nobody
+remembers." Smiling vaguely at the recollection, Mrs. Meade readjusted
+her mental processes with an effort, and took up her work. "I hope Lucy
+is prejudiced against him," she observed brightly. "You know her father
+was once Governor of Virginia, and she can't stand anybody who doesn't
+support the Democratic Party."
+
+"But she says he treats his wife abominably, and that it's all over
+Richmond!" exclaimed Maud indignantly.
+
+Before this challenge Mrs. Meade quailed. "If she is prejudiced about
+one thing, she may be about others," she protested helplessly.
+
+"Well, he can't hurt me," remarked Caroline with firmness. "People can't
+hurt you unless you let them." Nothing, she felt, in an uncertain world
+was more certain than this--no man could ever hurt her again. She knew
+life now; she had acquired experience; she had learned philosophy; and
+no man, not even Bluebeard himself, could ever hurt her again.
+
+"There was something about him in the paper this morning," said
+Margaret, the serious and silent one of the family. "I didn't read it,
+but I am sure that I saw his name in the headlines. It was about an
+independent movement in politics."
+
+"Well, I'm not afraid of independent movements," rejoined Caroline
+gaily, "and I'm not like Mrs. Colfax--for I don't care what he does to
+the Democratic Party."
+
+"I hate to have you go there, my dear," Mrs. Meade's voice shook a
+little, "but, of course, you must do what you think right." She
+remembered the empty flour barrel, and the falling fence rails, and the
+habit of a merciful Providence that invariably came to her aid at the
+eleventh hour. Perhaps, after all, there was a design working through
+it, she reflected, as she recovered her sprightliness, and Providence
+had arranged the case to meet her necessities. "It seems disagreeable,
+but one never knows," she added aloud.
+
+"It isn't the first time I've had a disagreeable case, mother. One can't
+nurse seven years and see only the pleasant side of people and things."
+
+"Yes, I know, my child, I know. You have had so much experience." She
+felt quite helpless before the fact of her daughter's experience. "Only
+if he really does ill treat his wife, and you have to see it----"
+
+"If I see it, perhaps I can stop it. I suppose even Bluebeard might have
+been stopped if anybody had gone about it with spirit. It won't be my
+first sudden conversion." Her eyes were still laughing, but her mouth
+was stern, and between the arched black eyebrows three resolute little
+lines had appeared. Before her "unfortunate experience," Mrs. Meade
+thought sadly, there had been no grimness in Caroline's humour.
+
+"You have a wonderful way of bringing out the good in people, Caroline.
+Your Uncle Clarence was telling me last Sunday that he believed you
+could get the best out of anybody."
+
+"Then granting that Bluebeard has a best, I'd better begin to dig for it
+as soon as I get there."
+
+"I am glad you can take it like that. If you weren't so capable, so
+resourceful, I'd never be easy about you a minute, but you are too
+intelligent to let yourself get into difficulties that you can't find a
+way out of." The old lady brightened as quickly as she had saddened.
+After all, if Caroline had been merely an ordinary girl she could never
+have turned to nursing so soon after the wreck of her happiness. "If a
+man had broken my heart when I was a girl, I believe I should have died
+of it," she told herself. "Certainly, I should never have been able to
+hold up my head and go on laughing like that. I suppose it was pride
+that kept her up, but it is queer the way that pride affects people so
+differently. Now a generation ago pride would not have made a girl laugh
+and take up work. It would have killed her." And there flashed through
+her thoughts, with the sanguine irrelevance of her habit of mind, "What
+I have never understood is how any man could go off with a little
+yellow-haired simpleton like that after knowing Caroline. Yet, I
+suppose, as Clarence said, if she hadn't been a simpleton, it would have
+been that much worse."
+
+"Well, I'm going," said Caroline so briskly that her mother and sisters
+looked at her in surprise. "Jonas will have to saddle Billy and take the
+telegram to the station, and then you can stop knitting and help me
+finish those caps. This is my war and I'm going to fight it through to
+the end."
+
+She went out with the telegram, and a little later when she came back
+and turned again to the window, Mrs. Meade saw that her eyes were
+shining. After all, it looked sometimes as if Caroline really liked a
+battle. Always when things went wrong or appeared disastrous, this
+shining light came to her eyes.
+
+Outside an eddying wind was driving the rain in gusts up the avenue, and
+the old cedar dashed its boughs, with a brushing sound, against the
+blurred window panes. As Caroline stood there she remembered that her
+father had loved the cedar, and there drifted into her thoughts the
+words he had spoken to her shortly before his death. "I haven't much to
+leave you, daughter, but I leave you one good thing--courage. Never
+forget that it isn't the victory that matters, it is the fight."
+
+She heard Mrs. Meade telling Jonas, who was starting to the station,
+that he must haul a load of wood from Pine Hill when the rain was over,
+and while she listened, it seemed to her that she had never really known
+her mother until this instant--that she had never understood her simple
+greatness. "She has fought every minute," she thought, "she has had a
+hard life, and yet no one would know it. It has not kept her from being
+sweet and gay and interested in every one else. Even now in that calico
+dress, with an apron on, she looks as if she were brimming with
+happiness." Out of the wreck of life, out of poverty and sacrifice and
+drudgery, she realized that her mother had stood for something fine and
+clear and permanent--for an ideal order. She had never muddled things
+under the surface; she had kept in touch with realities; she had looked
+always through the changing tissue of experience to the solid structure
+of life. Like the old house she had held through all vicissitudes to her
+high standards.
+
+Then her thoughts left her mother, and she faced the unknown future with
+the defiant courage she had won from disillusionment. "If we were not so
+poor I'd go to France," she reflected, "but how could they possibly do
+without the hundred dollars a month I can earn?" No, whatever happened
+she must stick to her task, and her task was keeping the roof from
+falling in over her mother and the girls. After a month's rest at The
+Cedars, she would start again on the round of uninspiring patients and
+tedious monotony. The place Mrs. Colfax offered her seemed to her
+uninteresting and even sordid, and yet she knew that nothing better
+awaited her. She hated darkness and mystery, and the house into which
+she was going appeared to her to be both dark and mysterious. She was
+sure of her own strength; she had tested her courage and her endurance,
+and she was not afraid; yet for some vague and inexplicable reason she
+shrank from the position she had accepted. Mrs. Colfax's picture of the
+situation she thought tinged with melodrama, and her honest and lucid
+intelligence despised the melodramatic. They might all have been on the
+stage--the good wife, the brutal husband, and the delicate child; they
+seemed to her as unrelated to actual life as the sombre ghost that
+stalked through Hamlet.
+
+"Angelica! It is a lovely name," she mused, seizing upon the one
+charming thing in Mrs. Colfax's description, "I wonder what she is
+like?" Fair, graceful, suffering, she saw this unknown woman against the
+background of the unhappy home, in an atmosphere of mystery and
+darkness. "She must be weak," she thought. "If she were not weak, she
+would not let him hurt her." And she longed to pour some of her own
+strength of will, her own independence and determination and philosophy,
+into the imaginary figure of Mrs. Blackburn. "It may be that I can help
+her. If I can only help her a little, it will all be worth while."
+
+She tried presently to think of other things--of the caps she must
+finish, of the uniforms she had intended to make during her vacation, of
+the piece of white lawn she must cut up into kerchiefs, of the mending
+she would ask the girls to do for her before they went to bed. There was
+so much to occupy her time and her thoughts in the one evening that was
+left to her--yet, do what she would--look where she pleased--the sweet
+veiled image of Mrs. Blackburn floated to her through the twilight, up
+the long, dim road and round the bend in the avenue--as if this stranger
+with the lovely name were the "something different" she had waited for
+in the past. By a miracle of imagination she had transferred this single
+character into actual experience. The sense of mystery was still there,
+but the unreality had vanished. It was incredible the way a woman whose
+face she had never seen had entered into her life. "Why, she is more
+real than anything," she thought in surprise. "She is more real even
+than the war."
+
+For the war had not touched her. She stood secure, enclosed, protected
+from disaster, in her little green corner of southside Virginia. Her
+personal life had not been overpowered and submerged in the current of
+impersonal forces. The age of small things still surrounded her--but the
+quiver and vibration of great movements, of a world in dissolution, the
+subdued, insistent undercurrent of new spiritual energies in
+action--these were reaching her, with the ebb and flow of psychological
+processes, as they were reaching the Virginia in which she lived.
+
+The world was changing--changing--while she went toward it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE TIME
+
+
+At midnight, when she was alone in her room, Caroline's mind passed from
+an intense personal realization of the Blackburns to a broader
+conception of the time in which she was living--the time which this
+generation had helped to create, and which, like some monster of the
+imagination, was now devouring its happiness. She thought of her
+father--a man of intellectual abilities who had spent his life out of
+touch with his environment, in an uncongenial employment. Young as she
+was when he died, she had been for years the solitary confidant of his
+mind, for he also, like these strangers into whose lives she was about
+to enter, had been the victim of the illimitable and inscrutable forces
+which shape the thought of an age. He had been different from his
+generation, and because he had been different, it had destroyed him. Yet
+his single idea had outlived the multitudinous actions and reactions
+that surrounded him. He saw not to-day, but to-morrow; and though he was
+of another mettle from this Blackburn of whom she had been reading, he
+appeared now in her fancy to take a place beside him in the vivid life
+of the age.
+
+The lamp was smoking, and after lowering the wick, she sat gazing into
+the darkness beyond the loosened shutters, which rattled when the wind
+shook them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the early autumn of nineteen hundred and sixteen, the moment
+in history when America, hesitating on the verge of war, discovered that
+it was no longer an Anglo-Saxon nation; that, in spite of its language
+and literature, its shell of customs and traditions, a new race had been
+created out of a complicated mass of diverse interacting sympathies,
+prejudices, attractions, and repulsions. Confronted now with problems
+demanding a definite expression of the national will, it became evident
+that the pioneer stock had undergone profound modifications, and that
+from a mingling of many strains had been born an emphatic American
+spirit, with aspirations essentially different from those of the races
+from which its lifeblood was drawn. In the arrogant vigour of youth this
+spirit resented any disposition on the part of its kindred to dictate or
+even influence its policy or its purpose.
+
+For two years Europe had been at war. The outbreak of the struggle had
+come as a distant thunderbolt to a nation unaccustomed to threatening
+armies, and ignorant of the triumphant menace of military ideals; and
+stunned by a calamity which it had believed impossible, America had been
+inclined at first to condemn indiscriminately those who had permitted
+the disaster for apparently insignificant causes. There was sympathy
+with Belgium because it had been destroyed; with France because it had
+been invaded; and with England because it had worked sincerely in the
+interests of peace; but as early as the autumn of nineteen hundred and
+sixteen this sympathy was little more than uncrystallized sentiment. To
+the people the problem was irrelevant and disguised in words. For a
+century they had been taught that their geographical isolation was
+indestructible, and that European history concerned them only after it
+had been successfully transmuted into literature. The effect of these
+political illusions had been accentuated by the immediate demands upon
+the thoughts and energies of the nation, by the adventure of conquering
+a rich and undeveloped continent, and by the gradual adjustment of
+complex institutions to a rapidly expanding social and economic life.
+Secure in its remoteness, the country had grown careless in its
+diplomacy. Commerce was felt to be vital, but foreign relations were
+cheerfully left to the President, with the assumption that he was acting
+under the special guidance of Providence, on those memorable occasions
+when he acted at all. With the sinking of the _Lusitania_, the spirit of
+the country had flamed into a passionate demand for redress or war. Then
+the indignation had been gradually allayed by diplomatic phrases and
+bewildering technicalities; and the masses of the people, busy with an
+extravagant war prosperity, resigned international matters into the
+hands of the Government, while, with an uneasy conscience but genuine
+American optimism, they continued actively to hope for the best.
+
+To an a๋rial philosopher the Government of the hour might have appeared
+a composite image of the time--sentimental, evasive of realities,
+idealistic in speech, and materialistic in purpose and action. Dominated
+by a single strong intellect, it was composed mainly of men who were
+without knowledge of world questions or experience in world affairs. At
+the moment war was gathering, yet the demand for preparation was either
+ignored or ridiculed as hysteria.
+
+As the national elections approached both parties avoided the direct
+issue, and sought by compromise and concession to secure the support of
+the non-American groups. While the country waited for leadership, the
+leaders hesitated in the midst of conflicting currents of public
+sentiment, and endeavoured to win popularity through an irresolute
+policy of opportunism. To Virginians, who thought politically in terms
+of a party, the great question was resolved into a personal problem.
+Where the President led they would follow.
+
+From the beginning there had been many Americans who looked beneath the
+shifting surface of events, and beheld in this war a challenge to the
+principles which are the foundation-stones of Western civilization. They
+realized that this was a war not of men, not of materials, but of
+ideals--of ideals which are deeper than nationality since they are the
+common heritage of the human race. They saw that the ideals assailed
+were the basis of American institutions, and that if they should be
+overthrown the American Republic could not endure. As in the seventeenth
+and eighteenth centuries the problems of European civilization were
+fought out in the forests of America, so to-day, they felt, the future
+of America would be decided on the battlefields of Europe. The cause was
+the cause of humanity, therefore it was America's war.
+
+And now as the elections drew nearer, these clearer thinkers stood apart
+and watched the grotesque political spectacle, with its unctuous
+promises of "peace and prosperity," in the midst of world tragedy.
+Though the struggle would be close, it was already evident that the
+sentiment of the country was drifting, not so much toward the policies
+of the administration, as away from the invectives of the opposite
+party. Since neither party stood for principle, nor had the courage to
+declare fearlessly for the maintenance of American rights, there was a
+measure of comfort in the reflection that, though the purposes of the
+Government were not wholly approved, they were at least partly known.
+
+By the early autumn the campaign had passed through a fog of
+generalization and settled into a sham battle of personal and sectional
+issues, while in Europe the skies grew darker, and the events of the
+coming year gathered like vultures before the approaching storm.
+
+And always, while America waited and watched, the forces that mould the
+destinies of men and of nations, were moving, profound, obscure, and
+impenetrable, beneath the surface of life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Caroline's lamp flickered and went out, while her thoughts rushed back
+to the shelter of the house. The room was in darkness, but beyond the
+shutters, where the wind swept in gusts, the clouds had scattered, and a
+few stars were shining.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BRIARLAY
+
+
+In the train Caroline sat straight and still, with her eyes on the
+landscape, which unrolled out of the golden web of the distance. Now and
+then, when her gaze shifted, she could see the pale oval of her face
+glimmering unsteadily in the window-pane, like a light that is going out
+slowly. Even in the glass, where her eyes were mere pools of darkness,
+her mouth looked sad and stern, as if it had closed over some tragic and
+for ever unutterable secret. It was only when one saw her eyes--those
+eyes which under the arch of her brows and hair made one think of
+bluebirds flying--it was only when their colour and radiance lighted her
+features, that her face melted to tenderness.
+
+While she sat there she thought of a hundred things, yet never once did
+she think of herself or her own interests as the centre around which her
+imagination revolved. If life had repressed and denied her, it had
+trained her mental processes into lucid and orderly habits. Unlike most
+women, she had learned to think impersonally, and to think in relations.
+Her spirit might beat its wings against the bars of the cage, but she
+knew that it would never again rise, with a dart of ecstasy, to test its
+freedom and its flight in the sky. She had had her day of joy. It was
+short, and it had left only sadness, yet because she had once had it,
+even for so brief a time, she might be disillusioned, but she could not
+feel wholly defrauded. Through that dead emotion she had reached, for an
+instant, the heart of life; she had throbbed with its rapture; she had
+felt, known, and suffered. And in confronting the illusions of life, she
+had found the realities. Because she had learned that thought, not
+emotion, is the only permanent basis of happiness, she had been able to
+found her house on a rock. It was worth a good deal of pain to discover
+that neither desire nor disappointment is among the eternal verities of
+experience.
+
+To-day, as on many other days since she had passed through her training
+in the hospital, she was leaving home, after a vacation in which she had
+thought of herself scarcely a minute, for the kind of service in which
+she would not have time to think of herself at all. Work had been the
+solution of her problem, the immediate restorative; and she knew that it
+had helped her through the anguish, and--worse than anguish--through the
+bleakness of her tragedy, as nothing else could have done. "I will not
+sit down and think of myself," she had said over and over in those first
+bitter days, and in the years since then, while she was passionately
+rebuilding her universe, she had kept true to her resolve. She had been
+active always; she had never brooded among the romantic ruins of the
+past. If her inner life had grown indifferent, cold, and a little hard,
+her external sympathies had remained warm, clear, and glowing. The
+comfort she had denied herself, she had given abundantly to others; the
+strength she had not wasted in brooding, she had spent freely in a
+passion of service and pity. In her face there was the beauty and
+sweetness of a fervent, though disciplined, spirit.
+
+"I am so sorry to leave them," she thought, with her eyes on the amber,
+crimson, and purple of the forest. "Mother is no longer young. She needs
+all the help I can give her, and the girls have so few pleasures. I wish
+there was something more I could do for them. I would work my fingers to
+the bone to give them a little happiness." And there floated before her,
+against the background of the forest, a still yet swiftly fleeting
+vision, of the fire-lit room, with the girls gathered, knitting, on the
+hearthrug, and her mother turning to look at her with the good and
+gentle expression that shone always in her face. Beyond the window the
+rain fell; the cedar brushed its boughs against the panes with a sound
+like that of ghostly fingers; on the roof above she heard the measured
+dropping of acorns. In the flickering light the old mahogany gleamed
+with a bronze and gold lustre, and the high white bed, under its fringed
+Marseilles coverlet, stood, like an embodiment of peace and sleep, in
+the corner. "It looks so happy, so sheltered," she thought, "and yet--"
+she was going to add, "and yet unhappiness came up the road, from a
+great distance, and found me there----" but she shattered the vague idea
+before it formed in her mind.
+
+At the station Mrs. Colfax was waiting, and though Caroline had seen her
+only once, ten years ago, she recognized her by a bird-like, pecking
+manner she had never forgotten. As the ruin of a famous beauty the old
+lady was not without historic distinction. Though she was now shrunken
+and withered, and strung with quaint gold chains, which rattled with
+echoes of an earlier period, she still retained the gracious social art
+of the "sixties." Her eyes, hollowed under thin grey eyebrows, were
+black and piercing, and her small aristocratic features looked mashed,
+as if life had dealt them too hard a blow.
+
+"My dear child, I should have known you anywhere, so, you see, I haven't
+yet lost my memory. It was years ago that I met you, wasn't it?"
+
+A man in livery--she discovered afterwards that he was the Blackburn's
+footman--took her bag, and Caroline helped Mrs. Colfax out of the
+station and into the big limousine at the door. "It was so good of you
+to meet me," she said, for it was all she could think of, and to the
+last she had been haunted by the fear that Mr. Blackburn might decide to
+come for her.
+
+"Good of me? Why, I wanted to come." As she watched Caroline's face, the
+old lady was thinking shrewdly, "She isn't so pretty as she used to be.
+I doubt if many men would think twice about her--but she has a lovely
+expression. I never saw a more spiritual face."
+
+Once safely started she rambled on while the car shot into Franklin
+Street, and ran straight ahead in the direction of Monument Avenue.
+
+"I always meant to meet you, and just as soon as your telegram came, I
+'phoned Angelica about the car. She wanted to come down herself, but the
+doctor makes her lie down two hours every afternoon. Do you see that new
+office building at the corner? Your mother and I went to school on that
+spot before we boarded at Miss Braxton's in Petersburg. At that time
+this part of Franklin Street was very fashionable, but everything has
+moved west, and everybody who can afford it is building in the country.
+It isn't like your mother's day at all. New people have taken possession
+of the town, and anybody who has money can get into society now. We are
+coming to Monument Avenue. All the houses are brand new, but it is
+nothing to the country outside. The Blackburns' place just off the River
+Road is the finest house anywhere about Richmond, they tell me. He built
+it the year before his marriage, and I remember an artist, who came down
+to lecture before the Woman's Club, saying to me that Briarlay was like
+its owner--everything big in it was good and everything little in it was
+bad. I don't know much about such things, but he poked fun at the
+fireplaces--said they were Gothic or Italian--I can't remember
+which--and that the house, of course, is Colonial."
+
+A fit of coughing stopped her, and while she dived into her black silk
+bag for a handkerchief, Caroline asked curiously, "Has Mr. Blackburn so
+much money?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I suppose he is the richest man we have here. He owns the
+large steel works down by the river, and he discovered some new cheap
+process, they say, which brought him a fortune. I remember hearing this,
+but I haven't much of a head for such matters. Just now he is having a
+good deal of trouble with his men, and I'm sure it serves him right for
+deserting the ways of his father, and going over to the Republicans.
+Charles takes up for him because David has always stood by him in
+business, but of course out of respect for father's memory he couldn't
+openly sympathize with his disloyalty."
+
+"Does anybody follow him, or is he all alone?" inquired Caroline, less
+from active interest in the question than from the desire to keep the
+old lady animated.
+
+"You'll have to ask Charles, and he will be delighted to answer. In this
+new-fangled idea about breaking the solid South--did you ever hear such
+stuff and nonsense?--I believe he has had a very bad influence over a
+number of young men. Then, of late, he has been talking extravagantly
+about its being our duty to go into this war--as if we had any business
+mixing ourselves up in other people's quarrels--and that appeals to a
+lot of fire-eaters and fight-lovers. Of course, a man as rich as David
+Blackburn will always have a trail of sycophants and addlepates at his
+heels. What I say is that if Providence had intended us to be in this
+war, we shouldn't have been given a President wise and strong enough to
+keep us out of it. If Mr. Wilson is elected for a second term--and my
+brother Charles says there isn't a doubt of it--it will be because the
+country feels that he has kept us out of war. There was a long editorial
+in the paper this morning warning us that, if Mr. Hughes is elected, we
+shall be fighting Germany within two months. Then think of all the
+destruction and the dreadful high taxes that would follow----"
+
+"But I thought there was a great deal of war spirit here? At home we
+work all the time for the Allies."
+
+"Oh, there is, there is. Angelica is president or chairman of two or
+three societies for helping the wounded, and they even made me head of
+something--I never can remember the name of it--but it has to do with
+Belgian orphans. Everybody wants to help, but that is different from
+going into the actual fighting, you know, and people are very much
+divided. A few, like David Blackburn, wanted us to declare war the day
+after the Lusitania was destroyed, but most of us feel--especially the
+wiser heads--that the President knows more about it than any one
+else----"
+
+"I suppose he does," admitted Caroline, and she added while she looked
+at the appointments of the car, "What a beautiful car!"
+
+She sighed gently, for she was thinking of the rotting fence rails and
+the leaking roof at The Cedars. How far she could make a few thousand
+dollars go in repairing the house and the out-buildings! If only the
+leaks could be mended, and the roof reshingled over the wings! If only
+they could hire a younger man to help poor old Jones, who was growing
+decrepit!
+
+"This car is Angelica's," said the old lady, "and everything she has is
+wonderful. As soon as she was married she began to re-decorate Briarlay
+from garret to cellar. When David first made his money, he went about
+buying everything he laid eyes on, and she gave whole wagon-loads of
+furniture to her relatives. There are people who insist that Angelica
+overdoes things in her way as much as her husband does in his--both were
+poor when they grew up--but I maintain that her taste is perfect--simply
+perfect. It is all very well for my daughter Lucy, who has studied
+interior decoration in New York, to turn up her nose at walls hung with
+silk in a country house, but to my mind that pink silk in Angelica's
+parlours is the most beautiful thing she could have, and I reckon I've
+as good a right to my ideas as Lucy has to hers. After all, as I tell
+her, it is only a question of taste."
+
+It was a mild, bright afternoon in October, and as the car turned into
+the River Road, the country spread softly, in undulations of green,
+gold, and bronze, to the deep blue edge of the horizon. The valley lay
+in shadow, while above it shreds of violet mist drifted slowly against
+the golden ball of the sun. Near at hand the trees were touched with
+flame, but, as they went on, the brilliant leaves melted gradually into
+the multi-coloured blend of the distance.
+
+"Mrs. Blackburn must be so beautiful," said Caroline presently. As she
+approached Briarlay--the house of darkness and mystery that she had seen
+in her imagination--she felt that the appeal of this unknown woman
+deepened in vividness and pathos, that it rushed to meet her and
+enveloped her with the intensity and sweetness of a perfume. It was as
+if the name Angelica were not a sound, but a thing composed of colour
+and fragrance--sky-blue like a cloud and as sweet-scented as lilies.
+
+"She was the most beautiful girl who ever came out in Richmond," replied
+Mrs. Colfax. "The family was so poor that her mother couldn't do
+anything for her--she didn't even have a coming-out party--but with a
+girl like that nothing matters. David Blackburn saw her at some
+reception, and lost his head completely. I won't say his heart because
+I've never believed that he had one. Of course he was far and away the
+best chance she was ever likely to have down here, for it wasn't as if
+they could have sent her to the White Sulphur. They couldn't afford
+anything, and they were even educating Angelica to be a teacher. What
+she would have done if David Blackburn hadn't come along when he did, I
+cannot imagine--though, as I wrote you, I'd have taught school to my
+dying day before I'd have married him."
+
+"But didn't she care anything for him?" asked Caroline, for it was
+incredible to her that such a woman should have sold herself.
+
+Mrs. Colfax sniffed at her smelling-salts. "Of course I haven't the
+right to an opinion," she rejoined, after a pause, "but as I always
+reply to Charles when he tells me I am talking too much, 'Well, I can't
+help having eyes.' I remember as well as if it were yesterday the way
+Angelica looked when she told me of her engagement. 'I have decided to
+marry David Blackburn, Cousin Lucy,' she said, and then she added, just
+as if the words were wrung out of her, 'I loathe the thought of
+teaching!' It doesn't sound a bit like Angelica, but those were her very
+words. And now, my dear, tell me something about your mother. Does she
+still keep up her wonderful spirits?"
+
+After this she asked so many questions that Caroline was still answering
+them when the car turned out of the road and sped up a long, narrow
+lane, which was thickly carpeted with amber leaves. At the end of the
+lane, the vista broadened into an ample sweep of lawn surrounding a red
+brick house with white columns and low wings half hidden in Virginia
+creeper. It was a beautiful house--so beautiful that Caroline held her
+breath in surprise. Under the October sky, in the midst of clustering
+elms, which shed a rain of small bronze leaves down on the bright grass
+and the dark evergreens, the house appeared to capture and imprison the
+mellow light of the sunset. It was so still, except for a curving flight
+of swallows over the roof, and the elm leaves, which fell slowly and
+steadily in the soft air, that the gleaming windows, the red walls, and
+the white columns, borrowed, for a moment, the visionary aspect of a
+place seen in a dream.
+
+"There is a formal garden at the back, full of box-borders and
+cypresses--only they are really red cedars," said Mrs. Colfax. "From
+the terrace there is a good view of the river, and lower down Angelica
+has made an old-fashioned garden, with grass walks and rose arbours and
+mixed flower beds. I never saw such Canterbury bells as she had last
+summer."
+
+As they entered the circular drive, a touring car passed them slowly on
+the way out, and a man leaned forward and bowed to Mrs. Colfax. From her
+casual glance Caroline received an impression of a strong, sunburned
+face, with heavy brows and dark hair going a little grey on the temples.
+
+"What searching eyes that man has," she observed carelessly, and added
+immediately, "You know him?"
+
+"Why, that was David Blackburn. I forgot you had never seen him."
+
+"He isn't at all what I expected him to be." While Caroline spoke she
+felt an inexplicable sense of disappointment. She scarcely knew what she
+had expected; yet she realized that he was different from some vague
+image she had had in her mind.
+
+"His face looked so set I'm afraid he has been quarrelling with
+Angelica," said the old lady. "Poor child, I feel so distressed."
+
+They had reached the house, and as they were about to alight, the door
+opened, and a girl in a riding habit, with two Airedale terriers at her
+heels, strolled out on the porch. At sight of Mrs. Colfax, she came
+quickly forward, and held out her hand. She had a splendid figure, which
+the riding habit showed to advantage, and though her face was plain, her
+expression was pleasant and attractive. Without the harsh collar and the
+severe arrangement of her hair, which was braided and tied up with a
+black ribbon, Caroline imagined that she might be handsome.
+
+Mrs. Colfax greeted her as "Miss Blackburn" and explained immediately
+that she lived at Briarlay with her brother. "She is a great lover of
+dogs," added the old lady, "and it is a pity that Angelica doesn't like
+to have them about."
+
+"Oh, they don't mind, they're such jolly beggars," replied the girl in a
+cheerful, slangy manner, "and besides they get all they want of me. I'm
+so sorry you didn't come in time for tea. Now I'm just starting for a
+ride with Alan."
+
+While she was speaking a man on horseback turned from the lane into the
+drive, and Caroline saw her face change and brighten until it became
+almost pretty. "There he is now!" she exclaimed, and then she called out
+impulsively, "Oh, Alan, I've waited for ever!"
+
+He shouted back some words in a gay voice, but Caroline did not catch
+them, and before he dismounted, Mrs. Colfax led her through the open
+door into the hall.
+
+"That's Alan Wythe," said the old lady in a whisper, and she resumed a
+moment later when they stood within the pink silk walls of Angelica's
+drawing-room, "Mary has been engaged to him for a year, and I never in
+my life saw a girl so much in love. I suppose it's natural enough--he's
+charming--but in my day young ladies were more reserved. And now we'll
+go straight upstairs to Angelica. She is sure to be lying down at this
+hour."
+
+As they passed through the wide hall, and up the beautiful Colonial
+staircase, Caroline felt that the luxury of the place bewildered her.
+Though the house, except in size, was not unlike country homes she had
+seen in southside Virginia, there was nothing in her memory, unless she
+summoned back stray recollections of photographs in Sunday newspapers,
+that could compare with the decoration of the drawing-room. "It is
+beautiful, but there is too much of it," she thought, for her eyes,
+accustomed to bare surfaces and the formal purity of Sheraton and
+Chippendale, were beginning to discriminate.
+
+"I want you to notice everything when you have time," said Mrs. Colfax.
+"I tell Angelica that it is a liberal education just to come inside of
+this house."
+
+"It would take weeks to see it," responded Caroline; and then, as she
+moved toward a long mirror in the hall upstairs, it seemed to her that
+her reflection, in her severe blue serge suit, with the little round
+blue hat Diana had trimmed, looked as grotesquely out of place as if she
+had been one of the slender Sheraton chairs at The Cedars. "If I appear
+a lady I suppose it is as much as I can hope for," she thought, "and
+besides nobody will notice me."
+
+The humour leaped to her eyes, while Mrs. Colfax, watching her with a
+side-long glance, reflected that Carrie Warwick's daughter had
+distinction. Her grace was not merely the grace of a slender body with
+flowing lines; it was the grace of word, of glance, of smile, of
+gesture, that indefinable and intangible quality which is shed by a
+lovely soul as fragrance is shed by a flower. "Even if she lives to be
+as old as I am, she will still keep her poise and her charm of
+appearance," thought the old lady, "she will never lose it because it
+isn't a matter of feature--it isn't dependent on outward beauty. Years
+ago she was prettier than she is to-day, but she wasn't nearly so
+distinguished." Aloud she said presently, "Your hair grows in such a
+nice line on your forehead, my dear, just like your mother's. I remember
+we always made her brush hers straight back as you do, so she could show
+her 'widow's peak' in the centre. But yours is much darker, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it is almost black. Mother's was the loveliest shade of chestnut.
+I have a lock of it in an old breast-pin."
+
+A door at the end of the hall opened, and a thin woman, in rusty black
+alpaca, came to meet them.
+
+"That's the housekeeper--Matty Timberlake, the very salt of the earth,"
+whispered Mrs. Colfax. "She is Angelica's cousin."
+
+When the housekeeper reached them, she stooped and kissed Mrs. Colfax
+before she spoke to Caroline. She was a long, narrow, neuralgic woman,
+with near-sighted eyes, thin grey hair which hung in wisps on her
+forehead, and a look which seemed to complain always that she was poor
+and dependent and nobody noticed her.
+
+"Angelica is lying down," she said, "but she would like to speak to Miss
+Meade before I take her to her room."
+
+Caroline's heart gave a bound. "At last I shall see her," she thought,
+while she followed Mrs. Timberlake down the hall and across the
+threshold of Angelica's room. The influence that she had felt first in
+the twilight at The Cedars and again in the drive out from Richmond,
+welcomed her like a caress.
+
+Her first impression was one of blue and ivory and gold. There was a
+bed, painted in garlands, with a scalloped canopy of blue silk; and
+Caroline, who was accustomed to mahogany testers or the little iron
+beds in the hospital, was conscious of a thrill of delight as she
+looked at it. Then her eyes fell on the white bear-skin rug before the
+fire, and from the rug they passed to the couch on which Mrs. Blackburn
+was lying. The woman and the room harmonized so perfectly that one might
+almost have mistaken Angelica for a piece of hand-painted furniture. At
+first she appeared all blue silk and pale gold hair and small delicate
+features. Then she sat up and held out her hand, and Caroline saw that
+she looked not only human, but really tired and frail. There were faint
+shadows under her eyes, which were like grey velvet, and her hair,
+parted softly in golden wings over her forehead, showed several barely
+perceptible creases between her eyebrows. She was so thin that the bones
+of her face and neck were visible beneath the exquisite texture of her
+flesh, yet the modelling was as perfect as if her head and shoulders had
+been chiselled in marble.
+
+"You are Caroline Meade," she said sweetly. "I am so glad you have
+come."
+
+"I am glad, too. I wanted to come." The vibrant voice, full of warmth
+and sympathy, trembled with pleasure. For once the reality was fairer
+than the dream; the woman before her was lovelier than the veiled figure
+of Caroline's imagination. It was one of those unforgettable moments
+when the mind pauses, with a sensation of delight and expectancy, on the
+edge of a new emotion, of an undiscovered country. This was not only
+something beautiful and rare; it was different from anything that had
+ever happened to her before; it was a part of the romantic mystery that
+surrounded the unknown. And it wasn't only that Mrs. Blackburn was so
+lovely! More than her beauty, the sweetness of her look, the appeal of
+her delicacy, of her feminine weakness, went straight to the heart. It
+was as if her nature reached out, with clinging tendrils, seeking
+support. She was like a fragile white flower that could not live without
+warmth and sunshine.
+
+"The other nurse leaves in the morning," Mrs. Blackburn was saying in
+her gentle voice, which carried the merest note of complaint, as if she
+cherished at heart some secret yet ineradicable grievance against
+destiny, "So you have come at the right moment to save me from anxiety.
+I am worried about Letty. You can understand that she is never out of my
+thoughts."
+
+"Yes, I can understand, and I hope she will like me."
+
+"She will love you from the first minute, for she is really an
+affectionate child, if one knows how to take her. Oh, Miss Meade, you
+have taken a load off my shoulders! You look so kind and so competent,
+and I feel that I can rely on you. I am not strong, you know, and the
+doctor won't let me be much with Letty. He says the anxiety is too
+wearing, though, if I had my way, I should never think of myself."
+
+"But you must," said Caroline quietly. She felt that the child's illness
+and the terrible cause of it were wrecking Mrs. Blackburn's health as
+well as her happiness.
+
+"Of course, I must try to take care of myself because in the end it will
+be so much better for Letty." As she answered, Angelica slipped her feet
+into a pair of embroidered blue silk _mules_, and rising slowly from her
+lace pillows, stood up on the white rug in front of the fire. Though she
+was not tall, her extraordinary slenderness gave her the effect of
+height and the enchanting lines of one of Botticelli's Graces. "With
+you in the house I feel that everything will be easier," she added,
+after a minute in which she gazed down at the new nurse with a
+thoughtful, appraising look.
+
+"It will be as easy as I can make it. I will do everything that I can."
+The words were not spoken lightly, for the opportunity of service had
+brought a glow to Caroline's heart, and she felt that her reply was more
+than a promise to do her best--that it was a vow of dedication from
+which only the future could release her. She had given her pledge of
+loyalty, and Mrs. Blackburn had accepted it. From this instant the bond
+between them assumed the nature and the obligation of a covenant.
+
+A smile quivered and died on Angelica's lips, while the pathos in her
+expression drew the other to her as if there were a visible wound to be
+healed. "You will be a blessing. I can tell that when I look at you,"
+she murmured; and her speech sounded almost empty after the overflowing
+sympathy of the silence. To Caroline it was a relief when the
+housekeeper called to her from the doorway, and then led her upstairs to
+a bedroom in the third storey.
+
+It was a delightful room overlooking the circular drive, and for a
+minute they stood gazing down on the lawn and the evergreens.
+
+"Everything is so lovely!" exclaimed Caroline presently. One could rest
+here, she thought, even with hard work and the constant strain, which
+she foresaw, on her sympathies.
+
+"Yes, it is pretty," answered the housekeeper. Already Mrs. Timberlake
+had proved that, though she might be the salt of the earth, she was a
+taciturn and depressing companion--a stranded wreck left over from too
+voluble a generation of women.
+
+"And I never saw any one lovelier than Mrs. Blackburn," said Caroline,
+"she looks like an angel."
+
+"Well, I reckon there is mighty little you can say against Angelica's
+looks unless your taste runs to a trifle more flesh," responded Mrs.
+Timberlake drily.
+
+"She ought to be happy," pursued Caroline, with a feeling that was
+almost one of resentment. "Anyone as beautiful as that ought to be
+happy."
+
+Mrs. Timberlake turned slowly toward her, and Caroline was aware of a
+spasmodic stiffening of her figure, as if she were nerving herself for
+an outburst. When the explosion came, however, it was in the nature of
+an anti-climax.
+
+"I expect you are going to be very useful to her," she said; and in
+answer to a hurried summons at the door, she made one of her nervous
+gestures, and went out into the hall.
+
+"It would be perfect," thought Caroline, "if I didn't have to meet Mr.
+Blackburn"; and she concluded, with a flash of her mother's unquenchable
+optimism, "Well, perhaps I shan't see him to-night!"
+
+The sun had set, and almost imperceptibly the afterglow had dissolved
+into the twilight. Outside, the lawn and the evergreens were in shadow;
+but from the house a misty circle of light fell on the drive, and on a
+narrow strip of turf, from which each separate blade of grass emerged
+with exaggerated distinctness as if it were illuminated. Within this
+circle, with its mysterious penumbra, human life also seemed exaggerated
+by the luminous haze which divided it from the partial shadow of the
+evening. The house stood enclosed in light as in a garden; and beyond
+it, where the obscurity began, there was the space and silence of the
+universe. While she stood there, she felt, with a certainty more
+profound than a mere mental conviction, that this lighted house
+contained, for her, all the joy and tragedy of human experience; that
+her life would be interwoven with these other lives as closely as
+branches of trees in a forest. The appeal of Mrs. Blackburn had stirred
+her heart and intensified her perceptions. From the bleakness of the
+last seven years, she had awakened with revived emotions.
+
+"It is just my fancy," she thought, "but I feel as if something
+wonderful had really happened--as if life were beginning all over again
+to-night."
+
+The words were still in her mind, when a child's laugh rang out from a
+window below, and the figure of a man passed from the outlying obscurity
+across the illuminated grass. Though he moved so hurriedly out of the
+light, she caught the suggestion of a smile; and she had a singular
+feeling that he was the same man, and yet not the same man, that she had
+seen in the motor.
+
+"I do hope I shan't have to meet him to-night," she repeated at the very
+instant that a knock fell on her door, and an old coloured woman came in
+to bring a message from Mrs. Blackburn.
+
+She was a benevolent looking, aristocratic negress, with a fine, glossy
+skin as brown as a chestnut, and traces of Indian blood in her high
+cheekbones. A white handkerchief was bound over her head like a turban,
+and her black bombazine dress hung in full, stately folds from her
+narrow waist line. For a minute, before delivering her message, she
+peered gravely at Caroline by the dim light of the window.
+
+"Ain't you Miss Carrie Warwick's chile, honey? You ax 'er ef'n she's
+done forgot de Fitzhugh chillun's mammy? I riz all er de Fitzhugh
+chillun."
+
+"Then you must be Mammy Riah? Mother used to tell me about you when I
+was a little girl. You told stories just like Bible ones."
+
+"Dat's me, honey, en I sutney is glad ter see you. De chillun dey wuz
+al'ays pesterin' me 'bout dose Bible stories jes' exactly de way Letty
+wuz doin' dis ve'y mawnin'."
+
+"Tell me something about the little girl. Is she really ill?" asked
+Caroline; and it occurred to her, as she put the question, that it was
+strange nobody had mentioned the child's malady. Here again the darkness
+and mystery of the house she had imagined--that house which was so
+unlike Briarlay--reacted on her mind.
+
+The old negress chuckled softly. "Naw'm, she ain' sick, dat's jes' some
+er Miss Angy's foolishness. Dar ain' nuttin' in de worl' de matter wid
+Letty 'cep'n de way dey's brung 'er up. You cyarn' raise a colt ez ef'n
+hit wuz a rabbit, en dar ain' no use'n tryin'." Then she remembered her
+message. "Miss Angy sez she sutney would be erbleeged ter you ef'n you
+'ould come erlong down ter dinner wid de res' un um. Miss Molly Waver's
+done 'phone she cyarn' come, en dar ain' nobody else in de house ez kin
+set in her place."
+
+For an instant Caroline hesitated. "If I go down, I'll have to meet Mr.
+Blackburn," she said under her breath.
+
+A gleam of humour shot into the old woman's eyes.
+
+"Marse David! Go 'way f'om yer, chile, whut you skeered er Marse David
+fur?" she rejoined. "He ain' gwine ter hu't you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ANGELICA
+
+
+At a quarter of eight o'clock, when Caroline was waiting to be called,
+Mrs. Timberlake came in to ask if she might fasten her dress.
+
+"Oh, you're all hooked and ready," she remarked. "I suppose nurses learn
+to be punctual."
+
+"They have to be, so much depends on it."
+
+"Well, you look sweet. I've brought you a red rose from the table. It
+will lighten up that black dress a little."
+
+"I don't often go to dinner parties," said Caroline while she pinned on
+the rose. "Will there be many people?" There was no shyness in her voice
+or manner; and it seemed to Mrs. Timberlake that the black gown, with
+its straight, slim skirt, which had not quite gone out of fashion, made
+her appear taller and more dignified. Her hair, brushed smoothly back
+from her forehead, gave to her clear profile the look of some delicate
+etching. There was a faint flush in her cheeks, and her eyes were richer
+and bluer than they had looked in the afternoon. She was a woman, not a
+girl, and her charm was the charm not of ignorance, but of intelligence,
+wisdom, and energy.
+
+"Only twelve," answered the housekeeper, "sometimes we have as many as
+twenty." There was an expression of pain in her eyes, due to chronic
+neuralgia, and while she spoke she pressed her fingers to her temples.
+
+"Is Mr. Wythe coming?" asked Caroline.
+
+"He always comes. It is so hard to find unattached men that the same
+ones get invited over and over. Then there are Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers.
+They are from New York and the dinner is given to them--and the
+Ashburtons and Robert Colfax and his wife--who was Daisy Carter--she is
+very good looking but a little flighty--and Mr. Peyton, old Mrs.
+Colfax's brother."
+
+"I know--'Brother Charles'--but who are the Ashburtons?"
+
+"Colonel Ashburton is very amusing. He is on Mr. Blackburn's side in
+politics, and they are great friends. His wife is dull, but she means
+well, and she is useful on committees because she is a good worker and
+never knows when she is put upon. Well, it's time for you to go down, I
+reckon. I just ran up from the pantry to see if I could help you."
+
+A minute later, when Caroline left her room, Mary Blackburn joined her,
+and the two went downstairs together. Mary was wearing a lovely gown of
+amber silk, and she looked so handsome that Caroline scarcely recognized
+her. Her black hair, piled on the crown of her head, gave her, in spite
+of her modern dash and frankness, a striking resemblance to one of the
+old portraits at The Cedars. She was in high spirits, for the ride with
+Alan had left her glowing with happiness.
+
+"We'd better hustle. They are waiting for us," she said. "I was late
+getting in, so I tossed on the first dress I could find."
+
+Then she ran downstairs, and Caroline, following her more slowly, found
+herself presently shaking hands with the dreaded David Blackburn. He was
+so quiet and unassuming that only when he had taken her hand and had
+asked her a few conventional questions about her trip, did she realize
+that she was actually speaking to him. In evening clothes, surrounded by
+the pink silk walls of Angelica's drawing-room, his face looked firmer
+and harder than it had appeared in the motor; but even in this
+extravagant setting, he impressed her as more carefully dressed and
+groomed than the average Virginian of her acquaintance. She saw now that
+he was younger than she had at first thought; he couldn't, she surmised,
+be much over forty. There were deep lines in his forehead; his features
+had settled into the granite-like immobility that is acquired only
+through grim and resolute struggle; and his dark, carefully brushed hair
+showed a silvery gloss on the temples--yet these things, she realized,
+were the marks of battles, not of years. What struck her most was the
+quickness with which the touch of arrogance in his expression melted
+before the engaging frankness of his smile.
+
+"I'm glad you've come. I hope you will get on with Letty," he said; and
+then, as he turned away, the vision of Angelica, in white chiffon and
+pearls, floated toward her from a group by the fireplace.
+
+"Colonel Ashburton is an old friend of your mother's, Miss Meade. He
+took her to her first cotillion, and he is eager to meet her daughter."
+There followed swift introductions to the Ashburtons, the Chalmers, and
+the Colfaxes; and not until Caroline was going into the dining-room on
+the arm of Mrs. Colfax's "Brother Charles," was she able to distinguish
+between the stranger from New York, who looked lean and wiry and
+strenuous, and the white-haired old gentleman who had taken her mother
+to the cotillion. She was not confused; and yet her one vivid impression
+was of Angelica, with her pale Madonna head, her soft grey eyes under
+thick lashes, and her lovely figure in draperies of chiffon that flowed
+and rippled about her.
+
+Though the house was an inappropriate setting for David Blackburn, it
+was, for all its newness and ornate accessories, the perfect frame for
+his wife's beauty. She reminded Caroline of the allegorical figure of
+Spring in one of the tapestries on the dining-room walls--only she was
+so much softer, so much more ethereal, as if the floral image had come
+to life and been endowed with a soul. It was the rare quality of Mrs.
+Blackburn's beauty that in looking at her one thought first of her
+spirit--of the sweetness and goodness which informed and animated her
+features. The appeal she made was the appeal of an innocent and
+beautiful creature who is unhappy. Against the background of an
+unfortunate marriage, she moved with the resigned and exalted step of a
+Christian martyr.
+
+Sitting silently between the flippant "Brother Charles" and the imposing
+Colonel Ashburton, who was still talking of her mother, Caroline tried
+to follow the conversation while she studied the faces and the dresses
+of the women. Mrs. Chalmers, who was large and handsome in a superb gown
+of green velvet, appeared heavy and indifferent, and Mrs. Ashburton, an
+over-earnest middle-aged woman, with a classic profile and a look of
+impersonal yet hungry philanthropy, was so detached that she seemed,
+when she spoke, to be addressing an invisible audience. In spite of her
+regular features and her flawless complexion, she was as devoid of charm
+as an organized charity. On her right sat Allan Wythe, a clean-cut,
+good-looking chap, with romantic eyes and the air of a sportsman.
+Though Caroline had heard that he wrote plays, she thought that he
+needed only a gun and a dog to complete his appearance. "He is the only
+good-looking man here," she concluded. "Some people might think Mr.
+Blackburn good-looking, but I suppose I know too much about him." And
+she remembered that her father had said a man's character always showed
+in his mouth.
+
+Next to Alan there was Mrs. Robert Colfax--a beautiful Spanish-looking
+creature, straight as a young poplar, and as full of silvery lights and
+shadows. She had no sooner sat down than she began to ask Angelica, with
+an agreeable though flighty animation, if she had seen somebody since he
+had come back from his wedding trip? For the next quarter of an hour
+they kept up an excited interchange of gossip, while Mr. Chalmers
+listened with polite attention, and Caroline tried in vain to discover
+who the unknown person was, and why his wedding trip should interest
+anybody so profoundly.
+
+"Well, I never thought he'd get another wife after his last
+misadventure," rippled Mrs. Colfax, "but they tell me he had only to
+wink an eyelash. I declare I don't know a more discouraging spectacle
+than the men that some women will marry."
+
+At the other end of the table, Mrs. Blackburn was talking in a low voice
+to Mr. Chalmers, and the broken clauses of her conversation were
+punctuated by the laughter of the irrepressible Daisy, who was never
+silent. Though Angelica was not brilliant, though she never said
+anything clever enough for one to remember, she had what her friends
+called "a sweet way of talking," and a flattering habit, when she was
+with a man, of ending every sentence with a question. "I'm sure I don't
+see how we are to keep out of this war, do you, Mr. Chalmers?" or "I
+think the simplest way to raise money would be by some tableaux, don't
+you, Colonel Ashburton?"; and still a little later there floated to
+Caroline, "I tell Mary she rides too much. Don't you think it is a pity
+for a woman to spend half her life in the saddle? Of course if she
+hasn't anything else to do--but in this age, don't you feel, there are
+so many opportunities of service?"
+
+"Oh, when it comes to that," protested Mrs. Colfax, in the tone of airy
+banter she affected, "There are many more of us trying to serve than
+there are opportunities of service. I was telling mother only the other
+day that I couldn't see a single war charity because the vice-presidents
+are so thick."
+
+A lull fell on the table, and for the first time Caroline heard
+Blackburn's voice. Mrs. Chalmers was asking him about the house, and he
+was responding with a smile that made his face almost young and
+sanguine. His mouth, when he was not on guard, was sensitive and even
+emotional, and his eyes lost the sharpness that cut through whatever
+they looked at.
+
+"Why, yes, I built it before my marriage," he was saying. "Dodson drew
+the plans. You know Dodson?"
+
+Mrs. Chalmers nodded. "He has done some good things in New York. And
+this lovely furniture," she was plainly working hard to draw him out.
+"Where did you find it?"
+
+He met the question lightly. "Oh, I had a lot of stuff here that
+Angelica got rid of."
+
+From the other end of the table Mrs. Blackburn's voice floated
+plaintively, "There isn't a piece of it left," she said. "It made the
+house look exactly like an Italian hotel."
+
+The remark struck Caroline as so unfortunate that she turned, with a
+start of surprise, to glance at her hostess. Could it be that Mrs.
+Blackburn was without tact? Could it be that she did not realize the
+awkwardness of her interruption? Yet a single glance at Angelica was
+sufficient to answer these questions. A woman who looked like that
+couldn't be lacking in social instinct. It must have been a casual slip,
+nothing more. She was probably tired--hadn't old Mrs. Colfax said that
+she was delicate?--and she did not perceive the effect of her words.
+Glancing again in Blackburn's direction, Caroline saw that his features
+had hardened, and that the hand on the tablecloth was breaking a piece
+of bread into crumbs.
+
+The change in his manner was so sudden that Caroline understood, even
+before she saw the twitching of his eyebrows, and the gesture of
+irritation with which he pushed the bread crumbs away, that, in spite of
+his reserve and his coldness, he was a bundle of over-sensitive nerves.
+"He was behaving really well," she thought. "It is a pity that she
+irritated him." Though she disliked Blackburn, she was just enough to
+admit that he had started well with Mrs. Chalmers. Of course, no one
+expected him to appear brilliant in society. A man who had had no
+education except the little his mother had taught him, and who had
+devoted his life to making a fortune, was almost as much debarred from
+social success as a woman who knew only trained nursing. Yet, in spite
+of these defects, she realized that he appeared to advantage at his own
+table. There was something about him--some latent suggestion of
+force--which distinguished him from every other man in the room. He
+looked--she couldn't quite define the difference--as if he could do
+things. The recollection of his stand in politics came to her while she
+watched him, and turning to Mr. Peyton, who was a trifle more human than
+Colonel Ashburton, she asked:
+
+"What is this new movement Mr. Blackburn is so much interested in? I've
+seen a great deal about it in the papers."
+
+There was a bluff, kind way about Charles Peyton, and she liked the
+natural heartiness of the laugh with which he answered. "You've seen a
+great deal more than you've read, young lady, I'll warrant. No, it isn't
+exactly a new movement, because somebody in the North got ahead of
+him--you may always count on a Yankee butting in just before you--but he
+is organizing the independent voters in Virginia, if that's what you
+mean. At least he thinks he is, though even way down here I've a
+suspicion that those Yankees have been meddling. Between you and me,
+Miss Meade, it is all humbug--pure humbug. Haven't we got one party
+already, and doesn't that one have a hard enough time looking after the
+negroes? Why do we want to go and start up trouble just after we've got
+things all nicely settled? Why does David want to stir up a hornet's
+nest among the negroes, I'd like to know?"
+
+On the other side of Caroline, Colonel Ashburton became suddenly
+audible. "Ask that Rip Van Winkle, Miss Meade, if he was asleep while we
+made a new constitution and eliminated the vote of the negroes? You
+can't argue with these stand-patters, you know, because they never read
+the signs of the times."
+
+"Well, there isn't a better way of proving it's all humbug than by
+asking two questions," declared the jovial Charles--a plethoric,
+unwieldy old man, with a bald head, and a figure that was continually
+brimming over his waistcoat. "What I want to know, Billy Ashburton, is
+just this--wasn't your father as good a man as you are, and wasn't the
+Democratic Party good enough for your father? I put the same to you,
+Miss Meade, wasn't the Democratic Party good enough for your father?"
+
+"Ah, you're driven to your last trench," observed the Colonel, with
+genial irony, while Caroline replied slowly: "Yes, it was good enough
+for father, but I remember he used to be very fond of quoting some lines
+from Pope about 'principles changing with the times.' I suppose the
+questions are different from what they were in his day."
+
+"I'd like to see any questions the Democrats aren't able to handle,"
+persisted Charles. "They always have handled them to my satisfaction,
+and I reckon they always will, in spite of Blackburn and Ashburton."
+
+"I wish Blackburn could talk to you, Miss Meade," said Colonel
+Ashburton. "He doesn't care much for personalities. He has less small
+talk than any man I know, but he speaks well if you get him started on
+ideas. By-the-way, he is the man who won me over. I used to be as
+strongly prejudiced against any fresh departure in Virginia politics as
+our friend Charles there, but Blackburn got hold of me, and convinced
+me, as he has convinced a great many others, against my will. He proved
+to me that the old forms are worn out--that they can't do the work any
+longer. You see, Blackburn is an idealist. He sees straight through the
+sham to the truth quicker than any man I've ever known----"
+
+"An idealist!" exclaimed Caroline, and mentally she added, "Is it
+possible for a man to have two characters? To have a public character
+that gives the lie to his private one?"
+
+"Yes, I think you might call him that, though, like you, I rather shy at
+the word. But it fits Blackburn, somehow, for he is literally on fire
+with ideas. I always say that he ought to have lived in the glorious
+days when the Republic was founded. He belongs to the pure breed of
+American."
+
+"But I understood from the papers that it was just the other way--that
+he was--that he was----"
+
+"I know, my child, I know." He smiled indulgently, for she looked very
+charming with the flush in her cheeks, and after thirty years of happy
+companionship with an impeccable character, he preferred at dinner a
+little amiable weakness in a woman. "You have seen in the papers that he
+is a traitor to the faith of his fathers. You have even heard this
+asserted by the logical Charles on your right."
+
+She lifted her eyes, and to his disappointment he discovered that
+earnestness, not embarrassment, had brought the colour to her cheeks.
+"But I thought that this new movement was directed at the Democratic
+Party--that it was attempting to undo all that had been accomplished in
+the last fifty years. It seems the wrong way, but of course there must
+be a right way toward better things."
+
+For a minute he looked at her in silence; then he said again gently, "I
+wish Blackburn could talk to you." Since she had come by her ideas
+honestly, not merely borrowed them from Charles Colfax, it seemed only
+chivalrous to treat them with the consideration he accorded always to
+the fair and the frail.
+
+She shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to have Mr. Blackburn
+talk to her. "I thought all old-fashioned Virginians opposed this
+movement," she added after a pause. "Not that I am very old-fashioned.
+You remember my father, and so you will know that his daughter is not
+afraid of opinions."
+
+"Yes, I remember him, and I understand that his child could not be
+afraid either of opinions or armies."
+
+She smiled up at him, and he saw that her eyes, which had been a little
+sad, were charged with light. While he watched her he wondered if her
+quietness were merely a professional habit of reserve which she wore
+like a uniform. Was the warmth and fervour which he read now in her face
+a glimpse of the soul which life had hidden beneath the dignity of her
+manner?
+
+"But Blackburn isn't an agitator," he resumed after a moment. "He has
+got hold of the right idea--the new application of eternal principles.
+If we could send him to Washington he would do good work."
+
+"To Washington?" She looked at him inquiringly. "You mean to the Senate?
+Not in the place of Colonel Acton?"
+
+"Ah, that touches you! You wouldn't like to see the 'Odysseus of
+Democracy' dispossessed?"
+
+Laughter sparkled in her eyes, and he realized that she was more girlish
+than he had thought her a minute ago. After all, she had humour, and it
+was a favourite saying of his that ideas without humour were as bad as
+bread without yeast.
+
+"Only for another Ajax," she retorted merrily. "I prefer the strong to
+the wise. But does Mr. Blackburn want the senatorship?"
+
+"Perhaps not, but he might be made to take it. There is a rising tide in
+Virginia."
+
+"Is it strong enough to overturn the old prejudices?"
+
+"Not yet--not yet, but it is strengthening every hour." His tone had
+lost its gallantry and grown serious. "The war in Europe has taught us a
+lesson. We aren't satisfied any longer, the best thought isn't
+satisfied, with the old clutter and muddle of ideas and sentiments. We
+begin to see that what we need in politics is not commemorative
+gestures, but constructive patriotism."
+
+As he finished, Caroline became aware again that Blackburn was speaking,
+and that for the first time Mrs. Chalmers looked animated and
+interested.
+
+"Why, that has occurred to me," he was saying with an earnestness that
+swept away his reserve. "But, you see, it is impossible to do anything
+in the South with the Republican Party. The memories are too black. We
+must think in new terms."
+
+"And you believe that the South is ready for another party? Has the hour
+struck?"
+
+"Can't you hear it?" He looked up as he spoke. "The war abroad has
+liberated us from the old sectional bondage. It has brought the world
+nearer, and the time is ripe for the national spirit. The demand now is
+for men. We need men who will construct ideas, not copy them. We need
+men strong enough to break up the solid South and the solid North, and
+pour them together into the common life of the nation. We want a
+patriotism that will overflow party lines, and put the good of the
+country before the good of a section. The old phrases, the old gestures,
+are childish to-day because we have outgrown them----" He stopped
+abruptly, his face so enkindled that Caroline would not have known it,
+and an instant later the voice of Mrs. Blackburn was heard saying
+sweetly but firmly, "David, I am afraid that Mrs. Chalmers is not used
+to your melodramatic way of talking."
+
+In the hush that followed it seemed as if a harsh light had fallen over
+Blackburn's features. A moment before Caroline had seen him inspired and
+exalted by feeling--the vehicle of the ideas that possessed him--and
+now, in the sharp flash of Angelica's irony, he appeared insincere and
+theatrical--the claptrap politician in motley.
+
+"It is a pity she spoke just when she did," thought Caroline, "but I
+suppose she sees through him so clearly that she can't help herself. She
+doesn't want him to mislead the rest of us."
+
+Blackburn's guard was up again, and though he made no reply, his brow
+paled slowly and his hand--the nervous, restless hand of the emotional
+type--played with the bread crumbs.
+
+"Yes, it is a pity," repeated Caroline to herself. "It makes things very
+uncomfortable." It was evident to her that Mrs. Blackburn watched her
+husband every instant--that she was waiting all the time to rectify his
+mistakes, to put him in the right again. Then, swiftly as an arrow,
+there flashed through Caroline's mind, "Only poor, lovely creature, she
+achieves exactly the opposite result. She is so nervous she can't see
+that she puts him always in the wrong. She makes matters worse instead
+of better every time."
+
+From this moment the dinner dragged on heavily to its awkward end.
+Blackburn had withdrawn into his shell; Mrs. Chalmers looked depressed
+and bored; while the giddy voice of Mrs. Colfax sounded as empty as the
+twitter of a sparrow. It was as if a blight had fallen over them, and in
+this blight Angelica made charming, futile attempts to keep up the
+conversation. She had tried so hard, her eyes, very gentle and pensive,
+seemed to say, and all her efforts were wasted.
+
+Suddenly, in the dull silence, Mrs. Colfax began asking, in her
+flightiest manner, about Angelica's family. For at least five minutes
+she had vacillated in her own mind between the weather and Roane
+Fitzhugh, who, for obvious reasons, was not a promising topic; and now
+at last, since the weather was too perfect for comment, she recklessly
+decided to introduce the unsavoury Roane.
+
+"We haven't seen your brother recently, Angelica. What do you hear from
+him?"
+
+For an instant Mrs. Blackburn's eyes rested with mute reproach on her
+husband. Then she said clearly and slowly, "He has been away all summer,
+but we hope he is coming next week. David," she added suddenly in a
+louder tone, "I was just telling Daisy how glad we are that Roane is
+going to spend the autumn at Briarlay."
+
+It was at that instant, just as Mrs. Blackburn, smiling amiably on her
+husband, was about to rise from the table, that the astounding, the
+incredible thing happened, for Blackburn looked up quickly, and replied
+in a harsh, emphatic manner, "He is not coming to Briarlay. You know
+that we cannot have him here."
+
+Then before a word was uttered, before Mrs. Colfax had time to twitter
+cheerfully above the awkwardness, Mrs. Blackburn rose from her chair,
+and the women trailed slowly after her out of the dining-room. As
+Caroline went, she felt that her heart was bursting with sympathy for
+Angelica and indignation against her husband. "How in the world shall I
+ever speak to him after this?" she thought. "How shall I ever stay under
+the same roof with him?" And glancing pityingly to where Mrs.
+Blackburn's flower-like head drooped against the rosy shade of a lamp,
+she realized that Angelica never looked so lovely as she did when she
+was hurt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FIRST NIGHT
+
+
+When the last guest had gone, Caroline went upstairs to her room, and
+sitting down before the little ivory and gold desk, began a letter to
+her mother. For years, ever since her first night in the hospital, she
+had poured out her heart after the day's work and the day's self-control
+and restraint were over. It was a relief to be free sometimes, to break
+through the discipline of her profession, to live and love for oneself,
+not for others.
