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diff --git a/37827.txt b/37827.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ecd056 --- /dev/null +++ b/37827.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22261 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Open Question, by Elizabeth Robins + +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 Open Question + a tale of two temperaments + +Author: Elizabeth Robins + +Release Date: October 23, 2011 [EBook #37827] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OPEN QUESTION *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +THE OPEN QUESTION + +_A Tale of Two Temperaments_ + +_By_ +ELIZABETH ROBINS +(_C. E. Raimond_) + +AUTHOR OF "GEORGE MANDEVILLE'S HUSBAND" + +[Illustration: Logo] + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK AND LONDON +1899 + + +Copyright, 1898, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + + + + +THE OPEN QUESTION + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It is not always easy to trace the origin of an American family, even +when the immediate progenitor did not begin life as a boot-black or a +prospector, without so much as a "grub stake." The Ganos had been people +of some education and some means--clergymen, merchants going to and from +the West Indies, or home-keeping planters in the South--for the little +space of a hundred years before the Civil War. Further back than +that--darkness. + +Whether the name was of Huguenot, Flemish, Italian, or other origin, the +Ganos themselves, like thousands of families of consequence in America, +never pretended to know. Only one of the race ever evinced the least +disposition to care. + +In the family mind, to be born a Gano was of itself so shining an +achievement as almost to constitute an unfair advantage over the rest of +mankind. The name (which was rigidly accented on the final syllable) was +held to confer a distinction peculiar and sufficient, difficult as it +may be for the inhabitants of a larger world to realize on what the +illusion lived. The Ganos had never been enormously rich; they had never +done anything of national or even of municipal importance, unless +founding a religious paper and endowing a theological seminary to spread +a faith which they themselves speedily abandoned--unless these modest +achievements might be construed as taking some sort of interest in +public concerns. They held themselves aloof from politics, and +religiously minded their own affairs. The oddest thing, perhaps, about +their naive veneration for the house of Gano was that so many of their +neighbors shared it. Generation after generation, it imposed itself upon +the community they lived in. To be able to say of a vexed question, +"Gano agrees with me," was to turn the scale at once in the speaker's +favor. A stranger would be told, "Smith married a Gano, you see," as +though that single phrase established Smith's claims on your +consideration. + +The usual American fashion of that time of giving double or treble names +was not followed in the christening of the daughters of Gano, so that +after marriage each girl might retain her patronymic, writing it after +her Christian name and before her husband's. The eldest son of every +daughter was called Gano, and Gano was given to each succeeding child +for a middle name. This had been going on for some time, and yet neither +Maryland nor any more favored spot was populous with Ganos. They had not +been a prolific race, and but a single _mesalliance_ was set down to +their discredit. A Gano had once married a New England school-mistress +with a turn for preaching. This unpopular lady's offspring, John +Gano--the only son of an only son--died eleven years before the Civil +War, leaving a widow, two sons, and a daughter. These three survivors in +the direct line of male descent, Ethan, John, and Valeria, were +unmistakably delicate children. The neighbors had doubts if their mother +would rear them. + +The widow, "one of the Calverts of Baltimore," held to be a very +retiring and religious person, soon discovered a force of character and +an energy not too common among women of her class in the slave-holding +South. She managed her husband's estate and the education of her +children with ability and judgment, albeit arbitrarily enough, save in +matters of religion. + +Was it a breath wafted across the years of that old passion for +religious liberty that had carried her ancestors over perilous seas--an +echo of the Eve of St. Bartholomew, or of some Lollard wrong--that made +so strangely tolerant this autocratic woman, turned Baptist in her +strenuous youth, inclining now, through throes of spirit incommunicable, +to the Episcopacy her dead husband had abandoned? + +The element of the grotesque in this battering in succession at the +different doors of heaven is more apparent to those never storm-tossed +souls that venture not from the haven, so content with being spiritually +becalmed that striving after truth and faring far in pursuit of it seem +childish and ignoble. Such people smile at Newman, and think themselves +magnanimous if they accept his "Apology." Mrs. Gano had gone +unflinchingly through those seasons of spiritual stress, common enough +among the thoughtful of that time, and so difficult for some of us +to-day even to imagine. In spite of her strong self-control and her +great practical common-sense, her passionately religious nature had +hurried her headlong through one doctrinal crisis after another. Her +youth and early maturity had been one wide spiritual battle-field. Not +that a moment of unbelief in revealed religion ever troubled her, but +questions of the true interpretation, questions of dogma and of form, +that might as well have been questions of life and death. And all the +while, up and down the highway of her youth, raged the ancient dragons, +renamed Election and Reprobation. + +Whether as a result of enlightenment, brought her by her own honest +seeking, or a tradition in the blood, compelling her to give as well as +to demand perfect liberty of conscience in the affairs of faith, this +imperious mother let her tyrannously tended young brood wander whither +they would along the by-ways of religious experience. To look back a +moment upon the infantine struggles of these young crusaders in the Holy +War is to realize afresh how far the race has travelled since that day. +These mere children, with their fear of hell and of damnation, their +"changes of heart," conversions, and pathetic joy at being "saved," had +for their vividest remembrance of their father the abiding vision of his +kneeling down with them in the great dim parlor at Ashlands, praying, +with hands uplifted and with tears, that these "little ones" might not +be lost forever. + +No one ever knew how much hold these religions ecstasies had taken upon +Ethan. But John was violently wrought upon; and most impressed of all +was the small but preternaturally precocious Valeria. At a time when she +should have been romping in the open air or reading fairy-tales in a +corner she was living through days of agonized doubt on the subject of +her soul's salvation, and crying softly in the night to think of that +outer darkness into which unbelievers were certain to be cast--a +darkness lit only by lurid flames from "the lake that burneth forever +and ever." + +Little John had gone through a varied and, on the whole, triumphant +spiritual experience by the time he was ten. At that ripe age he was +baptized by immersion on public confession of faith. His mother, having +now maturer views on the subject, was not among the group at the +river-side; but she made no effort to divert the boy's enthusiasm from a +form of belief that for her was losing its significance. She would sit +on the long white veranda in those first months of her widowhood +re-reading D'Aubigne and Bishop Spalding's _History of the Protestant +Reformation_, sandwiching Wesley with patristic writings, balancing +Arian against Socinian, and drawing conclusions of her own, while her +eldest boy was writing hymns to Apollo instead of construing his Caesar, +and John, the centre of an admiring crowd down by the river, was being +dipped instead of being sprinkled, which it presently appeared was the +only true and orthodox way. + +If some of the Ganos had of late been mightily earnest in their +religious experiences, they had long been "musical" in a pottering kind +of way. They would have assured you more than half seriously that music +was a "pottering" pursuit--a pastime for boating-parties on the Potomac +or rainy evenings at home, not for a moment to be regarded as a +profession, except for long-haired foreigners. Mrs. John, or, as she now +called herself, "Mrs. Sarah C. Gano," accepted this point of view +cheerfully enough, as she had not a note of music in her. Her children's +passion for singing and playing came early under the head of "noise," +and under the ban of her displeasure. + +Therefore, when it was discovered that the eldest boy had done badly in +his third year at Dr. Baylis's Academy for Young Gentlemen, and that Dr. +Baylis accounted for his pet pupil's falling off by saying the boy +played the piano, and even wrote music, when he should have been doing +mathematics, great was the mother's disappointment in her son, and +renewed objection to the Art Divine. Ethan came home for his holidays in +disgrace. It was significant of the mastery Mrs. Gano had obtained over +her not unspirited children that, without being formally forbidden to +play at home, Ethan never dared touch the piano the whole vacation +through. It was this privation, he used to say later on, that drove him +into the Church. He had got beyond the banjo and singing with the blacks +down in the negro quarter. He longed for the coming of that day in the +week when he might hear the sound of the organ, and even such a choir as +they had at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Catawbaville, where, the +Baptist phase having been painfully passed, the entire family now went +to church twice every Sunday, rain or shine. Ethan made friends with the +rector, and whether out of gratitude for the Rev. Mr. Searle's +permission to practise in the church, or from the reflection that Holy +Orders presented a means of combining a livelihood with an organ, the +upshot was that Ethan presently became a student of Divinity. + +At the beginning of his last year at the Theological School at +Baltimore, he fell in love with a pretty Boston girl who had come South +on a visit to a school friend. For the first time in his life flatly +disobeying his mother's wishes, he married the little lady forthwith. +Under conditions of great privation, they took up life in Baltimore +till Ethan should be ordained. Ten months afterwards a son opened his +eyes upon the world, and the girl-wife closed hers forever. + +The passive horror that falls on passionate young life laid desolate by +death, the hush that seems to lie shroud-like on the world, was rent and +blown to the four winds of heaven by the clarion note of war. In his +bewilderment and helplessness after his wife's death, Ethan had allowed +his mother-in-law, Mrs. Aaron Tallmadge, to take the baby home with her +for a visit to Boston. A few weeks before his appointed ordination, +young Gano joined the Southern army. About the time he was to have taken +the vows that should make him a man of peace and a priest, Ethan Gano +was rushing blindly with Kirby Smith's brigade across the fields from +Manassas Station, among the first to break and rout the Union ranks and +give his life for a Southern victory in the battle of Bull Run. + +It was said in Catawbaville that none of the disasters other Southerners +were fearing could add much to Mrs. Gano's grief after the loss of her +eldest son. She had been a striking, although fragile-looking, woman, +tall, arrow-straight, and auburn-haired, just entering on middle life, +when she went to her own room and closed the door behind her that day +the despatch came after Bull Run. A few weeks later, when she came forth +again, it seemed to her awe-struck household that it was an old woman +who appeared among them, with stern, blanched face, bowed shoulders, and +abundant hair whitening at the temples. But what her altered looks +called forth of sympathy, her reticent manner either held at bay or +ruthlessly rebuffed. She went nowhere, received no one. Months +afterwards a neighbor, seeing her by chance, offered some conventional +but kindly meant condolence. The look of cold surprise that any one +should venture to come near her grief sealed up the fountain of +neighborly sympathy. The rumor going forth that Mrs. Gano was more +unapproachable than ever since Ethan's death, her friends left her to +the solitude she was rightly understood to demand. But vain for her to +shut and double-lock the great white gates of Ashlands--the tide of war +swept on and in, and overwhelmed the house. + +It is no part of the purpose of this account to tell in detail the old +story of Southern losses, scenes of impotent indignation at the +quartering of Northern soldiers in Confederate houses, wanton violence +to property, and greater violence still to the old-fashioned Southern +sense of personal dignity. These were the commonplaces of the war. +Almost equally common were the lamentations in the negro quarters when +the word went forth that the slaves were free, that they were to turn +their backs on the patriarchal life and get them out into the world to +taste the bitter and the sweet of independence. + +When Mrs. Gano found that her belated private proclamation through her +overseer, months after that of the President, had the inadequate effect +of relieving her of but one negro, she assembled her household servants +and plantation folk round the long veranda, and told them they were +free. Uncle Charlie, as the accepted mouth-piece of the Gano niggers, +stepped forward and pulled off his dilapidated hat. + +"We done yeah somethin' 'bout dis 'mancyperation befo', but we don' gib +no 'count to it, Mis' G'no." + +"But I tell you it's true, and you must go. I'll have a fair division +made of what's left in the quarter--of clothes and tools and food, +and--" + +"Law, ma'am, don' go fur t' do dat," said Caesar, the gardener, grinning +cheerfully, "we ain't gwine t' leab yo'." + +"Yes, it is best you should," said the mistress. + +"Bress yo' soul, ma'am"--old Charlie pulled his woolly white forelock +and bowed low--"de G'nos hab stood by us a po'ful long time, an' now we +gwine to stan' by de G'nos in dis yer trouble. We ain't gwine t' leab +yo' t' de mussy o' dem Yankees." + +"No, no, nebber w'ile de blessed Lawd sabes po' sinners," Mississippi +Maria lifted up her voice and eyes and hands. + +"The Yankees have given you your freedom," said Mrs. Gano, with wasted +scorn. + +"I don' gib' no 'count t' what de po' white trash says dey'll do fur +me," said Uncle Charlie, loftily; "I b'longs t' de G'nos." + +"Yah, yah, we b'longs t' de G'nos," the murmur went through the crowd. + +"Of course you do, by rights," said the mistress, with a flash of fire. +"But we can't keep our rights, it seems. So just make the best of this +liberty, now you've got it; make the best of it, as young Jerry did." + +She waved her hand, dismissing them. Sensation in the crowd, and some +whispering. Jerry senior created a diversion by pulling himself together +and venturing up one of the long, low steps of the veranda. He held out +two coal-black hands with pallid palms. + +"Don' git mad, Mis' G'no, 'count o' Jerry. Jerry been a po' sort o' +chile eber since de Lawd made him," urged his earthly father, with a +comfortable sense of having no responsibility in the matter. "Jerry been +jes' dyin' fo' 'bout a year fur t' see dat yaller gal, Liza, yo' sen' to +yo' sister down Kentucky way. Dat's wha' he's a-gwine. Yo' won't catch +no G'no nigger gwine near de Yankees." + +"If he's been dying to go so long, why didn't he set off in January?" + +"In Janoowerry? Yo' only sent us word yes'day mawnin'." + +"Hadn't Jerry heard of Lincoln's precious Proclamation at the New-Year?" + +"Oh ye-es, ma'am, he done yeah." + +There was a moment's pause, and then the father pulled his shambling +figure up. + +"Jerry ain't much 'count, but he ain't clean gone crazy. He know it all +bery well fo' de Yankee Pres'dent fo' to say he wus free. But Jerry know +he jes' better hold his hosses till he yeah what Mis' G'no got t' say +'bout dat. Jerry been waitin' roun' since Janoowerry t' yeah wot yo' got +t' say." + +"Well, I've told you." + +Uncle Charlie stepped forward, pulled old Jerry off the step without +ceremony, and said, severely: "Yo' got a heap o' gab, but yo' better +tote yo'self down to de gyarden an' do yo' chores." Then, looking up at +the mistress: "An' 'tain't no use, ma'am, fo' yo' t' stan' up dah on de +po'ch an' tell us we all 'mancyperated, and yo' don' care nuthin' no mo' +'bout us. Dar's a heap o' cotton got t' be picked, and we got t' pick +it." He turned away to his companions: "Come 'long, yo' lazy black +niggers, jes' stir yo' stumps!" + +"No, Charlie, no; the cotton must rot in the fields." Blank astonishment +swept over the dusky crowd. + +"Golly!" said one or two under their breath, while the others stood +speechless, with mouths open and round eyes fixed and staring. + +"Ef yo' thinkin' 'bout us bein' 'mancyperated an' 'spectin' to be +_paid_," began Jerry, while a ripple of contempt at the notion passed +over the bewildered throng, "well, we _ain't_ 'spectin'." + +"You are expecting to be fed," said Mrs. Gano, more gently than they +were accustomed to hear their mistress speak, "and that's more than I +can do for so many any longer." + +The newly emancipated lifted up their voices and wept. + +"For Law's sake, don' sen' us away, Mis' G'no!" + +"I reckon yo' can't git 'long widout me and Tom nohow." + +"We don' want nuthin' to eat," said Mississippi Maria, sobbing, while +she cuffed the only completely happy person present--a youth of four or +five, who clung to her skirt with one hand, while with the other he +clutched a section of green melon. "Put dat down, yo' greedy gump!"--his +grandmother clouted him over the head till he, too, joined in the +general lamentation--"stuffin' yo'self wid watermillion fo' ladies." + +"We gwine to wuk hard _dis_ time, Mis' G'no," said another voice from +out the general clamor, "and we don't need no bacon. Corn-pone and +'lasses is 'nough fo' any nigger." + +"I'm sorry for you, but the Northerners have not only freed you, they +have crippled us. We can't afford to have you here any longer. You must +all go, except Jerusha and her children." + +There was a lull of incredulity, and then a steadily rising storm of +dismal howling. + +"'Tain't fair!" shrieked old Chloe. "I done come yer fust--long befo' +Jerusha. Missis! Missis! I done come to G'nos fo' yo' did yo'self." + +"I _dassent_ leab yo'," Jerry persisted. "Massa 'd 'mos' 'a' killed me +ef he'd ebber thought I'd leab yo' and little missy to dem debbils o' +Yankees. 'Tain't safe, ma'am--'tain't safe." + +It was not Mrs. Gano's way to show emotion. She turned abruptly, and +disappeared in the house. She had the well-earned reputation of being no +easy mistress. But she had treated her slaves justly, according to her +lights, and this hour of enforced setting them adrift was bitter on +other than political and economic grounds. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +At the close of the war the Ganos were ruined. The rambling, verandaed +house was sold for a song to the Gano-Lees, and the question was, where +could John with his delicate health, his interrupted and insufficient +schooling, make a livelihood? Where could Mrs. Gano live most +inexpensively, and with least annoyance to sensibilities so outraged by +the issue of the war? Certainly not in Virginia--not anywhere in the +despoiled, prostrate South. Certainly not in the hated North. But the +West-- + +Far off in the wilds of one of the Middle States, Mrs. Gano's father, +William Calvert, had once held property, and in her early youth she had +been taken from Baltimore in a stage-coach over the Alleghany Mountains +to visit him during one of his long absences from home on business in +connection with these Western lands. He had bought a queer, grim house +in a little town on a river among the Mioto Hills, and made himself +there a temporary home or headquarters for these yearly Western +pilgrimages. The State where he had his interests was the first one +carved out of the great Northwestern Territory, and though later on a +much farther West robbed this mid-America of its early century +associations of adventure and of danger, it was far remoter from the +Atlantic seaboard then than the Pacific is to-day. + +The house that Mrs. Gano inherited from her father had been built in +times of Indian warfare for a fortress and ammunition centre. With the +retreat of the Indians to the Western Reservation, the settlement's need +of a fort was less than the need of a school. The solid and spacious +rectangular building of stone on the height above the river was turned +into an academy for boys. A rival school sapped its prosperity in time; +it declined into bankruptcy, and came upon the market. William Calvert +bought it, made it into a dwelling-house, ultimately adding a wooden L, +and establishing his partner's family there. This house in the small but +growing town of New Plymouth was all that was left to his eldest +daughter when his shrunken estate was divided at his death. Through +former acquaintances of William Calvert, the position of teller in the +principal bank of the town was obtained for John Gano; and hither at the +close of the war came Mrs. Gano with her son of twenty and her daughter, +Valeria, nineteen. + +New Plymouth was not looked upon by its inhabitants as at all beyond the +pale of a most advanced civilization. Founded by stout New-Englanders, +it was one of the oldest settlements in this part of the world. It had +its churches, its court-house, its excellent academy for boys and its +unparalleled seminary for young ladies, when the present capital of the +State was a wild unpeopled plain, crossed by winding cow-paths. + +Mrs. Gano soon discovered that her own view of her exile among a ruder +people, and to a narrower and more primitive life, was not likely to be +shared by her neighbors, proud of their New England origin, and secure +in their honest self-esteem. This difference of view was a matter quite +unimportant to the new-comer, except that it made it easier to carry out +her plan of refraining from any share in the active life of the bustling +little community. + +"I am an invalid," she gave out; "I neither pay nor receive visits." + +She did not even go often to church. The Rev. Mr. Collins was "a person +of no education," she decided, "and spoke with a vile Western accent." +But she rented a pew, and with rigid regularity sent the children to sit +in it. Her children! As she called them, so she treated them--John, six +feet two, doing a man's work in the world, with a man's spirit, and the +tall, grave Valeria. + +The girl was an enigmatic creature, silent, self-absorbed, shrinking +from the give-and-take of social life. It was not the cross to her that +it was to her more genial brother that their mother's craving for +solitude, and not too Christian contempt for her well-meaning neighbors, +precluded asking people to the house. But the young man, after the young +man's fashion, escaped to some extent the tyranny of home conditions. He +had come forth from his juvenile predilection for pious observances. He +had developed a passion for natural science, and yet was content to work +hard all day in the bank, and to spend his free evenings in a rapidly +acquired circle of new friends. In summer there were moonlight drives +and walks; there was boating on the Mioto, and singing songs and +discreet love-making on the "stoops" of the houses of the prettiest +girls. In the mild weather, too, sometimes combining a picnic with the +pursuit of knowledge, he would make up a party to go to Black Hand or +Cedar Rock, where the hills were rich in fossils, and sometimes he would +go farther afield to find specimens in the coal seams of the region. In +winter there were church sociables, "taffy-pulls," sleigh-rides, and +skating-parties. He was, in short, living an active and healthy life +under conditions not intrinsically inspiring, perhaps, except to the +inner vision of ardent youth. + +His mother offered no objection to his amusing himself in New Plymouth's +somewhat crude society, but took quick alarm at a piece of chance gossip +repeated by the privileged factotum, Aunt Jerusha. + +"Massa John done got a reel truly-truly sweetheart _dis_ time. He'll be +marryin' her berry soon, by all 'counts." + +It came out that the lady in question was Miss Hattie Fox. Who _was_ +Miss Hattie Fox? Valeria had seen her at church. She was very pretty, +and her father was senior warden at St. Thomas's on Sundays, and +attorney-at-law at 114 Main Street on week-days. To Mrs. Gano's evident +annoyance, nothing obviously objectionable could be urged against the +girl. The next Sunday, Mrs. Gano went to church. Coming out, the +impulsive John went forward, and had a precious whispered word with the +lady in question. As the young people reached the bottom of the church +steps, his mother touched him on the shoulder. + +"Introduce Miss Fox to me," she said. + +John performed the ceremony with the air of one who lights a +powder-train, and against all canons of prudence stands waiting to see +the explosion. But, behold! his mother was most gracious. + +"Your family have been very hospitable to my son," she said. "I am an +invalid, and do not entertain, but if you will come to supper some +evening, my daughter and I will be glad to see you. Could you come +to-night?" + +"Oh yes; _do_ come," urged the smiling and unwary John. + +She came. She was certainly a beautiful and amiable creature, but +nevertheless John found himself fighting valiantly against the sudden +temptation to judge her by a brand-new standard. His mother's soft +Southern voice made Hattie's Western burr sound curiously common, and +the manners he had thought delightfully vivacious seemed boisterous on a +sudden. As he listened through his mother's ears, it dawned upon him for +the first time that the girl laughed too loudly and too constantly. He +set his acute discomfort down to his humiliating lack of discernment in +the past, and too easy conquest by mere good looks. He did not realize +that Hattie's gaucheries were intensified by her nervous awe of Mrs. +Gano. She had never known any one in the least like her hostess, and so +far from failing in respect, she was so deeply impressed that in her +wonder and veneration she was driven to adopt the juvenile device for +the working off of oppressive emotion--pretending to be extravagantly at +her ease. + +One or two things in that evening of disillusionment stood out with +painful distinctness in John Gano's memory for years. Naturally, Hattie +answered "Yes" and "No" to John's mother, not as Southern youths said to +their elders: "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," or "Sir." But she also sat +down to the piano without being invited, and sang a song which it was +plain Mrs. Gano thought unrefined. Even John realized now that it +wasn't quite the song he had imagined. + +At supper, when Mrs. Gano's covert but unsparing inspection of the girl +announced to her children, plain as words, that their visitor was +overloaded with jewelry, John thought to mitigate the enormity of the +huge frying-pan locket Hattie wore on her innocent breast by observing: + +"Haven't I heard your sister say you have a daguerrotype of your father +in the locket you're wearing?" + +"Right you are!" she said. "I never go without it." Then to Mrs. Gano: +"_My!_ I'm awful fawnd of my paw. P'raps you'd like to see him." + +Miss Fox obligingly unfastened the frying-pan, and shied it, quoit-like, +down the table to her hostess. + +There was a pause, a hideous silence. + +"Pass me the crackers, Venus," Mrs. Gano said, presently, to Aunt +Jerusha's daughter. As she took the plate she, without touching it, +indicated the big bold locket. "Take that to Miss Fox," she said. + +And while the maid was conveying the visitor's property back to her in +the middle of a large tray, Mrs. Gano had turned to Valeria and was +speaking of the morning's sermon. + +Poor Miss Hattie put the finishing touch to her visit by departing +without taking leave of her hostess. + +"Won't you come to the parlor a moment and say good-bye to my mother?" +said John, when Valeria brought their guest down-stairs into the hall, +hatted and gloved, and ready to go home. + +"Gracious Peter! say good-bye?" The guest drew back in genuine alarm. +"You may just bet I won't say 'beans' before her from now till Gabriel +blows his trumpet in the morning. Did you hear the last thing she said +to me? _My!_" + +"No; I was playing 'Dixie Land.'" + +"Yes; and all through it she kept looking at the clock, and when you got +to the loud part she leaned over and asked me whether I expected my +father or a servant to come for me? My _gracious_!" + +"Oh, but I--I--" stammered John. + +"You--_you_? Not a bit of it. She said Jerusha should see me to my door. +The old hag's out at the gate now waiting for me. Oh _my_!" + +And Miss Fox fled the premises. + +No word ever passed between mother and son about the young lady. It was +wholly unnecessary to discuss her. John had been made to see, in a +ruthless light, the unseemliness of asking this raw little Westerner to +be his mother's successor in the house of Gano, even in these degenerate +days. + +John's disappointment had no tragic issue, yet, in spite of the +consolation of other friends, in spite of the joys of experimental +science in the freedom of the woodshed, he was grievously unhappy for a +time, especially on Saturday evenings, which he had been used to spend +at the Foxes'. Partly in order to have an excuse for breaking through +that custom, and partly for a belated doctrinal reason, he occupied his +Saturday evenings in taking Hebrew lessons from the Principal of the +Boys' Academy. Young Gano had the inquirer's temper, and if he had not +had his bread to win, he would probably have been a traveller along many +of the roads of learning. + +And Valeria--she had not been as successful as her brother in shaking +off the paralyzing fears and lulling hopes of the old religious view. +But a new passion had found its way into her secluded life, altering, +shaping, imperiously governing it. It was no sudden love for the hero of +a girlish dream, no dedication of dawning woman-life to the worship of +some man, made saint or savior by imagination's magic, no fairy prince's +coming, no Romeo calling under her balcony in the night, that wakened +this grave-eyed dreamer of dreams to a thrilling sense of life and +service. It was that most blessed or accursed summons to rise and join +the ranks of those who follow Art. Here in the Western wilds, among +conditions grotesquely unpropitious, barren beyond the telling, sordid, +if you like, this keen young vision, searching the horizon of a pent-up +life, had seen the signal from afar, shining and beckoning her on. + +Valeria at nineteen was lamely, impotently following that +Will-o'-the-wisp which, under fairest conditions, may "lead to bewilder +and dazzle to blind," and of which you shall say in vain, "He lights you +to the swamps of death." The happy followers know the swamps of death +are waiting all, but many there be who travel thither without the +kind-deceiving light. + +Valeria, in common with some other members of her family, had written +little verses, chiefly religious; but that was nothing. It had been said +long ago in Maryland that the Ganos were born with a pen in their hands. +Like the others, she had given some of her time to music, when her +mother was out of ear-shot. She had a smattering of French, a modicum of +German, and a few lessons in painting. In the home in New Plymouth there +were specimens here and there about the house of work done before she +left Maryland: a Melanchthon with a coppery face and a glimpse of +hair-shirt, two copies of the portrait of Raphael done by himself, a +"Beatrice Cenci," and a "Holy Family." But from the days of inarticulate +childhood, with no more than a handful of her native soil and a +watering-pot, or a precious lump of putty from the plantation carpenter, +she had tasted the tyrannous joy of the creator, fashioning beasts and +men. + +And now, grown up, exiled to the West, living in poverty, and isolated +from all art save that in books, she said to herself that she had been +sent into the world to model beautiful forms, and express her restless +spirit in enduring marble. + +In vain she prayed to be allowed to go away and study--not to Paris, not +to Rome: only to New York. She had a small legacy left her by an aunt. +The interest was so little, why not spend the capital in studying +sculpture? Her mother, amazed at the proposal, left Valeria no moment in +doubt of her determination to crush it. + +Valeria's Aunt Paget was with them on a visit when the matter was under +discussion. Mrs. Paget was seldom admitted to family counsels, and felt +herself something of a stranger in her sister's house. She was the +worldly, the frivolous member of her family, who "dressed in the mode" +and "cultivated society." She was surprised when on this occasion the +topic proved too much of the "burning" order to be smuggled out of +sight. + +"Study sculpture! Such a thing is unheard of!" ejaculated Mrs. Paget, +making wide blue eyes at her elder sister and her niece. + +"So I tell Valeria," said Mrs. Gano. "She couldn't go to New York alone, +she couldn't live there without a chaperon." + +"And even if she could afford it, you need her here. You are always ill +nowadays." + +"It isn't that," said Mrs. Gano. "I'm thinking of Valeria herself." + +"Of course; so am I. She ought to marry." + +"I shall never marry!" + +Aunt Paget smiled. + +"Well, at all events, it won't help you to be chiselling marble." + +"Help me to what?" + +"To a suitable marriage, of course." + +Valeria's dark eyes flashed, but before she could speak her mother said: + +"I am not one of those women who are anxious for their children to +marry. I shall be more than content if Valeria remains single." + +"Well, Sarah, forgive me, but I think it's a mistake. I said so before +we left Maryland, when she refused young Middleton. Every one of us was +married before we were Valeria's age, and none of us ever _dreamed_ of +wanting to go away from our home and study sculpture, or do _anything_ +in the least unladylike." + +Valeria gathered up her sewing as if to leave the room. + +"You must admit," Aunt Paget went on, "there's something unfeminine +about sculpture. I'm not sure it isn't even a little irreligious." + +"You don't know anything about it, Maria. You never had the least taste +yourself for anything but dress and going out." + +"Well, you see, that's what makes it so surprising," said the younger +sister, in an apologetic tone. "You have always thought me so frivolous, +and yet I wouldn't _think_--no, not in my wildest moments--of being a +sculptor." + +As Valeria left the room, Mrs. Gano looked with pride after the tall, +willowy figure. + +"You must remember," she said, speaking unusually gently, "the Ganos are +more artistic than we Calverts. Valeria has great talents." + +But having talent altered little. Valeria beat her wings against the +walls of the old Indian fortress all in vain. But she studied books, she +got clay for modelling, and tools, and in secret wrought rude images +that mocked her dreams. By-and-by she flung the tools aside, and the +plastic clay that she had meant to fashion into forms of beauty hardened +uncouthly into an unmeaning mass. An interim of aimlessness and despair +of life was followed by a gradual healing of the spirit and restored +activity of mind, through nothing more nor less than the power of +poetry. Saturated with Keats and Shelley, she took up again her old +childish habit of verse-making, but very seriously now, thinking of +herself as a poet. Some hint of the way she passed her time, some +whisper, through servants or others, of the reams of paper she engrossed +with verse, got abroad in the town. She was asked to contribute to the +_Mioto Gazette_, and was stopped on her way from church, by people she +scarcely knew, to hear that her fellow-townsmen were full of curiosity +and pride at having a poet among them. She was embarrassed, but not +altogether displeased. Not so Mrs. Gano, whose favorite remark about the +good people of New Plymouth was that they didn't know a B from a bull's +foot. _Of course_ they were impressed that any one in this benighted +place should write verse! + +"Just tell them the next time they bother you that the Ganos do it by +the yard." + +It was very difficult to impress this mother of hers, who took so much +for granted. + +"I think," said Valeria, with dignity, laying down a volume of _Aurora +Leigh_--"I think I shall seriously devote myself to literature." + +"Ah! then in that case be careful you don't adopt New Plymouth +standards." + +"I am not likely to." + +"I don't know. Nothing is more difficult than to avoid measuring +yourself by the people you live among. John is an ignoramus compared to +his father, but he tells me he is considered _here_ a highly educated +person." + +"I think, mother," the girl said, gravely, "that you'll protect me from +having too good an opinion of my work." + +But the conversation had set her thoughts in a new groove. There was +truth in this. She must guard against an ignorant satisfaction in her +poems. She must have better standards of style; she must know what the +masters taught and practised. She must learn to be more critical than +even her critical mother. "The great teachers of the world shall be my +teachers," she said to herself, and there sprang up within her a new and +fiery curiosity about the classics. + +She asked her mother to let the Roman Catholic priest teach her Latin, +and the request was granted with but slight demur, as an alternative to +the pursuit of art away from home. Quietly and doggedly Valeria went on +with her studies, teaching herself Greek, and lying long mornings on the +floor in the Blue Room, getting by heart the wit and wisdom of men to +whom the existence of a creature like Valeria Gano, in such a world as +America, would have been harder to grasp than she, unaided, had found +the niceties of the historical tense, or tolerance for her masters' +morals. + +While the girl up-stairs was patiently learning letters of the pagans, +in the room below the mother conned Church History and Biblical +Criticism, searching the Creeds and her own unquiet heart for +justification and for peace. And all the while about these two absorbed, +self-centred women surged the turbulent life of the little town. Gossip +was busy with Mrs. Gano from the first, albeit her face was unknown to +most of her towns-people--to nearly all who had not seen her in her rare +pilgrimages to St. Thomas's. They speculated, too, about the young girl +who dressed so severely, and whom one couldn't fancy at a party or a +picnic--who, though an irreproachable Episcopalian, learned Latin of +Father O'Brien, wrote verses about heathen gods and goddesses, if report +spoke true, and yet sat in church on Sunday with the rapt look of a +medieval saint. + +It was universally agreed by the neighbors that John Gano was the flower +of the flock. He, at least, was an addition to New Plymouth society, +being a very rising as well as agreeable person. + +There was more than one sore young heart in the town when, in the +following year, John Gano came back from a visit to his childhood's home +in the South, engaged to marry his cousin Virginia Gano-Lee, just +sixteen at the time. His mother, who had never ceased to fear that, +despite her vigilance, he might be beguiled into marrying some one of +these "ill-mannered Western girls," hailed the idea of further alliance +with the Gano-Lees. However, much too big as her house was for her own +use, she did not welcome John's natural proposal to bring his wife there +to live. + +"No; wait till you can make a home of your own," his mother had said. + +So it behoved the young man to better his worldly position as speedily +as possible. An opening in a bank in New York, with a little larger +salary, and prospect of a partnership, took him away from New Plymouth +the following year, and left his mother and sister alone in the old +house. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Naturally so clannish a woman as Mrs. Gano had not let the years go by +without much solicitude on behalf of her orphan grandchild. After the +death of her eldest son, Mrs. Gano wrote to his mother-in-law, Mrs. +Tallmadge, asking her to send the little orphan to his father's people, +or else appoint a time when Mrs. Gano might come to Boston and bring her +grandson home. The reply came from Mr. Tallmadge, showing how deeply he +and his wife had resented Mrs. Gano's behavior on the marriage of her +son. Mr. Tallmadge wrote that his daughter on her death-bed had +committed the infant to the care of her own mother, and that Ethan Gano +himself had sent his son North under the protection of Mrs. Tallmadge. +He had broken with his own family, and held no communication with them. +It was plain what his wishes were with reference to his son. And the +Tallmadges might be depended upon to make good their right to the +custody of the child. Several spirited letters were exchanged, and then +silence till the close of the war and the news of Mrs. Tallmadge's +death. Mrs. Gano then made another attempt to get possession of the boy, +but finding his grandfather as resolute as ever to keep him in Boston, +she proposed a journey thither. This apparent prompting of natural +affection could not decently be thwarted, although Mr. Tallmadge +understood perfectly the suspicion and anxiety as to the way the orphan +was being brought up, that secured the Tallmadges the honor of a visit +from Mrs. Gano. + +She declined to make the house in Ashburton Place her headquarters, +"having already," she wrote, "engaged an apartment at the Tremont +House." Mr. Tallmadge smiled, understanding perfectly. + +But if he contemplated with serenity the descent of Mrs. Gano upon +Ashburton Place, not so his unmarried daughter and house-keeper, Hannah +Tallmadge. With nervous misgiving she looked forward to the coming of +this hereditary foe, who, moreover, had the blackest designs upon her +darling Ethan. Still, Hannah Tallmadge was a most Christian soul. Short +of giving up Ethan, she would do all in her power to exhibit a +hospitable and forgiving spirit in the approaching trial. She would do +what she could to curb her father's uncompromising bluntness of speech, +and would keep him off dangerous topics. It occurred to her that the +mere sight of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ on the parlor table might rouse angry +passions. She was in the act of putting that work into the bookcase, +when her father, observing her suspiciously, asked: + +"What are you doing?" + +"Just putting this away." + +"Leave it on the table. It is the only work of fiction I have ever been +able to read. Leave it on the table." + +Nevertheless, next day, in a moment of nervousness induced by the news +that a strange lady was getting out of a carriage at their door, Miss +Hannah dropped _Uncle Tom_ behind the horse-hair sofa-cushion. + +"Where is Ethan?" said her father, turning suddenly from the window. + +"I'll go and bring him," replied Miss Hannah, and she left the room with +haste. + +A few moments, and the door opened again. Mrs. Gano came in with an air +that seemed to Aaron Tallmadge suspiciously gracious. She paused for +just that decisive but infinitesimal moment of first impression, as she +took the measure of the spare figure standing on guard in the middle of +his prim New England parlor. + +"Mr. Tallmadge?" inquired Mrs. Gano, suavely. + +"Mrs. Gano?" + +He offered his hand, and then pushed a straight-backed horse-hair chair +a little nearer the fire. In the mere speaking of her name his twang +made instant attack upon the Southerner's nerves. It passed through the +man's mind presently that Mrs. Gano's voice was disagreeably reminiscent +of a runaway slave he had once befriended. + +"I have just seen my grandson's face at an upper window." She looked +round eagerly. "Ah!" + +The door had opened very slowly. One eye and half a little dark head +were put doubtfully in. + +"Come here, Ethan!" said his grandfather. + +The child disappeared altogether. + +Mr. Tallmadge went out into the hall, and presently reappeared leading +Ethan in. He hung back, dropping his curly head, and shooting an +occasional look at the newcomer; but since she did not fly at him in the +objectionable way of visitors, he allowed himself to be brought by +degrees up to the strange lady's chair. + +She did not even say "How do you do?" She stooped and kissed him +silently. He stared at her with great melancholy eyes, backed away, and +stood by his grandfather's side. + +"I am afraid he is not strong," said Mrs. Gano, a little huskily. + +"He has been singularly free from childish ailments--an occasional +cold--" + +"Of course, in this trying climate." + +"Oh, we find our climate does very well." + +"No doubt, in the case of those to the manner born. This child is +singularly like his father." + +"He reminds _us_ constantly of his mother." + +"Is it possible? I assure you I feel, as I look at him, that I have +dreamed these twenty years, and that my son is standing there before +me." + +"You don't say!" remarked the child's grandfather, unmoved. "Everybody +here considers him so like the Tallmadges." + +Mrs. Gano, with unflattering eyes on the head of the house, gave an +incredulous cough. She seemed on the point of expressing more +indubitably some further thought, looked at the boy, softened suddenly, +and smiled at the grave little face. + +"You know who I am?" + +He shook his brown curls. A shadow crossed the woman's face. + +"Is he never told anything of his father or his father's people?" + +"He is very young yet to take an interest in folks he hasn't seen." + +"He is nearly six." + +"What say?" + +"I should have thought an intelligent child of six might have been told +that his grandmother--" + +"Not six _yet_, madam. Of course, when he is older--" + +He made a gesture indicating a liberal policy. + +"When he is older you will have no objection, I suppose, to his making a +visit to his father's people?" + +"No objection whatever to a _visit_, madam." + +"How soon should you consider such a move expedient?" + +"Ah, that depends," replied the wary gentleman--"depends so much on +circumstances." + +"What kind of circumstances?" she inquired, stiffly. + +His look and tone said unmistakably, "Depends on your behavior, madam." +"Depends on the child's health and-- Run away and play, Ethan," he said. + +As the little boy closed the door: "Then you do admit he is delicate?" + +Mrs. Gano spoke more coldly than when Ethan had been there to hear. + +"I admit the need to consider the health of _all_ children, and +secondary only to that, their education." + +"What are your views as to Ethan's schooling?" + +"I shall expect him to go through the regular mill, as I did: a good +primary school, then the preparatory at Andover, then Harvard." + +The woman felt a certain fainting of purpose at the cut-and-dried +programme presented in that dry manner by the dry old man. It _was_ a +"regular mill," and who could tell if the sensitive, fragile little Gano +was the stuff to stand these machine-made processes? + +"I don't believe, myself," said Mr. Tallmadge, with decision, "in +haphazard, shilly-shally ways of raising children, and leaving it to +them to see what they'll take to." + +"I have little experience of shilly-shally methods," replied his +visitor. + +"If you leave it to boys to decide, what they take to is mischief nine +times out of ten." + +"I think you may make your mind easy about my grandson." + +Mr. Tallmadge looked at her in silence for a moment; then suddenly: +"Yes, yes; _he'll_ turn out all right." He nodded, as if to say, "Trust +me to see to that!" "My experience is, if you want a boy to do a +particular thing, set that aim before him at the start. That's the way I +was raised; that's the way I propose to raise my grandson." + +There was a slight pause. + +"And in what form of religious faith?" + +"We are all members of the Presbyterian Church." It was said as though +it had been in obedience to an edict of the Everlasting from the +foundation of the world. "You will appreciate the necessity of having my +grandson raised under my own eye when I tell you it is my intention +that, after he gets through Harvard, he shall succeed to the editorship +of my paper." + +"My grandson edit an Abolitionist paper?" + +Mr. Tallmadge blinked in a slightly nervous fashion, but answered, +steadfastly: + +"Abolition is abolished, madam; it has served its end. Ethan will +naturally fall heir to my property and my profession." + +"Ethan is his father's heir first of all--heir to a man who gave his +life at Bull Run for our rights, not for the abolition of them." + +"Abolition _was_ right, and _is_ law, by the sanction of the God of +battles." + +Mrs. Gano rose from her chair; the door opened, and in came Miss +Hannah. Whether it was chance, or whether she had been waiting outside +for the psychological moment, certainly her entrance was opportune. She +went through her greeting with a flustered civility that, by its own +extreme nervousness, made the situation she had broken in upon seem calm +to the point of commonplace. Mrs. Gano found herself trying to put Miss +Hannah at her ease. + +The tall, thin spinster, with her smooth gray hair and anxious manner, +must have been more than double the age of Ethan's mother. + +Supper would be ready in twenty minutes. + +"Of course," she said, "you will stay? Ethan has just been asking if he +mayn't sit up a little later to-night." + +"Ethan!" Potent conjuration! Mrs. Gano had not come all this way to look +after her grandson's welfare and be turned back by a fanatical outbreak +on the part of a bigoted Abolitionist. No, and if plain speaking was to +be the order of the day, Mr. Tallmadge should not do it all. He had it +his own way, however, in the long grace with which he prefaced supper, a +performance that sounded in Mrs. Gano's ears aggressively Presbyterian. +It appeared at that meal that Miss Hannah was disposed to be indulgent +to her little nephew, and that he was devoted to her. He talked very +little, and what he had to say he confided in a whisper to his aunt. But +as he ate, he stared unceasingly with great gloomy eyes at his +grandmother. She saw with deep misgiving that he was permitted to make +the same meal as his elders. He declined to share his aunt's decoction +of "shells," as she quaintly called cocoa, and joined his grandparents +in a large cup of coffee. He bolted down quantities of that moist and +leaden Boston brown bread which Mrs. Gano regarded with amazement and +alarm, and he seemed to share the New England taste for beans and bacon, +a fare which, in the visitor's mind, ranked with the "hog and hominy" of +the hard-working plantation blacks; but to place such food before a +little delicate child! + +After supper his aunt took him on her lap, and, while Mr. Tallmadge and +his guest skirted dangerous topics with stately politeness, Miss +Tallmadge, in the corner by the fire, was softly repeating nursery +rhymes to the little Ethan. Others might have been struck by the picture +of the gaunt, childless woman and her ready assumption of the mother +role; Mrs. Gano was vaguely conscious of a kind of remissness in herself +in having omitted to tell her own children a word about little Nannie +Etticott or Cock Robin. In all her life of maternal solicitude she had +never once mentioned "Hey-diddle-diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle," or +even hinted at the existence of "the Little Man who had a little gun." +Presently, in the midst of Mr. Tallmadge's remarks upon the beauties of +Boston Common, Mrs. Gano caught the child's more and more insistent +demand for some joy which Miss Tallmadge was minded to withhold. In +spite of "Sh! sh!" more and more shrill came the iteration: + +"Nwingy Tat! Nwingy Tat!" + +In his fervor Ethan had dragged the stern, unyielding horse-hair cushion +off the end of the sofa, revealing two volumes hidden behind it. + +Mrs. Gano seemed not to regret this diversion. Helping the child to +restore the sofa-cushion, she took up the books. As she read the title +her look darkened. She put the work down as if it burned her fingers. + +"A great, bad book," she said. + +"What is that?" asked Mr. Tallmadge. + +Mrs. Gano jerked her head without answering. + +"What say?" persisted the old man, with his hand to his ear. + +"_Uncle Tom's Cabin_," said Miss Tallmadge, trying to speak lightly. + +"A very uncommon woman, Mrs. Stowe," said Mr. Tallmadge, firmly; "very +uncommon, indeed." + +"Let us hope so," ejaculated Mrs. Gano, half to herself. + +"Eh?" inquired Mr. Tallmadge, with gruff suspicion. "What say?" + +"I was granting her uncommonness, and hoping it wouldn't get commoner." + +"H'm! It could hardly be expected, I suppose, that you should think well +of--" + +"No; I can't be expected to think well of a woman who is not content +with getting a whole nation by the ears, but she must interfere between +husband and wife, and--" + +"What say?" inquired Mr. Tallmadge, with corrugated brows and hand to +his deaf ear. "I'm talking about Harriet Beecher Stowe." + +"So am I," said Mrs. Gano. "I only hope she'll be content with the +mischief she's done already, and not rush into print with her espousal +of Lady Byron's wrongs." + +"I haven't heard that Mrs. Beecher Stowe had any such intention. As a +friend of the family, from Lyman down--" + +"As a friend of the family, you ought to warn them in time to curb her +propensity for attending to other people's affairs. Uncommon! Yes, an +uncommon busybody." + +"I think, madam, you are misinformed," said Mr. Tallmadge, with dignity. + +"I know more about Harriet Beecher Stowe than most people--though she +never _has_ set foot in the South--and I know she's a busybody. I also +know she has less excuse than some women. The spring I spent with my +sister, Mrs. Paget, in Covington, before I met the Stowes, I used to +look out and see a man trudging about the hills in front of my windows +with a basket on his arm. 'Who is that?' I asked. 'That's Professor +Stowe,' they said; and we all wondered what he had in the basket. I said +he was botanizing; Mrs. Paget said the basket was too big for that: he +must be looking for kail, or dock, or dandelion greens for dinner. +By-and-by we heard he had twins in the basket, and was taking them about +for an airing. The Stowes were very poor, too, and what with that and +twins, Harriet B. ought to have found enough to do at home." + +"Nwingy Tat! Nwingy Tat!" + +"Sh!" said his aunt. + +"_Mus'_ sing it," answered Ethan, in the only distinct words his +grandmother had heard from his lips. + +"What is it?" she asked, more interested in Ethan's infant tastes than +even in Mrs. Stowe's enormities. + +"It's that foolish little rhyme, 'The New England Cat,'" replied Miss +Hannah. + +"I don't know it," said Mrs. Gano. + +"Ethan likes it for some unknown reason. When he had scarlet-fever last +year--" + +She stopped, seeing the sudden change in Mrs. Gano's face. + +"We had an epidemic of it," said Mr. Tallmadge, as though that fact +lessened the danger. "Ethan came out of it famously--didn't you, my +little man?" + +"Nwingy Tat!" said Ethan. + +"Oh yes, he came out all right," said Miss Hannah; "but before the +crisis I sat up with him at night, and I sang 'The New England Cat' to +him till I nearly died of it. Through sheer exhaustion my voice would +get weaker and weaker, till it seemed to die too natural a death for him +to notice. But the moment I stopped he would start up and say +feverishly, 'Nwingy Tat!' It was the only thing that quieted him." + +Mrs. Gano might have been supposed to regard this passion for New +England cats as a depraved taste on the part of a Gano, but she said, +graciously: + +"Let me add my petition to Ethan's. I would like to hear his favorite +song." + +Perhaps in the dim recesses of her mind she had some formless idea of +learning this lyric. + +"It's not a song," said Miss Hannah, hurriedly. "Come, child, it's time +you went to bed." + +"Nwingy Tat, first," said Ethan, firmly. + +"Oh, hum it for the child!" said Mr. Tallmadge, impatiently. + +Miss Hannah's face took on a dull-red hue, but obediently she began in a +thin, sweet little voice: + + + "'There was an old New England cat, + New England cat, New England cat-- + There was an old New England cat went out to seek her prey. + + "'She chased a mouse from house to house, + From house to house, from house to house-- + She chased a mouse from house to house upon the Sabbath day. + + "'The parson so astonished was, + Astonished was, astonished was-- + The parson so astonished was to see--the cat profanes! + + "'He took his book and threw it down, + And threw it down, and threw it down-- + He took his book and threw it down, and bound the cat in chains.'" + + +Mrs. Gano was as "astonished" at this performance as "the parson." Ethan +nodded a grave encore. + +"Nwingy Tat!" + +Whereat they all laughed with the best humor in the world, and Ethan was +carried off to bed. + +Mrs. Gano, under plea of weariness from travel, made her "good-nights" +at the same time, arranging to return to Ashburton Place the next day. + +She wakened early the following morning. Reviewing the events of the +evening before, and having now dispassionate regard to the object of her +visit, she registered a vow that no provocation upon earth should induce +her another time to touch upon any vexed question. The opinions of these +Tallmadges were not apparently to be altered any more than her own were. +If she were going to wring any concession out of them with reference to +Ethan, she must walk warily, she must appeal more to their sense of +justice and family feeling. She was in their power. It was theirs to +dictate terms. A new situation for Sarah C. Gano, but she would make the +best of it. + +When she arrived at Ashburton Place before ten o'clock, Miss Hannah was +just leaving the house. + +"_Oh!_" she said, as nervous people will, as though you had pinched +them. + +"Good-morning!" Mrs. Gano bowed urbanely. + +"Good-morning! We understood you couldn't go out before the afternoon." + +"Yes, I can never count on being fit for much in the morning; but to-day +I am abroad early. Shall I find the child?" + +She made a motion towards the house. + +"Ethan has just gone to school. Pa took him to-day." + +"Oh! And you are going to walk?" + +"No--y-yes--a little way." + +Miss Tallmadge's embarrassment seemed to rouse in Mrs. Gano's breast a +sentiment to which it was commonly a stranger. She was curious. Ought +she not to know something about this woman who stood in the relation of +mother to Ethan? What was her life like? What were her interests? + +"I have always heard," the visitor said, as they walked along Somerset, +and through Beacon to Tremont Street--"always heard what admirable +house-keepers the New England women are. Do you do your own marketing?" + +"Yes; but always earlier." + +"This is a good time for shopping, before the crowded mid-day. I must +look for a shawl of some kind." + +"I would be glad to show you the best place for such things, but to-day +I--I have a most important engagement." + +She paused near a stationer's. On the right a staircase led from the +street to the floor above. Several ladies bustled past, nodding +good-morning to Miss Tallmadge, and disappearing up these stairs. Mrs. +Gano's keen eyes explored the precincts. A small placard in the entry +stated in white letters on lacquered tin: "Ladies' Domestic +Philanthropic Society (Colored Registry Office)." + +"H'm!" she said, not seeming to see the nervous hand seeking farewell. +"Colored! What color?" + +"I suppose you would say black." + +Miss Tallmadge had drawn herself up. + +"I should probably say negro. But I've heard they like to call +themselves colored. Seems a curious taste. Always suggests variegated to +me." + +"That is not how we mean it," said Miss Tallmadge solemnly, making way +for more ladies who swarmed up the staircase. "We are a little group of +people working on purely humanitarian principles, finding succor and +employment for the destitute, thrown out of work by--" + +"Yes; we know by whom." Then, with a misleading geniality: "This idea of +restitution seems to me very right and proper." + +Miss Tallmadge's face betrayed perplexity. A shivering little quadroon +girl crept up the stairs behind a coal-black old man. + +"It is too difficult, perhaps, to make plain our point of view," said +Miss Hannah, with quiet dignity, "otherwise I should feel it my duty +while you are in Boston to show you--" + +"Have you the right," interrupted her visitor, "to bring a stranger to +these colored meetings?" + +"I have frequently brought a friend. Perhaps--" Miss Hannah's good face +brightened. "We don't discuss politics, and perhaps if you could see +something of the pains we take to befriend and find homes for these poor +creatures--" + +"I am ready to attend the meeting," announced Mrs. Gano, tightening her +bonnet-strings. "It sounds like a sensible institution. We had the best +cooks, the only well-trained servants in America. They must be a godsend +here in the North." + +She remembered, as she mounted the stairs behind Miss Hannah, that her +hostess had not provided 16 Ashburton Place with any of these "colored" +joys, and she reflected that she had not yet seen a darky since her +arrival except the old man and little girl on in front of them. + +A clock struck ten as Miss Tallmadge hurriedly led the way up the second +flight to the registry-office. When she caught up to the old negro, the +domestic philanthropist applied her handkerchief to her nose. + +The society's room was unexpectedly spacious, furnished with a desk +fronting a goodly assemblage of ladies seated in rows upon rows of cane +chairs. On the right a space was railed off, and set close with empty +wooden benches. Miss Tallmadge explained in a whisper that "the +candidates" were kept in an adjoining room till a later stage in the +proceedings. As for the domestic philanthropists, there were so many of +them that there was some difficulty in finding Mrs. Gano a seat. As the +late-comers settled themselves, a thin, hard-featured lady with a dogged +manner took her place at the desk. This action moved the D. P.'s to a +faint flutter of applause. The President laid down some papers, drew off +her gloves, folded her hands, and invoked a blessing. + +"And now, ladies, we will proceed to business." + +She read a report. At the end she characterized it as highly +satisfactory, considering the wellnigh superhuman difficulties in the +way of the object of the society. She gave an unflattering account of +the extravagance, filth, and idleness cultivated in servants by the +Southern regime. She told of thrifty New England housewives' experience +with highly recommended Southern cooks--stories that moved the domestic +philanthropists to open expressions of horror. No one denied colored +women knew how to cook, but they were lazy and dirty beyond measure, and +required the markets of the whole world to supply their inordinate +wants. As for what they threw away, it would feed a cityful! To Miss +Hannah's evident relief, Mrs. Gano nodded and whispered: + +"True as Gospel--_that_ much of it." + +"Still," the President pointed out, "philanthropy must bear with these +evils; philanthropy must find these outcasts homes. What can be expected +of poor down-trodden slaves? called on to suffer every ignominy, torn +from their children, quivering under the lash, bought and sold like +dumb-driven cattle! Out of compassion for these fellow-creatures who +are, like ourselves, children of God--His latter-day martyrs--we have +met here this morning to bring succor and to offer service. Daughter, +call in the candidates." + +A young lady rose, wiped away a sympathetic tear, crossed behind the +wooden bar, and opened a door. The President meanwhile opened a +reticule, took out a bottle of lavender-water, and poured a few drops on +her handkerchief. Through the open door presently appeared the old +negro, the little quadroon girl (evidently ill), and a great strapping +mulatto woman. Mrs. Gano kept looking for the rest, while the trio +huddled together like sheep in the farthest corner, until "daughter" +indicated that benches were to be sat upon. + +"Do they come in threes?" Mrs. Gano whispered to Miss Tallmadge. + +"This is all there are this time." + +The President opened a large ledger, dipped and poised a pen, and nodded +to "daughter." Daughter bent down and spoke to the old man. He got up +trembling, and followed the young lady out behind the bar to the little +open space in front of the desk. The look on his face was not the look +negroes commonly wore when mounting the block in Southern slave-markets. +It was more like the look that would come into their faces when they +were knocked down to some notoriously hard master. + +"What is your name?" + +"Jake, mehm." + +"Jake what?" + +"Jes' Jake, mehm. F'om Henderson's." + +"Oh, I have a letter about you." She looked about among her papers. +"Yes, here; I will tabulate this and see what we can do for you. You may +come to the next meeting." + +"Yes, mehm." + +He hobbled a step or two away in a dazed fashion, when a piercing shriek +rang across the room. He started as if a lash had been laid across his +back. The little quadroon girl was standing up, holding out two shaking +arms to him. The old man blinked. + +"I swar I ain't leabin' yo', Till. I gwine t' wait by de do'." + +But the little girl flew forward, climbing benches and creeping under +the bar. She had nearly reached the old man when the President, leaning +forward, said: + +"Are you not the girl I sent to Mrs. Parsons's as general servant?" + +"Yes, mehm," said the candidate, taking tight hold of the old man's +coat. + +"I have a very bad account of you." + +"Yes, mehm." + +"Mrs. Tilson says you are idle and good for nothing." + +"Yes, mehm." + +The old man took her hand. + +"She ain't berry well, mehm, sence we come t' Bosting. Mebbe she'll be +better able by'm-by t' go where dere ain't eleben chillen and so much +snow ter shubbel." + +"You look anything but strong," said the President. "I'll try to find +you an easier place. They all want easier places," she said, over her +shoulder, to the domestic philanthropists. + +"Hush! Hush! I'll tell de lady, honey, ef yer don' take an' cry." + +But the President was motioning the other candidate forward. The old man +stood hesitating, and then began shakily: + +"It 'ud be mighty kin', mehm, ef yo' could get Till an' me de same +place." + +"The _same_ place!" echoed the President, sharply. + +"Y--yes, mehm," faltered the old man, backing timidly; "or anyways +places close togedder, mehm, please, mehm." + +"That's seldom possible." + +The little quadroon wept audibly. The old man patted her arm feebly. + +"I--I disremember it myself, but Till, yere, _she_ says I tol' 'er down +Georgy dat up yere in Bosting dey didn't nebber make de chilluns go one +way an' de ole folks anudder." + +"We'll do what we can." + +"Thank yo', mehm." + +And they went out. + +The President made an entry in the ledger. + +"The old grandfather is said to be an invaluable hand at polishing +plate," she said, with a sardonic look at her fellow philanthropists. +"Any one who wishes may see his credentials after the meeting. Daughter, +I called the next candidate." + +"I _have_ told her, ma." + +"Come forward!" commanded the President. + +The big mulatto woman wriggled about, and then got up, frightfully +embarrassed, and by dint of kindly urging from "daughter" and the +President, she was finally landed in front of the desk. + +"Now," said the President, fixing the woman through her spectacles, +"where have you resided?" + +This question was repeated three times and in three forms. + +"Oh, w'ere I libs? Up Corn Alley." + +"But before you lived in Corn Alley, where did you come from?" + +"F'om Jacksing's." + +"Where did the Jacksons live?" + +"On de hill." + +"What hill?" + +She thought deeply, and then looked up, grinning and silent. + +"What State?" asked the President, with a haggard air. + +"State?" + +"Yes, Georgia or Alabama?" + +"No, mehm. It was Keziah wus f'om Alabammy." + +"What is your name?" + +"Yellah Sal." + +She squirmed with an elephantine coquetry. + +"Your last name?" + +"Las'?" + +"Are you married?" + +"Huh! Yes, mehm," she chuckled. + +"What was your husband's name?" + +"W'ich husbin?" + +"Have you been married more than once?" + +"Huh! Yes, mehm." She bridled and twisted. "Six or seben times." + +"As Vice-President," said a white-haired woman, standing up suddenly +near the desk, "I suggest that it would be a more practical investment +of our time if we confine ourselves to finding out what the candidates +could do." + +"Do you wish me to register this woman as Yellow Sal?" inquired the +President, severely. + +"Put her down as Sarah Yellow," advised the Vice-President, and resumed +her seat. + +This passage seemed to unhinge the candidate. The question of what she +could do found her relapsed into speechlessness. Even its repetition +elicited only twistings and spasmodic grins. + +"Come, come," said the President, wearily. "You are a strong, +able-bodied woman; you at least can do a good day's work at something. +Now, the question is, what?" + +Yellow Sal only moved her massive shoulders with an air of conscious +power. + +"Did you cook?" + +"_Cook?