+
+The house was very still--only from the darkness outside, where the wind
+had risen, a few yellow leaves fluttered in through the window.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am here, at last, dearest mother, and I have been longing to tell you
+about it. First of all, I had a good trip, my train was exactly on time,
+and Mrs. Colfax met me in the most beautiful car I ever saw, and brought
+me out to Briarlay. She was very nice and kind, but she looks ever so
+much older than you do, and I cannot help feeling that, in spite of the
+loss of so many children and father's dreadful disappointments, your
+life has been happier than hers. As I get older, and see more of the
+world--and heaven knows I have seen anything but the best of it these
+last seven or eight years--I understand better and better that happiness
+is something you have to find deep down in yourself, not in other people
+or outside things. It shines through sometimes just as yours does and
+lights up the world around and the dark places, but it never, _never_
+comes from them--of this I am very sure.
+
+I wish I could describe this house to you, but I cannot--I simply
+cannot, the words will not come to me. It is big and beautiful, but I
+think it is too full of wonderful things--there are rooms that make me
+feel as if I were in a museum because of the tapestries and crowded rugs
+and French furniture. I like English mahogany so much better, but that
+may be just because I am used to it. I suppose it is natural that Mrs.
+Blackburn should prefer surroundings that are opulent and florid, since
+they make her look like a lovely flower in a greenhouse. She is even
+more beautiful than I thought she would be, and she does not seem the
+least bit snobbish or spoiled or arrogant. I have always said, you
+remember, that nursing has taught me not to rely on mere impressions
+whether they are first or last ones--but I have never in my life met any
+one who attracted me so strongly in the beginning. It is years since I
+have felt my sympathy so completely drawn out by a stranger. I feel that
+I would do anything in the world that I could for her; and though I
+cannot write frankly about what I have observed here, I believe that she
+needs help and understanding as much as any one I ever saw. The
+situation seems worse even than we were led to expect. Of course I have
+seen only the surface so far, but my heart has been wrung for her ever
+since I have been in the house, and this evening there was a very
+painful scene at the dinner table. I shall not write any more about it,
+though I imagine it will be spread all over Richmond by young Mrs.
+Colfax.
+
+About Mr. Blackburn I have not quite made up my mind. I do not doubt
+that everything Mrs. Colfax wrote us is true, and I know if I stay on
+here that I shall make no attempt to conceal from him how much I dislike
+him. That will be no secret. I simply could not pretend even to him that
+I was not heart and soul on the side of his wife. It is so perfectly
+dreadful when one has to take sides with a husband or wife, isn't it?
+When I think how wonderful a marriage like yours and father's can be, it
+makes me feel sorry and ashamed for human nature as I see it here. But
+you cannot become a nurse and keep many illusions about love. The thing
+that remains after years of such work is no illusion at all--but the
+clear knowledge of the reality. A nurse sees the best and the worst of
+humanity--and the very best of it is the love that some people keep to
+the end.
+
+As for this marriage, there is not a person in Richmond, nor a servant
+in the house, who does not know that it is an unhappy one. Mrs.
+Blackburn cannot be at fault--one has only to look at her to realize
+that she is too gentle and sweet to hurt any one--and yet I discovered
+to-night that she does not know how to treat him, that she says the
+wrong thing so often without meaning to, and that unconsciously she
+irritates him whenever she speaks. It is impossible to blame her, for
+she must have suffered a great many things that no one knows of, and I
+suppose her nerves are not always under control. But nothing could be
+more unfortunate than her manner to him at times.
+
+Strange to say (I do not understand why) some people appear to admire
+him tremendously. I went down to dinner to-night because one of the
+guests did not come, and Colonel Ashburton--he said he used to know
+you--talked in the most extravagant fashion about Mr. Blackburn's
+abilities. The air here is heavy with politics because of the elections,
+and I tried to listen as closely as I could. I thought how intensely
+interested father would have been in the discussion. As far as I can
+understand Mr. Blackburn's way of thinking is not unlike father's, and
+but for his behaviour to his wife, this would give me a sympathetic
+feeling for him. I forgot to tell you that he looked very well
+to-night--not in the least rough or common. His face is not ugly, only
+he wears his hair brushed straight back, and this makes his features
+look sterner than they really are. His eyes are the keenest I ever
+saw--grey, I think, and yet, funny as it sounds, there are times when
+they are almost pathetic--and his smile is very nice and reminds me in
+a way of father's. This may have been why I thought of father all the
+time I was at dinner--this and the political talk which went on as long
+as we were at the table.
+
+Well, I started to tell you about the elections, and I know you are
+thinking I shall never go on. It seems that Mr. Blackburn intends to
+vote for Hughes--though I heard him tell Mr. Chalmers that if he lived
+in the North he should probably vote with the Democrats. Voting for a
+man, he feels, is not nearly so important as voting against a
+section--at least this is what I gathered. There was a great deal said
+about the war, but nobody, except Mrs. Colfax's brother Charles, who
+does not count, seemed to think there was the faintest chance of our
+being in it. Mr. Chalmers told me afterwards that if Wilson should be
+re-elected, it would be mainly because of the slogan "he kept us out of
+war." As far as I could discover Mr. Chalmers stands firmly by the
+President, but I heard Mr. Blackburn tell Colonel Ashburton that what he
+hoped for now was conduct so flagrant, on Germany's part, that the
+public conscience would demand a more vigorous policy. By the way, Mr.
+Chalmers said that the feeling was so strong in New York that he
+expected the State to go to the Republicans because there was a general
+impression that to vote with them meant to vote for war. Of course, he
+added, this was mere German propaganda--but that was only another way of
+saying he did not agree with it. Opinions change every hour, and just as
+soon as a new one begins to be popular, people forget all that they
+believed just as ardently a few weeks before. Don't you remember how
+complacent we were about our splendid isolation and our pluperfect
+pacifism and our being "too proud to fight" such a very short while ago?
+Well, nobody remembers now the way we crowed over Europe and patted one
+another on the back, and congratulated ourselves because we could stand
+aside and wait until history showed who was right. That is over and
+gone now, and "I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier" has joined the
+dust of all the other rag-time. If the slow coach of history ever does
+come up with us, it may find us in the thick of the fight after all, and
+not waiting by the roadside. Mr. Chalmers believes that if the President
+is re-elected, and can get the country behind him, the Government will
+declare that a state of war exists--but Mr. Blackburn, on the other
+hand, is convinced that both Wilson and Hughes are pledged to fulfil
+their promises of "peace and prosperity." He insists that there was more
+war spirit over the whole country the week after the _Lusitania_ was
+sunk, than there has ever been since, and that we were as ready to fight
+then as we shall be after the elections. It is like being in the midst
+of electric currents to sit still and listen to these men argue. Can you
+imagine anything more unlike father's day when all Virginians, except
+those whom nobody knew, thought exactly alike? Now, though the vote is
+solid still, and the great majority accepts the policies of the
+Democrats as uncritically as it accepts Scripture, opinions about
+secondary issues vary as much as they do anywhere else. There are some
+who regard the President as greater than George Washington--and others
+who say that the moment is great, not the man. Mr. Colfax believes that
+he is a generation ahead of his country, and Colonel Ashburton believes
+just as strongly that he is a generation behind it--that it is a case
+where a wave of destiny is sweeping a man on to greatness. I suppose
+here again we shall have to wait until history shows who is right.
+
+I have not seen the little girl yet--her name is Letty. They have to be
+careful not to excite her in the evening, and the other nurse is still
+with her.
+
+Now I must go to bed.
+
+    Your devoted child,
+         CAROLINE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She had finished her letter and glanced at her watch on the bureau--it
+was one o'clock--when a cry or moan reached her from the darkness and
+silence of the house, and a few minutes afterwards there came the sound
+of running footsteps on the stairs, and a hasty knock fell on her door.
+
+"Miss Meade, will you please come as quickly as you can?"
+
+Opening the door, she met the frightened face of a maid.
+
+"What has happened? Is Mrs. Blackburn ill?"
+
+"I don't know. She hasn't undressed and she is too ill to speak. I left
+her on the couch, and ran upstairs to call you."
+
+They were already in the hall, and while they hurried to the staircase,
+Caroline asked a few questions in a whisper.
+
+"Is there any medicine that she is accustomed to take?"
+
+"I give her ammonia sometimes, but to-night it didn't do any good."
+
+"Does she faint often?"
+
+"I'm not sure. She has these attacks, but only after--after----"
+
+The woman paused in confusion, and before she could recover herself,
+Caroline had opened the door and walked swiftly to the prostrate figure,
+in white chiffon, on the couch in front of the fire. Bending over she
+felt Angelica's pulse and lowered her head, with its loosened amber
+hair, on the pillows.
+
+"Your pulse is good. Do you feel better now?" she asked tenderly, for,
+in spite of the quiet competence of her professional attitude, her heart
+was aching with pity.
+
+"I was sure I could count on your sympathy." As she answered, Mrs.
+Blackburn stretched out her hands until they rested on Caroline's arm.
+"Has Mary gone out of the room?"
+
+"Your maid? Yes, she has just gone. What can I do for you?"
+
+Even in the midst of the emotional crisis, Angelica's manner had not
+lost a trace of its charming self-possession, its rather colourless
+sweetness. Her grey eyes, drenched in tears which left no redness on the
+firm white lids, were as devoid of passion as the eyes of a child.
+
+"I cannot tell you--I cannot tell any one," she said after a moment, not
+in answer to the other's question, but with a plaintive murmur. Then she
+began to cry very gently, while she clung to Caroline with her lovely
+hands which were as soft and fragrant as flowers.
+
+"I think I know without your telling me," responded Caroline soothingly.
+"Let me help you." All her years of nursing had not enabled her to watch
+suffering, especially the suffering of helpless things, without a pang
+of longing to comfort. She was on her knees now by the couch, her smooth
+dark head bending over Angelica's disarranged fair one, her grave,
+compassionate face gazing down on the other's delicate features, which
+were softened, not disfigured, by tears.
+
+"The worst is about Roane--my brother," began Angelica slowly. "He came
+here to-night, but they--" she lingered over the word, "sent him away
+before I could talk to him. He is downstairs now on the terrace because
+he is not allowed to come into the house--my brother. I must get this
+cheque to him, but I do not like to ask one of the servants----"
+
+"You wish me to take it to him?" Caroline released herself from the
+clinging hands, and rose quickly to her feet. Here at last was a
+definite call to action.
+
+"Oh, Miss Meade, if you would!" Already Angelica's eyes were dry.
+
+"I will go at once. Is the cheque written?"
+
+"I carried it down with me, but I could not get a chance to give it to
+Roane. Poor boy," she added in a low rather than a soft tone, "Poor boy,
+after all, he is more sinned against than sinning!"
+
+Drawing the cheque from under the lace pillows, she gave it into
+Caroline's hand with a gesture of relief. "Go through the dining-room to
+the terrace, and you will find him outside by the windows. Tell him that
+I will see him as soon as I can, and ask him please not to trouble me
+again."
+
+She had rung for her maid while she was speaking, and when the woman
+appeared, she rose and waited, with a yawn, for her dress to be
+unfastened. Then suddenly, as if she had forgotten something, she gave
+Caroline a smile full of beauty and pathos. "Thank you a thousand tunes,
+dear Miss Meade," she exclaimed gratefully.
+
+It was dark downstairs, except for a nebulous glow from the hall above
+and a thin reddish line that ran beneath the closed door of the library.
+Not until she reached the dining-room did Caroline dare turn on the
+electric light, and as soon as she did so, the terrace and the garden
+appeared by contrast to be plunged in blackness. When she opened one of
+the long French windows, and stepped out on the brick terrace, her eyes
+became gradually accustomed to the starlight, and she discerned
+presently the shrouded outlines of the juniper trees and a marble
+fountain which emerged like a ghost from the quivering spray of water.
+As she went quickly down the steps to the lower terrace, she felt as
+much alone in her surroundings as if the house and Mrs. Blackburn had
+receded into a dream. Overhead there was the silvery glitter of stars,
+and before her she divined the simplicity and peace of an autumn garden,
+where the wind scattered the faint scent of flowers that were already
+beginning to drop and decay.
+
+When she approached the fountain, the figure of a man detached itself
+from the vague shape of an evergreen, and came toward her.
+
+"Well, I've waited awhile, haven't I?" he began airily, and the next
+instant exclaimed with scarcely a change of tone, "Who are you? Did Anna
+Jeannette send you?"
+
+"I am Letty's new nurse--Miss Meade."
+
+"What! A spirit yet a woman too!" His voice was full of charm.
+
+"Mrs. Blackburn sent me with this." As she held out the cheque, he took
+it with a gesture that was almost hungry. "She asked me to say that she
+would see you very soon, and to beg you not to trouble her again."
+
+"Does she imagine that I do it for pleasure!" He placed the cheque in
+his pocket book. "She cannot suppose that I came here to-night for the
+sake of a row."
+
+Though he was unusually tall, he carried his height with the ease of an
+invincible dignity and self-possession; and she had already discerned
+that his sister's pathos had no part in the tempestuous ardour and
+gaiety of his nature.
+
+"She didn't tell me," answered Caroline coldly. "There is nothing else,
+is there?" Her features were like marble beneath the silken dusk of her
+hair which was faintly outlined against the cloudier darkness.
+
+"There is a great deal--since you ask me."
+
+"Nothing, I mean, that I may say to your sister?"
+
+"You may say to her that I thank her for her message--and her
+messenger."
+
+He was about to add something more, when Caroline turned away from him
+and moved, without haste, as if she were unaware that he followed her,
+up the shallow steps of the terrace. When she reached the window, she
+passed swiftly, like a dissolving shadow, from the darkness into the
+light of the room. Nothing had been said that she found herself able to
+resent, and yet, in some indefinable way, Roane's manner had offended
+her. "For a trained nurse you are entirely too particular," she said to
+herself, smiling, as she put out the light and went through the wide
+doorway into the hall. "You have still a good deal of haughtiness to
+overcome, Miss Meade, if you expect every man to treat you as if you
+wore side curls and a crinoline."
+
+The hall, when she entered it, was very dim, but as she approached the
+door of the library, it opened, and Blackburn stood waiting for her on
+the threshold. Behind him the room was illuminated, and she saw the rich
+sheen of leather bindings and the glow of firelight on the old Persian
+rug by the hearth.
+
+"You have been out, Miss Meade?"
+
+"Yes, I have been out." As she threw back her head, the light was full
+on her face while his was in shadow.
+
+"Do you need anything?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you."
+
+For an instant their eyes met, and in that single glance, charged with
+an implacable accusation, she made Angelica's cause her own. Grave,
+remote, dispassionate, her condemnation was as impersonal as a judgment
+of the invisible Powers.
+
+"That is all, then, good-night," he said.
+
+"Good-night."
+
+While he watched her, she turned as disdainfully as she had turned from
+Roane, and ascended the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LETTY
+
+
+In the breakfast room next morning, Caroline found the little girl in
+charge of Miss Miller, the nurse who was leaving that day. Letty was a
+fragile, undeveloped child of seven years, with the dark hair and eyes
+of her father, and the old, rather elfish look of children who have been
+ill from the cradle. Her soft, fine hair hung straight to her shoulders,
+and framed her serious little face, which was charming in spite of its
+unhealthy pallor. Caroline had questioned Miss Miller about the child's
+malady, and she had been reassured by the other nurse's optimistic view
+of the case.
+
+"We think she may outgrow the trouble, that's why we are so careful
+about all the rules she lives by. The doctor watches her closely, and
+she isn't a difficult child to manage. If you once gain her confidence
+you can do anything with her, but first of all you must make her believe
+in you."
+
+"Was she always so delicate?"
+
+"I believe she was born this way. She is stunted physically, though she
+is so precocious mentally. She talks exactly like an old person
+sometimes. The things she says would make you laugh if it wasn't so
+pathetic to know that a child thinks them."
+
+Yes, it was pathetic, Caroline felt, while she watched Letty cross the
+room to her father, who was standing before one of the French windows.
+As she lifted her face gravely, Blackburn bent over and kissed her.
+
+"I'm taking a new kind of medicine, father."
+
+He smiled down on her. "Then perhaps you will eat a new kind of
+breakfast."
+
+"And I've got a new nurse," added Letty before she turned away and came
+over to Caroline. "I'm so glad you wear a uniform," she said in her
+composed manner. "I think uniforms are much nicer than dresses like Aunt
+Matty's."
+
+Mrs. Timberlake looked up from the coffee urn with a smile that was like
+a facial contortion. "Anything might be better than my dresses, Letty."
+
+"But you ought to get something pretty," said the child quickly, for her
+thoughts came in flashes. "If you wore a uniform you might look happy,
+too. Are all nurses happy, Miss Miller?"
+
+"We try to be, dear," answered Miss Miller, a stout, placid person,
+while she settled the little girl in her chair. "It makes things so much
+easier."
+
+Blackburn, who had been looking out on the terrace and the formal
+garden, turned and bowed stiffly as he came to the table. It was evident
+that he was not in a talkative mood, and as Caroline returned his
+greeting with the briefest acknowledgment, she congratulated herself
+that she did not have to make conversation for him. Mary had not come in
+from her ride, and since Mrs. Timberlake used language only under the
+direct pressure of necessity, the sound of Letty's unembarrassed
+childish treble rippled placidly over the constrained silence of her
+elders.
+
+"Can you see the garden?" asked the child presently. "I don't mean the
+box garden, I mean the real garden where the flowers are?"
+
+Caroline was helping herself to oatmeal, and raising her eyes from the
+dish, she glanced through the window which gave on the brick terrace.
+Beyond the marble fountain and a dark cluster of junipers there was an
+arch of box, which framed the lower garden and a narrow view of the
+river.
+
+"That's where my garden is, down there," Letty was saying. "I made it
+all by myself--didn't I, Miss Miller?--and my verbenas did better than
+mother's last summer. Would you like to have a garden, father?" she
+inquired suddenly, turning to Blackburn, who was looking over the
+morning paper while he waited for his coffee. "It wouldn't be a bit more
+trouble for me to take care of two than one. I'll make yours just like
+mine if you want me to."
+
+Blackburn put down his paper. "Well, I believe I should like one," he
+replied gravely, "if you are sure you have time for it. But aren't there
+a great many more important things you ought to do?"
+
+"Oh, it doesn't take so much time," returned the child eagerly, "I work
+all I can, but the doctor won't let me do much. I'll make yours close to
+mine, so there won't be far to go with the water. I have to carry it in
+a very little watering-pot because they won't let me lift a big one."
+
+A smile quivered for an instant on her father's lips, and Caroline saw
+his face change and soften as it had done the evening before. It was
+queer, she thought, that he should have such a sensitive mouth. She had
+imagined that a man of that character would have coarse lips and a
+brutal expression.
+
+"Now, it's odd, but I've always had a fancy for a garden of that sort,"
+he responded, "if you think you can manage two of them without
+over-taxing yourself. I don't want to put you to additional trouble, you
+know. After all, that's just what I hire Peter for, isn't it?"
+
+While the child was assuring him that Peter had neither the time nor the
+talent for miniature gardening, Miss Miller remarked pleasantly, as if
+she were visited by a brilliant idea, "You ought to make one for your
+mother also, Letty."
+
+"Oh, mother doesn't want one," returned the child: "The big ones are
+hers, aren't they, father?" Then, as Blackburn had unfolded his paper
+again, she added to Caroline, with one of the mature utterances Miss
+Miller had called pathetic, "When you have big things you don't care for
+little things, do you?"
+
+As they were finishing breakfast, Mary Blackburn dashed in from the
+terrace, with the Airedale terriers at her heels.
+
+"I was afraid you'd have gone before I got back, David," she said,
+tossing her riding-crop and gloves on a chair, and coming over to the
+table. "Patrick, put the dogs out, and tell Peter to give them their
+breakfast." Then turning back to her brother, she resumed carelessly,
+"That man stopped me again--that foreman you discharged from the works."
+
+Blackburn's brow darkened. "Ridley? I told him not to come on the place.
+Is he hanging about?"
+
+"I met him in the lane. He asked me to bring a message to you. It seems
+he wants awfully to be reinstated. He is out of work; and he doesn't
+want to go North for a job."
+
+"It's a pity he didn't think of that sooner. He has made more trouble in
+the plant than any ten men I've ever had. It isn't his fault that
+there's not a strike on now."
+
+"I know," said Mary, "but I couldn't refuse to hear him. There's Alan
+now," she added. "Ask him about it."
+
+She looked up, her face flushing with pride and happiness, as Alan Wythe
+opened the window. There was something free and noble in her candour.
+All the little coquetries and vanities of women appeared to shrivel in
+the white blaze of her sincerity.
+
+"So you've been held up by Ridley," remarked Blackburn, as the young man
+seated himself between Mary and Mrs. Timberlake. "Did he tell you just
+what political capital he expects to make out of my discharging him? It
+isn't the first time he has tried blackmail."
+
+Alan was replying to Mrs. Timberlake's question about his coffee--she
+never remembered, Caroline discovered later, just how much sugar one
+liked--and there was a pause before he turned to Blackburn and answered:
+"I haven't a doubt that he means to make trouble sooner or later--he has
+some pull, hasn't he?--but at the moment he is more interested in
+getting his job back. He talked a lot about his family--tried to make
+Mary ask you to take him on again----"
+
+Blackburn laughed, not unpleasantly, but with a curious bluntness and
+finality, as if he were closing a door on some mental passage. "Well,
+you may tell him," he rejoined, "that I wouldn't take him back if all
+the women in creation asked me."
+
+Alan received this with his usual ease and flippancy. "The fellow
+appears to have got the wrong impression. He told me that Mrs. Blackburn
+was taking an interest in his case, and had promised to speak to you."
+
+"He told you that?" said Blackburn, and stopped abruptly.
+
+For a minute Alan looked almost disconcerted. In his riding clothes he
+was handsomer and more sportsmanlike than he had been the evening
+before, and Caroline told herself that she could understand why Mary
+Blackburn had fallen so deeply in love with him. What she couldn't
+understand--what puzzled her every instant--was the obvious fact that
+Alan had fallen quite as deeply in love with Mary. Of course the girl
+was fine and sensible and high-spirited--any one could see that--but she
+appeared just the opposite of everything that Alan would have sought in
+a woman. She was neither pretty nor feminine; and Alan's type was the
+one of all others to which the pretty and feminine would make its
+appeal. "He must love her for her soul," thought Caroline. "He must see
+how splendid she is at heart, and this has won him."
+
+In a few minutes Blackburn left the table, while Letty caught Caroline's
+hand and drew her through the window out on the terrace. The landscape,
+beyond the three gardens, was golden with October sunlight, and over the
+box maze and the variegated mist of late blooming flowers, they could
+see the river and the wooded slopes that folded softly into the
+sparkling edge of the horizon. It was one of those autumn days when the
+only movement of the world seems to be the slow fall of the leaves, and
+the quivering of gauzy-winged insects above the flower-beds. Perfect as
+the weather was, there was a touch of melancholy in its brightness that
+made Caroline homesick for The Cedars. "It is hard to be where nobody
+cares for you," she thought. "Where nothing you feel or think matters to
+anybody." Then her stronger nature reasserted itself, and she brushed
+the light cloud away. "After all, life is mine as much as theirs. The
+battle is mine, and I will fight it. It is just as important that I
+should be a good nurse as it is that Mrs. Blackburn should be beautiful
+and charming and live in a house that is like fairyland."
+
+Letty called to her, and running down the brick steps from the terrace,
+the two began a gentle game of hide-and-seek in the garden. The
+delighted laughter of the child rang out presently from the rose-arbours
+and the winding paths; and while Caroline passed in and out of the
+junipers and the young yew-trees, she forgot the loneliness she had felt
+on the terrace. "I'll not worry about it any more," she thought,
+pursuing Letty beyond the marble fountain, where a laughing Cupid shot a
+broken arrow toward the sun. "Mother used to say that all the worry in
+the world would never keep a weasel out of the hen-house." Then, as she
+twisted and doubled about a tall cluster of junipers, she ran directly
+across the shadow of Blackburn.
+
+As her feet came to a halt the smile died on her lips, and the reserve
+she had worn since she reached Briarlay fell like a veil over her
+gaiety. While she put up her hand to straighten her cap, all the dislike
+she felt for him showed in her look. Only the light in her eyes, and the
+blown strands of hair under her cap, belied her dignity and her silence.
+
+"Miss Meade, I wanted to tell you that the doctor will come about noon.
+I have asked him to give you directions."
+
+"Very well." Against the dark junipers, in her white uniform, she looked
+like a statue except for her parted lips and accusing eyes.
+
+"Letty seems bright to-day, but you must not let her tire herself."
+
+"I am very careful. We play as gently as possible."
+
+"Will you take her to town? I'll send the car back for you."
+
+For an instant she hesitated. "Mrs. Blackburn has not told me what she
+wishes."
+
+He nodded. "Letty uses my car in the afternoon. It will be here at three
+o'clock."
+
+In the sunlight, with his hat off, he looked tanned and ruddy, and she
+saw that there was the power in his face which belongs to expression--to
+thought and purpose--rather than to feature. His dark hair, combed
+straight back from his forehead, made his head appear distinctive and
+massive, like the relief of a warrior on some ancient coin, and his
+eyes, beneath slightly beetling brows, were the colour of the sea in a
+storm. Though his height was not over six feet, he seemed to her, while
+he stood there beside the marble fountain, the largest and strongest man
+she had ever seen. "I know he isn't big, and yet he appears so," she
+thought: "I suppose it is because he is so muscular." And immediately
+she added to herself, "I can understand everything about him except his
+mouth--but his mouth doesn't belong in his face. It is the mouth of a
+poet. I wonder he doesn't wear a moustache just to hide the way it
+changes."
+
+"I shall be ready at three o'clock," she said. "Mrs. Colfax asked me to
+bring Letty to play with her children."
+
+"She will enjoy that," he answered, "if they are not rough." Then, as he
+moved away, he observed indifferently, "It is wonderful weather."
+
+As he went back to the house Letty clung to him, and lifting her in his
+arms, he carried her to the terrace and round the corner where the car
+waited. For the time at least the play was spoiled, and Caroline, still
+wearing her professional manner, stood watching for Letty to come back
+to her. "I could never like him if I saw him every day for years," she
+was thinking, when one of the French windows of the dining-room opened,
+and Mary Blackburn came down the steps into the garden.
+
+"I am so glad to find you alone," she said frankly, "I want to speak to
+you--and your white dress looks so nice against those evergreens."
+
+"It's a pity I have to change it then, but I am going to take Letty to
+town after luncheon. The doctor wants her to be with other children."
+
+"I know. She is an odd little thing, isn't she? I sometimes think that
+she is older and wiser than any one in the house." Her tone changed
+abruptly. "I want to explain to you about last night, Miss Meade. David
+seemed so dreadfully rude, didn't he?"
+
+Caroline gazed back at her in silence while a flush stained her cheeks.
+After all, what could she answer? She couldn't and wouldn't deny that
+Mr. Blackburn had been inexcusably rude to his wife at his own table.
+
+"It is so hard to explain when one doesn't know everything," pursued
+Mary, with her unfaltering candour. "If you had ever seen Roane
+Fitzhugh, you would understand better than I can make you that David is
+right. It is quite impossible to have Roane in the house. He drinks,
+and when he was here last summer, he was hardly ever sober. He was rude
+to everyone. He insulted me."
+
+"So that was why----" began Caroline impulsively, and checked herself.
+
+"Yes, that was why. David told him that he must never come back again."
+
+"And Mrs. Blackburn did not understand."
+
+Mary did not reply, and glancing at her after a moment, Caroline saw
+that she was gazing thoughtfully at a red and gold leaf, which turned
+slowly in the air as it detached itself from the stem of a maple.
+
+"If you want to get the best view of the river you ought to go down to
+the end of the lower garden," she said carelessly before she went back
+into the house.
+
+In the afternoon, when Caroline took Letty to Mrs. Colfax's, a
+flickering light was shed on the cause of Mary's reticence.
+
+"Oh, Miss Meade, wasn't it perfectly awful last evening?" began the
+young woman as soon as the children were safely out of hearing in the
+yard. "I feel so sorry for Angelica!"
+
+Even in a Southern woman her impulsiveness appeared excessive, and when
+Caroline came to know her better, she discovered that Daisy Colfax was
+usually described by her friends as "kind-hearted, but painfully
+indiscreet."
+
+"It was my first dinner party at Briarlay. As far as I know they may all
+end that way," responded Caroline lightly.
+
+"Of course I know that you feel you oughtn't to talk," replied Mrs.
+Colfax persuasively, "but you needn't be afraid of saying just what you
+think to me. I know that I have the reputation of letting out
+everything that comes into my mind--and I do love to gossip--but I
+shouldn't dream of repeating anything that is told me in confidence."
+Her wonderful dusky eyes, as vague and innocent as a child's, swept
+Caroline's face before they wandered, with their look of indirection and
+uncertainty, to her mother-in-law, who was knitting by the window.
+Before her marriage Daisy had been the acknowledged beauty of three
+seasons, and now, the mother of two children and as lovely as ever, she
+managed to reconcile successfully a talent for housekeeping with a taste
+for diversion. She was never still except when she listened to gossip,
+and before Caroline had been six weeks in Richmond, she had learned that
+the name of Mrs. Robert Colfax would head the list of every dance, ball,
+and charity of the winter.
+
+"If you ask me what I think," observed the old lady tartly, with a
+watchful eye on the children, who were playing ring-around-the-rosy in
+the yard. "It is that David Blackburn ought to have been spanked and put
+to bed."
+
+"Well, of course, Angelica had been teasing him about his political
+views," returned her daughter-in-law. "You know how she hates it all,
+but she didn't mean actually to irritate him--merely to keep him from
+appearing so badly. It is as plain as the nose on your face that she
+doesn't know how to manage him."
+
+They were sitting in the library, and every now and then the younger
+woman would take up the receiver of the telephone, and have a giddy
+little chat about the marketing or a motor trip she was planning. "But
+all I've got to say," she added, turning from one of these breathless
+colloquies, "is that if you have to manage a man, you'd better try to
+get rid of him."
+
+"Well, I'd like to see anybody but a bear-tamer manage David Blackburn,"
+retorted the old lady. "With Angelica's sensitive nature she ought never
+to have married a man who has to be tamed. She never dares take her eyes
+off him, poor thing, for fear he'll make some sort of break."
+
+"I wonder," began Caroline, and hesitated an instant. "I wonder if it
+wouldn't be better just to let him make his breaks and not notice them?
+Of course, I know how trying it must be for her--she is so lovely and
+gentle that it wrings your heart to see him rude to her--but it makes
+every little thing appear big when you call everybody's attention to it.
+I don't know much about dinner parties," she concluded with a desire to
+be perfectly fair even to a man she despised, "but I couldn't see that
+he was doing anything wrong last night. He was getting on very well with
+Mrs. Chalmers, who was interested in politics----" She broke off and
+asked abruptly, "Is Mrs. Blackburn's brother really so dreadful?"
+
+"I've often wondered," said the younger Mrs. Colfax, "if Roane Fitzhugh
+is as bad as people say he is?"
+
+"Well, he has always been very polite to me," commented the old lady.
+"Though Brother Charles says that you cannot judge a man's morals by his
+manners. Was Alan Wythe there last night?"
+
+"Yes, I sat by him," answered Daisy. "I wish that old uncle of his in
+Chicago would let him marry Mary."
+
+This innocent remark aroused Caroline's scorn. "To think of a man's
+having to ask his uncle whom he shall marry!" she exclaimed
+indignantly.
+
+"You wouldn't say that, my dear," replied old Mrs. Colfax, "if you knew
+Alan. He is a charming fellow, but the sort of talented ne'er-do-well
+who can do anything but make a living. He has an uncle in Chicago who is
+said to be worth millions--one of the richest men, I've heard, in the
+West--but he will probably leave his fortune to charity. As it is he
+doles out a pittance to Alan--not nearly enough for him to marry on."
+
+"Isn't it strange," said Caroline, "that the nice people never seem to
+have enough money and the disagreeable ones seem to have a great deal
+too much? But I despise a man," she added sweepingly, "who hasn't enough
+spirit to go out into the world and fight."
+
+The old lady's needles clicked sharply as she returned to her work.
+"I've always said that if the good Lord would look after my money
+troubles, I could take care of the others. Now, if Angelica's people had
+not been so poor she would have been spared this dreadful marriage. As
+it is, I am sure, the poor thing makes the best of it--I don't want you
+to think that I am saying a word against Angelica--but when a woman runs
+about after so many outside interests, it is pretty sure to mean that
+she is unhappy at home."
+
+"It's a pity," said the younger woman musingly, "that so many of her
+interests seem to cross David's business. Look at this Ridley matter,
+for instance--of course everyone says that Angelica is trying to make up
+for her husband's injustice by supporting the family until the man gets
+back to work. It's perfectly splendid of her, I know. There isn't a
+living soul who admires Angelica more than I do, but with all the needy
+families in town, it does seem that she might just as well have selected
+some other to look after."
+
+The old lady, having dropped some stitches, went industriously to work
+to pick them up. "For all we know," she observed piously, "it may be
+God's way of punishing David."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CAROLINE MAKES DISCOVERIES
+
+
+At four o'clock Daisy Colfax rushed off to a committee meeting at
+Briarlay ("something very important, though I can't remember just which
+one it is"), and an hour later Caroline followed her in Blackburn's car,
+with Letty lying fast asleep in her arms.
+
+"I am going to do all I can to make it easier for Mrs. Blackburn," she
+thought. "I don't care how rude he is to me if he will only spare her. I
+am stronger than she is, and I can bear it better." Already it seemed to
+her that this beautiful unhappy woman filled a place in her life, that
+she would be willing to make any sacrifice, to suffer any humiliation,
+if she could only help her.
+
+Suddenly Letty stirred and put up a thin little hand. "I like you, Miss
+Meade," she said drowsily. "I like you because you are pretty and you
+laugh. Mammy says mother never laughs, that she only smiles. Why is
+that?"
+
+"I suppose she doesn't think things funny, darling."
+
+"When father laughs out loud she tells him to stop. She says it hurts
+her."
+
+"Well, she isn't strong, you know. She is easily hurt."
+
+"I am not strong either, but I like to laugh," said the child in her
+quaint manner. "Mammy says there isn't anybody's laugh so pretty as
+yours. It sounds like music."
+
+"Then I must laugh a great deal for you, Letty, and the more we laugh
+together the happier we'll be, shan't we?"
+
+As the car turned into the lane, where the sunlight fell in splinters
+over the yellow leaves, a man in working clothes appeared suddenly from
+under the trees. For an instant he seemed on the point of stopping them;
+then lowering the hand he had raised, he bowed hurriedly, and passed on
+at a brisk walk toward the road.
+
+"His name is Ridley, I know him," said Letty. "Mother took me with her
+one day when she went to see his children. He has six children, and one
+is a baby. They let me hold it, but I like a doll better because dolls
+don't wriggle." Then, as the motor raced up the drive and stopped in
+front of the porch, she sat up and threw off the fur robe. "There are
+going to be cream puffs for tea, and mammy said I might have one. Do you
+think mother will mind if I go into the drawing-room? She is having a
+meeting."
+
+"I don't know, dear. Is it a very important meeting?"
+
+"It must be," replied Letty, "or mother wouldn't have it. Everything she
+has is important." As the door opened, she inquired of the servant,
+"Moses, do you think this is a very important meeting?"
+
+Moses, a young light-coloured negro, answered solemnly, "Hit looks dat
+ar way ter me, Miss Letty, caze Patrick's jes' done fotched up de las'
+plate uv puffs. Dose puffs wuz gwine jes' as fast ez you kin count de
+las' time I tuck a look at um, en de ladies dey wuz all a-settin' roun'
+in va' yous attitudes en eatin' um up like dey tasted moughty good."
+
+"Then I'm going in," said the child promptly. "You come with me, Miss
+Meade. Mother won't mind half so much if you are with me." And grasping
+Caroline's hand she led the way to the drawing-room. "I hope they have
+left one," she whispered anxiously, "but meetings always seem to make
+people so hungry."
+
+In the back drawing-room, where empty cups and plates were scattered
+about on little tables, Angelica was sitting in a pink and gold chair
+that vaguely resembled a throne. She wore a street gown of blue velvet,
+and beneath a little hat of dark fur, her hair folded softly on her
+temples. At the first glance Caroline could see that she was tired and
+nervous, and her pensive eyes seemed to plead with the gaily chattering
+women about her. "Of course, if you really think it will help the
+cause," she was saying deprecatingly; then as Letty entered, she broke
+off and held out her arms. "Did you have a good time, darling?"
+
+The child went slowly forward, shaking hands politely with the guests
+while her steady gaze, so like her father's, sought the tea table. "May
+I have a puff and a tart too, mother?" she asked as she curtseyed to
+Mrs. Ashburton.
+
+"No, only one, dear, but you may choose."
+
+"Then I'll choose a puff because it is bigger." She was a good child,
+and when the tart was forbidden her, she turned her back on the plate
+with a determined gesture. "I saw the man, mother--the one with the
+baby. He was in the lane."
+
+"I know, dear. He came to ask your father to take him back in the works.
+Perhaps if you were to go into the library and ask him very gently, he
+would do it. It is the case I was telling you about, a most distressing
+one," explained Angelica to Mrs. Ashburton. "Of course David must have
+reason on his side or he wouldn't take the stand that he does. I suppose
+the man does drink and stir up trouble, but we women have to think of so
+much besides mere justice. We have to keep close to the human part that
+men are so apt to overlook." There was a writing tablet on her knee, and
+while she spoke, she leaned earnestly forward, and made a few straggling
+notes with a yellow pencil which was blunt at the point. Even her
+efficiency--and as a chairman she was almost as efficient as Mrs.
+Ashburton--was clothed in sweetness. As she sat there, holding the blunt
+pencil in her delicate, blue-veined hand, she appeared to be bracing
+herself, with a tremendous effort of will, for some inexorable demand of
+duty. The tired droop of her figure, the shadow under her eyes, the
+pathetic little lines that quivered about her mouth--these things, as
+well as the story of her loveless marriage, awakened Caroline's pity.
+"She bears it so beautifully," she thought, with a rush of generous
+emotion. "I have never seen any one so brave and noble. I believe she
+never thinks of herself for a minute."
+
+"I always feel," observed Mrs. Ashburton, in her logical way which was
+trying at times, "that a man ought to be allowed to attend to his own
+business."
+
+A pretty woman, with a sandwich in her hand, turned from the tea table
+and remarked lightly, "Heaven knows it is the last privilege of which I
+wish to deprive him!" Her name was Mallow, and she was a new-comer of
+uncertain origin, who had recently built a huge house, after the Italian
+style, on the Three Chopt Road. She was very rich, very smart, very
+dashing, and though her ancestry was dubious, both her house and her
+hospitality were authentic. Alan had once said of her that she kept her
+figure by climbing over every charity in town; but Alan's wit was
+notoriously malicious.
+
+"In a case like this, don't you think, dear Mrs. Ashburton, that a woman
+owes a duty to humanity?" asked Angelica, who liked to talk in general
+terms of the particular instance. "Miss Meade, I am sure, will agree
+with me. It is so important to look after the children."
+
+"But there are so many children one might look after," replied Caroline
+gravely; then feeling that she had not responded generously to
+Angelica's appeal, she added, "I think it is splendid of you, perfectly
+splendid to feel the way that you do."
+
+"That is so sweet of you," murmured Angelica gratefully, while Mrs.
+Aylett, a lovely woman, with a face like a magnolia flower and a
+typically Southern voice, said gently, "I, for one, have always found
+Angelica's unselfishness an inspiration. With her delicate health, it is
+simply marvellous the amount of good she is able to do. I can never
+understand how she manages to think of so many things at the same
+moment." She also held a pencil in her gloved hand, and wrote earnestly,
+in illegible figures, on the back of a torn envelope.
+
+"Of course, we feel that!" exclaimed the other six or eight women in an
+admiring chorus. "That is why we are begging her to be in these
+tableaux."
+
+It was a high-minded, unselfish group, except for Mrs. Mallow, who was
+hungry, and Daisy Colfax, who displayed now and then an inclination to
+giddiness. Not until Caroline had been a few minutes in the room did she
+discover that the committee had assembled to arrange an entertainment
+for the benefit of the Red Cross. Though Mrs. Blackburn was zealous as
+an organizer, she confined her activities entirely to charitable
+associations and disapproved passionately of women who "interfered" as
+she expressed it "with public matters." She was disposed by nature to
+vague views and long perspectives, and instinctively preferred, except
+when she was correcting an injustice of her husband's, to right the
+wrongs in foreign countries.
+
+"Don't you think she would make an adorable Peace?" asked Mrs. Aylett of
+Caroline.
+
+"I really haven't time for it," said Angelica gravely, "but as you say,
+Milly dear, the cause is everything, and then David always likes me to
+take part in public affairs."
+
+A look of understanding rippled like a beam of light over the faces of
+the women, and Caroline realized without being told that Mrs. Blackburn
+was overtaxing her strength in deference to her husband's wishes. "I
+suppose like most persons who haven't always had things he is mad about
+society."
+
+"I've eaten it all up, mother," said Letty in a wistful voice. "It
+tasted very good."
+
+"Did it, darling? Well, now I want you to go and ask your father about
+poor Ridley and his little children. You must ask him very sweetly, and
+perhaps he won't refuse. You would like to do that, wouldn't you?"
+
+"May I take Miss Meade with me?"
+
+"Yes, she may go with you. There, now, run away, dear. Mother is so busy
+helping the soldiers she hasn't time to talk to you."
+
+"Why are you always so busy, mother?"
+
+"She is so busy because she is doing good every minute of her life,"
+said Mrs. Aylett. "You have an angel for a mother, Letty."
+
+The child turned to her with sudden interest. "Is father an angel too?"
+she inquired.
+
+A little laugh, strangled abruptly in a cough, broke from Daisy Colfax,
+while Mrs. Mallow hastily swallowed a cake before she buried her flushed
+face in her handkerchief. Only Mrs. Aylett, without losing her
+composure, remarked admiringly, "That's a pretty dress you have on,
+Letty."
+
+"Now run away, dear," urged Angelica in a pleading tone, and the child,
+who had been stroking her mother's velvet sleeve, moved obediently to
+the door before she looked back and asked, "Aren't you coming too, Miss
+Meade?"
+
+"Yes, I'm coming too," answered Caroline, and while she spoke she felt
+that she had never before needed so thoroughly the discipline of the
+hospital. As she put her arm about Letty's shoulders, and crossed the
+hall to Blackburn's library, she hoped passionately that he would not be
+in the room. Then Letty called out "father!" in a clear treble, and
+almost immediately the door opened, and Blackburn stood on the
+threshold.
+
+"Do you want to come in?" he asked. "I've got a stack of work ahead, but
+there is always time for a talk with you."
+
+He turned back into the room, holding Letty by the hand, and as Caroline
+followed silently, she noticed that he seemed abstracted and worried,
+and that his face, when he glanced round at her, looked white and tired.
+The red-brown flush of the morning had faded, and he appeared much
+older.
+
+"Won't you sit down," he asked, and then he threw himself into a chair,
+and added cheerfully, "What is it, daughter? Have you a secret to tell
+me?"
+
+Against the rich brown of the walls his head stood out, clear and fine,
+and something in its poise, and in the backward sweep of his hair, gave
+Caroline an impression of strength and swiftness as of a runner who is
+straining toward an inaccessible goal. For the first time since she had
+come to Briarlay he seemed natural and at ease in his surroundings--in
+the midst of the old books, the old furniture, the old speckled
+engravings--and she understood suddenly why Colonel Ashburton had called
+him an idealist. With the hardness gone from his eyes and the restraint
+from his thin-lipped, nervous mouth, he looked, as the Colonel had said
+of him, "on fire with ideas." He had evidently been at work, and the
+fervour of his mood was still visible in his face.
+
+"Father, won't you please give Ridley his work again?" said the child.
+"I don't want his little children to be hungry." As she stood there at
+his knee, with her hands on his sleeve and her eyes lifted to his, she
+was so much like him in every feature that Caroline found herself
+vaguely wondering where the mother's part in her began. There was
+nothing of Angelica's softness in that intense little face, with its
+look of premature knowledge.
+
+Bending over he lifted her to his knee, and asked patiently, "If I tell
+you why I can't take him back, Letty, will you try to understand?"
+
+She nodded gravely. "I don't want the baby to be hungry."
+
+For a moment he gazed over her head through the long windows that opened
+on the terrace. The sun was just going down, and beyond the cluster of
+junipers the sky was turning slowly to orange.
+
+"Miss Meade," he said abruptly, looking for the first time in Caroline's
+face, "would you respect a man who did a thing he believed to be unjust
+because someone he loved had asked him to?"
+
+For an instant the swiftness of the question--the very frankness and
+simplicity of it--took Caroline's breath away. She was sitting straight
+and still in a big leather chair, and she seemed to his eyes a different
+creature from the woman he had watched in the garden that morning. Her
+hair was smooth now under her severe little hat, her face was composed
+and stern, and for the moment her look of radiant energy was veiled by
+the quiet capability of her professional manner.
+
+"I suppose not," she answered fearlessly, "if one is quite sure that the
+thing is unjust."
+
+"In this case I haven't a doubt. The man is a firebrand in the works. He
+drinks, and breeds lawlessness. There are men in jail now who would be
+at work but for him, and they also have families. If I take him back
+there are people who would say I do it for a political reason."
+
+"Does that matter? It seems to me nothing matters except to be right."
+
+He smiled, and she wondered how she could have thought that he looked
+older. "Yes, if I am right, nothing else matters, and I know that I am
+right." Then looking down at Letty, he said more slowly, "My child, I
+know another family of little children without a father. Wouldn't you
+just as soon go to see these children?"
+
+"Is there a baby? A very small baby?"
+
+"Yes, there is a baby. I am sending the elder children to school, and
+one of the girls is old enough to learn stenography. The father was a
+good man and a faithful worker. When he died he asked me to look after
+his family."
+
+"Then why doesn't Mrs. Blackburn know about them?" slipped from
+Caroline's lips. "Why hasn't any one told her?"
+
+The next instant she regretted the question, but before she could speak
+again Blackburn answered quietly, "She is not strong, and already she
+has more on her than she should have undertaken."
+
+"Her sympathy is so wonderful!" Almost in spite of her will, against her
+instinct for reticence where she distrusted, against the severe code of
+her professional training, she began by taking Mrs. Blackburn's side in
+the household.
+
+"Yes, she is wonderful." His tone was conventional, yet if he had adored
+his wife he could scarcely have said more to a stranger.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Mammy Riah inquired querulously
+through the crack, "Whar you, Letty? Ain't you comin' ter git yo'
+supper?"
+
+"I'm here, I'm coming," responded Letty. As she slid hurriedly from her
+father's knees, she paused long enough to whisper in his ear, "Father,
+what shall I tell mother when she asks me?"
+
+"Tell her, Letty, that I cannot do it because it would not be fair."
+
+"Because it would not be fair," repeated the child obediently as she
+reached for Caroline's hand. "Miss Meade is going to have supper with
+me, father. We are going to play that it is a party and let all the
+dolls come, and she will have bread and milk just as I do."
+
+"Will she?" said Blackburn, with a smile. "Then I'd think she'd be
+hungry before bed-time."
+
+Though he spoke pleasantly, Caroline was aware that his thoughts had
+wandered from them, and that he was as indifferent to her presence as he
+was to the faint lemon-coloured light streaming in at the window. It
+occurred to her suddenly that he had never really looked at her, and
+that if they were to meet by accident in the road he would not recognize
+her. She had never seen any one with so impersonal a manner--so encased
+and armoured in reserve--and she began to wonder what he was like under
+that impenetrable surface? "I should like to hear him speak," she
+thought, "to know what he thinks and feels about the things he cares
+for--about politics and public questions." He stood up as she rose, and
+for a minute before Letty drew her from the room, he smiled down on the
+child. "If I were Miss Meade, I'd demand more than bread and milk at
+your party, Letty." Then he turned away, and sat down again at his
+writing table.
+
+An hour or two later, when Letty's supper was over, Angelica came in to
+say good-night before she went out to dinner. She was wearing an evening
+wrap of turquoise velvet and ermine, and a band of diamonds encircled
+the golden wings on her temples. Her eyes shone like stars, and there
+was a misty brightness in her face that made her loveliness almost
+unearthly. The fatigue of the afternoon had vanished, and she looked as
+young and fresh as a girl.
+
+"I hope you are comfortable, Miss Meade," she said, with the manner of
+considerate gentleness which had won Caroline from the first. "I told
+Fanny to move you into the little room next to Letty's."
+
+"Yes, I am quite comfortable. I like to sleep where she can call me."
+
+The child was undressing, and as her mother bent over her, she put up
+her bare little arms to embrace her. "You smell so sweet, mother, just
+like lilacs."
+
+"Do I, darling? There, don't hug me so tight or you'll rumple my hair.
+Did you ask your father about Ridley?"
+
+"He won't do it. He says he won't do it because it wouldn't be fair." As
+Letty repeated the message she looked questioningly into Mrs.
+Blackburn's face. "Why wouldn't it be fair, mother?"
+
+"He will have to tell you, dear, I can't." Drawing back from the child's
+arms, she arranged the ermine collar over her shoulders. "We must do all
+we can to help them, Letty. Now, kiss me very gently, and try to sleep
+well."
+
+She went out, leaving a faint delicious trail of lilacs in the air, and
+while Caroline watched Mammy Riah slip the night-gown over Letty's
+shoulders, her thoughts followed Angelica down the circular drive,
+through the lane, and on the road to the city. She was fascinated, yet
+there was something deeper and finer than fascination in the emotion
+Mrs. Blackburn awakened. There was tenderness in it and there was
+romance; but most of all there was sympathy. In Caroline's narrow and
+colourless life, so rich in character, so barren of incident, this
+sympathy was unfolding like some rare and exquisite blossom.
+
+"Did you ever see any one in your life look so lovely?" she asked
+enthusiastically of Mammy Riah.
+
+The old woman was braiding Letty's hair into a tight little plait, which
+she rolled over at the end and tied up with a blue ribbon. "I wan' bawn
+yestiddy, en I reckon I'se done seen er hull pa'cel un um," she replied.
+"Miss Angy's de patte'n uv whut 'er ma wuz befo' 'er. Dar ain' never
+been a Fitzhugh yit dat wan't ez purty ez a pictur w'en dey wuz young,
+en Miss Angy she is jes' like all de res' un um. But she ain' been riz
+right, dat's de gospel trufe, en I reckon ole Miss knows hit now way up
+yonder in de Kingdom Come. Dey hed a w'ite nuss to nuss 'er de same ez
+dey's got for Letty heah, en dar ain' never been a w'ite nuss yit ez
+could raise a chile right, nairy a one un um."
+
+"But I thought you nursed all the Fitzhughs? Why did they have a white
+nurse for Mrs. Blackburn?"
+
+"Dy wuz projeckin', honey, like dey is projeckin' now wid dis yer chile.
+Atter I done nuss five er dem chillun ole Miss begun ter git sort er
+flighty in her haid, en ter go plum 'stracted about sto' physick en real
+doctahs. Stop yo' foolishness dis minute, Letty. You git spang out er
+dat baid befo' I mek you, en say yo' pray'rs. Yas'm, hit's de gospel
+trufe, I'se tellin' you," she concluded as Letty jumped obediently out
+of bed and prepared to kneel down on the rug. "Ef'n dey hed lemme raise
+Miss Angy de fambly wouldn't hev run ter seed de way hit did atter old
+Marster died, en dar 'ouldn't be dese yer low-lifeted doin's now wid
+Marse David."
+
+Later in the night, lying awake and restless in the little room next to
+Letty's, Caroline recalled the old woman's comment. Though she had
+passionately taken Angelica's side, it was impossible for her to deny
+that both Mrs. Timberlake and Mammy Riah appeared to lean
+sympathetically at least in the direction of Blackburn. There was
+nothing definite--nothing particularly suggestive even--to which she
+could point; yet, in spite of her prejudice, in spite of the sinister
+stories which circulated so freely in Richmond, she was obliged to admit
+that the two women who knew Angelica best--the dependent relative and
+the old negress--did not espouse her cause so ardently as did the
+adoring committee. "The things they say must be true. Such dreadful
+stories could never have gotten out unless something or somebody had
+started them. It is impossible to look in Mrs. Blackburn's face and not
+see that she is a lovely character, and that she is very unhappy." Then
+a reassuring thought occurred to her, for she remembered that her mother
+used to say that a negro mammy always took the side of the father in any
+discussion. "It must be the same thing here with Mrs. Timberlake and
+Mammy Riah. They are so close to Mrs. Blackburn that they can't see how
+lovely she is. It is like staying too long in the room with an exquisite
+perfume. One becomes at last not only indifferent, but insensible to its
+sweetness." Closing her eyes, she resolutely put the question away,
+while she lived over again, in all its varied excitement, her first day
+at Briarlay. The strangeness of her surroundings kept her awake, and it
+seemed to her, as she went over the last twenty-four hours, that she was
+years older than she had been when she left The Cedars. Simply meeting
+Mrs. Blackburn, she told herself again, was a glorious adventure; it was
+like seeing and speaking to one of the heroines in the dingy old volumes
+in her father's library. And the thought that she could really serve
+her, that she could understand and sympathize where Mrs. Timberlake and
+Mammy Riah failed, that she could, by her strength and devotion, lift a
+share of the burden from Angelica's shoulders--the thought of these
+things shed an illumination over the bare road of the future. She would
+do good, she resolved, and in doing good, she would find happiness. The
+clock struck eleven; she heard the sound of the returning motor; and
+then, with her mind filled with visions of usefulness, she dropped off
+to sleep.
+
+It might have been a minute later, it might have been hours, when she
+was awakened by Letty's voice screaming in terror. Jumping out of bed,
+Caroline slipped into the wrapper of blue flannel Diana had made for
+her, and touching the electric button, flooded the nursery with light.
+Sitting very erect, with wide-open vacant eyes, and outstretched arms,
+Letty was uttering breathless, distracted shrieks. Her face was frozen
+into a mask, and the bones of her thin little body quivered through the
+cambric of her night-gown. As the shadows leaped out on the walls, which
+were covered with garlands of pink and blue flowers, she shuddered and
+crouched back under the blankets.
+
+"I am here, Letty! I am here, darling!" cried Caroline, kneeling beside
+the bed, and at the same instant the door opened, and Mammy Riah, half
+dressed, and without wig or turban, came in muttering, "I'se coming,
+honey! I'se coming, my lamb!"
+
+Without noticing them, the child cried out in a loud, clear voice,
+"Where is father? I want father to hold me! I want my father!" Then the
+terror swept over her again like some invisible enemy, and her cries
+became broken and inarticulate.
+
+"Is she often like this?" asked Caroline of the old woman. "I can't hold
+her. I am afraid she will have a convulsion." With her arms about
+Letty, who moaned and shivered in her grasp, she added, "Letty, darling,
+shall I send for your mother?"
+
+"Dar ain' but one thing dat'll quiet dis chile," said the old negress,
+"en dat is Marse David. I'se gwine atter Marse David."
+
+She hobbled out in her lint slippers, while the girl held Letty closer,
+and murmured a hundred soothing words in her ear. "You may have father
+and mother too," she said, "you may have everyone, dear, if only you
+won't be frightened."
+
+"I don't want everyone. I want father," cried the child, with a storm of
+sobs. "I want father because I am afraid. I want him to keep me from
+being afraid." Then, as the door opened, and Blackburn came into the
+room, she held out her arms, and said in a whisper, like the moan of a
+small hurt animal, "I thought you had gone away, father, and I was
+afraid of the dark."
+
+Without speaking, Blackburn crossed the room, and dropping into a chair
+by the bed, laid his arm across the child's shoulders. At his touch her
+cries changed into shivering sobs which grew gradually fainter, and
+slipping back on the pillows, she looked with intent, searching eyes in
+his face. "You haven't gone away, father?"
+
+"No, I haven't gone anywhere. You were dreaming."
+
+Clasping his hand, she laid her cheek on it, and nestled under the
+cover. "I am afraid to go to sleep because I dream such ugly dreams."
+
+"Dreams can't hurt you, Letty. No matter how ugly they are, they are
+only dreams."
+
+His voice was low and firm, and at the first sound of it the pain and
+fear faded from Letty's face. "Were you asleep, father?"
+
+"No, I was at work. I am writing a speech. It is twelve o'clock, but I
+had not gone to bed." He spoke quite reasonably as if she were a grown
+person, and Caroline asked herself if this explained his power over the
+child. There was no hint of stooping, no pretense of childish words or
+phrases. He looked very tired and deep lines showed in his face, but
+there was an inexhaustible patience in his manner. For the first time
+she thought of him as a man who carried a burden. His very shadow, which
+loomed large and black on the flowered wall paper, appeared, while she
+watched it, to bend beneath the pressure of an invisible weight.
+
+"Has mother come in?" asked Letty in a still whisper.
+
+"Yes, she has gone to bed. You must not wake your mother."
+
+"I'll try not to," answered the child, and a minute afterwards she said
+with a yawn, "I feel sleepy now, father. I'd like to go to sleep, if
+you'll sit by me."
+
+He laughed. "I'll sit by you, if you'll let Miss Meade and Mammy Riah go
+to bed."
+
+As if his laugh had driven the last terror from her mind, Letty made a
+soft, breathless sound of astonishment. "Miss Meade has got on a
+wrapper," she said, "and her hair is plaited just like mine only there
+isn't any ribbon. Mammy Riah, do you think my hair would stay plaited
+like that if it wasn't tied?"
+
+The old woman grunted. "Ef'n you don' shet yo' mouf, I'se gwine ter send
+Marse David straight down agin whar he b'longs."
+
+"Well, I'll go to sleep," replied Letty, in her docile way; and a
+minute later, she fell asleep with her cheek on her father's hand.
+
+For a quarter of an hour longer Blackburn sat there without stirring,
+while Caroline put out the high lights and turned on the shaded lamp by
+the bed. Then, releasing himself gently, he stood up and said in a
+whisper, "I think she is all right now." His back was to the lamp, and
+Caroline saw his face by the dim flicker of the waning fire.
+
+"I shall stay with her," she responded in the same tone.
+
+"It is not necessary. After an attack like this she sleeps all night
+from exhaustion. She seems fast asleep, but if you have trouble again
+send for me."
+
+He moved softly to the door, and as Caroline looked after him, she found
+herself asking resentfully, "I wonder why Letty cried for her father?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BLACKBURN
+
+
+A week later, on an afternoon when the October sunshine sparkled like
+wine beneath a sky that was the colour of day-flowers, Caroline sat on
+the terrace waiting for Mrs. Blackburn to return from a rehearsal. In
+the morning Angelica had promised Letty a drive if she were good, and as
+soon as luncheon was over the child had put on a new hat and coat of
+blue velvet, and had come downstairs to listen for the sound of the
+motor. With a little white fur muff in her hands, she was now marching
+sedately round the fountain, while she counted her circuits aloud in a
+clear, monotonous voice. Under the velvet hat she was looking almost
+pretty, and as Caroline gazed at her she seemed to catch fleeting
+glimpses of Angelica in the serious little face. "I believe she is going
+to be really lovely when she grows up. It is a pity she hasn't her
+mother's colouring, but she gets more like her every day." Leaning over,
+she called in a low, admonishing tone, "Letty, don't go too near the
+fountain. You will get your coat splashed."
+
+Obedient as she always was, Letty drew away from the water, and Caroline
+turned to pick up the knitting she had laid aside while she waited.
+Angelica had promised a dozen mufflers to the War Relief Association,
+and since it made her nervous to knit, she gracefully left the work for
+others to do. Now, while Caroline's needles clicked busily, and the ball
+of yarn unwound in her lap, her eyes wandered from the dying beauty of
+the garden to the wreaths of smoke that hung over the fringed edge of
+the river. On the opposite side, beyond the glittering band of the
+water, low grey-green hills melted like shadows into the violet haze of
+the distance. A roving fragrance of wood-smoke was in the air, and from
+the brown and russet sweep of the fields rose the chanting of
+innumerable insects. All the noise and movement of life seemed hushed
+and waiting while nature drifted slowly into the long sleep of winter.
+So vivid yet so evanescent was the light on the meadows that Caroline
+stopped her work, lest a stir or a sound might dissolve the perfect hour
+into darkness.
+
+Growing suddenly tired of play, Letty came to Caroline's side and leaned
+on her shoulder. The child's hat had slipped back, and while she nestled
+there she sank gradually into the pensive drowsiness of the afternoon.
+
+"Do you think she has forgotten to come for us?"
+
+"No, dear, it is early yet. It can't be much after three o'clock."
+
+Up through the golden-rod and life-everlasting, along the winding
+pathway across the fields, Alan and Mary were strolling slowly toward
+the lower garden. "They are so happy," mused Caroline. "I wonder if she
+is ever afraid that she may lose him? He doesn't look as if he could be
+constant."
+
+Suddenly one of the nearest French windows opened, and the scent of
+cigar smoke floated out from the library. A moment later she heard the
+words, "Let's get a bit of air," and Blackburn, followed by two callers,
+came out on the terrace. While the three stood gazing across the garden
+to the river, she recognized one of the callers as Colonel Ashburton,
+but the other was a stranger--a tall, slender man, with crisp iron-grey
+hair and thin, austere features. Afterwards she learned that he was
+Joseph Sloane of New York, a man of wide political vision, and a
+recognized force in the industrial life of America. He had a high,
+dome-like forehead, which vaguely reminded Caroline of a tower, and a
+mouth so tightly locked that it looked as if nothing less rigid than a
+fact had ever escaped it. Yet his voice, when it came, was rich and
+beautifully modulated. "It is a good view," he remarked indifferently,
+and then looking at Blackburn, as if he were resuming a conversation
+that had been broken off, he said earnestly, "A few years ago I should
+have thought it a sheer impossibility, but I believe now that there is a
+chance of our winning."
+
+"With the chance strengthening every hour," observed Colonel Ashburton,
+and as he turned his back to the view, his mild and innocent gaze fell
+on Caroline's figure. "It is good to see you, Miss Meade," he said
+gallantly, with a bow in which his blue eyes and silvery hair seemed to
+mingle. "I hope the sound of politics will not frighten you?"
+
+Caroline looked up with a smile from her knitting. "Not at all. I was
+brought up in the midst of discussions. But are we in the way?"
+
+The Colonel's gallantry was not without romantic flavour. "It is your
+Eden, and we are the intruders," he answered softly. It was a pity,
+thought Caroline, while she looked at him over Letty's head, that a
+velvet manner like that had almost vanished from the world. It went with
+plumes and lace ruffles and stainless swords.
+
+"I am going to drive, father," called Letty, "if mother ever comes."
+
+"That's good." Blackburn smiled as he responded, and then moving a step
+or two nearer the garden, drew several deep wicker chairs into the
+sunshine. For a few minutes after they had seated themselves, the men
+gazed in silence at the hazy hills on the horizon, and it seemed to
+Caroline that Blackburn was drawing strength and inspiration from the
+radiant, familiar scene.
+
+"I have never wanted anything like this," he said at last, speaking very
+slowly, as if he weighed each separate word before it was uttered.
+
+"Not for yourself, but for the country," replied the Colonel in his
+musical voice, which sounded always as if it were pitched to arouse
+sleeping enthusiasm. He had once been in Congress, and the habit of
+oratorical phrasing had never entirely left him. "Do you know,
+Blackburn, I sometimes think that you are one of the few statesmen we
+have left. The others are mixtures of so many ingredients--ambition,
+prejudice, fanaticism, self-interest--everything but the thought of the
+country, and the things for which the country should stand. It's the
+difference, I suppose, between a patriot and a politician."
+
+"It is not that I am less selfish," Blackburn laughed with embarrassment
+as he answered, "but perhaps I have had a harder time than the others,
+and have learned something they haven't. I've seen how little material
+things or their acquisition matter in life. After all, the idea is the
+only thing that really counts--an idea big enough to lift a man out of
+his personal boundaries, big enough to absorb and possess him
+completely. A man's country may do this, but not a man's self, nor the
+mere business of living."
+
+As he paused, though his head was turned in Caroline's direction, she
+had a queer impression that he was looking beyond her at some glowing
+vision that was imperceptible to the others. She knew that he was
+oblivious of her presence, and that, if he saw her at all, she was
+scarcely more to him than an image painted on air. The golden light of
+the afternoon enveloped his figure, yet she realized that the
+illumination in his face was not due to the shifting rays of the sun.
+She did not like him--the aversion she felt was too strong for her to
+judge him tolerantly--but she was obliged to admit that his straight,
+firm figure, with its look of arrested energy, of controlled power, made
+Colonel Ashburton and the stranger from the North appear almost
+commonplace. Even his rough brown clothes possessed a distinction apart
+from the cut of his tailor; and though it was impossible for her to
+define the quality which seemed to make him stand alone, to put him in a
+class by himself, she was beginning to discern that his gift of
+personality, of intellectual dominance, was a kind of undeveloped
+genius. "He ought to have been a writer or a statesman," she thought,
+while she looked at his roughened hair, which would never lie flat, at
+his smoky grey eyes, and his thin, almost colourless lips. It was a face
+that grew on her as she watched it, a face, she realized, that one must
+study to understand, not attempt to read by erring flashes of insight.
+She remembered that Colonel Ashburton had told her that Blackburn had no
+small talk, but that he spoke well if he were once started on a current
+of ideas. "It is true. He speaks just as if he had thought it all out
+years ago," she said to herself while she listened, "just as if every
+sentence, every word almost, was crystallized." She felt a mild
+curiosity about his political convictions--a desire to know what he
+really believed, and why his opinions had aroused the opposition of men
+like Charles Peyton and Robert Colfax.
+
+"I used to believe, not long ago, that these things counted supremely,"
+Blackburn said presently, with his eyes on the river--those intense grey
+eyes which seemed always searching for something. "I held as firmly as
+any man by the Gospel of Achievement--by the mad scramble to acquire
+things. I had never had them, and what a man hasn't had, he generally
+wants. Perhaps I travelled the historic road through materialism to
+idealism, the road America is following this very hour while we are
+talking. I am not saying that it isn't all for the best, you know. You
+may call me an optimist, I suppose, down beneath the eternal muddle of
+things; but I feel that the ambition to acquire is good only as a
+process, and not as a permanent condition or the ultimate end of life. I
+haven't a doubt that the frantic struggle in America to amass things, to
+make great fortunes, has led to discoveries of incalculable benefit to
+mankind, and has given a splendid impetus to the development of our
+country. We wanted things so passionately that we were obliged to create
+them in order to satisfy our desires. This spirit, this single phase of
+development, is still serving a purpose. We have watched it open the
+earth, build railroads, establish industries, cut highways over
+mountains, turn deserts into populous cities; and through these things
+lay the foundation of the finer and larger social order--the greater
+national life. We are fond of speaking of the men who have made this
+possible as money-grubbers or rank materialists. Some of them were,
+perhaps, but not the guiding spirits, the real builders. No man can do
+great constructive work who is not seeking to express an imperishable
+idea in material substance. No man can build for to-morrow who builds
+only with bricks and mortar."
+
+He leaned forward to flick the ashes from his cigar, while the sunshine
+sprinkling through the junipers deepened the rapt and eager look in his
+face. "It all comes back to this--the whole problem of life," he pursued
+after a moment. "It all comes back to the builders. We are--with
+apologies for the platitude--a nation of idealists. It is our ability to
+believe in the incredible, to dream great dreams, not our practical
+efficiency, that has held our body politic together. Because we build in
+the sky, I believe we are building to last----"
+
+"But our mistakes, our follies, our insanities----?" As Blackburn paused
+the voice of Colonel Ashburton fell like music on the stillness. "Even
+our fairest dreams--the dream of individual freedom--what has become of
+it? Show me the man who is free among us to-day?" With his bowed white
+head, his blanched aristocratic features, and his general air of having
+been crushed and sweetened by adversity, he reminded Caroline of one of
+the perpetual mourners, beside the weeping willow and the classic tomb,
+on the memorial brooch her great-grandmother used to wear.
+
+"I believe you are wrong," replied Blackburn slowly, "for, in spite of
+the voice of the demagogue, America is a land of individual men, not of
+classes, and the whole theory of the American State rests upon the
+rights and obligations of the citizen. If the American Republic
+survives, it will be because it is founded upon the level of
+conscience--not upon the peaks of inspiration. We have no sovereign
+mind, no governing class, no body of men with artificial privileges and
+special obligations. Every American carries in his person the essential
+elements of the State, and is entrusted with its duties. To this extent
+at least, Colonel, your man is free."
+
+"Free to sink, or to swim with the current?"
+
+Blackburn smiled as he answered. "Well, I suppose your pessimism is
+natural. In Colonel Ashburton, Sloane, you behold a sorrowful survivor
+of the Age of Heroes. By Jove, there were giants in those days!" Then he
+grew serious again, and went on rapidly, with the earnest yet impersonal
+note in his voice: "Of course, we know that as long as a people is
+striving for its civil rights, for equality of right before the law,
+there is a definite objective goal. Now, in theory at least, these
+things have been attained, and we are confronted to-day with the more
+difficult task of adjusting the interests, without impairing the rights,
+of the individual man. The tangled skeins of social and economic justice
+must be unravelled before we can weave them into the fabric of life."
+
+"And for the next fifty years this is our business," said Sloane,
+speaking suddenly in the rich, strong voice which seemed to strike with
+unerring blows at the root of the question.
+
+"Yes, this is our business for the next fifty years. I believe with you,
+Sloane, that this may be done. I believe that this work will be
+accomplished when, and only when, the citizen recognizes that he is the
+State, and is charged with the duties and the obligations of the State
+to his fellowmen. To reach this end we must overthrow class prejudice,
+and realize that justice to all alike is the cornerstone of democracy.
+We must put aside sectional feeling and create a national ideal by
+merging the State into the nation. We must learn to look beyond the
+material prosperity of America and discern her true destiny as the
+champion of the oppressed, the giver of light. It is for us to do this.
+After all, we are America, you and I and Ashburton and the man who works
+in my garden. When all is said, a nation is only an organized crowd, and
+can rise no higher, or sink no lower, than its source--the spirit of the
+men who compose it. As a man thinketh in his heart so his country will
+be."
+
+For a moment there was silence, and then Sloane said sharply: "There is
+one thing that always puzzles me in you Southerners, and that is the
+apparent conflict between the way you think and the way you act, or to
+put it a trifle more accurately, between your political vision and your
+habit of voting. You see I am a practical man, an inveterate believer in
+the fact as the clinching argument in any question, and I confess that I
+have failed so far to reconcile your theory with your conduct. You are
+nationalists and idealists in theory, you Virginians, yet by your votes
+you maintain the solid South, as you call it, as if it were not a part
+of the American Republic. You cherish and support this heresy regardless
+of political issues, and often in defiance of your genuine convictions.
+I like you Virginians. Your history fascinates me like some brilliantly
+woven tapestry; but I can never understand how this people, whose heroic
+qualities helped to create the Union, can remain separated, at least in
+act, from American purposes and ideals. You give the lie to your great
+statesmen; you shatter their splendid dream for the sake of a paradox.
+Your one political party battens on the very life of the South--since
+you preserve its independence in spite of representatives whom you
+oppose, and, not infrequently, in spite even of principles that you
+reject. However broad may be our interpretation of recent events, as
+long as this heresy prevails, the people of the South cannot hope to
+recover their historic place in the councils of the nation. And this
+condition," he concluded abruptly, "retards the development of our
+future. A short while ago--so short a while, indeed, as the year
+1896--the security of the nation was endangered by the obsession of a
+solid and unbreakable South. This danger passed yesterday, but who knows
+when it may come again?"
+
+As he finished, Blackburn leaned eagerly forward as if he were bracing
+himself to meet an antagonist. To the man whose inner life is compacted
+of ideas, the mental surgery of the man of facts must always appear
+superficial--a mere trick of technique. A new light seemed to have
+fallen over him, and, through some penetrating sympathy, Caroline
+understood that he lived in a white blaze not of feeling, but of
+thought. It was a passion of the mind instead of the heart, and she
+wondered if he had ever loved Angelica as he loved this fugitive,
+impersonal image of service?
+
+"I sometimes doubt," he said gravely, "if a man can ever understand a
+country unless he was born in it--unless its sun and dust have entered
+into his being."
+
+"And yet we Southerners, even old-fashioned ones like myself, see these
+evils as clearly as you Northerners," interposed Colonel Ashburton while
+Blackburn hesitated. "The difference between us is simply that you
+discern the evils only, and we go deep enough to strike the root of the
+trouble. If you want really to understand us, Sloane, study the motive
+forces in English and American history, especially the overpowering
+influence of racial instinct, and the effect of an injustice on the mind
+of the Anglo-Saxon."
+
+With the Colonel's voice the old sense of familiarity pervaded
+Caroline's memory like a perfume, and she seemed to be living again
+through one of her father's political discussions at The Cedars--only
+the carefully enunciated phrases of Sloane and Blackburn were more
+convincing than the ringing, colloquial tones of the country orators. As
+she listened she told herself that these men were modern and
+constructive while her father and his group of Confederate soldiers had
+been stationary and antiquated. They had stood like crumbling landmarks
+of history, while Blackburn and his associates were building the
+political structure of the future.
+
+"Of course I admit," Sloane was saying frankly, "that mistakes were made
+in the confusion that followed the Civil War. Nobody regrets these
+things more than the intelligent men of the North; but all this is past;
+a new generation is springing up; and none of us desires now to put your
+house in order, or force any government upon you. The North is perfectly
+willing to keep its hands off your domestic affairs, and to leave the
+race problem to you, or to anybody else who possesses the ability to
+solve it. It seems to me, therefore, that the time has come to put these
+things behind us, and to recognize that we are, and have been, at least
+since 1865, a nation. There are serious problems before us to-day, and
+the successful solution of these demands unity of thought and purpose."
+
+There was a slight ironic twist to his smile as he finished, and he sat
+perfectly still, with the burned-out cigar in his hand, watching
+Blackburn with a look that was at once sympathetic and merciless.
+
+"Colonel Ashburton has pointed out the only way," rejoined Blackburn
+drily. "You must use the past as a commentary before you can hope
+clearly to interpret the present."
+
+"That is exactly what I am trying to do." The irony had vanished, and a
+note of solemnity had passed into Sloane's voice. "I am honestly trying
+to understand the source of the trouble, to discover how it may be
+removed. I see in the solid South not a local question, but a great
+national danger. There is no sanctity in a political party; it is merely
+an instrument to accomplish the ends of government through the will of
+the people. I realize how men may follow one party or another under
+certain conditions; but no party can always be right, and I cannot
+understand how a people, jealous of its freedom, intensely patriotic in
+spirit, can remain through two generations in bondage to one political
+idea, whether that idea be right or wrong. This seems to me to be beyond
+mere politics, to rise to the dignity of a national problem. I feel that
+it requires the best thought of the country for its adjustment. It is
+because we need your help that I am speaking so frankly. If we go into
+this war--and there are times when it seems to me that it will be
+impossible for us to keep out of it--it must be a baptism of fire from
+which we should emerge clean, whole, and united."
+
+"Ashburton is fond of telling me," said Blackburn slowly, "that I live
+too much in the next century, yet it does not seem to me unreasonable to
+believe that the chief end of civilization is the development of the
+citizen, and of a national life as deeply rooted in personal
+consciousness as the life of the family. The ideal citizen, after all,
+is merely a man in whom the patriotic nerve has become as sensitive as
+the property nerve--a man who brings his country in touch with his
+actual life, who places the public welfare above his private aims and
+ambitions. It is because I believe the Southern character is rich in the
+material for such development that I entered this fight two years ago.
+As you know I am not a Democrat. I have broken away from the party, and
+recently, I have voted the Republican ticket at Presidential
+elections----"
+
+"This is why I am here to-day," continued Sloane. "I am here because we
+need your help, because we see an opportunity for you to aid in the
+great work ahead of us. With a nation the power to survive rests in the
+whole, not in the parts, and America will not become America until she
+has obliterated the sections."
+
+Blackburn was gazing at the hills on the horizon, while there flickered
+and waned in his face a look that was almost prophetic.
+
+"Well, of course I agree with you," he said in a voice which was so
+detached and contemplative that it seemed to flow from the autumnal
+stillness, "but before you can obliterate the sections, the North as
+well as the South must cease to be sectional--especially must the North,
+which has so long regarded its control of the Federal Government as a
+proprietary right, cease to exclude the South from participation in
+national affairs and movements. Before you can obliterate the sections,
+you must, above all, understand why the solidarity of the South exists
+as a political issue--you must probe beneath the tissue of facts to the
+very bone and fibre of history. Truth is sometimes an inconvenient
+thing, but experience has found nothing better to build on. First of
+all--for we must clear the ground--first of all, you must remember that
+we Virginians are Anglo-Saxons, and that we share the sporting spirit
+which is ready to fight for a principle, and to accept the result
+whether it wins or loses. When the war was over--to dig no deeper than
+the greatest fact in our past--when the war was over we Virginians, and
+the people of the South, submitted, like true sportsmen, to the logic of
+events. We had been beaten on the principle that we had no right to
+secede from the Union, and therefore were still a part of the Union. We
+accepted this principle, and were ready to resume our duties and
+discharge our obligations; but this was not to be permitted without the
+harsh provisions of the Reconstruction acts. Then followed what is
+perhaps the darkest period in American history, and one of the darkest
+periods in the history of the English-speaking race----"
+
+"I admit all this," interrupted Sloane quickly, "and yet I cannot
+understand----"
+
+"You must understand before we work together," replied Blackburn
+stubbornly. "I shall make you understand if it takes me all night and
+part of to-morrow. Politics, after all, is not merely a store of
+mechanical energy; even a politician is a man first and an automaton
+afterwards. You can't separate the way a man votes from the way he
+feels; and the way he feels has its source in the secret springs of his
+character, in the principles his parents revered, in the victories, the
+shames, the sufferings and the evasions of history. Until you realize
+that the South is human, you will never understand why it is solid.
+People are ruled not by intellect, but by feeling; and in a democracy
+mental expediency is no match for emotional necessity. Virginia proved
+this philosophical truth when she went into the war--when she was
+forced, through ties of blood and kinship, into defending the
+institution of slavery because it was strangely associated with the
+principle of self-government--and she proved it yet again when she began
+slowly to rebuild the shattered walls of her commonwealth."
+
+For a moment he was silent, and Colonel Ashburton said softly with the
+manner of one who pours oil on troubled waters with an unsteady hand, "I
+remember those years more clearly than I remember last month or even
+yesterday."
+
+His voice trailed into silence, and Blackburn went on rapidly, without
+noticing the interruption: "The conditions of the Reconstruction period
+were worse than war, and for those conditions you must remember that the
+South has always held the Republican Party responsible. Not content with
+the difficulties which would inevitably result from the liberation of an
+alien population among a people who had lost all in war, and were
+compelled to adjust themselves to new economic and social conditions,
+the Federal Government, under the influence of intemperate leaders,
+conferred upon the negroes full rights of citizenship, while it denied
+these rights to a large proportion of the white population--the former
+masters. State and local governments were under the control of the most
+ignorant classes, generally foreign adventurers who were exploiting the
+political power of the negroes. The South was overwhelmed with debts
+created for the private gain of these adventurers; the offices of local
+governments were filled either by alien white men or by negroes; and
+negro justices of the peace, negro legislators, and even negro members
+of Congress were elected. My own county was represented in the
+Legislature of Virginia by a negro who had formerly belonged to my
+father."
+
+"All this sounds now like the ancient history of another continent,"
+remarked Sloane with anxious haste, "Fifty years can change the purpose
+of a people or a party!"
+
+"Often in the past," resumed Blackburn, "men who have taken part in
+revolutions or rebellions have lost their lives as the punishment of
+failure; but there are wrongs worse than death, and one of these is to
+subject a free and independent people to the rule of a servile race; to
+force women and children to seek protection from magistrates who had
+once been their slaves. The Republican Party was then in control, and
+its leaders resisted every effort of the South to re-establish the
+supremacy of the white race, and to reassert the principles of
+self-government. We had the Civil Rights Act, and the Federal Election
+Laws, with Federal supervisors of elections to prevent the white people
+from voting and to give the vote to the negroes. Even when thirty years
+had passed, and the South had gained control of its local governments,
+the Republicans attempted to pass an election law which would have
+perpetuated negro dominance. You have only to stop and think for a
+minute, and you will understand that conditions such as I have suggested
+are the source of that national menace you are trying now to remove."
+
+"It is all true, but it is the truth of yesterday," rejoined Sloane
+eagerly. "If we have made mistakes in the past, we wish the more
+heartily to do right in the present. What can prove this more clearly
+than the fact that I am here to ask your help in organizing the
+independent vote in Virginia? There is a future for the man who can lead
+the new political forces."
+
+The sun was dropping slowly in the direction of the wooded slopes on the
+opposite shore; the violet mist on the river had become suddenly
+luminous; and the long black shadows of the junipers were slanting over
+the grass walks in the garden. In the lower meadows the chanting rose so
+softly that it seemed rather a breath than a sound; and this breath,
+which was the faint quivering stir of October, stole at last into the
+amber light on the terrace.
+
+"If I had not known this," answered Blackburn, and again there flickered
+into his face the look of prophecy and vision which seemed to place him
+in a separate world from Sloane and Colonel Ashburton, "I should have
+spoken less frankly. As you say the past is past, and we cannot solve
+future problems by brooding upon wrongs that are over. The suffrage is,
+after all, held in trust for the good of the present and the future; and
+for this reason, since Virginia limited her suffrage to a point that
+made the negro vote a negligible factor, I have felt that the solid
+South is, if possible, more harmful to the Southern people than it is to
+the nation. This political solidarity prevents constructive thought and
+retards development. It places the Southern States in the control of
+one political machine; and the aim of this machine must inevitably be
+self-perpetuation. Offices are bestowed on men who are willing to submit
+to these methods; and freedom of discussion is necessarily discouraged
+by the dominant party. In the end a governing class is created, and this
+class, like all political cliques, secures its privileges by raising
+small men to high public places, and thereby obstructs, if it does not
+entirely suppress, independent thought and action. I can imagine no more
+dangerous condition for any people under a republican form of
+government, and for this reason, I regard the liberation of the South
+from this political tyranny as the imperative duty of every loyal
+Southerner. As you know, I am an independent in politics, and if I have
+voted with the Republicans, it is only because I saw no other means of
+breaking the solidarity of the South. Yet--and I may as well be as frank
+at the end as I was at the beginning of our discussion, I doubt the
+ability of the Republican Party to win the support of the Southern
+people. The day will come, I believe, when another party will be
+organized, national in its origin and its purposes; and through this new
+party, which will absorb the best men from both the Republican and the
+Democratic organizations, I hope to see America welded into a nation. In
+the meantime, and only until this end is clearly in sight," he added
+earnestly, "I am ready to help you by any effort, by any personal
+sacrifice. I believe in America not with my mind only, but with my
+heart--and if the name America means anything, it must mean that we
+stand for the principle of self-government whatever may be the form.
+This principle is now in danger throughout the world, and just as a man
+must meet his responsibilities and discharge his obligations regardless
+of consequences, so a nation cannot shirk its duties in a time of
+international peril. We have now reached the cross-roads--we stand
+waiting where the upward and the downward paths come together. I am
+willing to cast aside all advantage, to take any step, to face
+misunderstanding and criticism, if I can only help my people to catch
+the broader vision of American opportunity and American destiny----"
+
+The words were still in the air, when there was a gentle flutter of pink
+silk curtains, and Angelica came out, flushed and lovely, from a
+successful rehearsal. An afternoon paper was in her hand, and her eyes
+were bright and wistful, as if she were trying to understand how any one
+could have hurt her.
+
+"Letty, dear, I am waiting!" she called; and then, as her gaze fell on
+Sloane, she went toward him with outstretched hand and a charming manner
+of welcome. "Oh, Mr. Sloane, how very nice to see you in Richmond!" The
+next instant she added seriously, "David, have you seen the paper? You
+can't imagine what dreadful things they are saying about you."
+
+"Well, they can call him nothing worse than a traitor," retorted Colonel
+Ashburton lightly before Blackburn could answer. "Surely, the word
+traitor ought to have lost its harshness to Southern ears!"
+
+"But Robert Colfax must have written it!" Though she was smiling it was
+not because the Colonel's rejoinder had seemed amusing to her. "I know I
+am interrupting," she said after a moment. "It will be so nice if you
+will dine with us, Mr. Sloane--only you must promise me not to encourage
+David's political ideas. I couldn't bear to be married to a
+politician."
+
+As she stood there against a white column, she looked as faultless and
+as evanescent as the sunbeams, and for the first time Sloane's face lost
+its coldness and austerity.
+
+"I think your husband could never be a politician," he answered gently,
+"though he may be a statesman."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ANGELICA'S CHARITY
+
+
+As the car turned into the lane it passed Alan and Mary, and Mrs.
+Blackburn ordered the chauffeur to stop while she leaned out of the
+window and waited, with her vague, shimmering look, for the lovers to
+approach. "I wanted to ask you, Mr. Wythe, about that article in the
+paper this morning," she began. "Do you think it will do David any real
+harm?"
+
+Her voice was low and troubled, and she gazed into Alan's face with eyes
+that seemed to be pleading for mercy.
+
+"Well, I hardly think it will help him if he wants an office," replied
+Alan, reddening under her gaze. "I suppose everything is fair in
+politics, but it does seem a little underhand of Colfax doesn't it? A
+man has a right to expect a certain amount of consideration from his
+friends."
+
+For the first time since she had known him, Caroline felt that Alan's
+nimble wit was limping slightly. In place of his usual light-hearted
+manner, he appeared uncomfortable and embarrassed, and though his eyes
+never left Angelica's face, they rested there with a look which it was
+impossible to define. Admiration, surprise, pleasure, and a fleeting
+glimpse of something like dread or fear--all these things Caroline
+seemed to read in that enigmatical glance. Could it be that he was
+comparing Angelica with Mary, and that, for the moment at least, Mary's
+lack of feminine charm, was estranging him? He looked splendidly
+vigorous with the flush in his cheeks and a glow in his red-brown
+eyes--just the man, Caroline fancied, with whom any woman might fall in
+love.
+
+"But don't you think," asked Angelica hesitatingly, as if she dared not
+trust so frail a thing as her own judgment, "that it may be a matter of
+principle with Robert? Of course I know that David feels that he is
+right, and there can't be a bit of truth in what people say about the
+way he runs his works, but, after all, isn't he really harming the South
+by trying to injure the Democratic Party? We all feel, of course, that
+it is so important not to do anything to discredit the Democrats, and
+with Robert I suppose there is a great deal of sentiment mixed with it
+all because his grandfather did so much for Virginia. Oh, if David could
+only find some other ambition--something that wouldn't make him appear
+disloyal and ungrateful! I can't tell you how it distresses me to see
+him estrange his best friends as he does. I can't feel in my heart that
+any political honour is worth it!"
+
+There was a flute-like quality in her voice, which was singularly
+lacking in the deeper and richer tones of passion, like the imperfect
+chords of some thin, sweet music. Though Angelica had the pensive eyes
+and the drooping profile of an early Italian Madonna, her voice, in
+spite of its lightness and delicacy, was without softness. At first it
+had come as a surprise to Caroline, and even now, after three weeks at
+Briarlay, she was aware of a nervous expectancy whenever Mrs. Blackburn
+opened her lips--of a furtive hope that the hard, cold tones might melt
+in the heat of some ardent impulse.
+
+"It isn't ambition with David," said Mary, speaking bluntly, and with an
+arrogant conviction. "He doesn't care a rap for any political honour,
+and he is doing this because he believes it to be his duty. His country
+is more to him, I think, than any living creature could be, even a
+friend."
+
+"Well, as far as that goes, he has made more friends by his stand than
+he has lost," observed Alan, with unnatural diffidence. "I shouldn't let
+that worry me a minute, Mrs. Blackburn. David is a big man, and his
+influence grows every hour. The young blood is flowing toward him."
+
+"Oh, but don't you see that this hurts me most of all?" responded
+Angelica. "I wouldn't for the world say this outside, but you are
+David's friend and almost one of the family, and I know you will
+understand me."
+
+She lifted her eyes to his face--those large, shining eyes as soft as a
+dove's breast--and after a moment in which he gazed at her without
+speaking, Alan answered gently, "Yes, I understand you."
+
+"It would grieve me if you didn't because I feel that I can trust you."
+
+"Yes, you can trust me--absolutely." He looked at Mary as he spoke, and
+she smiled back at him with serene and joyous confidence.
+
+"That is just what I tell Mary," resumed Angelica. "You are so
+trustworthy that it is a comfort to talk to you, and then we both feel,
+don't we, dear?" she inquired turning to the girl, "that your wonderful
+knowledge of human nature makes your judgment of such value."
+
+Alan laughed, though his eyes sparkled with pleasure. "I don't know
+about that," he replied, "though my opinion, whatever it may be worth,
+is at your service."
+
+"That is why I am speaking so frankly because I feel that you can help
+me. If you could only make David see his mistake--if you could only
+persuade him to give up this idea. It can't be right to overturn all the
+sacred things of the past--to discredit the principles we Virginians
+have believed in for fifty years. Surely you agree with me that it is a
+deplorable error of judgment?"
+
+As she became more flattering and appealing, Alan recovered his gay
+insouciance. "If you want a candid answer, Mrs. Blackburn," he replied
+gallantly, "there isn't an ambition, much less a principle on earth, for
+which I would disagree with you."
+
+Angelica smiled archly, and she was always at her loveliest when her
+face was illumined by the glow and colour of her smile. Was it possible,
+Caroline wondered while she watched her, that so simple a thing as the
+play of expression--as the parting of the lips, the raising of the
+eyebrows--could make a face look as if the light of heaven had fallen
+over it?
+
+"If you get impertinent, I'll make Mary punish you!" exclaimed Angelica
+reproachfully; and a minute later the car passed on, while she playfully
+shook her finger from the window.
+
+"How very handsome he is," said Caroline as she looked back in the lane.
+"I didn't know that a man could be so good-looking."
+
+Angelica was settling herself comfortably under the robe. "Yes, he is
+quite unusual," she returned, and added after a pause, "If his uncle
+ever dies, and they say he is getting very feeble, Alan will inherit one
+of the largest fortunes in Chicago."
+
+"I'm so glad. That's nice for Miss Blackburn."
+
+"It's nice for Mary--yes." Her tone rather than her words, which were
+merely conventional, made Caroline glance at her quickly; but Angelica's
+features were like some faultless ivory mask. For the first time it
+struck the girl that even a beautiful face could appear vacant in
+repose.
+
+"Where are we going now, mother?" asked Letty, who had been good and
+quiet during the long wait in the lane.
+
+"To the Ridleys', dear. I've brought a basket." There was a moment's
+delay while she gave a few directions to the footman, and then, as Letty
+snuggled closely against Caroline's arm, the car went on rapidly toward
+the city.
+
+The Ridleys lived in a small frame house in Pine Street; and when the
+car stopped before the door, where a number of freshly washed children
+were skipping rope on the pavement, Angelica alighted and held out her
+hand to Letty.
+
+"Do you want to come in with me, Letty?"
+
+"I'd rather watch these children skip, mother. Miss Meade, may I have a
+skipping-rope?"
+
+Behind them the footman stood waiting with a covered basket, and for an
+instant, while Mrs. Blackburn looked down on it, a shadow of irritation
+rippled across her face. "Take that up to the second floor, John, and
+ask Mrs. Ridley if she got the yarn I sent for the socks?" Then,
+changing her mind as John disappeared into the narrow hall, from which a
+smell of cabbage floated, she added firmly, "We won't stay a minute,
+Letty, but you and Miss Meade must come up with me. I always feel," she
+explained to Caroline, "that it does the child good to visit the poor,
+and contrast her own lot with that of others. Young minds are so
+impressionable, and we never know when the turning-point comes in a
+life." Grasping Letty's hand she stepped over the skipping-rope, which
+the children had lowered in awe to the pavement.
+
+"Letty has a cold. I'm afraid she oughtn't to go in," said Caroline
+hastily, while the child, rescued in the last extremity, threw a
+grateful glance at her.
+
+"You really think so? Well, perhaps next time. Ah, there is Mr. Ridley
+now! We can speak to him without seeing his wife to-day." Instinctively,
+before she realized the significance of her action, she had drawn
+slightly aside.
+
+A tall man, with a blotched, irascible face and a wad of tobacco in his
+mouth, lurched out on the porch, and stopped short at the sight of his
+visitors. He appeared surly and unattractive, and in her first
+revulsion, Caroline was conscious of a sudden sympathy with Blackburn's
+point of view. "He may be right, after all," she admitted to herself.
+"Kind as Mrs. Blackburn is, she evidently doesn't know much about
+people. I suppose I shouldn't have known anything either if I hadn't
+been through the hospital."
+
+"I am glad to see you down, Mr. Ridley," said Angelica graciously. "I
+hope you are quite well again and that you have found the right kind of
+work."
+
+"Yes, 'm, I'm well, all right, but there ain't much doing now except
+down at the works, and you know the way Mr. Blackburn treats me whenever
+I go down there." He was making an effort to be ingratiating, and while
+he talked his appearance seemed to change and grow less repelling. The
+surliness left his face, his figure straightened from the lurching
+walk, and he even looked a shade cleaner. "It is wonderful the power she
+has over people," reflected the girl. "I suppose it comes just from
+being so kind and lovely."
+
+"You mustn't give up hope," Mrs. Blackburn replied encouragingly. "We
+never know at what moment some good thing may turn up. It is a pity
+there isn't more work of the kind in Richmond."
+
+"Well, you see, ma'am, Mr. Blackburn has cornered the whole lot. That's
+the way capital treats labour whenever it gets the chance." His face
+assumed an argumentative expression. "To be sure, Mr. Blackburn didn't
+start so very high himself, but that don't seem to make any difference,
+and the minute a man gets to the top, he tries to stop everybody else
+that's below him. If he hadn't had the luck to discover that cheap new
+way to make steel, I reckon he wouldn't be very far over my head to-day.
+It was all accident, that's what I tell the men down at the works, and
+luck ain't nothing but accident when you come to look at it."
+
+Mrs. Blackburn frowned slightly. It was plain that she did not care to
+diminish the space between Blackburn and his workmen, and Ridley's
+contemptuous tone was not entirely to her liking. She wanted to stoop,
+not to stand on a level with the objects of her charity.
+
+"The war abroad has opened so many opportunities," she observed, amiably
+but vaguely.
+
+"It's shut down a sight more than it's opened," rejoined Ridley, who
+possessed the advantage of knowing something of what he was talking
+about. "All the works except the steel and munition plants are laying
+off men every hour. It's easy enough on men like Mr. Blackburn, but it's
+hard on us poor ones, and it don't make it any easier to be sending all
+of this good stuff out of the country. Let the folks in Europe look
+after themselves, that's what I say. There are hungry mouths enough
+right here in this country without raising the price of everything we
+eat by shipping the crops over the water. I tell you I'll vote for any
+man, I don't care what he calls himself, who will introduce a bill to
+stop sending our provisions to the folks over yonder who are fighting
+when they ought to be working----."
+
+"But surely we must do our best to help the starving women and children
+of Europe. It wouldn't be human, it wouldn't be Christian----" Angelica
+paused and threw an appealing glance in the direction of Caroline, who
+shook her head scornfully and looked away to the children on the
+pavement. Why did she stoop to argue with the man? Couldn't she see that
+he was merely the cheapest sort of malcontent?
+
+"The first thing you know we'll be dragged into this here war
+ourselves," pursued Ridley, rolling the wad of tobacco in his mouth,
+"and it's the men like Mr. Blackburn that will be doing it. There's a
+lot of fellows down at the works that talk just as he does, but that's
+because they think they know which side their bread is buttered on! Some
+of 'em will tell you the boss is the best friend they have on earth; but
+they are talking through their hats when they say so. As for me, I
+reckon I've got my wits about me, and as long as I have they ain't going
+to make me vote for nobody except the man who puts the full dinner pail
+before any darn squabble over the water. I ain't got anything against
+you, ma'am, but Mr. Blackburn ain't treated me white, and if my turn
+ever comes, I'm going to get even with him as sure as my name is James
+Ridley."
+
+"I think we'd better go," said Caroline sternly. She had suspected from
+the first that Ridley had been drinking, and his rambling abuse was
+beginning to make her angry. It seemed not only foolish, but wicked to
+make a martyr of such a man.
+
+"Yes, we must go," assented Mrs. Blackburn uneasily. "I won't see Mrs.
+Ridley to-day," she added. "Tell her to let me know when she has
+finished the socks, and I will send for them. I am giving her some
+knitting to do for the War Relief."
+
+"All right, she may do what she pleases as long as she's paid for it,"
+rejoined Ridley with a grin. "I ain't interfering."
+
+Then, as the procession moved to the car, with the footman and the empty
+basket making a dignified rear-guard, he added apologetically, "I hope
+you won't bear me a grudge for my plain speaking, ma'am?"
+
+"Oh, no, for I am sure you are honest," replied Mrs. Blackburn, with the
+manner of affable royalty.
+
+At last, to Caroline's inexpressible relief, they drove away amid the
+eager stares of the children that crowded the long straight street. "I
+always wonder how they manage to bring up such large families," remarked
+Angelica as she gazed with distant benignity out of the window. "Oh, I
+quite forgot. I must speak to Mrs. Macy about some pillow cases. John,
+we will stop at Mrs. Macy's in the next block."
+
+In a dark back room just beyond the next corner, they found an elderly
+woman hemstitching yards of fine thread cambric ruffling. As they
+entered, she pinned the narrow strip of lawn over her knee, and looked
+up without rising. She had a square, stolid face, which had settled into
+the heavy placidity that comes to those who expect nothing. Her thin
+white hair was parted and brushed back from her sunken temples, and her
+eyes, between chronically reddened lids, gazed at her visitors with a
+look of passive endurance. "My hip is bad to-day," she explained. "I
+hope you won't mind my not getting up." She spoke in a flat, colourless
+voice, as if she had passed beyond the sphere of life in which either
+surprises or disappointments are possible. Suffering had moulded her
+thought into the plastic impersonal substance of philosophy.
+
+"Oh, don't think of moving, Mrs. Macy," returned Angelica kindly. "I
+stopped by to bring you the lace edging you needed, and to ask if you
+have finished any of the little pillow slips? Now, that your son is able
+to get back to work, you ought to have plenty of spare time for
+hemstitching."
+
+"Yes, there's plenty of time," replied Mrs. Macy, without animation,
+"but it's slow work, and hard on weak eyes, even with spectacles. You
+like it done so fine that I have to take twice the trouble with the
+stitches, and I was just thinking of asking you if you couldn't pay me
+twenty cents instead of fifteen a yard? It's hard to make out now, with
+every mouthful you eat getting dearer all the time, and though Tom is a
+good son, he's got a large family to look after, and his eldest girl has
+been ailing of late, and had to have the doctor before she could keep on
+at school."
+
+A queer look had crept into Angelica's face--the prudent and guarded
+expression of a financier who suspects that he is about to be
+over-matched, that, if he is not cautious, something will be got from
+him for nothing. For the instant her features lost their softness, and
+became sharp and almost ugly, while there flashed through Caroline's
+mind the amazing thought, "I believe she is stingy! Yet how could she be
+when she spends such a fortune on clothes?" Then the cautious look
+passed as swiftly as it had come, and Mrs. Blackburn stooped over the
+rocking-chair, and gathered the roll of thread cambric into her gloved
+hands. "I can have it done anywhere for fifteen cents a yard," she said
+slowly.
+
+"Well, I know, ma'am, that used to be the price, but they tell me this
+sort of work is going up like everything else. When you think I used to
+pay eight and ten cents a pound for middling, and yesterday they asked
+me twenty-six cents at the store. Flour is getting so high we can barely
+afford it, and even corn meal gets dearer every day. If the war in
+Europe goes on, they say there won't be enough food left in America to
+keep us alive. It ain't that I'm complaining, Mrs. Blackburn, I know
+it's a hard world on us poor folks, and I ain't saying that anybody's to
+blame for it, but it did cross my mind, while I was thinking over these
+things a minute ago, that you might see your way to pay me a little more
+for the hemstitching."
+
+While she talked she went on patiently turning the hem with her blunted
+thumb, and as she finished, she raised her head for the first time and
+gazed stoically, not into Angelica's face, but at a twisted ailantus
+tree which grew by the board fence of the backyard.'
+
+"I am glad you look at things so sensibly, Mrs. Macy," observed Angelica
+cheerfully. She had dropped the ruffling to the floor, and as she
+straightened herself, she recovered her poise and amiability. "One hears
+so many complaints now among working people, and at a time like this,
+when the country is approaching a crisis, it is so important"--this was
+a favourite phrase with her, and she accented it firmly--"it is so
+important that all classes should stand together and work for the common
+good. I am sure I try to do my bit. There is scarcely an hour when I am
+not trying to help, but I do feel that the well-to-do classes should not
+be expected to make all the sacrifices. The working people must do their
+part, and with the suffering in Europe, and the great need of money for
+charities, it doesn't seem quite fair, does it, for you to ask more than
+you've been getting? It isn't as if fifteen cents a yard wasn't a good
+price. I can easily get it done elsewhere for that, but I thought you
+really needed the work."
+
+"I do," said Mrs. Macy, with a kind of dry terror. "It's all I've got to
+live on."
+
+"Then I'm sure you ought to be thankful to get it and not complain
+because it isn't exactly what you would like. All of us, Mrs. Macy, have
+to put up with things that we wish were different. If you would only
+stop to think of the suffering in Belgium, you would feel grateful
+instead of dissatisfied with your lot. Why, I can't sleep at night
+because my mind is so full of the misery in the world."
+
+"I reckon you're right," Mrs. Macy replied humbly, and she appeared
+completely convinced by the argument. "It's awful enough the
+wretchedness over there, and Tom and I have tried to help the little we
+could. We can't give much, but he has left off his pipe for a month in
+order to send what he spent in tobacco, and I've managed to do some
+knitting the last thing at night and the first in the morning. I
+couldn't stint on food because there wasn't any to spare, so I said to
+myself, 'Well, I reckon there's one thing you can give and that's
+sleep.' So Mrs. Miller, she lets me have the yarn, and I manage to go
+to bed an hour later and get up an hour sooner. When you've got to my
+age, the thing you can spare best is sleep."
+
+"You're right, and I'm glad you take that rational view." Mrs.
+Blackburn's manner was kind and considerate. "Every gift is better that
+includes sacrifice, don't you feel? Tell your son that I think it is
+fine his giving up tobacco. He has his old place at the works, hasn't
+he?"
+
+"I wrote straight to Mr. Blackburn, ma'am, and he made the foreman hold
+it for him. Heaven only knows how we'd have managed but for your
+husband. He ain't the sort that talks unless he is on the platform, but
+I don't believe he ever forgets to be just when the chance comes to him.
+There are some folks that call him a hard man, but Tom says it ain't
+hardness, but justice, and I reckon Tom knows. Tom says the boss hasn't
+any use for idlers and drunkards, but he's fair enough to the ones who
+stand by him and do their work--and all the stuff they are putting in
+the papers about trouble down at the works ain't anything on earth but a
+political game."
+
+"Well, we must go," said Mrs. Blackburn, who had been growing visibly
+restless. On her way to the door she paused for an instant and asked,
+"Your son is something of a politician himself, isn't he, Mrs. Macy?"
+
+"Yes, 'm, Tom has a good deal to do with the Federation of Labour, and
+in that way he comes more or less into politics. He has a lot of good
+hard sense if I do say it, and I reckon there ain't anybody that stands
+better with the workers than he does."
+
+"Of course he is a Democrat?"
+
+"Well, he always used to be, ma'am, but of late I've noticed that he
+seems to be thinking the way Mr. Blackburn does. It wouldn't surprise me
+if he voted with him when the time came, and the way Tom votes," she
+added proudly, "a good many others will vote, too. He says just as Mr.
+Blackburn does that the new times take new leaders--that's one of Tom's
+sayings--and that both the Democratic and Republican Parties ain't big
+enough for these days. Tom says they are both hitched tight, like two
+mules, to the past."
+
+By this time Angelica had reached the door, and as she passed out, with
+Letty's hand in hers, she glanced back and remarked, "I should think the
+working people would be grateful to any party that keeps them out of the
+war."
+
+Mrs. Macy looked up from her needle. "Well, war is bad," she observed
+shortly, "but I've lived through one, and I ain't saying that I haven't
+seen things that are worse."
+
+The air was fresh and bracing after the close room, and a little later,
+as they turned into Franklin Street, Angelica leaned out of the window
+as if she were drinking deep draughts of sunlight.
+
+"The poor are so unintelligent," she observed when she had drawn in her
+head again. "They seem never able to think with any connection. The war
+has been going on for a long time now, and yet they haven't learned that
+it is any concern of theirs."
+
+Letty had begun coughing, and Caroline drew her closer while she asked
+anxiously, "Do you think it is wise to take a child into close houses?"
+
+"Well, I meant to stay only a moment, but I thought Mrs. Macy would
+never stop talking. Do you feel badly, darling? Come closer to mother."
+
+"Oh, no, I'm well," answered the child. "It is just my throat that
+tickles." Then her tone changed, and as they stopped at the corner of
+the park, she cried out with pleasure, "Isn't that Uncle Roane over
+there? Uncle Roane, do you see us?"
+
+A handsome, rather dissipated looking young man, with a mop of curly
+light hair and insolent blue eyes, glanced round at the call, and came
+quickly to the car, which waited under the elms by the sidewalk. The
+street was gay with flying motors, and long bars of sunshine slanted
+across the grass of the park, where groups of negro nurses gossiped
+drowsily beside empty perambulators.
+
+"Why, Anna Jeannette!" exclaimed the young man, with genial mockery.
+"This is a pleasure which I thought your worthy Bluebeard had forbidden
+me!"
+
+"Get in, and I'll take you for a little drive. This is Miss Meade. You
+met her that night at Briarlay."
+
+"The angel in the house! I remember." He smiled boldly into Caroline's
+face. "Well, Letty, I'd like to trade my luck for yours. Look at your
+poor uncle, and tell me honestly if I am not the one who needs to be
+nursed. Lend her to me?"
+
+"I can't lend you Miss Meade, Uncle Roane," replied the child seriously,
+"because she plays with me; but if you really need somebody, I reckon I
+can let you have Mammy Riah for a little while."
+
+Roane laughed while he bent over and pinched Letty's cheek. That he had
+a bad reputation, Caroline was aware, and though she was obliged to
+admit that he looked as if he deserved it, she could not deny that he
+possessed the peculiar charm which one of the old novels at The Cedars
+described as "the most dangerous attribute of a rake." "I could never
+like him, yet I can understand how some women might fall in love with
+him," she thought.
+
+"No, I decline, with thanks, your generous offer," Roane was saying. "If
+I cannot be nursed by an angel, I will not be nursed by a witch."
+
+Beneath his insolent, admiring gaze a lovely colour flooded Caroline's
+cheeks. In the daylight his manner seemed to her more offensive than
+ever, and her impulsive recognition of his charm was followed by an
+instantaneous recoil.
+
+"I don't like witches," said Letty. "Do you think Miss Meade is an
+angel, Uncle Roane?"
+
+"From first impressions," retorted Roane flippantly, "I should say that
+she might be."
+
+As Caroline turned away indignantly, Angelica leaned over and gently
+patted her hand. "You mustn't mind him, my dear, that's just Roane's
+way," she explained.
+
+"But I do mind," replied Caroline, with spirit. "I think he is very
+impertinent."
+
+"Think anything you please, only think of me," rejoined Roane, with a
+gallant air.
+
+"You bad boy!" protested Angelica. "Can't you see that Miss Meade is
+provoked with you?"
+
+"No woman, Anna Jeannette, is provoked by a sincere and humble
+admiration. Are you ignorant of the feminine heart?"
+
+"If you won't behave yourself, Roane, you must get out of the car. And
+for heaven's sake, stop calling me by that name!"
+
+"My dear sister, I thought it was yours."
+
+"It is not the one I'm known by." She was clearly annoyed. "By the way,
+have you got your costume for the tableaux? You were so outrageous at
+Mrs. Miller's the other night that if they could find anybody else, I
+believe that they would refuse to let you take part. Why are you so
+dreadful, Roane?"
+
+"They require me, not my virtue, sister. Go over the list of young men
+in your set, and tell me if there is another Saint George of England
+among them?"
+
+His air of mocking pride was so comic that a smile curved Caroline's
+lips, while Angelica commented seriously, "Well, you aren't nearly so
+good-looking as you used to be, and if you go on drinking much longer,
+you will be a perfect fright."
+
+"How she blights my honourable ambition!" exclaimed Roane to Caroline.
+"Even the cherished career of a tableau favourite is forbidden me."
+
+"Mother is going to be Peace," said Letty, with her stately manner of
+making conversation, "and she will look just like an angel. Her dress
+has come all the way from New York, Uncle Roane, and they sent a wreath
+of leaves to go on her head. If I don't get sick, Miss Meade is going to
+take me to see her Friday night."
+
+"Well, if I am brother to Peace, Letty, I must be good. Miss Meade, how
+do you like Richmond?"
+
+"I love it," answered Caroline, relieved by his abrupt change of tone.
+"The people are so nice. There is Mrs. Colfax now. Isn't she beautiful?"
+
+They were running into Monument Avenue, and Daisy Colfax had just waved
+to them from a passing car.
+
+"Yes, I proposed to her twice," replied Roane, gazing after Daisy's
+rose-coloured veil which streamed gaily behind her. "But she could not
+see her way, unfortunately, to accept me. I am not sure, between you
+and me, that she didn't go farther and fare worse with old Robert. I
+might have broken her heart, but I should never have bored her. Speaking
+of Robert, Anna Jeannette, was he really the author of that slashing
+editorial in the _Free-Press_?"
+
+"Everybody thinks he wrote it, but it doesn't sound a bit like him.
+Wasn't it dreadful, Roane?"
+
+"Oh, well, nothing is fair in politics, but the plum," he returned. "By
+the way, is it true about Blackburn's vaulting ambition, or is it just
+newspaper stuff?"
+
+"Of course I know nothing positively, Roane, for David never talks to me
+about his affairs; but he seems to get more and more distracted about
+politics every day that he lives. I shouldn't like to have it repeated,
+yet I can't help the feeling that there is a great deal of truth in what
+the article says about his disloyalty to the South."
+
+"Well, I shouldn't lose any sleep over that if I were you. No man ever
+took a step forward on this earth that he didn't move away from
+something that the rest of the world thought he ought to have stood by.
+There isn't much love lost between your husband and me, but it isn't a
+political difference that divides us. He has the bad taste not to admire
+my character."
+
+"I know you never feel seriously about these things," said Angelica
+sadly, "but I always remember how ardently dear father loved the
+Democratic Party. He used to say that he could forgive a thief sooner
+than a traitor."
+
+"Great Scott! What is there left to be a traitor to?" demanded Roane,
+disrespectfully. "A political machine that grinds out jobs isn't a
+particularly patriotic institution. I am not taking sides with
+Blackburn, my dear sister, only I'd be darned before I'd have acted the
+part of your precious Colfax. It may be good politics, but it's pretty
+bad sport, I should think. It isn't playing the game."
+
+"I suppose Robert feels that things are really going too far," observed
+Angelica feebly, for her arguments always moved in a circle. "He
+believes so strongly, you know, in the necessity of keeping the South
+solid. Of course he may not really have attacked David," she added
+quickly. "There are other editors."
+
+"I am sure there is not one bit of truth in that article," said Caroline
+suddenly, and her voice trembled with resentment. "I know Mr. Blackburn
+doesn't oppress his men because we've just been talking with the mother
+of a man who works in his plant. As for the rest, I was listening to him
+this afternoon, and I believe he is right." Her eyes were glowing as she
+finished, and her elusive beauty--the beauty of spirit, not of
+flesh--gave her features the rare and noble grace of a marble Diana. Her
+earnestness had suddenly lifted her above them. Though she was only a
+dark, slender woman, with a gallant heart, she seemed to Roane as remote
+and royal as a goddess. He liked the waving line of hair on her clear
+forehead, where the light gathered in a benediction; he liked her firm
+red lips, with their ever-changing play of expression, and he liked
+above all the lovely lines of her figure, which was at once so strong
+and so light, so feminine and so spirited. It was the beauty of
+character, he told himself, and, by Jove, in a woman, he liked
+character!
+
+"Well, he has a splendid champion, lucky dog!" he exclaimed, with his
+eyes on her face.
+
+For an instant Caroline wavered as Angelica's gaze, full of pained
+surprise, turned toward her; then gathering her courage, she raised her
+lashes and met Roane's admiring stare with a candid and resolute look.
+
+"No, it is not that," she said, "but I can't bear to see people unjust
+to any one."
+
+"You are right," ejaculated Roane impulsively, and he added beneath his
+breath, "By George, I hope you'll stand up for me like that when I am
+knocked."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OTHER DISCOVERIES
+
+
+In the morning Letty awoke with a sore throat, and before night she had
+developed a cold which spent itself in paroxysms of coughing. "Oh, Miss
+Meade, make me well before Friday," she begged, as Caroline undressed
+her. "Isn't Friday almost here now?"
+
+"In three days, dear. You must hurry and get over this cold."
+
+"Do you think I am going to be well, Mammy?" They were in the nursery at
+Letty's bedtime, and Mammy Riah was heating a cup of camphorated oil
+over the fire.
+
+"You jes' wait twel I git dish yer' red flan'l on yo' chist, en hit's
+gwinter breck up yo' cough toreckly," replied Mammy Riah reassuringly.
+"I'se done soused hit right good in dis hot ile."
+
+"I'll do anything you want. I'll swallow it right down if it will make
+me well."
+
+"Dar ain't nuttin dat'll breck up a cole quick'n hot ile," said the old
+woman, "lessen hit's a hot w'iskey toddy."
+
+"Well, you can't give her that," interposed Caroline quickly, "if she
+isn't better in the morning I'm going to send for Doctor Boland. I've
+done everything I could think of. Now, jump into bed Letty, dear, and
+let me cover you up warm before I open the window. I am going to sleep
+on the couch in the corner."
+
+"Hit pears to me like you en Marse David is done gone clean 'stracted
+'bout fresh a'r," grumbled Mammy Riah, as she drew a strip of red
+flannel out of the oil. "Dar ain' nuttin in de worl' de matter wid dis
+chile but all dis night a'r you's done been lettin' in on 'er w'ile she
+wuz sleepin'. Huh! I knows jes ez much about night a'r ez enny er yo'
+reel doctahs, en I ain' got er bit er use fur hit, I ain't. Hit's a
+woner to me you all ain' done kilt 'er betweenst you, you and Marse
+David en Miss Angy, 'en yo' reel doctah. Ef'n you ax me, I 'ud let down
+all dem winders, en stuff up de chinks wid rags twel Letty was peart
+enuff ter be outer dat baid."
+
+The danger in night air had been a source of contention ever since the
+first frost of the season, and though science had at last carried its
+point, Caroline felt that the victory had cost her both the respect and
+the affection of the old negress.
+
+"I ain' never riz noner my chillun on night a'r," she muttered
+rebelliously, while she brought the soaked flannel over to Letty's bed.
+
+"I hope it will cure me," said the child eagerly, and she added after a
+moment in which Mammy Riah zealously applied the oil and covered her
+with blankets, "Do you think I'd better have all the night air shut out
+as she says, Miss Meade?"
+
+"No, darling," answered Caroline firmly. "Fresh air will cure you
+quicker than anything else."
+
+But, in spite of the camphorated oil and the wide-open windows, Letty
+was much worse in the morning. Her face was flushed with fever, and she
+refused her breakfast, when Mammy Riah brought it, because as she said,
+"everything hurt her." Even her passionate interest in the tableaux had
+evaporated, and she lay, inert and speechless, in her little bed, while
+her eyes followed Caroline wistfully about the room.
+
+"I telephoned for Doctor Boland the first thing," said Caroline to the
+old woman, "and now I am going to speak to Mrs. Blackburn. Will you sit
+with Letty while I run down for a cup of coffee?"
+
+"Ef'n I wuz you, I wouldn't wake Miss Angy," replied the negress.
+"Hit'll mek 'er sick jes ez sho' ez you live. You'd better run along
+down en speak ter Marse David."
+
+"I'll tell him at breakfast, but oughtn't Letty's mother to know how
+anxious I am?"
+
+"She's gwine ter know soon enuff," responded Mammy Riah, "but dey don'
+low none un us ter rouse 'er twell she's hed 'er sleep out. Miss Angy is
+one er dem nervous sort, en she gits 'stracted moughty easy."
+
+In the dining-room, which was flooded with sunshine, Caroline found the
+housekeeper and Blackburn, who had apparently finished his breakfast,
+and was glancing over a newspaper. There was a pile of half-opened
+letters by his plate, and his face wore the look of animation which she
+associated with either politics or business.
+
+"I couldn't leave Letty until Mammy Riah came," she explained in an
+apologetic tone. "Her cold is so much worse that I've telephoned for the
+doctor."
+
+At this Blackburn folded the paper and pushed back his chair. "How long
+has she had it?" he inquired anxiously. "I thought she wasn't well
+yesterday." There was the tender, protecting sound in his voice that
+always came with the mention of Letty.
+
+"She hasn't been herself for several days, but this morning she seems
+suddenly worse. I am afraid it may be pneumonia."
+
+"Have you said anything to Angelica?" asked Mrs. Timberlake, and her
+tone struck Caroline as strained and non-committal.
+
+"Mammy Riah wouldn't let me wake her. I am going to her room as soon as
+her bell rings."
+
+"Well, she's awake. I've just sent up her breakfast." The housekeeper
+spoke briskly. "She has to be in town for some rehearsals."
+
+Blackburn had gone out, and Caroline sat alone at the table while she
+hastily swallowed a cup of coffee. It was a serene and cloudless day,
+and the view of the river had never looked so lovely as it did through
+the falling leaves and over the russet sweep of autumn grasses. October
+brooded with golden wings over the distance.
+
+"I had noticed that Letty had a sort of hacking cough for three days,"
+said Mrs. Timberlake from the window, "but I didn't think it would
+amount to anything serious."
+
+"Yes, I tried to cure it, and last night Mammy Riah doctored her. The
+child is so delicate that the slightest ailment is dangerous. It seems
+strange that she should be so frail. Mr. Blackburn looks strong, and his
+wife was always well until recently, wasn't she?"
+
+For a moment Mrs. Timberlake stared through the window at a sparrow
+which was perched on the topmost branch of a juniper. "I never saw any
+one hate to have a child as much as Angelica did," she said presently in
+her dry tones. "She carried on like a crazy woman about it. Some women
+are like that, you know."
+
+"Yes, I know, but she is devoted to Letty now."
+
+The housekeeper did not reply, and her face grew greyer and harsher than
+ever.
+
+"No one could be sweeter than she is with her," said Caroline, after a
+moment in which she tried to pierce mentally the armour of Mrs.
+Timberlake's reserve. "She isn't always so silent," she thought. "I hear
+her talking by the hour to Mammy Riah, but it is just as if she were
+afraid of letting out something if she opened her lips. I wonder if she
+is really so prejudiced against Mrs. Blackburn that she can't talk of
+her?" Though Caroline's admiration for Angelica had waned a little on
+closer acquaintance, she still thought her kind and beautiful, except in
+her incomprehensible attitude to the old sewing woman in Pine Street.
+The recollection of that scene, which she had found it impossible to
+banish entirely, was a sting in her memory; and as she recalled it now,
+her attitude toward Angelica changed insensibly from that of an advocate
+to a judge.
+
+"Oh, Angelica is sweet enough," said the housekeeper suddenly, with a
+rasping sound, as if the words scraped her throat as she uttered them,
+"if you don't get in her way." Then facing Caroline squarely, she added
+in the same tone, "I'm not saying anything against Angelica, Miss Meade.
+Our grandmothers were sisters, and I am not the sort to turn against my
+own blood kin, but you'll hear a heap of stories about the way things go
+on in this house, and I want you to take it from me in the beginning
+that there are a plenty of worse husbands than David Blackburn. He isn't
+as meek as Moses, but he's been a good friend to me, and if I wanted a
+helping hand, I reckon I'd go to him now a sight quicker than I would to
+Angelica, though she's my kin and he isn't."
+
+Rising hurriedly, as she finished, she gave a curt little laugh and
+exclaimed, "Well, there's one thing David and I have in common. We're
+both so mortal shutmouthed because when we once begin to talk, we always
+let the cat out of the bag. Now, if you're through, you can go straight
+upstairs and have a word with Angelica before she begins to dress."
+
+She went over to the sideboard, and began counting the silver aloud,
+while Caroline pushed back her chair, and ran impatiently upstairs to
+Mrs. Blackburn's room. At her knock the maid, Mary, opened the door, and
+beyond her Angelica's voice said plaintively, "Oh, Miss Meade, Mary
+tells me that Letty's cold is very bad. I am so anxious about her."
+
+A breakfast tray was before her, and while she looked down at the china
+coffee service, which was exquisitely thin and fragile, she broke off a
+piece of toast, and buttered it carefully, with the precise attention
+she devoted to the smallest of her personal needs. It seemed to Caroline
+that she had never appeared so beautiful as she did against the lace
+pillows, in her little cap and dressing sack of sky-blue silk.
+
+"I came to tell you," said Caroline. "She complains of pain whenever she
+moves, and I'm afraid, unless something is done at once, it may turn
+into pneumonia."
+
+"Well, I'm coming immediately, just as soon as I've had my coffee. I
+woke up with such a headache that I don't dare to stir until I've eaten.
+You have sent for the doctor, of course?"
+
+"I telephoned very early, but I suppose he won't be here until after his
+office hours."
+
+Having eaten the piece of toast, Angelica drank her coffee, and
+motioned to Mary to remove the tray from her knees. "I'll get up at
+once," she said. "Mary, give me my slippers. You told me so suddenly
+that I haven't yet got over the shock."
+
+She looked distressed and frightened, and a little later, when she
+followed Caroline into the nursery and stooped over Letty's bed, her
+attitude was that of an early Italian Madonna. The passion of motherhood
+seemed to pervade her whole yearning body, curving the soft lines to an
+ineffable beauty.
+
+"Letty, darling, are you better?"
+
+The child opened her eyes and stared, without smiling, in her mother's
+face.
+
+"Yes, I am better," she answered in a panting voice, "but I wish it
+didn't hurt so."
+
+"The doctor is coming. He will give you some medicine to cure it."
+
+"Mammy says that it is the night air that makes me sick, but father says
+that hasn't anything to do with it."
+
+From the fire which she was tending, Mammy Riah looked up moodily. "Huh!
+I reckon Marse David cyarn' teach me nuttin' 'bout raisin chillun," she
+muttered under her breath.
+
+"Ask the doctor. He will tell you," answered Angelica. "Do you think it
+is warm enough in here, Miss Meade?"
+
+"Yes, I am careful about the temperature." Almost unconsciously Caroline
+had assumed her professional manner, and as she stood there in her white
+uniform beside Letty's bed, she looked so capable and authoritative that
+even Mammy Riah was cowed, though she still grumbled in a deep whisper.
+
+"Of course you know best," said Angelica, with the relief she always
+felt whenever any one removed a responsibility from her shoulders, or
+assumed a duty which naturally belonged to her. "Has she fallen asleep
+so quickly?"
+
+"No, it's stupor. She has a very high fever."
+
+"I don't like that blue look about her mouth, and her breathing is so
+rapid. Do you think she is seriously ill, Miss Meade?" Angelica had
+withdrawn from the bed, and as she asked the question, she lowered her
+voice until her words were almost inaudible. Her eyes were soft and
+anxious under the drooping lace edge of her cap.
+
+"I don't like her pulse," Caroline also spoke in a whisper, with an
+anxious glance at the bed, though Letty seemed oblivious of their
+presence in the room. "I am just getting ready to sponge her with
+alcohol. That may lower her temperature."
+
+For a moment Mrs. Blackburn wavered between the bed and the door. "I
+wish I didn't have to go to town," she said nervously. "If it were for
+anything else except these tableaux I shouldn't think of it. But in a
+cause like this, when there is so much suffering to be relieved, I feel
+that one ought not to let personal anxieties interfere. Don't you think
+I am right, Miss Meade?"
+
+"I haven't thought about it," replied Caroline with her usual
+directness. "But I am sure you are the best judge of what you ought to
+do."
+
+"I have the most important part, you see, and if I were to withdraw, it
+would be such a disappointment to the committee. There isn't any one
+else they could get at the last moment."