_ No, mehm." + +She smiled in a superior fashion. + +"What then?" + +She twisted a piece of her calico gown. + +"Were you the laundress?" + +"_Me?_ No, mehm. Bet an' Sabina done de washin'." + +"Well, and you? Were you nurse?" + +The down-trodden one shook her head. + +"Nebber could abide chillen." + +"Well, what _did_ you do?" + +The President leaned in a threatening attitude over the desk. + +"Huh! Me, mehm? _Me_--w'y," speaking soothingly, "Lor bress yo' soul, +mehm, I done kep' de flies off'n ole missis." + + +Miss Hannah's hope of the possible good effects of the meeting upon her +guest was more than justified. Mrs. Gano returned to Ashburton Place in +a distinctly cheerful frame of mind. + +Whether Mr. Tallmadge, too, had begun the day with vows of peace, he +certainly bore himself towards his unwelcome visitor with no little +consideration and courtesy. Mrs. Gano was forced to admit to herself a +growing respect, an unwilling admiration even, for her old enemy. The +only outward and visible sign of this change of heart was made manifest +after the departure of the one other visitor that evening brought to +Ashburton Place. Mr. Tallmadge had not only prevented Mr. Garrison from +speaking of the war, but he had headed the conversation off every time +it approached any topic of the day that bore upon the South. When the +door closed behind him Mrs. Gano turned to her host and said, formally: + +"I appreciate your desire not to have these questions raised in my +presence; but I see that in one regard you misapprehend me. I agree with +your visitor as to the undesirability of slavery." + +"You, madam?" + +She bowed. + +"My objection is almost solely on the score of its evil effects on the +superior race. Still, slavery was an institution we had inherited, and +in which our social and industrial life was rooted. One part of a free +country had no right to dictate to another part. The South would have +freed her slaves herself in due time." + +Mr. Tallmadge was unable to repress an incredulous smile. + +"Slaves were once held in the North," his guest reminded him, drawing +herself up. "If the African had been able to live in this terrible +climate, New England would not so soon have seen the iniquity of +slavery. The South, on wider grounds, was coming to the same +conclusion. The war only precipitated with bloodshed and disaster that +which, if left to right itself, would have been done without such awful +squandering of blood and gold." + +Mr. Tallmadge shook his head. + +"I cannot agree with you, madam. Violent uprooting is the only way to +clear the ground of certain noxious growths." + +"Ah, you think you've cleared the ground--by inflicting the duties of +citizenship all in an instant upon a barbarian horde? You are more of an +optimist even than your friends." + +"What friends are you quoting?" + +"Your Harriet Beecher Stowe, for instance. Even in the full tide of her +romantic enthusiasm she can find no better use for the idealized +ex-slave than to ship him to Liberia. This, too, after educating +him--sending him for four years to a French university." She smiled. +"But since you and I may not meet again, all I wish to point out before +I go is that you need not count me as an advocate of slavery." + +She rose. + +"Before you go?" he began, hesitating. + +"I am needed at home," she said. "I shall not remain in Boston longer +than is necessary to secure your agreement to Ethan's coming to us for a +visit." + +"I have already said, madam--" + +"I should not feel the object of my journey attained unless the date +were fixed." + +They stood looking at each other. + +It will never be known how much Mr. Tallmadge's readiness to restore +Mrs. Gano to the bosom of her family influenced his views at this +juncture. He turned away and considered, with one foot on the fender and +chin-whisker in hand. + +"This next summer," he said, "I have promised to take Ethan to my +brother's place in the White Mountains." + +"Then the summer after this." + +"Yes; the summer after he could come, if he were well." + +"If he were ill, I would come to see him." + +"Ah--yes." + +"When does his vacation begin?" + +"About the middle of June." + +"If he is well, you will send him to us the third week?" + +"Yes." + +They shook hands solemnly. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +It was when Ethan was seven years old that he was permitted to go to New +Plymouth to spend his summer holidays. He was brought by his uncle +Elijah Tallmadge, who, on his way to Cincinnati, satisfied his sense of +duty, if not his civility, by dropping the little boy on the platform of +the New Plymouth station, and watching from the window of the receding +train how a tall, grave girl in an old-fashioned bonnet, and with a +turbaned negress in her wake, went up to the little traveller and +greeted him. + +"Are you Ethan Gano?" said the lady, gently. + +"Yes," answered the child. + +She kissed him. "I am your aunt Valeria," she said, and took his trunk +check out of his hand and gave it to the negro hackman, who departed to +claim the child's belongings. + +When the boy had said he was Ethan Gano, he was startled by an +exclamation of uncouth joy from the negress who stood behind his aunt. +Jerusha showed her strong teeth in a smile of wide beneficence, and +rolled her great bulging eyes till Ethan quaked. + +"Tooby sho'," she broke out; "didn't I tell yo' he'd got de Gano look in +his lubly face? He's jes' de spi't en image ob his paw;" and she held +out her motherly arms to embrace him. + +Ethan fled, shuddering, not from fear alone, but from that sense, so +much stronger in the Northern bred than in the Southern, of physical +shrinking from the black. Ethan held himself to have escaped a dire +indignity, as he overtook his aunt at the edge of the platform, close to +a dilapidated carriage. He looked back, fearing the black woman was +following, and might be coming with them. But no, there she was, +shuffling down a side street with her heavy see-saw hip-motion. Ethan's +little trunk was put on the box, and he and his aunt got into the +dilapidated vehicle and drove off with a rattling and jingling of loose +windows and ancient brass-mounted harness. Presently they passed +Jerusha, who smiled in at them broadly, seeming to bear no trace of a +grudge. But Ethan colored and looked away. + +His aunt did not seem to be a talkative person. She sat looking out of +the window almost as if she were alone. She did, however, point out the +Court-house, and when they rumbled and clattered over the great wooden +bridge, "Now we are crossing the Mioto," she said; "we live on the other +side. It's much nicer to live on the other side." + +"Oh _yes_," said Ethan, as though he appreciated the advantage keenly. + +His aunt had delicate aquiline features, and a singularly beautiful pale +skin. He did not know it, but the two occupants of the carriage were +curiously alike, even to the look of melancholy lurking in the eyes of +each. Ethan noticed that the ungloved hand that lay listless in her lap +was very long, and whiter than any hand he had ever seen. + +They suddenly turned off the main street leading from the bridge. + +"This is Washington Street," said his aunt. "If you lean out you'll see +our house." But the trees were too thick for one who didn't know where +to look to distinguish the glimpses of the gray-stone building. In a +moment the vehicle stopped. "Here we are," said Aunt Valeria. + +Ethan looked up at the massive gray front above him on a terrace only a +little back from the street. Ampelopsis trailed over, but did not yet +hide the great blocks of hand-hewn stone that in those old days had been +set up for defence between the pale-face and the Indian. + +Aunt Valeria opened the gate, and Ethan followed her up the half-dozen +stone steps and along the brick-paved path to the porch. There in the +doorway, between the big Doric columns, stood a tall, slim woman, +dressed in black, with masses of silvered hair nearly covered by a +white veil. Her face was furrowed, but she wore a look of welcome and a +light of unquenched youth in her smiling eyes that made the child smile +too, feeling himself no stranger, but as one who had come home. She set +her hands on either side his face and kissed him. + +"But where is Mr. Tallmadge?" Mrs. Gano asked her daughter when they +were in the hall. + +"Gone on to Cincinnati. He didn't get out of the train." + +"_What?_ He never left this child to the chance of--" + +Ethan had never seen any one look so angry. The eyes that had been +smiling flashed a steely blue fire. He shrank away to the neighborhood +of the more friendly umbrellas in the hat-rack. + +"Oh, he knew we would be sure to meet him," said Aunt Valeria, +apologetically. + +"One can never be sure of anything of the kind! Suppose either you or I +had been very ill! To drop a little child like that on a strange +platform, as you would a sack of corn--" + +Ethan felt covered with shame at the conduct of his uncle. He had heard +Mrs. Gano herself criticised in Boston, but he felt now that her +standards, after all, seemed higher, and her eyes were certainly more +terrifying than any in the house of Tallmadge. + +The hackman was struggling up-stairs with the trunk, Mrs. Gano bidding +him have a care of the paper and the balustrade. + +Ethan noticed there was a big open door at the end of the hall and a +vision through of a veranda and green trees. In the hall was an oaken +hat-rack, with umbrella-stand and two carved oaken chairs on either +side, with high fleur-de-lis backs. While his grandmother was paying the +hackman, the child discovered that the seats of these chairs lifted up +in a miraculous manner. Unnoticed, he raised one a little and inserted +his hand--something prickly, even porcupiney! He withdrew precipitately. +Was it a beast in there, or only a brush? He resolved upon cautious +exploration at a more convenient season. + +The hackman was going now, and Aunt Valeria was taking the boy up-stairs +to be washed. + +"Don't be long," said his grandmother, smiling over the banister as he +went up; "supper is ready." + +What a comfort that she seemed to have forgotten Uncle Tallmadge's +disgraceful conduct! + +The one jarring note during that first meal under his grandmother's roof +was the apparition of the negress who had dared to offer to kiss him. To +be sure, when she appeared this time, it was with a plate of smoking +squares of Johnny-cake; but Ethan couldn't meet her eye, and shrank +under his blue serge jacket when she came behind his chair to offer him +that delectable staple of a Southern supper-table. He did not notice +that the meal was very plain, it was all so good, and the silver on the +table was much prettier than that Miss Tallmadge presided over in +Boston. + +While his Aunt Valeria and his grandmother talked, he ate steadily, and +regarded with awe the immensely tall coffee-pot and other things that +were covered all over with trees and little pagoda-like buildings in +repousse. Seeing Mrs. Gano behind this service gave him an impression of +her wealth and magnificence that no after series of meagre meals and +authentic knowledge of her poverty was ever able quite to efface. +Observing the child craning his neck to see the inscription on the +sugar-bowl, she turned it towards him. + +"It is your own name," she said: "Ethan Gano. It will belong to you some +day." + +"Oh!" said Ethan, feeling his prospects to be princely. + +"Now you may come and walk about a little," she said, rising. "But fold +your napkin and put it in your ring." + +He noticed the ring was marked "E. G.," and laid it down with a sense of +ownership. It wasn't like visiting in a strange place when you found +your own name on the things at supper. + +Valeria brought her mother a shawl, and disappeared. Ethan put his hand +in Mrs. Gano's, and with great care moderating his child's pace to one +sedate and slow, he passed out on to the veranda at the back with his +grandmother on that first tour of inspection. There were heavy wooden +settees on the veranda against the wall. + +"Oh, I shall sit here when I do my lessons," said Ethan, coming out of +his shyness. + +"No; you must bring out a chair," said his grandmother; "these benches +are so black." + +"What makes them black?" + +"The soot. We burn bituminous coal here. You'll have to wash your hands +oftener than you do in Boston." + +"Doesn't anybody ever sit on these benches?" + +"Never. Why do you do lessons in holiday time?" + +"Grandfather expects me to." + +"Humph!" said Mrs. Gano. + +They had come down off the veranda towards the terraces that sloped on +this side down below the level of the street at the bottom of the +property, which occupied an angle between Washington Street and Mioto +Avenue. They went down the first flight of stone steps, but stopped at +the top of the second. + +"We won't go down there," said Mrs. Gano. "It is a perfect wilderness." + +"Really?" said Ethan, making great eyes of wonder. "What's down there?" + +"What you see. Huge sunflowers, and reeds, and grasses--it's very damp +in the middle--and briers and wild roses, blackberries, great weeds and +bushes, dock and tall mullein, and up on that side where the ground +rises a little towards the lower terrace, there used to be a +garden--where you see the asparagus gone to seed." + +"But it's a _real_ wilderness?" asked the boy, radiant. + +"I should say so." + +"Snakes, too?" + +"I shouldn't wonder." + +His heart beat hard. This was a wonderful place to come to for a visit. +It was almost a pity one didn't live here. + +"Are those apple-trees along the bottom of the terrace?" + +"No, quince. And that one big tree in the middle of the lower plateau is +a choke-pear." + +"Isn't there a vine climbing up?" + +"Yes. There are grapes down there in the autumn." + +"How long do you think I can stay?" + +"We'll see," she said, in a somewhat defiant tone, as they turned to go +up the terrace. + +There were still some "snowballs" on the great guelder rose-bushes, and +the waxberries on the little one's gleamed like pearls. + +"I like this place," said the child, suddenly. + +"That's right, my dear." + +They were up on the level of the house now, past the long veranda with +the banned black benches. It was growing dusk, a time that under all +conditions of this child's life made rude test of cheer. He drew nearer +to the tall, bent figure. She dropped his hand, and stooped over the +edge of clovered grass. + +"What is it?" he asked, as she stood upright with something in her hand. + +"A four-leaved clover--the third I've found to-day." + +"Oh, do you think there are any more?" + +He knelt down and examined the clump. + +"You may have this," she said, presently, "and we'll come and look +to-morrow, when we have a better light." + +"Oh, thank you." + +He held the clover carefully, thinking of the fairy-tale. + +Now they were passing the great, perfectly straight tulip-tree, that +went up and up like a ship's mast before the far-away boughs soared out +into the dim depths of evening air. A light breeze had risen. A bird +high up in the proudly waving branches twittered faintly. Except for +that, a hush was over the world; but in the child's heart there was a +mysterious sense of tumult, one of those periodic waves of excitement +that rush over sensitive young creatures, along with the vague +consciousness of the wonder of this strange thing, life, that is opening +out before their thrilling senses. + +Ethan stood looking up till a kind of delicious dizziness seized him, +and he leaned his head lightly against his grandmother's arm. She smiled +down into his eyes, saying never a word, but when they went in-doors +there was understanding between them. + +A large octagon-shaped lamp of debased Moorish design hung in the hall, +and the light came through the eight panes of parti-colored glass with a +cheerful, even festive, effect. The parlor on the left of the front-door +was dark. The great room opposite, which ran the whole length of that +end of the house, and had two windows at either extremity, was Mrs. +Gano's sitting-room in summer, and, by an arrangement of screens, her +bedroom as well in winter. There was a single lamp burning on one of the +pair of heavy old card-tables on either side the fireplace. Opposite, +along the wall separating the room from the hall, stretched a great +old-fashioned buffet, consisting of two mahogany cupboards, with drawers +above, and pillared porches below, and an arched and carved back +bridging them, and forming below a well-polished surface, whereon stood +empty cut-glass decanters and tall celery vases. The long drawer of this +middle part of the buffet, as well as those on the top of the cupboards +on either side, was opened by a big brass ring held in a lion's mouth. +The fireplace opposite was screened by an extensive landscape in oils, +framed in ornate and tarnished gilt. All the space on each side of the +mantel-piece right and left as far as the windows was filled with +bookcases and mineralogical cabinets built into the wall. Between the +front windows was an old-fashioned escritoire, reaching high up, nearly +to the ceiling, always locked, and equally always wearing the air of a +keeper of things secret and important. An engraving, grown brown with +age, hung in a faded gilt frame above the fireplace. It was the great +scene from "Measure for Measure," and above the buffet hung another from +"The Tempest," with "What is't? A spirit?" written underneath. On the +mantel-piece were two tall blue china vases, that had been old, Mrs. +Gano said, when she was young. She sat down by the lamp in a chair that +no one ever saw the like of before. Very big and very crimson, it was +rounded out in semicircular fashion on each side at the top, forming +well-padded cushions against which to rest the head; but no one ever saw +Mrs. Gano making such a use of them. The chair had arms and a foot-rest, +and was mounted upon short, strong rockers--altogether a structure of +unique device, that no one up to that time, except its proper owner, +ever dared dream of inhabiting for a moment. + +Mrs. Gano handed Ethan a book. + +"I suppose you know that by heart?" + +"_Moral Tales?_ No; I've only heard about 'em." + +"Is it possible? What do you read, then?" + +"You see, I have to study a good deal." + +"But when you aren't studying?" + +"Well, then, you see, I read only the things I like." + +"To be sure. But what kind of things?" + +"Well"--he colored faintly--"I read Hans Christian Andersen mostly. But +I _like_ 'Horatius at the Bridge,'" he added, as though anxious to +redeem his character, "and _Henry of Navarre_, and _Paul Revere_." + +"Well, now you may read _Moral Tales_. It was your father's book, and +you may have it if you'll take care of it. I'll cover it for you +to-morrow." + +"Oh, thank you," said the boy. + +She opened her own volume where a worked marker kept the place, and +began to read. But Ethan was too excited to follow suit. He sat looking +at her, and about the room. The pressed four-leaved clover presently +fell out of her book on to the footstool. He picked it up carefully and +handed it to her. + +"Ah!" she ejaculated, smiling, and turning back to the beginning of the +volume, where she replaced the leaf. But Ethan had watched the discreet +turning of yellowed pages. + +"Why, your Bible is _full_ of clovers," he said. + +"This is not the Bible, it is Lockhart's Scott," she answered. "And as +for the four-leaved clovers, I find them as I walk about in the +evenings." + +"I suppose you look for them because they're so lucky?" + +"Nonsense! of course not. They just look up at me from the grass." + +Ethan felt dashed a little, but he noticed how the long, slim fingers +held the book so that no more clovers should fall out. She must think a +good deal of them, he concluded. + +Many an older person under the circumstances would have felt it +incumbent upon her to entertain the child; but while no doubt some young +people might have been made happier by being noticed more, there are +those, especially the shy and sensitive ones, who are all the better for +a little wholesome letting alone. It is evident that the officious +attempts of many well-meaning adults to amuse, even if it involve making +mountebanks of themselves, are ofttimes destined to humiliation. We have +all seen children solemnly regarding grown-up capers with the air of +philosophers looking down with scorn upon an antic world. + +There was something in his grandmother's calm pursuit of her usual +routine that set the child at ease. If she had gone obviously out of her +way to make herself agreeable to him, he, with the perversity of his +type, would have been more on his guard against her blandishments. + +His Boston relatives were evidently quite wrong in every respect about +his grandmother. His grandfather Tallmadge had sympathized with him +deeply at having to pay this duty visit. Even Aunt Hannah had evident +misgivings, and had put a seed-cake in his trunk. He felt a sudden +resentment against those estimable persons for their distrust and thinly +veiled dislike of his grandmother Gano. Already he saw himself her +champion and faithful knight, ready to do battle, if need be, for his +sovereign lady. It was not altogether strange that the conquest of the +child was so speedy, for the heart of the woman was full of a +passionate tenderness for this little Ethan come back again, so like the +one she had lost that he seemed to bring with him her youth and all the +sunny circumstance of those far-off Maryland days. She softened +wondrously to the child, yet it was so little her way to be +demonstrative that she neither alarmed nor bored the boy, but simply +took hold on his imagination. He, quick of spirit and keen of sense, +responded as the natural child will, to the reassuring spectacle of +beautiful and august age. What children suffer from sheer ugliness in +their elders is not to be written down. Partly in that many mercifully +forget, and partly in that others remember certain martyrdoms too +vividly to set them down without a blush. One is inclined to think, +looking back, that life has taught us nothing more successfully than +tolerance of these departures from a possible comeliness; for it is not +irregularity of feature or deepening furrows or whitening hair that +appall the child, but the unnecessary ugliness of dress and eccentricity +of demeanor, and, above all, the avoidable and indecent display of the +ravages of time. + +With every desire to think nobly of women, it must be admitted that it +is chiefly they who offend against the canon childhood unconsciously +sets up, that old age shall not with impunity offend or affright the +young. + +Mrs. Gano would have repelled indignantly the idea that her grandson's +affection had anything to do with her spotless neatness; the sober +distinction of her plain silk gowns, made before the war; her white lawn +kerchiefs, rolling up from her V-shaped bodice, fold on fold, voluminous +and soft about her neck; her full lawn undersleeves, that came so +daintily out from the silk, and fastened with a silver shell button at +the wrist, flowing out again in a fine ruffle, and falling over her +hands. As to that most distinctive touch of all, the veil of plain white +net that covered, and yet did not conceal, the thick silver hair massed +about the high shell comb, one cannot help thinking that if she had +quite realized its effectiveness, she would have considered it her duty +to discard it. She always said she disliked caps as "would-be +ornamental," and besides, she had "too much hair;" she "would be +top-heavy in a cap." So she had adopted the white net veil, fastened +just behind the heavy rings of hair on the temples with a pair of pearl +and silver pins of curious old design, and the veil fell down to the +shoulders behind, concealing the neck, masking a little the droop of the +bowed back, and falling softly down each side of the strong old face, +and dropping into her lap. + +The child sat with the open book in his hand, but with big eyes roving, +reading as well as he could the more obscure but not less interesting +story incarnate in the great red chair, getting the details by heart in +the observant way of children. + +"What time do you usually go to bed?" she asked, presently, turning a +page. + +"When I feel sleepy." + +"H'm! I think eight o'clock is a good time." + +"It's pretty early," he said, wistfully. + +"Your father, when he was your age, always went to bed at eight." + +"Oh!" + +"Aunt Jerusha will come presently and take you up-stairs." + +"_Aunt_ Jerusha!" + +He dropped the _Moral Tales_ on the floor. The terrifying black woman +was his aunt! + +"Oh, oh! that's not the way to treat books. The Ganos are always very +careful of their books." + +Ethan recovered the volume hurriedly, a prey to conflicting agitations. + +"Where's Aunt Valeria?" he said, presently. + +"Up in the blue room"--Mrs. Gano glanced overhead, and then looked out +severely into space over her gold spectacles, adding, meditatively, +"making herself ill with writing." + +"Oh, if she's writing letters, I s'pose I mustn't 'sturb her." + +"H'm! she's not writing letters." + +"What is she writing?" + +"Verses, most probably." + +"Poetry verses?" + +"Well, _verses_, at any rate," she said, a little grimly. It was noticed +that during Valeria's lifetime Mrs. Gano never spoke of her daughter's +work except as "verses;" after her death it was all "poetry." "It's high +time she was interrupted. Go up-stairs, child," she said, turning to +Ethan, "and knock at the door next your own, and say I sent you." + +It was a possible escape from that other most awful "aunt." He laid the +_Moral Tales_ down as if they were made of glass, and departed with +alacrity. + +Twice he had to knock upon the blue room door before a voice said: + +"Who's there?" + +"It's me, Aunt Valeria." + +"Oh, run away, dear." + +"But, please, I'm sent." + +A little pause and the door was opened. A spacious bedchamber, where +everything--walls, curtains, carpet, and bedfurnishing--was a soft faded +blue, almost gray in this light. The floor was strewn with papers, books +and papers lay on the chairs, on the sofa, even on the preternaturally +high and massive bedstead, that looked quite inaccessible to all save +the athletic without the aid of a ladder. + +"Did my mother send you?" asked Aunt Valeria. + +"Yes, and--oh, are you awful busy?" + +His voice faltered a little. + +"Why?" she said, taking the child by the hand and leading him in. + +The action of kindliness wrought upon the perturbed little spirit. His +eyes filled with tears. + +"You see," he said, "I thought she was a servant." + +"Who was a servant?" + +"My other aunt." + +"Miss Tallmadge?" + +"No, the other one here. But I like you best. Won't you take me up to +bed? Of course I do everything for myself; it won't be a great trouble; +it's only just so my other aunt needn't come even as far as the door." + +"What other?" + +"Aunt J--J--Jerusha," he said, with an excited sob. + +Valeria began to laugh, a thing she seldom did. + +"My poor little boy!" she said, "Jerusha's the cook, and a very good +friend to all of us. People in the South call a good old servant like +that 'aunt' when they like her as much as we do Jerusha. She used to be +a slave; we brought her from Maryland." + +"And she's not my really truly aunt at all?" + +"Of course not, you foolish little boy! Didn't you see she was a +negress?" + +"Oh yes, I saw _that_." + +He shuddered. + +"And didn't you see she waited on us at the table?" + +"Yes, but so does Aunt Hannah in Boston on Sundays." + +"_Does_ she?" Then seeing the child's anxiety was not quite dissipated: +"Didn't you notice when she'd finished waiting at supper Jerusha went +back to the kitchen? Now, if she'd been a real aunt--" + +"Well, you see, I did think of that, but I thought perhaps aunts didn't +come and sit in the parlor here, and I remembered how she--she"--he +looked down and grew scarlet--"tried to kiss me at the station." + +"Oh yes, she might do that. You see, she was very fond of your father." + +"But my father didn't use to kiss her." + +"Oh, I dare say--" + +"No, Aunt Valeria; I should think he _never_ did." + +"Perhaps not, then," she said, humoring him. + +"Do you think," he began, in a half-whisper--"do you think when she +takes me up to bed she'll--she'll--" + +"I don't know, but I'll take you myself, if you'd like that better." + +"Oh, I would, Aunt Valeria." + +"Very well, then. Come, we'll go down-stairs and say good-night." + +He slipped his hand in hers. + +"Of course, I didn't _really_ think she was my aunt," he said, with the +easy mendacity of childhood. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Although this visit was the only one Ethan was destined to pay to New +Plymouth before he came to man's estate, he carried back with him to +Boston at the holiday's end something more than an intimate +understanding with his father's people, and a vivid picture of the outer +aspect of life in the house of his grandmother. + +Out of his fear of Aunt Jerusha that first evening grew the habit of +Valeria's visiting his room ten minutes or so after he had said +good-night. During those first evenings, when he was allowed a candle to +go to bed by, this small attention on his aunt's part was for the +ostensible purpose of putting out the light and opening his windows. +Later on she went for no better reason than that the child would be +expecting her. Absent-minded dreamer as she was, after the second +evening of Ethan's stay she never forgot what became her kindly custom. + +On this particular evening, as she sat among the litter in the blue +room, her acute ears caught a faint sound of sobbing. She hurried into +the adjoining chamber, and found all dark and silent, Ethan breathing +regularly, apparently asleep. She bent over in the faint moonlight to +kiss him, and found his face wet with tears. + +"My dear! Then it was _you_?" + +"Me?" he inquired, in a steady voice. + +"Yes. Why were you crying?" + +After a pause: + +"I thought the walls were so awful thick," he said, as if answering her +question with all circumstance. + +"Shall I light the candle again?" + +"No, thank you," he said, sedately; "I can see the moon through the +locust-tree." + +She went to the window, and leaning her folded arms on the wide seat, +she repeated softly, as she looked out: + + + "'And, like a dying lady, lean and pale, + Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil, + Out of her chamber, led by the insane + And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, + The moon arose up in the murky east + A white and shapeless mass.'" + + +"Is that what you've been writing, Aunt Valeria?" + +"No." She came back and sat down on the side of his bed. "No; Shelley +wrote it. What shall I do for you?" she said, wondering how women that +were used to children would meet the exigency, for the little voice was +plaintive in spite of itself. + +"I don't want anything," Ethan said, stoutly, and there was another +pause. Then, by way of a delicate hint: "Grandmamma has been telling me +a story." + +"Has she?" + +"Yes; about when she was young. Tell me about when _you_ were young, +Aunt Valeria." + +The innocent petition jarred. Valeria was the youngest of her family, +and had never yet been asked to think of herself as one who had left +youth behind. + +"There's nothing to tell about me," she said. + +"Didn't you ever cross the Alleghanies in a stage-coach?" + +"No; all that was before my time." + +"Didn't you ever go to visit your grandfather Calvert in the mountains +of Virginia?" + +"No; he died before I was born." + +"Then, you never got homesick?" His voice wavered a little, and then, +quite firmly, he added: "Grandmamma did, and she used to go off by +herself to meet the postman, who came only once a week, and she'd walk +and walk till she heard him wind his horn. How do you 'spose he wound +it?" + +"He just blew a long blast." + +"Did that make it wind? Well, anyhow, when he wound it, that used to +make grandmamma homesicker than ever. It used to echo all about among +her grandfather's mountains, and when she heard that she used to stop +running, and sit down on a rock and cry and cry. You see, she was so +afraid the postman wasn't bringing the letter to say Aunt Cadwallader +was coming to take her home." + +"Did my mother tell you that story to-night?" inquired Aunt Valeria, +without enthusiasm. + +"No; it was this morning, when I said I wasn't a bit homesick like Aunt +Hannah said I'd be. Grandmamma seemed to think it didn't matter if I +_was_ homesick. The Ganos nearly always are, but in the end they're +always glad they came." + +This obscure saying seemed not to rivet Aunt Valeria's attention; she +moved as if she were going. Ethan sat up in bed and asked, a little +feverishly: + +"Did you know about Aunt Cadwallader bein' in the war?" + +"No; I never heard she was in the war." + +"Well, she _was_. She was about four years old, and the British were +firing on Fort McHenry, and all the doors and windows in Baltimore were +shut, and nobody went out, and everybody was living in the cellar, so's +not to get shot, and bombs were exploding in the garden, and the fambly +missed Aunt Cadwallader--" + +"Oh yes," said Aunt Valeria; "she was out in the garden, wasn't she, +picking up the bullets?" + +"Yes; they were raining all about, and she was putting them in a little +egg-basket she carried on her arm." Ethan finished, a shade crestfallen +to find his scheme to entertain and, above all, to detain his aunt had +been forestalled. "I thought perhaps if I told you you'd remember +something that happened to _you_--when you were young, you know." + +"I'm sorry I don't know any stories." + +"Don't you know the one about the poor man over your fireplace?" + +"What poor man?" she repeated, bewildered. + +"The man without his clo'es on, tied to the wild horse." + +"Oh, you mean the Mazeppa on the iron fire frame." + +"Yes"--Ethan sat up again, with dilated eyes--"wolfs comin' after him, +wif mouths wide open." + +"Oh, well, they don't eat him up; he gets away, and lives happy ever +after." + +"I _am_ glad!" + +He lay down, and she covered him up. + +"I'd sing to you, but I'm afraid it would disturb my mother." + +"Then, couldn't you say some more poetry or something?" + +"I don't believe I know anything you'd like." + +"Oh, I'd like anything--except the 'May Queen.'" + +She sat silent a moment, and then began: + + + "'Once upon a midnight dreary--' + + +"H'm!"--and she stopped. + +"Can't you remember any more?" inquired the boy, eagerly. + +"Well--a--perhaps something else;" and she made a fresh start: + + + "'Ah, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, + Alone and palely loitering? + The sedge is withered from the lake, + And no birds sing. + + "'Ah, what can--' + + +No, no; I must think of something a little less--" + +Another pause, and then: + + + "'Raise the light, my page, that I may see her: + Thou hast come at last, then, haughty queen.'" + + +On and on the low voice chanted, whispered, verse after verse and page +on page, until the child slept sound. In this wise was the habit formed +of Aunt Valeria's prolonging her nightly ministrations till Ethan was +safe beyond the touch of homesickness, beyond the need of a doubtful +cheer. From most of her selections, it must be confessed, he derived +only the vague comfort of listening to the rhythmic rise and fall of a +friendly, sleep-wooing voice, that sent him softly to oblivion. But as +the days went on he developed tyrannous preferences, and would call for +"The Neckan" as regularly as he had been used in infancy to demand "The +New England Cat." He managed to keep awake longer as time went on, and +it took "The Ancient Mariner," or the solemn and somnolent-burdened +rhyme of the "Duchess May" to send him to the land of Nod. He came to +know these favorites by heart, and would prompt Valeria if she ventured +to skip or hesitated at a line. In after years he used to feel it odd to +realize how much English verse he knew by heart that he had never seen +upon the printed page. But Aunt Valeria's patience was sometimes sorely +taxed by his wide-eyed attention to the story. Then it was she would +unkindly lapse into German, against which no young wakefulness is proof. + +"Now go to sleep," she would admonish, "or I'll say 'Kennst du das +Land.'" Notwithstanding it was a very dull poem, she would say it over +and over, and Ethan, vanquished utterly, would fall asleep with the +refrain, "Dahin, Dahin, Moecht ich mit Dir O mein Geliebter ziehn," +sounding in his ears. He had his own view of what it was all about, and +classed it with such ditties as "Annabel Lee." "Dahin" he was satisfied +was the heroine, and he determined on his return to Boston to bestow the +name upon the least attractive of three terrier puppies, fresh arrivals +in his absence. + +There was no one to play with, apparently, here in New Plymouth, but few +children could have felt the lack so little as Ethan. Nobody interfered +with him, nobody seemed to want him to study. The spectre of Grandfather +Tallmadge was still potent enough to make him carry about a French +grammar in the shallow jacket-pocket, that was always ejecting it upon +an indifferent world. Ethan, on its every _mal a propos_ appearance, +would hurry the book out of sight with an uneasy conscience, and betake +himself into the wilderness, where he owned an oasis under a +barberry-bush; or he would seek diversion from linguistic cares in the +sooty attic. Nobody seemed to mind, if only he were washed when he +appeared on the surface again. That same attic, however, was a place of +peril. You gained access to it by means of a ladder in a closet on the +upper landing, and you went up through a trap-door into a dim and +stifling atmosphere; not but what there were windows, but they seemed to +admit only heat and soot. There was an army of disabled or disused pots, +pitchers, vases, and so on, standing in the middle of the rough wooden +floor, and above them stretched a long table like a counter, on which +were ranged queer lamps and candlesticks, brackets, door-knobs, pewter +vessels and great platters, candlesnuffers and trays, and all manner of +household goods and gear that had then been long out of fashion, and had +not yet come back again. With grimy fingers Ethan poked about, taking +great care not to step off the middle aisle of flooring on to the lath +and plaster between the mighty hand-hewn beams. Sometimes, in more +daring moods, he would venture farther afield, balancing cautiously on a +beam to some remote cobwebby corner to examine nearer an object that had +lured him long with its air of the unattainable. In this way he made +acquaintance with certain pictures turned disobligingly to the wall, and +a great horse-hair trunk, into which he peeped with palpitating heart; +for all the world knew that such trunks were the abode of skeleton +ladies. But here were only dusty papers. The far corner he never +ventured into: it was there the great elk antlers shone, and the skull +and white teeth grinned and threatened. One had just to pretend it was +chained there, and strained impotently to get at little boys. Turning +over a lot of ancient rubbish in a box one day, he came across a heavy +old brass door-knocker with "E. Gano" on it. Down-stairs he rushed, all +black and beaming. + +Mrs. Gano was sitting, as usual, very upright in the great red chair, +with Dean Stanley's _History of the Eastern Church_ open on her knees. + +"My child, you're like a blackamoor!" + +"But just look what I've found!" + +"Ah, yes! I had that taken off the front-door the last thing before I +left Maryland." + +"Why didn't you put it on the front-door _here_?" + +"You see, it's 'E. Gano.' There was no 'E. Gano' then," she said, with +shadowed face. + +"But there is now--I'm here." + +"To be sure," she answered, smiling. "As your grandfather said, 'It's +necessary to have an Ethan in every generation to avoid re-marking +things.' We'll have the knocker put up, if you like. Venie will polish +it." + +"Shall I ask her please to come to you as soon as she's done her work?" +he said, hesitatingly, for an interview with these black women was not +yet lightly to be faced. + +"Tell her I want her at once," said his grandmother, a little brusquely. + +He was struck with her peremptoriness. + +"Sha'n't I say 'please'?" he inquired. + +"Certainly not. It's not as my servants please, but as I please. Tell +her to come." + +Ethan knew now that his manner to Aunt Jerusha and her daughter must +have appeared abject according to Gano standards. He secretly determined +to adopt a loftier demeanor. Vain ambition! Never once in his life did +he find the accent, let alone the conviction, of the superior, except +with persons of his own station. Of servants he asked service +unwillingly, and, to the end of his days, with an uneasy sense that +somebody was being abased--he inclined to think it was himself. The +wages question never in his estimation touched the heart of the +obligation. Any underlining of the relation of master and servant was as +irksome to him as if he had come of generations of communists, instead +of a race of tyrannous slave-holders. + +Venie brightened up the knocker till it shone like gold, and Aunt +Jerusha, who could do anything on earth, apparently, promised to come +round and screw it firmly in its place at exactly the angle it had taken +on the great white door "down South." + +It was over this business of the knocker that Ethan made friends with +Aunt Jerusha. He was still mortally afraid of her, but he had come to +that point where he was able to snatch a fearful joy in passing quite +near her without flinching, as though she had been any ordinary white +person, whose eyes didn't roll, and whose plaited wool didn't escape in +little horns from under a flaming bandanna. He had insisted on carrying +the tool-box and the hammer and the big screw-driver from the kitchen +round to the front porch. It was so that his intention to be lofty and +aloof had ended. At the front-door stood his grandmother. + +"You've got a lazy man's load," she said. + +And, as if on purpose to justify her, down dropped the screw-driver on +the gravel, and out jumped the French grammar on the grass. He recovered +the book, and as he reached after the screw-driver away slid the hammer +off the tool-box. + +"Put down your book. Don't try to do so many things at once. That's how +your great-uncle Rezin put out his eyes at Harper's Ferry, and Shelley +lost his life trying to read and sail a boat at the same time." + +Who was this Shelley who was always being quoted, and where did he come +into the family saga? Byron, too, and others he hadn't heard mentioned +in Boston. The appearance of Aunt Jerusha see-sawing round the corner +was a welcome diversion, and soon the glittering knocker was screwed +firmly into place. It was a triumph. Aunt Valeria was called down to +see, and admitted it was resplendent! + +"Isn't it _delicious_ having our very own Maryland knocker on the door +again!" remarked the young gentleman, with as heartfelt satisfaction as +though he had watched the decline and fall of the old house in the +South, and now saw the family fortunes to be mending. + +His grandmother patted his shoulder. + +"We say 'delicious' of good things to eat, not of door-knockers, even +when they come from Maryland." + +"Oh, you wouldn't limit such a word as delicious to things we eat," +remonstrated Aunt Valeria. "That's a point where I've always differed +from Byron." + +"Then I'm surprised to hear it, for it's one of the few things he got +right." + +The younger woman withdrew into her shell, making no rejoinder, but +pausing at the bottom of the stairs on her way back to her work, with an +air of perfunctory deference, to hear her mother out. Ethan watched the +two with interest, feeling that he and his aunt were in the same boat. + +"We can't be too jealous of guarding the purity and honesty of +language," Mrs. Gano said, firmly. "Any one who has the smallest +pretence to caring for letters or for accuracy, or for _truth_, must do +what he can to oppose the debasing of the current coin of speech. If you +use words loosely, you'll begin to think loosely, and in the end you'll +find you've lost your sense of values, and one word means no more than +another. You'll be like Ethan here, who tells me 'bonny clabber' is +perfectly splendid, and that he 'loves' Jerusha's Johnny-cake. After +that, he mustn't say he loves you and me. It would be like kissing us +after the cat." + +"It's a _kitten_," said Ethan, feeling froward and very bold. + +His grandmother laughed delightedly. + +"Oh, very well, we'll be accurate, if it's only about a kitten that I +haven't so much as seen." + +The child flashed out to the veranda and returned with a small basket, +in which lay a diminutive coal-black object. + +"You said you didn't like animals," he observed, reproachfully. + +"I don't--not in the house." + +"This one's very little to stay out o' doors." + +"Yes, it's too little to stay here at all." + +"Oh no, it isn't so little as that." + +He pulled out its tail that it might look as long as possible, but it +would curl under. He lifted the creature up, clawing and feebly wailing. + +"Why, Ethan," said Aunt Valeria over the banisters, "it hasn't got its +eyes open." + +"Not just _yet_." + +"Can it walk?" + +"Well, not much," said Ethan, guardedly; "but nobody walks as young as +this. The Otways' cat brought it over in her mouth. They're nice to the +Otways' cat _in the kitchen_." + +There was judgment delivered in the phrase. + +"Venus must take the thing home," said Mrs. Gano, eying the wailing one +with coldness. + +"Oh, grandmamma!" + +There bade fair to be a duet of lamentation. + +"It will die if it's left here." + +"No, no; I'll take care of it." He clasped it fondly. + +"We don't know what to do for such a young creature." + +"Oh yes, we do," interrupted Ethan. He came nearer, notwithstanding Mrs. +Gano's edging away from her grimy descendant, and from the small, +wailing, trembling, clawing object on his breast. The child took hold of +her gown, and said, with ingratiating, upturned, face, "Dear grandmamma, +_couldn't_ we buy it a cow?" + +The suggestion apparently pleased his unaccountable grandmother too well +for her to persist in banishing the kitten. So "Duchess May," as Ethan +insisted on calling her, became an acknowledged member of the sooty +circle in the kitchen, and was well and safely brought up without the +immediate superintendence of a cow. + +Mrs. Gano's refusal to admit the Duchess to other parts of the house +resulted in Ethan's spending a good deal of his time, too, in Aunt +Jerusha's society. She turned out to be a most interesting and +accomplished person. No wonder his father had thought well of her, but +as to--no, he never, never could have kissed her! + +Aunt Jerusha sang the most wonderful songs. + +The words were not very intelligible for the most part, but that didn't +matter: the effect was all the more exciting and mysterious. There was +one monotonous chant she used solemnly to give forth when she was +polishing the dining-room table--something about + + + "... de body ob de Lawd. + An' dat was wot He meant + W'en He said He'd brought a sword, + An' no mo' peace on de earf!" + + +Then a string of undistinguishable words, ending with something like-- + + + "Oh, mighty keerful + All roun' de body ob de Lawd, + We done been a wrappin' + A w'ite linen napkin + All round de body ob de Lawd. + He said He'd bring a sword, + An' no mo' peace on de earf!" + + +There was a wild melancholy in the air that made the child's heart +tremble in his breast. Particularly on wet days, when he couldn't go +down into the wilderness, he used to stand in the doorway with the +Duchess in his arms, listening with all his ears. + +"An' Jerusha," he said, one morning during a thunderstorm, when she +polished the oak in persistent silence, "why don't you sing? Grandmamma +can't hear." + +"No, Massa Efan, not to-day." + +"Why not? This is just the day to, when the rain's makin' such a noise +you can sing as loud as you like." + +"Yo' won't nebber ketch dis nigger raisin' no chunes on de twenty-firs' +ob July." + +"Why not?" + +"Don' you know, little massa, dis de day yo' fader died?" + +"Oh-h, is it?" A silence of some moments, broken only by the dash of +summer rain against the window-pane. "Did you know my father when he was +quite little?" + +"Law, yes, littler'n you--so little, he couldn't walk by hisself. De +firs' time I done lef' him, jes' fur a minute, standin' in de big +arm-cheer by de winder, he turn roun' w'en he see I wusn't holdin' on t' +him, an' he yelled like forty--" She chuckled proudly, stopped suddenly, +and held out timid arms and made a baby face. "'Ow! ow! Efan fall--Efan +_bake_!'" She relaxed into smiles again. "Break he meant, yo' see. He'd +seen pitchers and china dolls and sich like fallin' and smashin' ter +bits, and he wus 'feared dat's wot would happen t' him." + +She went on chuckling a moment, and then fell unaccountably to weeping. +The thunder crashed and the wind blew loud. It lashed the great +tulip-tree with fury. Ethan laid his face against the velvet back of the +Duchess. Aunt Jerusha wept audibly. Ethan felt rather low in his mind +himself. + +"Where does this door out here lead to?" he said, feeling the need of a +diversion. + +"Unner dem front stehs." + +"Oh, does it go under the stairs?" + +"Yes; but don' yo' go dah, honey." + +"Why not?" + +"It ain't a berry cheerin' kin' ob a place." + +"Dirty?" + +"Spec's so." + +"I've noticed Venie always _runs_ past that door. It can't be 'cause +it's dirty." + +"No, honey; no." + +"An' Jerusha, Venie told me yesterday when grandmamma first came here +she couldn't get any servants to sleep in this house, and that was why +she had to send for Venie." + +"Don' yo' min' Venus; she's misleadin'." + +"Well, but I asked Mr. Hall while he was cutting the grass, and he said +_he_ wouldn't like to live here, and he looked at the house in such a +funny kind o' way." + +"Huh! yo' mus'n't listen to po' w'ite trash." + +"Then you'd better tell me, or I'll ask everybody." + +"No, no, honey. Yo' grandma would be hoppin' mad ef yo' should git dem +iggorant pussens t' gabbin' agin." + +"Then you'd just better tell me, and it'll be a secret, please, An' +Jerusha." + +"Well, dey _do_ say, Massa Efan, dis yer house am hanted." + +"Hanted? What's that?" + +Aunt Jerusha rolled her eyes cautiously over her shoulder and lowered +her voice. + +"Got ghos'es." + +"Under the front stairs?" whispered Ethan, quickly withdrawing from that +proximity. + +Aunt Jerusha nodded. + +"Did you ever see one?" + +"Law, yes; oncet or twicet." + +"What was it like?" + +"Like de debbil in a night-gown. Hark! Yo' heah dat?" + +"Yes; oh, what was it?" Ethan was nearer Aunt Jerusha in his alarm than +he had ever ventured before. + +"Dat's de bad ghos' under de stehs. De fust fall we come heah he done +groan and _gro-o-an_ like dat all de time. He been mighty still now fur +a spell. Hark! yo' heah dat?" + +Ethan was horribly conscious of a hideous noise somewhere in front of +the dining-room. + +"_I_ think he's in the parlor," he whispered, when he could command his +emotions sufficiently for speech. + +"No, no; I used t' 'spect he was dah, but dat's jus' his being so cute, +he didn' want nobody to know he was unner de front stehs. Come into de +kitchen, Massa Efan, and I'll gib yo' a cinnamon roll." + +It is useless to pretend that Ethan was a stout-hearted young gentleman. +From infancy he had been a prey to a thousand unseen terrors having for +the most part quite respectable Christian name and origin, such as the +"worm that dieth not," "the thief in the night," the "great red dragon" +of the Revelation, and "the beast with seven heads." But there are some +terrors that need no inculcating. It occurred to him now that the ghost +under the stairs was called Yaffti. Why "Yaffti" he could not have +told, or what suggested the name to him; but Yaffti was angry when +people, especially little boys, walked over his head without saying: + + + "Yaffti Makafti, here I am, you see; + I'll be good to you, if you'll be good to me." + + +His worst form of nightmare was forgetting to use this formula, and +daring in his purblind sleep to stamp on the stairs directly over +Yaffti's head. He realized by-and-by that the restless spirit underneath +was soothed when the stairs were not used, and his young friend made the +descent astride the banisters. This pleased all parties, except Mrs. +Gano. Next best, from the Yaffti point of view, was walking on the +narrow green border of the stair carpet, instead of in the fawn-colored +centre. Little by little Yaffti enlarged his jurisdiction, and ruled the +porches with a despotism as secret as it was potent, permitting no child +to walk on the cracks between the boards. Yaffti was pleased, too, if in +going about the town you steered clear of the cracks between the +flag-stones. But all this attempt at a friendly understanding was at +bottom a mere daylight truce, and with the coming on of night the hollow +mockery stood exposed. Ethan, like many another, went through his +childish terrors with a silent endurance that would have earned him the +name of hero had he been a man, and had Yaffti boasted another name, +though not necessarily a more demonstrable existence. + +Nevertheless, these were wonderful and beautiful days, having in them a +rapture of freedom from human interference incompatible with life under +the same roof with Aunt Hannah and Grandfather Tallmadge, who seemed to +have nothing better to do than to look after Ethan and spoil his fun +from morning till night. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +In spite of Ethan's somewhat heathen faith in the power of Yaffti, and +the efficacy of rites and spells, he was a true Gano, in that he early +developed a deep concern about Christianity. During the stately strolls +after supper with his grandmother, he propounded many a question which +so taxed that practised theologian that she was fain to turn the +conversation by quoting a question-begging beatitude, or saying loftily +the subject was beyond little boys. But if, like Dr. Johnson on the +immortality of the soul, she sometimes left the matter in obscurity, she +had a Bible quotation ready for every conceivable emergency in life. Her +ingenuity in wresting from the stern old Scripture humane and cheerful +counsel, fit for the infant mind of a conscience-plagued Gano, +discovered how true was her comprehension of his fears, and how much +wiser her teaching all unconsciously was than that of the creed she +would have died for. Her own spiritual development had never for a +moment been arrested. She had travelled farther than she was quite +aware, since the days when she had allowed her young children to be +tormented by the fears of a fiery hereafter. She soon discovered that +the Presbyterian Tallmadges had done their best to plant the Calvinistic +evil in the sensitive mind of her grandson, and, without misgiving, she +proceeded to root it out. + +"I don't see how anybody can feel _sure_ they're going to be saved," the +child said, with deep anxiety, one Sunday evening. + +"Such thoughts are a temptation of the Evil One. 'O thou of little +faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?'" + +"But how do I know I'm not one of those He meant when He said, 'Ye +serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of +hell?'" + +"Because our Saviour distinctly says it of _that_ generation--centuries +ago--of rebellious and unbelieving Jews." + +"Oh-h!" He was only half reassured. + +She paused on the gravel walk and looked down at him. His little grave +face was upturned in the twilight, his great eyes darkened by a world of +care, but he looked so very fragile withal, such a tender little baby, +that she felt her lips twitching at his anxiety lest he should be the +viper of the Lord's denunciation. In another moment her unaccustomed +eyes were strangely wet, and she walked on with averted face. + +"I can't help wondering often," the child pursued, with evident +heaviness of spirit, "how I shall manage to be a profitabubble servant." + +"A what?" + +"Well, not like the _un_profitabubble servant that had to be cast into +outer darkness, where there was weeping and gnashing--" + +"Nonsense! all that has nothing to do with you! He said, 'Suffer little +children to come unto Me.'" + +"You think, if I died now, I'd go to heaven?" + +"Of course you would. _All_ little children go to heaven." + +"All children who aren't too wicked," corrected Ethan, gravely, with +misgiving. + +"There is no such thing as a wicked child," interrupted his mentor, +impatiently; then, catching herself up--"They may be foolish and +wayward"--she looked down on him sternly--"and they may have to be +severely punished on this earth, but they don't know enough to be +wicked, not enough to deserve being shut out of heaven." + +"I've heard Grandfather Tallmadge say somebody--I think it was some +saint--had seen"--he lowered his voice--"had seen an infant in hell, a +span long." He shuddered. + +"Nonsense!" retorted Mrs. Gano, angrily. "No saint ever saw anything of +the sort--nor no sane creature. It was that John Calvin." + +"Oh! and you think perhaps he--" + +"He didn't know what he was talking about. He had a black, despairing +mind, and is the only human creature who ever had any valid excuse for +being a Calvinist." + +"Oh!" + +"I suppose they've not neglected in Boston to tell you there is such a +thing as 'the unpardonable sin'?" + +The ironic intonation was lost on Ethan. + +"Oh no," he said, with the animation of one who recognizes an old +friend; "Grandfather Ta--" + +"Now, never forget that the only unpardonable sin is to doubt the mercy +of God." + +"Then you think that when the end of the world comes--" + +"I think," she interrupted, with a lyrical swell in her voice as she +remembered the prophet's vision--"I _know_, that 'the ransomed of the +Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joys upon +their head; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing +shall flee away.' And now we've had enough of that for to-night," she +ended, with an abrupt change of voice and style. + +Oddly enough, she was not so likely to close the subject in this summary +fashion if the evening talk fell upon Ulysses, or Peter the Great, or +General Lee. It was sometimes Aunt Valeria who had to remind them of +Ethan's bedtime, if the topic had chanced to be the Civil War, or any +one of the legion of family stories of Calverts or Ganos and their +doings in the South. There was Ephraim Calvert, who had fought for the +King in 1774, and when he died had left his curse and his red coat for +"a sign" to his rebellious sons, who had fought for independence. There +was that cousin Ethan Gano, who had lost his right hand, and yet was +such a famous shot and swordsman with his left that no man dared stand +up against him. He had made a fortune in the India trade, by chance, as +it were, for he never really cared for anything but sword and pistol +practice, and would be always talking of feats of arms, even to parsons +and Quakers. "Just as that other boaster, Byron," Mrs. Gano would wind +up, "was forever telling how, like Leander, he had swum the Hellespont, +and took more credit to himself for being able to snuff out a candle +with a pistol-shot at twenty paces than for being able to write _Childe +Harold_. But that was not only because he was a poet," she would add +meditatively over Ethan's head: "it was the direct result of inordinate +vanity and a club-foot. Just as Ethan Gano would never have been a crack +swordsman if he hadn't been one-armed as well as worldly." + +Among the minor advantages of life in New Plymouth was that a boy didn't +come in for a scolding here if he went without his cap. In common with +many children, Ethan hated head-gear of all kinds, and yet fully +expected to be scolded, on strict Boston principles, the first time he +was discovered hatless out-of-doors. Valeria, wearing a wide shade-hat, +and Mrs. Gano, with a green-lined umbrella, came unexpectedly upon him +one hot noon-day as he sat reading bareheaded in the scorching sun on +the terrace steps. + +"How like his father that child is!" said Mrs. Gano, stopping and +looking at him as though she saw, not him at all, but another boy. + +"Don't you want your hat?" asked Aunt Valeria. + +"No," said Ethan, gathering courage. "I--I like the hot sun." + +"Isn't that like Shelley?" said Aunt Valeria in the same way that Mrs. +Gano had remarked on the likeness to Ethan's father. "If his curly hair +wasn't cropped so close, his little round head would be exactly like--" + +"What are you reading?" interrupted his grandmother. + +"I'm studying," answered Ethan, self-righteously, and he held up his +French grammar. + +"Don't you do enough of that in school?" said Mrs. Gano, with what +seemed strange lack of appreciation in a grandmother. + +"They expect me to do some work in the holidays." + +"Oh, they do, do they?" + +She turned away indifferently, as if to continue her walk, glancing +sharply down in that familiar way of hers at the clover fringing the +path. + +"Do you think I needn't study?" The child had jumped up and joined them +as they walked round the house. "You see, I hate doing it most awfully." + +"Not 'awfully.'" + +"Yes, really, especially _etre_ and _avoir_; but grandfather says--" + +"I notice you use that word 'awfully' a great deal. Do you know what it +means?" + +Ethan preserved an embarrassed silence. + +"Awful means that which inspires awe. Now, your feeling about French +grammar does not inspire awe. French is all very well, but it's a good +thing sometimes to consider your English. You couldn't have a better +task than _that_ in the holidays." + +"Shall I carry your coat?" said the child, willing to change the topic, +and laying his hand on the thin wrap she had on her arm. + +"This," said his grandmother, with the Tallmadge insistence on French +still rankling, apparently--"this is not a 'cut,' as you call it; and +that person approaching is not walking in the 'rud.' You are losing some +of your twang, but thy speech still bewrayeth thee. Perhaps learning to +talk like a Gano, since you are one, would be a fitting task for the +holidays here. Say 'co-o-at.'" He repeated the word in a shamefaced way. +"Now 'road.' Yes, that's right." She drew back suddenly and faced about. +"Some one's coming in!" she whispered, hurriedly, as who should say "An +enemy is at the gate." + +She stalked behind the house with Ethan at her side, while Aunt Valeria +went forward and greeted the visitor. + +"Why, it's the same gentleman who has been here twice before," Ethan +observed, looking back. + +"Are you _sure_?" said Mrs. Gano, stopping short. "Was that Tom +Rockingham _again_?" + +"I don't know his name," answered Ethan, wondering what awful sin Tom +Rockingham could have committed. + +"Little, insignificant-looking man?" demanded his grandmother. + +"He wasn't very big," admitted the child. "It's the one that walked home +from church, as far as the corner, with Aunt Valeria and me last +Sunday." + +"Upon my word!" she ejaculated. "Has Tom Rockingham begun that?" + +"I didn't hear his name." + +"A man"--she made a gesture of contempt--"very careless about his +linen?" + +"I didn't notice." + +"--without gloves? Hands rather grimy--" + +"Aunt Valeria said he was a great scholar." + +"A great fiddlestick! Of course it's Tom Rockingham." + +This was evidently a most exciting character, and in any case it was +pleasant to have a visitor who didn't merely leave cards and go away, as +all the others did. + +"Aren't we going in to see him?" + +"No, certainly not, unless he stays too long." + +She threw back her head in that way of hers. They walked up and down the +back veranda in silence, Ethan as well aware as if she had poured forth +torrents that his grandmother's ire was growing with every moment. +Presently she dropped his hand, and going to the door, she called, in an +unmistakable tone: + +"Valeria!--_Valeria!_" + +"Yes, mother, in a moment," came from the direction of the parlor. + +Mrs. Gano waited for some seconds with sparkling eyes, then: + +"Valeria, I have called you!" + +Ethan was hot and cold with excitement. + +"Run away and play," said his grandmother, her gleaming eyes falling on +a sudden upon the child. She turned sharply and went in-doors, leaving +Ethan to wonder which she was going to kill--Tom Rockingham or Aunt +Valeria. He stood quite still, waiting for developments. At last, +unable to bear the combined suspense and solitude any longer, he pulled +the Duchess out from the cool shade under the veranda, and sat down with +her on the step. + +Presently Aunt Valeria came out of the parlor and went up-stairs. He +didn't see her face. + +With a vague, frightened feeling, he got up with the Duchess in his arms +and walked away. + +Mr. Rockingham never came again, and the only reference ever made to him +was weeks afterwards, when the summer was waning, and he passed by the +house one evening without a word, without a pause, taking off his hat to +the ladies who sat in the dusk on the front porch. + +"Who is that?" Mrs. Gano asked her daughter. + +"Mr. Rockingham." + +"Humph!" remarked Mrs. Gano. + +Aunt Valeria said nothing. + +Ethan laid his cheek against her slim, white hand. But she didn't seem +to him to know or to care for a little boy's sympathy. It was natural, +he thought, that he should care so much more for these relations than +they did for him. The holidays were ended--so Grandfather Tallmadge had +written--and a French boy, a kind of cousin, had come to live at +Ashburton Place and go to school with Ethan. "So now he would have a +playmate," Aunt Hannah had added, as a postscript. Ethan didn't want a +playmate, and he was horribly shy of a boy who knew French by a superior +instinct. But to-morrow he was to go back to Boston. No help for it. + +Many letters on this subject had been written; it was all no use. He had +to go, and his grandmother's eyes were angry when the subject was +mentioned, and his own heart heavy and sore in his breast. Aunt Valeria +had never said anything, but she was even kinder to him after the +decision, especially at dusk, when one felt dreary. Mrs. Gano would +seldom allow even the hall lamp to be lighted in the summer evenings, +probably from motives of economy; but this reason was never given for +any mandate except under great pressure. The ostensible end served by +sitting in the dusk and groping one's way up-stairs, or being beholden +to the moon for acting as the domestic candle, was that if darkness +reigned mosquitoes and miller-moths were not attracted into the house; +neither were those great winged things with horns, that one never saw in +Boston, which fact would have compensated Ethan for endurance of the +dark if anything could. In the moments preceding bedtime, the firefly +had been a distinct consolation. That very morning he had hid Aunt +Valeria's empty cut-glass camphor-bottle under the syringa-bush, and now +was the time to try the experiment of bottling a few fireflies and +seeing how they lightened their captivity. He sallied forth into the +scented dusk, whistling softly. His plan worked wondrous well. With each +new victim his spirits mounted higher, he thinking--poor deluded +soul!