+
+"I suppose not. There is really nothing that you can do here."
+
+"That is what I thought." Angelica's tone was one of relief. "Of course
+if I were needed about anything it would be different; but you are
+better able than I am to decide what ought to be done. I always feel so
+helpless," she added sadly, "when there is illness in the house."
+
+With the relinquishment of responsibility, she appeared to grow almost
+cheerful. If she had suddenly heard that Letty was much better, or had
+discovered, after harrowing uncertainty, the best and surest treatment
+for pneumonia, her face would probably have worn just such a relieved
+and grateful expression. In one vivid instant, with a single piercing
+flash of insight, the other woman seemed to look straight through that
+soft feminine body to Mrs. Blackburn's thin and colourless soul. "I know
+what she is now--she is thin," said Caroline to herself. "She is thin
+all through, and I shall never feel the same about her again. She
+doesn't want trouble, she doesn't want responsibility because it makes
+her uncomfortable--that is why she turns Letty over to me. She is
+beautiful, and she is sweet when nothing disturbs her, but I believe she
+is selfish underneath all that softness and sweetness which costs her so
+little." And she concluded with a merciless judgment, "That is why she
+wasn't kind to that poor old woman in Pine Street. It would have cost
+her something, and she can't bear to pay. She wants to get everything
+for nothing."
+
+The iron in her soul hardened suddenly, for she knew that this moment of
+revelation had shattered for her the romance of Briarlay. She might
+still be fascinated by Mrs. Blackburn; she might still pity her and long
+to help her; she might still blame Blackburn bitterly for his
+hardness--but she could never again wholly sympathize with Angelica.
+
+"There isn't anything in the world that you can do," she repeated
+gravely.
+
+"I knew you'd say that, and it is so good of you to reassure me." Mrs.
+Blackburn smiled from the threshold. "Now, I must dress, or I shall be
+late for the rehearsal. If the doctor comes while I am away, please ask
+him if he thinks another nurse is necessary. David tells me he
+telephoned for an extra one for night duty; but, dear Miss Meade, I feel
+so much better satisfied when I know that Letty is in your charge every
+minute."
+
+"Oh, she is in my charge. Even if the other nurse comes, I shall still
+sleep in the room next to her."
+
+"You are so splendid!" For an instant Angelica shone on her from the
+hall. Then the door closed behind her, and an hour afterwards, as
+Caroline sat by Letty's bed, with her hand on her pulse, she heard the
+motor start down the drive and turn rapidly into the lane.
+
+At one o'clock the doctor came, and he was still there a quarter of an
+hour later, when Mrs. Blackburn rustled, with an anxious face, into the
+room. She wore a suit of grey cloth, and, with her stole and muff of
+silver fox, and her soft little hat of grey velvet, she made Caroline
+think of one of the aspen trees, in a high wind, on the lawn at The
+Cedars. She was all delicate, quivering gleams of silver, and even her
+golden hair looked dim and shadowy, under a grey veil, as if it were
+seen through a mist.
+
+"Oh, Doctor, she isn't really so ill, is she?" Her eyes implored him to
+spare her, and while she questioned him, she flung the stole of silver
+fox away from her throat, as if the weight of the furs oppressed her.
+
+"Well, you mustn't be too anxious. We are doing all we can, you know. In
+a day or two, I hope, we'll have got her over the worst." He was a young
+man, the son of Mrs. Colfax's friend, old Doctor Boland, and all his
+eager youth seemed to start from his eyes while he gazed at Angelica.
+"Beauty like that is a power," thought Caroline almost resentfully. "It
+hides everything--even vacancy." All the men she had seen with Mrs.
+Blackburn, except her husband, had gazed at her with this worshipful and
+protecting look; and, as she watched it shine now in Doctor Boland's
+eyes, she wondered cynically why David Blackburn alone should be lacking
+in this particular kind of chivalry. "He is the only man who looks at
+her as if she were a human being, not an angel," she reflected. "I
+wonder if he used to do it once, and if he has stopped because he has
+seen deeper than any of the others?"
+
+"Then it isn't really pneumonia?" asked Angelica.
+
+He hesitated, still trying to answer the appeal in her eyes, and to
+spare her the truth if it were possible.
+
+"It looks now as if it might be, Mrs. Blackburn, but children pick up so
+quickly, you know." He reached out his arm as he answered, and led her
+to the couch in one corner. "Have you some aromatic ammonia at hand,
+Miss Meade? I think you might give Mrs. Blackburn a few drops of it."
+
+Caroline measured the drops from a bottle on the table by Letty's bed.
+"Perhaps she had better lie down," she suggested.
+
+"Yes, I think I'll go to my room," answered Angelica, rising from the
+couch, as she lifted a grateful face to the young doctor. "A shock
+always upsets me, and ever since Mary told me how ill Letty was, I have
+felt as if I couldn't breathe."
+
+She looked really unhappy, and as Caroline met her eyes, she reproached
+herself for her harsh criticism of the morning. After all, Angelica
+couldn't help being herself. After all, she wasn't responsible for her
+limited intelligence and her coldness of nature! Perhaps she felt more
+in her heart than she was able to express, in spite of her perfect
+profile and her wonderful eyes. "Even her selfishness may be due to her
+bringing up, and the way everyone has always spoiled her," pursued the
+girl, with a swift reaction from her severe judgment.
+
+When Angelica had gone out, Doctor Boland came over to the bed, and
+stood gazing thoughtfully down on the child, who stirred restlessly and
+stared up at him with bright, glassy eyes. It was plain to Caroline that
+he was more disturbed than he had admitted; and his grave young features
+looked old and drawn while he stood there in silence. He was a thickset
+man, with an ugly, intelligent face and alert, nearsighted eyes behind
+enormous glasses with tortoise-shell rims.
+
+"If we can manage to keep her temperature down," he said, and added as
+if he were pursuing his original train of thought, "Mrs. Blackburn is
+unusually sensitive."
+
+"She is not very strong."
+
+"For that reason it is better not to alarm her unnecessarily. I suppose
+Mr. Blackburn can always be reached?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I have his telephone number. He asked me to call him up as
+soon as I had seen you."
+
+After this he gave a few professional directions, and left abruptly
+with the remark, "I'll look in early to-morrow. There is really nothing
+we can do except keep up the treatment and have as much fresh air as
+possible in the room. If all goes well, I hope she will have pulled
+through the worst by Friday--and if I were you," he hesitated and a
+flush rose to his sandy hair, "I should be careful how I broke any bad
+news to Mrs. Blackburn."
+
+He went out, closing the door cautiously, as if he feared to make any
+sound in the house, while Caroline sat down to wonder what it was about
+Angelica that made every man, even the doctor, so anxious to spare her?
+"I believe his chief concern about poor Letty is that this illness
+disturbs her mother," she mused, without understanding. "Well, I hope
+his prophecy will come true, and that the worst will be over by Friday.
+If she isn't, it will be a blow to the entertainment committee."
+
+But when Friday came, the child was so much worse that the doctor, when
+he hurried out before his office hours, looked old and grey with
+anxiety. At eleven o'clock Blackburn sent his car back to the garage,
+and came up, with a book which he did not open, to sit in Letty's room.
+As he entered, Angelica rose from the couch on which she had been lying,
+and laid her hand on his arm.
+
+"I am so glad you have come, David. It makes me better satisfied to have
+you in the house."
+
+"I am not going to the works. Mayfield is coming to take down some
+letters, and I shall be here all day."
+
+"It is a comfort to know that. I couldn't close my eyes last night, so
+if you are going to be here, I think I'll try to rest a few minutes."
+
+She was pale and tired, and for the first time since she had been in
+the house, Caroline discerned a shade of sympathy in the glances they
+interchanged. "What a beautiful thing it would be if Letty's illness
+brought them together," she thought, with a wave of happiness in the
+midst of her apprehension. She had read of men and women who were
+miraculously ennobled in the crucial moments of life, and her vivid
+fancy was already weaving a romantic ending to the estrangement of the
+Blackburns. After all, more improbable things had happened, she told
+herself in one of her mother's favourite phrases.
+
+At five o'clock, when Doctor Boland came, Blackburn had gone down to his
+library, and Caroline, who had just slipped into a fresh uniform, was
+alone in the room. Her eyes were unnaturally large and dark; but she
+looked cool and composed, and her vitality scarcely felt the strain of
+the three sleepless nights. Though the second nurse came on duty at six
+o'clock, Caroline had been too restless and wakeful to stay in her room,
+and had spent the nights on the couch by the nursery window.
+
+"If we can manage to keep up her strength through the night----"
+
+The doctor had already looked over the chart, and he held it now in his
+hand while he waited for a response.
+
+"There is a fighting chance, isn't there?"
+
+His face was very grave, though his voice still maintained its
+professional cheerfulness. "With a child there is always a chance, and
+if she pulls through the night----"
+
+"I shall keep my eyes on her every minute." As she spoke she moved back
+to Letty's bed, while the doctor went out with an abrupt nod and the
+words, "Mr. Blackburn wishes me to spend the night here. I'll be back
+after dinner."
+
+The door had hardly closed after him, when it opened again noiselessly,
+and Mrs. Timberlake thrust her head through the crack. As she peered
+into the room, with her long sallow face and her look of mutely inviting
+disaster, there flashed through Caroline's mind the recollection of one
+of her father's freckled engravings of "Hecuba Gazing Over the Ruins of
+Troy."
+
+"I've brought you a cup of tea. Couldn't you manage to drink it?"
+
+"Yes, I'd like it." There was something touching in the way Mrs.
+Timberlake seemed to include her in the distress of the family--to
+assume that her relation to Letty was not merely the professional one of
+a nurse to a patient.
+
+Stepping cautiously, as if she were in reality treading on ruins, the
+housekeeper crossed the room and placed the tray on the table at the
+bedside. While she leaned over to pour out the tea, she murmured in a
+rasping whisper, "Mammy Riah is crying so I wouldn't let her come in.
+Can Letty hear us?"
+
+"No, she is in a stupor. She has been moaning a good deal, but she is
+too weak to keep it up. I've just given her some medicine."
+
+Her gaze went back to the child, who stirred and gave a short panting
+sob. In her small transparent face, which was flushed with fever, the
+blue circle about the mouth seemed to start out suddenly like the mark
+of a blow. She lay very straight and slim under the cover, as if she had
+shrunken to half her size since her illness, and her soft, fine hair,
+drawn smoothly back from her waxen forehead, clung as flat and close as
+a cap.
+
+"I'd scarcely know her," murmured the housekeeper, with a catch in her
+throat.
+
+"If she passes the crisis she will pick up quickly. I've seen children
+as ill as this who were playing about the room a few days afterwards."
+Caroline tried to speak brightly, but in spite of her efforts, there was
+a note of awe in her voice.
+
+"Is it really as grave as we fear, Miss Meade?"
+
+Caroline met the question frankly. "It is very grave, Mrs. Timberlake,
+but with a child, as the doctor told me a minute ago, there is always
+hope of a sudden change for the better."
+
+"Have you said anything to Angelica?"
+
+"She was in here a little while ago, just before the doctor's visit, but
+I tried not to alarm her. She is so easily made ill."
+
+The windows were wide open, and Mrs. Timberlake went over to the nearest
+one, and stood gazing out on the lawn and the half-bared elms. A light
+wind was blowing, and while she stood there, she shivered and drew the
+knitted purple cape she wore closer about her shoulders. Beyond the
+interlacing boughs the sunlight streamed in a golden shower on the
+grass, which was still bright and green, and now and then a few
+sparkling drops were scattered through the broad windows, and rippled
+over the blanket on Letty's bed. "It is hard to get used to these
+new-fangled ways," observed the housekeeper presently as she moved back
+to the fire. "In my days we'd have thought a hot room and plenty of
+whiskey toddy the best things for pneumonia."
+
+"The doctor told me to keep the windows wide open."
+
+"I heard him say so, but don't you think you had better put on a wrap?
+It feels chilly."
+
+"Oh, no, I'm quite warm." Caroline finished the cup of tea as she spoke
+and gave back the tray. "That did me good. I needed it."
+
+"I thought so." From the tone in which the words were uttered Caroline
+understood that the housekeeper was gaining time. "Are you sure you
+oughtn't to say something to Angelica?"
+
+"Say something? You mean tell her how ill Letty is? Why, the doctor gave
+me my instructions. He said positively that I was not to alarm Mrs.
+Blackburn."
+
+"I don't think he understood. He doesn't know that she still expects to
+be in the tableaux to-night."
+
+For an instant Caroline stared back at her without a word; then she said
+in an incredulous whisper, "Oh, she wouldn't--she couldn't!"
+
+"She feels it to be her duty--her sacred duty, she has just told me so.
+You see, I don't think she in the least realizes. She seems confident
+that Letty is better."
+
+"How can she be? She was in here less than an hour ago."
+
+"And she said nothing about to-night?"
+
+"Not a word. I had forgotten about the tableaux, but, of course, I
+shouldn't have mentioned them. I tried to be cheerful, to keep up her
+spirit--but she must have seen. She couldn't help seeing."
+
+The housekeeper's lips twitched, and she moistened them nervously. "If
+you knew Angelica as well as I do," she answered flatly, "you'd realize
+that she can help seeing anything on earth except the thing she wants to
+see."
+
+"Then you must tell her," rejoined Caroline positively. "Someone must
+tell her."
+
+"I couldn't." Mrs. Timberlake was as emphatic as Caroline. "And what's
+more she wouldn't believe me if I did. She'd pretend it was some of my
+crankiness. You just wait till you try to convince Angelica of something
+she doesn't want to believe."
+
+"I'll tell her if you think I ought to--or perhaps it would be better to
+go straight to Mr. Blackburn?"
+
+Mrs. Timberlake coughed. "Well, I reckon if anybody can convince her,
+David can," she retorted. "He doesn't mince matters."
+
+"The night nurse comes on at six o'clock, and just as soon as she gets
+here I'll go downstairs to Mr. Blackburn. That will be time enough,
+won't it?"
+
+"Oh, yes, she isn't going until half-past seven. I came to you because I
+heard her order the car."
+
+When she had gone Caroline turned back to her watch; but her heart was
+beating so rapidly that for a moment she confused it with Letty's
+feverish breathing. She reproached herself bitterly for not speaking
+frankly to Mrs. Blackburn, for trying to spare her; and yet, recalling
+the last interview, she scarcely knew what she could have said. "It
+seemed too cruel to tell her that Letty might not live through the
+night," she thought. "It seemed too cruel--but wasn't that just what
+Mrs. Timberlake meant when she said that Mr. Blackburn 'wouldn't mince
+matters?'"
+
+The night nurse was five minutes late, and during these minutes, the
+suspense, the responsibility, became almost unbearable. It was as if the
+whole burden of Angelica's ignorance, of her apparent heartlessness,
+rested on Caroline's shoulders. "If she had gone I could never have
+forgiven myself," she was thinking when Miss Webster, the nurse, entered
+with her brisk, ingratiating manner.
+
+"I stopped to speak to Mrs. Blackburn," she explained. "She tells me
+Letty is better." Her fine plain face, from which a wealth of burnished
+red hair was brushed severely back, beamed with interest and sympathy.
+Though she had been nursing private cases for ten years, she had not
+lost the energy and enthusiasm of a pupil nurse in the hospital. Her
+tall, erect figure, with its tightly confined hips, bent back, like a
+steel spring, whenever she stooped over the child.
+
+Caroline shook her head without replying, for Letty had opened her eyes
+and was gazing vacantly at the ceiling. "Do you want anything, darling?
+Miss Webster is going to sit with you a minute while I run downstairs to
+speak to father."
+
+But the child had closed her eyes again, and it was impossible to tell
+whether or not the words had penetrated the stupor in which she had been
+lying for the last two or three hours. A few moments later, as Caroline
+descended the staircase and crossed the hall to Blackburn's library, the
+memory of Letty's look floated between her and the object of her errand.
+"If Mrs. Blackburn could see that she would know," she told herself
+while she raised her hand to the panel of the door. "She couldn't help
+knowing."
+
+At the knock Blackburn called to her to enter, and when she pushed the
+door open and crossed the threshold, she saw that he was standing by the
+window, looking out at the afterglow. Beyond the terrace and the dark
+spires of the junipers, the autumn fields were changing from brown to
+purple under the flower-like pink of the sky. Somewhere in the distance
+one of the Airedale terriers was whining softly.
+
+As soon as he caught sight of her, Blackburn crossed the floor with a
+rapid stride, and stood waiting for her to speak. Though he did not open
+his lips, she saw his face grow white, and the corners of his mouth
+contract suddenly as if a tight cord were drawn. For the first time she
+noticed that he had a way of narrowing his eyes when he stared fixedly.
+
+"There hasn't been any change, Mr. Blackburn. I wish to speak to you
+about something else."
+
+From the sharp breath that he drew, she could measure the unutterable
+relief that swept over him.
+
+"You say there hasn't been any change?"
+
+"Not since morning. She is, of course, very ill, but with a child," she
+had repeated the phrase so often that it seemed to have lost its
+meaning, "the crisis sometimes comes very quickly. If we can manage to
+keep up her strength for the next twenty-four hours, I believe the worst
+will be over."
+
+His figure, as he stood there in the dim light, was impressed with a new
+vividness on her mind, and it was as he looked at this moment that she
+always remembered him.
+
+"Do you wish anything?" he asked. "Is everything being done that is
+possible?"
+
+"Everything. The doctor is coming to spend the night, and I shall sit up
+with Miss Webster."
+
+"But don't you need rest? Can you go without sleep and not lose your
+strength?"
+
+She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep until she is better."
+
+A look of gratitude leaped to his eyes, and she became aware, through
+some subtle wave of perception, that for the first time, she had assumed
+a definite image in his thoughts.
+
+"Thank you," he answered simply, but his tone was full of suppressed
+feeling.
+
+While he looked at her the old prejudice, the old suspicion and
+resentment faded from her face, and she gazed back at him with trusting
+and friendly eyes. Though she was pale and tired, and there were lines
+of worry and sleeplessness in her forehead, she appeared to him the
+incarnation of helpfulness. The spirit of goodness and gentleness shone
+in her smile, and ennobled her slight womanly figure, which drooped a
+little in its trim uniform. She looked as if she would fight to the
+death, would wear herself to a shadow, for any one she loved, or for any
+cause in which she believed.
+
+"I came to ask you," she said very quietly, "if it would not be better
+to tell Mrs. Blackburn the truth about Letty?"
+
+He started in amazement. "But she knows, doesn't she?"
+
+"She doesn't know everything. She thinks Letty is better. Miss Webster
+has been talking to her."
+
+"And you think she ought to be warned?"
+
+Her question had evidently puzzled him.
+
+"I think it is unfair to leave her in ignorance. She does not in the
+least realize Letty's condition. Mrs. Timberlake tells me she heard her
+order the car for half-past seven."
+
+"Order the car?" He seemed to be groping through a fog of uncertainty.
+If only heaven had granted intuition to men, thought Caroline
+impatiently, how much time might be saved!
+
+"To go to the tableaux. You know the tableaux are to-night."
+
+"Yes, I had forgotten." His tone changed and grew positive. "Of course
+she must be told. I will tell her."
+
+"That is all." She turned away as she spoke, and laid her hand on the
+knob of the door. "Mrs. Timberlake and I both felt that I ought to speak
+to you."
+
+"I am glad you did." He had opened the door for her, and following her a
+step or two into the hall, he added gratefully, "I can never thank you
+enough."
+
+Without replying, she hurried to the staircase, and ran up the steps to
+the second storey. When she reached the door of the nursery, she glanced
+round before entering, and saw that Blackburn had already come upstairs
+and was on his way to Angelica's room. While she watched, she saw him
+knock, and then open the door and cross the threshold with his rapid
+step.
+
+Miss Webster was sitting by Letty's bed, and after a look at the child,
+Caroline threw herself on the couch and closed her eyes in the hope that
+she might fall asleep. Though she was profoundly relieved by her
+conversation with Blackburn, she was still anxious about Angelica, and
+impatient to hear how she had borne the shock. As the time dragged on,
+with the interminable passage of the minutes in a sickroom, she found it
+impossible to lie there in silence any longer, and rising from the
+couch, she glanced at the clock before going to her room to wash her
+hands and straighten her hair for dinner. It was exactly half-past
+seven, and a few minutes later, when she had finished her simple
+preparations, and was passing the window on her way to the hall, she
+heard the sound of a motor in the circular drive. "I suppose they forgot
+to tell John," she thought, "or can it be the doctor so soon?"
+
+The hall was empty when she entered it; but before she had reached the
+head of the stairs, a door opened and shut in the left wing, and the
+housekeeper joined her. At the bend in the staircase, beneath a copy of
+the Sistine Madonna, which had been crowded out of the drawing-room, the
+elder woman stopped and laid a detaining hand on Caroline's arm. Even
+through the starched sleeve her grasp felt dry and feverish.
+
+"Miss Meade, did you get a chance to speak to David?"
+
+"Why, yes, I spoke to him. I went straight down as soon as Miss Webster
+came on duty."
+
+"Did he say he would tell Angelica?"
+
+"He came up at once to tell her. I saw him go into her room."
+
+Mrs. Timberlake glanced helplessly up at the Sistine Madonna. "Well, I
+don't know what he could have said," she answered, "for Angelica has
+gone. That was her motor you heard leaving the door."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SACRED CULT
+
+
+When Caroline looked back upon it afterwards, she remembered that dinner
+as the most depressing meal of her life. While she ate her food, with
+the dutiful determination of the trained nurse who realizes that she is
+obliged to keep up her strength, her gaze wandered for diversion to the
+soft blues and pinks on the wall. The tapestries were so fresh that she
+wondered if they were modern. More than ever the airy figure of Spring,
+floating in primrose-coloured draperies through a flowery grove,
+reminded her of Angelica. There was the same beauty of line, the same
+look of sweetness and grace, the same amber hair softly parted under a
+wreath of pale grey-green leaves. The very vagueness of the features,
+which left all except the pensive outline to the imagination, seemed to
+increase rather than diminish this resemblance.
+
+"Have you ever noticed how much that figure is like Mrs. Blackburn?" she
+asked, turning to the housekeeper, for the silence was beginning to
+embarrass her. Mary was away and neither Blackburn nor Mrs. Timberlake
+had uttered a word during the four short courses, which Patrick served
+as noiselessly as if he were eluding an enemy.
+
+Mrs. Timberlake lifted her eyes to the wall. "Yes, it's the living image
+of her, if you stand far enough off. I reckon that's why she bought
+it."
+
+Blackburn, who was helping himself to coffee, glanced up to remark, "I
+forgot to take sugar, Patrick," and when the tray was brought back, he
+selected a lump of sugar and broke it evenly in half. If he had heard
+the question, there was no hint of it in his manner.
+
+Having finished a pear she had been forcing herself to eat, Caroline
+looked inquiringly from Blackburn to Mrs. Timberlake. If only somebody
+would speak! If only Mary, with her breezy chatter, would suddenly
+return from New York! From a long mirror over the sideboard Caroline's
+reflection, very pale, very grave, stared back at her like a face seen
+in a fog. "I look like a ghost," she thought. "No wonder they won't
+speak to me. After all, they are silent because they can think of
+nothing to say." Unlike in everything else, it occurred to her that
+Blackburn and the housekeeper had acquired, through dissimilar
+experiences, the same relentless sincerity of mind. They might be blunt,
+but they were undeniably honest; and contrasted with the false values
+and the useless accessories of the house, this honesty impressed her as
+entirely admirable. The brooding anxiety in Blackburn's face did not
+change even when he smiled at her, and then rose and stood waiting while
+she passed before him out of the dining-room. It wasn't, she realized,
+that he was deliberately inconsiderate or careless in manner; it was
+merely that the idea of pretending had never occurred to him. The
+thought was in her mind, when he spoke her name abruptly, and she turned
+to find that he had followed her to the staircase.
+
+"Miss Meade, I have to see a man on business for a half hour. I shall be
+in the library. If there is any change, will you send for me?"
+
+She bowed. "Yes, I shall be with Letty all the time."
+
+"As soon as Baker goes, I'll come up. I asked the doctor to spend the
+night."
+
+"He said he couldn't get here before ten or eleven, but to telephone if
+we needed him," broke in Mrs. Timberlake. "Mammy Riah has gone to the
+nursery, Miss Meade. Is there any reason why she shouldn't stay?"
+
+"None in the world." As Caroline turned away and ascended the stairs,
+she remembered that there had been no question of Angelica. "I wish I
+could understand. I wish I knew what it means," she said to herself in
+perplexity. She felt smothered by the uncertainty, the coldness, the
+reserve of the people about her. Everybody seemed to speak with tight
+lips, as if in fear lest something might escape that would help to clear
+away the obscurity. It was all so different from The Cedars, where every
+thought, every joy, every grief, was lived in a common centre of
+experience.
+
+When she opened the nursery door, Mammy Riah glanced up from the fire,
+where she was crouching over the low fender. "I'se mortal feared,
+honey," she muttered, while she held out her wrinkled palms to the
+blaze. She had flung a shawl of crimson wool over her shoulders, and the
+splash of barbaric colour, with her high Indian cheek bones and the low
+crooning sound of her voice, gave her a resemblance to some Oriental
+crooked image of Destiny. As the wind rocked the elms on the lawn, she
+shivered, and rolled her glittering eyes in the direction of Letty's
+bed.
+
+"Don't give up, Mammy Riah," said Caroline consolingly. "You have nursed
+children through worse illnesses than this."
+
+"Yas'm, I know I is, but dar wan' noner dese yer signs dat I see now."
+The flames leaped up suddenly, illuminating her stooping figure in the
+brilliant shawl with an intense and sinister glow. "I ain't sayin'
+nuttin'. Naw'm, I ain' lettin' on dat I'se seen whut I'se seen; but
+dar's somebody done thowed a spell on dis place jes ez sho' ez you live.
+Dar wuz a ring out yonder on de grass de fust thing dis mawnin', en de
+fros' ain' never so much ez teched it. Naw, honey, de fros' hit ain'
+never come a nigh hit. Patrick he seed hit, too, but he ain' let on
+nuttin' about hit needer, dough de misery is done cotched him in bofe er
+his feet."
+
+"You don't really think we're conjured, Mammy?"
+
+Mammy Riah cast a secretive glance over her shoulder, and the dramatic
+instinct of her race awoke in every fibre of her body as she made a
+vague, mournful gesture over the ashes. "I 'members, honey, I 'members,"
+she muttered ominously. Though Caroline had been familiar with such
+superstitions from infancy, there was a vividness in these mysteries and
+invocations which excited her imagination. She knew, as she assured
+herself, that there "wasn't anything in it"; yet, in spite of her
+reason, the image of the old woman muttering her incantations over the
+fire, haunted her like a prophetic vision of evil.
+
+Turning away she went over to Letty's bed, and laid her small, cool
+fingers on the child's pulse.
+
+"Has there been any change?"
+
+Miss Webster shook her head. "She hasn't stirred."
+
+"I don't like her pulse."
+
+"It seemed a little stronger after the last medicine, but it was getting
+more rapid a minute ago. That old woman has been talking a lot of
+heathen nonsense," she added in a whisper. "She says she found a
+conjure ball at the front door this morning. I am from the Middle West,
+and it sounds dreadfully uncanny to me."
+
+"I know. She thinks we are conjured. That's just their way. Don't notice
+her."
+
+"Well, I hope she isn't going to sit up all night with me." Then, as
+Mammy Riah glanced suspiciously round, and began shaking her head until
+the shadows danced like witches, Miss Webster added in a more distinct
+tone, "Is Mrs. Blackburn still hopeful? She is so sweet that I've quite
+lost my heart to her."
+
+"She wasn't at dinner," answered Caroline, and going back to the fire,
+she sat down in a chintz-covered chair, with deep arms, and shaded her
+eyes from the flames. In some incomprehensible way Mammy Riah and
+Blackburn and Angelica, all seemed to hover in spirit round the glowing
+hearth.
+
+She was still sitting there, and her hand had not dropped from her eyes,
+when Blackburn came in and crossed the floor to a chair at the foot of
+Letty's bed. After a whispered word or two with Miss Webster, he opened
+a book he had brought with him, and held it under the night lamp on the
+candle-stand. When a quarter of an hour had passed Caroline noticed that
+he had not turned a page, and that he appeared to be reading and
+re-reading the same paragraph, with the dogged determination which was
+his general attitude toward adversity. His face was worn and lined, and
+there were heavy shadows under his eyes; but he gave her still the
+impression of a man who could not be conquered by events. "There is
+something in him, some vein of iron, that you can't break, you can't
+even bend," she thought. She remembered that her father had once told
+her that after the worst had happened you began to take things easier;
+and this casual recollection seemed to give her a fresh understanding of
+Blackburn. "Father knew life," she thought, "I wonder what he would have
+seen in all this? I wonder how he would have liked Mr. Blackburn and his
+political theories?" The profile outlined darkly against the shade of
+the night lamp, held her gaze in spite of the effort she made, now and
+then, to avert it. It was a strong face, and seen in this light, with
+the guard of coldness dropped, it was a noble one. Thought and feeling
+and idealism were there, and the serenity, not of the philosopher, but
+of the soldier. He had fought hard, she saw, and some deep instinct told
+her that he had conquered. A phrase read somewhere long ago returned to
+her as clearly as if it were spoken aloud. "He had triumphed over
+himself." That was the meaning of his look. That was the thought for
+which she had been groping. He had triumphed over himself.
+
+She started up quickly, and ran with noiseless steps to the bed, for
+Letty had opened her eyes and cried out.
+
+"Is she awake?" asked Blackburn, and closing his book, he moved nearer.
+
+Caroline's hand was on Letty's pulse, and she replied without looking at
+him, "She is getting restless. Miss Webster, is it time for the
+medicine?"
+
+"It is not quite half-past ten. That must be the doctor now at the
+door."
+
+Rising hurriedly, Blackburn went out into the hall, and when he came
+back, Doctor Boland was with him. As Caroline left the bedside and went
+to the chair by the fire, she heard Blackburn ask sharply, "What does
+the change mean, doctor?" and Doctor Boland's soothing response, "Wait
+a while. Wait a while." Then he stooped to make an examination, while
+Miss Webster prepared a stimulant, and Letty moaned aloud as if she were
+frightened. A clock outside was just striking eleven when the doctor
+said in a subdued tone, too low to be natural, yet too clear to be a
+whisper, "Her pulse is getting weaker." He bent over the bed, and as
+Caroline stood up, she saw Letty's face as if it were in a dream--the
+flat, soft hair, the waxen forehead, the hard, bright eyes, and the
+bluish circle about the small, quivering mouth. Then she crossed the
+floor like a white shadow, and in a little while the room sank back into
+stillness. Only the dropping of the ashes, and the low crooning of Mammy
+Riah, disturbed the almost unendurable silence.
+
+For the first hour, while she sat there, Caroline felt that the
+discipline of her training had deserted her, and that she wanted to
+scream. Then gradually the stillness absorbed her, and there swept over
+her in waves a curious feeling of lightness and buoyancy, as if her mind
+had detached itself from her body, and had become a part of the very
+pulse and rhythm of the life that surrounded her. She had always lived
+vividly, with the complete reaction to the moment of a vital and
+sensitive nature; and she became aware presently that her senses were
+responsive to every external impression of the room and the night. She
+heard the wind in the elms, the whispering of the flames, the muttering
+of Mammy Riah, the short, fretful moans that came from Letty's bed; and
+all these things seemed a part, not of the world outside, but of her own
+inner consciousness. Even the few pale stars shining through the window,
+and the brooding look of the room, with its flickering firelight and
+its motionless figures, appeared thin and unsubstantial as if they
+possessed no objective reality. And out of this vagueness and
+evanescence of the things that surrounded her, there stole over her a
+certainty, as wild and untenable as a superstition of Mammy Riah's, that
+there was a meaning in the smallest incident of the night, and that she
+was approaching one of the cross-roads of life.
+
+A coal dropped on the hearth; she looked up with a start, and found
+Blackburn's eyes upon her. "Miss Meade, have you the time? My watch has
+run down."
+
+She glanced at the little clock on the mantelpiece. "It is exactly one
+o'clock."
+
+"Thank you." His gaze passed away from her, and she leaned back in her
+chair, while the sense of strangeness and unreality vanished as quickly
+as it had come. The old negress was mending the fire with kindling wood,
+and every now and then she paused and shook her head darkly at the
+flames. "I ain' sayin' nuttin', but I knows, honey," she repeated.
+
+"Hadn't you better go to bed, Mammy Riah?" asked Caroline pityingly.
+
+"Naw'm, I 'ouldn't better git to baid. I'se got ter watch."
+
+"There isn't anything that you can do, and I'll call you, if there is a
+change."
+
+But the old woman shook her head stubbornly. "I'se got ter watch,
+honey," she replied. "Dat's one er dem ole squitch-owls out dar now.
+Ain't he hollerin' jes like he knows sump'n?"
+
+Her mind was plainly wandering, and seeing that persuasion was useless,
+Caroline left her to her crooning grief, and went over to Letty's bed.
+As she passed the door, it opened without sound, as if it were pushed
+by a ghost, and Mrs. Timberlake looked in with the question, "Is she any
+better, doctor?"
+
+The doctor raised his head and glanced round at her. "She is no better,"
+he answered. "Her pulse gets worse all the time."
+
+Unconsciously, while they spoke, they had drawn together around Letty's
+bed, and stooping over, Caroline listened with a rapidly beating heart,
+to the child's breathing. Then, dropping on her knees, she laid her arms
+about the pillow, as if she would hold the fragile little body to life
+with all her strength.
+
+She was kneeling there, it seemed to her hours later, when the door
+swung wide on its hinges, and Angelica, in her white robes, with the
+wreath of leaves on her hair, paused on the threshold like some Luca
+della Robbia angel. Her golden hair made a light on her temples; her
+eyes were deep and starry with triumph; and a glow hung about her that
+was like the rosy incandescence of the stage. For a minute she stood
+there; then, flushed, crowned, radiant, she swept into the room.
+
+Blackburn had not lifted his head; there was no sign in his stooping
+figure that he heard her when she cried out.
+
+"Is Letty really so ill? Is she worse, Doctor Boland?"
+
+The doctor moved a step from the bed, and reached out a protecting hand.
+"She has been getting weaker."
+
+"I'd sit down and wait, if I were you, Angelica," said Mrs. Timberlake,
+pushing forward a chair. "There isn't anything else that you can do
+now."
+
+But, without noticing her, Angelica had dropped to her knees at
+Caroline's side. A cry that was half a sob burst from her lips, and
+lifting her head, she demanded with passionate reproach and regret, "Why
+did nobody tell me? Oh, why did he let me go?" The words seemed driven
+from her against her will, and when she had uttered them, she fell
+forward across the foot of the bed, with her bare arms outstretched
+before her.
+
+The doctor bent over her, and instinctively, as he did so, he glanced up
+at Blackburn, who stood, white and silent, looking down on his wife with
+inscrutable eyes. He uttered no word of defence, he made no movement to
+help her, and Caroline felt suddenly that the sympathy around him had
+rushed back like an eddying wave to Angelica. "If he would only speak,
+if he would only defend himself," she thought almost angrily. Without
+turning, she knew that Angelica was led to the couch by the window, and
+she heard Mrs. Timberlake say in unemotional tones, "I reckon we'd
+better give her a dose of ammonia."
+
+The voices were silent, and except for Mrs. Blackburn's sobs and Letty's
+rapid breathing, there was no sound in the room. Suddenly from somewhere
+outside there floated the plaintive whining of the dog that Caroline had
+heard in the afternoon. "He must be missing Mary," she found herself
+thinking, while Mammy Riah murmured uneasily from the hearth, "Hit's a
+bad sign, w'en a dawg howls in de daid er night."
+
+The hours dragged on like eternity, and without moving, without stirring
+or lifting her eyes, Caroline knelt there, pouring her strength into the
+life of the unconscious child. Every thought, every feeling, every
+throbbing nerve, was concentrated upon this solitary consuming
+purpose--"Letty must live." Science had done all it could; it remained
+now for hope and courage to fight the losing fight to the end. "I will
+never give up," she said sternly under her breath, "I will never give
+up." If hope and courage could save, if it were possible for the human
+will to snatch the victory from death, she felt, deep down in the
+passionate depths of her heart, that, while she watched over her, Letty
+could not die.
+
+And then gradually, while she prayed, a change as light as a shadow
+stole over the face of the child. The little features grew less waxen,
+the glittering eyes melted to a dewy warmth, and it seemed that the blue
+circles faded slowly, and even the close brown hair looked less dull and
+lifeless. As the minutes passed, Caroline held her breath in torture,
+lest the faintest sound, the slightest movement, might check the
+invisible beneficent current.
+
+At last, when the change had come, she rose from her knees, and with her
+hand on Letty's pulse, looked up at Blackburn.
+
+"The crisis is past. Her hand is moist, and her pulse is better," she
+said.
+
+He started up, and meeting her joyous eyes, stood for an instant
+perfectly motionless, with his gaze on her face. "Thank God!" he
+exclaimed in a whisper.
+
+As he turned away and went out of the door, Caroline glanced over her
+shoulder, and saw that there was a glimmer of dawn at the window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE WORLD'S VIEW OF AN UNFORTUNATE MARRIAGE
+
+
+On a cloudy morning in December, Caroline ran against Daisy Colfax as
+she came out of a milliner's shop in Broad Street.
+
+"Oh, Miss Meade, I've been dying to see you and hear news of Letty!"
+exclaimed the young woman in her vivacious manner. She was wearing a hat
+of royal purple, with a sweeping wing which intensified the brilliant
+dusk of her hair and eyes.
+
+"She is quite well again, though of course we are very careful. I came
+in to look for some small artificial flowers for a doll's hat. We are
+dressing a doll."
+
+"It must have been a dreadful strain, and Cousin Matty Timberlake told
+mother she didn't know what they would have done without you. I think it
+is wonderful the way you keep looking so well."
+
+"Oh, the work is easy," responded Caroline gravely.
+
+"I am sure you are a perfect blessing to them all, especially to poor
+Angelica," pursued Daisy, in her rippling, shallow voice. Then, in the
+very centre of the crowded street, regardless of the pedestrians
+streaming by on either side of her, she added on a higher note: "Have
+you heard what everybody is saying about the way David Blackburn
+behaved? Robert insists he doesn't believe a word of it; but then Robert
+never believes anything except the Bible, so I told him I was going to
+ask you the very first chance I got. There isn't a bit of use trying to
+find out anything from Cousin Matty Timberlake because she is so awfully
+close-mouthed, and I said to Robert only this morning that I was
+perfectly sure you would understand why I wanted to know. It isn't just
+gossip. I am not repeating a thing that I oughtn't to; but the stories
+are all over town, and if they aren't true, I want to be in a position
+to deny them."
+
+"What are the stories?" asked Caroline, and she continued immediately,
+before she was submerged again in the bubbling stream of Daisy's
+narrative, "Of course it isn't likely that I can help you. This is the
+first time I have been in town since Letty's illness."
+
+"But that is exactly why you ought to know." As Daisy leaned nearer her
+purple wing brushed Caroline's face. "It is all over Richmond, Miss
+Meade," her voice rang out with fluting sweetness, "that David Blackburn
+kept Letty's condition from Angelica because he was so crazy about her
+being in those tableaux. They say he simply _made_ her go, and that she
+never knew the child was in danger until she got back in the night. Mrs.
+Mallow declares she heard it straight from an intimate friend of the
+family, and somebody, who asked me not to mention her name, told me she
+knew positively that Doctor Boland hadn't any use in the world for David
+Blackburn. She said, of course, he hadn't said anything outright, but
+she could tell just by the way he looked. Everybody is talking about it,
+and I said to Robert at breakfast that I knew you could tell exactly
+what happened because we heard from Cousin Matty that you never left
+Letty's room."
+
+"But why should Mr. Blackburn have wanted her to go? Why should he
+care?" Though Daisy's sprightly story had confused her a little,
+Caroline gathered vaguely that somebody had been talking too much, and
+she resolved that she would not contribute a single word to the gossip.
+
+"Oh, he has always been wild about Angelica's being admired. Don't you
+remember hearing her say at that committee meeting at Briarlay that her
+husband liked her to take part in public affairs? I happen to know that
+he has almost forced her to go into things time and again when Doctor
+Boland has tried to restrain her. Mother thinks that is really why he
+married Angelica, because he was so ambitious, and he believed her
+beauty and charm would help him in the world. I suppose it must have
+been a blow to him to find that she couldn't tolerate his views--for she
+is the most loyal soul on earth--and there are a great many people who
+think that he voted with the Republicans in the hope of an office, and
+that he got mad when he didn't get one and turned Independent----"
+
+The flood of words was checked for a moment, while the chauffeur came to
+ask for a direction, and in the pause Caroline remarked crisply, "I
+don't believe one word--not one single word of these stories."
+
+"You mean you think he didn't make her go?"
+
+"I know he didn't. I'm perfectly positive."
+
+"You can't believe that Angelica really knew Letty was so ill?" her tone
+was frankly incredulous.
+
+"Of course I can't answer that. I don't know anything about what she
+thought; but I am certain that if she didn't understand, it wasn't Mr.
+Blackburn's fault." Afterwards, when she recalled it, her indignant
+defence of David Blackburn amused her. Why should she care what people
+said of him?
+
+"But they say she didn't know. Mrs. Mallow told me she heard from
+someone who was there that Angelica turned on her husband when she came
+in and asked him why he had kept it from her?"
+
+The hopelessness of her cause aroused Caroline's fighting blood, and she
+remembered that her father used to say the best battles of the war were
+fought after defeat. Strange how often his philosophy and experience of
+life came back to inspirit her!
+
+"Well, perhaps she didn't understand, but Mr. Blackburn wasn't to blame.
+I am sure of it," she answered firmly.
+
+Mrs. Colfax looked at her sharply. "Do you like David Blackburn?" she
+inquired without malice.
+
+Caroline flushed. "I neither like nor dislike him," she retorted
+courageously, and wondered how long it would take the remark to
+circulate over Richmond. Mrs. Colfax was pretty, amiable, and amusing;
+but she was one of those light and restless women, as clear as running
+water, on whose sparkling memories scandals float like straws. Nothing
+ever sank to the depths--or perhaps there were no depths in the luminous
+shoals of her nature.
+
+"Well, the reason I asked," Daisy had become ingratiating, "is that you
+talk exactly like Cousin Matty."
+
+"Do I?" Caroline laughed. "Mrs. Timberlake is a very sensible woman."
+
+"Yes, mother insists that she is as sharp as a needle, even if it is so
+hard to get anything out of her. Oh, I've kept you an age--and, good
+Heavens, it is long past my appointment at the dentist's! I can't tell
+you how glad I am that I met you, and you may be sure that whenever I
+hear these things repeated, I am going to say that you don't believe one
+single word of them. It is splendid of you to stand up for what you
+think, and that reminds me of the nice things I heard Roane Fitzhugh
+saying about you at the Mallow's the other night. He simply raved over
+you. I couldn't make him talk about anything else."
+
+"I don't like to be disagreeable, but what he thinks doesn't interest me
+in the least," rejoined Caroline coldly.
+
+Daisy laughed delightedly. "Now, that's too bad, because I believe he is
+falling in love with you. He told me he went motoring with you and
+Angelica almost every afternoon. Take my word for it, Miss Meade, Roane
+isn't half so black as he is painted, and he's just the sort that would
+settle down when he met the right woman. Good-bye again! I have enjoyed
+so much my little chat with you."
+
+She rushed off to her car, while Caroline turned quickly into a cross
+street, and hastened to meet Angelica at the office of a new doctor, who
+was treating her throat. A few drops of rain were falling, and ahead of
+her, when she reached Franklin Street, the city, with its church spires
+and leafless trees, emerged indistinctly out of the mist. Here the long
+street was almost deserted, except for a blind negro beggar, whose stick
+tapped the pavement behind her, and a white and liver-coloured setter
+nosing adventurously in the gutter. Then, in the middle of the block,
+she saw Angelica's car waiting, and a minute later, to her disgust, she
+discerned the face of Roane Fitzhugh at the window. As she recognized
+him, the anger that Mrs. Colfax's casual words had aroused, blazed up in
+her without warning; and she told herself that she would leave Briarlay
+before she would allow herself to be gossiped about with a man she
+detested.
+
+While she approached, Roane opened the door and jumped out. "Come inside
+and wait, Miss Meade," he said. "Anna Jeannette is still interviewing
+old skull and cross-bones."
+
+"I'd rather wait in the office, thank you." She swept past him with
+dignity, but before she reached the steps of the doctor's house, he had
+overtaken her.
+
+"Oh, I say, don't crush a chap! Haven't you seen enough of me yet to
+discover that I am really as harmless as I look? You don't honestly
+think me a rotter, do you?"
+
+"I don't think about you."
+
+"The unkindest cut of all! Now, if you only knew it, your thinking of me
+would do a precious lot of good. By the way, how is my niece?"
+
+"Very well. You'd scarcely know she'd been ill."
+
+"And she didn't see the tableaux, after all, poor kid. Well, Anna
+Jeannette was a stunner. I suppose you saw her picture in the papers.
+The Washington _Examiner_ spoke of her as the most beautiful woman in
+Virginia. That takes old Black, I bet!"
+
+Caroline had ascended the steps, and as she was about to touch the bell,
+the door opened quickly, and Angelica appeared, lowering a net veil
+which was covered with a large spiral pattern. She looked slightly
+perturbed, and when she saw Roane a frown drew her delicate eyebrows
+together. Her colour had faded, leaving a sallow tone to her skin, which
+was of the fine, rose-leaf texture that withers early.
+
+"I can't take you to-day, Roane," she remarked hastily. "We must go
+straight back to Briarlay. Miss Meade came in to do some shopping for
+Letty."
+
+"You'll have to take me as far as Monument Avenue." He was as ready as
+ever. "It is a long way, Anna Jeannette. I cannot walk, to crawl I am
+ashamed."
+
+"Well, get in, and please try to behave yourself."
+
+"If behaviour is all that you expect, I shall try to satisfy you. The
+truth is I'm dead broke, and being broke always makes a Christian of me.
+I feel as blue as old Black."
+
+"Oh, Roane, stop joking!" Her sweetness was growing prickly. "You don't
+realize that when you run on like this people think you are serious. I
+have just heard some silly talk about Miss Meade and you, and it came
+from nothing in the world except your habit of saying everything that
+comes into your mind."
+
+"In the first place, my dear Anna, nothing that you hear of Miss Meade
+could be silly, and in the second place, I've never spoken her name
+except when I was serious."
+
+"Well, you ought to be more careful how you talk to Daisy Colfax. She
+repeats everything in the world that she hears."
+
+He laughed shortly. "You'd say that if you'd heard the hot shot she gave
+me last night about you and Blackburn. Look here, Anna Jeannette, hadn't
+you better call a halt on the thing?"
+
+She flushed indignantly. "I haven't the slightest idea what you are
+talking about."
+
+"Oh, it's all rot, I know, but how the deuce does such tittle-tattle get
+started? I beg your pardon, Miss Meade, I am addressing you not as a
+woman, but as a fount of justice and equity, and in the presence of Anna
+Jeannette, I ask you frankly if you don't think it's a bit rough on old
+Black? We had our quarrel, and I assure you that I have no intention of
+voting with him; but when it comes to knifing a man in the back, then I
+must beg the adorable Daisy to excuse me. It takes a woman to do
+that--and, by Jove, old Black may be a bit of a heavyweight, but he is
+neither a coward nor a liar."
+
+"I think you are right," responded Caroline, and it was the first time
+that she had ever agreed with an opinion of Roane's.
+
+"I wish I knew what you are talking about," said Angelica wearily,
+"Roane, do you get out here?"
+
+"I do, with regret." As he glanced back from the pavement, his face,
+except for the droop of the well-cut lips and the alcoholic puffs under
+the gay blue eyes, might have been a thicker and grosser copy of
+Angelica's. "Will you take me to-morrow?"
+
+Mrs. Blackburn shook her head. "I am obliged to go to a meeting."
+
+He appeared to catch at the idea. "Then perhaps Miss Meade and Letty may
+take pity on me?"
+
+A worried look sharpened Angelica's features, but before she could
+reply, Caroline answered quickly, "We are not going without Mrs.
+Blackburn. Letty and I would just as soon walk."
+
+"Ah, you walk, do you? Then we may meet some day in the road." Though he
+spoke jestingly, there was an undercurrent of seriousness in his voice.
+
+"We don't walk in the road, and we like to go by ourselves. We are
+studying nature." As she responded she raised her eyes, and swept his
+face with a careless and indifferent glance.
+
+"Take your hand from the door, Roane," said Mrs. Blackburn, "and the
+next time you see Daisy Colfax, please remember what I told you."
+
+The car started while she was speaking, and a minute later, as Roane's
+figure passed out of sight, she observed playfully, "You mustn't let
+that bad brother of mine annoy you, Miss Meade. He doesn't mean all that
+he says."
+
+"I am sure that he doesn't mean anything," returned Caroline with a
+smile, "but, if you don't mind, I'd rather not go to drive with him
+again."
+
+The look of sharpness and worry disappeared from Angelica's face. "It is
+such a comfort, the way you take things," she remarked. "One can always
+count on your intelligence."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought that it required intelligence to see through
+your brother," retorted Caroline gaily. "Any old common sense might do
+it!"
+
+"Can you understand," Angelica gazed at her as if she were probing her
+soul, "what his attraction is for women?"
+
+"No, I can't. I hope you don't mind my speaking the truth?"
+
+"Not in the least." Angelica was unusually responsive. "But you couldn't
+imagine how many women have been in love with him. It isn't any secret
+that Daisy Colfax was wild about him the year she came out. The family
+broke it up because Roane was so dissipated, but everybody knows she
+still cared for Roane when she married Robert."
+
+"She seems happy now with Mr. Colfax."
+
+"Well, I don't mean that she isn't. There are some women who can settle
+down with almost any man, and though I am very fond of dear Daisy, there
+isn't any use pretending that she hasn't a shallow nature. Still there
+are people, you know, who say that she isn't really as satisfied as she
+tries to make you believe, and that her rushing about as much as she
+does is a sign that she regrets her marriage. I am sure, whatever she
+feels or doesn't feel, that she is the love of poor Roane's life."
+
+It was not Angelica's habit to gossip, and while she ran on smoothly,
+reciting her irrelevant detail as if it were poetry, Caroline became
+aware that there was a serious motive beneath her apparent flippancy. "I
+suppose she is trying to warn me away from Roane," she thought
+scornfully, "as if there were any need of it!"
+
+After this they were both silent until the car turned into the drive and
+stopped before the white columns. The happiness Caroline had once felt
+in the mere presence of Angelica had long ago faded, though she still
+thought her lovely and charming, and kind enough if one were careful not
+to cross her desires. She did not judge her harshly for her absence on
+the night of Letty's illness, partly because Letty had recovered, and
+partly because she was convinced that there had been an unfortunate
+misunderstanding--that Blackburn had failed to speak as plainly as he
+ought to have done. "Of course he thought he did," she had decided, in a
+generous effort to clear everybody from blame, "but the fact remains
+that there was a mistake--that Mrs. Blackburn did not take it just as he
+meant it." This, in the circumstances, was the best she felt that
+anybody could do. If neither Blackburn nor Angelica was to blame, then
+surely she must shift the responsibility to that flimsy abstraction she
+defined as "the way things happen in life."
+
+Upstairs in the nursery they broke in upon a flutter of joyous
+excitement. Mary had just returned after a month's absence, and Letty
+was busily arranging a doll's tea party in honour of her aunt's arrival.
+The child looked pale and thin, but she had on a new white dress, and
+had tied a blue bow on her hair, which was combed primly back from her
+forehead. Mammy Riah had drawn the nursery table in front of the fire,
+and she was now placing a row of white and blue cups, and some plates of
+sponge cake and thinly sliced bread and butter, on the embroidered cloth
+she had borrowed from Mrs. Timberlake. The dignified old negress, in her
+full-waisted dress of black bombazine and her spotless white turban, was
+so unlike the demented figure that had crouched by the hearth on the
+night of Letty's illness, that, if Caroline had been less familiar with
+the impressionable mind of the negro, she would not have recognized her.
+
+"So I'm back," said Mary, looking at them with her kind, frank glance,
+as they entered. She was still in her travelling clothes, and Caroline
+thought she had never seen her so handsome as she was in the smartly cut
+suit of brown homespun. "Letty is going to give me a party, only she
+must hurry, for if I don't get on a horse soon I'll forget how to sit in
+the saddle. Well, Angelica, I hear you were the whole show in the
+tableaux," she pursued in her nice, slangy manner, which was so
+perfectly in character with her boyish face and her straight,
+loose-limbed figure. "Your picture was in at least six magazines,
+though, I must say, they made you look a little too spectral for my
+taste. How are you feeling? You are just a trifle run down, aren't
+you?"
+
+"Of course Letty's illness was a great strain," replied Angelica. "One
+never realizes how such shocks tell until they are over."
+
+"Poor lamb! Look here, Letty, who is coming to this feast of joy? Do you
+mind if I bolt in the midst of it?"
+
+"Father's coming and Aunt Matty," replied the child. "I couldn't have
+anybody else because mammy thought mother wouldn't like me to ask John.
+I like John, and he's white anyway."
+
+"Oh, the footman! Well, as long as you haven't invited him, I suppose
+there'll be only home folks. I needn't stand on formality with your
+father and Cousin Matty."
+
+"And there's mother--you'll come, won't you, mother?--and Miss Meade,"
+added Letty.
+
+"Yes, I'll come," responded Angelica. "I'm dying for my tea, dear, isn't
+it ready?"
+
+"May I pour it for you? I'll be very careful, and I know just how you
+like it."
+
+"Yes, you may pour it, but let Mammy Riah help you. Here's your father
+now, and Cousin Matty."
+
+"Hallo, David!" Mary's voice rang out clearly. "You look just a bit
+seedy, don't you? Letty's illness seems to have knocked out everybody
+except the youngster herself. Even Miss Meade looks as if she'd been
+giving too much medicine." Then she turned to embrace Mrs. Timberlake,
+while Blackburn crossed the room and sat down near the fireplace.
+
+"Well, daughter, it isn't a birthday, is it?"
+
+Letty, with her head bent sideways, and her small mouth screwed up very
+tight, was pouring Angelica's tea with the aid of Mammy Riah. "You
+mustn't talk to me while I am pouring, father," she answered seriously.
+"I am so afraid I shall spill it, and mother can't bear to have it
+spilt."
+
+"All right. I'll talk to your Aunt Mary. Any news, Mary?"
+
+"Yes, there's news, David. Alan is coming in for his own, and it looks
+as if his own were enough for us."
+
+"You mean the old man in Chicago----?"
+
+"He died last week, just as he was celebrating his ninetieth birthday.
+At ninety one couldn't reasonably have asked for very much more, do you
+think?"
+
+"And is Alan his heir?"
+
+"His one and only. To be sure he wrote a will a few weeks ago and left
+every cent of it--I can't begin to remember the millions--to some
+missionary society, but fortunately he had neglected or forgotten to
+sign it. So Alan gets the whole thing, bless his heart, and he's out
+there now in Chicago having legal bouts with a dozen or more lawyers."
+
+For the first time Angelica spoke. "Is it true that Alan will be one of
+the richest men in the West?" she asked slowly. "Thank you, Letty,
+darling, my tea is exactly right."
+
+"If he gets it all, and he is going to unless another will and a
+missionary society come to light. My dear Angelica, when you see me a
+year hence," she continued whimsically, "you won't recognize your
+dependent sister. Alan says he is going to give me a string of pearls
+even finer than yours."
+
+She spoke jestingly, yet as Caroline watched Angelica's face, it
+occurred to her that Mary was not always tactful. The girl ought to have
+known by this time that Angelica had no sense of humour and could not
+bear to be teased.
+
+"It's funny, isn't it, the way life works out?" said Mrs. Timberlake.
+"To think of Mary's having more things than Angelica! It doesn't seem
+natural, somehow."
+
+"No, it doesn't," assented Mary, in her habitual tone of boyish
+chaffing. "But as far as the 'things' go, Angelica needn't begin to
+worry. Give me Alan and a good horse, and she may have all the pearls
+that ever came out of the ocean."
+
+"I read an account in some magazine of the jewels old Mrs. Wythe left,"
+remarked Angelica thoughtfully. "She owned the finest emeralds in
+America." Her reflections, whatever they were, brought the thin, cold
+look to her features.
+
+"Can you imagine me wearing the finest emeralds in America?" demanded
+Mary. "There's a comfort for you, at any rate, in the thought that they
+wouldn't be becoming to you. Green isn't your colour, my dear, and white
+stones are really the only ones that suit you. Now, I am so big and bold
+that I could carry off rubies." Her laughing tone changed suddenly,
+"Why, Angelica, what is the matter? Have you a headache?"
+
+"I feel very tired. The truth is I haven't quite got over the strain of
+Letty's illness. When does Alan come back, dear? I suppose you won't put
+off the wedding much longer? Mother used to say that a long engagement
+meant an unhappy marriage."
+
+"Alan gets back next week, I hope, and as for the wedding--well, we
+haven't talked it over, but I imagine we'll settle on the early
+summer--June probably. It's a pity it has to be so quiet, or I might
+have Miss Meade for a bridesmaid. She'd make an adorable bridesmaid in
+an orchid-coloured gown and a flower hat, wouldn't she, Cousin Matty?"
+
+"I'd rather dress you in your veil and orange blossoms," laughed
+Caroline. "Diana or I have pinned on almost every wedding veil of the
+last five years in southside Virginia."
+
+"Oh, is Aunt Mary really going to be married at last?" asked Letty, with
+carefully subdued excitement, "and may I go to church? I do hope I
+shan't have to miss it as I did mother's tableau," she added wistfully.
+
+"You shan't miss it, dearie," said Mary, "not if I have to be married up
+here in the nursery."
+
+Angelica had risen, and she stooped now to pick up her furs which she
+had dropped.
+
+"Your tea was lovely, Letty dear," she said gently, "but I'm so tired
+that I think I'll go and lie down until dinner."
+
+"You must pick up before Alan gets back," remarked Mary lightly. "He
+thinks you the most beautiful woman in the world, you know."
+
+"He does? How very sweet of him!" exclaimed Angelica, turning in the
+doorway, and throwing an animated glance back into the room. Her face,
+which had been wan and listless an instant before, was now glowing,
+while her rare, lovely smile irradiated her features.
+
+When she had gone, Mary went to change into her riding clothes, and
+Caroline slipped away to take off her hat. A few minutes later, she came
+back with some brown yarn in her hand, and found that Blackburn was
+still sitting in the big chintz-covered chair by the hearth. Letty had
+dragged a footstool to the rug, and she was leaning against her
+father's knee while he questioned her about the stories in her reader.
+
+"I know Miss Meade can tell you," said the child as Caroline entered.
+"Miss Meade, do you remember the story about the little girl who got
+lost and went to live with the fairies? Is it in my reader? Father, what
+is the difference between an angel and a fairy? Mrs. Aylett says that
+mother is an angel. Is she a fairy too?"
+
+"You'd think she was sometimes to look at her," replied Blackburn,
+smiling.
+
+"Well, if mother is an angel, why aren't you one? I asked Mrs. Aylett
+that, but she didn't tell me."
+
+"You could scarcely blame her," laughed Blackburn. "It is a hard
+question."
+
+"I asked Miss Meade, too, but she didn't tell me either."
+
+"Now, I should have thought better of Miss Meade." As Blackburn lifted
+his face, it looked young and boyish. "Is it possible that she is
+capable of an evasion?"
+
+"What does that word mean, father?"
+
+"It means everything, my daughter, that Miss Meade is not."
+
+"You oughtn't to tease the child, David," said Mrs. Timberlake. "She is
+so easily excited."
+
+Caroline and the old lady had both unfolded their knitting; and the
+clicking of their needles made a cheerful undercurrent to the
+conversation. The room looked homelike and pleasant in the firelight,
+and leaning back in his chair, Blackburn gazed with half-closed eyes at
+the two women and the child outlined against the shimmering glow of the
+flames.
+
+"You are like the Fates," he said presently after a silence in which
+Letty sank drowsily against him. "Do you never put down your knitting?"
+
+"Well, Angelica promised so many, and it makes her nervous to hear the
+needles," rejoined Mrs. Timberlake.
+
+"It is evidently soothing to you and Miss Meade."
+
+"The difference, I reckon, is that we don't stop to think whether it is
+or not." Mrs. Timberlake was always curt when she approached the subject
+of Angelica. "I've noticed that when you can't afford nerves, you don't
+seem to have them."
+
+"That's considerate of nature, to say the least." His voice had borrowed
+the chaffing tone of Mary's.
+
+As if in response to his words, Mrs. Timberlake rolled up the
+half-finished muffler, thrust her long knitting needles through the
+mesh, and leaned forward until she met Blackburn's eyes.
+
+"David," she said in a low, harsh voice, "there is something I want to
+ask you, and Miss Meade might as well hear it. Is Letty asleep?"
+
+"She is dozing, but speak guardedly. This daughter of mine is a keen
+one."
+
+"Well, she won't understand what I am talking about. Did you or did you
+not think that you had spoken plainly to Angelica that evening?"
+
+He looked at her through narrowed lids.
+
+"What does she say?"
+
+"She says she didn't understand. It is all over town that she didn't
+know Letty's condition was serious."
+
+"Then why do you ask me? If she didn't understand, I must have blundered
+in the telling. That's the only possible answer to your question."
+
+He rose as he spoke, and lifting Letty from the footstool, placed her
+gently between the deep arms of the chair.
+
+"Isn't there anything that you can say, David?"
+
+"No, that seems to be the trouble. There isn't anything that I can say."
+Already he was on his way to the door, and as he glanced back, Caroline
+noticed that, in spite of his tenderness with the child, his face looked
+sad and stern. "There's a man waiting for me downstairs," he added, "but
+I'll see you both later. Wake Letty before long or she won't sleep
+to-night."
+
+Then he went out quickly, while Mrs. Timberlake turned to take up her
+knitting.
+
+"If I didn't know that David Blackburn had plenty of sense about some
+things," she remarked grimly while she drew the needle from the roll,
+"I'd be tempted to believe that he was a perfect fool."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+INDIRECT INFLUENCE
+
+
+In January a heavy snow fell, and Letty, who had begun to cough again,
+was kept indoors for a week. After the morning lessons were over, Mammy
+Riah amused the child, while Caroline put on her hat and coat, and went
+for a brisk walk down the lane to the road. Once or twice Mary joined
+her, but since Alan's return Caroline saw the girl less and less, and no
+one else in the house appeared to have the spirit for exercise.