--that he should never again feel downhearted in the dusk. He had +caught and imprisoned over a dozen of these winged lamps, when Aunt +Valeria came through the bushes, calling softly: + +"Ethan! Ethan!" + +"Yes; here I am." + +He concealed her camphor-bottle as well as he could under his jacket, +but the bottle was big and the jacket was small. + +"Bedtime," called the voice. + +"Just a few more fire--I mean minutes." + +"No; your grandmother says it is past the time." + +"Oh, dear! then I s'pose it is." He came out of his covert, and on a +sudden impulse added, hurriedly: "Aunt Valeria, do you _care_ about your +camphor-bottle?" + +"Care about it?" + +"Yes; do you mind if there's fireflies in it instead of camphor?" + +He held it up, and the captives lit their pale lamps and fluttered +despairingly. + +"Oh, my dear! they'll die." + +"No; they like it. It's such a beautiful bottle." + +"But you've got the glass stopper in; they can't breathe." + +In spite of his entreating, she took out the stopper, and put the end of +her lace scarf over the opening. + +"You won't take it away from me?" + +"No, no," she said, gently leading him back to the front porch, +repeating as she went: + + + "'The shooting stars attend thee, + And the elves also, + Whose little eyes glow + Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.'" + + +"It isn't their little eyes that glow; it's their little tails," said +Ethan, with his nose flattened against the camphor-bottle. + +When they got near the porch, the prudent young gentleman took off his +coat, and wrapped the bottle from the too inquiring gaze of his +grandmother. Aunt Valeria was in a kind of dream, and didn't seem to +notice. + +"What a perfect evening!" she half whispered, looking up through the +trees. + +"Good-night," said Ethan to his grandmother, trying to get through the +ceremony and hold his coat round the bottle on Aunt Valeria's arm at the +same time. + +"Forty-eight years to-day," she went on to her mother, "since Shelley's +body was burned on the sands at Viareggio." + +"Ah, yes," returned the other, speaking very gently. "Good-night, +child." + +"What! Is he _dead_?" said Ethan, feeling a double shock. + +"Yes, dear; he's dead." + +And he and Aunt Valeria went up-stairs in the dark. + +"You never told me," said the child, when they had passed Yaffti in +safety. "I s'pose Byron's all right," he added, remembering allusions to +that person's physical prowess. + +"Byron's dead, too," said Aunt Valeria, sadly, "and Keats--poor Keats!" + +"All _dead_!" + +They had been referred to as if they lived in the next street. If it had +been Shelley who had come to make them a visit, it would have seemed as +natural--more natural than the apparition of Tom Rockingham or the +objectionable Uncle Elijah. + +"I'll get a piece of net to put over the bottle while you undress," said +Aunt Valeria. + +When she came back Ethan was in bed. + +"What relation was Shelley to me?" he asked, welcoming the +camphor-bottle to his arms. + +"Relation? None." + +"Oh-h!" + +These things were obscure. The Tallmadges, for instance, weren't related +to Grandmamma Gano, so she had said with emphasis. + +"Then what relation was Shelley to _you_?" + +"No relation at all, dear. He was an English poet." + +"You mean he wasn't even born in America?" + +Ethan sat up straight in his bed. + +"He was born far away in England," said Aunt Valeria, dreamily. + +"An' dead an' _burnt_?" + +"Yes." + +"And never was no relation to _any_ of us?" + +"No." + +"Oh-h!" + +He lay back on his pillow, conscious of a new loneliness--of being +bereft of something he had counted his. Yes; it was just as if some one +belonging to him had died. + +After Aunt Valeria had told him why they had burned Shelley's body, and +even after she had repeated all his favorite poems, a sense of loss +remained. + +She thought he was asleep when she kissed him good-night. But he stirred +and gave a little sigh. + +"Well, I'm glad I've got my fireflies, anyhow," he murmured. + +His leave-taking next morning was extremely harrowing to his own +feelings, however austerely the rest took it. He wept freely after +breakfast down under the barberry-bush, but he promised himself he would +get it all done down there in the blessed privacy of the wilderness, and +not cry another tear after he got back to the house. He had made a tour +the moment he was dressed, saying good-bye to everything. Now there was +nothing left but An' Jerusha and the family. Uncle Elijah might come any +minute. He dried his eyes, and crept back through the rank undergrowth +to the terrace, went heavily up the two flights of stone steps, saying +good-bye again to the flag lilies and the crooked catalpa and the +tulip-tree, and so on sedately round the house to the kitchen. On his +appearance, An' Jerusha rushed towards him with wide-spread, motherly +arms, but observing his involuntary recoil, she stood still, looking at +him with unlessened affection. + +"Good-bye, An' Jerusha," he said, holding her hand tight in both his +own. + +"Good-bye, honey. Be suah you come agin soon." + +"Yes, I mean to; and thank you for all the songs and the cinnamon +rolls." + +"Law, honey! jes' listen to de chile." + +She turned away to Venie with an attempt at a chuckle, but the tears had +started down her cheeks. + +"Good-bye." + +Ethan shook hands with the smiling Venus. + +"Maw and me done put yo' in a Johnny-cake," she said, an outsider might +have thought enigmatically. + +"Thank you," said Ethan, tremulously--"thank you both, awfully." + +"Dat's de do'-bell, an' Massa Efan's knocker," said Aunt Jerusha, +sniffing violently. "You go, Venus; I ain't 'spectabel." + +"Oh, it's my uncle," said Ethan, rather relieved at the interruption; +and he hurried after Venus, feeling, however, deeply dissatisfied with +his leave-taking of An' Jerusha. + +She had been so _awfully_ kind--it was useless to pretend there was any +other way of putting it--and she had cared so much for his father. +_Ought_ he to have kissed her? It was plain she had expected it. It was +all very uncomfortable and heart-achy. + +Now he was in the hall, and Uncle Elijah was there, and so was +grandmamma, being very stiff to poor Uncle Elijah. Aunt Valeria came +down-stairs, and the good-byes were said. Uncle Elijah's hack was at the +door, and Ethan's trunk was being carried out. + +Suddenly, at the very last, "Come here a moment," said his grandmother, +retreating into her own long room. + +Ethan followed, quaking. Had he been doing something wrong? And yet she +had just kissed him good-bye so kindly. As she turned and faced him, he +saw her eyes were full of tears. He could hardly believe his senses, but +he began to cry, too. + +"I _do_ wish I was going to stay with you," he said, breaking down and +forgetting his fears. + +"You will come back to me," she said; and she put her arms round him, +and held him close to her for a moment, while he cried silently against +her white veil, thinking the while she wouldn't like it when she +discovered it was wet. + +"Don't you think," he faltered, as she released him--"couldn't _this_ be +my home?" + +"Of course, it _is_ your home. Isn't your name on the front door?" + +"Oh yes," he said, smiling through his tears; "I forgot that," and the +remembrance seemed to give him confidence in the future. + +Mrs. Gano was looking hastily about for some excuse for bringing him +into the room. + +"Here is a book that belonged to your great-grandfather, called +_Plutarch's Lives_. You will read it when you are older, and remember it +was my parting present after your first visit." + +"Oh, thank you," he said, brushing his sleeve across his eyes; and they +went out, and Ethan got into the carriage. "Oh, dear me, my fireflies!" +he shouted, suddenly, as the driver was closing the door. "I shall need +them so awfully--I mean so pertickly--in Boston"; and he scrambled out +and rushed up to his bedroom. + +"What does the child mean?" asked Mrs. Gano. + +"It's all right," said Aunt Valeria; "something I gave him. I'll tell +you afterwards." + +Ethan came tumbling down-stairs in the buff middle of the +carpet--anywhere, indifferent for once to Yaffti and his possible +revenge. + +"Good-bye," he called back from the carriage-window. "Thank you, ma'am, +for _Plutarch_." + +"Keep him covered," was Mrs. Gano's unemotional rejoinder as they drove +away. + +Ethan sank back breathless, clutching the camphor-bottle under his coat. + +"Tired?" asked Uncle Elijah, looking at the flushed little face. Ethan +nodded "Yes, sir." + +"You needn't have hurried so; there's oceans of time. But I thought we +could wait just as well at the station." + +They were not going the way Ethan had been driven that day of his +arrival, so long, long ago, at the beginning of the summer. He leaned +forward excitedly. + +"Why, he's taking us round by the Wilderness!" + +"The what?" Uncle Elijah looked out. "Moses! they do let things run wild +here." + +Ethan's quick eye had sought out the spot where, hidden in that tangle, +was a little clearing and a "heavenly secret-house," with a +barberry-bush for a roof. But no hint of such a matter to the profane +passer-by! + +What was that? His heart gave a great jump. Why, it was An' Jerusha on +the lower terrace watching to see them go by! She stood there alone, and +now she was putting her apron up to her eyes. Nobody else was looking +after the carriage from this side. It was plain, for all his +grandmother's momentary melting, it was An' Jerusha who had felt the +parting most, and he had refused to kiss her! + +"Uncle Elijah," said the child, hurriedly, "do you mind, if we've got +such a lot of time, I'd like to get a barberry leaf for my fire-flies. +Please stop!" he called out of the window to the coachman. + +And while Uncle Elijah was saying, "What--what?--barberry leaves, +fire-flies? What nonsense is this you've been learning?" Ethan had +jumped out of the slowing vehicle, made a frantic sign to An' Jerusha, +run up to the fence, pushed aside a loose picket of his acquaintance, +and dashed into the wilderness. There was nothing for Uncle Elijah to do +but to wait. The child had vanished without a trace; by the time Mr. +Tallmadge had adjusted his spectacles on his nose he couldn't even find +the place where his nephew had disappeared. The eminent Bostonian sat +fuming while Ethan was feverishly making his way to An' Jerusha. + +"Come down!" he called, when he got near the bottom of the terrace. +"Come towards the barberry-bush, An' Jerusha--quick, quick!" + +Her eyes rolling wildly with amazement and concern, Jerusha penetrated a +few paces into the jungle. + +"Wha is yo', honey? Wot's de matter? Air yo' hurt, my honey? Jes' wait; +An' Jerusha's comin'." + +"Oh, here I am," gasped the child, and he precipitated himself into her +arms. "I forgot to kiss you good-bye, An' Jerusha, and I had to come +back." + +He shut his eyes and held his breath while she kissed him, muttering +prayers and blessings. + +"Good-bye, An' Jerusha," he said. "I sha'n't ever forget you;" and he +tore his way back through the rank grasses, the mulleins and sunflowers, +catching his feet in the briers, and saying to himself: "Oh, I'm quite +sure my father never, _never_ did. But for me it's different; I'm glad I +went back." + +He stripped a handful of leaves and coral berries off the barberry-bush +as he passed, pushed back the loose picket, and reappeared all over +burrs and pollen before Uncle Elijahs' astonished and unapproving eyes. + +"I've got plenty of leaves for my fire-flies," was his greeting, as he +clambered into the hack, "but I must get some water for them at the +station. How many years should you say a fire-fly would live, Uncle +Elijah, with plenty to eat and drink?" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Ethan was not allowed to repeat his visit, and life went on for several +years without incident at the old Fort. Yet, since "it is in the soul +that things happen," these were stirring times. One shrinks from +inquiring too closely into what the years held for the two eager-hearted +women shut up there with those perilous companions, thwarted hope, +stunted ambition, and pent-up energy. Well had it been for Valeria had +she not possessed that small, cramped competency. If the girl had had to +earn her living, she might have found peace, if not great gladness, in +wholesome grappling with the material things of life. But in saying so +one forgets that all this was thirty years ago, when a penniless +Southern woman who had a brother, or even some distant relation, to +support her, no more dreamed of getting her own bread than she does +to-day of going before the mast. + +Meantime, with John Gano things for a while went better. At the end of +four years of uninterrupted toil, such years of all work and no play as +only an American will put up with, he was able to offer his cousin the +kind of home he had set his heart on. They were married in the South, +and after a brief visit to Mrs. Gano, John took his bride to New York. +Ten months' happiness, followed by the birth of a daughter, whom they +named Valeria, and called Val; then protracted ill-health and a yearly +baby for the young mother, money troubles and killing work for John +Gano. + +The distance between New York and New Plymouth was too great to admit of +much visiting back and forth on trivial grounds for people of limited +means. But young Mrs. Gano was not expected to live after the birth of +her fourth child, and her "aunt-mother-in-law" was sent for. The elder +Mrs. Gano stayed till the danger was past, and, as she wrote home to her +daughter, "to relieve Virginia a little of the pressure of existence," +she had made up her mind to bring back Emmeline with her to the Fort. +Emmeline was the younger of the two little girls, and that was the +reason given for her having been chosen instead of Val, since, with a +new baby in the house, a child of fourteen months was more of a charge +on its mother's mind even than an enterprising young person of four. But +it was presently revealed that Emmeline was by far the more attractive +child, gentle, charming, and very beautiful to look upon; rather like +her cousin Ethan, whose loss was still mourned silently at the old Fort. +There was no further visiting between the two houses until the following +winter, when Valeria's health broke down. Mrs. Gano would not hear it +said that her daughter was dying of consumption. + +"I've had a cough myself for half a century. Consumption? Nonsense! +Valeria had undermined her constitution by too much study and a too +sedentary life. What was to be expected when one remembered the hours +she kept! But there! no Gano could ever do anything with moderation." + +However, the jealous mother was alarmed at last, and admitted that what +Valeria needed was a change. + +"No," said the old-young woman; "I have reached the end." + +A journey to the Adirondacks was proposed. Valeria refused to fall in +with the plan. + +"You wouldn't let me go away when it would have been some use," she +said; "leave me in peace now." + +A horrible fear clutched at the resolute heart of the mother as she took +fresh and sudden note of the wasted frame, the languid, long, +transparent hands, the far-away vision of the eyes. + +"No, I _wouldn't_ let you go alone and unprotected. But now that John +and his wife are settled in New York it's a different story altogether. +You can stay with them, and--and study sculpture for a while," she +added, with a visible effort. + +Valeria shook her head. But there was a new light in the hollow eyes. +Little by little she was seen to be in reality feverishly bent on +availing herself of her mother's late concession. Mrs. Gano was as good +as her word. She put no further obstacle in the way, and, though it was +the depth of winter, took the long journey with her daughter, arriving +at her son's house much exhausted, to find Mrs. John ill in bed, a +mutiny among the servants, and a scene of inexpressible confusion and +disorder, in the midst of which stood Val, turbulent and triumphant. Nor +did she budge upon the usually subduing apparition of Mrs. Gano. Dirty +and neglected, an impudent little face with bold gray eyes looking out +from a wild swirl of tawny hair, there she stood in the middle of the +untidy dining-room, aided and abetted in some unspeakable enormity by +the mere presence of her faithful ally, a huge St. Bernard dog. + +"My patience!" exclaimed Mrs. Gano, surveying the scene. + +"Why, it's my dear little namesake," said Aunt Valeria, with a kind of +gentle incredulity, as she moved forward. + +Her dear little namesake retreated, dragging the great dog back with her +by the collar. + +"_That_ my granddaughter!" + +Mrs. Gano spoke with mixed emotion, and hurriedly put on her spectacles. + +"My darling," said Aunt Valeria, watching the dog with the tail of her +eye, "come and kiss me." + +The child stared solemnly without moving a muscle. + +"Come, my dear, and speak to your grandmother." + +Mrs. Gano advanced with majesty till she was arrested by a low growl +from the St. Bernard. + +"Don't be afraid of us," urged Aunt Valeria, somewhat superfluously. +"I've brought you a pretty toy in my trunk. Come, darling." + +The child kept a suspicious eye on the ingratiating stranger. + +"She has very pretty hair," pursued Aunt Valeria, amiably. + +"She hasn't pretty manners," retorted Mrs. Gano. + +"Oh, she's shy. Don't be afraid of us"--she ventured a step nearer. +"Come here, my sweet little one." + +Never taking her eyes off her gentle aunt, the sweet little one said, +with a charming childish lisp: + +"Ef yer don't be thtil, I'll thick my dawg on yer." + +The two ladies fell back appalled. + +"Turn that great animal out of doors," said Mrs. Gano, in awful tones, +to the cook. But Katie O'Flynn shrank visibly from availing herself of +this kind permission. + +"Sure, mum, he'd have the heart out of me; and that's just what Miss Val +would like, be the Howly Mother!" + +"This is beyond everything," said Mrs. Gano, more nonplussed than she +had often found herself. "The child must be out of her senses. We will +go up to your mistress," she said to Katie O'Flynn. "If you were _my_ +daughter," she added, solemnly, looking back at the immovable one, "I +should know how to deal with you. As it is, I'll leave you to your +father." + +But leaving Val to her father proved a less drastic measure than Mrs. +Gano anticipated. Whether because of his sentiment about the +first-born--offspring of that only year of happiness and hope--or merely +because her wildness was a distraction in his brief moments of respite +from crushing cares, at all events, he looked upon the child with a +lenient eye. He had her much about him when he was at home, smiled at +recitals of her escapades, and called her his amiable firebrand, never +in the least realizing that the overflow of animal spirits, which in +rare hours of ease were his diversion and delight, might be to others a +chronic bewilderment, and a not infrequent torment. + +"Her mother," said the elder Mrs. Gano, not thoroughly understanding the +situation--"her mother has utterly spoiled the child." + +"No, no," said John Gano, smiling. "Val was born like that. I've never +known anybody with such high spirits." + +"'Spirits?' Nonsense! _Fever._ And you, every one of you help to +aggravate her unnatural activity of mind and body. Meanwhile, my advice +to you is: Don't make an idol of your eldest daughter. It's bad enough +in the case of a boy, but no girl survives it." + +Mrs. Gano returned home with little loss of time. Her daughter-in-law's +higgledy-piggledy house-keeping, the "slackness" that was not all +ill-health, coupled with the ubiquitous and unquiet presence of Val, +made the elder lady long for her peaceful home in the West. Her going +left behind a memory of awe and a vivid sense of relief. + +Valeria the elder, with improved health, or else strung up to a +semblance of it by the potent ghost of a dear ambition, began her +studies in art. She took out a course of lessons in modelling at the +Cooper Institute. + +The story of those months may not be written here. We will not dog her +through her days of disillusionment, her shrinking from the curiosity of +the students, her amazement at their facility, her heart-sinking at +their youth. As the weeks went on the teacher, an Italian of fine and +gentle countenance, looked at her far more often than he looked at her +work; and yet it was observed by the merciless young crew in the studio +that her blundering attempts were inspected with an interest and +frequency not bestowed on their more creditable efforts. + +Signor Conti leaned over her one day, speaking kindly phrases in broken +English about the new attempt she was making. + +"Don't! don't, please!" she said, on a sudden impulse. "Understand that +at least I _know_ it's bad." + +"Oh, it will be better," he answered, gently. + +"No," she said, very low, "it will never be much better. I've waited too +long." + +"You must not feel discouraged." He leaned lower and spoke under his +breath. "You may yet find great happiness by means of your art." + +She shook her head, and when she could steady her voice said: + +"I'm going home." + +The man's face changed. + +"You will not do that!" + +"Yes." + +"It would be another mistake, I think." + +"Another?" + +"Yes. The first was for one of your temperament to come to a great noisy +class like this. You cannot do your best work here. This is not the +place for you." + +"What could I have done?" + +"You can work under some artist alone, some one who can give you more +time. I tell you, you have talent, a _bello ingegno, signorina_." + +She looked up with a gleam of hope shining through tears. + +"You--_you_ are too busy. I'm afraid you don't receive pupils at your +own studio," she said, timidly. + +"No, I do not receive pupils as a rule; but I will receive you, +signorina." + +That was the end of lessons at the Cooper Institute, and the beginning +of the brief, but best, happiness Valeria's life was to know. + +Some indiscreet allusion to the change in a letter Valeria or her +brother had written to their mother brought Mrs. Gano in hot haste to +New York again. She found Valeria a different being--but she also found +Signor Conti and a lonely studio in a side street, where her daughter +worked alone with this foreigner, modelling "the members of the human +body," while the sculptor worked on his "Lady at the Bath." It was all +unspeakably objectionable and un-American. This was no fit _milieu_ for +a Gano. It wasn't a seemly place for any lady. Valeria must come home. +She told her so the same night. No, Valeria could not do that. + +"Why? Are you so attached, then, to this Italian image-maker?" + +Valeria went home to the West the next day. The following winter she +died. + +Little Val was nearly seven when she woke up one morning and was told +that the baby had died in the night. Then it was true, this thing she +had heard about people dying. Her excitement and curiosity were +infinitely greater than her sorrow. Had he gone to heaven yet? No, he +was in the cold, uninhabited "best" room, where nobody but +strangers--guests and grandmothers--had ever slept. She made Nanna hurry +through the bath and dressing. The nurse was crying. Val observed her +critically. + +"Isn't heaven a nice place?" the child asked; and a vague uneasiness +seized her with regard to this much-vaunted reward of merit. + +"Av coorse, av coorse--the most beautiful place ye can think av. The +streets are all gowld," said the woman, with quivering face. + +"I must go and see mamma," the child said. + +But she had to pass the "best" room door. She couldn't get by, but stood +there rooted before it. She listened, advancing her small ear nearer and +nearer. No sound. Then she put her eye to the key-hole. But the key-hole +did not command the bed. She glanced over her shoulder--nobody near; the +house silent. She turned the knob softly and went in, shutting the door +behind her; then quickly reopening it, and leaving it prudently ajar. +She tiptoed to the bed. Behold, the coverlid lay smooth, and no little +dead child there at all. Then he _was_ gone to heaven. If she'd got up a +little earlier she might have seen the angel flying off with him. He +hadn't left the window open; the very blind wasn't drawn up. What was +that on the table? Something white, laid over something strange, +and--two little sandalled feet stuck stiffly out! + +_On the table!_ It couldn't be the baby lying on the hard marble slab! +The cruelty of the idea made her cold. Slowly she came nearer. She +circled, fascinated, round to the other side. Yes, a gleam of the baby's +yellow hair. The white cloth over him was a little awry, but it covered +the body and hid the face. Horrible to have the air shut out; she felt +stifled at the thought. He was lying on a pillow, she could see. But +there was something inhuman in leaving a baby like this. And they had +been so irritatingly careful of him before, never left him alone a +moment; neglected her on his account; wouldn't even let her hold +him--oh, _so_ carefully; and now--this! Nothing, perhaps, in all the +strange circumstance--not even the subsequent burial--impressed the +child so painfully as this fact of the baby being laid unguarded on a +table, as though he had been no more than a book. This it was that by +one stroke seemed to cut him off from fellowship, that suddenly degraded +him from his high estate of life and lordly consideration. This "death" +was evidently a far stranger thing than going to heaven. + +A feeling of intense commiseration for the little brother swept over +her. She came nearer, crying. "Poor! poor!" she whispered. Why had they +shut out the air? She lifted her hand and turned the linen down from the +waxen face. Her tears dried on her cheeks as she stood staring. He might +be only asleep. How had they come to be so sure, and lay him unguarded +on a table, when he might wake and-- She saw in a flash how she would +earn the gratitude of the family. She would wake him, and she, who +hadn't been allowed to hold him, would carry him to her mother. And how +glad they'd all be! And it would be _her_ doing. + +"Baby," she said; "baby, wake up!" She put her hand on the body, and +withdrew it quickly. He felt so strangely unlike life and tender +babyhood. An evil dread took hold on her. She strove some moments, +battling with new suspicions and vague fears. "Poor little baby! poor +little baby!" she whispered, tiptoed up, and kissed his cheek. Violently +she started back. Who that ever, as a child, has felt that first chill +contact with the mysterious enemy--who does not remember the formless +horror it conjures up in the unprepared young mind? This, then, was +death. She walked backward to the door, staring at the dead face, +feeling that cold touch on her lips spread like a frost through her +body. She must go quickly and get into her mother's lap. With her hand +on the door, "Poor! poor!" she repeated with a sob, still looking back +at the face. "You can't come and get warm in mother's lap any more; +_you've_ got to go to heaven." Had they any idea how cold the baby was? +Should she go and get his quilted travelling-coat? Was it any use? A +faint dawning of the hopelessness of any earthly service to the dead +made her resolution waver, and, with that, a horrible weight descended +on her heart. She drew a hard breath, ran back to the table, and knelt +down before it with folded hands and trembling lips. "Forgive me, baby," +she whispered, "'bout the yellow ball. If I'd known this I wouldn't have +taken it away." She scrambled to her feet and ran out as fast as she +could, leaving the door ajar. + +She was going up to bed that same evening, full of excitement and +speculation, when her father called to Nanna over the banisters to come +and help to find the smelling-salts--her mistress had fainted. + +"Go to your room; I'll come presently," said the woman; and they shut +her mother's door. + +They hadn't let her go in since morning. Her mother was ill, they said, +but that was a pretence; she was always ill. The reason Val was shut out +to-day was because her grandmother had arrived that morning, and her +grandmother was her enemy. She was in there now. + +On every-day occasions Val would have contested the matter; but, +grandmothers apart, there was a great deal to think about and consider +just now. + +She sat down on the stairs. She had seen her father crying that day, and +the very foundations of all stabilities seemed tottering. Men could cry, +it seemed--cry like little children. It was very strange; she had +supposed it a thing to be outgrown. For her own part, she had nearly +overcome the childish habit. The baby, of course, had cried a great +deal; but one's _father_! + +Somebody was coming up-stairs behind the servant--a strange man. What +was he carrying? Something big, and as shiny as the new musical-box. +She hugged the banisters as the two passed. + +"What's that?" she said to Matilda. + +The servant didn't answer. She and the strange man went by. As Val was +in the act of following, her grandmother appeared. She looked at Val a +moment, and then called the nurse in a whisper: "Put that child to bed." + +To-morrow was the funeral. She should go, she had said. + +"No, certainly not," said her grandmother; and Val set her firm little +mouth. + +After breakfast the next morning, her father went into the room where +the baby was, and stayed a long time. The doctor was with her mother. +The doctor was a rude man, with a long yellow-white beard; he had spoken +as sternly as if he'd been one's grandmother when Val had said she +_would_ see her mother. She lingered now by the "best" room door. Would +she hear her father crying again? She hoped she would. There was +something so horribly exciting in it; it made her feel as if she should +die, and yet she listened eagerly to find out if he were doing it again. + +No sound. He came out after a long, long while, and kissed her; his face +was wet. + +"Run to your nurse, my dear," he said. + +She didn't tell him Nanna had been sent out. He smoothed her hair, and +then went into her mother's room. + +She was thinking a great deal about the baby. Nanna had been telling her +more about heaven. The nurse hadn't liked it when the child had asked +leading questions about the grave. But Nanna herself had said dozens of +times before, "I've buried me husband and three childer." What a curious +idea to put people in the dirty, black ground! And the baby! It must be +very bad for his pretty white clothes. How awful to have earth on one's +face, all over the ears and mouth! She choked a little. But one wouldn't +feel it, of course; the real baby was in heaven. He would have +everything there. "Yellow balls, too?" she had asked Nanna. + +"He won't want the likes of that," the nurse had said. Nanna was very +stupid; as if the baby had ever wanted anything in his life so much as +that yellow ball! Conscience pricked cruelly. She _had_ been selfish and +horrid to the poor baby. She fell a-crying. Very likely they didn't have +yellow balls in heaven, and wouldn't know how much the baby loved them, +and he mightn't like to ask; besides, the poor baby talked such a queer +language, strangers never understood him. A sudden inspiration. It was +rather confusing about the real baby in heaven, and the real baby in the +"best" room. Wouldn't it be better to be on the safe side? Anyhow, there +was that business about Gabriel and the Last Trump and the Resurrection. +They had talked about that in church, and Nanna and mother had said it +was true. The dead would surely rise; the baby in the "best" room there +would one day come alive. It looked as if there'd be two real babies in +the end; but never mind. She flew up-stairs, rummaged the cupboard in +the nursery, and came flying down with something wrapped in her apron. +The doctor was in the lower hall talking to her father; she peeped at +them through the balusters, then softly on to the "best" room. + +She shut the door this time, though more frightened than the day before. +She stopped short in the middle of the room. Too late! the baby had +gone. But there was something she'd never seen before. She went close. +How pretty and shiny it was; it smelt like the piano. Why, this was what +the strange man had brought up-stairs behind Matilda last night. It was +bigger than the musical-box--much bigger. What was in this beautiful, +shiny, new thing? She dragged a chair to the table, climbed on it, and +looked down into the coffin. + +She stood some time motionless; then, hearing a noise in the hall, +hurriedly lifted a corner of the baby's frock and pushed a yellow ball +down against the padded white satin side. + + +In spite of the continued "riling" presence of a grandmother in the +house, Val made up her mind to be very good now the baby was gone, and +be a comfort to her mother. No more fights with Nanna, even over the +hair-combing; no defiant refusals to say her prayers. Standing by the +cot in her nightgown the evening of the funeral, "I shall say three +prayers," she announced, sternly; "and you mustn't interrupt, Nanna." + +"Three!" said the nurse, suspicious of such overwhelming piety. + +"Yes; I shall say, 'Our Father,' and 'Nower Lamy,' and then one of my +own--one I can understand as well as God. Now! Sh!" She knelt down and +recited the two accustomed petitions, and then, still kneeling there, +poured forth some stringent directions to the Lord which horrified the +good Christian woman not a little. + +After that, Val insisted on going to church, rain or shine. She read her +Bible with vigor and astonishment, belaboring Nanna with difficult +questions. Nanna was so ill-inspired as sometimes to appeal in her +perplexity to the elder Mrs. Gano. But this lady found to her cost that +the course so successfully pursued with little Ethan was doomed to +failure here. When she thought to curb the excessive Gano concern about +Biblical interpretation by saying, "It is not a book for children," she +was met with: + +"My Bible says, 'Suffer little children,' and people 'mustn't despise +the little ones.'" + +Her father began to laugh; she felt encouraged to proceed: + +"And says, 'Search ye the Scriptures,' too; nothin' 'bout waitin' till +you're old." + +"You are too young to understand, even if I should try to explain." + +"Why, I understand it nearly every bit," she answered, indignantly, "all +except the mizz--I can't find where it says about the mizz." + +"The mizz?" repeated Mrs. Gano. + +"The mizz?" her father echoed, uneasily. "I haven't read about that +myself." + +"Well, you've heard about it in church. Didn't you go to church when +you were young?" + +"Yes," said her parent, meekly, feeling the full force of her implied +criticism. "But I don't recall the--what is it?" + +"The mizz. Mr. Weston says every Sunday in the Commandments: 'The sea +and all that in the mizz.'" + +The elder Mrs. Gano could have put up with these crude evidences of a +share in the family bias, but not with her granddaughter's growing +unsubmissiveness, her chronic mutiny against the smallest restraint. The +child had been taught early to look upon herself as a very potent factor +in the family life. She observed that arrangements that failed to meet +with her approval were often altered. Her mother's sternest form of +discipline had been to argue with her. More than one servant had been +dismissed in obedience to Miss Val's demands. There was the case of the +lady house-keeper from Boston, who, in addition to regular duties, +undertook also to teach Val--a learned maiden lady with shaky nerves and +a passion for history. It was supposed she left so suddenly because of +illness in her family, until Val admitted that she had threatened the +lady with the carving-knife after dinner one day. + +"What on earth made you do that?" said the child's father, horrified. + +"She talked too much about the British," replied Val, calmly. + +"What!" + +"I said the Americans were just as brave. I could see she didn't think +so, so I got the carvin'-knife and--well, you know, she just caught the +three-o'clock train." + +The June of that year was intensely hot, but young Mrs. Gano was too ill +to be carried out of the stifling city. Val was sent into the country to +some cousins "for a change"--for whose change was not insisted upon. She +was not brought back till the day after her mother's funeral. It was a +strange and terrible time. For once she was passive and subdued. If the +servants had not already remarked on her hard-heartedness, she would +have cried herself ill. But she was full of a dull resentment as well as +pain. At the time she was sent away she had gathered, as a quick-witted +child does--Heaven knows how!