+Blackburn she met only at breakfast and luncheon, and since Christmas he
+seemed to have become completely engrossed in his plans. After the talk
+she had heard on the terrace, his figure slowly emerged out of the mist
+of perplexity in her mind. He was no longer the obscure protagonist of a
+vague political unrest, for the old dishonourable bond which had linked
+him, in her imagination, to the Southern Republicans of her father's
+day, was broken forever. She was intelligent enough to grasp the
+difference between the forces of reaction and development; and she
+understood now that Blackburn had worked out a definite theory--that his
+thinking had crystallized into a constructive social philosophy. "He
+knows the South, he understands it," she thought. "He sees it, not made,
+but becoming. That is the whole difference between him and father.
+Father was as patriotic as Mr. Blackburn, but father's patriotism clung
+to the past--it was grateful and commemorative--and Mr. Blackburn's
+strives toward the future, for it is active and creative. Father
+believed that the South was separate from the Union, like one of the
+sacred old graveyards, with bricked-up walls, in the midst of
+cornfields, while the younger man, also believing it to be sacred, is
+convinced that it must be absorbed into the nation--that its traditions
+and ideals must go to enrich the common soil of America." Already she
+was beginning insensibly to associate Blackburn with the great group of
+early Virginians, with the men in whom love of country was a vital and
+living thing, the men who laid the foundation and planned the structure
+of the American Republic.
+
+"Do you think Mr. Blackburn feels as strongly as he talks?" she asked
+Mrs. Timberlake one afternoon when they were standing together by the
+nursery window. It had been snowing hard, and Caroline, in an old coat
+with a fur cap on her head, was about to start for a walk.
+
+Mrs. Timberlake was staring intently through her spectacles at one of
+the snow-laden evergreens on the lawn. A covering of powdery white
+wrapped the drive and the landscape, and, now and then, when the wind
+rattled the ice-coated branches of the elms, there was a sharp crackling
+noise as of breaking boughs.
+
+"I reckon he does," she replied after a pause, "though I can't see to
+save my life what he expects to get out of it."
+
+"Do you think it is ambition with him? It seems to me, since I heard him
+talk, that he really believes he has a message, that he can serve his
+country. Until I met him," Caroline added, half humorously, "I had begun
+to feel that the men of to-day loved their country only for what they
+could get out of it."
+
+"Well, I expect David is as disinterested as anybody else," observed
+Mrs. Timberlake drily, "but that seems to me all the more reason why
+he'd better let things jog along as they are, and not try to upset them.
+But there isn't any use talking. David sets more store by those ideas of
+his than he does by any living thing in the world, unless it's Letty.
+They are his life, and I declare I sometimes think he feels about them
+as he used to feel about Angelica before he married her--the sort of
+thing you never expect to see outside of poetry." She had long ago lost
+her reserve in Caroline's presence, and the effect of what she called
+"bottling up" for so many years, gave a crispness and roundness to her
+thoughts which was a refreshing contrast to Angelica's mental vagueness.
+
+"I can understand it," said Caroline, "I mean I can understand a man's
+wanting to have some part in moulding the thought of his time. Father
+used to be like that. Only it was Virginia, not America, that he cared
+for. He wanted to help steer Virginia over the rapids, he used to say. I
+was brought up in the midst of politics. That's the reason it sounded so
+natural to me when Mr. Blackburn was talking."
+
+Letty, who had been playing with her dolls on the hearthrug, deserted
+them abruptly, and ran over to the window.
+
+"Oh, Miss Meade, do you think I am going to be well for Aunt Mary's
+wedding?"
+
+"Why, of course you are. This is only January, darling, and the wedding
+won't be till June."
+
+"And is that a very long time?"
+
+"Months and months. The roses will be blooming, and you will have
+forgotten all about your cold."
+
+"Well, I hope I shan't miss that too," murmured the child, going gravely
+back to her dolls.
+
+"I never heard anything like the way that child runs on," said Mrs.
+Timberlake, turning away from the window. "Are you really going out in
+this cold? There doesn't seem a bit of sense in getting chilled to the
+bone unless you are obliged to."
+
+"Oh, I like it. It does me good."
+
+"You've stopped motoring with Angelica, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, we haven't been for several weeks. For one thing the weather has
+been so bad."
+
+"I got an idea it was because of Roane Fitzhugh," said the old lady, in
+her tart way. "I hope you won't think I am interfering, but I'm old and
+you're young, and so you won't mind my giving you a little wholesome
+advice. If I were you, my dear, I shouldn't pay a bit of attention to
+anything that Roane says to me."
+
+"But I don't. I never have," rejoined Caroline indignantly. "How on
+earth could you have got such an idea?"
+
+A look of mystification flickered over Mrs. Timberlake's face. "Well, I
+am sure I don't mean any harm, my child," she responded soothingly. "I
+didn't think you would mind a word of warning from an old woman, and I
+know that Roane can have a very taking way when he wants to."
+
+"I think he's hateful--perfectly hateful," replied Caroline. Then,
+drawing on her heavy gloves, she shook her head with a laugh as she
+started to the door. "If that's all you have to worry about, you may
+rest easy," she tossed back gaily. "Letty, darling, when I come in I'll
+tell you all about my adventures and the bears I meet in the lane."
+
+The terrace and the garden were veiled in white, and the only sound in
+the intense frozen stillness was the crackling of elm boughs as the wind
+rocked them. A heavy cloud was hanging low in the west, and beneath it a
+flock of crows flew slowly in blue-black curves over the white fields.
+For a minute or two Caroline stood watching them, and, while she paused
+there, a clear silver light streamed suddenly in rays over the hills,
+and the snow-covered world looked as if it were imprisoned in crystal.
+Every frosted branch, every delicate spiral on the evergreens, was
+intensified and illuminated. Then the wind swept up with a rush of sound
+from the river, and it was as if the shining landscape had found a
+melodious voice--as if it were singing. The frozen fountain and the
+white trees and the half buried shrubs under the mounds of snow, joined
+in presently like harps in a heavenly choir. "I suppose it is only the
+wind," she thought, "but it is just as if nature were praising God with
+music and prayer."
+
+In the lane the trees were silvered, and little darting shadows, like
+violet birds, chased one another down the long white vista to the open
+road. Walking was difficult on the slippery ground, and Caroline went
+carefully, stopping now and then to look up into the swinging boughs
+overhead, or to follow the elusive flight of the shadows. When she
+reached the end of the lane, she paused, before turning, to watch a big
+motor car that was ploughing through the heavy snowdrifts. A moment
+later the car stopped just in front of her, a man jumped out into a
+mound of snow, and she found herself reluctantly shaking hands with
+Roane Fitzhugh.
+
+"Tom Benton was taking me into town," he explained, "but as soon as I
+saw you, I told him he'd have to go on alone. So this is where you walk?
+Lucky trees."
+
+"I was just turning." As she spoke she moved back into the lane. "It is
+a pity you got out."
+
+"Oh, somebody else will come along presently. I'm in no sort of hurry."
+
+His face was flushed and mottled, and she suspected, from the excited
+look in his eyes, that he had been drinking. Even with her first impulse
+of recoil, she felt the pity of his wasted and ruined charm. With his
+straight fine features, so like Angelica's, his conquering blue eyes,
+and his thick fair hair, he was like the figure of a knight in some
+early Flemish painting.
+
+"It's jolly meeting you this way," he said, a trifle thickly. "By Jove,
+you look stunning--simply stunning."
+
+"Please don't come with me. I'd rather go back alone," she returned,
+with chill politeness. "Your sister went into Richmond an hour ago. I
+think she is at a reception Mrs. Colfax is giving."
+
+"Well, I didn't come to see Anna Jeannette." He spoke this time with
+exaggerated care as if he were pronouncing a foreign language. "Don't
+hurry, Miss Meade. I'm not a tiger. I shan't eat you. Are you afraid?"
+
+"Of you?" she glanced at him scornfully. "How could you hurt me?"
+
+"How indeed? But if not of me, of yourself? I've seen women afraid of
+themselves, and they hurried just as you are doing."
+
+Unconsciously her steps slackened. "I am not afraid of myself, and if I
+were, I shouldn't run away."
+
+"You mean you'd stay and fight it out?"
+
+"I mean I'd stay and get the better of the fear, or what caused it. I
+couldn't bear to be afraid."
+
+His careless gaze became suddenly intense, and before the red sparks
+that glimmered in his eyes, she drew hastily to the other side of the
+lane. A wave of physical disgust, so acute that it was like nausea,
+swept over her. Even in the hospital the sight of a drunken man always
+affected her like this, and now it was much worse because the brute--she
+thought of him indignantly as "the brute"--was actually trying to make
+love to her--to her, Caroline Meade!
+
+"Then if you aren't afraid of me, why do you avoid me?" he demanded.
+
+At this she stopped short in order to face him squarely. "Since you wish
+to know," she replied slowly, "I avoid you because I don't like the kind
+of man you are."
+
+He lowered his eyes for an instant, and when he raised them they were
+earnest and pleading. "Then make me the kind of man you like. You can if
+you try. You could do anything with me if you cared--you are so good."
+
+"I don't care." A temptation to laugh seized her, but she checked it,
+and spoke gravely. The relations between men and women, which had seemed
+as natural and harmonious as the interdependence of the planets, had
+become jangled and discordant. Something had broken out in her universe
+which threatened to upset its equilibrium. "I don't doubt that there are
+a number of good women who would undertake your regeneration, but I like
+my work better," she added distantly. She was sure now that he had been
+drinking, and, as he came nearer and the smell of whiskey reached her,
+she quickened her steps almost into a run over the frozen ground. Some
+deep instinct told her that at her first movement of flight he would
+touch her, and she thought quite calmly, with the clearness and
+precision of mind she had acquired in the hospital, that if he were to
+touch her she would certainly strike him. She was not frightened--her
+nerves were too robust for fear--but she was consumed with a still, cold
+rage, which made even the icy branches feel warm as they brushed her
+cheek.
+
+"Now, you are running again, Miss Meade. Why won't you be kind to me?
+Can't you see that I am mad about you? Ever since the first day I saw
+you, you've been in my thoughts every minute. Honestly you could make a
+man out of me, if you'd only be a little bit human. I'll do anything you
+wish. I'll be anything you please, if you'll only like me."
+
+For a moment she thought he was going to break down and cry, and she
+wondered, with professional concern, if a little snow on his forehead
+would bring him to his senses. This was evidently the way he had talked
+to Mary when Blackburn ordered him out of the house.
+
+"I wish you would go back," she said in a tone she used to delirious
+patients in the hospital. "We are almost at the house, and Mr. Blackburn
+wouldn't like your coming to Briarlay."
+
+"Well, the old chap's in town, isn't he?"
+
+"It is time for him to come home. He may be here any moment." Though she
+tried to reason the question with him, she was conscious of a vague,
+uneasy suspicion that they were rapidly approaching the state where
+reasoning would be as futile as flight. Then she remembered hearing
+somewhere that a drunken man would fall down if he attempted to run,
+and she considered for an instant making an open dash for the house.
+
+"I'll go, if you'll let me come back to-morrow. I'm not a bad fellow,
+Miss Meade." A sob choked him. "I've got a really good heart--ask Anna
+Jeannette if I haven't----"
+
+"I don't care whether you are bad or not. I don't want to know anything
+about you. Only go away. Nothing that you can do will make me like you,"
+she threw out unwisely under the spur of anger. "Women never think that
+they can cajole or bully a person into caring--only men imagine they
+have the power to do that, and it's all wrong because they can't, and
+they never have. Bullying doesn't do a bit more good than whining, so
+please stop that, too. I don't like you because I don't respect you, and
+nothing you can say or do will have the slightest effect unless you were
+to make yourself into an entirely different sort of man--a man I didn't
+despise." Her words pelted him like stones, and while he stood there,
+blinking foolishly beneath the shower, she realized that he had not
+taken in a single sentence she had uttered. He looked stunned but
+obstinate, and a curious dusky redness was beating like a pulse in his
+forehead.
+
+"You can't fight me," he muttered huskily. "Don't fight me."
+
+"I am not fighting you. I am asking you to go away."
+
+"I told you I'd go, if you'd let me come back to-morrow."
+
+"Of course I shan't. How dare you ask me such a thing? Can't you see
+how you disgust me?"
+
+As she spoke she made a swift movement toward the turn in the lane, and
+the next minute, while her feet slipped on the ice, she felt Roane's
+arms about her, and knew that he was struggling frantically to kiss her
+lips. For years no man had kissed her, and as she fought wildly to
+escape, she was possessed not by terror, but by a blind and primitive
+fury. Civilization dropped away from her, and she might have been the
+first woman struggling against attack in the depths of some tropic
+jungle. "I'd like to kill you," she thought, and freeing one arm, she
+raised her hand and struck him between the eyes. "I wonder why some
+woman hasn't killed him before this? I believe I am stronger than he
+is."
+
+The blow was not a soft one, and his arms fell away from her, while he
+shook his head as if to prevent a rush of blood to the brain. "You hurt
+me--I believe you wanted to hurt me," he muttered in a tone of pained
+and incredulous surprise. Then recovering his balance with difficulty,
+he added reproachfully, "I didn't know you could hit like that. I
+thought you were more womanly. I thought you were more womanly," he
+repeated sorrowfully, while he put his hand to his head, and then gazed
+at it, as if he expected to find blood on his fingers.
+
+"Now, perhaps you'll go," said Caroline quietly. While the words were on
+her lips, she became aware that a shadow had fallen over the snow at her
+side, and glancing round, she saw Blackburn standing motionless in the
+lane. Her first impression was that he seemed enormous as he stood
+there, with his hands hanging at his sides, and the look of sternness
+and immobility in his face. His eyelids were half closed with the trick
+he had when he was gazing intently, and the angry light seemed to have
+changed his eyes from grey to hazel.
+
+"I am sorry to interrupt you," he said in a voice that had a dangerous
+quietness, "but I think Roane is scarcely in a fit state for a walk."
+
+"I'd like to know why I am not?" demanded Roane, sobered and resentful.
+"I'm not drunk. Who says I am drunk?"
+
+"Well, if you aren't, you ought to be." Then the anger which Blackburn
+had kept down rushed into his voice. "You had better go!"
+
+Roane had stopped blinking, and while the redness ebbed from his
+forehead, he stood staring helplessly not at Blackburn, but at Caroline.
+"I'll go," he said at last, "if Miss Meade will say that she forgives
+me."
+
+But there was little of the sister of mercy in Caroline's heart. She had
+been grossly affronted, and anger devoured her like a flame. Her blue
+eyes shone, her face flushed and paled with emotion, and, for the
+moment, under the white trees, in the midst of the frosted world, her
+elusive beauty became vivid and dazzling.
+
+"I shall not forgive you, and I hope I shall never see you again," she
+retorted.
+
+"You'd better go, Roane," repeated Blackburn quietly, and as Caroline
+hurried toward the house, he overtook her with a rapid step, and said in
+a troubled voice, "It is partly my fault, Miss Meade. I have intended to
+warn you."
+
+"To warn me?" Her voice was crisp with anger.
+
+"I felt that you did not understand."
+
+"Understand what?" She looked at him with puzzled eyes. "I may be
+incredibly stupid, but I don't understand now."
+
+For an instant he hesitated, and she watched a deeper flush rise in his
+face. "In a way you are under my protection," he said at last, "and for
+this reason I have meant to warn you against Roane Fitzhugh--against the
+danger of these meetings."
+
+"These meetings?" Light burst on her while she stared on him. "Is it
+possible that you think this was a meeting? Do you dream that I have
+been seeing Roane Fitzhugh of my own accord? Have you dared to think
+such a thing? To imagine that I wanted to see him--that I came out to
+meet him?" The note of scorn ended in a sob while she buried her face in
+her hands, and stood trembling with shame and anger before him.
+
+"But I understood. I was told----" He was stammering awkwardly. "Isn't
+it true that you felt an interest--that you were trying to help him?"
+
+At this her rage swept back again, and dropping her hands, she lifted
+her swimming eyes to his face. "How dare you think such a thing of me?"
+
+"I am sorry." He was still groping in darkness. "You mean you did not
+know he was coming to-day?"
+
+"Of course I didn't know. Do you think I should have come out if I had
+known?"
+
+"And you have never met him before? Never expected to meet him?"
+
+"Oh, what are you saying? Why can't you speak plainly?" A shiver ran
+through her.
+
+"I understood that you liked him." After her passionate outburst his
+voice sounded strangely cold and detached.
+
+"And that I came out to meet him?"
+
+"I was afraid that you met him outside because I had forbidden him to
+come to Briarlay. I wanted to explain to you--to protect you----"
+
+"But I don't need your protection." She had thrown back her head, and
+her shining eyes met his bravely. Her face had grown pale, but her lips
+were crimson, and her voice was soft and rich. "I don't need your
+protection, and after what you have thought of me, I can't stay here any
+longer. I can't----"
+
+As her words stopped, checked by the feeling of helplessness that swept
+her courage away, he said very gently, "But there isn't any reason----
+Why, I haven't meant to hurt you. I'm a bit rough, perhaps, but I'd as
+soon think of hurting Letty. No, don't run away until I've said a word
+to you. Let's be reasonable, if there has been a misunderstanding. Come,
+now, suppose we talk it out as man to man."
+
+His tone had softened, but in her resentment she barely noticed the
+change. "No, I'd rather not. There isn't anything to say," she answered
+hurriedly. Then, as she was about to run into the house, she paused and
+added, "Only--only how could you?"
+
+He said something in reply, but before it reached her, she had darted up
+the steps and into the hall. She felt bruised and stiff, as if she had
+fallen and hurt herself, and the one thought in her mind was the dread
+of meeting one of the household--of encountering Mary or Mrs.
+Timberlake, before she had put on her uniform and her professional
+manner. It seemed impossible to her that she should stay on at Briarlay,
+and yet what excuse could she give Angelica for leaving so suddenly?
+Angelica, she surmised, would not look tolerantly upon any change that
+made her uncomfortable.
+
+The dazzling light of the sunset was still in Caroline's eyes, and, for
+the first moment or two after she entered the house, she could
+distinguish only a misty blur from the open doors of the drawing-room.
+Then the familiar objects started out of the gloom, and she discerned
+the gilt frame and the softly blended dusk of the Sistine Madonna over
+the turn in the staircase. As she reached the floor above, her heart,
+which had been beating wildly, grew gradually quiet, and she found
+herself thinking lucidly, "I must go away. I must go away at
+once--to-night." Then the mist of obscurity floated up to envelop the
+thought. "But what does it mean? Could there be any possible reason?"
+
+The nursery door was open, and she was about to steal by noiselessly,
+when Mrs. Timberlake's long, thin shadow stretched, with a vaguely
+menacing air, over the threshold.
+
+"I wanted to speak to you, my dear. Why, what is the matter?" As the
+housekeeper came out into the hall, she raised her spectacles to her
+forehead, and peered nervously into Caroline's face. "Has anybody hurt
+your feelings?"
+
+"I am going away. I can't stay." Though Caroline spoke clearly and
+firmly, her lips were trembling, and the marks of tears were still
+visible under her indignant eyes, which looked large and brilliant, like
+the eyes of a startled child.
+
+"You are going away? What on earth is the reason? Has anything
+happened?" Then lowering her voice, she murmured cautiously, "Come into
+my room a minute. Letty is playing and won't miss you." Putting her lean
+arm about Caroline's shoulders, she led her gently down the hall and to
+her room in the west wing. Not until she had forced her into an easy
+chair by the radiator, and turned back to close the door carefully, did
+she say in an urgent tone, "Now, my dear, you needn't be afraid to tell
+me. I am very fond of you--I feel almost as if you were my own
+child--and I want to help you if you will let me."
+
+"There isn't anything except--except there has been a
+misunderstanding----" Caroline looked up miserably from the big chair,
+with her lips working pathetically. All the spirit had gone out of her.
+"Mr. Blackburn seems to have got the idea that I care for Roane
+Fitzhugh--that I even went out to meet him."
+
+Mrs. Timberlake, whose philosophy was constructed of the bare bones of
+experience, stared out of the window with an expression that made her
+appear less a woman than a cynical point of view. Her profile grew
+sharper and flatter until it gave the effect of being pasted on the
+glimmering pane.
+
+"Well, I reckon David didn't make that up in his own mind," she observed
+with a caustic emphasis.
+
+"I met him--I mean Roane Fitzhugh to-day. Of course it was by accident,
+but he had been drinking and behaved outrageously, and then Mr.
+Blackburn found us together," pursued Caroline slowly, "and--and he said
+things that made me see what he thought. He told me that he believed I
+liked that dreadful man--that I came out by appointment----"
+
+"But don't you like him, my dear?" The housekeeper had turned from the
+sunset and taken up her knitting.
+
+"Of course I don't. Why in the world--how in the world----"
+
+"And David told you that he thought so?" The old lady looked up
+sharply.
+
+"He said he understood that I liked him--Roane Fitzhugh. I didn't know
+what he meant. He was obliged to explain." After all, the tangle
+appeared to be without beginning and without end. She realized that she
+was hopelessly caught in the mesh of it.
+
+"Well, I thought so, too," said Mrs. Timberlake, leaning forward and
+speaking in a thin, sharp voice that pricked like a needle.
+
+"You thought so? But how could you?" Caroline stretched out her hand
+with an imploring gesture. "Why, I've never seen him alone until
+to-day--never."
+
+"And yet David believed that you were meeting him?"
+
+"That is what he said. It sounds incredible, doesn't it?"
+
+For a few minutes Mrs. Timberlake knitted grimly, while the expression,
+"I know I am a poor creature, but all the same I have feelings" seemed
+to leap out of her face. When at last she spoke it was to make a remark
+which sounded strangely irrelevant. "I've had a hard time," she said
+bluntly, "and I've stood things, but I'm not one to turn against my own
+blood kin just because they haven't treated me right." Then, after
+another and a longer pause, she added, as if the words were wrung out of
+her, "If I didn't feel that I ought to help you I'd never say one single
+word, but you're so trusting, and you'd never see through things unless
+somebody warned you."
+
+"See through things? You mean I'd never understand how Mr. Blackburn got
+that impression?"
+
+Mrs. Timberlake twisted the yarn with a jerk over her little finger. "My
+dear, David never got that idea out of his own head," she repeated
+emphatically. "Somebody put it there as sure as you were born, and
+though I've nothing in the world but my own opinion to go on, I'm
+willing to bet a good deal that it was Angelica."
+
+"But she couldn't have. She knew better. There couldn't have been any
+reason."
+
+"When you are as old as I am, you will stop looking for reasons in the
+way people act. In the first place, there generally aren't any, and in
+the second place, when reasons are there, they don't show up on the
+surface."
+
+"But she knew I couldn't bear him."
+
+"If you'd liked him, she wouldn't have done it. She'd have been trying
+too hard to keep you apart."
+
+"You mean, then, that she did it just to hurt me?"
+
+Lifting her slate-coloured eyes, the old lady brushed a wisp of hair
+back from her forehead. "I don't believe Angelica ever did a thing in
+her life just to hurt anybody," she answered slowly.
+
+"Then you wouldn't think for an instant----"
+
+"No, I shouldn't think for an instant that she did it just for that.
+There was some other motive. I don't reckon Angelica would ever do you
+any harm," she concluded with a charitable intonation, "unless there was
+something she wanted to gain by it." From her manner she might have been
+making a point in Angelica's favour.
+
+"But even then? What could she possibly gain?"
+
+"Well, I expect David found out that Roane had been here--that he had
+been motoring with you--and Angelica was obliged to find some excuse.
+You see, responsibility is one of the things Angelica can't stand, and
+whoever happens to be about when it is forced on her, usually bears it.
+Sometimes, you know, when she throws it off like that, it chances to
+light by accident just in the proper place. The strangest thing about
+Angelica, and I can never get used to it, is the way she so often turns
+out to be right. Look at the way it all happened in Letty's illness.
+Now, Angelica always stuck out that Letty wouldn't die, and, as it
+turned out, she didn't. I declare, it looks, somehow, as if not only
+people, but circumstances as well, played straight into her hands."
+
+"You mean she told him that about me just to spare herself?" Caroline's
+voice was angry and incredulous.
+
+"That's how it was, I reckon. I don't believe she would have done it for
+anything else on earth. You see, my dear, she was brought up that
+way--most American girls are when they are as pretty as Angelica--and
+the way you're raised seems to become a habit with you. At home the
+others always sacrificed themselves for her, until she got into the
+habit of thinking that she was the centre of the universe, and that the
+world owed her whatever she took a fancy for. Even as a girl, Roane used
+to say that her feelings were just inclinations, and I expect that's
+been true of her ever since. She can want things worse than anybody I've
+ever seen, but apart from wanting, I reckon she's about as cold as a
+fish at heart. It may sound mean of me to say it, but I've known Cousin
+Abby to sit up at night and sew her eyes out, so the girl might have a
+new dress for a party, and all the time Angelica not saying a word to
+prevent it. There never was a better mother than Cousin Abby, and I've
+always thought it was being so good that killed her."
+
+"But even now I can't understand," said Caroline thoughtfully. "I felt
+that she really liked me."
+
+"Oh, she likes you well enough." Mrs. Timberlake was counting some
+dropped stitches. "She wasn't thinking about you a minute. I doubt if
+she ever in her life thought as long as that about anybody except
+herself. The curious part is," she supplemented presently, "that
+considering how shallow she is, so few people ever seem to see through
+her. It took David five years, and then he had to be married to her, to
+find out what I could have told him in ten minutes. Most of it is the
+way she looks, I expect. It is so hard for a man to understand that
+every woman who parts her hair in the middle isn't a Madonna."
+
+"I knew she was hard and cold," confessed Caroline sadly, "but I thought
+she was good. I never dreamed she could be bad at heart."
+
+Mrs. Timberlake shook her head. "She isn't bad, my dear, that's where
+you make a mistake. I believe she'd let herself be burned at the stake
+before she'd overstep a convention. When it comes to that," she
+commented with acrid philosophy, "I reckon all the bad women on earth
+could never do as much harm as some good ones--the sort of good ones
+that destroy everything human and natural that comes near them. We can
+look out for the bad ones--but I've come to believe that there's a
+certain kind of virtue that's no better than poison. It poisons
+everything it touches because all the humanity has passed out of it,
+just like one of those lovely poisonous flowers that spring up now and
+then in a swamp. Nothing that's made of flesh and blood could live by
+it, and yet it flourishes as if it were as harmless as a lily. I know
+I'm saying what I oughtn't to, but I saw you were getting hurt, and I
+wanted to spare you. It isn't that Angelica is wicked, you know, I
+wouldn't have you believe that for a minute. She is sincere as far as
+her light goes, and if I hadn't seen David's life destroyed through and
+through, I suppose I shouldn't feel anything like so bitterly. But I've
+watched all his trust in things and his generous impulses--there was
+never a man who started life with finer impulses than David--wither up,
+one after one, just as if they were blighted."
+
+The sunset had faded slowly, and while Caroline sat there in the big
+chair, gazing out on the wintry garden, it seemed to her that the
+advancing twilight had become so thick that it stifled her. Then
+immediately she realized that it was not the twilight, but the obscurity
+in her own mind, that oppressed and enveloped her with these heavy yet
+intangible shadows. Her last illusion had perished, and she could not
+breathe because the smoke of its destruction filled the air. At the
+moment it seemed to her that life could never be exactly what it was
+before--that the glow and magic of some mysterious enchantment had
+vanished. Even the garden, with its frozen vegetation and its forlorn
+skeletons of summer shrubs emerging from mounds of snow, appeared to
+have undergone a sinister transformation from the ideal back to the
+actuality. This was the way she had felt years ago, on that autumn day
+at The Cedars.
+
+"And he never defended himself--never once," she said after a silence.
+
+"He never will, that's not his way," rejoined Mrs. Timberlake. "She
+knows he never will, and I sometimes think that makes matters worse."
+
+As Caroline brooded over this, her face cleared until the light and
+animation returned. "I know him better," she murmured presently, "but
+everything else has become suddenly crooked."
+
+"I've thought that at times before I stopped trying to straighten out
+things." Mrs. Timberlake had put down the muffler, and while she spoke,
+she smoothed it slowly and carefully over her knee. In the wan light her
+face borrowed a remote and visionary look, like a face gazing down
+through the thin, cold air of the heights. She had passed beyond mutable
+things, this look seemed to say, and had attained at last the bleak
+security of mind that is never disappointed because it expects nothing.
+"I reckon that's why I got into the habit of keeping my mouth shut, just
+because I was worrying myself sick all the time thinking how different
+things ought to be." A chill and wintry cheerfulness flickered across
+the arid surface of her manner. "But I don't now. I know there isn't any
+use, and I get a good deal of pleasure just out of seeing what will
+happen. Now, you take David and Angelica. I'm wondering all the time how
+it will turn out. David is a big man, but even if Angelica isn't smart,
+she's quick enough about getting anything she wants, and I believe she
+is beginning to want something she hasn't got."
+
+"When I came I didn't like Mr. Blackburn." Though the barriers of the
+old lady's reserve had fallen, Caroline was struggling still against an
+instinct of loyalty.
+
+"Well, I didn't like him once." Mrs. Timberlake had risen, and was
+looking down with her pitiful, tormented smile. "It took me a long time
+to find out the truth, and I want to spare you all I suffered while I
+was finding it out. I sometimes think that nobody's experience is worth
+a row of pins to any one else, but all the same I am trying to help you
+by telling you what I know. David has his faults. I'm not saying that
+he is a saint; but he has been the best friend I ever had, and I'm going
+to stand up for him, Angelica or no Angelica. There are some men, my
+poor father used to say, that never really show what they are because
+they get caught by life and twisted out of shape, and I reckon David is
+one of these. Father said, though I don't like heathen terms, that it
+was the fate of a man like David always to appear in the wrong and yet
+always to be in the right. That's a queer way of putting it, but father
+was a great scholar--he translated the "Iliad" before he was thirty--and
+I reckon he knew what he was talking about. Life was against those men,
+he told me once, but God was for them, and they never failed to win in
+the end." With the last words she faltered and broke off abruptly. "I
+have been talking a great deal more than I ought to, but when once I
+begin I never know when to stop. Angelica must have come home long ago."
+Bending over she laid her cheek against Caroline's hair. "You won't
+think of going away now, will you?"
+
+Surprised and touched by the awkward caress, Caroline looked up
+gratefully. "No, I shan't think of going away now."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SECOND
+
+REALITIES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN BLACKBURN'S LIBRARY
+
+
+The fire was burning low, and after Blackburn had thrown a fresh log on
+the andirons, he sat down in one of the big leather chairs by the
+hearth, and watched the flames as they leaped singing up the brick
+chimney. It was midnight--the clock in the hall was just striking--and a
+few minutes before, Angelica had gone languidly upstairs, after their
+belated return from a dinner in town. The drive home had been long and
+dreary, and he could still see the winter landscape, sketched in vivid
+outlines of black and white, under a pale moon that was riding high in
+the heavens. Road, fields, and houses, showed as clearly as a pen and
+ink drawing, and against this stark background his thoughts stood out
+with an abrupt and startling precision, as if they had detached
+themselves, one by one, from the naked forms on the horizon. There was
+no chance of sleep, for the sense of isolation, which had attacked him
+like physical pain while he drove home with Angelica, seemed to make his
+chaotic memories the only living things in a chill and colourless
+universe.
+
+Though it was midnight, he had work to do before he went up to bed--for
+he had not yet given his final answer to Sloane. Already Blackburn had
+made his decision. Already he had worked out in his own mind the phrases
+of the letter; yet, before turning to his writing-table, he lingered a
+moment in order to weigh more carefully the cost of his resolve. It was
+not an age when political altruism was either mentally convincing or
+morally expedient, and the quality of his patriotism would be estimated
+in the public mind, he was aware, by the numbers of his majority.
+Sloane, he was sure, had been sounding him as a possible candidate in
+some future political venture--yet, while he sat there, it was not of
+Sloane that he was thinking. Slowly the depression and bitterness
+gathered to a single image, and looked out upon him from the pure
+reticence of Angelica's features. It was as if his adverse destiny--that
+destiny of splendid purpose and frustrated effort--had assumed for an
+instant the human form through which it had wrought its work of
+destruction.
+
+"Well, after all, why should I decline? It is what I have always wanted
+to do, and I am right."
+
+The room was very still, and in this stillness the light quivered in
+pools on the brown rugs and the brown walls and the old yellowed
+engravings. From the high bookshelves, which lined the walls, the
+friendly covers of books shone down on him, with the genial
+responsiveness that creeps into the aspect of familiar inanimate things.
+Over the mantelpiece hung the one oil painting in the room, a portrait
+of his mother as a girl, by an unknown painter, who drew badly, but had
+a genuine feeling for colour. The face was small and heart-shaped, like
+some delicately tinted flower that has only half opened. The hair lay in
+bands of twilight on either side of the grave forehead, and framed the
+large, wistful eyes, which had a flower-like softness that made him
+think of black pansies. Though the mouth was pink and faintly smiling,
+it seemed to him to express an infinite pathos. It was impossible for
+him to believe that his mother--the woman with the pallid cameo-like
+profile and the saintly brow under the thin dark hair--had ever faced
+life with that touching, expectant smile.
+
+There had been a strong soul in that fragile body, but her courage,
+which was invincible, had never seemed to him the courage of happiness.
+She had accepted life with the fortitude of the Christian, not the joy
+of the Pagan; and her piety was associated in his mind with long summer
+Sundays, with old hymns played softly, with bare spotless rooms, and
+with many roses in scattered alabaster vases. Her intellect, like her
+character, he recalled as a curious blending of sweetness and strength.
+If the speculative side of her mind had ever existed, life had long ago
+hushed it, for her capacity for acquiescence--for unquestioning
+submission to the will of God--was like the glory of martyrdom. Yet,
+within her narrow field, the field in which religion reigned as a
+beneficent shade, she had thought deeply, and it seemed to Blackburn
+that she had never thought harshly. Her sympathy was as wide as her
+charity, and both covered the universe. So exquisitely balanced, so
+finely tempered, was her judgment of life, that after all these years,
+for she had died while he was still a boy, he remembered her as one
+whose understanding of the human heart approached the divine. "She
+always wanted me to do something like this," he thought, "to look
+forward--to stand for the future. I remember...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the light and warmth of the room there streamed the sunshine and
+fragrance of an old summer. After a hot day the sun was growing faint
+over the garden, and the long, slim shadows on the grass were so pale
+that they quivered between light and darkness, like the gauzy wings of
+gigantic dragon flies. Against a flushed sky a few bats were wheeling.
+Up from the sun-steeped lawn, which was never mown, drifted the mingled
+scents of sheepmint and box; and this unforgotten smell pervaded the
+garden and the lane and the porch at the back of the house, where he had
+stopped, before bringing home the cows, to exchange a word with his
+mother. The lattice door was open, and she stood there, in her black
+dress, with the cool, dim hall behind her.
+
+"Mother," he said, "I have been reading about William Wallace. When I
+grow up, I want to fight kings."
+
+She smiled, and her smile was like one of the slow, sad hymns they sang
+on Sunday afternoons. "When you grow up there may be no kings left to
+fight, dear."
+
+"Will they be dead, mother?"
+
+"They may be. One never knows, my son."
+
+All the romance faded suddenly out of the world. "Well, if there are any
+left," he answered resolutely, "I am going to fight them."
+
+He could still see her face, thin and sad, and like the closed white
+flowers he found sometimes growing in hollows where the sun never shone.
+Only her eyes, large and velvet black, seemed glowing with hope.
+
+"There are only three things worth fighting for, my son," she said,
+"Your love, your faith, and your country. Nothing else matters."
+
+"Father fought for his country, didn't he?"
+
+"Your father fought for all three." She waited a moment, and then went
+on more slowly in a voice that sounded as if she were reciting a prayer,
+"This is what you must never forget, my boy, that you are your father's
+son, and that he gave his all for the cause he believed in, and counted
+it fair service."
+
+The scene vanished like one of the dissolving views of a magic lantern,
+and there rose before him a later summer, and another imperishable
+memory of his boyhood....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an afternoon in September--one of those mellow afternoons when
+the light is spun like a golden web between earth and sky, and the grey
+dust of summer flowers rises as an incense to autumn. The harvest was
+gathered; the apples were reddening in the orchard; and along the rail
+fence by the roadside, sumach and Virginia creeper were burning slowly,
+like a flame that smoulders in the windless blue of the weather.
+Somewhere, very far away, a single partridge was calling, and nearer
+home, from the golden-rod and life-ever-lasting, rose the slow humming
+of bees.
+
+He lay in the sun-warmed grass, with his bare feet buried in sheepmint.
+On the long benches, from which the green paint had rubbed off, some old
+men were sitting, and among them, a small coloured maid, in a dress of
+pink calico, was serving blackberry wine and plates of the pale yellow
+cake his mother made every Saturday. One of the men was his uncle, a
+crippled soldier, with long grey hair and shining eyes that held the
+rapt and consecrated vision of those who have looked through death to
+immortality. His crutch lay on the grass at his feet, and while he
+sipped his wine, he said gravely:
+
+"A new generation is springing up, David's generation, and this must
+give, not the South alone, but the whole nation, a leader."
+
+At the words the boy looked up quickly, his eyes gleaming, "What must
+the leader be like, uncle?"
+
+The old soldier hesitated an instant. "He must, first of all, my boy, be
+predestined. No man whom God has not appointed can lead other men
+right."
+
+"And how will he know if God has appointed him?"
+
+"He will know by this--that he cannot swerve in his purpose. The man
+whom God has appointed sees his road straight before him, and he does
+not glance back or aside." His voice rose louder, over the murmur of the
+bees, as if it were chanting, "If the woods are filled with dangers, he
+does not know because he sees only his road. If the bridges have fallen,
+he does not know because he sees only his road. If the rivers are
+impassable, he does not know because he sees only his road. From the
+journey's beginning to its end, he sees only his road...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A log, charred through the middle, broke suddenly, scattering a shower
+of sparks. The multitudinous impressions of his boyhood had gathered
+into these two memories of summer, and of that earlier generation which
+had sacrificed all for a belief. It was like a mosaic in his mind, a
+mosaic in which heroic figures waited, amid a jewelled landscape, for
+the leader whom God had appointed.
+
+The room darkened while he sat there, and from outside he heard the
+crackling of frost and the ceaseless rustle of wind in the junipers. On
+the hearthrug, across the glimmering circle of the fire, he watched
+those old years flock back again, in all the fantastic motley of
+half-forgotten recollections. He saw the long frozen winters of his
+childhood, when he had waked at dawn to do the day's work of the farm
+before he started out to trudge five miles to the little country school,
+where the stove always smoked and the windows were never opened. Before
+this his mother had taught him his lessons, and his happiest memories
+were those of the hours when he sat by her side, with an antiquated
+geography on his knees, and watched her long slender fingers point the
+way to countries of absurd boundaries and unpronounceable names. She had
+taught him all he knew--knowledge weak in science, but rich in the
+invisible graces of mind and heart--and afterwards, in the uninspired
+method of the little school, he had first learned to distrust the kind
+of education with which the modern man begins the battle of life.
+Homespun in place of velvet, stark facts instead of the texture of
+romance! The mornings when, swinging his hoe, he had led his chattering
+band of little negroes into the cornfields, had been closer to the
+throbbing pulse of experience.
+
+When he was fourteen the break had come, and his life had divided. His
+mother had died suddenly; the old place had been sold for a song; and
+the boy had come up to Richmond to make his way in a world which was too
+indifferent to be actually hostile. At first he had gone to work in a
+tobacco factory, reading after hours as long as the impoverished widow
+with whom he lived would let the gas burn in his room. Always he had
+meant to "get on"; always he had felt the controlling hand of his
+destiny. Even in those years of unformed motives and misdirected
+energies, he had been searching--searching. The present had never been
+more than a brief approach to the future. He had looked always for
+something truer, sounder, deeper, than the actuality that enmeshed him.
+
+Suddenly, while he sat there confronting the phantom he had once called
+himself, he was visited by a rush of thought which seemed to sweep on
+wings through his brain. Yet the moment afterwards, when he tried to
+seize and hold the vision that darted so gloriously out of the shining
+distance, he found that it had already dissolved into a sensation, an
+apprehension, too finely spun of light and shadow to be imprisoned in
+words. It was as if some incalculable discovery, some luminous
+revelation, had brushed him for an instant as it sped onward into the
+world. Once or twice in the past such a gleaming moment had just touched
+him, leaving him with this vague sense of loss, of something missing, of
+an infinitely precious opportunity which had escaped him. Yet invariably
+it had been followed by some imperative call to action.
+
+"I wonder what it means now," he thought, "I suppose the truth is that I
+have missed things again." The inspiration no longer seemed to exist
+outside of his own mind; but under the clustering memories, he felt
+presently a harder and firmer consciousness of his own purpose, just as
+in his boyhood, he would sometimes, in ploughing, strike a rock half
+buried beneath the frail bloom of the meadows. It was the sense of
+reality so strong, so solid, that it brought him up, almost with a jerk
+of pain, from the iridescent cobwebs of his fancy; and this reality, he
+understood after a minute, was an acute perception of the great war that
+men were fighting on the other side of the world. His knowledge of
+these terrible and splendid issues had broken through the perishable
+surface of thought. The illusion vanished like the bloom of the meadows;
+what remained was the bare rocky structure of truth. He had not meant to
+think of this now. He had left the evening free for his work--for the
+decision which must be made sooner or later; yet, through some
+mysterious trend of thought, every personal choice of his life seemed to
+become a part of the impersonal choice of humanity. The infinite issues
+had absorbed the finite intentions. Every decision was a ripple in the
+world battle between the powers of good and evil, of light and darkness.
+And he understood suddenly that the great abstractions for which men lay
+down their lives are one and indivisible--that there was not a corner of
+the earth where this fight for liberty could not be fought.
+
+"I can fight here as well as over there," he thought, "if I am only big
+enough."
+
+Now that his mind had got down to solid facts, to steady thinking, it
+worked quickly and clearly. It would be a hard fight, with all the odds
+against him, and yet the very difficulties appealed to him. Out of the
+dense fog of political theories, out of the noise and confusion of the
+Babel of many tongues, he could discern the dim framework of a purer
+social order. The foundation of the Republic was sound, he believed,
+only the eyes of the builders had failed, the hands of the builders had
+trembled. That the ideal democracy was not a dream, but an unattained
+reality, he had never doubted. The failure lay not in the plan, but in
+the achievement. There was obliquity of vision, there was even
+blindness, for the human mind was still afflicted by the ancient error
+which had brought the autocracies of the past to destruction. Men and
+nations had still to learn that in order to preserve liberty it must
+first be surrendered--that there is no spiritual growth except through
+sacrifice. But it must be surrendered only to a broader, an ever-growing
+conception of what liberty means.
+
+As in the sun-warmed grass on those Sunday afternoons, he still dreamed
+of America leading the nations. The great Virginians of the past had
+been Virginians first; the great Virginians of the future would be
+Americans. The urgent need in America, as he saw it, was for unity; and
+the first step toward this unity, the obliteration of sectional
+boundaries. In this, he felt, Virginia must lead the states. As she had
+once yielded her land to the nation, she must now yield her spirit. She
+must point the way by act, not by theory; she must vote right as well as
+think right.
+
+"And to vote right," he said presently, thinking aloud, "we must first
+live right. People speak of a man's vote as if it were an act apart from
+the other acts of his life--as if they could detach it from his
+universal conceptions. There was a grain of truth in Uncle Carter's
+saying that he could tell by the way a man voted whether or not he
+believed in the immortality of the soul." It was Uncle Carter, he
+remembered, who had described the chronic malady of American life as a
+disease of manner that had passed from the skin into the body politic.
+"Take my word for it," the old soldier had said, "there is no such thing
+as sound morals without sound manners, for manners are only the outer
+coating--the skin, if you like--of morals. Without unselfish
+consideration for others there can be no morality, and if you have
+unselfish consideration in your heart, you will have good manners
+though you haven't a coat on your back. Order and sanity and precision,
+and all the other qualities we need most in this Republic, are only the
+outward forms of unselfish consideration for others, and patriotism, in
+spite of its plumed attire, is only that on a larger scale. After all,
+your country is merely a tremendous abstraction of your neighbour."
+Well, perhaps the old chap had been talking sense half the time when
+people smiled at his words!
+
+Rising from his chair, he pushed back the last waning ember, and stood
+gazing down on the ashes.
+
+"I will do my best," he said slowly. "I will fight to the last ditch for
+the things I believe in--for cleaner politics, for constructive
+patriotism, and for a fairer democracy. These are the big issues, and
+the little ends will flow from them."
+
+As he finished, the clock in the hall struck twice and stopped, and at
+the same instant the door of the library opened slowly, and, to his
+amazement, he saw Mary standing beyond the threshold. She carried a
+candle in her hand, and by the wavering light, he saw that she was very
+pale and that her eyes were red as if she had been weeping.
+
+"The lights were out. I thought you had gone upstairs," she said, with a
+catch in her voice.
+
+"Do you want anything?"
+
+"No, I couldn't sleep, so I came for a book."
+
+With a hurried movement, she came over to the table and caught up a book
+without glancing at the title.
+
+"Are you ill?" he asked. "Is anything the matter?"
+
+"No, nothing. I am well, only I couldn't sleep."
+
+"There is no trouble about Alan, is there? Have you quarrelled?"
+
+"Oh, no, we haven't quarrelled." She was plainly impatient at his
+questioning. "Alan is all right. Really, it is nothing."
+
+Though his affection for her was deep and strong, they had never learned
+to be demonstrative with each other, perhaps because they had been
+separated so much in childhood and early youth. It was almost with a
+hesitating gesture that he put out his hand now and touched her hair.
+
+"My dear, you know you can trust me."
+
+"Yes, I know." The words broke from her with a sob, and turning hastily
+away, she ran out of the room and back up the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+READJUSTMENTS
+
+
+In Letty's nursery the next afternoon, Blackburn came at last to know
+Caroline without the barrier of her professional manner. The child was
+playing happily with her paper dolls in one corner, and while she
+marched them back and forth along a miniature road of blocks, she sang
+under her breath a little song she had made.
+
+    Oh, my,
+    I'd like to fly
+    Very high
+    In the sky,
+    Just you and I.
+
+"I am very cold," said Blackburn, as he entered. "Mammy Riah has
+promised me a cup of tea if I am good."
+
+"You are always good, father," replied Letty politely, but she did not
+rise from the floor. "I'm sorry I can't stop, but Mrs. Brown is just
+taking her little girl to the hospital. If I were to get up the poor
+little thing might die on the way."
+
+"That must not happen. Perhaps Miss Meade will entertain me?"
+
+"I will do my best." Caroline turned from her writing and took up a
+half-finished sock. "If you had come an hour earlier you might have seen
+some of Mrs. Blackburn's lovely clothes. She was showing us the dress
+she is going to wear to dinner to-night."
+
+"You like pretty clothes." It was a careless effort to make
+conversation, but as he dropped into the armchair on the hearthrug, his
+face softened. There was a faint scent of violets in the air from a
+half-faded little bunch in Caroline's lap.
+
+She met the question frankly. "On other people."
+
+"Do you like nothing for yourself? You are so impersonal that I
+sometimes wonder if you possess a soul of your own."
+
+"Oh, I like a great many things." Mammy Riah had brought tea, and
+Caroline put down her knitting and drew up to the wicker table. "I like
+books for instance. At The Cedars we used to read every evening. Father
+read aloud to us as long as he lived."
+
+"Yet I never see you reading?"
+
+"Not here." As she shook her head, the firelight touched her close, dark
+hair, which shone like satin against the starched band of her cap.
+Almost as white as her cap seemed her wide forehead, with the intense
+black eyebrows above the radiant blue of her eyes. "You see I want to
+finish these socks."
+
+"I thought you were doing a muffler?"
+
+"Oh, that's gone to France long ago! This is a fresh lot Mrs. Blackburn
+has promised, and Mrs. Timberlake and I are working night and day to get
+them finished in time. We can't do the large kind of work that Mrs.
+Blackburn does," she added, "so we have to make up with our little bit.
+Mrs. Timberlake says we are hewers of wood and drawers of water."
+
+"You are always busy," he said, smiling. "I believe you would be busy
+if you were put into solitary confinement."
+
+To his surprise a look of pain quivered about her mouth, and he noticed,
+for the first time, that it was the mouth of a woman who had suffered.
+"It is the best way of not thinking----" She ended with a laugh, and he
+felt that, in spite of her kindness and her capability, she was as
+elusive as thistle-down.
+
+"I can knit a little, father," broke in Letty, looking up from her
+dolls. "Miss Meade is teaching me to knit a muffler--only it gets
+narrower all the time. I'm afraid the soldiers won't want it."
+
+"Then give it to me. I want it."
+
+"If I give it to you, you might go to fight, and get killed." As the
+child turned again to her dolls, he said slowly to Caroline, "I can't
+imagine how she picks up ideas like that. Someone must have talked about
+the war before her."
+
+"She heard Mrs. Blackburn talking about it once in the car. She must
+have caught words without our noticing it."
+
+His face darkened. "One has to be careful."
+
+"Yes, I try to remember." He was quick to observe that she was taking
+the blame from Angelica, and again he received an impression that she
+was mentally evading him. Her soul was closed like a flower; yet now and
+then, through her reserve and gravity, he felt a charm that was as sweet
+and fresh as a perfume. She was looking tired and pale, he thought, and
+he wondered how her still features could have kindled into the beauty he
+had seen in them on that snowy afternoon. It had never occurred to him
+before, accustomed as he was to the formal loveliness of Angelica, that
+the same woman could be both plain and beautiful, both colourless and
+vivid.
+
+This was perplexing him, when she clasped her hands over her knitting,
+and said with the manner of quiet confidence that he had grown to expect
+in her, "I have always meant to tell you, Mr. Blackburn, that I listened
+to everything you said that day on the terrace--that afternoon when you
+were talking to Colonel Ashburton and Mr. Sloane. I didn't mean to
+listen, but I found myself doing it."
+
+"Well, I hope you are not any the worse for it, and I am sure you are
+not any the better."
+
+"There is something else I want to tell you." Her pale cheeks flushed
+faintly, and a liquid fire shone in her eyes. "I think you are right. I
+agree with every word that you said."
+
+"Traitor! What would your grandmother have thought of you? As a matter
+of fact I have forgotten almost all that I said, but I can safely assume
+that it was heretical. I think none of us intended to start that
+discussion. We launched into it before we knew where we were going."
+
+Her mind was on his first sentence, and she appeared to miss his closing
+words. "I can't answer for my grandmother, but father would have agreed
+with you. He used to say that the State was an institution for the
+making of citizens."
+
+"And he talked to you about such things?" It had never occurred to him
+that a woman could become companionable on intellectual grounds, yet
+while she sat there facing him, with the light on her brow and lips, and
+her look of distinction and remoteness as of one who has in some way
+been set apart from personal joy or sorrow, he realized that she was as
+utterly detached as Sloane had been when he discoursed on the functions
+of government.
+
+"Oh, we talked and talked on Sunday afternoons, a few neighbours, old
+soldiers mostly, and father and I. I wonder why political arguments
+still make me think of bees humming?"
+
+He laughed with a zest she had never heard in his voice before. "And the
+smell of sheepmint and box!"
+
+"I remember--and blackberry wine in blue glasses?"
+
+"No, they were red, and there was cake cut in thin slices with icing on
+the top of it."
+
+"Doesn't it bring it all back again?"
+
+"It brings back the happiest time of my life to me. You never got up at
+dawn to turn the cows out to pasture, and brought them home in the
+evening, riding the calf?"
+
+"No, but I've cooked breakfast by candlelight."
+
+"You've never led a band of little darkeys across a cornfield at
+sunrise?"
+
+"But I've canned a whole patch of tomatoes."
+
+"I know you've never tasted the delight of stolen fishing in the creek
+under the willows?"
+
+Her reserve had dropped from her like a mask. She looked up with a laugh
+that was pure music. "It is hard to believe that you ever went without
+things."
+
+"Oh, things!" He made a gesture of indifference. "If you mean
+money--well, it may surprise you to know that it has no value for me
+to-day except as a means to an end."
+
+"To how many ends?" she asked mockingly.
+
+"The honest truth is that it wouldn't cost me a pang to give up
+Briarlay, every stock and stone, and go back to the southside to dig
+for a living. I made it all by accident, and I may lose it all just as
+easily. It looks now, since the war began, as if I were losing some of
+it very rapidly. But have you ever noticed that people are very apt to
+keep the things they don't care about--that they can't shake them off?
+Now, what I've always wanted was the chance to do some work that
+counted--an opportunity for service that would help the men who come
+after me. As a boy I used to dream of this. In those days I preferred
+William Wallace to Monte Cristo."
+
+"The opportunity may come now."
+
+"If we go into this war--and, by God, we must go into it!--that might
+be. I'd give ten--no, twenty years of my life for the chance. Life! We
+speak of giving life, but what is life except the means of giving
+something infinitely better and finer? As if anything mattered but the
+opportunity to speak the thought in one's brain, to sing it, to build it
+in stone. There is a little piece of America deep down in me, and when I
+die I want to leave it somewhere above ground, embodied in the national
+consciousness. When this blessed Republic leaves the mud behind, and
+goes marching, clean and whole, down the ages, I want this little piece
+of myself to go marching with it."
+
+So she had discovered the real Blackburn, the dreamer under the clay!
+This was the man Mrs. Timberlake had described to her--the man whose
+fate it was to appear always in the wrong and to be always in the right.
+And, womanlike, she wondered if this passion of the mind had drawn its
+strength and colour from the earlier wasted passion of his heart? Would
+he love America so much if he loved Angelica more? As she drew nearer
+to the man's nature, she was able to surmise how terrible must have been
+the ruin that Angelica had wrought in his soul. That he had once loved
+her with all the force and swiftness of his character, Caroline
+understood as perfectly as she had come to understand that he now loved
+her no longer.
+
+"If I can cast a shadow of the America in my mind into the sum total of
+American thought, I shall feel that life has been worth while," he was
+saying. "The only way to create a democracy,--and I see the immense
+future outlines of this country as the actual, not the imaginary
+democracy,--after all, the only way to create a thing is to think it. An
+act of faith isn't merely a mental process; it is a creative force that
+the mind releases into the world. Germany made war, not by invading
+Belgium, but by thinking war for forty years; and, in the same way, by
+thinking in terms of social justice, we may end by making a true
+democracy." He paused abruptly, with the glow of enthusiasm in his face,
+and then added slowly, in a voice that sounded curiously restrained and
+distant, "I must have been boring you abominably. It has been so long
+since I let myself go like this that I'd forgotten where I was and to
+whom I was talking."
+
+It was true, she realized, without resentment; he had forgotten that she
+was present. Since she had little vanity, she was not hurt. It was only
+one of those delicious morsels that life continually offered to one's
+sense of humour.
+
+"I am not quite so dull, perhaps, as you think me," she responded
+pleasantly. After all, though intelligence was sometimes out of place,
+she had discovered that pleasantness was always a serviceable quality.
+
+At this he rose from his chair, laughing. "You must not, by the way, get
+a wrong impression of me. I have been talking as if money did not count,
+and yet there was a time when I'd willingly have given twenty years of
+my life for it. Money meant to me power--the kind of power one could
+grasp by striving and sacrifice. Why, I've walked the streets of
+Richmond with five cents in my pocket, and the dream of uncounted
+millions in my brain. When my luck turned, and it turned quickly as luck
+runs, I thought for a year or two that I'd got the thing that I
+wanted----"
+
+"And you found out that you hadn't?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I found out that I hadn't," he rejoined drily, as he moved
+toward the door, "and I've been making discoveries like that ever since.
+To-day I might tell you that work, not wealth, brings happiness, but
+I've been wrong often enough before, and who knows that I am not wrong
+about this." It was the tone of bitterness she had learned to watch for
+whenever she talked with him--the tone that she recognized as the subtle
+flavour of Angelica's influence. "Now I'll find Mary," he added, "and
+ask her if she saw the doctor this morning. The reading I heard as I
+came up, I suppose was for her benefit?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Caroline, wondering if she ought to keep him
+from interrupting a play of Alan's. "I think Mr. Wythe had promised to
+read something to Mrs. Blackburn."
+
+"Oh, well, Mary must be about, and I'll find her. She couldn't sleep
+last night and I thought her looking fagged."
+
+"Yes, she hasn't been well. Mrs. Timberlake has tried to persuade her to
+take a tonic."
+
+For a minute he hesitated. "There hasn't been any trouble, I hope.
+Anything I could straighten out?" He looked curiously young and
+embarrassed as he put the question.
+
+"Nothing that I know of. I think she feels a little nervous and
+let-down, that's all."
+
+The hesitation had gone now from his manner, and he appeared relieved
+and cheerful. "I had forgotten that you aren't the keeper of the soul as
+well as the body. It's amazing the way you manage Letty. She is happier
+than I have ever seen her." Then, as the child got up from her play and
+came over to him, he asked tenderly, "Aren't you happy, darling?"
+
+"Yes, I'm happy, father," answered Letty, slowly and gravely, "but I
+wish mother was happy too. She was crying this morning, and so was Aunt
+Mary."
+
+A wine-dark flush stained Blackburn's face, while the arms that had been
+about to lift Letty from the floor, dropped suddenly to his sides. The
+pleasure his praise had brought to Caroline faded as she watched him,
+and she felt vaguely disturbed and apprehensive. Was there something,
+after all, that she did not understand? Was there a deeper closet and a
+grimmer skeleton at Briarlay than the one she had discovered?
+
+"If your mother isn't happy, Letty, you must try to make her so," he
+answered presently in a low voice.
+
+"I do try, father, I try dreadfully hard, and so does Miss Meade. But I
+think she wants something she hasn't got," she added in a whisper, "I
+think she wants something so very badly that it hurts her."
+
+"And does your Aunt Mary want something too?" Though he spoke jestingly,
+the red flush was still in his face.
+
+Letty put up her arms and drew his ear down to her lips. "Oh, no, Aunt
+Mary cries just because mother does."
+
+"Well, we'll see what we can do about it," he responded, as he turned
+away and went out of the door.
+
+Listening attentively, Caroline heard his steps pass down the hall,
+descend the stairs, and stop before the door of the front drawing-room.
+"I wonder if Mr. Wythe is still reading," she thought; and then she went
+back to her unfinished letter, while Letty returned cheerfully to her
+play in the corner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This is an ugly blot, mother dear, but Mr. Blackburn came in so suddenly
+that he startled me, and I almost upset my inkstand. He stayed quite a
+long time, and talked more than he had ever done to me before--mostly
+about politics. I have changed my opinion of him since I came here. When
+I first knew him I thought him wooden and hard, but the more I see of
+him the better I like him, and I am sure that everything we heard about
+him was wrong. He has an unfortunate manner at times, and he is very
+nervous and irritable, and little things upset him unless he keeps a
+tight grip on himself; but I believe that he is really kind-hearted and
+sincere in what he says. One thing I am positive about--there was not a
+word of truth in the things Mrs. Colfax wrote me before I came here. He
+simply adores Letty, and whatever trouble there may be between him and
+his wife, I do not believe that it is entirely his fault. Mrs.
+Timberlake says he was desperately in love with her when he married her,
+and I can tell, just by watching them together, how terribly she must
+have made him suffer. Of course, I should not say this to any one else,
+but I tell you everything--I have to tell you--and I know you will not
+read a single word of this to the girls.
+
+I used to hope that Letty's illness would bring them together--wouldn't
+that have been just the way things happen in books?--but everybody
+blamed him because she went to the tableaux, and, as far as I can see,
+she lets people think what is false, without lifting a finger to correct
+them. It is such a pity that she isn't as fine as we once thought
+her--for she looks so much like an angel that it is hard not to believe
+that she is good, no matter what she does. If you haven't lived in the
+house with her, it is impossible to see through her, and even now I am
+convinced that if she chose to take the trouble, she could twist
+everyone of us, even Mr. Blackburn, round her little finger. You
+remember I wrote you that Mr. Wythe did not like her? Well, she has
+chosen to be sweet to him of late, and now he is simply crazy about her.
+He reads her all his plays, and she is just as nice and sympathetic as
+she can be about his work. I sometimes wish Miss Blackburn would not be
+quite so frank and sharp in her criticism. I have heard her snap him up
+once or twice about something he wrote, and I am sure she hurt his
+feelings. One afternoon, when I took Letty down to the drawing-room to
+show a new dress to her mother, he was reading, and he went straight on,
+while we were there, and finished his play. I liked it very much, and so
+did Mrs. Blackburn, but Miss Blackburn really showed some temper because
+he would not change a line when she asked him to. It was such a pity she
+was unreasonable because it made her look plain and unattractive, and
+Mrs. Blackburn was too lovely for words. She had on a dress of grey
+cr๊pe exactly the colour of her eyes, and her hair looked softer and
+more golden than ever. It is the kind of hair one never has very much
+of--as fine and soft as Maud's--but it is the most beautiful colour and
+texture I ever saw.
+
+Well, I thought that Miss Blackburn was right when she said the line was
+all out of character with the speaker; but Mrs. Blackburn did not agree
+with us, and when Mr. Wythe appealed to her, she said it was just
+perfect as it was, and that he must not dream of changing it. Then he
+said he was going to let it stand, and Miss Blackburn was so angry that
+she almost burst into tears. I suppose it hurt her to see how much more
+he valued the other's opinion; but it would be better if she could learn
+to hide her feelings. And all the time Mrs. Blackburn lay back in her
+chair, in her dove grey dress, and just smiled like a saint. You would
+have thought she pitied her sister-in-law, she looked at her so sweetly
+when she said, "Mary, dear, we mustn't let you persuade him to ruin it."
+You know I really began to ask myself if I had not been unjust to her in
+thinking that she could be a little bit mean. Then I remembered that
+poor old woman in Pine Street--I wrote you about her last autumn--and I
+knew she was being sweet because there was something she wanted to gain
+by it. I don't know what it is she wants, nor why she is wasting so much
+time on Mr. Wythe; but it is exactly as if she had bloomed out in the
+last month like a white rose. She takes more trouble about her clothes,
+and there is the loveliest glow--there isn't any word but bloom that
+describes it--about her skin and hair and eyes. She looks years younger
+than she did when I came here.
+
+I wanted to write you about Mr. Blackburn, but his wife is so much more
+fascinating. Even if you do not like her, you are obliged to think about
+her, and even if you do not admire her, you are obliged to look at her
+when she is in the room. She says very little--and as she never says
+anything clever, I suppose this is fortunate--but somehow she just
+manages to draw everything to her. I suppose it is personality, but you
+always say that personality depends on mind and heart, and I am sure her
+attraction has nothing to do with either of these. It is strange, isn't
+it, but the whole time Mr. Blackburn was in here talking to me, I kept
+wondering if she had ever cared for him? Mrs. Timberlake says that she
+never did even when she married him, and that now she is irritated
+because he is having a good many financial difficulties, and they
+interfere with her plans. But Mr. Blackburn seems to worry very little
+about money. I believe his friends think that some day he may run for
+the Senate--Forlorn Hope Blackburn, Colonel Ashburton calls him, though
+he says that he has a larger following among the Independent voters than
+anybody suspects. I shouldn't imagine there was the faintest chance of
+his election--for he has anything but an ingratiating manner with
+people; and so much in a political candidate depends upon a manner. You
+remember all the dreadful speeches that were flung about in the last
+Presidential elections. Well, Mr. Sloane, who was down here from New
+York the other day, said he really thought the result might have been
+different if the campaign speakers had had better manners. It seems
+funny that such a little thing should decide a great question, doesn't
+it? I suppose, when the time comes for us to go into this war or stay
+out of it, the decision will rest upon something so small that it will
+never get into history, not even between the lines. You remember that
+remark of Turgot's--that dear father loved to quote: "The greatest evils
+in life have their rise from things too small to be attended to."
+
+After hearing Mr. Blackburn talk, I am convinced that he is perfectly
+honest in everything he says. As far as I can gather he believes, just
+as we do, that men should go into politics in order to give, not to
+gain, and he feels that they will give freely of themselves only to
+something they love, or to some ideal that is like a religion to them.
+He says the great need is to love America--that we have not loved, we
+have merely exploited, and he thinks that as long as the sections remain
+distinct from the nation, and each man thinks first of his own place,
+the nation will be exploited for the sake of the sections. He says, too,
+and this sounds like father, that the South is just as much the nation
+as the North or the West, and that it is the duty of the South to do her
+share in the building of the future. I know this is put badly, but you
+will understand what I mean.
+
+Now, I really must stop. Oh, I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Blackburn
+wants to know if you could find time to do some knitting for her? She
+says she will furnish all the wool you need, and she hopes you will make
+socks instead of mufflers. I told her you knitted the most beautiful
+socks.
+
+I am always thinking of you and wondering about The Cedars.
+
+    Your loving,
+        CAROLINE.
+
+It looks very much as if we were going to fight, doesn't it? Has the
+President been waiting for the country, or the country for the
+President?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MAN'S WOMAN
+
+
+From the second drawing-room, where Angelica had tea every afternoon,
+there drifted the fragrance of burning cedar, and as Blackburn walked
+quickly toward the glow of the fire, he saw his wife in her favourite
+chair with deep wings, and Alan Wythe stretched languidly on the white
+fur rug at her feet. Mary was not there. She had evidently just finished
+tea, for her riding-crop lay on a chair by the door; but when Blackburn
+called her name, Alan stopped his reading and replied in his pleasant
+voice, "I think she has gone out to the stable. William came to tell her
+that one of the horses had a cough."
+
+"Then I'll find her. She seems out of sorts, and I'm trying to make her
+see the doctor."
+
+"I am sorry for that." Laying aside the book, Alan sprang to his feet,
+and stood gazing anxiously into the other's face. "She always appears so
+strong that one comes to take her fitness as a matter of course."
+
+"Yes, I never saw her look badly until the last day or two. Have you
+noticed it, Angelica?"
+
+Without replying to his question, Angelica rested her head against the
+pink velvet cushion, and turned a gentle, uncomprehending stare on his
+face. It was her most disconcerting expression, for in the soft
+blankness and immobility of her look, he read a rebuke which she was
+either too amiable or too well-bred to utter. He wondered what he had
+done that was wrong, and, in the very instant of wondering, he felt
+himself grow confused and angry and aggressive. This was always the
+effect of her stare and her silence--for nature had provided her with an
+invincible weapon in her mere lack of volubility--and when she used it
+as deliberately as she did now, she could, without speaking a syllable,
+goad him to the very limit of his endurance. It was as if her delicate
+hands played on his nerves and evoked an emotional discord.
+
+"Have you noticed that Mary is not well?" he asked sharply, and while he
+spoke, he became aware that Alan's face had lost its friendliness.
+
+"No, I had not noticed it." Her voice dropped as softly as liquid honey
+from her lips. "I thought her looking very well and cheerful at tea."
+She spoke without movement or gesture; but the patient and resigned
+droop of her figure, the sad grey eyes, and the hurt quiver of her
+eyelashes, implied the reproach she had been too gentle to put into
+words. The contrast with her meekness made him appear rough and harsh;
+yet the knowledge of this, instead of softening him, only increased his
+sense of humiliation and bitterness.
+
+"Perhaps, then, there is no need of my speaking to her?" he said.
+
+"It might please her." She was sympathetic now about Mary. "I am sure
+that she would like to know how anxious you are."
+
+For the first time since he had entered the room she was smiling, and
+this slow, rare smile threw a golden radiance over her features. He
+thought, as Caroline had done several afternoons ago, that her beauty,
+which had grown a little dim and pale during the autumn, had come back
+with an April colour and freshness. Not only her hair and eyes, but the
+ivory tint of her skin seemed to shine with a new lustre, as if from
+some hidden fire that was burning within. For a minute the old appeal to
+his senses returned, and he felt again the beat and quiver of his pulses
+which her presence used to arouse. Then his mind won the victory, and
+the emotion faded to ashes before its warmth had passed to his heart.
+
+"I'll go and find her," he said again, with the awkwardness he always
+showed when he was with her.
+
+Her smile vanished, and she leaned forward with an entreating gesture,
+which flowed through all the slender, exquisite lines of her body.
+Instinctively he knew that she had not finished with him yet; that she
+was not ready to let him go until he had served some inscrutable purpose
+which she had had in view from the beginning. His mind was not trained
+to recognize subtleties of intention or thought; and while he waited for
+her to reveal herself, he began wondering what she could possibly want
+with him now? Clearly it was all part of some intricate scheme; yet it
+appeared incredible to his blunter perceptions that she should exhaust
+the resources of her intelligence merely for the empty satisfaction of
+impressing Mary's lover.
+
+"David," she began in a pleading tone, "aren't you going to have tea
+with me?"
+
+"I had it upstairs." He was baffled and at bay before an attack which he
+could not understand.
+
+"In the nursery?" Her voice trembled slightly.
+
+"Yes, in the nursery." As if she had ever expected or desired him to
+interrupt her amusements!
+
+"Was Cousin Matty up there?" Though he was still unable to define her
+motive, his ears detected the faint note of suspense that ruffled the
+thin, clear quality of her voice.
+
+"No, only Letty and Miss Meade."
+
+A tremor crossed her face, as if he had struck her; then she said, not
+reproachfully, but with a pathetic air of self-effacement and humility,
+"Miss Meade is very intelligent. I am so glad you have found someone you
+like to talk to. I know I am dull about politics." And her eyes added
+wistfully, "It isn't my fault that I am not so clever."
+
+"Yes, she is intelligent," he answered drily; and then, still mystified
+and dully resentful because he could not understand, he turned and went
+out as abruptly as he had entered.
+
+While his footsteps passed through the long front drawing-room and
+across the hall, Angelica remained motionless, with her head bent a
+little sadly, as if she were listening to the echo of some
+half-forgotten sorrow. Then, sighing gently, she looked from Alan into
+the fire, and reluctantly back at Alan again. She seemed impulsively,
+against her will and her conscience, to turn to him for understanding
+and sympathy; and at the sight of her unspoken appeal, he threw himself
+on the rug at her feet, and exclaimed in a strangled voice,
+
+"You are unhappy!" With these three words, into which he seemed to put
+infinity, he had broken down the walls of reticence that divide human
+souls from each other. She was unhappy! Before this one torrential
+discovery all the restraints of habit and tradition, of conscience and
+honour, vanished like the imperfect structures of man in the rage of the
+hurricane.
+
+She shivered, and looked at him with a long frightened gaze. There was
+no rebellion, there was only a passive sadness in her face. She was too
+weak, her eyes said, to contend with unhappiness. Some stronger hands
+than hers must snatch her from her doom if she were to be rescued.
+
+"How can I be happy?" The words were wrung slowly from her lips. "You
+see how it is?"
+
+"Yes, I see." He honestly imagined that he did. "I see it all, and it
+makes me desperate. It is unbelievable that any one should make you
+suffer."
+
+She shook her head and answered in a whisper, "It is partly my fault.
+Whatever happens, I always try to remember that, and be just. The first
+mistake may have been mine."
+
+"Yours?" he exclaimed passionately, and then dropping his face into his
+hands, "If only I were not powerless to protect you!"
+
+For a moment, after his smothered cry, she said nothing. Then, with an
+exquisite gesture of renunciation, she put the world and its temptations
+away from her. "We are both powerless," she responded firmly, "and now
+you must read me the rest of your play, or I shall be obliged to send
+you home."
+
+Blackburn, meanwhile, had stopped outside on his way to the stable, and
+stood looking across the garden for some faint prospect of a clearer
+to-morrow. Overhead the winter sky was dull and leaden; but in the west
+a thin silver line edged the horizon, and his gaze hung on this thread
+of light, as if it were prophetic not only of sunshine, but of
+happiness. Already he was blaming himself for the scene with Angelica;
+already he was resolving to make a stronger effort at reconciliation and
+understanding, to win her back in spite of herself, to be patient,
+sympathetic, and generous, rather than just, in his judgment of her. In
+his more philosophical moments he beheld her less as the vehicle of
+personal disenchantment, than as the unfortunate victim of a false
+system, of a ruinous upbringing. She had been taught to grasp until
+grasping had become not so much a habit of gesture, as a reflex movement
+of soul--an involuntary reaction to the nerve stimulus of her
+surroundings.
+
+Though he had learned that the sight of any object she did not own
+immediately awoke in her the instinct of possession, he still told
+himself, in hours of tolerance, that this weakness of nature was the
+result of early poverty and lack of mental discipline, and that
+disappointment with material things would develop her character as
+inevitably as it would destroy her physical charm. So far, he was
+obliged to admit, she had risen superior to any disillusionment from
+possession, with the ironic exception of that brief moment when she had
+possessed his adoration; yet, in spite of innumerable failures, it was
+characteristic of the man that he should cling stubbornly to his belief
+in some secret inherent virtue in her nature, as he had clung, when love
+failed him, to the frail sentiments of habit and association. The
+richness of her beauty had blinded him for so long to the poverty of her
+heart, that, even to-day, bruised and humiliated as he was, he found
+himself suddenly hoping that she might some day change miraculously into
+the woman he had believed her to be. The old half-forgotten yearning for
+her swept over him while he thought of her, the yearning to kneel at her
+feet, to kiss her hands, to lift his eyes and see her bending like an
+angel above him. And in his thoughts she came back to him, not as she
+was in reality, but as he longed for her to be. With one of those
+delusive impersonations of memory, which torment the heart after the
+mind has rejected them, she came back to him with her hands outstretched
+to bless, not to grasp, and a look of goodness and love in her face.
+
+He remembered his first meeting with her--the close, over-heated rooms,
+the empty faces, the loud, triumphant music; and then suddenly she had
+bloomed there, like a white flower, in the midst of all that was
+ineffectual and meaningless. One minute he had been lonely, tired,
+depressed, and the next he was rested and happy and full of wild,
+startled dreams of the future. She had been girlish and shy and just a
+little aloof--all the feminine graces adorned her--and he had
+surrendered in the traditional masculine way. Afterwards he discovered
+that she had intended from the first instant to marry him; but on that
+evening he had seen only her faint, reluctant flight from his rising
+emotion. She had played the game so well; she had used the ancient decoy
+so cleverly, that it had taken years to tear the veil of illusion from
+the bare structure of method. For he knew now that she had been
+methodical, that she had been utterly unemotional; and that her angelic
+virtue had been mere thinness of temperament. Never for a moment had she
+been real, never had she been natural; and he admitted, in the passing
+mood of confession, that if she had once been natural--as natural as the
+woman upstairs--the chances were that she would never have won him.
+Manlike, he would have turned from the blade-straight nature to pursue
+the beckoning angel of the faint reluctance. If she had stooped but for
+an instant, if she had given him so much as the touch of her fingers,
+she might have lost him. Life, not instinct, had taught him the beauty
+of sincerity in woman, the grace of generosity. In his youth, it was
+woman as mystery, woman as destroyer, to whom he had surrendered.
+
+Descending the steps from the terrace, he walked slowly along the brick
+way to the stable, where he found Mary giving medicine to her favourite
+horse.
+
+"Briar Rose has a bad cough, David."
+
+He asked a few questions, and then, when the dose was administered, they
+turned together, and strolled back through the garden. Mary looked cross
+and anxious, and he could tell by the way she spoke in short jerks that
+her nerves were not steady. Her tone of chaffing had lost its ease, and
+the effort she made to appear flippant seemed to hurt her.
+
+"Are you all right again, Mary?"
+
+"Quite all right. Why shouldn't I be?"
+
+"There's no reason that I know of," he replied seriously. "Have you
+decided when you will be married?"
+
+She winced as if he had touched a nerve. "No, we haven't decided." For a
+minute she walked on quickly, then looking up with a defiant smile, she
+said, "I am not sure that we are ever going to be married."
+
+So the trouble was out at last! He breathed heavily, overcome by some
+indefinable dread. After all, why should Mary's words have disturbed him
+so deeply? The chances were, he told himself, that it was nothing more
+than the usual lovers' quarrel.
+
+"My dear, Alan is a good fellow. Don't let anything make trouble between
+you."
+
+"Oh, I know he is a good fellow--only--only I am not sure we--we should
+be happy together. I don't care about books, and he doesn't care any
+longer for horses----"
+
+"As if these things mattered! You've got the fundamental thing, haven't
+you?"
+
+"The fundamental thing?" She was deliberately evading him--she, the
+straightforward Mary!
+
+"I mean, of course, that you care for each other."
+
+At this she broke down, and threw out her hands with a gesture of
+despair. "I don't know. I used to think so, but I don't know any
+longer," she answered, and fled from him into the house.
+
+As he looked after her he felt the obscure doubt struggling again in his
+mind, and with it there returned the minor problem of his financial
+difficulties, and the conversation he must sooner or later have with
+Angelica. Nothing in his acquaintance with Angelica had surprised him
+more than the discovery that, except in the embellishment of her own
+attractions, she could be not only prudent, but stingy. Even her
+extravagance--if a habit of spending that exacted an adequate return for
+every dollar could be called extravagance--was cautious and cold like
+her temperament, as if Nature had decreed that she should possess no
+single attribute of soul in abundance. No impulse had ever swept her
+away, not even the impulse to grasp. She had always calculated, always
+schemed with her mind, not her senses, always moved slowly and
+deliberately toward her purpose. She would never speak the truth, he
+knew, just as she would never over-step a convention, because
+truthfulness and unconventionality would have interfered equally with
+the success of her designs. Life had become for her only a pedestal
+which supported an image; and this image, as unlike the actual Angelica
+as a Christmas angel is unlike a human being, was reflected, in all its
+tinselled glory, in the minds of her neighbours. Before the world she
+would be always blameless, wronged, and forgiving. He knew these things
+with his mind, yet there were moments even now when his heart still
+desired her.
+
+An hour later, when he entered her sitting-room, he found her, in a blue
+robe, on the sofa in front of the fire. Of late he had noticed that she
+seldom lay down in the afternoon, and as she was not a woman of moods,
+he was surprised that she had broken so easily through a habit which had
+become as fixed as a religious observance.
+
+"It doesn't look as if you had had much rest to-day," he said, as he
+entered.
+
+She looked up with an expression that struck him as incongruously
+triumphant. Though at another time he would have accepted this as an
+auspicious omen, he wondered now, after the episode of the afternoon, if
+she were merely gathering her forces for a fresh attack. He shrank from
+approaching her on the subject of economy, because experience had taught
+him that her first idea of saving would be to cut down the wages of the
+servants; and he had a disturbing recollection that she had met his last
+suggestion that they should reduce expenses with a reminder that it was
+unnecessary to employ a trained nurse to look after Letty. When she
+wanted to strike hardest, she invariably struck through the child.
+Though she was not clever, she had been sharp enough to discover the
+chink in his armour.
+
+"Did you find Mary?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, she seems out of sorts. What is the trouble between her and Alan?"
+
+"Is there any trouble?" She appeared surprised.
+
+"I fear so. She told me she was not sure that they were going to be
+married."
+
+"Did she say that?"
+
+"She said it, but she may not have meant it. I cannot understand."
+
+Angelica pondered his words. "Well, I've noticed lately that she wasn't
+very nice to him."
+
+"But she was wildly in love with him. She cannot have changed so
+suddenly."
+
+"Why not?" She raised her eyebrows slightly. "People do change, don't
+they?"
+
+"Not when they are like Mary." With a gesture of perplexity, he put the
+subject away from him. "What I really came to tell you isn't very much
+better," he said. "Of late, since the war began, things have been going
+rather badly with me. I dare say I'll manage to pull up sooner or later,
+but every interest in which I am heavily involved has been more or less
+affected by the condition of the country. If we should go into this
+war----"
+
+She looked up sharply. "Don't you think we can manage to keep out of
+it?"
+
+"To keep out of it?" Even now there were moments when she astonished
+him.
+
+For the first time in months her impatience got the better of her. "Oh,
+I know, of course, that you would like us to fight Germany; but it seems
+to me that if you stopped to think of all the suffering it would
+mean----"
+
+"I do stop to think."
+
+"Then there isn't any use talking!"
+
+"Not about that; but considering the uncertainty of the immediate
+future, don't you think we might try, in some way, to cut down a bit?"
+
+Turning away from him, she gazed thoughtfully into the fire. "If it is
+really necessary----?"
+
+"It may become necessary at any moment."
+
+At this she looked straight up at him. "Well, since Letty is so much
+better, I am sure that there is no need for us to keep a trained nurse
+for her."
+
+She had aimed squarely, and he flinched at the blow. "But the child is
+so happy."
+
+"She would be just as happy with any one else."
+
+"No other nurse has ever done so much for her. Why, she has been like a
+different child since Miss Meade came to her."
+
+While he spoke he became aware that she was looking at him as she had
+looked in the drawing-room.
+
+"Then you refuse positively to let me send Miss Meade away?"
+
+"I refuse positively, once and for all."
+
+Her blank, uncomprehending stare followed him as he turned and went out
+of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE MARTYR
+
+
+A fortnight later light was thrown on Blackburn's perplexity by a shrewd
+question from Mrs. Timberlake. For days he had been groping in darkness,
+and now, in one instant, it seemed to him that his discovery leaped out
+in a veritable blaze of electricity. How could he have gone on in
+ignorance? How could he have stumbled, with unseeing eyes, over the
+heart of the problem?
+
+"David," said the housekeeper bluntly, "don't you think that this thing
+has been going on long enough?" They were in the library, and before
+putting the question, she had closed the door and even glanced
+suspiciously at the windows.
+
+"This thing?" He looked up from his newspaper, with the vague idea that
+she was about to discourse upon our diplomatic correspondence with
+Germany.
+
+"I am not talking about the President's notes." Her voice had grown
+rasping. "He may write as many as he pleases, if they will make the
+Germans behave themselves without our having to go to war. What I mean
+is the way Mary is eating her heart out. Haven't you noticed it?"
+
+"I have been worried about her for some time." He laid the paper down on
+the desk. "But I haven't been able to discover what is the matter."
+
+"If you had asked me two months ago, I could have told you it was about
+that young fool Alan."
+
+"About Wythe? Why, I thought she and Wythe were particularly devoted."
+If he were sparring for time, there was no hint of it in his manner. It
+really looked, the housekeeper told herself grimly, as if he had not
+seen the thing that was directly before his eyes until she had pointed
+it out to him.
+
+"They were," she answered tartly, "at one time."
+
+"Well, what is the trouble now? A lovers' quarrel?"
+
+It was a guiding principle with Mrs. Timberlake that when her conscience
+drove her she never looked at her road; and true to this intemperate
+practice, she plunged now straight ahead. "The trouble is that Alan has
+been making a fool of himself over Angelica." It was the first time that
+she had implied the faintest criticism of his wife, and as soon as she
+had uttered the words, her courage evaporated, and she relapsed into her
+attitude of caustic reticence. Even her figure, in its rusty black,
+looked shrunken and huddled.
+
+"So that is it!" His voice was careless and indifferent. "You mean he
+has been flattered because she has let him read his plays to her?"
+
+"He hasn't known when to stop. If something isn't done, he will go on
+reading them for ever."
+
+"Well, if Angelica enjoys them?"
+
+"But it makes Mary very unhappy. Can't you see that she is breaking her
+heart over it?"
+
+"Angelica doesn't know." He might have been stating a fact about one of
+the belligerent nations.
+
+"Oh, of course." She grasped at the impersonal note, but it escaped her.
+"If she only knew, she could so easily stop it."
+
+"So you think if someone were to mention it?"
+
+"That is why I came to you. I thought you might manage to drop a word
+that would let Angelica see how much it is hurting Mary. She wouldn't
+want to hurt Mary just for the sake of a little amusement. The plays
+can't be so very important, or they would be on the stage, wouldn't
+they?"
+
+"Could you tell her, do you think?" It was the first time he had ever
+attempted to evade a disagreeable duty, and the question surprised her.
+
+"Angelica wouldn't listen to a word I said. She'd just think I'd made it
+up, and I reckon it does look like a tempest in a teapot."
+
+He met this gravely. "Well, it is natural that she shouldn't take a
+thing like that seriously."
+
+"Yes, it's natural." She conceded the point ungrudgingly. "I believe
+Angelica would die before she would do anything really wrong."
+
+If he accepted this in silence, it was not because the tribute to
+Angelica's character appeared to him to constitute an unanswerable
+argument. During the weeks when he had been groping his way to firmer
+ground, he had passed beyond the mental boundaries in which Angelica and
+her standards wore any longer the aspect of truth. He knew them to be
+not only artificial, but false; and Mrs. Timberlake's praise was
+scarcely more than a hollow echo from the world that he had left. That
+Angelica, who would lie and cheat for an advantage, could be held,
+through mere coldness of nature, to be above "doing anything really
+wrong," was a fallacy which had once deluded his heart, but failed now
+to convince his intelligence. Once he had believed in the sacred myth of
+her virtue; now, brought close against the deeper realities, he saw
+that her virtue was only a negation, and that true goodness must be,
+above all things, an affirmation of spirit.
+
+"I'll see what I can do," he said, and wondered why the words had not
+worn threadbare.
+
+"You mean you'll speak to Angelica?" Her relief rasped his nerves.
+
+"Yes, I'll speak to Angelica."
+
+"Don't you think it would be better to talk first to Mary?"
+
+Before replying, he thought over this carefully. "Perhaps it would be
+better. Will you tell her that I'd like to see her immediately?"
+
+She nodded and went out quickly, and it seemed to him that the door had
+barely closed before it opened again, and Mary came in with a brave step
+and a manner of unnatural alertness and buoyancy.
+
+"David, do you really think we are going to have war?" It was an awkward
+evasion, but she had not learned either to evade or equivocate
+gracefully.
+
+"I think we are about to break off diplomatic relations----"
+
+"And that means war, doesn't it?"
+
+"Who knows?" He made a gesture of impatience. "You are trying to climb
+up on the knees of the gods."
+
+"I want to go," she replied breathlessly, "whether we have war or not, I
+want to go to France. Will you help me?"
+
+"Of course I will help you."
+
+"I mean will you give me money?"
+
+"I will give you anything I've got. It isn't so much as it used to be."
+
+"It will be enough for me. I want to go at once--next week--to-morrow."
+
+He looked at her attentively, his grave, lucid eyes ranging thoughtfully
+over her strong, plain face, which had grown pale and haggard, over her
+boyish figure, which had grown thin and wasted.
+
+"Mary," he said suddenly, "what is the trouble? Is it an honest desire
+for service or is it--the open door?"
+
+For a minute she looked at him with frightened eyes; then breaking down
+utterly, she buried her face in her hands and turned from him. "Oh,
+David, I must get away! I cannot live unless I get away!"
+
+"From Briarlay?"
+
+"From Briarlay, but most of all--oh, most of all," she brought this out
+with passion, "from Alan!"
+
+"Then you no longer care for him?"
+
+Instead of answering his question, she dashed the tears from her eyes,
+and threw back her head with a gesture that reminded him of the old
+boyish Mary. "Will you let me go, David?"
+
+"Not until you have told me the truth."
+
+"But what is the truth?" She cried out, with sudden anger. "Do you
+suppose I am the kind of woman to talk of a man's being 'taken away,' as
+if he were a loaf of bread to be handed from one woman to another? If he
+had ever been what I believed him, do you imagine that any one could
+have 'taken' him? Is there any man on earth who could have taken me from
+Alan?"
+
+"What has made the trouble, Mary?" He put the question very slowly, as
+if he were weighing every word that he uttered.
+
+She flung the pretense aside as bravely as she had dashed the tears
+from her eyes. "Of course I have known all along that she was only
+flirting--that she was only playing the game----"
+
+"Then you think that the young fool has been taking Angelica too
+seriously?"
+
+At this her anger flashed out again. "Seriously enough to make me break
+my engagement!"
+
+"All because he likes to read his plays to her?"
+
+"All because he imagines her to be misunderstood and unhappy and
+ill-treated. Oh, David, will you never wake up? How much longer are you
+going to walk about the world in your sleep? No one has said a breath
+against Angelica--no one ever will--she isn't that kind. But unless you
+wish Alan to be ruined, you must send him away."
+
+"Isn't she the one to send him away?"
+
+"Then go to her. Go to her now, and tell her that she must do it
+to-day."
+
+"Yes, I will tell her that." Even while he spoke the words which would
+have once wrung his heart, he was visited by that strange flashing sense
+of unreality, of the insignificance and transitoriness of Angelica's
+existence. Like Mrs. Timberlake's antiquated standards of virtue, she
+belonged to a world which might vanish while he watched it and leave him
+still surrounded by the substantial structure of life.
+
+"Then tell her now. I hear her in the hall," said Mary brusquely, as she
+turned away.
+
+"It is not likely that she will come in here," he answered, but the
+words were scarcely spoken before Angelica's silvery tones floated to
+them.
+
+"David, may I come in? I have news for you." An instant later, as Mary
+went out, with her air of arrogant sincerity, a triumphant figure in
+grey velvet passed her in the doorway.
+
+"I saw Robert and Cousin Charles a moment ago, and they told me that we
+had really broken off relations with Germany----"
+
+She had not meant to linger over the news, but while she was speaking,
+he crossed the room and closed the door gently behind her.
+
+"Don't you think now we have done all that is necessary?" she demanded
+triumphantly. "Cousin Charles says we have vindicated our honour at
+last."
+
+Blackburn smiled slightly. The sense of unreality, which had been vague
+and fugitive a moment before, rolled over and enveloped him. "It is
+rather like refusing to bow to a man who has murdered one's wife."
+
+A frown clouded her face. "Oh, I know all you men are hoping for war,
+even Alan, and you would think an artist would see things differently."
+
+"Do you think Alan is hoping for it?"
+
+"Aren't you every one except Cousin Charles? Robert told me just now
+that Virginia is beginning to boil over. He believes the country will
+force the President's hand. Oh, I wonder if the world will ever be sane
+and safe again?"
+
+He was watching her so closely that he appeared to be drinking in the
+sound of her voice and the sight of her loveliness; yet never for an
+instant did he lose the feeling that she was as ephemeral as a tinted
+cloud or a perfume.
+
+"Angelica," he said abruptly, "Mary has just told me that she has broken
+her engagement to Alan."
+
+Tiny sparks leaped to her eyes. "Well, I suppose they wouldn't have been
+happy together----"
+
+"Do you know why she did it?"
+
+"Do I know why?" She looked at him inquiringly. "How could I know? She
+has not told me."
+
+"Has Alan said anything to you about it?"
+
+"Why, yes, he told me that she had broken it."
+
+"And did he tell you why?"
+
+She was becoming irritated by the cross examination. "No, why should he
+tell me? It is their affair, isn't it? Now, if that is all, I must go.
+Alan has brought the first act of a new play, and he wants my opinion."
+
+The finishing thrust was like her, for she could be bold enough when she
+was sure of her weapons. Even now, though he knew her selfishness, it
+was incredible to him that she should be capable of destroying Mary's
+happiness when she could gain nothing by doing it. Of course if there
+were some advantage----
+
+"Alan can wait," he said bluntly. "Angelica, can't you see that this has
+gone too far, this nonsense of Alan's?"
+
+"This nonsense?" She raised her eyebrows. "Do you call his plays
+nonsense?"
+
+"I call his plays humbug. What must stop is his folly about you. When
+Mary goes, you must send him away."
+
+Her smile was like the sharp edge of a knife. "So it is Alan now? It was
+poor Roane only yesterday."
+
+"It is poor Roane to-day as much as it ever was. But Alan must stop
+coming here."
+
+"And why, if I may ask?"
+
+"You cannot have understood, or you would have stopped it."
+
+"I should have stopped what?"
+
+He met her squarely. "Alan's infatuation--for he is infatuated, isn't
+he?"
+
+"Do you mean with me?" Her indignant surprise almost convinced him of
+her ignorance. "Who has told you that?"
+
+She was holding a muff of silver fox, and she gazed down at it, stroking
+the fur gently, while she waited for him to answer. He noticed that her
+long slender fingers--she had the hand as well as the figure of one of
+Botticelli's Graces--were perfectly steady.
+
+"That was the reason that Mary broke her engagement," he responded.
+
+"Did she tell you that?"
+
+"Yes, she told me. She said she knew that you had not meant it--that
+Alan had lost his head----"
+
+Her voice broke in suddenly with a gasp of outraged amazement. "And you
+ask me to send Alan away because you are jealous? You ask me
+this--after--after----" Her attitude of indignant virtue was so
+impressive that, for a moment, he found himself wondering if he had
+wronged her--if he had actually misunderstood and neglected her?
+
+"You must see for yourself, Angelica, that this cannot go on."
+
+"You dare to turn on me like this!" She cried out so clearly that he
+started and looked at the door in apprehension. "You dare to accuse me
+of ruining Mary's happiness--after all I have suffered--after all I have
+stood from you----"
+
+As her voice rose in its piercing sweetness, it occurred to him for the
+first time that she might wish to be overheard, that she might be making
+this scene less for his personal benefit than for its effect upon an
+invisible audience. It was the only time he had ever known her to
+sacrifice her inherent fastidiousness, and descend to vulgar methods of
+warfare, and he was keen enough to infer that the prize must be
+tremendous to compensate for so evident a humiliation.
+
+"I accuse you of nothing," he said, lowering his tone in the effort to
+reduce hers to a conversational level. "For your own sake, I ask you to
+be careful."
+
+But he had unchained the lightning, and it flashed out to destroy him.
+"You dare to say this to me--you who refused to send Miss Meade away
+though I begged you to----"
+
+"To send Miss Meade away?" The attack was so unexpected that he wavered
+before it. "What has Miss Meade to do with it?"
+
+"You refused to send her away. You positively refused when I asked you."
+
+"Yes, I refused. But Miss Meade is Letty's nurse. What has she to do
+with Mary and Alan?"
+
+"Oh, are you still trying to deceive me?" For an instant he thought she
+was going to burst into tears. "You knew you were spending too much time
+in the nursery--that you went when Cousin Matty was not there--Alan
+heard you admit it--you knew that I wanted to stop it, and you
+refused--you insisted----"
+
+But his anger had overpowered him now, and he caught her arm roughly in
+a passionate desire to silence the hideous sound of her words, to thrust
+back the horror that she was spreading on the air--out into the world
+and the daylight.
+
+"Stop, Angelica, or----"
+
+Suddenly, without warning, she shrieked aloud, a shriek that seemed to
+his ears to pierce, not only the ceiling, but the very roof of the
+house. As he stood there, still helplessly holding her arm, which had
+grown limp in his grasp, he became aware that the door opened quickly
+and Alan came into the room.
+
+"I heard a cry--I thought----"
+
+Angelica's eyes were closed, but at the sound of Alan's voice, she
+raised her lids and looked at him with a frightened and pleading gaze.
+
+"I cried out. I am sorry," she said meekly. Without glancing at
+Blackburn, she straightened herself, and walked, with short, wavering
+steps, out of the room.
+
+For a minute the two men faced each other in silence; then Alan made an
+impetuous gesture of indignation and followed Angelica.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE CHOICE
+
+
+"Looks as if we were going to war, Blackburn." It was the beginning of
+April, and Robert Colfax had stopped on the steps of his club.
+
+"It has looked that way for the last thirty-two months."
+
+"Well, beware the anger--or isn't it the fury?--of the patient man. It
+has to come at last. We've been growling too long not to spring--and my
+only regret is that, as long as we're going to war, we didn't go soon
+enough to get into the fight. I'd like to have had a chance at potting a
+German. Every man in town is feeling like that to-day."
+
+"You think it will be over before we get an army to France?"
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it. It will be nothing more than a paper war to a
+finish."
+
+A good many Virginians were thinking that way. Blackburn was not sure
+that he hadn't thought that way himself for the last two or three
+months. Everywhere he heard regrets that it was too late to have a share
+in the actual whipping of Germany--that we were only going to fight a
+decorous and inglorious war on paper. Suddenly, in a night, as it were,
+the war spirit in Virginia had flared out. There was not the emotional
+blaze--the flaming heat--older men said--of the Confederacy; but there
+was an ever-burning, insistent determination to destroy the roots of
+this evil black flower of Prussian autocracy. There was no hatred of
+Austria--little even of Turkey. The Prussian spirit was the foe of
+America and of the world; and it was against the Prussian spirit that
+the militant soul of Virginia was springing to arms. Men who had talked
+peace a few months before--who had commended the nation that was "too
+proud to fight," who had voted for the President because of the slogan
+"he kept us out of war"--had now swung round dramatically with the
+_volte-face_ of the Government. The President had at last committed
+himself to a war policy, and all over the world Americans were awaiting
+the great word from Congress. In an hour personal interests had
+dissolved into an impersonal passion of service. In an hour opposing
+currents of thought had flowed into a single dominant purpose, and the
+President, who had once stood for a party, stood now for America.
+
+For, in a broader vision, the spirit of Virginia was the spirit of all
+America. There were many, it is true, who had not, in the current
+phrase, begun to realize what war would mean to them; there were many
+who still doubted, or were indifferent, because the battle had not been
+fought at their doorstep; but as a whole the country stood determined,
+quiet, armed in righteousness, and waited for the great word from
+Congress.
+
+And over the whole country, from North to South, from East to West, the
+one question never asked was, "What will America get out of it when it
+is over?"
+
+"By Jove, if we do get into any actual fighting, I mean to go," said
+Robert, "I am not yet thirty."
+
+Blackburn looked at him enviously. "It's rotten on us middle-aged
+fellows. Isn't there a hole of some sort a man of forty-three can stop
+up?"
+
+"Of course they've come to more than that in England."
+
+"We may come to it here if the war keeps up--but that isn't likely."
+
+"No, that isn't likely unless Congress dies talking. Why, for God's
+sake, can't we strangle the pacifists for once? Nobody would grieve for
+them."
+
+"Oh, if liberty isn't for fools, it isn't liberty. I suppose the supreme
+test of our civilization, is that we let people go on talking when we
+don't agree with them."
+
+It was, in reality, only a few days that Congress was taking to define
+and emphasize the President's policy, but these days were interminable
+to a nation that waited. Talk was ruining the country, people said.
+Thirty-two months of talking were enough even for an American Congress.
+It was as much as a man's reputation was worth to vote against the war;
+it was more than it was worth to give his reasons for so voting. There
+was tension everywhere, yet there was a strange muffled quiet--the quiet
+before the storm.
+
+"We are too late for the fun," said Robert. "Germany will back down as
+soon as she sees we are in earnest." This was what every one was saying,
+and Blackburn heard it again when he left Colfax and went into the club.
+
+"The pity is we shan't have time to get a man over to France. It's all
+up to the navy."
+
+"The British navy, you mean? Where'd we be now but for the British
+navy?"
+
+"Well, thank God, the note writing is over!"
+
+There was determination enough; but the older men were right--there was
+none of the flame and ardour of secession days. The war was realized
+vaguely as a principle rather than as a fact. It was the difference
+between fighting for abstract justice and knocking down a man in hot
+blood because he has affronted one's wife. The will to strike was all
+there, only one did not see red when one delivered the blow. Righteous
+indignation, not personal rage, was in the mind of America.
+
+"We aren't mad yet," remarked an old Confederate soldier to Blackburn.
+"Just wait till they get us as mad as we were at Manassas, and we'll
+show the Germans!"
+
+"You mean wait until they drop bombs on New York instead of London?"
+
+"Good Lord, no. Just wait until our boys have seen, not read, about the
+things they are doing."
+
+So there were a few who expected an American army to reach France before
+the end of the war.
+
+"Never mind about taxes. We must whip the Huns, and we can afford to pay
+the bills!"
+
+For here as elsewhere the one question never asked was, "What are we
+going to get out of it?"
+
+Prosperity was after all a secondary interest. Underneath was the
+permanent idealism of the American mind.
+
+When Blackburn reached Briarlay, he found Letty and Caroline walking
+under the budding trees in the lane, and stopping his car, he got out
+and strolled slowly back with them to the house. The shimmer and
+fragrance of spring was in the air, and on the ground crowds of golden
+crocuses were unfolding.
+
+"Father, will you go to war if Uncle Roane does?" asked Letty, as she
+slipped her hand into Blackburn's and looked up, with her thoughtful
+child's eyes, into his face. "Uncle Roane says he is going to whip the
+Germans for me."
+
+"I'll go, if they'll take me, Letty. Your Uncle Roane is ten years
+younger than I am." At the moment the war appeared to him, as it had
+appeared to Mary, as the open door--the way of escape from an
+intolerable situation; but he put this idea resolutely out of his mind.
+There was a moral cowardice in using impersonal issues as an excuse for
+the evasion of personal responsibility.
+
+"But you could fight better than he could, father."
+
+"I am inclined to agree with you. Perhaps the Government will think that
+way soon."
+
+"Alan is going, too. Mother begged him not to, but he said he just had
+to go. Mammy Riah says the feeling is in his bones, and he can't help
+it. When a feeling gets into your bones you have to do what it tells
+you."
+
+"It looks as if Mammy Riah knew something about it."
+
+"But if you go and Alan goes and Uncle Roane goes, what will become of
+mother?"
+
+"You will have to take care of her, Letty, you and Miss Meade."
+
+Caroline, who had been walking in silence on the other side of the road,
+turned her head at the words. She was wearing a blue serge suit and a
+close-fitting hat of blue straw, and her eyes were as fresh and
+spring-like as the April sky.
+
+"There is no doubt about war, is there?" she asked.
+
+"It may come at any hour. Whether it will mean an American army in
+France or not, no one can say; but we shall have to furnish munitions,
+if not men, as fast as we can turn them out."
+
+"Mr. Peyton said this morning it would be impossible to send men because
+we hadn't the ships."
+
+Blackburn laughed. "Then, if necessary, we will do the impossible." It
+was the voice of America. Everywhere at that hour men were saying, "We
+will do the impossible."
+
+"I should like to go," said Caroline. "I should like above all things to
+go."
+
+They had stopped in the road, and still holding Letty's hand, he looked
+over her head at Caroline's face. "Miss Meade, will you make me a
+promise?"
+
+Clear and radiant and earnest, her eyes held his gaze.
+"Unconditionally?"
+
+"No, the conditions I leave to you. Will you promise?"
+
+"I will promise." She had not lowered her eyes, and he had not looked
+away from her. Her face was pale, and in the fading sunlight he could
+see the little blue veins on her temples and the look of stern sweetness
+that sorrow had chiselled about her mouth. More than ever it seemed to
+him the face of a strong and fervent spirit rather than the face of a
+woman. So elusive was her beauty that he could say of no single feature,
+except her eyes, "Her charm lies here--or here----" yet the impression
+she gave him was one of magical loveliness. There was, he thought, a
+touch of the divine in her smile, as if her look drew its radiance from
+an inexhaustible source.
+
+"Will you promise me," he said, "that whatever happens, as long as it is
+possible, you will stay with Letty?"
+
+She waited a moment before she answered him, and he knew from her face
+that his words had touched the depths of her heart. "I promise you that
+for Letty's sake I will do the impossible," she answered.
+
+She gave him her hand, and he clasped it over the head of the child. It
+was one of those rare moments of perfect understanding and sympathy--of
+a mental harmony beside which all emotional rapture appears trivial and
+commonplace. He was aware of no appeal to his senses--life had taught
+him the futility of all purely physical charm--and the hand that touched
+Caroline's was as gentle and as firm as it had been when it rested on
+Letty's head. Here was a woman who had met life and conquered it, who
+could be trusted, he felt, to fight to the death to keep her spirit
+inviolate.
+
+"Only one thing will take me away from Letty," she said. "If we send an
+army and the country calls me."
+
+"That one thing is the only thing?"
+
+"The only thing unless," she laughed as if she were suggesting an
+incredible event, "unless you or Mrs. Blackburn should send me away!"
+
+To her surprise the ridiculous jest confused him. "Take care of Letty,"
+he responded quickly; and then, as they reached the porch, he dropped
+the child's hand, and went up the steps and into the house.
+
+In the library, by one of the windows which looked out on the terrace
+and the sunset, Colonel Ashburton was reading the afternoon paper, and
+as Blackburn entered, he rose and came over to the fireplace.
+
+"I was a little ahead of you, so I made myself at home, as you see," he
+observed, with his manner of antiquated formality. In the dim light his
+hair made a silvery halo above his blanched features, and it occurred to
+Blackburn that he had never seen him look quite so distinguished and
+detached from his age.
+
+"If I'd known you were coming, I should have arranged to get here
+earlier."
+
+"I didn't know it myself until it was too late to telephone you at the
+works." There was an unnatural constraint in his voice, and from the
+moment of his entrance, Blackburn had surmised that the Colonel's visit
+was not a casual one. The war news might have brought him; but it was
+not likely that he would have found the war news either disconcerting or
+embarrassing.
+
+"The news is good, isn't it?" inquired Blackburn, a little stiffly,
+because he could think of nothing else to say.
+
+"First rate. There isn't a doubt but we'll whip the Germans before
+autumn. It wasn't about the war, however, that I came."
+
+"There is something else then?"
+
+Before he replied Colonel Ashburton looked up gravely at the portrait of
+Blackburn's mother which hung over the mantelpiece. "Very like her, very
+like her," he remarked. "She was a few years older than I--but I'm
+getting on now--I'm getting on. That's the worst of being born between
+great issues. I was too young for the last war--just managed to be in
+one big battle before Lee surrendered--and I'm too old for this one. A
+peace Colonel doesn't amount to much, does he?" Then he looked sharply
+at Blackburn. "David," he asked in a curiously inanimate voice, "have
+you heard the things people are saying about you?"
+
+"I have heard nothing except what has been said to my face."
+
+"Then I may assume that the worst is still to be told you?"
+
+"You may safely assume that, I think."
+
+Again the Colonel's eyes were lifted to the portrait of Blackburn's
+mother. "There must be an answer to a thing like this, David," he said
+slowly. "There must be something that you can say."
+
+"Tell me what is said."
+
+Shaking the silvery hair from his forehead, the older man still gazed
+upward, as if he were interrogating the portrait--as if he were seeking
+guidance from the imperishable youth of the painted figure. Serene and
+soft as black pansies, the eyes of the picture looked down on him from a
+face that reminded him of a white roseleaf.
+
+"It is said"--he hesitated as if the words hurt him--"that your wife
+accuses you of cruelty. I don't know how the stories started, but I have
+waited until they reached a point where I felt that they must be
+stopped--or answered. For the sake of your future--of your work--you
+must say something, David."
+
+While he listened Blackburn had walked slowly to the window, gazing out
+on the afterglow, where some soft clouds, like clusters of lilacs, hung
+low above the dark brown edge of the horizon. For a moment, after the
+voice ceased, he still stood there in silence. Then wheeling abruptly,
+he came back to the hearth where the Colonel was waiting.
+
+"Is that all?" he asked.
+
+The Colonel made a gesture of despair. "It is rumoured that your wife is
+about to leave you."
+
+Blackburn looked at him intently. "If it is only a rumour----"
+
+"But a man's reputation may be destroyed by a rumour."
+
+"Is there anything else?"
+
+As he spoke it was evident to the other that his thoughts were not on
+his words.
+
+"I am your oldest friend. I was the friend of your mother--I believe in
+your vision--in your power of leadership. For the sake of the ideas we
+both try to serve, I have come to you--hating--dreading my task----"
+
+He stopped, his voice quivering as if from an emotion that defied his
+control, and in the silence that followed, Blackburn said quietly, "I
+thank you."
+
+"It is said--how this started no one knows, and I suppose it does not
+matter--that your wife called in the doctor to treat a bruise on her
+arm, and that she admitted to him that it came from a blow. Daisy Colfax
+was present, and it appears that she told the story, without malice, but
+indiscreetly, I gathered----"
+
+As he paused there were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and his
+lip trembled slightly. It had been a difficult task, but, thank God, he
+told himself, he had been able to see it through. To his surprise,
+Blackburn's face had not changed. It still wore the look of immobility
+which seemed to the other to express nothing--and everything.
+
+"You must let me make some answer to these charges, David. The time has
+come when you must speak."
+
+For a moment longer Blackburn was silent. Then he said slowly, "What
+good will it do?"
+
+"But the lie, unless it is given back, will destroy not only you, but
+your cause. It will be used by your enemies. It will injure
+irretrievably the work you are trying to do. In the end it will drive
+you out of public life in Virginia."
+
+"If you only knew how differently I am coming to think of these things,"
+said Blackburn presently, and he added after a pause, "If I cannot bear
+misunderstanding, how could I bear defeat?--for work like mine must lead
+to temporary defeat----"
+
+"Not defeat like this--not defeat that leaves your name tarnished."
+
+For the first time Blackburn's face showed emotion. "And you think that
+a public quarrel would clear it?" he asked bitterly.
+
+"But surely, without that, there could be a denial----"
+
+"There can be no other denial. There is but one way to meet a lie, and
+that way I cannot take."
+
+"Then things must go on, as they are, to the--end?"
+
+"I cannot stop them by talking. If it rests with me, they must go on."
+
+"At the cost of your career? Of your power for usefulness? Of your
+obligations to your country?"
+
+Turning his head, Blackburn looked away from him to the window, which
+had been left open. From the outside there floated suddenly the faint,
+provocative scent of spring--of nature which was renewing itself in the
+earth and the trees. "A career isn't as big a thing at forty-three as it
+is at twenty," he answered, with a touch of irony. "My power for
+usefulness must stand on its merits alone, and my chief obligation to my
+country, as I see it, is to preserve the integrity of my honour. We hear
+a great deal to-day about the personal not counting any longer; yet the
+fact remains that the one enduring corner-stone of the State is the
+personal rectitude of its citizens. You cannot build upon any other
+foundation, and build soundly. I may be wrong--I often am--but I must do
+what I believe to be right, let the consequences be what they will."
+
+Now that he had left the emotional issue behind him, the immobility had
+passed from his manner, and his thoughts were beginning to come with the
+abundance and richness that the Colonel associated with his public
+speeches. Already he had put the question of his marriage aside, as a
+fact which had been accepted and dismissed from his mind.
+
+"In these last few years--or months rather--I have begun to see things
+differently," he resumed, with an animation and intensity that
+contrasted strangely with his former constraint and dumbness. "I can't
+explain how it is, but this war has knocked a big hole in reality. We
+can look deeper into things than any generation before us, and the
+deeper we look, the more we become aware of the outer darkness in which
+we have been groping. I am groping now, I confess it, but I am groping
+for light."
+
+"It will leave a changed world when it is over," assented the Colonel,
+and he spoke the platitude with an accent of relief, as if he had just
+turned away from a sight that distressed him. "More changed, I believe,
+for us older ones than for the young who have done the actual fighting.
+I should like to write a book about that--the effect of the war on the
+minds of the non-combatants. The fighters have been too busy to think,
+and it is thought, after all, not action, that leaves the more permanent
+record. Life will spring again over the battle-fields, but the ideas
+born of the war will control the future destinies of mankind."
+
+"I am beginning to see," pursued Blackburn, as if he had not heard him,
+"that there is something far bigger than the beliefs we were working
+for. Because we had got beyond the sections to the country, you and I,
+we thought we were emancipated from the bondage of prejudice. The chief
+end of the citizen appeared to us to be the glory of the nation, but I
+see now--I am just beginning to see--that there is a greater spirit than
+the spirit of nationality. You can't live through a world war, even with
+an ocean between--and distance, by the way, may give us all the better
+perspective, and enable Americans to take a wider view than is possible
+to those who are directly in the path of the hurricane--you can't live
+through a world war, and continue to think in terms of geographical
+boundaries. To think about it at all, one must think in universal
+relations."
+
+He hesitated an instant, and then went on more rapidly, "After all, we
+cannot beat Germany by armies alone, we must beat her by thought. For
+two generations she has thought wrong, and it is only by thinking
+right--by forcing her to think right--that we can conquer her. The
+victory belongs to the nation that engraves its ideas indelibly upon the
+civilization of the future."
+
+Leaning back in the shadows, Colonel Ashburton gazed at him with a
+perplexed and questioning look. Was it possible that he had never
+understood him--that he did not understand him to-day? He had come to
+speak of an open scandal, of a name that might be irretrievably
+tarnished--and Blackburn had turned it aside by talking about universal
+relations!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ANGELICA'S TRIUMPH
+
+
+Caroline wrote a few nights later:
+
+DEAREST MOTHER:
+
+So it has come at last, and we really and truly are at war. There is not
+so much excitement as you would have thought--I suppose because we have
+waited so long--but everybody has hung out flags--and Letty and I have
+just helped Peter put a big beautiful one over Briarlay. Mrs. Blackburn
+is working so hard over the Red Cross that we have barely seen her for
+days, and Mary has already gone to New York on her way to France. She is
+going to work there with one of the war charities, and I think it will
+be the best thing on earth for her, for any one can see that she has
+been very unhappy. Mr. Wythe wants to go into the army, but for some
+reason he has hesitated about volunteering. I think Mrs. Blackburn
+opposes it very strongly, and this is keeping him back. There is a new
+feeling in the air, though. The world is rushing on--somewhere--somewhere,
+and we are rushing with it.
+
+For days I have wanted to write you about a curious thing, but I have
+waited hoping that I might have been mistaken about it. You remember how
+very sweet Mrs. Blackburn was to me when I first came here. Well, for
+the last month she has changed utterly in her manner. I cannot think of
+any way in which I could have offended her--though I have racked my
+brain over it--but she appears to avoid me whenever it is possible, and
+on the occasions when we are obliged to meet, she does not speak to me
+unless it is necessary. Of course there are things I am obliged to ask
+her about Letty; but this is usually done through the servants, and
+Mrs. Blackburn never comes into the nursery. Sometimes she sends for
+Letty to come to her, but Mammy Riah always takes her and brings her
+back again. I asked Mrs. Timberlake if she thought I could have done
+anything Mrs. Blackburn did not like, and if I had better go to her and
+demand an explanation. That seems to me the only sensible and
+straightforward way, but Mrs. Timberlake does not think it would do any
+good. She is as much mystified about it as I am, and so is Mammy Riah.
+Nobody understands, and the whole thing has worried me more than I can
+ever tell you. If it wasn't for Letty, and a promise I made to Mr.
+Blackburn not to leave her, I should be tempted to give up the place at
+the end of the week. It is cowardly to let one's self be vanquished by
+things like that, especially at a time when the whole world needs every
+particle of courage that human beings can create; but it is just like
+fighting an intangible enemy, and not knowing at what moment one may be
+saying or doing the wrong thing. Not a word has been spoken to me that
+was rude or unkind, yet the very air I breathe is full of something that
+keeps me apprehensive and anxious all the time. When I am with Mr.
+Blackburn or Mrs. Timberlake, I tell myself that it is all just my
+imagination, and that I am getting too nervous to be a good nurse; and
+then, when I pass Mrs. Blackburn in the hall and she pretends not to see
+me, the distrust and suspicion come back again. I hate to worry you
+about this--for a long time I wouldn't mention it in my letters--but I
+feel to-night that I cannot go on without telling you about it.
+
+Last night after dinner--when Mrs. Blackburn is at home Mrs. Timberlake
+and I dine in the breakfast-room--I went to look for Letty, and found
+that she had slipped into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Blackburn and Mr.
+Wythe were engaged in their perpetual reading. The child is very fond of
+Mr. Wythe--he has a charming way with her--and when I went in, she was
+asking him if he were really going to war? Before answering her he
+looked for a long time at Mrs. Blackburn, and then as Letty repeated her
+question, he said, "Don't you think I ought to go, Letty?"
+
+"What is the war about, Alan?" asked the child, and he replied, "They
+call it a war for democracy." Then, of course, Letty inquired
+immediately, "What is democracy?" At this Alan burst out laughing,
+"You've got me there, Socrates," he retorted, "Go inquire of your
+father." "But father says it is a war to end war," Letty replied, and
+her next question was, "But if you want to fight, why do you want to end
+war?" She is the keenest thing for her years you can imagine. I had to
+explain it all to her when I got her upstairs.
+
+Well, what I started to tell you was that all the time Mrs. Blackburn
+said nothing, but kept looking from Alan to the child, with that wistful
+and plaintive expression which makes her the very image of a grieving
+Madonna. She never spoke a word, but I could tell all the time that she
+was trying to gain something, that she was using every bit of her charm
+and her pathos for some purpose I could not discover. In a little while
+she took Letty from Alan and gave her over to me, and as we went out, I
+heard Alan say to her, "I would give anything on earth to keep you from
+being hurt any more." Of course I shouldn't repeat this to any one else,
+but he must have known that I couldn't help hearing it.
+
+Mr. Blackburn has been very kind to me, and I know that he would do
+anything for Letty's happiness. He is so impersonal that I sometimes
+feel that he knows ideas, but not men and women. It is hard for him to
+break through the wall he has built round himself, but after you once
+discover what he really is, you are obliged to admit that he is fine and
+absolutely to be trusted. In a way he is different from any one I have
+ever known--more sincere and genuine. I can't make what I mean very
+clear, but you will understand.
+
+For the last week I have scarcely seen him for a minute--I suppose he is
+absorbed in war matters--but before that he used to come in and have
+tea with Letty, and we had some long interesting talks. The child is
+devoted to him, and you know she loves above all things to set her
+little table in the nursery, and give tea and bread and butter to
+whoever happens to come in. Mrs. Colfax used to drop in very often, and
+so did Mary when she was here; but Mrs. Blackburn always promises to
+come, and then is too busy, or forgets all about it, and I have to make
+excuses for her to Letty. I feel sorry for Letty because she is lonely,
+and has no child companions, and I do everything I can to make her
+friendly with grown people, and to put a little wholesome pleasure into
+her life. A delicate child is really a very serious problem in many ways
+besides physical ones. Letty has not naturally a cheerful disposition,
+though she flies off at times into a perfect gale of high spirits. For
+the last week I can see that she has missed her father, and she is
+continually asking me where he is.
+
+Now I must tell you something I have not mentioned to any one except
+Mrs. Timberlake, and I spoke of it to her only because she asked me a
+direct question. Something very unfortunate occurred here last winter,
+and Mrs. Timberlake told me yesterday that everybody in Richmond has
+been talking about it. As long as it is known so generally--and it
+appears that young Mrs. Colfax was the one to let it out--there can't be
+any harm in my writing frankly to you. I haven't the faintest idea how
+it all started, but one morning--it must have been two months ago--Mrs.
+Blackburn showed young Mrs. Colfax a bruise on her arm, and she either
+told her or let her think that it had come from a blow. Of course Mrs.
+Colfax inferred that Mr. Blackburn had struck his wife, and, without
+waiting a minute, she rushed straight out and repeated this to everybody
+she met. She is so amazingly indiscreet, without meaning the least harm
+in the world, that you might as well print a thing in the newspaper as
+tell it to her. No one knows how much she made up and how much Mrs.
+Blackburn actually told her; but the town has been fairly ringing, Mrs.
+Timberlake says, with the scandal. People even say that he has been so
+cruel to her that the servants heard her cry out in his study one
+afternoon, and that Alan Wythe, who was waiting in the drawing-room, ran
+in and interfered.
+
+It is all a dreadful lie, of course--you know this without my telling
+you--but Mrs. Timberlake and I cannot understand what began it, or why
+Mrs. Blackburn deliberately allowed Daisy Colfax to repeat such a
+falsehood. Colonel Ashburton told Mrs. Timberlake that the stories had
+already done incalculable harm to Mr. Blackburn's reputation, and that
+his political enemies were beginning to use them. You will understand
+better than any one else how much this distresses me, not only because I
+have grown to like and admire Mr. Blackburn, but for Letty's sake also.
+As the child grows up this disagreement between her parents will make
+such a difference in her life.
+
+I cannot tell you how I long to be back at The Cedars, now that spring
+is there and all the lilacs will so soon be in bloom. When I shut my
+eyes I can see you and the girls in the "chamber," and I can almost hear
+you talking about the war. I am not quite sure that I approve of Maud's
+becoming a nurse. It is a hard life, and all her beauty will be wasted
+in the drudgery. Diana's idea of going to France with the Y. M. C. A.
+sounds much better, but most of all I like Margaret's plan of canning
+vegetables next summer for the market. If she can manage to get an extra
+man to help Jonas with the garden--how would Nathan's son Abraham do?--I
+believe she will make a great success of it. I am so glad that you are
+planting large crops this year. The question of labour is serious, I
+know, but letting out so much of the land "on shares" has never seemed
+to turn out very well.
+
+It must be almost eleven o'clock, and I have written on and on without
+thinking. Late as it is, I am obliged to run out to Peter's cottage by
+the stable and give his wife, Mandy, a hypodermic at eleven o'clock. She
+was taken very ill this morning, and if she isn't better to-morrow the
+doctor will take her to the hospital. I promised him I would see her the
+last thing to-night, and telephone him if she is any worse. She is so
+weak that we are giving her all the stimulants that we can. I sometimes
+wish that I could stop being a trained nurse for a time, and just break
+loose and be natural. I'd like to run out bareheaded in a storm, or have
+hysterics, or swear like Uncle George.
+
+    Dearest love,
+        CAROLINE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Caroline reached the cottage, she found Mandy in a paroxysm of
+pain, and after giving the medicine, she waited until the woman had
+fallen asleep. It was late when she went back to the house, and as she
+crossed the garden on her way to the terrace, where she had left one of
+the French windows open, she lingered for a minute to breathe in the
+delicious roving scents of the spring night. Something sweet and soft
+and wild in the April air awoke in her the restlessness which the spring
+always brought; and she found herself wishing again that she could cast
+aside the professional training of the last eight or nine years, and
+become the girl she had been at The Cedars before love had broken her
+heart. "I am just as young as I was then--only I am so much wiser," she
+thought, "and it is wisdom--it is knowing life that has caged me and
+made me a prisoner. I am not an actor, I am only a spectator now, and
+yet I believe that I could break away again if the desire came--if life
+really called me. Perhaps, it's the spring that makes me restless--I
+could never, even at The Cedars, smell budding things without wanting to
+wander--but to-night there is a kind of wildness in everything. I am
+tired of being caged. I want to be free to follow--follow--whatever is
+calling me. I wonder why the pipes of Pan always begin again in the
+spring?" Enchantingly fair and soft, beneath a silver mist that floated
+like a breath of dawn from the river, the garden melted into the fields
+and the fields into the quivering edge of the horizon. In the air there
+was a faint whispering of gauzy wings, and, now and then, as the breeze
+stirred the veil of the landscape, little pools of greenish light
+flickered like glow worms in the hollows.
+
+"I hate to go in, but I suppose I must," thought Caroline, as she went
+up the steps. "Fortunately Roane is off after his commission, so they
+can't accuse me of coming out to meet him."
+
+For the first time she noticed that the lights were out in the house,
+and when she tried the window she had left open, she found that
+someone--probably Patrick--had fastened it. "I ought to have told them I
+was going out," she thought. "I suppose the servants are all in bed, and
+if I go to the front and ring, I shall waken everybody." Then, as she
+passed along the terrace, she saw that the light still glimmered beneath
+the curtains of the library, where Blackburn was working late, and
+stopping before the window, she knocked twice on the panes.
+
+At her second knock, she heard a chair pushed back inside and rapid
+steps cross the floor. An instant later the window was unbolted, and she
+saw Blackburn standing there against the lighted interior, with a look
+of surprise and inquiry, which she discerned even though his face was in
+shadow. He did not speak, and she said hurriedly as she entered,
+
+"I hated to disturb you, but they had locked me out."
+
+"You have been out?" It was the question he had put to her on her first
+night in the house.
+
+"Peter's wife has been ill, and I promised the doctor to give her a
+hypodermic at eleven o'clock. It must be midnight now. They kept me some
+time at the cottage."
+
+He glanced at the clock. "Yes, it is after twelve. We are working you
+overtime."
+
+She had crossed the room quickly on her way to the door, when he called
+her name, and she stopped and turned to look at him.
+
+"Miss Meade, I have wanted to ask you something about Letty when she was
+not with us."
+
+"I know," she responded, with ready sympathy. "It isn't easy to talk
+before her without letting her catch on."
+
+"You feel that she is better?"
+
+"Much better. She has improved every day in the last month or two."
+
+"You think now that she may get well in time? There seems to you a
+chance that she may grow up well and normal?"
+
+"With care I think there is every hope that she will. The doctor is
+greatly encouraged about her. In this age no physical malady, especially
+in a child, is regarded as hopeless, and I believe, if we keep up the
+treatment she is having, she may outgrow the spinal weakness that has
+always seemed to us so serious."