--that her mother was dangerously ill. +During that time in the country she had prayed for her recovery as she +never prayed before or after, as none but the passionate-hearted ever +pray. Night after night, when the light had been put out, and the others +had gone to sleep, Val would get out of bed and kneel down at the side +beseeching God to save her mother's life, and making solemn compacts +with the Lord of Hosts. She would be so good, and build a church, too, +in memory of this answer to prayer; she would be a nun, and serve God +all her days, if He would spare her mother. She pointed out how easy it +was for the All-Powerful to do this little thing. She wasn't waiting +till it would require a Lazarus miracle, she was asking Him in good +time. He had only to let the doctors know what would cure her. But she, +Val Gano, would recognize in the recovery a direct answer to prayer, and +she would keep her vows. She remembered a sermon she had heard on +mountain-moving faith. Hers should be perfect and unfaltering. She knew +God would answer this one prayer; she saw herself already in her nun's +black habit, and began to say her last farewell to the world, to the +prince that she knew was coming later on, to all her children--she +called them by their names, "five brave sons and five beauteous +daughters." She turned her back on them all, cut her long hair, and +heard the convent gates clang to--all this was an accomplished destiny +in her mind, when the telegram came to say her mother was dead. Her +father was ill, too, now; there was nothing but sickness and death in +the world, and the child was to stay where she was. The telegram was +from her grandmother to cousin Nathaniel. Four days later, when she was +permitted to go home, the funeral was over, and her grandmother was in +charge of her mother's house. It was very awful. What did God mean by +it? + +The following week John Gano returned to his post at the bank. As he +was leaving the counting-room, that first and last day after the death +of his wife, he was seized with a violent hemorrhage, and was carried +home, it was thought, to die. + +Mrs. Gano nursed her son back to something faintly resembling health, +and urged him to come home with her. No; he would stay where he was, +till-- + +"Nonsense! you must rouse yourself for your children's sake. Here is +Val, left to servants, and running wild. She must go to school. None +better than the New Plymouth Seminary for Young Ladies." + +"Oh, time enough for that. I can't let the child go just yet." + +"There _isn't_ time. That child is going to wreck and ruin. And you +don't suppose I'm going to leave you here alone? You must come and get +well and strong." + +"It's no use," the invalid said, adding, half under his breath: "I'm +done for." + +"Hush!" she interrupted, frowning. "Anybody is done for who has made up +his mind that he is." + +John Gano shook his head. + +"You know we all go like this. It's not a matter of imagination." + +"Nearly everything's a matter of imagination," she said. + +The gaunt man put his handkerchief to his lips. + +"This is imagination, too, I suppose," he said, as he turned the bright +spot in and out of sight--"a case of seeing red." + +"That small stain means very little in itself," she retorted, seeming +scarcely moved; "its effect on your mind is the only thing to be afraid +of." + +"You speak as though I hadn't inherited the blessed business." + +"Oh, inherited--inherited! I'm sick of that white feather showing all +along the line. Look at me!" + +He did look at her. She seemed suddenly taller and thinner and grayer +and more defiant than any being he had ever beheld. + +"Look at me!" she repeated. "I have been given up by the doctors half a +dozen times. My mother was told when I was sixteen that I had only a +piece of a lung left--that it might last me through the winter. It has +served my purpose for half a century since. But I didn't worry about the +color of my handkerchiefs, and I didn't admit for a moment that I could +possibly be induced to die--that is, of course"--she put on a sudden +aspect of resignation that was almost funny--"unless it was the Lord's +will." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Nothing seemed to matter now that her mother was dead. It was plain Val +would never be happy again. Leaving her home, to which she was devotedly +attached, was hardly a misfortune, any more than going to live with her +grandmother. What did anything matter? God hadn't heard her prayers; He +had mocked her faith, and she was motherless. She hadn't enough interest +in life even to be "owdacious," as her grandmother called it. She was +passive, almost "good." + +Her father, observing her settled depression on the journey West, +gathered her into his arms, and whispered: + +"We have each other, you know." + +And she lay with her face hidden, and cried a long time, so quietly that +her grandmother thought she was asleep. + +It was the reunion with her little sister that first roused her out of +her unchildlike apathy. Not the genial warmth of family affection, not +the diversion of having a playmate, but the tonic of a vigorous +antagonism, as unexpected as it seemed unnatural. + +"Where is my room?" Val had asked, on the evening of their arrival at +the Old Fort. + +"You are to sleep with Emmeline," said her grandmother. + +"But, grandma, I've never slept with any one." + +"Haven't you, my dear?" + +"No, and I've always--" + +"That will do now. Go up-stairs and wash your face and hands. Emmeline +will show you the way." + +Val went off quietly enough, but it might have staggered Mrs. Gano +could she have known the rage and rebellion that seethed in that small +female heart. + +It was dusk up in the little girls' room. + +"Why haven't they lit the gas?" asked Val. + +"We don't have gas here." + +"Lamps, then." + +"Gamma thinks lamps are too esplosive." + +"Do you live in the dark?" + +"No; we have candles, but it ain't dark enough yet. I'll show you where +everything is." + +"I'll find 'em myself." + +Val had espied the candles on the bureau. She lit them. + +"Oh, we never have more'n one," admonished Emmie, gently. + +Val went on calmly with her toilet. Presently Mrs. Gano looked in. + +"Come to supper, little girls, as soon as you're ready." + +She was going away without more words, when Emmie called out excitedly: + +"Just look, gamma--two candles a-burnin', 'and no ship at sea!'" + +Mrs. Gano smiled. + +"Yes, my dear; one is enough." + +She put the extinguisher over the nearest, and went down-stairs. + +"Skinflint!" observed Val. + +The supper was on this occasion a late and hurriedly prepared meal. +There were soft-boiled eggs. Val helped herself to two, and broke them +into a tumbler; then mixed in salt, and pepper, and butter, and bits of +bread. + +"Just look at what Val's doing!" said Emmie, with innocent excitement, +while her elder and more accomplished sister stirred the agreeable +compound round and round. + +"Never do that again," said Mrs. Gano, suddenly aware of the enormity. +"I don't like people to make puddings in their tumblers at my table." + +"T'ain't puddin'," said Val. + +"That will do." Mrs. Gano ended the matter according to her usual +formula. "Will you have some corn bread?" + +"No, thank you; I don't like it." + +"It is enough to answer, 'No, thank you.' Never say you don't like +anything you see on my table." + +Val wished her father had not been too tired to come to supper. She had +observed that she was never so much corrected in his presence. + +The full moon was shining in the gloaming as they passed the open +veranda door coming from their belated meal. + +"Let's go out a minute," said Val to Emmie, in a whisper. + +"No; it's too late. I'd catch cold." + +"Oh, nonsense! Come along." + +And she dragged her little sister off. But they stayed out only a few +minutes. + +Emmie came in crying. + +"Gamma, she made me fall down on the g'avel." + +Val, without explanation or apology, flushed angrily and ran up-stairs. +She knocked at her father's door. + +"Come in," he said, and she went over in the dim candlelight and stood +by his bed. + +"How you feel, father?" + +"Little tired," he answered. "Are you come to say good-night?" + +"I 'spose I mustn't stay?" + +"Oh, a minute or two." + +She perched on the side of his bed. She had come in with the express +intention of making complaints. Some vague notion of sparing him because +he was ill kept her tongue-tied. + +"Isn't this a nice old house?" he said, presently. + +"Y--yes," she answered. + +"In the daytime you'll see what capital places there are for you and +Emmie to play in." + +"Is it true I mustn't swing on the gate?" + +"Well, I dare say--" + +"Emmie says so. Is it true I mustn't roll down the terraces?" + +"H'm--well--" + +"Emmie says so. What are terraces for, anyhow? I thought," she added, +with a sigh--"I thought it was going to be like the country." + +"Oh, wait till you see it by daylight. It's a great deal more like the +country than New York." + +"She doesn't keep a horse?" + +"No." + +"Nor a cow?" + +"No; there's no stable, you see." + +"There isn't any pig, father!" + +"Oh no; she wouldn't like a pig." + +"But there isn't a single smallest kind of a dog here. There isn't," she +wound up, tremulously--"there isn't even a chicken." + +"You just wait till to-morrow, and I'll show you heaps of nice things. +There isn't a finer tulipifera rhododendron in the world than the one +out by the back veranda. And there's a beautiful old crooked catalpa on +the terrace you can make a house in." + +"Emmie says she only lets cousin Ethan climb trees." + +"Oh-a, well--a--I dare say there are plenty of other things. Aren't the +peaches nearly ripe?" + +"I don't know." + +"Have you seen my Indian arrowheads and stone hatchets down-stairs in +the cabinet?" + +Val shook her head despairingly. + +"They're in _her_ room." + +Her father seemed not to notice. + +"And to-morrow I must show you the great slab of stone at the back door. +The oldest inhabitant of this place told me when I first came to New +Plymouth that he remembered cracking nuts there at recess in 1800, when +he went to school here. There aren't many little girls who have such a +wonderful old house to live in." + +"N--no. I liked the little trees and houses in the silver at supper." + +"You'll like lots of things. I've got an old fiddle somewhere about--" + +"_Have_ you? Oh, _that_'ll be fun!" + + +She crept up under his arm and nestled down against him. + +It is no part of the office of this plain chronicle to attempt to +justify any person in it. Mrs. Gano herself was too little touched by +other people's opinions for one who sets about reporting her to dare +belittle her robust errors, or omit the defects of her qualities. Few +things would have bothered her so much as "being universally beloved," +as the phrase goes; and yet, or perhaps because of this, her family +affections struck such deep root that plucking them up was like tearing +asunder the very fibres of her life. Even now, even to her son, she +could not speak of Valeria. Her long hands shook when she touched the +dead woman's books. When chance would bring to light a scrap of the +familiar writing, she would look away hurriedly, that she might not +break down utterly and lose herself in that ocean of agonized regret +that had threatened to sweep her, too, out of the world after Valeria's +death. It could never have occurred to her as possible that she should +set about winning anybody's affections. She would probably have regarded +it as a slavish and far from upright procedure. Affection was not a +thing to set snares for. It was the duty of children to love their +parents (she would probably have said to "honor" them); it was the duty +of parents to train the children in the way they should go. That was +"the law and the prophets." She could never have quite realized the +impression she made on the young or guilty-minded, but she would not +have denied that she belonged to a generation disposed to treat healthy +children on more or less Spartan principles. She had from time to time +obtained a sufficiently all-round view of the spoiling process that had, +to her thinking, wellnigh ruined Val Gano. + +She had come quickly to the conclusion that she would say nothing more +to the child's nervous and ailing father, but was quite definitely +minded to set to work quietly and vigorously to correct in Val's +upbringing the pernicious mixture of sentimentality and neglect that had +made the child a _revoltee_ and a household terror. Already in New York +there had been a battle royal on the subject of the proper bedtime for a +little girl. Val had announced herself in no uncertain note as mortally +opposed to retiring at eight, or even nine. If there was one thing more +than another that she objected to utterly it was this going to bed at +all. Her mother had been helpless to prevent her from ranging the house +till remorseless sleep struck her down in the midst of her delights. If +she could manage to keep her eyes open, or to wake up after a brief +oblivion, she had made no bones about descending during the evening in +her night-gown, entirely prepared for the rapturous reception she knew +awaited her from her father. Val had early, then, come to associate her +grandmother with tyrannical designs on the liberty of the free-born +child after the hour of eight. She also had cause to know her repulsive +opinions on the value of a milk and cereal diet for the young. These, +and a general sense of radically opposed interests, not unmixed with +astonishment at, and fear of, the alarming old lady, made up the sum of +Val's dismay when she came calmly to consider what life was going to be +like here at the Fort. + +She woke up on the morning after her arrival with a vague sense of a +duty to perform. She rubbed her eyes and kicked Emmie. Ah, yes, that was +it--her grandmother had not understood. She had condemned Val, who was +accustomed to her own room, with all her "things" about her, just as she +liked them, and no one to interfere--she had put Val in "another +person's room," with a single big bed in it, and condemned her to sleep +with Emmie. Her grandmother must be brought to a better understanding. + +The child made no further announcement of her frame of mind till she +sat down to a barren breakfast with the despised Emmie. There was no +coffee. There was tea going up to her father, as usual. The silent Emmie +quaffed her mug of milk serenely. For a year now Val had demanded and +been given her morning cup of coffee. + +"Ask for some for me, please," she said, after making inquiries of +Venie. + +"Gamma says cawfee will make you an old woman before you're a young +one," said Emmie, showing her milk-white teeth in a pleased smile. "You +can't have any cawfee." + +"Tell the cook, please," said Val, in a loud voice, "that I'm waitin' +for my coffee." + +An' Jerusha put in a turbaned head. + +"Lordy, missy! don' yer yell like dat, an' I'll make yo' some cambric +tea." + +"I won't drink cambric tea. I'm the oldest of the famerly, and my father +always let me have coffee." + +"Yo' father ve'y ill, missy. Yo' mustn't worrit yo' father." + +"I _never_ worry my father--I settle everything for myself. Are you +going to get my coffee?" + +"Can't do dat, missy, widout leab." + +"Isn't grandma coming to breakfast?" + +"No; she always habs it in her own room since Miss Valery died." + +The child pushed back her chair and marched out. The two women called +remonstrance after her, but a mighty indignation swept her on. She +halted before her grandmother's room, knocked loudly, and opened the +door without further waiting. + +Midway in her valiant advance upon the enemy she stood still. Mrs. Gano +was sitting propped with huge feather pillows in an ancient four-poster. +She wore a small shrunken cotton nightcap awry on her wonderful thick +hair, which tumbled out in a tangle of silver and lay dishevelled over +the white flannel jacket that was buttoned crooked over her night-gown, +the sleeves hanging loose and armless. In her long taper fingers she +held an open letter. Envelopes, notes, the _Baltimore Sun_, and other +papers were strewn thick over the silk patchwork quilt. A breakfast tray +stood on a table by the bedside. It wasn't her attire, it wasn't even +the shrunken, rakish nightcap (self-conscious and uneasy at its obvious +shortcomings), that made the old lady's aspect so arresting. She had not +said a word at the child's irruption, but she lowered her chin and +looked over her heavy gold-rimmed spectacles with a strange cold stare, +singularly disconcerting, even slightly paralyzing. But Val's was a bold +heart. And she realized that a blow must be struck for liberty. + +"They haven't given me any coffee for my breakfast," she announced, with +equal directness and warmth. + +The piercing eyes bored into her, but the stern mouth uttered no word. +The child began to wish she'd waited till her grandmother were properly +dressed and looked more human. + +"I'm in my eighth year," she went on with dignity, "and I'm +accustomed--" + +"'Good-morning!' is the custom in this house," said the old lady. + +"Oh! Good-morning!" Slight pause. "The servant says you told her I +wasn't to have coffee." + +"Well?" + +"I always have it at home." + +"You're not at home now." + +"But I can't eat breakfast without--" + +"There's no need for you to eat breakfast if you're not hungry." + +"_Why_ can't I have coffee?" + +"Because I think it injurious"--the keen old eyes caught the swift +disdain of the child's glance at the half-empty cup on the tray--"very +injurious for children," she added. + +"My mother didn't think so," Val said, feeling her throat swell. + +"But I am your grandmother, you see." + +She had lowered her chin again; her eyes were shooting out over her +spectacles, her eyebrows terrifically high. This grandmother of hers +could move her eyebrows about as easily as other people moved their arms +and legs. It was a fearsome accomplishment. + +"In _my_ house," she went on, after the awful pause, "the thing to be +considered is what _I_ think. Among other matters I consider your way of +entering a room might be improved. Now, you may see how quietly you can +go out." + +Seldom has a child been more surprised at an unexpected turn in affairs +than was this one when she found herself on the outside of the door. She +stood irresolute a moment. Why had she obeyed? She gritted her little +white teeth in self-contempt. Should she go back? There were loads of +things she had forgot to say. The idea of being sent out like that! She +went slowly up-stairs and angrily tumbled some of her clothes out of her +trunk. There were three cookies, a cruller, and some chocolates in a box +near the bottom. Oh, wise precaution of provident childhood! Still, her +present lot was a most unhappy one. + +"No breakfast! How angry my poor sainted mother would be!" She shed two +tears. "No mother, no coffee, nothing but a cruel grandmother." + +She revelled gloomily in the tragic picture till she heard Emmie coming +up-stairs. She hid the "remainder biscuit" and hurriedly dried her eyes. +There had long been a theory in the family--even her mother had shared +it--that Val never cried, and hadn't any heart to speak of. She was +intensely proud of this reputation for stoicism, and wouldn't for worlds +have undeceived any one. She brushed past Emmie now with lofty looks and +ran down-stairs and out-of-doors. She ranged about the grounds, finding +that her father was right--there were great possibilities of enjoyment +in these neglected haunts. She was not long in discovering the +grape-vine climbing the pear-tree in the wilderness, and satisfying +herself that "peaches were ripe." The osage orange-trees that grew +along the fence behind the drying-ground had dropped their rugged globes +on the grass, and one could play ball with these oranges till their +tough fibres grew soft and yielded grudgingly, like rubber. Presently +one that she had sent flying over the trees into the adjoining grounds +came mysteriously back. Val parted the fringe of lower undergrowth and +peered between the fence rails, but could see no one. She shied another +orange, and this time she saw a boy dart out from behind a tree and send +the orange swiftly through the sunshine over her head. Val leaped up, +and by a fluke caught it firmly in her hands. + +"Hooray!" came involuntarily from the next-door neighbor; and they went +on playing ball in ambush till curiosity prevailed over shyness. + +When the next-door neighbor drew near the osage barrier, he revealed +himself as a boy about Val's age, with a freckled face and a queer +little knob of a nose. + +"Wot's your name?" he inquired. + +"Val Gano. What's yours?" + +"Jerry--I mean, Jerningham Otway." + +"That your house?" + +She climbed upon the fence and distinguished glimpses through the bushes +of an imposing place beyond. + +"Yes," he answered; "and we got a bank over the river." + +This eliciting nothing, he went on, genially: + +"You can fire a ball 'bout as well as a boy!" + +"I should hope so." + +"My sister can't, and she's a year older 'n me. Most girls can't, and +they're all awful mad they wasn't born boys." + +"That so?" + +"Yes. I know a girl over the river--awfully jolly girl--she's got a +monkey--nicest girl I ever knew!--and Geerusalem! don't she want to be a +boy!" + +"She _must_ be a ninny," observed his next-door neighbor. + +"Hey?" + +"Can't think why any girl in her senses should want to be a _boy_!" as +who should say: the least of created things. + +Jerry widened saucer eyes. + +"If a girl likes," his neighbor continued, "she can do all the jolly +things a boy does without the bother of _being_ a boy." + +"Ho! ho! Don't find it much bother." + +"Well, but it's a little dull, ain't it?" + +"Hey?" + +"Not now exactly, but don't you ever think about the future?" + +Jerry looked vaguely alarmed for a single instant, and then strutted off +with his hands in his pockets, whistling defiantly all across the lawn. +He stopped at the barn door, and whistled his way back, in time to catch +a friendly ball. + +The feminine wile that eventually won the young gentleman's heart, and +"did for" the girl with the pet monkey, was Val's gift for turning the +most surprisingly rapid somersaults all across the drying-ground. A +small contorting ball, she rolled head over heels, without stopping, +from one side to the other, and came up smiling, in spite of a crack on +her crown against the pump. + +"Gee-_rusalem_!" observed Jerry, when he saw she was laughing. "I say," +he added, with a child's fine disregard for preface or preliminary--"I +say, come over to Bentley's Pond and let's be pirates." + +It seems highly probable that Val would have closed with the offer if +Emmie had not made a timely appearance. + +"What you doin'?" she asked, Jerry being invisible. + +"None o' your business," said her polite sister. + +"Oh-h," purred Emmie. "Gamma don't let us--" + +She paused. + +"Don't let us what?" + +"What you're doin'." + +"What am I doin'?" + +It was difficult to say. She seemed to be just sauntering about, +occasionally kicking an osage orange. But Emmie, not without reason, +had got it into her law-abiding head that whatever this sister of hers +might be engaged in it was pretty sure to be something taboo, and Emmie, +as an older inhabitant here, and one who never made these mistakes, was +bound to keep the new-comer from transgression. Her sister had gone back +to the house now. Emmie followed her up-stairs to their room. Val found +her trunk gone from the upper hall, and its contents disposed in drawers +and wardrobe with Emmie's belongings. + +Who had done this thing? + +"Venie," said Emmie. + +The new-comer anathematized the officious servants of the Fort. Emmie +stood looking on with growing consternation, as Val flung forth from the +wardrobe to the middle of the room a shower of pinafores and petticoats, +books and toys. They lay on the floor in an indiscriminate mass. What +was this daring person about? Emmie stood shyly by the door, her face +flushing with excitement. + +"I won't have my things mixed up with other peoples'!" Val announced, +severely. Then, after a moment: "What are you standing there for?" + +"I--I don't know," responded Emmie. + +"Haven't you got any place of your own, where you belong?" + +Emmie looked bewildered, as well she might. + +"I've got a little rocking-chair down in gamma's room--used to be cousin +Efan's." + +"Humph! rocking-chair's just the thing for _you!_ Why don't you go and +sit in it?" + +Val was clearing out the bureau now at the other end of the room. It was +Emmie's things this time that were being flung out with disdain. Val's +harsh question, coupled with the moving spectacle of Emmie's best hat on +the floor, brought ready tears to the soft brown eyes. + +"What you got in this?" demanded Val, shaking the rattling contents of a +well tied-up box. + +"B'longs to cousin Efan. Gamma don't let us open it." + +Val untied the cord and revealed the forbidden spoil--marbles, a +jack-knife, a broken whistle, and at the bottom a little drawing-book +and a French grammar. + +"I'll take care of the marbles and the knife for cousin Ethan," said +Val, "but you can have the other things," and she flung the treasured +box to the opposite side of the room. The vandalism widened Emmie's +trouble-clouded eyes. "Now my clothes are going in the bureau." + +Val was sorting and folding away her own belongings with a deftness +characteristic of her thin little hands. Emmie watched the process +tearfully. + +"And _my_ books and things like that go on this side," she went on, +busily bringing order out of chaos. "Now, do you understand?" she said, +sternly. "This half o' the room is mine. You can't _ever_ come here." + +The little girl at the door nodded, speechless. + +"Perhaps I'll help you afterwards to put your things away in the +cupboard. First go down into the hall and bring me a piece of chalk out +of the lift-up chair where they keep the brushes." + +"Chalk!" What _was_ she going to do? + +"Yes, chalk, goosie gander! Chalk! chalk!" + +Emmie fled. She had serious thoughts of never returning, but curiosity +and the memory of her best hat sitting on the floor got the better of +her fears. + +"That's right," said Val, on Emmie's reappearance. "Don't come over +here!" she shouted. "_Stop_, I tell you!" She stamped violently as the +child advanced, bewildered, holding out a piece of yellow crayon. +"Didn't I just say this part of the room is mine?" + +"Y-yes." + +"Well, it _is_, just as much as if it had doors, which it ought to have, +and locks and bolts. Don't ever come here till you get my permission. +Understand?" + +"I--I--" Emmie dropped the crayon, and retreated slowly. "I was only +going to say we oughtn't to use that chalk. It belongs to Aunt Valeria's +painting things." + +"Look here!" Val waived such puny scruples aside. "See this seam in the +carpet?" + +"Yes," answered a small, scared voice. + +"Well, I'll make it plainer, so's there's no mistake." She stooped and +drew a yellow line down the seam from wall to wall. "Now," she said, +getting up and striking a threatening attitude, "you're younger than me, +but I give you all that side for your room. This side is mine. If you +ever cross that line without my leave, I'll kill you--yes, I'll kill you +dead with cousin Ethan's knife!" + +She turned her head and beheld her grandmother standing in the doorway. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +This was the beginning of the Four Years' War. + +But although Val was worsted in this encounter, the race _was_ sometimes +to the swift and the battle to the ingenious. For instance, that very +night in bed she discovered a way of reducing Emmie to submission +without resorting to physical violence. Val began to tell out loud a +terrible and harrowing tale, which nearly threw the younger child into +fits. Emmie would do anything for her dear, dear sister if only darling +Val would say the black figure wasn't a ghost. Darling Val complied, +after a thorough understanding that whenever Emmie was too unbearable +that black figure, which was a ghost only on certain nights--that black +figure should be introduced into their nocturnal amenities. Val was not +always as good as her word. She did once or twice in the comfortable +daytime make the sinister threat, "If you do that again I'll tell you a +scary story when we're in bed to-night"; but in the morning the night is +almost as far away as being grown up or dying--at all events too far off +to seem very real or important. Experience proved that Val would forget +the menace by the time it was dark, or else would be too sleepy to live +up to it--so sleepy, in fact, that she could do nothing but kick Emmie +in a desultory way, or lie like a log in the middle of the bed, leaving +the younger child to find her half on the outer edge of both sides; +whereupon Emmie's long-suffering patience would suddenly break down, and +she would go crying to her grandmother's door, and stand there wailing +till she was taken in. After some weeks' trial the plan of making the +two sisters share the same room was abandoned, and Emmie had a cot at +the foot of her grandmother's four-poster. + +Val was made to realize that now she had crossed the Rubicon. Up to that +hour she had been on probation, but this change once effected, she was +"beyond the pale." Not that she was harassed, nagged, scolded; that she +would have understood and known how to meet; she was ignored, not spoken +to, not even seen. For days she might have been thin air, so little did +her grandmother seem able to realize her corporal presence. There had +been no doubt in Val's mind from the first but what Emmie was the +favourite here. The very servants, she saw, were under the spell of +Emmie's pretty ways, and in any time of trouble took it for granted that +the imperious Val had been the aggressor. Natural and inevitable as was +this attitude of the entire household (for Mr. Gano was spared all +details, and did not count), it was not calculated to make the sisters +better friends, or win Val to a more amenable mind. + +Nobody, from Val's point of view, could care much about what Jerusha and +Venie thought, but her grandmother's good opinion was somehow, even at +this stage, a secretly coveted honor. Yet there was no blinking the fact +Emmie was her pet. This form of putting the hard underlying fact was the +more satisfactory in that one could as soon imagine Mrs. Gano dancing +the Highland fling as having a pet. Gran'ma! who wouldn't let a dog or +even a bird into the house, and whom no one could fancy nursing or +caressing anything on earth! There was a suggestion of the ludicrous, a +faint ironic aroma, in the phrase, which aroused angry passions. It +fitted in, too, with all manner of exigencies. In any event it was +apposite to remark, "Of course Emmie's the pet." This could be said with +such effect of scorn that Emmie found no refuge save in tears. + +"What's the matter?" inquired Mrs. Gano. + +She had happened on the twain as they were loitering in the hall before +going off to church. + +Emmie wept on. Val set her little red mouth doggedly. Her grandmother +glared. + +"Now what have you been doing to this poor child?" she demanded. + +Gran'ma's eyes were very strange when she was angry, as Val had +frequently confided to the cobwebs in the wood-shed--unlike anybody's on +earth--piercing, glittery; made you cold down your back. Servants shook +and scuttled when she looked at them like that. Val herself was always +reminded of + + + "Tiger, tiger, burning bright + In the forests of the night," + + +and braced herself by saying, internally: "I ain't 'fraid o' tigers and +I ain't 'fraid o' gran'ma"--this, too, with a fine sense of climax. + +"What is it, Emmie? Stop crying. I can't have this noise." + +"V--Val says I'm your p--pet." + +"Nonsense! I have no pets. You are not to worry Emmeline. Never say that +again. Understand?" + +Val was silent. + +Gran'ma's eyes were awful. + +"Are you going to promise, or do you prefer to spend the day alone?" + +That had been tried, and proved a great waste of time and opportunity. + +"Yes, I promise." + +"Very well; now go to church; Venie is waiting." + +"Aha!" said the victorious Emmie when they were out of earshot. "Now you +see what you get for teasing me." + +And she crowed over her comrade with restored vivacity, till Val said, +with suspicious geniality: + +"Oh, well, I s'pose I was mistaken. I knew you were either her pet or +else--" + +"What?" + +Emmie fixed her beautiful soft eyes expectantly on her sister. + +Val turned on her with suppressed fury: + +"Or else a creepin', crawlin' little woo--er--er--m." + +Floods of tears, and Venus to the rescue. + +The Four Years' War did not always rage round Emmie, although it was the +innocent little sister who was the means of forcing upon Val the +conviction that her grandmother was not, and never could be, her friend. +It is true she cherished a dream at first of earning her gratitude and +admiration by some splendid heroic deed that should cover her +grandmother with shame at the memory of the way she had misunderstood +and undervalued her descendant. The house would be on fire some day, and +Val would "save all their lives"; or a robber would get in in the night, +and by a series of thrilling adventures Val would entrap and lock him up +in the closet under the stairs, where that silly old Jerusha said there +was a ghost; or the ancient nag that sometimes came from the +livery-stable to take her father and grandmother out for an airing--this +steed would unexpectedly run away some fine day. Val saw herself dashing +out of the bushes at the road-side, seizing the bit, and hanging on to +it till she brought the frantic animal to a stand-still. Then her +grandmother would say: "Dear, brave child, we owe you our lives," etc. +"How I've misunderstood you!" etc. Val would be magnanimous, and forgive +everything. She had a fixed intention of saying in reply: "Gran'ma, let +the dead past bury its dead." Her grandmother would feel that. But until +that day came, how was she to endure all this injustice and oppression? +Emmie was her grandmother's--well, she took Emmie's word about +everything, and Emmie counted on that. She didn't play fair, and she was +an awful cry-baby; couldn't climb trees, or even run hard without +falling down and hurting herself and saying it was Val's fault. Then for +the rest of the day her grandmother would treat Val like an outcast, and +dock her of Jerry's society. How sickening it was to be told Emmie was +the littlest, and delicate! Val herself had at one time been "only six," +but she hadn't been a sniveller; she had always played fair and never +cried. Ask anybody. They'd all say Val Gano _never_ cried. Whereupon she +would steal away to the wood-shed, or climb up high in the +catalpa-tree, remind herself she had no mother, shed a private tear or +two, and tell herself a story. + +After all, the only serious blemishes in the scheme of creation were +grandmothers and Sundays. Now that Val had renounced religion, she could +not but look on the day of rest as an interruption and a time of +bondage, when grandmothers and grandmothers' views pervaded creation to +creation's cost. + +On the third Sunday after the arrival at New Plymouth she announced that +she was not going to church. + +"I don't want to, either," whispered Emmie. "Let's pertend we're very +ill." + +"No; let's just say we won't go." + +"Better not," admonished the cautious Emmie. "I think my throat is going +to be sore." + +So Emmie was duly cosseted by Aunt Jerusha, and given delicious +black-currant jelly. + +Mrs. Gano, hearing rumors of rebellion, had sent for Val. She was +dressed and sitting in the big arm-chair before the fire with a book on +her knees. It was quite warm, but she couldn't apparently do without a +fire and a shawl. She was seldom seen about the house in these days +without a shawl. She must have had hundreds--white and black and gray, +striped and dotted; silk, cashmere, canton-crepe. Her gowns all seemed +to be made of rusty black silk. They were so exactly alike that Val +thought for long she had but one. There was always, too, the inevitable +and spotless lawn at the throat; no frivolous ruffle or after-thought of +tie--nothing set on, extraneous, but smooth white folds that seemed to +grow up out of the dress--an integral part of the plain and changeless +uniform that was the outward and visible sign of one's grandmother's +severe, uncompromising spirit. + +"What's this I hear? Why are you not dressing for church?" + +"I--I don't feel like going to-day." + +"Are you not well?" + +"Ho yes"--very contemptuous. "I never get ill." + +"Then you must go to church. It's the custom in this house." + +"Venie says _you_ go only twice a year. I'll go when you do." + +The old lady's eyes blazed behind her gold spectacles. + +"You'll go when you are told." Awful pause. "When you are my age you may +suit yourself." + +"Father hasn't had to wait all that time; he doesn't go now." + +"Your father is very ill." + +"Didn't go when he was well; that is, _hardly_ ever," added the explicit +young person. + +"He went regularly as a boy, before he had a house of his own. But I'm +not accustomed to arguing with children. Go and get dressed." + +Val wavered a moment, then faced about gravely. She planted herself +before the old lady, with the wide-apart legs and tense look of one who +braces herself to bear the crack of doom. + +"I'm sorry to hurt your feelings," she said; "but I'm a infidel." + +"What!" + +"Yes; father and I are both infidels." + +"Hush! you don't know what you're saying." + +"Oh yes, I do. He says, 'Damn it!' when you're not there." + +"How dare you!" + +"I don't, but father does, so you see--" + +"I see that you talk wildly and ignorantly, as well as too much. Go and +dress for church." + +She had half risen, her eyebrows had risen wholly. She looked singularly +alarming. Val retreated backwards to the door, and Mrs. Gano resumed her +seat. + +"I ain't so igorunt as you think," the child persisted. "The reason I +stopped going to church was because my conscience wouldn't let me join +in." + +Mrs. Gano turned and looked at the child over the back of her +arm-chair. There was a gleam of amused tolerance in the steely eyes. Val +was quick to detect it. + +"You see, it's not worth while to waste the whole morning nearly when +the only thing you can join in is a piece they don't do every Sunday." + +"Which is that?" asked Mrs. Gano, in an odd voice. + +She had turned away again, and Val couldn't see her face now. + +"That long piece about the weather." + +"The _weather_?" + +"Yes--lightnings, and whales, and things. Don't you know that one? It's +like this." She put her hands behind her, and shrilly intoned: "'O ye +green things, angels and fowls of the air, praise Him and magnify Him +for-r-rever. O ye--'" + +"That will do," interrupted Mrs. Gano, in a stifled voice. + +Val felt snubbed; there was a lot more that, with encouragement, she +would have endeavored to do justice to. She felt for the door-handle, +but paused again on the threshold. + +"Mayn't I go and sit with father?" + +"Certainly not; you are to go to church." + +"Gran'ma." There was a renewal of courage in the clear little voice. +With a bound she planted herself in front of the old lady's chair. "I +_oughtn't_ to go. It's pertending; it's wicked. For I can't say the 'I +b'lieve' any more." + +Mrs. Gano rose in her wrath and towered. Val stood to her guns, looking +up with determined, excited face. + +"I used to join in when I was younger: I used to bow, just like mother. +Father never bowed. _I_ don't any more, neither." + +Mrs. Gano seized her by the shoulder and propelled her to the door. Wild +thoughts of dungeons and burned martyrs flew through the child's mind. +Still clutching the infidel, Mrs. Gano opened the door. In an awful +voice she called: + +"Jerusha! Venus!" + +Venus appeared with perturbed countenance, out of which all genial +companionableness had fled. Yes, that was the kind of face an +executioner might wear. + +"Take Miss Val up-stairs and get her ready for church." + +Venus took hold of the child none too gently, and pulled her, wriggling +vainly, up the long staircase. It was no use to cling feverishly to the +banisters; it only hurt her hands. Half-way up Venus stopped for breath. +Val looked back to see if her grandmother was still there. Yes; leaning +exhausted against the frame of the door, with her handkerchief to her +lips. Now Venus was dragging her on again. In a fresh access of rage the +child put her chin over the banisters and screamed: + +"All the time they're doing the 'I b'lieve,' I shall go like this." She +shook her head with such passionate dissent that her shock of wild hair +swirled madly back and forth in a cloudy circle, completely hiding the +mutinous, flushed face of the infidel. + +Very soon after the formal removal of Emmie and her effects to her +grandmother's bedroom, Val gave up the last lingering shred of hope that +she might ever, while these misunderstood days of childhood lasted, +propitiate the powers that be. She was always feeding her imagination in +secret with stories of the ultimate love and adoration, not only of the +suitors and heroes who should line her path later on, but of her family, +too. They and the entire community should adore her one day for +something wonderful and noble that she was going to be and to do in that +fair future when she should be grown up and great and good. + +Meanwhile there were moments when this sense of present outlawry brought +with it a fierce and splendid joy. It endowed even a down-trodden child +with a superhuman courage. Such a one might even go and plump herself +down in the great red chair of state, and rock violently back and forth +in a wild abandonment of wickedness, while Emmie stood transfixed and +gran'ma's awful eyes made lightning. An outlaw so brave, she could +narrate unmoved that she had taken a ride in the milkman's cart. And he +had been "so perlite as to ask me how was Grandmother Gano." This +horrible insult on the part of the milkman was duly punished, but Val +had a momentary sense of having "got even." In the South--in any +civilized community, Mrs. Gano would have told you--you did not call +people "old"; it had foolishly enough come to be a term of reproach, or +at least of scant respect, fit only for "any old thing" of no account. +Therefore, let alone the "owdacious" familiarity of asking after a lady +as "Grandmother" So-and-so, you couldn't even with decency distinguish +the elder lady from her daughter-in-law by asking after old Mrs. +So-and-so. In the South, where manners were still understood, you said +"senior" and "junior," or, among the better class, you called the son's +wife "Mrs." So-and-so, and you called the head of the family "Madam." + +"Grandmother Gano, indeed! I'll grandmother him!" + +It was a great score, too, when Julia Otway, Jerry's nearly two years +older sister, assured Val that that common term of reproach "Grannie," +was a corruption of the ancient and honorable title Gran'ma. Inseparably +associating the word with the drunken rag-picker, "Ole Granny Gill," and +the scathing juvenile satire, "Teach your granny to suck eggs," etc., +Val determined on the next provocation to introduce the subject at home. +She found occasion to dilate on the virtues of Julia Otway's +grandmother. This was a shrunken and timid old lady, who sat unnoticed +in the corner, clicking her knitting-needles, and usually saying +nothing. When she did speak it was found her speech was odd, and the +children laughed. + +"Nearly everybody else's gran'ma knits stockens," Val observed one day, +with critical eyes on the eternal book open on Mrs. Gano's knees. + +"You know very few grandmothers," said the lady. + +"I know Julia's. She's _so_ nice. I don't wonder Julia and Jerry like +her." + +This elicited nothing. + +"She's the _kindest_ person. She keeps a little chest o' drawers +chock-full o' doughnuts and winter-green candy." + +"Very strange use for a chest of drawers. Is the lady right in her +head?" + +Val, very indignant: "Goodness gracious! mercy me! I should think so!" + +"I've told you not to use those exclamations." + +"No, you didn't say--" + +"Do I understand you to be contradicting me?" + +"You said I wasn't to say 'Oh, Lord!' nor 'Gee-rusa-lem!' nor 'Dear me +suz!' nor 'Holy Moses!' I don't see what there's left to say." + +"I said let your speech be 'Yea, yea,' and 'Nay, nay.' You are not to +bring sacred names into common talk. The Jews of old had a proper +instinct for these things. They never uttered the name of Jehovah even +in prayer. No Jew would step upon a piece of parchment, for fear it +might be inscribed with the name of God. It is impious to call upon the +mercy of the Most High on trivial occasions." + +"I don't call on Him--never." + +"Yes, you do, when you use those expressions. God is 'gracious'; He +alone is 'goodness.'" + +Silence; then Val, recovering and returning to the attack: + +"Jerry's grandmother--" + +"Jerningham Otway's grandmother knows as well as I do that this is a +turbulent and stiff-necked generation, without fear of God or reverence +for authority. _Her_ remedy seems to be effacement for herself and +bribes for her young barbarians. But"--she had risen, and was +towering--"I'd have you know, my lady, _I'm_ not a doughnut +grandmother." + +Val thought it time to depart. She moved briskly to the door, sending +over her shoulder a Parthian shot: + +"Julia calls her gran'ma "Granny," and so do lots o' people. It seems +it's the reg'lar name." + +Thereupon she took to her heels, for even outlaws know limits. + +At a safe distance she would speculate darkly: "I wonder if she knows I +hate her. Oh yes; it would be a waste of breath to mention it. She +knows, and she doesn't care--she's that hardened." + +It was clear at such times that this Ishmaelite's hand must be against +every man, and every man's hand against her. All consideration of decent +restraint had been flung to the winds. She had turned her back on the +hallowed customs of society, and joined the iconoclasts of earth. She +would even at times plant her elbows on the dinner-table before +everybody, with a wild, despairing sense that nothing mattered forever +any more. Nobody loved her. Even her father didn't want her about him +since his relapse. He said she came in like a whirlwind on the rare +occasions when she was admitted to his room. She should never forget +that day when he said: "Why can't you be quiet and good like Emmie?" +_Like Emmie!_ Val fled to the wilderness, and in the neighborhood of the +barberry-bush flung out her arms and apostrophized the heavens. She +talked a great deal to herself in those days--arraigned society, and +used long words with vague meaning, but studied accent and overwhelming +effect. However, in spite of the difficulty of life, Val found it an +exhaustless mine of interest. Being naughty alone was full of +palpitating excitement. Besides, she was much better than her family +realized; that of itself was curious, and at times sufficient. At any +rate, she was not, as she frequently observed to the scarlet +barberries--she was not a sniveller. Fortunately, it did not occur to +her that the circumstance might be less creditable to her than she +fondly imagined. + +Her quarrel with domestic conditions lent a fine tragic interest, in her +own mind, to a life that was deep-rooted in joy. It was impossible not +to be happy, such a splendid world as it was--a world with +skipping-ropes and a stolen jack-knife in it; a world where an awful +jolly boy lived on the other side the osage-trees, and liked you better +than that favorite of fortune who had a pet monkey; a world with wild +tracts below its terraces where grandmothers ceased from troubling, and +hard-pressed heroines could hide and talk out loud. A new house +building in the next lot, with ceilings open to the sky, and instead of +common floors, great beams where a child who "never was 'fraid" could +walk up and down with its heart in its mouth; blocks to be picked up, +and a kind workman to talk to when it was cold and gran'ma wasn't +patrolling the north side of the Fort. Even for rainy afternoons there +were the beloved _Scottish Chiefs_; there were jack-stones, and a family +next door who owned a barn. Oh, a _splendid_ world, where you got twelve +winter-green drops for a cent, and could play on your father's fiddle in +the back hall! Hooray! it was a good plan this being born. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +One peculiarity of life at the Fort was that although visitors in +general were in high disfavor, everybody, from Mrs. Gano down to +Jerusha--especially Jerusha--was always hoping for a visit from cousin +Ethan. And he never came. The last vacation before Val's arrival Emmie +said he had had to go with the Tallmadges to Bar Harbor. This June he +couldn't come, because his aunt Hannah had died, and his grandfather was +alone; but he thought he might come "later on." Now that the maples were +scarlet and gold, he wrote regretfully, saying that, after all, he had +to go back to Harvard without any holiday. He sent his love to his +cousins, and the annual photograph--which she had commanded to be taken +each year--to his grandmother. She had a row of them on the mantel-piece +in her room. When the new one came like a falling leaf each autumn, she +spent anxious days deciding which of the old ones should go in a drawer +to make room for the latest. There were three that never yielded to any +new-comer, however beguiling. Ethan's cousins, it must be admitted, who +were ardent admirers of the more recent pictures, thought little enough +of Mrs. Gano's favorite three. + +The first was of a child about three years old in his night-gown--a +dreamy little face framed in a halo of curling hair. Yes; it was more +like an angel than a flesh-and-blood boy, but it was yellowed and faded, +and not taken at an interesting age, so his two cousins thought. + +The next was a very solemn little chap with a tiny pail in his hand, +dressed in a kilt, and wearing a wide white collar, seeming to labor +hopelessly with a wooden spade in a world of unmitigated woe. + +The third had been taken in Paris with his school friend Henri de +Poincy, and he had on "funny French clothes," but he held his slender +figure very easily erect, and without seeming to remember he was having +his photograph taken. He had written from Neuilly to his grandmother: + +"I always think of my summer at the Fort when I go to have your picture +done." + +If that were the case, this time the remembrance must have been a +gracious one, for his dark little face was lit, expectant, beautiful. + +"Why did he go to France?" Val had asked. + +"Oh, some nonsense about accent, as if the only accent to be considered +was the French." Mrs. Gano threw back her head. "And then a cousin of +the Tallmadges married a Frenchman, a man called De Poincy. The mother +died, and left a boy--" + +"That awful little ape in the pho-- I mean Henri?" + +"Yes; Henri, a _very_ nice boy." + +Mrs. Gano would not have prolonged the conversation, but Emmie said: + +"I'm sure he's nice. Cousin Ethan's letters always say beautiful things +about Henri. _Do_ go on." + +"I've told you scores of times." + +As if that were not the flimsiest reason for not repeating a stock tale, +half of whose charm is its familiarity. + +"Didn't cousin Ethan find Henri at the Tallmadges' when he got back?" + +"Yes, after that summer he spent here." The old eyes were mild. "And +although Henri was a couple of years older, the two boys set up a sort +of David and Jonathan league. And when Henri's father sent for him to +come back to France--they said--humph!" + +The mildness vanished in a sudden blaze. + +"What did they say?" + +Again Mrs. Gano threw back her head. + +"Ethan _had_ been coming here. We had his room all ready for him, and +Valeria had bought pink wax-candles for his dressing-table--a most +unnecessary extravagance for a boy, as I told her. And as for Jerusha, +she wasted half her mornings brightening up Ethan's knocker on the front +door, and the rest of the time she was making cinnamon rolls. And, after +all--humph!" she said, with something rather near to a snort. + +"Then those Tallmadges wrote, didn't they?" said Emmie, gently applying +the spur. + +"Ho, yes, the Tallmadges wrote. The children were heart-broken at the +idea of separating, and so they had to let Ethan go to Neuilly with the +De Poincy boy." + +"To improve his accent!" added Emmie, with borrowed scorn. + +"Oh yes; I admitted in my reply that Ethan's accent was no doubt again +in need of improvement, but it had not been necessary to send him so far +afield as France." + +"How long did he stay?" asked Val. + +"Three years. He came back the summer you were born. He was nearly ten." + +"Well, it's a good thing he came back. He does look a gump in those +French clo's--I mean"--Val caught herself up hurriedly, seeing how +unpopular the observation was--"I mean, I like him best in proper +American things. This last picture's scrumptious!" + +After this, it was not only gran'ma and An' Jerusha who held the Fort in +readiness for Ethan's coming, eager to capitulate at the first blow on +the door; but two little girls as well, in their different ways, set +their faces towards the day when E. Gano's big brass knocker should be +lifted by E. Gano's own hand. + +School had been postponed, partly because Mrs. Gano was too anxious +about her son's health, and too absorbed in the task of convincing him +indirectly that life was worth living, to take the necessary steps for +entering her granddaughter in the Primary Department of the Plymouth +Seminary for Young Ladies. But, besides this preoccupation, it was +recognized that the fall term was already far advanced, and it might be +as well--it was certainly more economical--to wait till after Christmas. +However, the growing discomfort and complication of having so +objectionable a child about hastened the beginning of Val's school days. + +With great misgiving, and full of suspicion, Val took her place at a +little hacked and initialed desk in the down-stairs school one fine day +towards the middle of November. + +But we are forever being disappointed of our direst fears, as well as of +our dearest hopes. She found that she soon got the "hang" of the +lessons; that her next-door neighbor, Julia Otway, was the nicest girl +in school, and very soon her "best friend"; that Val herself could run +faster than anybody in the games at recess; and that she had fallen +blissfully under the spell of pretty Miss Matson, the primary teacher, +who, strange to say, seemed to like Val. + +The bustling life at the Plymouth Seminary for Young Ladies, full, +varied, delightful, would perhaps be considered by the professional +biographer of vital importance in moulding a young person's character; +for was this not the time and the place of her education? One is +inclined, in Val's case, at any rate, to say no. She learned by rote, at +that excellent institution, certain more or less useful things, and, +more important still, she made two or three dear friends, who taught her +much of value about the human heart; but for the most part she was +_educated_ at home. There, and not at school, she, in common with many +young people, found the influences that made her what she ultimately +became. + +Her father, if he understood the matter so, naturally did not so express +himself. Perhaps he thought this child of his had too little of the Gano +love of books, and was over-fond of running breathless races, and +playing ball with the neighbor's boy. + +"You came here to go to school, you know. You've played all your life up +to this. Now you must begin to work. This is a very important time in +your life." + +"Is it?" + +Val sat up very straight, with shining eyes and an air of pleased +responsibility. + +"Oh, very important, indeed. For now you have still time to decide what +kind of a woman you're going to make of Val Gano." + +"Oh, have I?" + +He nodded. + +"You can make up your mind you won't be a dull, ignorant person, all +your life bound in shallows and in miseries." + +"No, indeed," she said, with vigor. + +"It's in your power now to take the necessary steps towards some better +fate. By-and-by it will be too late: you'll be like the crooked catalpa +in the terrace, grown awry and too old to straighten out." + +"No, I shall be like the tulipifera rhododendron." + +He laughed. + +"You are ambitious, my dear"; and then he sighed. "Few come up to +tulipifera. Now, I am far enough from being a rich man, and I can't give +my daughters a fortune; but I can give them something far more +valuable." + +"Now?" + +"Yes, I've begun giving it. I mean an education." + +"Oh!" + +This was a blow. + +"See that you make the most of it. It will put a key in your hands that +can unlock a hundred doors to happiness. I am doing with you--only a +little more helpfully perhaps--what the Swedish peasant did with his +eldest son." + +"What did he do?" + +"He took the boy up to the top of the highest hill in the country, and +said, 'You are young, my son, but I am about to give you your +inheritance. Look abroad'--and he stretched out his arms--'behold, I +give you the world! Go forth and take what portion you will.'" + +Val drew a quick breath. + +"Ha! I know what _I_ want." + +"What do you think you want, little girl?" + +"I want to be loved--oh, but tremendously! And I want to do some one +thing awfully, awfully well." + +It was the most old-fashioned, unchildlike speech of which Val had ever +delivered herself. + +"Well, my dear," her father spoke, dreamily, "to be greatly loved, and +to do well some one piece of work, isn't a bad destiny. Older heads than +yours would be at a loss to better it." + +Even to her father, even in that moment of great outgoing, she had not +liked to particularize what it was she wanted to do so "awfully, awfully +well." But there was no doubt in her own mind that she was going to be a +dancer. She practised every rainy day, and sometimes when it didn't +rain, down in the dark parlor, where it smelt so solemn and musty. There +was a huge oil-painting on the north wall, of Daniel Boone and his dogs +and other friends "Discovering Kentucky." Although their eyes were +turned ever towards "the dark and bloody ground," they were Val's +audience. To the burly hunter and his raccoon-capped and shaggy +companions she bowed and pirouetted, waved her arms and tossed her +heels. She did not dare touch the old rosewood piano after one or two +rapturous attacks upon the yellow keys had brought swift retribution out +of her grandmother's chamber; but dancing was not only a glorious and +heady excitement, but, unlike most of this young person's pastimes, it +was noiseless; it could be carried on by the hour without rousing any +one's suspicions, unless perchance a vague uneasiness as to "what keeps +that child so quiet." When discovered, she was usually found to be +breathlessly examining the gilt-edged annuals and gift-books on the +centre table, or else staring into the "stereopticon," though what view +was visible in that dim light remained a marvel. + +Perhaps the most memorable crisis of her childhood had found her in the +twilight of that musty parlor. It was a pale-gray, teeming spring +morning, after a night of rain--Saturday, and yet she had been forbidden +to go and see her friends next door. + +"When _I_ was a little girl I didn't live at the neighbors'." + +Val had been learning lessons, perched in the high window-seat of her +own room, looking out now and then with a glad sense of coming summer to +the early red of maple blossoms, and off to the blue Mioto Hills, that +rose on the other side the river, shutting in her world. Presently, down +below the rain-soaked terraces, in Mioto Avenue, a street-organ began to +play. + +She dropped her book and leaned farther out. A watery gleam of sunshine +fell on the warm, dripping world. The smell of earth came up fresh, and +full of a mysterious promise. The "grind-organ," as the children called +it, sang and clanged. Val beat the swift time with her fist on the stone +sill, and her dangling feet moved staccato to the tune. She half closed +her eyes. Ah! now she could see better. She was gliding through a +brilliant scene at a ball. She was just sixteen, and dressed in blue and +silver, and there was a throng about her--all lovers! There were no +women, save those that looked enviously on from a far background of +flower-festooned wall. The faces near the blue-and-silver maiden were +chiefly strange, but all noble and beautiful. All these the generous +future would provide, but one or two she recognized as having followed +her out of the present. There was cousin Ethan as he looked in the last +picture, Jerry--and, well in the foreground, Jerry's handsome elder +brother, and certain other less-known young townsmen not to be spared +from the gay group of gallants; but they were destined, every man Jack +of them, to break their faithful hearts. She smiled and waved her +geography--her fan, of course--and each young gentleman took courage. +But wait! In a minute she would be carried off by the tall, dark, +fierce-eyed hero, who lived somewhere--somewhere--not in ballrooms, +except as the eagle may swoop into the valley--not in cities, but in +some mountain fastness in the kingdom at the end of the world. + +Many a time she had wondered how they were to meet, how he was ever to +know that she lived with a cruel grandmother in New Plymouth. Ha! now it +was plain. The organ had ground out the truth. She would run away +by-and-by. He would see her somewhere dancing, and he would say +"Eureka!" "Ah!" she would say, "but I'm half engaged to my next-door +neighbor, or to the Duke of Daffy-down-dilly." "What does that matter to +me?" Whiff! he would carry her off, and say she should love him, whether +she liked it or not. Oh, it was wonderful!--it was palpitating to lie in +the dark, or in the pale spring sunshine, with shut eyes, and think +about this king of men, who would not be denied. Val couldn't remember a +time when she had not told herself stories with this fruitful theme for +inspiration. The proud, dark figure had come dimly out of the fairy +world, and had grown more human and distinct day by day. He began by +being a prince, and for some years he wore a gold-embroidered velvet +robe. By degrees he adopted a less and less striking attire, which, +however, had never yet degenerated into mere modern evening dress. The +noble gentleman could not be expected to put off his romantic melancholy +along with his royal robes, for a large part of the excitement of this +game of the imagination lay in the lady's proud rejection of his suit, +and flight from the fortress where he thought to hide her--his hot +pursuit--his being baffled, disappointed, and reduced to wild despair +before his ultimate victory. And this final triumph (oh, strong survival +of the savage in the female breast!) was invariably a triumph of arms. +Not even to a hero who was handsome, and tall, and strong as a giant; +not even to a hero half bandit, half blameless knight, that every other +girl in the world pined for, that every man envied and must needs +honor--not even to such a one will the untutored dreamer yield herself a +willing bride. A willing bride! The very phrase offends some ancient +canon fixed against self-abandonment in the very blood and bone of +womankind. + +Can it be that in the ages unrecorded, before men going hence left +behind them laws on stone, or testament on papyrus, the women of that +far-off time had inscribed a legend on the hearts of all their sex, +graved it so deep and plain that a little girl of the nineteenth +century (casting about for stories to send herself to sleep) may read it +in the dark after all those aeons have gone by? Can it be that, reading +and understanding this language, which being dead yet speaketh, knowing +the ancient mother-tongue better even than her father's own, she takes +the legend for a text, obeys it as a natural law, and thrills to it as +did her old ancestress of the cave and tent, smiling covertly, and +deliciously afraid? + +The fresh wind blew the child's wild hair across her face; the sun shone +down more golden; the organ jangled through its tunes. Now, with a jerk +of restlessness, it abandoned "Il Trovatore" and struck into a waltz. +Ha! the window-seat was too cramped. She slid down and began to dance. +Gran'ma's voice. The little girl stopped suddenly, opened the door, and +went sedately down-stairs, with her lesson books conspicuously in +evidence. At the bottom she stopped and listened. Cautiously she opened +the parlor door and closed it behind her. She flung her books down and +coursed wildly round the centre table, as one sees a dog just let out of +the kennel celebrate his liberty. Suddenly she stopped and bowed +solemnly to Daniel Boone, saying under her breath: + +"Now I'm the greatest dancer on the earth. Now they're all applauding. +Now I make three courtesies. They clap and clap till I begin again. This +is the most wonderful dance of all." + +She started afresh, curving her arms above her head, fantasticating +steps, some graceful, some grotesque, whirling faster and faster to the +rhythm that was beating in her brain. Suddenly a dark face looked out of +the throng in that theatre of her imagination, and she knew it was the +face of her fate. There was the Duke of Daffy-down-dilly, too, leaning +out of a box and applauding as hard as he could. The dark man sat quite +still, but his eyes gleamed. + +After the last great dance, which was called "The Filigree Finale" (all +the dances had beautiful names), the Duke threw her a bouquet of roses, +and held out his arms. + +"I spurn the flowers." She kicked out a scornful foot. "I turn my back. +Oh, it's _deafening_ the way they're applauding!" + +Suddenly, in the heartless process of dancing away from plaudits and a +duke, she stopped short as if she had been shot. The color fled out of +her face, and her thin hands dropped limp at her side. There was a kind +of terror in her eyes as presently she moved forward, dragging her +wings, so to speak, to the opposite end of the room, where, over a +marble-top table, an old-fashioned mirror reflected Daniel Boone. The +child peered into the glass, but it was dark, and the marble-top table +held her at arm's-length. She could only see dimly the top of her head. +She dropped down in a miserable little heap between the claw feet of the +table. Perhaps she alone of all the heroines of earth was not, never +could be, beautiful! It had never occurred to her before. A thousand +recollections seemed to rush at her at once to fasten the fear in her +heart, to make it hideous certainty. If she had been going to be +beautiful, would not some one have mentioned it? Emmie had heard a +thousand times how pretty she was. Cousin Ethan was known to be the most +beautiful of boys. As to Val's looks, why, she was so little a credit to +a handsome race that nobody could be got to own her. Hadn't her mother +said, "Emmie is like me; but Val--I suppose she's more like you"? and +her father had hurriedly disclaimed the faintest resemblance between his +eldest daughter and himself. Her grandmother had said: "You are not like +my side of the house, and I don't see a trace of the Gano in you. I'm +sure I don't know where you came from." Ah, it was clear she had not +referred to mere wickedness. She was repudiating her descendant's +plainness. The child put her hands over her face. But it was incredible +that this blow at the root of joy was meant for her. She dropped her +hands, taking heart of grace. Katie O'Flynn, the cook in New York, had +said, in some interval of truce, that Val had "rale Oirish oyes," and +she had said it with no accent of condolence. If only she hadn't added, +"They're put in wid smutty fingers, me darlint!" Even at the time Val +had felt the last remark tactless, and had changed the subject, but +now-- + +"Oirish oyes!" It was meant well, but it had a horribly common sound. It +was another way of saying, "You look like the cook." And