+
+For a moment he was silent. "Whatever improvement there may be is due to
+you," he said presently, in a voice that was vibrant with feeling. "I
+cannot put my gratitude into words, but you have made me your debtor for
+life."
+
+"I have done my best," she replied gravely, "and it has made me happy to
+do it."
+
+"I recognize that. The beauty of it has been that I recognized that from
+the beginning. You have given yourself utterly and ungrudgingly to save
+my child. Before you came she was misunderstood always, she was
+melancholy and brooding and self-centred, and you have put the only
+brightness in her life that has ever been there. All the time she
+becomes more like other children, more cheerful and natural."
+
+"I felt from the first that she needed companionship and diversion. She
+won my heart immediately, for she is a very lovable child, and if I have
+done anything over and above my task, it has been because I loved
+Letty."
+
+His look softened indescribably, but all he said was, "If I go away, I
+shall feel that I am leaving her in the best possible care."
+
+"You expect to go away?"
+
+"I have offered my services, and the Government may call on me. I hope
+there is some work that I can do."
+
+"Everyone feels that way, I think. I feel that way myself, but as long
+as I can, I shall stay with Letty. It is so hard sometimes to recognize
+one's real duty. If the call comes, I suppose I shall have to go to
+France, but I shan't go just because I want to, as long as the child
+needs me as much as she does now. Mother says the duty that never stays
+at home is seldom to be trusted."
+
+"I know you will do right," he answered gravely. "I cannot imagine that
+you could ever waver in that. For myself the obligation seems now
+imperative, yet I have asked myself again and again if my reasons for
+wishing to go are as----"
+
+He broke off in amazement, and glanced, with a startled gesture, at the
+door, for it was opening very slowly, and, as the crack widened, there
+appeared the lovely disarranged head of Angelica. She was wearing a
+kimono of sky-blue silk, which she had thrown on hastily over her
+nightgown, and beneath the embroidered folds, Caroline caught a glimpse
+of bare feet in blue slippers. In the hall beyond there was the staring
+face of the maid, and at the foot of the stairs, the figure of Mammy
+Riah emerged, like a menacing spirit, out of the shadow.
+
+"I heard Mammy Riah asking for Miss Meade. She was not in her room,"
+began Angelica in her clear, colourless voice. "We were anxious about
+her--but I did not know--I did not dream----" She drew her breath
+sharply, and then added in a louder and firmer tone, "Miss Meade, I must
+ask you to leave the house in the morning."
+
+In an instant a cold breath blowing over Caroline seemed to turn her
+living figure into a snow image. Her face was as white as the band of
+her cap, but her eyes blazed like blue flames, and her voice, when it
+issued from her frozen lips, was stronger and steadier than Angelica's.
+
+"I cannot leave too soon for my comfort," she answered haughtily. "Mr.
+Blackburn, if you will order the car, I shall be ready in an hour----"
+Though she saw scarlet as she spoke, she would have swept by Angelica
+with the pride and the outraged dignity of an insulted empress.
+
+"You shall not go," said Blackburn, and she saw him put out his arm, as
+if he would keep the two women apart.
+
+"I would not stay," replied Caroline, looking not at him, but straight
+into Angelica's eyes. "I would not stay if she went on her knees to me.
+I will not stay even for Letty----"
+
+"Do you know what you have done?" demanded Blackburn, in a quivering
+voice, of his wife. "Do you know that you are ruining your child's
+future--your child's chance----" Then, as if words were futile to convey
+his meaning, he stopped, and looked at her as a man looks at the thing
+that has destroyed him.
+
+"For Letty's sake I shut my eyes as long as I could," said Angelica, and
+of the three, she appeared the only one who spoke in sorrow and regret,
+not in anger. "After to-night I can deceive myself no longer. I can
+deceive the servants no longer----"
+
+Her kimono was embroidered in a lavish design of cranes and
+water-lilies; and while Caroline gazed at it, she felt that the vivid
+splashes of yellow and blue and purple were emblazoned indelibly on her
+memory. Years afterwards--to the very end of her life--the sight of a
+piece of Japanese embroidery was followed by an icy sickness of the
+heart, and a vision of Angelica's amber head against the background of
+the dimly lighted hall and the curious faces of the maid and Mammy Riah.
+
+"You shall not----" said Blackburn, and his face was like the face of a
+man who has died in a moment of horror. "You shall not dare do this
+thing----"
+
+He was still keeping Caroline back with his outstretched hand, and while
+she looked at him, she forgot her own anger in a rush of pity for the
+humiliation which showed in every quiver of his features, in every line
+of his figure. It was a torture, she knew, which would leave its mark
+on him for ever.
+
+"You shall not dare----" he repeated, as if the words he sought would
+not come to him.
+
+Beneath his gaze Angelica paled slowly. Her greatest victories had
+always been achieved through her dumbness; and the instinct which had
+guided her infallibly in the past did not fail her in this moment, which
+must have appeared to her as the decisive hour of her destiny. There was
+but one way in which she could triumph, and this way she chose, not
+deliberately, but in obedience to some deep design which had its source
+in the secret motive-power of her nature. The colour of her skin faded
+to ivory, her long, slender limbs trembled and wavered, and the pathos
+of her look was intensified into the image of tragedy.
+
+"I tried so hard not to see----" she began, and the next instant she
+gave a little gasping sob and dropped, like a broken flower, at his
+feet.
+
+For a second Caroline looked down on her in silence. Then, without
+stooping, without speaking, she drew her skirt aside, and went out of
+the room and up the stairs. Her scorn was the scorn of the strong who is
+defeated for the weak who is victorious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COURAGE
+
+
+When she reached her room, Caroline took off her cap and uniform and
+laid them smoothly away in her trunk. Then she began packing with
+deliberate care, while her thoughts whirled as wildly as autumn leaves
+in a storm. Outwardly her training still controlled her; but beneath her
+quiet gestures, her calm and orderly movements, she felt that the veneer
+of civilization had been stripped from the primitive woman. It was as if
+she had lived years in the few minutes since she had left Angelica
+lying, lovely and unconscious, on the floor of the library.
+
+She was taking her clothes out of the closet when there was a low knock
+at her door, and Mammy Riah peered inquiringly into the room.
+
+"Marse David tole me ter come," she said. "Is you gwine away, honey?"
+
+Before she replied, Caroline crossed the floor and closed the door of
+the nursery. "I am going home on the earliest train in the morning. Will
+you be sure to order the car?"
+
+The old woman came in and took the clothes out of Caroline's hands. "You
+set right down, en wait twell I git thoo wid dis yer packin'. Marse
+David, he tole me ter look atter you de same ez I look atter Letty, en
+I'se gwine ter do whut he tells me."
+
+She looked a thousand years old as she stood there beside the shaded
+electric light on the bureau; but her dark and wrinkled face contained
+infinite understanding and compassion. At the moment, in the midst of
+Caroline's terrible loneliness, Mammy Riah appeared almost beautiful.
+
+"I have to move about, mammy, I can't sit still. You were there. You saw
+it all."
+
+"I seed hit comin' befo' den, honey, I seed hit comin'."
+
+"But you knew I'd gone out to see Mandy? You knew she was suffering?"
+
+"Yas'm, I knows all dat, but I knows a heap mo'n dat, too."
+
+"You saw Mrs. Blackburn? You heard?----"
+
+"I 'uz right dar all de time. I 'uz right dar at de foot er de steers."
+
+"Do you know why? Can you imagine why she should have done it?"
+
+Mammy Riah wrinkled her brow, which was the colour and texture of
+stained parchment. "I'se moughty ole, and I'se moughty sharp, chile, but
+I cyarn' see thoo a fog. I ain' sayin' nuttin' agin Miss Angy, caze she
+wuz oner de Fitzhugh chillun, ef'n a wi'te nuss did riz 'er. Naw'm, I
+ain' sayin' nuttin 't'all agin 'er--but my eyes dey is done got so po'
+dat I cyarn' mek out whar she's a-gwine en whut she's a-fishin' fur."
+
+"I suppose she was trying to make me leave. But why couldn't she have
+come out and said so?"
+
+"Go 'way f'om yer, chile! Ain't you knowed Miss Angy better'n dat? She
+is jes' erbleeged ter be meally-mouthed en two-faced, caze she wuz brung
+up dat ar way. All de chillun dat w'ite nuss riz wuz sorter puny en
+pigeon-breasted inside en out, en Miss Angy she wuz jes' like de res'
+un um. She ain' never come right spang out en axed fur whut she gits, en
+she ain' never gwine ter do hit. Naw'm, dat she ain't. She is a-gwine
+ter look put upon, en meek ez Moses, en jes like butter wouldn't melt in
+'er mouf, ef'n hit kills 'er. I'se done knowed 'er all 'er lifetime, en
+I ain' never seed 'er breck loose, nairy oncet. Ole Miss use'n ter say
+w'en she wuz live, dat Miss Angy's temper wuz so slow en poky, she'd git
+ter woner sometimes ef'n she reely hed a speck er one."
+
+"That must be why everybody thinks her a martyr," said Caroline sternly.
+"Even to-night she didn't lose her temper. You saw her faint away at my
+feet?"
+
+A shiver shook her figure, as the vision of the scene rushed before her;
+and bending down, with a dress still in her arms, the old woman patted
+and soothed her as if she had been a child.
+
+"Dar now, dar now," she murmured softly. Then, raising her head, with
+sudden suspicion, she said in a sharp whisper, "Dat warn' no sho' nuff
+faintin'. She wuz jes' ez peart ez she could be w'en she flopped down
+dar on de flo'."
+
+"I didn't touch her. I wouldn't have touched her if she had been dying!"
+declared Caroline passionately.
+
+Mammy Riah chuckled. "You is git ter be a reel spit-fire, honey."
+
+"I'm not a spit-fire, but I'm so angry that I see red."
+
+"Cose you is, cose you is, but dat ain' no way ter git erlong in dis
+worl', perticular wid men folks. You ain' never seed Miss Angy git ez
+mad ez fire wid nobody, is you? Dar now! I low you ain' never seed hit.
+You ain' never seed 'er git all in a swivet 'bout nuttin? Ain't she
+al'ays jes' ez sof ez silk, no matter whut happen? Dat's de bes' way
+ter git erlong, honey, you lissen ter me. De mo' open en above boa'd you
+is, de mo' you is gwine ter see de thing you is atter begin ter shy away
+f'om you. Dar's Miss Matty Timberlake now! Ain't she de sort dat ain'
+got no sof' soap about 'er, en don't she look jes egzactly ez ef'n de
+buzzards hed picked 'er? Naw'm, you teck en watch Miss Angy, en she's
+gwine ter sho' you sump'n. She ain' never let on ter nobody, she ain't.
+Dar ain' nobody gwine ter know whut she's a-fishin' fur twell she's done
+cotched hit." There was an exasperated pride in her manner, as if she
+respected, even while she condemned, the success of Angelica's method.
+
+"Yas, Lawd! I'se knowed all de Fitzhughs f'om way back, en I ain' knowed
+nairy one un um dat could beat Miss Angy w'en hit comes ter gettin' whut
+she wants--in perticular ef'n hit belongst ter somebody else. I'se seed
+'er wid 'er pa, en I'se seed 'er wid Marse David, en dey warn' no mo'
+den chillun by de time she got thoo wid um. Is you ever seed a man, no
+matter how big he think hisself, dat warn' ready ter flop right down ez'
+weak ez water, ez soon as she set 'er een on 'im? I'se watched 'er wid
+Marse David way back yonder, befo' he begunst his cotin', en w'en I see
+'er sidle up ter 'im, lookin ez sweet ez honey, en pertendin' dat she
+ain' made up 'er min' yit wedder she is mos' pleased wid 'im er feared
+un 'im, den I knows hit wuz all up wid 'im, ef'n he warn't ez sharp ez a
+needle. Do you reckon she 'ould ever hev cotched Marse David ef'n he'd a
+knowed whut 't'wuz she wuz atter? Naw'm, dat she 'ouldn't, caze men
+folks dey ain' made dat ar way. Deys erbleeged ter be doin' whut dey
+think you don't want 'um ter do, jes' like chillun, er dey cyarn' git
+enny spice outer doin' hit. Dat's de reason de 'ooman dey mos' often
+breecks dere necks tryin' ter git is de v'ey las' one dat deys gwinter
+want ter keep atter deys got 'er. A she fox is a long sight better in de
+bushes den she is in de kennel; but men folks dey ain' never gwine ter
+fin' dat out twell she's done bitten um."
+
+While she rambled on, she had been busily folding the clothes and
+packing them into the trunk, and pausing now in her work, she peered
+into Caroline's face. "You look jes' egzactly ez ef'n you'd seed a
+ha'nt, honey," she said. "Git in de baid, en try ter go right straight
+ter sleep, w'ile I git thoo dis yer packin' in a jiffy."
+
+Aching in every nerve, Caroline undressed and threw herself into bed.
+The hardest day of nursing had never left her like this--had never
+exhausted her so utterly in body and mind. She felt as if she had been
+beaten with rocks; and beneath the sore, bruised feeling of her limbs
+there was the old half-forgotten quiver of humiliation, which brought
+back to her the vision of that autumn morning at The Cedars--of the deep
+blue of the sky, the shivering leaves of the aspens, and the long
+straight road drifting through light and shadow into other roads that
+led on somewhere--somewhere. Could she never forget? Was she for ever
+chained to an inescapable memory?
+
+"Is you 'bleeged ter go?" inquired the old woman, stopping again in her
+packing.
+
+"Yes, I'm obliged to go. I wouldn't stay now if they went down on their
+knees to me."
+
+"You ain't mad wid Marse David, is you?"
+
+"No, I'm not angry with Mr. Blackburn. He has been very kind to me, and
+I am sorry to leave Letty." For the first time the thought of the child
+occurred to her. Incredible as it seemed she had actually forgotten her
+charge.
+
+"She sutney is gwine ter miss you."
+
+"I think she will, poor little Letty. I wonder what they will make of
+her?"
+
+Closing her eyes wearily, she turned her face to the wall, and lay
+thinking of the future. "I will not be beaten," she resolved
+passionately. "I will not let them hurt me." Some old words she had said
+long ago at The Cedars came back to her, and she repeated them over and
+over, "People cannot hurt you unless you let them. They cannot hurt you
+unless you submit--unless you deliver your soul into their hands--and I
+will never submit. Life is mine as much as theirs. The battle is mine,
+and I will fight it." She remembered her first night at Briarlay, when
+she had watched the light from the house streaming out into the
+darkness, and had felt that strange forewarning of the nerves, that
+exhilarating sense of approaching destiny, that spring-like revival of
+her thoughts and emotions. How wonderful Mrs. Blackburn had appeared
+then! How ardently she might have loved her! For an instant the veiled
+figure of her imagination floated before her, and she was tormented by
+the pang that follows not death, but disillusionment. "I never harmed
+her. I would have died for her in the beginning. Why should she have
+done it?"
+
+Opening her eyes she stared up at the wall beside her bed, where Mammy
+Riah's shadow hovered like some grotesque bird of prey.
+
+"Did you order the car, Mammy Riah?"
+
+"Yas'm, I tole John jes' like you axed me. Now, I'se done got de las'
+one er dese things packed, en I'se gwine ter let you git some sleep."
+She put out the light while she spoke, and then went out softly, leaving
+the room in darkness.
+
+"_Why should she have done it? Why should she have done it?_" asked
+Caroline over and over, until the words became a refrain that beat
+slowly, with a rhythmic rise and fall, in her thoughts: "_Why should she
+have done it?_ I thought her so good and beautiful. I would have worked
+my fingers to the bone for her if she had only been kind to me. _Why
+should she have done it?_ I should always have taken her part against
+Mr. Blackburn, against Mrs. Timberlake, against Mammy Riah. It would
+have been so easy for her to have kept my love and admiration. It would
+have cost her nothing. _Why should she have done it?_ There is nothing
+she can gain by this, and it isn't like her to do a cruel thing unless
+there is something she can gain. She likes people to admire her and
+believe in her. That is why she has taken so much trouble to appear
+right before the world, and to make Mr. Blackburn appear wrong.
+Admiration is the breath of life to her, and--and--oh, why _should she
+have done it_? I must go to sleep. I must put it out of my mind. If I
+don't put it out of my mind, I shall go mad before morning. I ought to
+be glad to leave Briarlay. I ought to want to go, but I do not. I do not
+want to go. I feel as if I were tearing my heart to pieces. I cannot
+bear the thought of never seeing the place again--of never seeing Letty
+again. _Why should she have done it?_----"
+
+In the morning, when she was putting on her hat, Mrs. Timberlake came in
+with a breakfast tray in her hands.
+
+"Sit down, and try to eat something, Caroline. I thought you would
+rather have a cup of coffee up here."
+
+Caroline shook her head. "I couldn't touch a morsel in this house. I
+feel as if it would choke me."
+
+"But you will be sick before you get home. Just drink a swallow or two."
+
+Taking the cup from her, Caroline began drinking it so hurriedly that
+the hot coffee burned her lips. "Yes, you are right," she said
+presently. "I cannot fight unless I keep up my strength, and I will
+fight to the bitter end. I will not let her hurt me. I am poor and
+unknown, and I work for my living, but the world is mine as much as
+hers, and I will not give in. I will not let life conquer me."
+
+"You aren't blaming David, are you, dear?"
+
+"Oh, no, I am not blaming Mr. Blackburn. He couldn't have helped it."
+Her heart gave a single throb while she spoke; and it seemed to her
+that, in the midst of the anguish and humiliation, something within her
+soul, which had been frozen for years, thawed suddenly and grew warm
+again. It was just as if a statue had come to life, as if what had been
+marble yesterday had been blown upon by a breath of the divine, and
+changed into flesh. For eight years she had been dead, and now, in an
+instant, she was born anew, and had entered afresh into her lost
+heritage of joy and pain.
+
+Mrs. Timberlake, gazing at her through dulled eyes, was struck by the
+intensity of feeling that glowed in her pale face and in the burning
+blue of her eyes. "I didn't know she could look like that," thought the
+housekeeper. "I didn't know she had so much heart." Aloud she said
+quietly, "David and I are going to the train with you. That is why I put
+on my bonnet."
+
+"Is Mr. Blackburn obliged to go with us?" Caroline's voice was almost
+toneless, but there was a look of wonder and awe in her face, as of one
+who is standing on the edge of some undiscovered country, of some virgin
+wilderness. The light that fell on her was the light of that celestial
+hemisphere where Mrs. Timberlake had never walked.
+
+"He wishes to go," answered the older woman, and she added with an
+after-thought, "It will look better."
+
+"As if it mattered how things look? I'd rather not see him again, but,
+after all, it makes no difference."
+
+"It wasn't his fault, Caroline."
+
+"No, it wasn't his fault. He has always been good to me."
+
+"If anything, it has been harder on him than on you. It is only a few
+hours of your life, but it is the whole of his. She has spoiled his life
+from the first, and now she has ruined his career forever. Even before
+this, Colonel Ashburton told me that all that talk last winter had
+destroyed David's future. He said he might have achieved almost anything
+if he had had half a chance, but that he regarded him now merely as a
+brilliant failure. Angelica went to work deliberately to ruin him."
+
+"But why?" demanded Caroline passionately. "What was there she could
+gain by it?"
+
+Mrs. Timberlake blinked at the sunlight. "For the first time in my
+life," she confessed, "I don't know what she is up to. I can't, to save
+my life, see what she has got in her mind."
+
+"She can't be doing it just to pose as an ill-treated wife? The world is
+on her side already. There isn't a person outside of this house who
+doesn't look upon her as a saint and martyr."
+
+"I know there isn't. That is what puzzles me. I declare, if it didn't
+sound so far-fetched, I'd be almost tempted to believe that she was
+trying to get that young fool for good."
+
+"Mr. Wythe? But what would she do with him? She is married already, and
+you know perfectly well that she wouldn't do anything that the world
+calls really wrong."
+
+"She'd be burned at the stake first. Well, I give it up. I've raked my
+brain trying to find some reason at the bottom of it, but it isn't any
+use, and I've had to give it up in the end. Then, last night after David
+told me about that scene downstairs--he waked me up to tell me--it
+suddenly crossed my mind just like that--" she snapped her
+fingers--"that perhaps she's sharper than we've ever given her credit
+for being. I don't say it's the truth, because I don't know any more
+than a babe unborn whether it is or not; but the idea did cross my mind
+that maybe she felt if she could prove David really cruel and faithless
+to her--if she could make up a case so strong that people's sympathy
+would support her no matter what she did--then she might manage to get
+what she wanted without having to give up anything in return. You know
+Angelica could never bear to give up anything. She has got closets and
+closets filled with old clothes, which she'd never think of wearing, but
+just couldn't bear to give away----"
+
+"You mean----?" The blackness of the abyss struck Caroline speechless.
+
+"I don't wonder that you can't take it in. I couldn't at first. It seems
+so unlike anything that could ever happen in Virginia."
+
+"It would be so--" Caroline hesitated for a word--"so incredibly
+common."
+
+"Of course you feel that way about it, and so would Angelica's mother. I
+reckon she would turn in her grave at the bare thought of her daughter's
+even thinking of a divorce."
+
+"You mean she would sacrifice me like this? She would not only ruin her
+husband, she would try to destroy me, though I've never harmed her?"
+
+"That hasn't got anything in the world to do with it. She isn't thinking
+of you, and she isn't thinking of Alan. She is thinking about what she
+wants. It is surprising how badly you can want a thing even when you
+have neither feeling nor imagination. Angelica isn't any more in love
+with that young ass than I am; but she wants him just as much as if she
+were over head and ears in love. There is one thing, however, you may
+count on--she is going to get him if she can, and she is going to
+persuade herself and everybody else, except you and David and me, that
+she is doing her duty when she goes after her inclinations. I don't
+reckon there was ever anybody stronger on the idea of duty than
+Angelica," she concluded in a tone of acrid admiration.
+
+"Of course, she will always stand right before the world," assented
+Caroline, "I know that."
+
+"Well, it takes some sense to manage it, you must admit?"
+
+"I wish I'd never come here. I wish I'd never seen Briarlay," cried
+Caroline, in an outburst of anger. "There is the car at the door. We'd
+better go."
+
+"Won't you tell Letty good-bye?"
+
+For the first time tears rushed to Caroline's eyes. "No, I'd rather
+not. Give her my love after I'm gone."
+
+In the hall Blackburn was waiting for them, and Caroline's first
+thought, as she glanced at him, was that he had aged ten years since the
+evening before. A rush of pity for him, not for herself, choked her to
+silence while she put her hand into his, which felt as cold as ice when
+she touched it. In that moment she forgot the wrong that she had
+suffered, she forgot her wounded pride, her anguish and humiliation, and
+remembered only that he had been hurt far more deeply.
+
+"I hope you slept," he said awkwardly, and she answered, "Very little.
+Is the car waiting?"
+
+Then, as he turned to go down the steps, she brushed quickly past him,
+and entered the car after Mrs. Timberlake. She felt that her heart was
+breaking, and she could think of no words to utter. There were trivial
+things, she knew, that might be said, casual sounds that might relieve
+the strain of the silence; but she could not remember what they were,
+and where her thoughts had whirled so wildly all night long, there was
+now only a terrible vacancy, round which sinister fears moved but into
+which nothing entered. A strange oppressive dumbness, a paralysis of the
+will, seized her. If her life had depended on it, she felt that she
+should have been powerless to put two words together with an
+intelligible meaning.
+
+Blackburn got into the car, and a moment later they started round the
+circular drive, and turned into the lane.
+
+"Did John put in the bag?" inquired Mrs. Timberlake nervously.
+
+"Yes, it is in front." As he replied, Blackburn turned slightly, and the
+sunshine falling aslant the boughs of the maples, illumined his face for
+an instant before the car sped on into the shadows. In that minute it
+seemed to Caroline that she could never forget the misery in his eyes,
+or the look of grimness and determination the night had graven about his
+mouth. Every line in his forehead, every thread of grey in his dark
+hair, would remain in her memory for ever. "He looked so much younger
+when I came here," she thought. "These last months have cost him his
+youth and his happiness."
+
+"I am so glad you have a good day for your trip," said Mrs. Timberlake,
+and almost to her surprise Caroline heard her own voice replying
+distinctly, "Yes, it is a beautiful day."
+
+"Will you telegraph your mother from the station?"
+
+"She wouldn't get it. There is no telephone, and we send only once a day
+for the mail."
+
+"Then she won't be expecting you?"
+
+"No, she won't be expecting me."
+
+At this Blackburn turned. "What can we do, Miss Meade, to help you?"
+
+Again she seemed to herself to answer with her lips before she had
+selected the words, "Nothing, thank you. There is absolutely nothing
+that you can do." The soft wind had loosened a lock of hair under her
+veil, and putting up her hand, she pushed it back into place.
+
+Rain had fallen in the night, and the morning was fresh and fine, with a
+sky of cloudless turquoise blue. The young green leaves by the roadside
+shone with a sparkling lustre, while every object in the landscape
+appeared to quiver and glisten in the spring sunlight.
+
+"I shall never see it again--I shall never see it again." Suddenly,
+without warning, Caroline's thoughts came flocking back as riotously as
+they had done through the long, sleepless night. The external world at
+which she looked became a part of the intense inner world of her mind;
+and the mental vacancy was crowded in an instant with a vivid multitude
+of figures. Every thought, every sensation, every image of the
+imagination and of memory, seemed to glitter with a wonderful light and
+freshness, as the objects in the landscape glittered when the April
+sunshine streamed over them.
+
+"Yes, I am leaving it forever. I shall never see it again, but why
+should I care so much? Why does it make me so unhappy, as if it were
+tearing the heart out of my breast? Life is always that--leaving things
+forever, and giving up what you would rather keep. I have left places I
+cared for before, and yet I have never felt like this, not even when I
+came away for the first time from The Cedars. Every minute I am going
+farther and farther away. We are in the city now; flags are shining,
+too, in the sun. I have never seen so many flags--as if flags alone
+meant war! War! Why, I had almost forgotten the war! And yet it is the
+most tremendous thing that has ever been on the earth, and nothing else
+really matters--neither Briarlay, nor Mrs. Blackburn, nor my life, nor
+Mr. Blackburn's, nor anything that happened last night. It was all so
+little--as little as the thing Mrs. Blackburn is trying to get, the
+thing she calls happiness. It is as little as the thing I have lost--as
+little as my aching heart----"
+
+"Do you know," said Mrs. Timberlake, "I had not realized that we were at
+war--but look at the flags!" Her lustreless eyes were lifted, with a
+kind of ecstasy, in the sunlight, and then as no one answered, she added
+softly, "It makes one stop and think."
+
+"I must try to remember the war," Caroline was telling herself. "If I
+remember the war, perhaps I shall forget the ache in my heart. The
+larger pain will obliterate the smaller. If I can only forget
+myself----" But, in spite of the effort of will, she could not feel the
+war as keenly as she felt the parting from something which seemed more
+vital to her than her life. "We are at war," she thought, and
+immediately, "I shall never see it again--I shall never see it again."
+
+The car stopped at the station, and a minute afterwards she followed
+Mrs. Timberlake across the pavement and through the door, which
+Blackburn held open. As she entered, he said quickly, "I will get your
+ticket and meet you at the gate."
+
+"Has John got the bag?" asked Mrs. Timberlake, glancing back.
+
+"Yes, he is coming." Caroline was looking after Blackburn, and while she
+did so, she was conscious of a wish that she had spoken to him in the
+car while she still had the opportunity. "I might at least have been
+kinder," she thought regretfully, "I might have shown him that I
+realized it was not his fault--that he was not to blame for anything
+from the beginning----" A tall countryman, carrying a basket of
+vegetables, knocked against her, and when she turned to look back again,
+Blackburn had disappeared. "It is too late now. I shall never see him
+again."
+
+The station was crowded; there was a confused rumble of sounds,
+punctuated by the shrill cries of a baby, in a blue crocheted hood, that
+was struggling to escape from the arms of a nervous-looking mother. In
+front of Mrs. Timberlake, who peered straight ahead at the gate, there
+was a heavy man, with a grey beard, and beside him a small anxious-eyed
+woman, who listened, with distracted attention, to the emphatic
+sentences he was uttering. "Why doesn't he stop talking and let us go
+on," thought Caroline. "What difference does it make if the whole world
+is going to ruin?" Even now, if she could only go faster, there might be
+time for a few words with Blackburn before the train started. If only
+she might tell him that she was not ungrateful--that she understood, and
+would be his friend always. A hundred things that she wanted to say
+flashed through her mind, and these things appeared so urgent that she
+wondered how she could have forgotten them on the long drive from
+Briarlay. "I must tell him. It is the only chance I shall ever have,"
+she kept saying over and over; but when at last she heard his voice, and
+saw him awaiting them in the crowd, she could recall none of the words
+that had rushed to her lips the moment before. "It is the only chance I
+shall ever have," she repeated, though the phrase meant nothing to her
+any longer.
+
+"I tell you it's the farmers that pay for everything, and they are going
+to pay for the war," declared the grey-bearded man, in a harsh,
+polemical voice, and the anxious-eyed woman threw a frightened glance
+over her shoulder, as if the remark had been treasonable. Mrs.
+Timberlake had already passed through the gate, and was walking, with a
+hurried, nervous air, down the long platform. As she followed at
+Blackburn's side, it seemed to Caroline that she should feel like this
+if she were going to execution instead of back to The Cedars. She longed
+with all her heart to utter the regret that pervaded her thoughts, to
+speak some profound and memorable words that would separate this moment
+from every other moment that would come in the future--yet she went on
+in silence toward the waiting train, where the passengers were already
+crowding into the cars.
+
+At the step Mrs. Timberlake kissed her, and then drew back, wiping her
+reddened lids.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear, I shall write to you."
+
+"Good-bye. I can never forget how kind you have been to me."
+
+Raising her eyes, she saw Blackburn looking down on her, and with an
+effort to be casual and cheerful, she held out her hand, while a voice
+from somewhere within her brain kept repeating, "You must say something
+now that he will remember. It is the last chance you will ever have in
+your life."
+
+"Good-bye." Her eyes were smiling.
+
+"Your chair is sixteen. Good-bye."
+
+It was over; she was on the platform, and the passengers were pushing
+her into the car. She had lost her last chance, and she had lost it
+smiling. "It doesn't matter," she whispered. "I am glad to be going
+home--and life cannot hurt you unless you let it."
+
+The smile was still on her lips, but the eyes with which she sought out
+her chair were wet with tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CEDARS
+
+
+No one met her at the little country station, and leaving her bag for
+old Jonas, she started out alone to walk the two miles to The Cedars.
+Straight ahead the long, empty road trailed beneath the fresh young
+foliage of the woods, the little curled red velvet leaves of the oaks
+shining through the sea-green mist of the hickories and beeches; and she
+felt that within her soul there was only a continuation of this long,
+straight emptiness that led on to nothing. Overhead flocks of small
+fleecy clouds, as white as swans-down, drifted across the changeable
+April sky, while the breeze, passing through the thick woods, stirred
+the delicate flower-like shadows on the moist ground. "Spring is so
+sad," she thought. "I never understood before how much sadder spring is
+than autumn." This sadness of budding things, of renewing life, of
+fugitive scents and ephemeral colours, had become poignantly real. "It
+makes me want something different--something I have never had; and that
+is the sharpest desire on earth--the desire for a happiness that hasn't
+a name." A minute afterwards she concluded resolutely, "That is
+weakness, and I will not be weak. One must either conquer or be
+conquered by life--and I will not be conquered. Anybody can be
+miserable, but it takes courage to be happy. It takes courage and
+determination and intelligence to get the best out of whatever happens,
+and the only way to begin is to begin by getting the best out of
+yourself. Now I might have been hurt, but I am not because I won't let
+myself be. I might be unhappy, but I am not because my life is my own,
+and I can make of it anything that I choose." Then suddenly she heard an
+inner voice saying from a great distance, "It is my last chance. I shall
+never see him again." With the words her memory was illuminated by a
+flame; and in the burning light she saw clearly the meaning of
+everything that had happened--of her sorrow, her dumbness, her longing
+to speak some splendid and memorable word at the last. It was not to
+Briarlay, it was not even to Letty, that her thoughts had clung at the
+moment of parting. She had wanted David Blackburn to remember because it
+was the separation from him, she knew now, that would make her unhappy.
+Unconsciously, before she had suspected the truth, he had become an
+inseparable part of her world; unconsciously she had let the very roots
+of her life entwine themselves about the thought of him.
+
+Standing there in the deserted road, beneath the changeable blue of the
+sky, she turned to fight this secret and pitiless enemy. "I will not let
+it conquer me. I will conquer, as I have conquered worse things than
+this. I believed myself dead because I had once been disappointed. I
+believed myself secure because I had once been stabbed to the heart.
+This is the punishment for my pride--this humiliation and bitterness and
+longing from which I shall never be free." An unyielding cord stretched
+from her heart back to Briarlay, drawing stronger and tighter with every
+step of the distance. It would always be there. The pain would not
+lessen with time. The flame of memory would grow brighter, not paler,
+with the days, months, and years.
+
+The April wind, soft, provocative, sweet-scented, blew in her face as
+she looked back; and down the long road, between the rose and green of
+the woods, an unbroken chain of memories stretched toward her. She saw
+Blackburn as he had appeared on that first night at Briarlay, standing
+in the door of his library when she came in from the terrace; she saw
+him in Letty's room at midnight, sitting beside the night lamp on the
+candle-stand, with the book, which he did not read, open before him; she
+saw him in the day nursery, his face enkindled with tenderness; she saw
+him in the midst of the snowy landscape, when there had been rage in his
+look at the half-drunken Roane; and she saw him, most clearly of all, as
+he looked facing, on that last night, the hour that would leave its mark
+on him for ever. It was as if this chain of memories, beginning in the
+vague sunshine and shadow of the distance, grew more distinct, more
+vivid, as it approached, until at last the images of her mind gathered,
+like actual presences, in the road before her. She could not escape
+them, she knew. They were as inevitable as regret, and would follow her
+through the bitter years ahead, as they had followed her through the
+hours since she had left him. She must stand her ground, and fight for
+peace as valiantly as she had ever fought in the past.
+
+"I cannot escape it," she said, as she turned to go on, "I must accept
+it and use it because that is the only way. Mine is only one among
+millions of aching hearts, and all this pain must leave the world either
+better or worse than it was--all this pain will be used on the side
+either of light or of darkness. Even sorrow may stand in the end for
+the world's happiness, just as the tragedy of this war may make a
+greater peace in the future. If I can only keep this thought, I shall
+conquer--war may bring peace, and pain may bring joy--in the end."
+
+Beyond the white gate, the old aspens glimmered silver green in the
+sunlight, and, half-hidden in a dusky cloud of cedars, she saw the red
+chimneys and the dormer-windows of the house. Home at last! And home was
+good however she came to it. With a smile she drew out the bar, and
+after replacing it, went on with an energetic and resolute step.
+
+The door was open, and looking through the hall, she saw her mother
+crossing the back porch, with a yellow bowl of freshly churned butter in
+her hands.
+
+Mrs Meade had grown older in the last six months, and she limped
+slightly from rheumatism; but her expression of sprightly cheerfulness
+had not changed, and her full pink face was still pretty. There was
+something strangely touching in the sight of her active figure, which
+was beginning at last to stoop, and in her brisk, springy step, which
+appeared to ignore, without disguising, the limp in her walk. Never, it
+seemed to Caroline, had she seen her so closely--with so penetrating a
+flash of understanding and insight. Bare and hard as life had been, she
+had cast light, not shadow, around her; she had stood always on the side
+of the world's happiness.
+
+"Mother, dear, I've come home to see you!" cried Caroline gaily.
+
+The old lady turned with a cry. "Why, Caroline, what on earth?" she
+exclaimed, and carefully set down the bowl she was carrying.
+
+The next instant Caroline was in her arms, laughing and crying
+together.
+
+"Oh, mother, I wanted to see you, so I came home!"
+
+"Is anything wrong, dear?"
+
+"Nothing that cannot be made right. Nothing in the world that cannot be
+made right."
+
+Drawing her out on the porch, Mrs. Meade gazed earnestly into her face.
+"You are a little pale. Have you been ill, Caroline?"
+
+"I never had much colour, you know, but I am perfectly well."
+
+"And happy, darling?" The dear features, on which time was beginning to
+trace tender lines of anxiety, beamed on her daughter, with the
+invincible optimism that life had granted in place of bodily ease. As
+the wind stirred the silvery hair, Caroline noticed that it had grown a
+little thinner, though it was still as fine and light as spun flax. For
+the first time she realized that her mother possessed the beauty which
+is permanent and indestructible--the beauty of a fervent and dominant
+soul. Age could soften, but it could not destroy, the charm that was
+independent of physical change.
+
+Caroline smiled brightly. "Happy to be with you, precious mother."
+
+"Maud is in the hospital, you know, and Diana is in New York getting
+ready to sail. Only Margaret is left with me, and she hasn't been a bit
+well this winter. She is working hard over her garden."
+
+"Yes, you wrote me. While I am here, I will help her. I want to work
+very hard."
+
+"Can you stay long now? It will be such a comfort to have you. Home
+never seems just right when one of you is away, and now there will be
+three. You knew old Docia was sick, didn't you? We have had to put her
+daughter Perzelia in the kitchen, and she is only a field hand. The
+cooking isn't very good, but you won't mind. I always make the coffee
+and the batter bread."
+
+"You know I shan't mind, but I must go back to work in a week or two.
+Somebody must keep the dear old roof mended."
+
+Mrs. Meade laughed, and the sound was like music. "It has been leaking
+all winter." Then she added, while the laugh died on her lips, "Have you
+left Briarlay for good?"
+
+"Yes, for good. I shall never go back."
+
+"But you seemed so happy there?"
+
+"I shall be still happier somewhere else--for I am going to be happy,
+mother, wherever I am." Though she smiled as she answered, her eyes left
+her mother's face, and sought the road, where the long procession of the
+aspens shivered like gray-green ghosts in the wind.
+
+"I am so glad, dear, but there hasn't been anything to hurt you, has
+there? I hope Mr. Blackburn hasn't been disagreeable."
+
+"Oh, no, he has been very kind. I cannot begin to tell you how kind he
+has been." Her voice trembled for an instant, and then went on brightly,
+"And so has Mrs. Timberlake. At first I didn't like her. I thought she
+was what Docia calls 'ficy,' but afterwards, as I wrote you so often,
+she turned out to be very nice and human. First impressions aren't
+always reliable. If they were life would be easier, and there wouldn't
+be so many disappointments--but do you know the most valuable lesson
+I've learned this winter? Well, it is not to trust my first
+impression--of a cat. The next time old Jonas brings me a lot of kittens
+and asks me what I think of them, I'm going to answer, 'I can't tell,
+Jonas, until I discover their hidden qualities.' It's the hidden
+qualities that make or mar life, and yet we accept or reject people
+because of something on the surface--something that doesn't really
+matter at all."
+
+She was gay enough; her voice was steady; her laugh sounded natural; the
+upward sweep of the black brows was as charming as ever; and the old
+sunny glance was searching the distance. There was nothing that Mrs.
+Meade could point to and say "this is different"; yet the change was
+there, and the mother felt, with the infallible instinct of love, that
+the daughter who had come home to her was not the Caroline who had left
+The Cedars six months ago. "She is keeping something from me," thought
+Mrs. Meade. "For the first time in her life she is keeping something
+from me."
+
+"Now I must take off my hat and go to work," said Caroline, eagerly, and
+she added under her breath, "It will rest me to work."
+
+The fragrance of spring was in the air, and through the fortnight that
+she stayed at The Cedars, it seemed to her that this inescapable
+sweetness became a reminder and a torture--a reminder of the beauty and
+the evanescence of youth, a torture to all the sensitive nerves of her
+imagination, which conjured up delusive visions of happiness. In the
+beginning she had thought that work would be her salvation, as it had
+been when she was younger, that every day, every week, would soften the
+pain, until at last it would melt into the shadows of memory, and cease
+to trouble her life. But as the days went by, she realized that this
+emotion differed from that earlier one as maturity differs from
+adolescence--not in weakness, but in the sharper pang of its regret.
+Hour by hour, the image of Blackburn grew clearer, not dimmer, in her
+mind; day by day, the moments that she had spent with him appeared to
+draw closer instead of retreating farther away. Because he had never
+been to The Cedars she had believed that she could escape the sharper
+recollections while she was here; yet she found now that every object at
+which she looked--the house, the road, the fields, the garden, even the
+lilacs blooming beneath her window--she found now that all these dear
+familiar things were attended by a thronging multitude of associations.
+The place that he had never known was saturated with his presence. "If I
+could only forget him," she thought. "Caring wouldn't matter so much, if
+I could only stop thinking." But, through some perversity of will, the
+very effort that she made to forget him served merely to strengthen the
+power of remembrance--as if the energy of mind were condensed into some
+clear and sparkling medium which preserved and intensified the thought
+of him. After hours of work, in which she had buried the memories of
+Briarlay, they would awake more ardently as soon as she raised her head
+and released her hands from her task. The resolution which had carried
+her through her first tragedy failed her utterly now, for this was a
+situation, she found, where resolution appeared not to count.
+
+And the bitterest part was that when she looked back now on those last
+months at Briarlay, she saw them, not as they were in reality, filled
+with minor cares and innumerable prosaic anxieties, but irradiated by
+the rosy light her imagination had enkindled about them. She had not
+known then that she was happy; but it seemed to her now that, if she
+could only recover the past, if she could only walk up the drive again
+and enter the house and see Blackburn and Letty, it would mean perfect
+and unalterable happiness. At night she would dream sometimes of the
+outside of the house and the drive and the elms, which she saw always
+shedding their bronze leaves in the autumn; but she never got nearer
+than the white columns, and the front door remained closed when she rang
+the bell, and even beat vainly on the knocker. These dreams invariably
+left her exhausted and in a panic of terror, as if she had seen the door
+of happiness close in her face. The day afterwards her regret would
+become almost unendurable, and her longing, which drowned every other
+interest or emotion, would overwhelm her, like a great flood which had
+swept away the natural boundaries of existence, and submerged alike the
+valleys and the peaks of her consciousness. Everything was deluged by
+it; everything surrendered to the torrent--even the past. Because she
+had once been hurt so deeply, she had believed that she could never be
+hurt in the same way again; but she discovered presently that what she
+had suffered yesterday had only taught her how to suffer more intensely
+to-day. Nothing had helped her--not blighted love, not disillusionment,
+not philosophy. All these had been swept like straws on the torrent from
+which she could not escape.
+
+The days were long, but the nights were far longer, for, with the first
+fall of the darkness, her imagination was set free. While she was
+working with Margaret in the garden, or the kitchen, she could keep her
+mind on the object before her--she could plant or weed until her body
+ached from fatigue, and the soft air and the smell of earth and of
+lilacs, became intermingled. But it was worse in the slow, slow
+evenings, when the three of them sat and talked, with an interminable
+airy chatter, before the wood-fire, or round the lamp, which still
+smoked. Then she would run on gaily, talking always against time,
+longing for the hour that would release her from the presence of the
+beings she loved best, while some memory of Blackburn glimmered in the
+fire, or in the old portraits, or through the windows, which looked,
+uncurtained, out on the stars. There were moments even when some quiver
+of expression on her mother's face or on Margaret's, some gleam of
+laughter or trick of gesture, would remind her of him. Then she would
+ask herself if it were possible that she had loved him before she had
+ever seen him, and afterwards at Briarlay, when she had believed herself
+to be so indifferent? And sitting close to her mother and sister,
+divided from them by an idea which was more impregnable than any
+physical barrier, she began to feel gradually that her soul was still
+left there in the house which her mind inhabited so persistently--that
+her real life, her vital and perpetual being, still went on there in the
+past, and that here, in the present, beside these dear ones, who loved
+her so tenderly, there was only a continuous moving shadow of herself.
+"But how do I know that these aren't the shadows of mother and of
+Margaret?" she would demand, startled out of her reverie.
+
+At the end of a fortnight a letter came from Mrs. Timberlake, and she
+read it on the kitchen porch, where Perzelia, the field hand, was
+singing in a high falsetto, as she bent over the wash-tub.
+
+"_We is jew-els--pre-cious--jew-els in--His--c-r-ow-n!_" sang Perzelia
+shrilly, and changing suddenly from hymn to sermon, "Yas, Lawd, I tells
+de worl'. I tells de worl' dat ef'n dat nigger 'oman don' stop 'er lies
+on me, I'se gwine ter cut 'er heart out. I'se gwine ter kill 'er jes'
+de same ez I 'ould a rat. Yas, Lawd, I tells 'er dat. '_We is
+jew-els--pre-cious--jew-els in His c-r-o-w-n._'"
+
+Mrs. Timberlake wrote in her fine Italian hand:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MY DEAR CAROLINE,
+
+I have thought of you very often, and wanted to write to you, but ever
+since you left we have been rather upset, and I have been too busy to
+settle down to pen and paper. For several weeks after you went away
+Letty was not a bit well. Nobody knew what was the matter with her, and
+Doctor Boland's medicine did not do her any good. She just seemed to
+peak and pine, and I said all along it was nothing in the world except
+missing you that made her sick. Now she is beginning to pick up as
+children will if you do not worry them too much, and I hope she will
+soon get her colour back and look as natural as she did while you were
+here. We have a new trained nurse--a Miss Bradley, from somewhere up in
+the Shenandoah Valley, but she is very plain and uninteresting, and,
+between you and me, I believe she bores Letty to death. I never see the
+child that she does not ask me, "When is Miss Meade coming back?"
+
+We were very anxious to have a word from you after you went away.
+However, I reckon you felt as if you did not care to write, and I am
+sure I do not blame you. I suppose you have heard all the gossip that
+has been going on here--somebody must have written you, for somebody
+always does write when there is anything unpleasant to say. You know, of
+course, that Angelica left David the very day you went away, and the
+town has been fairly ringing with all sorts of dreadful scandals. People
+believe he was cruel to her, and that she bore his ill-treatment just as
+long as she could before leaving his house. Only you and I and Mammy
+Riah will ever know what really happened, and nobody would believe us if
+we were to come out and tell under oath--which, of course, we can never
+do. I cannot make out exactly what Angelica means to do, but she has
+gone somewhere out West, and I reckon she intends to get a divorce and
+marry Alan, if he ever comes back from the war. You may not have heard
+that he has gone into the army, and I expect he will be among the very
+first to be sent to France. Roane is going, too. You cannot imagine how
+handsome he is in his uniform. He has not touched a drop since we went
+to war, and I declare he looks exactly like a picture of a crusader of
+the Middle Ages, which proves how deceptive the best appearances are.
+
+David has not changed a particle through it all. You remember how
+taciturn he always was, and how he never let anybody even mention
+Angelica's name to him? Well, it is just the same now, and he is, if
+possible, more tight-lipped than ever. Nobody knows how he feels, or
+what he thinks of her behaviour--not even Colonel Ashburton, and you
+know what close and devoted friends they are. The Colonel told me that
+once, when he first saw how things were going, he tried to open the
+subject, and that he could never forget how Blackburn turned him off by
+talking about something that was way up in the air and had nothing to do
+with the subject. I am sure David has been cut to the heart, but he will
+never speak out, and everybody will believe that Angelica has been
+perfectly right in everything she has done. If it goes on long enough,
+she will even believe it herself, and that, I reckon, is the reason she
+is so strong, and always manages to appear sinned against instead of
+sinning. Nothing can shake her conviction that whatever she wants she
+ought to have.
+
+Well, my dear, I must stop now and see about dinner. The house is so
+lonely, though, as far as I can tell, Letty hardly misses her mother at
+all, and this makes it so provoking when people like Daisy Colfax cry
+over the child in the street, and carry on about, "poor dear Angelica,
+who is so heartbroken." That is the way Daisy goes on whenever I see
+her, and it is what they are saying all over Richmond. They seem to
+think that David is just keeping Letty out of spite, and I cannot make
+them believe that Angelica does not want her, and is glad to be relieved
+of the responsibility. When I say this they put it down as one of my
+peculiarities--like blinking eyes, or the habit of stuttering when I get
+excited.
+
+Give my love to your mother, though I reckon she has forgotten old Matty
+Timberlake, and do drop me a line to let me hear how you are.
+
+    Your affectionate friend,
+        MATTY TIMBERLAKE.
+
+Letty sends her dearest, dearest, dearest love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When she had finished the letter, Caroline looked over the lilacs by the
+kitchen porch and the broken well-house, to the road beneath the aspens,
+which still led somewhere--somewhere--to the unattainable. At one corner
+of the porch Perzelia was singing again, and the sound mingled with the
+words that Mrs. Timberlake had written.
+
+"_We is jew-els, pre-cious jew-els in His c-r-o-w-n._"
+
+A fever of restlessness seized Caroline while she listened. The letter,
+instead of quieting her, had merely sharpened the edge of her longing,
+and she was filled with hunger for more definite news. In an hour The
+Cedars had become intolerable to her. She felt that she could not endure
+another day of empty waiting--of waiting without hope--of the monotonous
+round of trivial details that led to nothing, of the perpetual,
+interminable effort to drug feeling with fatigue, to thrust the
+secondary interests and the things that did not matter into the
+foreground of her life. "He has never wasted a regret on me," she
+thought. "He never cared for a minute. I was nothing to him except a
+friend, a woman who could be trusted." The confession was like the
+twist of a knife in her heart; and springing to her feet, she picked up
+the letter she had dropped, and ran into the house.
+
+"I must go back to work, mother darling," she said. "The money I saved
+is all gone, and I must go back to work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE YEARS AHEAD
+
+
+Toward the close of an afternoon in November, Caroline was walking from
+the hospital to a boarding-house in Grace Street, where she was spending
+a few days between cases. All summer she had nursed in Richmond; and now
+that the autumn, for which she had longed, had at last come, she was
+beginning to feel the strain of hard work and sleepless nights. Though
+she still wore her air of slightly defiant courage, a close observer
+would have noticed the softer depths in her eyes, the little lines in
+her face, and the note of sadness that quivered now and then in her
+ready laughter. It was with an effort now that she moved with her
+energetic and buoyant step, for her limbs ached, and a permanent
+weariness pervaded her body.
+
+A high wind was blowing, and from the scattered trees on the block, a
+few brown and wrinkled leaves were torn roughly, and then whirled in a
+cloud of dust up the street. The block ahead was deserted, except for an
+aged negro wheeling a handcart full of yellow chrysanthemums, but as
+Caroline approached the crossing, Daisy Colfax came suddenly from the
+corner of a church, and hesitated an instant before speaking. The last
+time that Caroline had seen her, old Mrs. Colfax had been in the car,
+and they had not spoken; but now that Daisy was alone, she pounced upon
+her with the manner of an affectionate and playful kitten.
+
+"Oh, I didn't know you at first, Miss Meade! You are so much thinner.
+What have you been doing?"
+
+She held out her hand, diffusing life, love, joy, with the warmth of her
+Southern charm; and while Caroline stood there, holding the soft, gloved
+hand in her own, a dart of envy pierced the armour of her suffering and
+her philosophy. How handsome Daisy looked! How happy! Her hat of the
+royal purple she favoured made her black hair gleam like velvet; her
+sealskin coat, with its enormous collar of ermine, wrapped her
+luxuriously from head to foot; her brilliant complexion had the glow of
+a peach that is just ready to drop. She also had had an unfortunate
+romance somewhere in the past; she had married a man whom she did not
+love; yet she shone, she scintillated, with the genuine lustre of
+happiness. Never had the superior advantages of a shallow nature
+appeared so incontestable.
+
+"I saw you go by yesterday, Miss Meade, and I said to myself that I was
+going to stop and speak to you the first chance I got. I took such a
+fancy to you when you were out at Briarlay, and I want to tell you right
+now that I never believed there was anything queer in your going away
+like that so early in the morning, without saying a word to anybody. At
+first people didn't understand why you did it, and, of course, you know
+that somebody tried to start gossip; but as soon as Mrs. Timberlake told
+me your sister was ill, I went straight about telling everybody I saw.
+You were the last woman on earth, I always said, to want anything like a
+flirtation with a man, married or single, and I knew you used to
+sympathize _so_ with Angelica. I shall never forget the way you looked
+at David Blackburn the night you came there, when he was so dreadfully
+rude to her at the table. I told mother afterwards that if a look could
+have killed, he would have fallen dead on the spot." She paused an
+instant, adjusted a loosened pin in her lace veil, and glided on
+smoothly again without a perceptible change in her voice, "Poor, dear
+Angelica! All our hearts are broken over her. I never knew David
+Blackburn well, but I always despised him from the beginning. A man who
+will sit through a whole dinner without opening his mouth, as I've known
+him to do, is capable of anything. That's what I always say when Robert
+tells me I am prejudiced. I am really not in the least prejudiced, but I
+just can't abide him, and there's no use trying to make me pretend that
+I can. Even if he hadn't ruined Angelica's life, I should feel almost as
+strongly about him. Everybody says that she is going to get a divorce
+for cruelty, though one of the most prominent lawyers in town--I don't
+like to mention his name, but you would know it in a minute--told me
+that she could get it on _any_ grounds that she chose. Angelica has such
+delicacy of feeling that she went out West, where you don't have to make
+everything so dreadfully public, and drag in all kinds of disgraceful
+evidence--but they say that David Blackburn neglected her from the very
+first, and that he has had affairs with other women for years and years.
+He must have selected those nobody had ever heard of, or he couldn't
+have kept it all so secret, and that only proves, as I said to Robert,
+that his tastes were always low----"
+
+"Why do people like to believe these things?" demanded Caroline
+resentfully. "Why don't they try to find out the truth?"
+
+"Well, how in the world are they going to find out any more than they
+are told? I said that to Mrs. Ashburton--you know they stand up for Mr.
+Blackburn through thick and thin--but even they can't find a word to say
+against Angelica, except that she isn't sincere, and that she doesn't
+really care about Letty. There isn't a word of truth in that, and nobody
+would believe it who had seen Angelica after she told Letty good-bye.
+She was heartbroken--simply heartbroken. Her face was the loveliest
+thing I ever looked at, and, as Alan Wythe said to me the next day--it
+was the very afternoon before he went off to camp--there was the soul of
+motherhood in it. I thought that such a beautiful way of putting it, for
+it suited Angelica perfectly. Didn't you always feel that she was full
+of soul?"
+
+"I wonder how Letty is getting on?" asked Caroline, in the pause. "Have
+you heard anything of her?"
+
+"Oh, she is all right, I think. They have a nurse there who is looking
+after her until they find a good governess. She must miss her mother
+terribly, but she doesn't show it a bit. I must say she always seemed to
+me to be a child of very little feeling. If I go away for a week, my
+children cry their eyes out, and Letty has lost her mother, and no one
+would ever know it to watch her."
+
+"She is a reserved child, but I am sure she has feeling," said Caroline.
+
+"Of course you know her better than I do, and, anyhow, you couldn't
+expect a child not to show the effects of the kind of home life she has
+had. I tell Robert that our first duty in life is to provide the memory
+of a happy home for our children. It means so much when you're grown,
+don't you think, to look back on a pleasant childhood? As for Letty she
+might as well be an orphan now that David Blackburn has gone to
+France----"
+
+"To France?" For a minute it seemed to Caroline that claws were tearing
+her heart, and the dull ache which she had felt for months changed into
+a sharp and unendurable pain. Then the grey sky and grey street and grey
+dust intermingled, and went round and round in a circle.
+
+"You hadn't heard? Why, he went last week, or it may be that he is going
+next week--I can't remember which. Robert didn't know exactly what he
+was to do--some kind of constructive work, he said, for the Government.
+I never get things straight, but all I know is that everything seems to
+be for the Government now. I declare, I never worked so hard in my life
+as I have done in the last six or eight months, and Robert has been in
+Washington simply slaving his head off for a dollar a year. It does one
+good, I suppose. Mr. Courtland preached a beautiful sermon last Sunday
+about it, and I never realized before how wonderfully we have all grown
+in spirit since the war began. I said to Mrs. Mallow, as I came out,
+that it was so comforting to feel that we had been developing all the
+time without knowing it, or having to bother about it. Of course, we did
+know that we had been very uncomfortable, but that isn't quite the same,
+and now I can stand giving up things so much better when I realize that
+I am getting them all back, even if it's just spiritually. Don't you
+think that is a lovely way to feel about it?"
+
+"I must go," said Caroline breathlessly. Her pulses were hammering in
+her ears, and she could scarcely hear what Daisy was saying.
+
+"Well, good-bye. I am so glad to have seen you. Are you going to France
+like everybody else?"
+
+"I hope so. I have offered my services."
+
+"Then you are just as wild about war work as I am. I'd give anything on
+earth to go over with the Y. M. C. A., and I tell Robert that the only
+thing that keeps me back is the children."
+
+She floated on to her car at the corner, while Caroline crossed the
+street, and walked slowly in the direction of the boarding-house. "It
+can make no possible difference to me. Why should I care?" she asked
+herself. Yet the clutch of pain had not relaxed in her heart, and it
+seemed to her that all the life and colour had gone out of the town. He
+was not here. He was across the world. Until this instant she had not
+realized how much it meant to her that he should be in the same city,
+even though she never saw him.
+
+She reached the house, opened the drab iron gate, went up the short
+brick walk between withered weeds, and rang the bell beside the
+inhospitable door, from which the sallow paint was peeling in streaks.
+At the third ring, a frowzy coloured maid, in a soiled apron, which she
+was still frantically tying, opened the door; and when she saw Caroline,
+a sympathetic grin widened her mouth.
+
+"You is done hed a caller, en he lef' his name over dar on de table. I
+axed 'im ef'n he wouldn't set down en res' his hat, but he jes' shuck
+his haid en walked right spang out agin."
+
+Entering the hall, Caroline picked up the card, and passed into the
+shabby living-room, which was empty during the afternoon hours. In the
+centre of the hideous room, with its damaged Victorian furniture, its
+open stove, its sentimental engravings, and its piles of magazines long
+out of date--in the midst of the surroundings of a contented and
+tasteless period, she stared down, with incredulous eyes, at the bit of
+paper she was holding. So he had been there. He had come at the last
+moment, probably on his last day in Richmond, and she had missed him!
+Life had accorded her one other opportunity, and, with the relentless
+perversity of her fate, she had lost it by an accident, by a quarter of
+an hour, by a chance meeting with Daisy! It was her destiny to have the
+things that she desired held within reach, to watch them approach until
+she could almost touch them, to see them clearly and vividly for a
+minute, and then to have them withdrawn through some conspiracy of
+external events. "I didn't ask much," she thought, "only to see him once
+more--only the chance to let him see that I can still hold my head high
+and meet the future with courage." In an instant she felt that the utter
+futility and emptiness of the summer, of every day that she had passed
+since she left Briarlay, enveloped and smothered her with the thickness
+of ashes. "It is not fair," she cried, in rebellion, "I have had a hard
+life. I asked so little. It is not fair."
+
+Going over to the window, she put the cheap curtains aside, and looked
+out into the street, as if searching the pavement for his vanishing
+figure. Nothing there except emptiness! Nothing except the wind and
+falling leaves and grey dust and the footsteps of a passer-by at the
+corner. It was like her life, that long, deserted street, filled with
+dead leaves and the restless sound of things that went by a little way
+off.
+
+For a minute the idea stayed with her. Then, raising her head, with a
+smile, she looked up at the bare trees and the sombre sky over the
+housetops. "Life cannot hurt you unless you let it," she repeated. "I
+will not let it. I will conquer, if it kills me." And, so inexplicable
+are the processes of the soul, the resolution arising in her thoughts
+became interfused not only with her point of view, but with the bleak
+external world at which she was looking. The will to fight endowed her
+with the physical power of fighting; the thought created the fact; and
+she knew that as long as she believed herself to be unconquered, she was
+unconquerable. The moment of weakness had served its purpose--for the
+reaction had taught her that destiny lies within, not without; that the
+raw material of existence does not differ; and that our individual lives
+depend, not upon things as they are in themselves, but upon the thought
+with which we have modified or enriched them. "I will not be a coward. I
+will not let the world cheat me of happiness," she resolved; and the
+next instant, as she lowered her eyes from the sky, she saw David
+Blackburn looking up at her from the gate.
+
+For a moment she felt that life stopped in its courses, and then began
+again, joyously, exuberantly, drenched with colour and sweetness. She
+had asked so little. She had asked only to see him again--only the
+chance to show him that she could be brave--and he stood here at the
+gate! He was still her friend, that was enough. It was enough to have
+him stand there and look up at her with his grave, questioning eyes.
+
+Turning quickly away from the window, she ran out of the house and down
+the brick walk to the gate.
+
+"I thought I had missed you," she said, her eyes shining with
+happiness.
+
+"It is my last day in Richmond. I wanted to say good-bye." He had
+touched her hand with the briefest greeting; but in his face she read
+his gladness at seeing her; and she felt suddenly that everything had
+been made right, that he would understand without words, that there was
+nothing she could add to the joy of the meeting. It was friendship, not
+love, she knew; and yet, at the moment, friendship was all that she
+asked--friendship satisfied her heart, and filled the universe with a
+miraculous beauty. After the torment of the last six months, peace had
+descended upon her abundantly, ineffably, out of the heavens. All the
+longing to explain faded now into the knowledge that explanation was
+futile, and when she spoke again it was to say none of the things with
+which she had burdened her mind.
+
+"How is Letty?" she asked, "I think of her so often."
+
+"She is very well, but she misses you. Will you walk a little way? We
+can talk better in the street."
+
+"Yes, the house will soon be full of boarders." Weariness had left her.
+She felt strong, gay, instinct with energy. As she moved up the deserted
+street, through the autumn dust, laughter rippled on her lips, and the
+old buoyant grace flowed in her walk. It was only friendship, she told
+herself, and yet she asked nothing more. She had been born again; she
+had come to life in a moment.
+
+And everything at which she looked appeared to have come to life also.
+The heavy clouds; the long, ugly street, with the monotonous footsteps
+of the few passers-by; the wind blowing the dried leaves in swirls and
+eddies over the brick pavement; the smell of autumn which lingered in
+the air and the dust--all these things seemed not dead, but as living
+as spring. The inner radiance had streamed forth to brighten the outward
+greyness; the April bloom of her spirit was spreading over the earth.
+
+"This is my hour," her heart told her. "Out of the whole of life I have
+this single short hour of happiness. I must pour into it everything that
+is mine, every memory of joy I shall ever have in the future. I must
+make it so perfect that it will shed a glow over all the drab years
+ahead. It is only friendship. He has never thought of me except as a
+friend--but I must make the memory of friendship more beautiful than the
+memory of love."
+
+He looked at her in the twilight, and she felt that peace enveloped her
+with his glance.
+
+"Tell me about yourself," he said gently. "What has life done to you?"
+
+"Everything, and nothing." Her voice was light and cheerful. "I have
+worked hard all summer, and I am hoping to go to France if the war
+lasts----"
+
+"All of us hope that. It is amazing the way the war has gripped us to
+the soul. Everything else becomes meaningless. The hold it has taken on
+me is so strong that I feel as if I were there already in part, as if
+only the shell of my body were left over here out of danger." He paused
+and looked at her closely. "I can talk to you of the things I
+think--impersonal things. The rest you must understand--you will
+understand?"
+
+Her heart rose on wings like a bird. "Talk to me of anything," she
+answered, "I shall understand."
+
+"No one, except my mother, has ever understood so completely. I shall
+always, whatever happens, look back on our talks at Briarlay as the
+most helpful, the most beautiful of my life."
+
+Her glance was veiled with joy as she smiled up at him. This was more
+than she had ever demanded even in dreams. It was the bread of life in
+abundance, and she felt that she could live on it through all the barren
+years of the future. To have the best in her recognized, to be judged,
+not by a momentary impulse, but by a permanent ideal--this was what she
+had craved, and this was accorded her.
+
+"For the time I can see nothing but the war," he was saying in a changed
+voice. "The ground has been cut from under my feet. I am groping through
+a ruined world toward some kind of light, some kind of certainty. The
+things I believed in have failed me--and even the things I thought have
+undergone modifications. I can find but one steadfast resolve in the
+midst of this fog of disappointment, and that is to help fight this war
+to a finish. My personal life has become of no consequence. It has been
+absorbed into the national will, I suppose. It has become a part of
+America's determination to win the war, let it cost what it may."
+
+The old light of vision and prophecy had come back to his face while she
+watched it; and she realized, with a rush of mental sympathy, that his
+ideas were still dynamic--that they possessed the vital energy of
+creative and constructive forces.
+
+"Talk to me of your work--your life," she said, and she thought
+exultantly, "If I cannot hold him back, I can follow him. I, too, can
+build my home on ideas."
+
+"You know what I have always felt about my country," he said slowly.
+"You know that I have always hoped to be of some lasting service in
+building a better State. As a boy I used to dream of it, and in later
+years, in spite of disappointments--of almost unbearable disappointments
+and failures--the dream has come back more vividly. For a time I
+believed that I could work here, as well as away, for the future of
+America--for the genuine democracy that is founded not on force, but on
+freedom. For a little while this seemed to me to be possible. Then I was
+pushed back again from the ranks of the fighters--I became again merely
+a spectator of life--until the war called me to action. As long as the
+war lasts it will hold me. When that is over there will be fresh fields
+and newer problems, and I may be useful."
+
+"It is constructive work, not fighting now, isn't it?"
+
+"It is the machinery of war--but, after all, what does it matter if it
+only helps to win?"
+
+"And afterwards? When it is over?"
+
+His eyes grew very gentle. "If I could only see into the future! Words
+may come to me some day, and I may answer you--but not now--not yet. I
+know nothing to-day except that there is work for my hand, and I must do
+it. Trust me for the rest. You do trust me?"
+
+There was a glory in her face as she answered, "To do right always.
+Until death--and beyond."
+
+"If we have trust, we have everything," he said, and a note of sadness
+had crept into his voice. "Life has taught me that without it the rest
+is only ashes."
+
+"I am glad for your sake that you can go," she replied. "It would be
+harder here."
+
+The man's part was his, and though she would not have had it otherwise,
+she understood that the man's part would be the easier. He would go
+away; he would do his work; his life would be crowded to the brim with
+incident, with practical interests; and, though she could trust him not
+to forget, she knew that he would not remember as she remembered in the
+place where she had known him.
+
+"The work will be worth doing," he answered, "even if the record is soon
+lost. It will mean little in the way of ambition, but I think that
+ambition scarcely counts with me now. What I am seeking is an
+opportunity for impersonal service--a wider field in which to burn up my
+energy." His voice softened, and she felt, for the first time, that he
+was talking impersonally because he was afraid of the danger that lay in
+the silence and the twilight--that he was speaking in casual phrases
+because the real thought, the true words, were unutterable. She was sure
+now, she was confident; and the knowledge gave her strength to look with
+clear eyes on the parting--and afterwards----
+
+He began to talk of his work, while they turned and walked slowly back
+to the boarding-house.
+
+"I will write to you," he said, "but remember I shall write only of what
+I think. I shall write the kind of letters that I should write to a
+man."
+
+"It all interests me," she answered. "Your thought is a part of you--it
+is yourself."
+
+"It is the only self I dare follow for the present, and even that
+changes day by day. I see so many things now, if not differently--well,
+at least in an altered perspective. It is like travelling on a dark
+road, as soon as one danger is past, others spring up out of the
+obscurity. The war has cast a new light on every belief, on every
+conviction that I thought I possessed. The values of life are changing
+hourly--they are in a process of readjustment. Facts that appeared so
+steadfast, so clear, to my vision a year ago, are now out of focus. I go
+on, for I always sought truth, not consistency, but I go on blindly. I
+am trying to feel the road since I cannot see it. I am searching the
+distance for some glimmer of dawn--for some light I can travel by. I
+know, of course, that our first task is winning the war, that until the
+war is won there can be no security for ideas or mankind, that unless
+the war is won, there can be no freedom for either individual or
+national development."
+
+As they reached the gate, he broke off, and held out his hand. "But I
+meant to write you all this. It is the only thing I can write you. You
+will see Letty sometimes?"
+
+"Whenever I can. Mrs. Timberlake will bring her to see me."
+
+"And you will think of yourself? You will keep well?"
+
+He held her hand; her eyes were on his; and though she heard his
+questions and her answers, she felt that both questions and answers were
+as trivial as the autumn dust at her feet. What mattered was the look in
+his eyes, which was like a cord drawing her spirit nearer and nearer.
+She knew now that he loved her; but she knew it through some finer and
+purer medium of perception than either speech or touch. If he had said
+nothing in their walk together, if he had parted from her in silence,
+she would have understood as perfectly as she understood now. In that
+moment, while her hand was in his and her radiant look on his face, the
+pain and tragedy of the last months, the doubt, the humiliation, the
+haunting perplexity and suspense, the self-distrust and the bitterer
+distrust of life--all these things, which had so tormented her heart,
+were swept away by a tide of serene and ineffable peace. She was not
+conscious of joy. The confidence that pervaded her spirit was as far
+above joy as it was above pain or distress. What she felt with the
+profoundest conviction was that she could never really be unhappy again
+in the future--that she had had all of life in a moment, and that she
+could face whatever came with patience and fortitude.
+
+"Stand fast, little friend," he said, "and trust me." Then, without
+waiting for her reply, he turned from her and walked away through the
+twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LIGHT ON THE ROAD
+
+
+When Caroline entered the house, the sound of clinking plates and
+rattling knives told her that the boarders had already assembled at
+supper; and it surprised her to discover that she was hungry for the
+first time in months. Happiness had made everything different, even her
+appetite for the commonplace fare Mrs. Dandridge provided. It was just
+as if an intense physical pain had suddenly ceased to throb, and the
+relief exhilarated her nerves, and made her eager for the ordinary
+details which had been so irksome a few hours before. Life was no longer
+distorted and abnormal. Her pride and courage had come back to her; and
+she understood at last that it was not the unfulfilment of love, but the
+doubt of its reality, that had poisoned her thoughts. Since she knew
+that it was real, she could bear any absence, any pain. The knowledge
+that genuine love had been hers for an hour, that she had not been
+cheated out of her heritage, that she had not given gold for sand, as
+she had done as a girl--the knowledge of these things was the chain of
+light that would bind together all the dull years before her. Already,
+though her pulses were still beating rapturously, she found that the
+personal values were gradually assuming their right position and
+importance in her outlook. There were greater matters, there were more
+significant facts in the world to-day than her own particular joy or
+sorrow. She must meet life, and she must meet it with serenity and
+fortitude. She must help where the immediate need was, without thought
+of the sacrifice, without thought even of her own suffering. How often
+in the past eight years had she told herself, "Love is the greatest good
+in the world, but it is not the only good. There are lives filled to
+overflowing in which love has no place." Now she realized that her love
+must be kept like some jewel in a secret casket, which was always there,
+always hidden and guarded, yet seldom brought out into the daylight and
+opened. "I must think of it only for a few minutes of the day," she
+said, "only when I am off duty, and it will not interfere with my work."
+And she resolved that she would keep this pledge with all the strength
+of her will. She would live life whole, not in parts.
+
+Without taking off her hat, she went into the dining-room, and tried to
+slip unnoticed into her chair at a small table in one corner. The other
+seats were already occupied, and a pretty, vivacious girl she had known
+at the hospital, looked up and remarked, "You look so well, Miss Meade.
+Have you been for a walk?"
+
+"Yes, I've been for a walk. That is why I am late."
+
+Down the centre of the room, beneath the flickering gas chandelier and
+the fly-specked ceiling, there was a long, narrow table, and at the head
+of it, Mrs. Dandridge presided with an air as royal as if she were
+gracing a banquet. She was a stately, white-haired woman, who had once
+been beautiful and was still impressive--for adversity, which had
+reduced her circumstances and destroyed her comfort, had failed to
+penetrate the majestic armour of her manner. In the midst of drudgery
+and turmoil and disaster, she had preserved her mental poise as some
+persons are able to preserve their equilibrium in a rocking boat.
+Nothing disturbed her; she was as superior to accidents as she was to
+inefficiency or incompetence. Her meals were never served at the hour;
+the food was badly cooked; the table was seldom tidy; and yet her house
+was always crowded, and there was an unimpeachable tradition that she
+had never received a complaint from a boarder.
+
+As she sat now at the head of her unappetizing table, eating her
+lukewarm potato soup as if it were terrapin, she appeared gracious,
+charming, supported by the romantic legends of her beauty and her
+aristocratic descent. If life had defeated her, it was one of those
+defeats which the philosopher has pronounced more triumphant than
+victories.
+
+"I spent the afternoon at the Red Cross rooms," she remarked, regal,
+serene, and impoverished. "That is why supper was a little late
+to-night. Since I can give nothing else, I feel that it is my duty to
+give my time. I even ask myself sometimes if I have a moral right to
+anything we can send over to France?"
+
+Inadvertently, or through some instinct of tact which was either divine
+or diabolical, she had touched a responsive cord in the heart of every
+man or woman at the table. There was no motive beyond impulsive sympathy
+in the words, for she was as incapable of deliberate design as she was
+of systematic economy; but her natural kindliness appeared to serve her
+now more effectively than any Machiavellian subtlety could have done.
+The discontented and dejected look vanished from the faces about her;
+the distinguished widow, with two sons in the army, stopped frowning at
+the potato soup; the hungry but polite young man, who travelled for a
+clothing house, put down the war bread he was in the act of passing; and
+the studious-looking teacher across the table lost the critical air with
+which she had been regarding the coloured waitress. As Caroline watched
+the change, she asked herself if the war, which was only a phrase to
+these people a few months ago, had become at last a reality? "We are in
+it now, body and soul," she thought, "we are in it just as France and
+England have been in it from the beginning. It is our war as much as
+theirs because it has touched our hearts. It has done what nothing has
+been able to do before--it has made us one people."
+
+Into these different faces at Mrs. Dandridge's table, a single idea had
+passed suddenly, vitalizing and ennobling both the bright and the dull
+features--the idea of willing sacrifice. Something greater than selfish
+needs or desires had swept them out of themselves on a wave of moral
+passion that, for the moment, exalted them like a religious conversion.
+What had happened, Caroline knew, was that the patriotism in one of the
+most patriotic nations on earth had been stirred to the depths.
+
+The talk she heard was the kind that was going on everywhere. She had
+listened to it day after day, as it echoed and re-echoed from the
+boarding-houses, the hospitals, and the streets--and through the long,
+bitter months, when coal was scarce and heatless and meatless days kept
+the blood down, she was aware of it, as of a persistent undercurrent of
+cheerful noise. There were no complaints, but there were many jests, and
+the characteristic Virginian habit of meeting a difficult situation with
+a joke, covered the fuel administration with ridicule. For weeks ice lay
+on the pavements, a famine in coal threatened; and as the winter went
+by, bread, instead of growing better, became steadily worse. But, after
+all, people said, these discomforts and denials were so small compared
+to the colossal sacrifices of Europe. Things were done badly, but what
+really counted was that they were done. Beneath the waste and
+extravagance and incompetence, a tremendous spirit was moving; and out
+of the general aspect of bureaucratic shiftlessness, America was
+gathering her strength. In the future, as inevitably as history develops
+from a fact into a fable, the waste would be exalted into liberality,
+the shiftlessness into efficiency. For it is the law of our life that
+the means pass, and the end remains, that the act decays, but the spirit
+has immortality.
+
+For the next six months, when the calls were many and nurses were few,
+Caroline kept her jewel in the secret casket. She did not think of
+herself, because to think of herself was the beginning of weakness, and
+she had resolved long ago to be strong. When all was said, the final
+result of her life depended simply on whether she overcame obstacles or
+succumbed to them. It was not the event, she knew, that coloured one's
+mental atmosphere; it was the point of view from which one approached
+it. "It is just as easy to grow narrow and bitter over an unfulfilled
+love as it is to be happy and cheerful," she thought, "and whether it is
+easy or not, I am not going to let myself grow narrow and bitter. Of
+course, I might have had more, but, then, I might have had so much
+less--I might not have had that one hour--or his friendship. I am going
+to be thankful that I have had so much, and I am going to stop thinking
+about it at all. I may feel all I want to deep down in my soul, but I
+must stop thinking. When the whole country is giving up something, I
+can at least give up selfish regret."
+
+The winter passed, filled with work, and not unhappily, for time that is
+filled with work is seldom unhappy. From Blackburn she had heard
+nothing, though in April a paragraph in the newspaper told her that
+Angelica was about to sue for a divorce in some Western state; and Daisy
+Colfax, whom she met one day in the waiting-room of the hospital,
+breezily confirmed the vague announcement.
+
+"There really wasn't anything else that she could do, you know. We were
+all expecting it. Poor Angelica, she must have had to overcome all her
+feelings before she could make up her mind to take a step that was so
+public. Her delicacy is the most beautiful thing about her--except, as
+Robert always insists, the wonderful way she has of bringing out the
+best in people."
+
+As the irony of this was obviously unconscious, Caroline responded
+merely with a smile; but that same afternoon, when Mrs. Timberlake paid
+one of her rare visits, she repeated Daisy's remark.
+
+"Do you suppose she really believes what she says?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't. Things don't stop long enough in her mind to get
+either believed or disbelieved. They just sift straight through without
+her knowing that they are there."
+
+They were in the ugly little green-papered room at the hospital, and
+Caroline was holding Letty tight in her arms, while she interpolated
+cryptic phrases into the animated talk.
+
+"Oh, Miss Meade, if you would only come back! Do you think you will come
+back when mother and father get home again? I wrote to father the other
+day, but I had to write in pencil, and I'm so afraid it will all fade
+out when it goes over the ocean. Will it get wet, do you think?"
+
+"I am sure it won't, dear, and he will be so glad to hear from you. What
+did you tell him?"
+
+"I told him how cold it was last winter, and that I couldn't write
+before because doing all the doctor told me took up every single minute,
+and I had had to leave off my lessons, and that the new nurse made them
+very dull, anyhow. Then I said that I wanted you to come back, and that
+I hadn't been nearly so strong since you went away."
+
+She was looking pale, and after a few moments, Caroline sent her, with a
+pot of flowers, into an adjoining room.
+
+"I don't like Letty's colour," she said anxiously to the housekeeper, in
+the child's absence.
+
+"She is looking very badly. It is the hard winter, I reckon, but I am
+not a bit easy about her. She hasn't picked up after the last cold, and
+we don't seem able to keep her interested. Children are so easily bored
+when they are kept indoors, and Letty more easily than most, for she has
+such a quick mind. I declare I never lived through such a winter--at
+least not since I was a child in the Civil War, and of course that was a
+thousand times worse. But we couldn't keep Briarlay warm, even the few
+rooms that we lived in. It was just like being in prison--and a cold one
+at that! I can't help wishing that David would come home, for I feel all
+the time as if anything might happen. I reckon the winter put my nerves
+on edge; but the war seems to drag on so slowly, and everybody has begun
+to talk in such a pessimistic way. It may sound un-Christian, but I
+sometimes feel as if I could hardly keep my hands off the Germans. I get
+so impatient of the way things are going, I'd like to get over in
+France, and kill a few of them myself. It does look, somehow, as if the
+Lord had forgotten that vengeance belongs to Him."
+
+"Doctor Boland told me yesterday that he thought it would last at least
+five years longer."
+
+"Then it will outlast us, that's all I've got to say." She cleared her
+throat, and added with tart irrelevancy, "I had a letter from Angelica a
+few weeks ago."
+
+"Is it true? What the paper said?"
+
+"There wasn't a word about it in the letter. She wrote because she
+wanted me to send her some summer clothes she had left here, and then
+she asked me to let her know about Letty. She said she had been operated
+on in Chicago a month ago, and that she was just out of the hospital,
+and feeling like the wreck of herself. Everybody told her, she added,
+how badly she looked, and the letter sounded as if she were very much
+depressed and out of sorts."
+
+"Do you think she may really have cared for Mr. Wythe?"
+
+Mrs. Timberlake shook her head. "It wasn't that, my dear. She just
+couldn't bear to think of Mary's having more than she had. If she had
+ever liked David, it might have been easier for her to stand it, but she
+never liked him even when she married him; and though a marriage may
+sometimes manage very well without love, I've yet to see one that could
+get along without liking."
+
+She rose as Letty came back from her errand, and a minute or two later,
+Caroline tucked the child in the car, and stood watching while it
+started for Briarlay.
+
+The air was mild and fragrant, for after the hard, cold winter, spring
+had returned with a profusion of flowers. In the earth, on the trees,
+and in the hearts of men and women, April was bringing warmth, hope, and
+a restoration of life. The will to be, to live, and to struggle, was
+released, with the flowing sap, from the long imprisonment of winter. In
+the city yards the very grass appeared to shoot up joyously into the
+light, and the scent of hyacinths was like the perfume of happiness. The
+afternoon was as soft as a day in summer, and this softness was
+reflected in the faces of the people who walked slowly, filled with an
+unknown hope, through the warm sunshine.
+
+"Love is the greatest good in the world, but it is not the only good,"
+repeated Caroline, wondering who had first said the words.
+
+It was then, as she turned back to enter the hospital, that the postman
+put some letters into her hand, and looking down, she saw that one was
+from Blackburn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE LETTER
+
+
+For the rest of the afternoon she carried the letter hidden in her
+uniform, where, from time to time, she could pause in her task, and put
+her hand reassuringly on the edge of the envelope. Not until evening,
+when she had left her patient and was back in her room, did she unfold
+the pages, and begin slowly to read what he had written. The first
+sentences, as she had expected, were stiff and constrained--she had
+known that until he could speak freely he would speak no word of love to
+her--but, as soon as he had passed from the note of feeling to the
+discussion of impersonal issues, he wrote as earnestly and spontaneously
+as he had talked to Sloane on that October afternoon at Briarlay.
+Another woman, she realized, might have been disappointed; but the
+ironic past had taught her that emotion, far from being the only bond
+with a man like Blackburn, was perhaps the least enduring of the ties
+that held them together. His love, if it ever came to her, would be the
+flower, not of transient passion, but of the profound intellectual
+sympathy which had first drawn their minds, not their hearts, to each
+other. Both had passed through the earlier fires of racial impulse; both
+had been scorched, not warmed by the flames; and both had learned that
+the only permanent love is the love that is rooted as deeply in thought
+as in desire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      In France.
+
+MY DEAR CAROLINE:
+
+I have tried to write to you many times, but always something has held
+me back--some obscure feeling that words would not help things or make
+them easier, and that your friendship could be trusted to understand all
+that I was obliged to leave to the silence. You will see how badly I
+have put this, even though I have rewritten the beginning of this letter
+several times. But it is just as if I were mentally tongue-tied. I can
+think of nothing to say that it does not seem better to leave unsaid.
+Then I remembered that when we parted I told you I should write of what
+I thought, not of what I felt, and this makes it simpler. When I relax
+my mental grip, the drift of things whirls like a snow-storm across my
+mind, and I grow confused and bewildered----
+
+In the last year I have thought a great deal about the questions before
+us. I have tried to look at them from a distance and on the outside, as
+well as from a closer point of view. I have done my best to winnow my
+convictions from the ephemeral chaff of opinions; and though I am
+groping still, I am beginning to see more clearly the road we must
+travel, if we are ever to come out of the jungle of speculation into the
+open field of political certainty. Behind us--behind America, for it is
+of my own country that I am thinking--the way is strewn with experiments
+that have met failure, with the bones of political adventurers who have
+died tilting at the windmill of opportunity. For myself, I see now that,
+though some of my theories have survived, many of them have been
+modified or annulled by the war. Two years ago you heard me tell Sloane
+that our most urgent need was of unity--the obliteration of sectional
+lines. I still feel this need, but I feel it now as a necessary part of
+a far greater unity, of the obliteration of world boundaries of
+understanding and sympathy. This brings us to the vital question before
+us as a people--the development of the individual citizen within the
+democracy, of the national life within the international. Here is the
+problem that America must solve for the nations, for only America, with
+her larger views and opportunities, can solve it. For the next
+generation or two this will be our work, and our chance of lasting
+service. Our Republic must stand as the great example of the future, as
+the morning star that heralds the coming of a new day. It is the cause
+for which our young men have died. With their lives they have secured
+our democracy, and the only reward that is worthy of them is a social
+order as fair as their loyalty and their sacrifice.
+
+And so we approach our great problem--individuality within democracy,
+the national order within the world order. Already the sectional lines,
+which once constituted an almost insurmountable obstacle, have been
+partly dissolved in the common service and sacrifice. Already America is
+changing from a mass of divergent groups, from a gathering of alien
+races, into a single people, one and indivisible in form and spirit. The
+war has forged us into a positive entity, and this entity we must
+preserve as far as may be compatible with the development of individual
+purpose and character. Here, I confess, lies the danger; here is the
+political precipice over which the governments of the past have almost
+inevitably plunged to destruction. And it is just here, I see now, in
+the weakest spot of the body politic, that the South, and the
+individualism of the South, may become, not a national incubus, but the
+salvation of our Republic. The spirit that fought to the death fifty
+years ago for the sovereignty of the States, may act to-day as a needed
+check upon the opposing principle of centralization in government, the
+abnormal growth of Federal power; and in the end may become, like the
+stone which the builders rejected, the very head of the corner. As I
+look forward to-day, the great hope for America appears to be the
+interfusion of the Northern belief in solidarity with the ardent
+Southern faith in personal independence and responsibility. In this
+blending of ideals alone, I see the larger spirit that may redeem
+nationality from despotism.
+
+I am writing as the thoughts rush through my mind, with no effort to
+clarify or co-ordinate my ideas. From childhood my country has been both
+an ideal and a passion with me; and at this hour, when it is facing new
+dangers, new temptations, and new occasions for sacrifice, I feel that
+it is the duty of every man who is born with the love of a soil in his
+heart and brain, to cast his will and his vision into the general plan
+of the future. To see America avoid alike the pitfall of arbitrary power
+and the morass of visionary socialism; to see her lead the nations, not
+in the path of selfish conquest, but, with sanity and prudence, toward
+the promised land of justice and liberty--this is a dream worth living
+for, and worth dying for, God knows, if the need should ever arise.
+
+The form of government which will yield us this ideal union of
+individualism with nationalism, I confess, lies still uninvented or
+undiscovered. Autocracies have failed, and democracies have been merely
+uncompleted experiments. The republics of the past have served mainly as
+stepping-stones to firmer autocracies or oligarchies. Socialism as a
+state of mind, as a rule of conduct, as an expression of pity for the
+disinherited of the earth--Socialism as the embodiment of the humane
+idea, is wholly admirable. So far as it is an attempt to establish the
+reign of moral ideas, to apply to the community the command of Christ,
+'Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
+ye even so to them;' so far as it expresses the obscure longing in the
+human heart for justice and right in the relations of mankind--so far as
+it embodies the instincts of compassion and sympathy, it must win the
+approval of every man who has looked deeply into human affairs. The evil
+of Socialism lies not in these things; nor does it rest in the
+impracticability of its theory--in the generous injustice of "robbing
+the rich to pay the poor." The evil of it consists in the fact that it
+would lend itself in practice even more readily than democracy, to the
+formation of that outer crust of officialism which destroys the blood
+and fibre of a nation. Socialism obeying the law of Christ might be a
+perfect system--but, then, so would despotism, or democracy, or any
+other form of government man has invented.
+
+But all theories, however exalted, must filter down, in application,
+through the brackish stream of average human nature. The State cannot
+rest upon a theory, any more than it can derive its true life from the
+empty husks of authority. The Republic of man, like the Kingdom of God,
+is within, or it is nowhere.
+
+To-day, alone among the nations, the American Republic stands as the
+solitary example of a State that came into being, not through the
+predatory impulse of mankind, but, like its Constitution, as an act of
+intellectual creation. In this sense alone it did not grow, it was made;
+in this sense it was founded, not upon force, but upon moral ideas, upon
+everlasting and unchanging principles. It sprang to life in the sunrise
+of liberty, with its gaze on the future--on the long day of promise. It
+is the heir of all the ages of political experiment; and yet from the
+past, it has learned little except the things that it must avoid.
+
+There was never a people that began so gloriously, that started with
+such high hearts and clear eyes toward an ideal social contract. Since
+then we have wandered far into the desert. We have followed mirage after
+mirage. We have listened to the voice of the false prophet and the
+demagogue. Yet our Republic is still firm, embedded, as in a rock, in
+the moral sense of its citizens. For a democracy, my reason tells me,
+there can be no other basis. When the State seeks other authority than
+the conscience of its citizens, it ceases to be a democracy, and becomes
+either an oligarchy or a bureaucracy. Then the empty forms of hereditary
+right, or established officialdom, usurp the sovereignty of moral ideas,
+and the State decays gradually because the reservoir of its life has run
+dry.
+
+For our Republic, standing as it does between hidden precipices, the
+immediate future is full of darkness. We have shown the giant's
+strength, and we must resist the temptation to use it like a giant. When
+the war is won, we shall face the vital and imminent danger, the danger
+that is not material, but spiritual--for what shall it profit a nation,
+if it shall gain the whole world, and lose its own soul? In a time of
+danger arbitrary power wears always a benevolent aspect; and since man
+first went of his own will into bondage, there has never been absolutism
+on earth that has not masqueraded in the doctrine of divine
+origin--whether it be by the custom of kingship, or by the voice of the
+people. War, which is an abnormal growth on the commonwealth, may
+require abnormal treatment; but history shows that it is easier to
+surrender rights in war than it is to recover them in peace, and a
+temporary good has too often developed into a permanent evil. The
+freedom of the seas will be a poor substitute for the inalienable rights
+of the individual American. A League of Nations cannot insure these; it
+is doubtful even if it can insure peace on earth and good will toward
+men. Men can hate as bitterly and fight as fiercely within a league as
+outside of one.
+
+We shall go forth, when victory is won, to enlighten the world with
+liberty and with far-seeing statesmanship; but just as the far-sighted
+physical vision perceives distant objects more clearly than near ones,
+there is, also, a world vision of duty which overlooks immediate
+obligations while it discerns universal responsibilities. In this mental
+view the present is invariably sacrificed to the future, the personal
+rights to the general security. Yet to the more normal faculty of
+vision, it would appear that the perfect whole must result from the
+perfect parts; and that only by preserving our individual liberties can
+we make a League of Free Nations. International treaties are important,
+but national morality is vital--for the treaty that is not confirmed by
+the national honour is only a document.
+
+And now, after a year's thinking, I have come back to the conviction
+from which I started--that the only substantial groundwork of a republic
+is the conscience of its citizens. The future of our democracy rests not
+in the Halls of Congress, but in the cradle; and to build for
+permanency, we must build, not on theory, but on personal rectitude. We
+hear a great deal said now, and said unthinkingly, about the personal
+values not counting in a war that is fought for world freedom. Yet there
+was never an age, and I say this with certainty, in which personality
+was of such supreme significance as it is to-day. For this, after all,
+is the end to which my thinking has brought me--nationalism is nothing,
+internationalism is nothing, unless it is an expression of individual
+aspirations and ideals--for the end of both nationalism and
+internationalism is the ultimate return to racial character. Cultivate
+the personal will to righteousness, teach the citizen that he is the
+State, and the general good may take care of itself.
+
+And so our first duty appears to be, not national expansion, but the
+development of moral fibre. Before we teach other nations to stand
+alone, we must learn to walk straight; before we sow the seeds of the
+future, we must prepare our own ground for planting. National greatness
+is a flower that has often flourished over a sewer of class oppression
+and official corruption; and the past teaches us that republics, as well
+as autocracies, may be founded on slavery and buttressed by
+inequalities. As I look ahead now, I see that we may win freedom for
+smaller nations, and yet lose our own liberties to a Federal power that
+is supported by a civilian army of office-holders. For power is never
+more relentless in exercise than when it has transformed the oppressed
+of yesterday into the oppressors of to-day; and it is well to remember
+that democracy means not merely the tyranny of the many instead of the
+few; it means equal obligations and responsibilities as well as equal
+rights and opportunities. If we have failed to reach this ideal, it has
+been because the individual American has grasped at opportunity while
+he evaded responsibility; and the remedy for the failure lies not in a
+change of institutions, but in a change of heart. We must realize that
+America is a faith as well as a fact--that it is, for many, a divine
+hypothesis. We must realize that it means the forward-looking spirit,
+the fearless attitude of mind, the belief in the future, the romantic
+optimism of youth, the will to dare and the nerve to achieve the
+improbable. This is America, and this is our best and greatest gift to
+the world--and to the League of Free Nations.
+
+With the end of the war the danger will be threatening; and we must meet
+it as we met the feebler menace of Prussian militarism--but we must meet
+it and conquer it with intangible weapons. No nation has ever fought for
+a greater cause; no nation has ever fought more unselfishly; and no
+nation has ever drawn its sword in so idealistic a spirit. We have
+entered this war while our hearts were full, while the high and solemn
+mood was upon us. If we keep to this mood, if we seek in victory the
+immaterial, not the material advantage, if our only reward is the
+opportunity for world service, and our only conquered territory the
+provinces of the free spirit--if we keep fast to this ideal, and embody
+its meaning in our national life and actions, then we may save the
+smaller nations because we have first saved our Republic. For, if it is
+a day of peril, it is also a day of glory. The seal of blood is upon us,
+but it is the prophetic mark of the future, and it has sealed us for the
+union of justice with liberty. We have given our dead as a pledge of the
+greater America--the America of invisible boundaries. There is but one
+monument that we can build in remembrance, and that monument is a nobler
+Republic. If we lose the inspiration of the ideal, if we turn aside from
+the steady light of democracy to pursue the _ignis fatuus_ of
+imperialistic enterprise or aggression, then our dead will have died in
+vain, and we shall leave our building unfinished. For those who build on
+the dead must build for immortality. Physical boundaries cannot contain
+them; but in the soul of the people, if we make room for them, they will
+live on forever, and in the spirit we may still have part and place with
+them.
+
+And because the collective soul of the race is only the sum total of
+individual souls, I can discern no way to true national greatness except
+through the cultivation of citizenship. Experience has proved that there
+can be no stability either of law or league unless it is sustained by
+the moral necessity of mankind; and, for this reason, I feel that our
+first international agreement should be the agreement on a world
+standard of honour--on a rule of ethical principles in public as well as
+in private relations. I confess that a paternalism that enfeebles the
+character appears to me scarcely less destructive than a license that
+intoxicates. Between the two lies the golden mean of power with charity,
+of enlightened individualism, of Christian principles, not applied on
+the surface, but embodied in the very structure of civilization. Though
+I am not a religious man in the orthodox meaning, the last year has
+taught me that the world's hope lies not in treaties, but in the law of
+Christ that ye love one another.
+
+This splendid dream of the perfectibility of human nature may not have
+led us very far in the past, but at least it has never once led us
+wrong. There are ideas that flash by like comets, bearing a trail of
+light; and such an idea is that of world peace and brotherhood. Only
+those whose eyes are on the heavens behold it; yet these few may become
+the great adventurers of the spirit, the prophets and seers of the new
+age for mankind. There has never been a great invention that did not
+begin as a dream, just as there has never been a great truth that did
+not begin as a heresy. And, if we look back over history, we find that
+the sublime moments with men and with nations, are those in which they
+break free from the anchorage of the past, and set sail toward the
+unknown seas, on a new spiritual voyage of discovery.
+
+It is thus that I would see America, not as schoolmistress or common
+scold to the nations, but as chosen leader by example, rather than by
+authority. I would see her, when this crisis is safely past, keeping
+still to her onward vision, and her high and solemn mood of service and
+sacrifice; and it is in the spirit of humility, not of pride, that I
+would have her stretch the hand of friendship alike to the great and the
+little peoples. She has had no wiser leaders than the Founders of this
+Republic, and I would see her return, as far as she can return, to the
+lonely freedom in which they left her. I would see her enter no world
+covenant except one that is sustained not by physical force, but by the
+moral law; and I would, above all, see her follow her own great destiny
+with free hands and unbandaged eyes. For her true mission is not that of
+universal pedagogue--her true mission is to prove to the incredulous
+Powers the reality of her own political ideals--to make Democracy, not a
+sublime postulate, but a self-evident truth.
+
+I have written as words came to me, knowing that I could write to you
+freely and frankly, as I could to no one else, of the life of the mind.
+Your friendship I can trust always, in any circumstances; and it is only
+by thinking impersonally that I can escape the tyranny of personal
+things. I have not written of my surroundings over here, because I could
+tell you only what you have read in hundreds of letters--in hundreds of
+magazines. It is all alike. One and all, we see the same sights. War is
+not the fine and splendid thing some of us at home believe it to be.
+There is dirt and cruelty and injustice in France, as well as glory and
+heroism. I have seen the good and the evil of the battlefields, just as
+I have seen the good and the evil of peace, and I have learned that the
+romance of war depends as much upon the thickness of the atmosphere as
+upon the square miles of the distance. It is pretty prosaic at close
+range; yet at the very worst of it, I have seen flashes of an almost
+inconceivable beauty. For it brings one up against the reality, and the
+reality is not matter, but spirit.
+
+I am trying to do the best work of my life, and I am doing it just for
+my country.
+
+God bless you.
+
+      DAVID BLACKBURN.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE VISION
+
+
+At the end of June, Caroline learned from the papers that Blackburn had
+returned to Briarlay; and the same day she heard through Daisy Colfax
+that Alan Wythe had been killed in France.
+
+"I feel so sorry for poor Angelica," said the young woman mournfully.
+"They were always such devoted friends. But, of course, it is splendid
+to think that he was a hero, and I know that is the way Angelica will
+look at it."
+
+At the moment, though Caroline had liked Alan, the thing that impressed
+her most was the way in which the whole world shared in the conspiracy
+to protect Angelica from the consequences of her own acts. Evidently no
+hint of scandal had ever touched her friendship for Alan.
+
+"I am sorry," said Caroline, "I always liked him."
+
+"Oh, everybody did! You know that Mr. Blackburn has come home?"
+
+"Yes, I saw it in the paper."
+
+"And Cousin Matty tells me that you are going away to camp?"
+
+"I have just had my call, and I am leaving next week. I hope it means
+France very soon, but of course no one knows."
+
+"Well, be sure to take a great deal more than they tell you to. I know a
+nurse who said she almost froze the first winter. Do you really have to
+wear woollen stockings? I should think they would make your flesh
+creep."
+
+She passed on, blooming and lovely, and Caroline, with her bundle of
+woollen stockings under her arm, left the shop, and turned down a side
+street on her way to Mrs. Dandridge's. She was glad of the call, and
+yet--and yet--she had hoped deep down in her heart, a hope unspoken and
+unacknowledged, that she should see David again before she left
+Richmond. A moment would be enough--only it might be for the last time,
+and she felt that she must see him. In the last two months she had
+thought of him very little. Her work had engrossed her, and the hope of
+going to France had exhilarated her like wine through all the long days
+of drudgery. She had grown to expect so little of life that every
+pleasure was magnified into a blessing, and she found, in looking back,
+that an accumulation of agreeable incidents had provided her with a
+measure of happiness. Underneath it all was the knowledge of Blackburn,
+though love had come at last to take the place of a creed that one
+believes in, but seldom remembers. Yet she still kept the jewel in the
+casket, and it was only when she stopped now and then to reflect on her
+life, that she realized how long it had lain in its secret corner where
+the light of day never shone.
+
+As she approached the boarding-house she saw a car by the sidewalk, and
+a minute afterwards, Mrs. Timberlake turned away from the door, and came
+down to the gate.
+
+"Oh, Caroline, I was afraid I had missed you! Are you going very soon?"
+
+"Not until next week." Did the housekeeper hear, she wondered, the wild
+throbbing of her heart?
+
+"I came to see if you could come out for the night? Letty has been
+ailing for several days, and the doctor says she has a touch of fever.
+Miss Bradley is ill in bed, and we can't get a nurse anywhere until
+to-morrow. Of course Mammy Riah and I can manage, but David and I would
+both feel so much easier if you would come."
+
+"Of course, I'll come. I'll get my bag in a minute. It is already
+packed." Without waiting for Mrs. Timberlake's reply, she ran into the
+house, and came out with the suitcase in her hands. "Tell me about
+Letty. Is her temperature high?"
+
+"It has been all day, but you know how it is with children, as I told
+David this morning. You heard that David was back?"
+
+"I saw it in the paper."
+
+"He came very unexpectedly. Of course he couldn't cable about the boat,
+and the telegram he sent from New York didn't get to me until after he
+was in the house. He is looking badly, but I am sure it isn't the work.
+I believe other things have been worrying him."
+
+The car had passed out of Grace Street, and was running in the direction
+of Monument Avenue. As they went on, Caroline remembered the April
+morning when she had come in this same car down the familiar street,
+where flags were flying so gaily. It seemed a hundred years ago--not one
+year, but a hundred! Life was the same, and yet not the same, since the
+very heart of it was altered. The same sky shone, deeply blue, overhead;
+the same sun illuminated the houses; the same flags were flying; the
+same persons passed under the glittering green of the leaves. It was
+all just as it had been on that April morning--and yet how different!
+
+"I suppose he is anxious about Letty?" she said.
+
+"Even before that I noticed how much he had changed. It was only when he
+was telling me about Roane that he looked a bit like himself. My dear,
+can you believe that Roane has really turned into a hero?"
+
+"No, I cannot. It must have been a long turning." She was talking only
+to make sound. How could it matter to her what Roane had turned into?
+
+"He's been fighting with the French, and David says he's won every
+decoration they have to give. He is doing splendid things, like saving
+lives under fire, and once he even saved a Red Cross dog at the risk of
+his life. David says it's the way he makes a jest of it that the French
+like--as if he were doing it for amusement. That's like Roane Fitzhugh,
+isn't it? What do you suppose David meant when he said that beneath it
+all was a profound disillusionment?"
+
+"I don't know, but I never denied that Roane had a sense of humour."
+
+"You never liked him, and neither did David. He says now that Roane
+isn't really any more of a hero than he always was, but that he has
+found a background where his single virtue is more conspicuous than his
+collective vices. I believe he is the only human being I ever knew David
+to be unjust to."
+
+Caroline laughed. "There are some virtues it is simply impossible to
+believe in. Whenever I hear of Roane Fitzhugh--even when I hear things
+like this--I always remember that he kissed me when he was drunk."
+
+"He hasn't touched a drop since the war. David says he is getting all
+the excitement he wants in other ways."
+
+"And I suppose when the war is over he'll have to get it again from
+drink." It didn't make any difference whether he was a hero or not, she
+told herself, she should always feel that way about him. After all, he
+was probably not the first hero who had given a woman good cause to
+despise him.
+
+"Oh, I hope not!" Unlike Caroline, the housekeeper had always had a
+weakness for Roane, though she disapproved of his habits. But a good
+man, she often said to herself in excuse, might have bad habits, just as
+a bad man might have good ones. The Lord would have to find something
+else to judge people by at the day of reckoning. "He is the only man
+I've ever known who could see through Angelica," she concluded after a
+pause.
+
+"He began early. She always got everything he wanted when they were
+children. I've heard him say so."
+
+"Well, I wrote to him about her the other day. Did I tell you I'd heard
+from Cousin Fanny Baylor, who has been with her in Chicago?"
+
+"No, you didn't tell me. How long ago was it?"
+
+"It couldn't have been more than three weeks. She wrote me that Angelica
+was only the wreck of herself, and that the operation was really much
+more serious than we had ever been told. The doctor said there was no
+hope of any permanent cure, though she might linger on, as an invalid,
+for a good many years."
+
+"And does she know? Mrs. Blackburn, I mean?"
+
+"They wouldn't tell her. Cousin Fanny said the doctors and nurses had
+all been so careful to keep it from her, and that the surgeon who
+operated said he could not strike hope out of Angelica's heart by
+telling her. Angelica has shown the most beautiful spirit, she wrote,
+and everybody in the hospital thought her perfectly lovely. She left
+there some months ago, and, of course, she believed that she was going
+to get well in time. It's funny, isn't it, that the doctor who is
+attending her now should be so crazy about her? Cousin Fanny says he is
+one of the most distinguished men in Chicago, but it sounds to me very
+much as if he were the sort of fool that Alan Wythe was."
+
+"Could the war have changed her? Perhaps she is different now since Alan
+Wythe was killed?"
+
+Mrs. Timberlake met this with a sound that was between a sniff and a
+snort. "I expect it's only in books that war, or anything else, makes
+people over in a minute like that. In real life women like Angelica
+don't get converted, or if they do, it doesn't last overnight. You can't
+raise a thunderstorm in a soap bubble. No, Angelica will go on until she
+dies being exactly what she has always been, and people will go on until
+she dies and afterwards, believing that she is different. I reckon it
+would take more than a world war, it would take a universal cataclysm,
+to change Angelica."
+
+For a time they drove on in silence, and when the housekeeper spoke
+again it was in a less positive tone. "It wouldn't surprise me if she
+was sorry now that she ever left David."
+
+Caroline started. "Do you mean she would want to come back?"
+
+"It wouldn't surprise me," Mrs. Timberlake repeated firmly.
+
+"Then she didn't get the divorce?"
+
+"No, she didn't get it, and there wouldn't be any use in her beginning
+all over again, now that Alan is dead. If she is really as ill as they
+say, I reckon she'd be more comfortable at Briarlay--even if that doctor
+out yonder is crazy about her."
+
+"Well, she could find one here who would be just as crazy." There was an
+accent of bitterness in Caroline's voice.
+
+"Oh, yes, she wouldn't have to worry about that. The only thing that
+would seem to stand in her way is David, and I don't know that she has
+ever paid much attention to him."
+
+"Not even as an obstacle. But how can she come back if he doesn't want
+her?" It really appeared a problem to Caroline.
+
+"Oh, she'll make him want her--or try to----"
+
+"Do you think she can?"
+
+Mrs. Timberlake pondered the question. "No, I don't believe that she
+can, but she can make him feel sorry for her, and with David that would
+be half the battle."
+
+"That and Letty, I suppose."
+
+"Yes, she has been writing to Letty very often, and her letters are so
+sweet that the child has begun to ask when she is coming home. You know
+how easily children forget?"
+
+Caroline sighed under her breath. "Oh, I know--but, even then, how could
+Mr. Blackburn?"
+
+"He wouldn't forget. If he thought it was right, he would do it if it
+killed him, but he would remember till his dying day. That's how David
+is made. He is like a rock about his duty, and I sometimes think
+feelings don't count with him at all."
+
+"Yet he did love her once."
+
+"Yes, he loved her once--and, of course," she amended suddenly,
+reverting to the traditional formula, "Nobody believes that Angelica
+ever did anything really wrong."
+
+For the rest of the long drive they sat in silence; and it seemed to
+Caroline, while the car turned into the lane and ran the last half mile
+to the house, that time had stopped and she was back again in the
+October afternoon when she had first come to Briarlay. It was no longer
+a hundred years ago. In the midst of the June foliage--the soft green of
+the leaves, the emerald green of the grass, the dark olive green of the
+junipers--in the midst of the wonderful brightness and richness of
+summer--she was enveloped, as if by a drifting fragrance, in the
+atmosphere of that day in autumn. It came to life not as a memory, but
+as a moment that existed, outside of time, in eternity. It was here,
+around, within, and above her, a fact like any other fact; yet she
+perceived it, not through her senses, but through an intuitive
+recognition to which she could not give a name. Under the summer sky she
+saw again the elm leaves falling slowly; she approached again the red
+walls in the glimmer of sunset; and she felt again the divine certainty
+that the house contained for her the whole measure of human experience.
+Then the car stopped; the door opened; and the scene faded like the
+vision of a clairvoyant. Imagination, nothing more! She had stepped from
+the dream into the actuality, and out of the actuality she heard Mrs.
+Timberlake's dry tones remarking that David had not come home from the
+office.
+
+"Let me go to Letty. I should like to see Letty at once," said
+Caroline.
+
+"Then run straight upstairs to the night nursery. I know she will be
+almost out of her head with joy."
+
+Moses had opened the front door, and as Caroline entered, she glanced
+quickly about her, trying to discover if there had been any changes. But
+the house was unaltered. It was like a greenhouse from which the rarest
+blossom had been removed, leaving still a subtle and penetrating
+perfume. All the profusion of detail, the dubious taste, the warmth of
+colour, and the lavishness of decoration, were still there. From the
+drawing-room she caught the sheen of pink silk, and she imagined for an
+instant that Angelica's fair head drooped, like a golden lily, among the
+surroundings she had chosen. There was a lack of discrimination, she saw
+now even more plainly than on that first afternoon, but there was an
+abundance of dramatic effect. One might imagine one's self in any
+character--even the character of an angel--with a background like that!
+
+As she drew near to the nursery door she heard Letty's voice exclaiming
+excitedly, "There's Miss Meade, mammy, I hear Miss Meade coming!" Then
+Mammy Riah opened the door, and the next minute the child was stretching
+out her arms and crying with pleasure.
+
+"I asked father to send for you," she said, "I told him you could make
+me well faster than Miss Bradley." She appeared to Caroline to have
+grown unnaturally tall and thin, like the picture of Alice in Wonderland
+they used to laugh over together. Her face was curiously transparent and
+"peaked," as Mrs. Timberlake had said, and the flush of fever could not
+disguise the waxen look of the skin. In her straight little nightgown,
+which was fastened close at the throat, and with the big blue bow on
+the top of her smooth brown head, she looked so wistful and pathetic
+that she brought a lump to Caroline's throat. Was it any wonder that
+Blackburn was anxious when she gazed up at him like that?
+
+"I want to hurry up and get well, Miss Meade," she began, "because it
+makes father so unhappy when I am sick. It really hurts father
+dreadfully."
+
+"But you're getting well. There isn't much the matter, is there, mammy?"
+
+"She'd be jes ez peart ez I is, ef'n Miss Matty 'ould quit pokin' physic
+down 'er thoat. Dar ain' nuttin' else in de worl' de matter wid 'er.
+Whut you reckon Miss Matty know about hit? Ain't she done been teckin'
+physic day in en day out sence befo' de flood, en ain't she all
+squinched up, en jes ez yaller ez a punkin, now?"
+
+"I don't mind the medicine if it will make me well," said the child.
+
+"And you take what the doctor gives you too?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I take that too. Between them," she added with a sigh, "there
+is a great deal to take."
+
+"It is because you are growing so fast. You are a big girl now."
+
+Letty laughed. "Father doesn't want me to get much taller. He doesn't
+want me to be tall when I'm grown up--but I can't help it, if it keeps
+up. Do you think I've grown any since the last time I measured, Mammy
+Riah?"
+
+"Naw, honey, dat you ain't. You ain' growed a winch."
+
+"She means an inch," said Letty. "Some people can't understand her. Even
+father can't sometimes, but I always can." Then drawing Caroline down
+on the bed, she began stroking her arm with a soft caressing touch. "Do
+you suppose mother will come back now that you have?" she asked. "When
+you are here she wouldn't have so much trouble. She used to say that you
+took trouble off her."
+
+"Perhaps she will. You would like to see her, darling?"
+
+The child thought earnestly for a moment. "I'd like to see her," she
+answered, "she is so pretty."
+
+"It would make you happier if she came back?"
+
+A smile, which was like the wise smile of an old person, flickered over
+Letty's features. "Wasn't it funny?" she said. "Father asked me that
+this morning."
+
+A tremor shook Caroline's heart. "And what did you tell him?"
+
+"I told him I'd like her to come back if she wanted to very badly. It
+hurts mother so not to do what she wants to do. It makes her cry."
+
+"She says she wants to come back?"
+
+"I think she wants to see me. Her letters are very sad. They sound as if
+she wanted to see me very much, don't they mammy? Somebody has to read
+them to me because I can read only plain writing. How long will it be,
+Miss Meade, before I can read any kind, even the sort where the letters
+all look just alike and go right into one another?"
+
+"Soon, dear. You are getting on beautifully. Now I'll run into my room,
+and put on my uniform. You like me in uniform, don't you?"
+
+"I like you any way," answered Letty politely. "You always look so
+fresh, just like a sparkling shower, Cousin Daisy says. She means the
+sort of shower you have in summer when the sun shines on the rain."
+
+Going into her room, Caroline bathed her face in cold water, and brushed
+her hair until it rolled in a shining curve back from her forehead. She
+was just slipping into her uniform when there was a knock at the door,
+and Mrs. Timberlake said, without looking in,
+
+"David has come home, and he has asked for you. Will you go down to the
+library?"
+
+"In one minute. I am ready." Her voice was clear and firm; but, as she
+left the room and passed slowly down the staircase, by the copy of the
+Sistine Madonna, by the ivory walls of the hall and the pink walls of
+the drawing-room, she understood how the women felt who rode in the
+tumbril to the guillotine. It was the hardest hour of her life, and she
+must summon all the courage of her spirit to meet it. Then she
+remembered her father's saying, that after the worst had happened, one
+began to take things easier, and an infusion of strength flowed from her
+mind into her heart and her limbs. If the worst was before her now, in a
+little while it would be over--in a little while she could pass on to
+hospital wards, and the sounds of the battlefield, and the external
+horrors that would release her from the torment of personal things.
+
+The door of the library was open, and Blackburn stood in the faint
+sunshine by the window--in the very spot where he had stood on the night
+when she had gone to tell him that Angelica had ordered her car to go to
+the tableaux. As she entered, he crossed the room and held her hand for
+an instant; then, turning together, they passed through the window, and
+out on the brick terrace. All the way down the stairs she had wondered
+what she should say to him in the beginning; but now, while they stood
+there in the golden light, high above the June splendour of the rose
+garden, she said only,
+
+"Oh, how lovely it is! How lovely!"
+
+He was looking at her closely. "You are working too hard. Your eyes are
+tired."
+
+"I must go on working. What is there in the world except work?" Though
+she tried to speak brightly, there was a ripple of sadness in her voice.
+Her eyes were on the garden, and it seemed to her that it blazed
+suddenly with an intolerable beauty--a beauty that hurt her quivering
+senses like sound. All the magic loveliness of the roses, all the
+reflected wonder and light and colour of the sunset, appeared to mingle
+and crash through her brain, like the violent crescendo of some
+triumphant music. She had not wanted colour; she had attuned her life to
+grey days and quiet backgrounds, and the stark forms of things that were
+without warmth or life. But beauty, she felt, was unendurable--beauty
+was what she had not reckoned with in her world.
+
+"You are going to France?" he asked.
+
+"I am leaving for camp next week. That means France, I hope."
+
+"Until the end of the war?"
+
+"Until the end--or as long as I hold out. I shall not give up."
+
+For the first time she had turned to look at him, and as she raised her
+lashes a veil of dry, scorching pain gathered before her eyes. He looked
+older, he looked changed, and, as Mrs. Timberlake had said, he looked as
+if he had suffered. The energy, the force which had always seemed to her
+dynamic, was still there in his keen brown face, in his muscular
+figure; only when he smiled did she notice that the youth in his eyes
+had passed into bitterness--not the bitterness of ineffectual rebellion,
+but the bitterness that accepts life on its own terms, and conquers.
+
+"When I parted from you last autumn," he said suddenly, "I was full of
+hope. I could look ahead with confidence, and with happiness. I felt, in
+a way, that the worst was over for both of us--that the future would be
+better and richer. I never looked forward to life with more trust than I
+did then," he added, as if the memory of the past were forcing the words
+out of him.
+
+"And I, also," she answered, with her sincere and earnest gaze on his
+face, "I believed, and I hoped."
+
+He looked away from her over the red and white roses. "It is different
+now. I can see nothing for myself--nothing for my own life. Where hope
+was there is only emptiness."
+
+The sunset was reflected in the shining light of her eyes. "Life can
+never be empty for me while I have your friendship and can think of
+you."
+
+By the glow in his face she knew that her words had moved him; yet he
+spoke, after a moment, as if he had not heard them. "It is only fair
+that you should know the truth," he said slowly and gravely, "that you
+should know that I have cared for you, and cared, I think, in the way
+you would wish me to. Nothing in my life has been more genuine than this
+feeling. I have tested it in the last year, and I know that it is as
+real as myself. You have been not only an emotion in my heart--you have
+been a thought in my mind--every minute--through everything----" He
+stopped, and still without turning his eyes on her, went on more
+rapidly, "As a lover I might always have been a failure. There have
+been so many other things. Life has had a way of crowding out emotion to
+make room for other problems and responsibilities. I am telling you this
+now because we are parting--perhaps for a time, perhaps for ever. The
+end no one can see----"
+
+Beyond the rose garden, in one of the pointed red cedars down in the
+meadow, a thrush was singing; and it seemed to her, while she listened,
+that the song was in her own heart as well as in the bird's--that it was
+pouring from her soul in a rapture of wonder and delight.
+
+"I can never be unhappy again," she answered. "The memory of this will
+be enough. I can never be unhappy again."
+
+From the cedar, which rose olive black against the golden disc of the
+sun, the bird sang of hope and love and the happiness that is longer
+than grief.
+
+"The end no one can see," he said, and--it may have been only because of
+the singing bird in her heart--she felt that the roughness of pain had
+passed out of his voice. Then, before she could reply, he asked
+hurriedly, "Has Letty spoken to you of her mother?"
+
+"Yes, she talked of her the little while that I saw her."
+
+"You think the child would be happier if she were here?"
+
+For an instant she hesitated. "I think," she replied at last, "that it
+would be fairer to the child--especially when she is older."
+
+"Her mother writes to her."
+
+"Yes. I think Letty feels that she wishes to come home."
+
+The bird had stopped singing. Lonely, silent, still as the coming night,
+the cedar rose in a darkening spire against the afterglow.
+
+"For us there can be no possible life together," he added presently. "We
+should be strangers as we have been for years. She writes me that she
+has been ill--that there was a serious operation----"
+
+"Have the doctors told her the truth?"
+
+"I think not. She knows only that she does not regain her strength, that
+she still suffers pain at times. Because of this it may be easier."
+
+"You mean easier because you pity her? That I can understand. Pity makes
+anything possible."
+
+"I am sorry for her, yes--but pity would not be strong enough to make me
+let her come back. There is something else."
+
+"There is the child."
+
+"The child, of course. Letty's wish would mean a great deal, but I doubt
+if that would be strong enough. There is still something else."
+
+"I know," she said, "you feel that it is right--that you must do it
+because of that."
+
+He shook his head. "I have tried to be honest. It is that, and yet it is
+not that alone. I wonder if I can make you understand?"
+
+"Has there ever been a time when I did not understand?"
+
+"God bless you, no. And I feel that you will understand now--that you
+alone--you only among the people who know me, will really understand."
+For a time he was silent, and when at last he went on, it was in a voice
+from which all emotion had faded: "Pity might move me, but pity could
+not drive me to do a thing that will ruin my life--while it lasts.
+Letty's good would weigh more with me; but can I be sure--can you, or
+any one else, be sure that it is really for Letty's good? The doubt in
+this could so easily be turned into an excuse--an evasion. No, the
+reason that brings me to it is larger, broader, deeper, and more
+impersonal than any of these. It is an idea rather than a fact. If I do
+it, it will be not because of anything that has happened at Briarlay; it
+will be because of things that have happened in France. It will be
+because of my year of loneliness and thought, and because of the spirit
+of sacrifice that surrounded me. If one's ideal, if one's country--if
+the national life, is worth dying for--then surely it is worth living
+for. If it deserves the sacrifice of all the youth of the world--then
+surely it deserves every other sacrifice. Our young men have died for
+liberty, and the least that we older ones can do is to make that liberty
+a thing for which a man may lay down his life unashamed."
+
+The emotion had returned now; and she felt, when he went on again, that
+she was listening to the throbbing heart of the man.
+
+"The young have given their future for the sake of a belief," he said
+slowly, "for the belief that civilization is better than barbarism, that
+humanity is better than savagery, that democracy has something finer and
+nobler to give mankind than has autocracy. They died believing in
+America, and America, unless she is false to her dead, must keep that
+faith untarnished. If she lowers her standards of personal
+responsibility, if she turns liberty into lawlessness, if she makes
+herself unworthy of that ultimate sacrifice--the sacrifice of her
+best--then spiritual, if not physical, defeat must await her. The
+responsibility is yours and mine. It belongs to the individual
+American, and it cannot be laid on the peace table, or turned over to
+the President. There was never a leader yet that was great enough to
+make a great nation."
+
+As he paused, she lifted her eyes, and looked into his without
+answering. It was the unseen that guided him, she knew. It would be
+always the unseen. That was the law of his nature, and she would accept
+it now, and in the future. "I understand," she said, simply, after a
+moment.
+
+"It is because you understand," he answered, "because I can trust you to
+understand, that I am speaking to you like this, from my heart. My dear,
+this was what I meant when I wrote you that nationality is nothing for
+personality is everything. Our democracy is in the making. It is an
+experiment, not an achievement; and it will depend, not on the size of
+its navy, but on the character of its citizens, whether or not it
+becomes a failure. There must be unselfish patriotism; there must be
+sacrifice for the general good--a willing, instead of a forced,
+sacrifice. There must be these things, and there must be, also, the
+feeling that the laws are not for the particular case, but for the
+abstract class, not for the one, but for the many--that a democracy
+which has been consecrated by sacrifice must not stoop, either in its
+citizens, or in its Government, to the pursuit of selfish ends. All this
+must be a matter of personal choice rather than of necessity. I have
+seen death faced with gladness for a great cause, and, though I am not
+always strong enough to keep the vision, I have learned that life may be
+faced, if not with gladness, at least with courage and patience, for a
+great ideal----"
+
+His voice broke off suddenly, and they were both silent. The sun had
+gone down long ago, and it seemed to Caroline that the approaching
+twilight was flooded with memories. She was ready for the sacrifice; she
+could meet the future; and at the moment she felt that, because of the
+hour she had just lived, the future would not be empty. Whatever it
+might bring, she knew that she could face it with serenity--that she was
+not afraid of life, that she would live it in the whole, not in the
+part--in its pain as well as in its joy, in its denial as well as in its
+fulfilment, in its emptiness as well as in its abundance. The great
+thing was that she should not fall short of what he expected of her,
+that she should be strong when he needed strength.
+
+She looked up at him, hesitating before she answered; and while she
+hesitated, there was the sound of hurrying footsteps in the library, and
+Mrs. Timberlake came through the room to the terrace.
+
+"David," she called in a startled voice. "Did you know that Angelica was
+coming back?"
+
+He answered without turning. "Yes, I knew it."
+
+"She is here now--in the hall. Did you expect her so soon?"
+
+"Not so soon. She telegraphed me last night."
+
+"Mrs. Mallow met her at the Hot Springs yesterday, and told her that
+Letty was ill. That brought her down. She has been at the Hot Springs
+for several weeks."
+
+Blackburn had grown white; but, without speaking, he turned away from
+the terrace, and walked through the library to the hall. Near the door
+Angelica was leaning on the arm of a nurse, and as he approached, she
+broke away from the support, and took a single step forward.
+
+"Oh, David, I want my child! You cannot keep me away from my child!"
+
+She was pale and worn, her face was transparent and drawn, and there
+were hollows under the grey velvet of her eyes; but she was still
+lovely--she was still unconquerable. The enchanting lines had not
+altered. Though her colour had been blotted out, as if by the single
+stroke of a brush, the radiance of her expression was unchanged, and
+when she smiled her face looked again as if the light of heaven had
+fallen over it. Never, not even in the days of her summer splendour, had
+Caroline felt so strongly the invincible power of her charm and her
+pathos.
+
+"No, I cannot keep you away from her," Blackburn answered gently, and at
+his words Angelica moved toward the staircase.
+
+"Help me, Cousin Matty. Take me to her." Abandoning the nurse, she
+caught Mrs. Timberlake's arm, clinging to her with all her strength,
+while the two ascended the stairs together.
+
+Blackburn turned back into the library, and, for a moment, Caroline was
+left alone with the stranger.
+
+"Have you known Mrs. Blackburn long?" asked the other nurse, "she must
+have been so very beautiful."
+
+"For some time. Yes, she was beautiful."
+
+"Of course, she is lovely still. It is the kind of face that nothing
+could make ugly--but I keep wondering what she was like before she was
+so dreadfully thin. You can tell just to look at her what a sad life she
+has had, though she bears it so wonderfully, and there isn't a word of
+bitterness in anything that she says. I never knew a lovelier nature."
+
+She passed up the stairs after the others, her arms filled with
+Angelica's wraps, and her plain young face enkindled with sympathy and
+compassion. Clearly Angelica had found another worshipper and disciple.
+
+Alone in the hall, Caroline looked through the library to the pale
+glimmer of the terrace where Blackburn was standing. He was gazing away
+from her to the rose garden, which was faintly powdered with the silver
+of dusk; and while she stood there, with her answer to him still
+unuttered, it seemed to her that, beyond the meadows and the river,
+light was shining on the far horizon.
+
+
+THE END
+
+[Illustration: colophon]
+
+THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
+
+GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Builders, by Ellen Glasgow
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