yet--and yet no +one had ever cared so much about being beautiful before. She would have +submitted gladly to letting those "rale Oirish oyes" be torn out and the +poor quivering little body be hacked in pieces if only it might be put +together in a truer harmony. But there _were_ ugly people in the world, +who began ugly, and went on being ugly to the bitter end. How had she +come to take it so for granted that beauty belonged to her as a right? +There was Miss Tibbs, who lived near by in Mioto Avenue. Think of being +like that! with taily hair, and little, little eyes, and teeth that-- +No! no! no! She struggled to her feet, storming up into the high +window-seat, and straining till she opened the near window, and could +force back the heavy shutter, letting in a flood of light. But it was +not the sudden glory of the day that made the child blink and draw back +so suddenly. Miss Tibbs was passing the gate. + +"Good-morning," said that lady, looking more appalling than ever. + +"It's like that--like that I'll be," thought the child, tumbling to the +ground. + +Feverishly she swept the card-basket and the books off the table. Then, +drawing up a chair, she climbed up on it, clinching her teeth and +setting her jaws to bear the shock that perhaps awaited her. And still +there was hope in her heart as she leaned forward on the marble top and +looked into the mottled glass with imploring eyes. Slowly the tears +gathered. In mute agony she turned away, climbed off the table, and hung +limp over the back of the chair. + +"Oh, God, I'm ugly!" she said, and clung there with shut, hot eyes. The +moments passed. "I can't bear it, God. Let me die!" + +The strained voice was muffled in her clinched little jaws, and with +her fists she beat helplessly on the back of the old-fashioned chair. +Presently she slipped down to the floor, and wandered aimless about the +room. When she came near the glass again she glanced with a sharp +conviction of intolerable shame at the top of a shaggy head, which was +all that she could see. Even that was too much. She flew to the window +and drew the shutters to, feeling she should never be able to bear the +light again. + +"What did You make me for?" she cried, arrested an angry instant, facing +sharply about, as though confronting an enemy. "I didn't want to come if +I had to be ugly!" She slid down off the window-seat, and walked quickly +to and fro with rising anger. "It would have been so easy, too, for +_You_. Just think what it means to me!" She stopped and looked +heavenward. The "Oirish oyes" were blazing. "I should think You'd prefer +things pretty for yourself. But if You don't, why do You go and spoil it +all for me?" And so on, in frantic young fashion, she beat her wings +against the old prison-house. For between the origin of evil and the +origin of ugliness there is no great gulf fixed in the female mind. + +Looking back long afterwards on this hour of anguish, she could not +laugh, as philosophic grown-up folk are pleased to do, at the sorrows of +childhood. She knew that that morning in the musty parlor was one of the +bitterest experiences life had brought her, simply because it had come +to her as a child, for whom beauty was as yet a conventional physical +perfection, and not the high soul of things. + +After the one-o'clock dinner, she had shaken Emmie off, and gone out to +walk up and down in the warm wind behind the house. She had come out +bareheaded, and her shock of wild hair was blown about almost as if some +one were saying the "I b'lieve," and the Windgeist, or some other "der +stets verneint," had borrowed Val's form of dissent. + +She was a thin slip of a girl, and no one seeing her would have much +wondered that this young worshipper of obvious red-cheeked, dimpled, +yellow-haired, picture-book beauty, had been bitterly disappointed with +the thin little face, its irregular lines and faint coloring, the +good-sized mouth in lieu of the heroine's puckered rosebud, the tawny no +color, all colors, hair, that merely waved distractingly instead of +curling; the black eyebrows and lashes, too well defined--yes, "smutty"; +the long, deep-set gray eyes, that no wishing could make blue before the +glass, but that sometimes, out in the sunshine, changed to turquoise, +and sometimes in the dusk or lamplight were limpid, gleaming black. + +"Hello!" said Jerry, through the osage-trees. + +"Hello!" + +"What's the matter?" + +"Nothing." + +"Been getting it?" + +"Don't be an idiot!" + +"Come and fish!" + +"Can't." + +"Does Mrs. Gano make you stay here?" + +"She can't _make_ me do anything." + +"Then come. I'm going to Bentley's Pond." + +Val wavered. She might fish even if she was ugly. In fact, as she came +to think of it, it was one of the few things left to do--that and +disobeying gran'ma. + +"All right; wait a minute." + +She went in-doors for her hat. A sense of returning life came warmly +over her. She could still fish. Fishing alone was a career. She had a +panoramic glimpse of herself through the future years--fishing morning, +noon, and night; in all weathers and in every clime; as a young lady, +fishing; fishing as a woman; as an old bent crone, still +fishing--fishing forever and forever, her head tied up in a veil. She +planted a Tam o' Shanter on her wind-blown hair, thinking: "I won't +begin with a veil to-day. I don't mind Jerry--he's ugly, too." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Close as was her relationship with her father, there was more than one +thing she never told him. She never spoke of her grandmother's +brutality. She sympathized with him silently for having such a mother, +and felt that they were fellow-sufferers under her iron rule. Did she +not make him, too, do things he didn't want to do--make him go out and +walk when he preferred to sit still, reprove him for trying his eyes by +the waning light, and even at times pass severe strictures on his +clothes and his opinions? He was much better and stronger after a couple +of quiet years at the Fort; but it was cruel of her grandmother to speak +in that way about his "yielding to lassitude and inertia," and hint that +he was "quite as well now as many of the men who were carrying on the +work of the world." + +"Health," she would say, "is a comparative term. No one is perfectly +healthy, any more than any one is perfectly good." + +But this innocent-sounding platitude was evidently annoying to John +Gano. It was after one of these painful talks about his rousing himself +(of which Val heard only the concluding phrases) that he had tried to +get back into the bank. It wasn't his fault that Mr. Otway couldn't make +an opening for him. John Gano had even been urged into making visits to +Cincinnati and New York to see if he could find something. He came back +from these quests depressed and ill, not mentioning in Val's hearing +having found anything but an unusually fine specimen of the _Ardea +herodias_, or something of the sort, on the far Atlantic coast. But for +long after these expeditions he would talk vehemently to his mother of +the fierce competition of the great cities, of the growing costliness +and cruelty of civilization, and speak darkly of the coming social +revolution, when the poor should learn their power. But Val realized, +and felt miserably certain her father realized, that Mrs. Gano did not +much concern herself with the large historic outlook, that she would +have preferred knowing her son had secured a clerkship, even under some +bloated bondholder, rather than hear that the doom of capital was nigh, +and that Henry George was revolutionizing opinion about the land-tax. + +But this particular difference of view was a delicate matter, not seemly +for a daughter to mention. Her father, being a kind of hero, of course +never complained; neither would Val. His sense of loyalty even led him +to excuse his mother when only her own misdeeds arraigned her, as when, +after Emmie began to go to school, she was allowed to stay at home +whenever she cried, whenever it rained, whenever she liked--and Val +never on any pretext whatsoever. + +"She thinks Emmie has a delicate chest, you see," her father had +explained. "You are such a hard little nut--no danger of your cracking." + +However, her grandmother, who seemed, oddly enough, to have some faint +glimmering of justice, appreciated Val's superiority in some things. If +she lost her spectacles, she would say to Emmie, hunting about with big +blind eyes: + +"You are good only at losing things, my dear. Call Val." + +Or if a parcel was to be tied up, or something carefully lifted down +from a height, she would trust Val rather than anybody in the house. +This recognition of deft-handedness, small claim on consideration as it +might seem, was still a balm to the child. She was wicked, she was +hideous, she was unloved, but she never broke things as did the adored +Emmie. No, Val was at least clever and quick in her movements; it might +not be much out of the wreck of a heroine, but it was something. One +other quality was admitted as time went on. If something questionable +happened in the house, something that had to be inquired into, it came +in time to be Val's privilege to be called in to give a faithful and +veracious account of it. Emmie was no keen observer, and she was prone +to spare other people's feelings if her own were not too much engaged. +Besides, Emmie had a high character to sustain; Val, having none, could +brace herself and tell the horrid truth, even about herself. One proud +day there was a great difference of opinion as to the exact +circumstances attending the breaking of one of the coffee-mugs of +great-grandfather Calvert's wonderful and priceless service of thin +white china with the broad gold key. It lived in the mahogany buffet, +and was washed once a year--_used_, never! Val was called in before the +assembled household to give her version, the summons being solemnly +prefaced by "I've never known you to tell me a lie." That was what made +it so proud a moment, in spite of the uneasy sense that the tribute was +not deserved. When Miss Brown had required the girls in her class to go +over the arithmetic lesson four times, no matter if they were sure they +had got the sums right at first, Val had instructed the entire +Preparatory Department to lay their books down on the ground and hop +across them. This might next morning be reported as "going over" the +sums as many times as Miss Brown liked. + +"You are superficial," Professor Dawson said, detaining Val one day +after the Latin lesson; "your oral translations are too often mere happy +guesses instead of accurate knowledge. You must spend three-quarters of +an hour at least on your Latin alone." + +After the first fifteen minutes' application in the evening at home, Val +would place her grammar and her little square red-edged Caesar on the +chair, and, sitting uneasily on them for the remainder of the prescribed +time, she would look at the pictures in Don Quixote, and read bits here +and there. But she might not have reported this as having "spent a whole +hour on Caesar," had she known that she was building up a reputation with +her grandmother for incorruptible truth. The commendation quickened +conscience. + +As time went on, it became apparent, too, that if Mrs. Gano loved her +more beautiful and amiable granddaughter the best, she took more +interest in the school-work of the elder child. She looked over the +lessons with what Val considered surprising understanding, helping her +more and more as time went on, and revealing unexpected possibilities in +topics hitherto barren. She scanned the reports with eagle eye, and gave +special attention the following week to the study that had had the least +satisfactory marks before. John Gano took only a broad general interest +in the result, but it came to seem that there was one person, at any +rate, to whom it mattered step by step if one did well or ill. _She_ +never forgot to inquire on Monday afternoon, "Have you the medal?" +although the usual "Yes, ma'am"--it must have been an easy +honor--elicited no further word. + +There was no surprise in Val's mind at overhearing a certain colloquy +between her grandmother and the Principal of the Seminary. A state visit +was made to the Fort once a term, and Miss Appleby was one of the few +people Mrs. Gano conceived it her duty to see. + +The Principal, as Val, playing "jack-stones" in the entry could faintly +hear, was complimenting Mrs. Gano rather fulsomely on the extreme and +wonderful cleverness of her grandchildren. Val could feel through the +wall how bored her grandmother was becoming. + +"I had to ask at the end of the last term," Miss Appleby's mincing +little voice went on, "if there was only one girl in the Preparatory +Department, since I seemed always to be giving the medal to Valeria +Gano. Ah, how proud--how _very_ proud you must be of your clever +grandchildren!" + +"No," said Mrs. Gano, "we expect these things of our children. If they +did not do them, then we might give the matter some thought." + +But Val wagged her head wisely and tossed the jack-stones in the air. +Even Emmie, with her weak chest, when she _did_ go to school, was +expected to come home wearing, on a narrow pink ribbon, the Primary +medal--a golden shield, with "No Pains, no Gains," graven on its face. +Val, being "Preparatory," now wore the one inscribed "Perseverantia +omnia vincit" on a ribbon of pale blue, that most adorable of shades. +Emmie loved green, but also bore with red; Val would have nothing of her +"very best," if she could help it, that was not blue. It was not that +she had quite recovered the shock of that discovery in the parlor +mirror, although she had made up her mind, not having read _Jane Eyre_, +that biographers rightly suppressed the fact that many a heroine had +been in childhood not only wicked, but ugly, too; it was not that she +realized then that blue was "her color," as the ladies say; but +something in her responded to the hue. It made her happy just to open +the drawer where her blue sash was kept. In visions of the future, she +had never in her life seen herself clothed in anything but pale blue. +Sometimes the satin was broidered with silver wheat, sometimes with +pearls, but the blueness of it never faded or lost favor. + +It was the rule of the house not to discuss the price of things. Money +was not mentioned, except in a wide impersonal way. It was difficult to +believe for a long time, but it came out by implication, that they were +poor; otherwise Emmie would never have begged in vain for the charming +green hat with plumes in Mrs. Crumbaker's millinery window. The "not +suitable for a little girl" was too thin an excuse; besides, +unsuitability could not be the ground of gran'ma's displeasure at the +purchase of a new microscope, after the shock of seeing what the amount +of her son's book bill was at the New Year. Very little was said on +these occasions, but Val was angrily conscious that her father was made +to feel uncomfortable. A grown man, and a hero to boot! It was strangely +short-sighted of him to let his mother keep his money for him--as +apparently he did--for he evidently didn't much relish asking for it, +and he might have learned from Val's experience that she didn't like you +to spend your pocket-money, except at long intervals, in miserable +driblets. There was only one occasion when her father seemed more +unwilling to open his purse than his mother did. It was when the +doctor's bill of two years' standing was left at the door. It was +addressed to John Gano, Esq., and when he opened it he said, +"Damnation!" + +Val, who was doing lessons in a far corner, nearly dropped her slate. +Mrs. Gano, instead of reproving her son roundly, looked over his +shoulder and said, quietly: + +"Very moderate indeed;" and she tried to take the paper out of his hand. + +But he got up hastily, and paced the long room with knitted brows. + +"I don't see how it's to be met," he said, presently. + +"No trouble about that," she answered, calmly; "I've written Mr. Otway I +wish to realize on some Baltima' and Ohio bonds." + +He turned sharply in his restless walk, and looked at her with curious +emotion. Then, quite low: + +"This is about the last of them, isn't it?" + +"Oh, there is my share of Valeria's still left." + +He turned away, and continued his walk. His mother watched him covertly. + +"The waste of it, the futility," he muttered, "bolstering up a wreck, +instead of launching new ships. The very savages are wiser. _They_ don't +stint the young to feed the useless, the dying." + +"Don't talk nonsense." + +She looked very angry. + +"It's the rotten place in civilization," he went on, with some +excitement--"skin-deep sentimentality, and a careless cruelty reaching +down to the core of things. Devices of every kind to keep the unfit +here, while the young and strong starve in the streets. Hospitals for +the hopeless, not even bread for the ambitious--" + +"Where is Emmeline?" interrupted Mrs. Gano, looking down the long room +towards Val. + +"I don't know." + +"Go and find her, and don't make her cry. I'll call you both when I want +you." + +The next time that Emmie wept because she couldn't have something she +saw in a store window, Val realized it was time that she should be taken +into her confidence. When they were alone: + +"Now, can you keep a famerly secret?" + +"Yes." + +"Cross your heart, and hope you may die if you ever tell." + +Emmie complied with these requirements. + +"Well, we're pore, all of us--gran'ma, too--awful, awful pore, and you +mustn't hurt their feelin's askin' for green hats and things." + +"'Tain't so. Gamma ain't pore." + +"I tell you she is." + +"Why"--Emmie laughed her silvery little laugh, and showed her small +white teeth bewitchingly--"she's got a ole hair-trunk full o' money." + +"_N-o-o-o!_" + +"Yes, she has. I found a dusty ten-dollar bill in the fat blue china +vase, and I 'minded her of it when she said she couldn't get me the red +cloak at Alexander's, you know." + +"Yes, yes, yes; what'd she say?" + +"Said the little trunk in the pack-room was full of bills like that, but +all the same, I couldn't have the red cloak at Alexander's; that's why I +_always_ cry when I see it"--Emmie wound up with the air of one who +takes a lawful pride in accomplishing a mission--"'cause with a trunk +full o' money there's no excuse." + +Here was news. Was she a miser, then? The very thought was enough to +make one spin with excitement, and the growing belief that it was so +kept Val "going," so to speak, for many a cheerful week. + +There came a day when, after taking oaths of the most binding and +blasphemous character, Julia Otway was let into the "famerly secret." + +She was obviously disappointed that all this preparation led up to so +little. + +"Why, every human bein' in Noo Plymouth knows your gran'ma's a miser. +My father says she was awful cute, sellin' out her negroes in the nick +o' time, and she came here with heaps o' money; but she don't trust much +of it to the bank, and she lives so close and never spends a cent, so o' +course she's got a hoard som'ers." + +Val was not pleased at the tone of this corroboration. The joy of having +a real live miser in the "famerly" was clouded. She determined not to +let her father be the only inhabitant of the town who was still in the +dark on a subject touching his comfort so closely. The next time they +were alone together she told him how much he was deceived as to the +"famerly's" finances. + +He laughed till the tears came into his eyes, and he fell to coughing, +and then his mother appeared with the inevitable bottle of tolu, +capsicum and paregoric, and compelled him, between his paroxysms of +amusement and choking, to swallow an extra large dose. + +When he told her the news, she laughed too, but a trifle grimly, and +turned on Val with: + +"I am surprised to hear that you discuss family affairs with the +neighbors. It's not a Gano habit." + +And she went back to her own room without vouchsafing the smallest +defence or explanation. But Val's father took her in his lap, and told +her a long consoling story, beginning, "In the year 18--" This +communication, bristling, as usual, with dates, was to the effect that +the "hidden hoard" was composed of worthless Confederate notes, and it +was just because they had that trunk full of money that they were poor. + +Nobody ever heard of a bill going unpaid or having to be presented twice +at Mrs. Gano's door; but Val was very conscious as time went on that her +"frocks," as her grandmother called dresses, were old and ugly and out +of fashion. They had been lengthened, and turned, and dyed, and when +they simply refused to hold together any longer, instead of getting a +new one like Julia Otway's, as she had dreamed, Val had the humiliation +year by year of wearing her way, moth-like, through her aunt Valeria's +entire antiquated wardrobe. There were all kinds of objections to +drawing on this family reserve. The things in themselves, to Val's eyes, +were hideous, _hideous_--bareges unpleasant to the touch and sight, ugly +reps, ancient bayadere silks and flowered organdies that tore if you +looked at them hard; and the inhabitants of New Plymouth looked at them +very hard indeed, and sometimes rubbed their eyes. Then, as if their +being so out of fashion were not cross enough, these fabrics were +fabulously precious to her grandmother's heart, and had to be worn, so +to speak, with fasting and prayer. Woe to Val if she spilt milk, or +dropped maple syrup, on Aunt Valeria's things, for these objectionable +garments never to the bitter end became Val's own. The dead woman seemed +to stretch a hand out of the grave to keep her hold on them, never for a +moment remitting her claim. Spoiling your own pretty blue sash, that +your mother had bought in New York, was naughty, but hurting anything of +Aunt Valeria's was a crime of darker hue. Each time a new garment was +required, Mrs. Gano, with set face and faltering hands, would open Aunt +Valeria's trunk, and, with the air of one dealing out purple and fine +linen, or like a monarch conferring orders of the Garter and the Cross, +she would say to the dark-browed child: + +"There! you shall have that!" + +And Val would perforce disguise as well as she could her loathing of the +gift. + +The child's passionate hatred of the ugly and uncouth was an unending +pain to her. She would shut her eyes tight as she passed old Mr. +Thompson, with his great wen, conscious of the same sensation of +sickness that would come over her at the malodorous neighborhood of a +dead cat. She would jerk her head away in the street as if she had been +struck when she met the idiot boy "Jake," more shaken and afraid than if +she had seen a ghost. She would grit her teeth morning after morning +with unabated rage and detestation as she put on a certain green poplin +of Aunt Valeria's, with its pattern of yellow ochre palms. There was +something about the sad and faded green of this frock, something about +the fat and filthy-colored palms, that made the wearer long to smash +everything within her reach. Some of Val's wildest misdeeds could have +been traced to that green poplin. While the abhorred garment held +together, even her pretty, slim bronze boots were powerless to cheer a +heart so deep bowed down. + +Emmie's clothes seemed never to wear out; it was part of her almost +invariable advantage over Val. Mrs. Gano more than once pointed out that +Val succeeded in working her toes through three pairs of boots while +Emmie was carefully wearing one. + +"Emmie isn't the captain at prisoner's base," the accused would say, in +self-defence, "and she doesn't walk miles and miles with father on +Sunday afternoons." + +Val was very proud of these same walks, even if the conversation did +usually begin with: + +"Now that you are learning history, no doubt you can tell me what was +happening in Paris 273 years ago to-day?" or, "This is the anniversary +of a battle that settled the fate of an empire; of course you remember," +etc.; or that less easily eluded form: "Whose birthday is this?" And +while the child, innocent of a notion, seemed to be diving down into +profound deeps of information after the required fragment, he would help +her on with a hint--"One of the _real_ benefactors of the race; did more +for the good of humanity by his discovery than all the saints in the +calendar. I recollect speaking of him just a year ago, later in the day +than this, about five o'clock, as we stood with Professor Black by the +pyrus japonica." + +"Oh yes," Val would cry out with delight at having a "glimmer," though +not of what he asked; "I remember perfectly, and I asked you if the +pyrus was the kind of burning bush Moses saw." + +"_Ex_actly." + +And the best feeling prevailed, it not occurring to John Gano that even +now his daughter had not the dimmest notion who the great man was who +thus unseasonably intruded on their Sunday _tete-a-tete_. + +She was very sensitive to his disapproval, and suffered acutely when he +showed how he despised a person who forgot the difference between a +sycamore and a balsam poplar. + +"What's the use of your having eyes if you don't use them?" + +And she silently determined to be more observant, and win back her +father's respect. + +"You should greet these good friends by name when you walk abroad," he +would say. "You wouldn't pass a woman every day in the street, as +beautiful as that silver birch, or a man as magnificent as the Otways' +copper beech, without asking his name; and you wouldn't be content with +knowing his intimates called him 'John.' 'What family does he belong +to?' you'd say. 'What is his history?' Now, here have I taken the pains +to introduce you to these desirable acquaintances, and yet you--" + +"I shall know 'em next time," she would protest, humbly. + +By-and-by her father didn't need to interrupt the main thread of his +discourse more than to pause with pointed walking-stick for a second, +while his little companion would interpolate briskly: "_Ulmus +Americana_," or "_Tilia_." And if, instead of his instantly resuming +story or homily, he still stood pointing, she would proceed: "Also +commonly called bass, lime, or linden; bark used for matting and ropes; +wood for sounding-boards; sap for sugar, and its charcoal for +gunpowder." + +He would nod and walk on, finishing his broken sentence as though +nothing had intervened between subject and predicate. Although he was +severe with her constitutional forgetfulness of dates, her father, at +least, did not obtrude upon her the disgrace of extreme youth. He talked +the gravest matters to her with an air of conferring with an equal. They +discussed religion with no little openness, and, by dint of diligent +inquiry, she heard, amazed, the extent of his unbelief. He had at first +meant to be reticent, but as she got older and yet more inquiring, he +had said: + +"One thing, at least, a child has a right to expect from its parents, +and that is truth. I am bound, as I see the matter, to give my child as +faithful an account of the world as I am able. I am the traveller coming +home, of whom the young one setting forth asks the way. Shall I advise +him to go in the wrong direction because the old sign-posts misled +_me_?" He would shake his head gloomily, and go on as if communing with +his own soul: "Not consciously to mislead, that is the basic human +obligation." Then he would look down on a sudden at the little +school-girl trotting solemnly along by his side, and resume with a kind +of severity: "I don't owe my child money"--he used to revert to this as +if it were a sore point--"I don't owe my child worldly position or +honors, or houses or lands, but I owe him honesty. I shall never +consciously deceive him." + +And so Sunday by Sunday she heard the Gospel preached at St. Thomas's in +the morning, and in the later day the new tidings of science, and a sort +of sublimated socialism, preached among the lanes and hills. She heard +the story of the making of the world (not according to Genesis), and was +invited to observe in "Nature's Workshop," as her father called the +hills, how the making and transforming still went on. + +"In these high places," he would say, with enthusiasm, "you may detect +Nature in the very act." + +Val was shown how busy the little brooks were, and the wide river as +well, ever making "sedimentary deposits," still carving out its channel, +wearing down the fire-born rock as surely as the chalk cliffs in its +"ancient ineradicable inclination to the sea." + +She saw for herself how the wind and the weather worked away day and +night disintegrating, tearing down, until even to a child it was clear +that one day the proud upstanding hills would be brought low, and lay +their heads in the plain. There was a tragic element in the story and +its ocular proof. It made the solid earth waver under the feet as in an +earthquake. Her father had pointed out how even the old Fort that had +so stoutly withstood the fierce Red Man could not hold out against this +subtler foe. He had shown her where even the great corner-stones were +exfoliating; with his finger-tip he could flake off the loosened bits, +but regretfully, and only as an object-lesson. No child must lift a +finger to help this insidious enemy; and yet, rightly comprehended, +Nature and Nature's laws were our best friends, Val was given to +understand. It was the theologian who had spoiled man's legitimate +satisfaction in the world. Christianity had been the greatest curse of +Time (this came as a lightning-flash); Christianity had killed art, +discouraged learning, and set back the clock of Progress 2000 years; had +turned man's thoughts and energies from the righteous task of making a +heaven on earth; had filled him with foreboding, and forbidden him +natural joys. + +John Gano had no need to tell his daughter not to convey to her +grandmother any inkling of this indictment of the holy faith. It was a +thrilling secret. To be a sharer in it was a proud distinction which led +to Val's being permitted to remain in the room when Professor Black, a +contributor to her father's favorite periodical, the _Popular Science +Monthly_, came on flying visits, and they sat and talked of these real +dark ages of the world--Pliocene, Eocene, and the rest. + +Mrs. Gano did not shrink from reading Darwin, and Spencer, and other +books her son left about. As time went on she came to entertain the +clearest views as to science being the handmaid of religion. In these +later days of her own development, she had no quarrel with those +"orthodox scientists," who regarded the Mosaic story with respect as +"symbolical"--symbolical of what was not inquired. The vaster age of the +world, the true story of the rocks, gave Mrs. Gano only a fresh and more +passionate sense of the wonder and majesty of the ways of God. She +corroborated and supported her new friends among modern historians and +men of science as vehemently as of old she had upheld a favorite +preacher, poet, or Biblical commentator. She objected vigorously to +much she found in Buckle and Lecky, and to certain Germans whose names +she disdained to utter, and bestowed her unqualified approval upon some +of the lesser lights whose Theism was sound. + +After Professor Black was gone, or that other wise man from the East, +the handsome and distinguished-looking editor of the _Engineering and +Mining Journal_, Mrs. Gano would agitate the great red rocking-chair +into an abortive rock, and lifting her chin with an air of disdain: +"Humph!" she would say, "a mighty superior person!" Then, seeing her son +would not respond to this obvious irony: "Who is he, to quarrel with the +Bridgewater Treatises!" + +"Black is too accurate a thinker to accept the theory of design carried +to the highest perfection." And, hoping to stem the tide of further +objurgation of his friend, he would demolish the _Treatise on the Human +Eye_. "So far from its being the nicest adaptation of means to an end, +the eye of man is a clumsy and pitiful production." + +This was the kind of irreligion that in these days excited Mrs. Gano's +ire more than any other. So hot would the argument grow, that sometimes +her son would utterly lose sight of his determination never to disturb +his mother's faith. He would turn upon her with all the enthusiasm of +the passionate amateur. + +"One glance through the magnifying-glass at the infinitely superior eye +of the common house-fly is enough to--" + +"Enough to make any Christian thankful, I should say, that his eyes are +what Providence made them." + +"The fly's eye is a far finer instrument." + +"Humph! A pretty sight we'd be with protruding goggles bigger than all +the rest of the face!" + +"I assure you the fly has a beautiful eye! And then the way it is +placed! Magnificent! A group of powerful lenses mounted on rods, +controlled by delicate muscles that turn the eye about so that without +moving his body he can see all round him. _There_ was an invention if +you like!" + +"I shouldn't have liked it in the least." + +"Ah, that's because you don't realize that to examine certain insects +through the magnifying-glass is to dispose at once and forever of the +notion than an omnipotent Providence did His level best by man. As a +mechanical contrivance the human eye is merely an intricate failure." +Then, perhaps perceiving that these intricate failures in his mother's +head were shooting lightnings, he would shield his audacities behind a +foreign authority. "Helmholtz says he would be ashamed of any novice in +his laboratory who should design so poor an optical appliance." + +"Just like his German impudence! A nation of boors and atheists!" + +John Gano would always end by pulling himself up, and accepting these +strictures on his authorities and his friends (and by implication on +himself) with a silent tolerance. + +Val felt a fine superiority in thinking that _she_ understood. The +grandmother, who was such an autocrat, and thought so highly of her own +judgment, was in reality very bigoted and lamentably behind the age. But +Val and her father bore with her, not even exchanging covert glances +when, with shining eyes and sibylline aspect, she would burst into Old +Testament denunciation and prophecy. Her father was really a miracle of +forbearance. His behavior to his mother, in spite of her shortcomings, +was beautiful. He would sit and read Ruskin aloud to her by the hour, +and would give her his arm of an evening and slowly pace the gravel +paths, instead of going any more interesting and inspiring tramps with +his brisker companion along river or over hill. + +On the occasions when Val tagged after the pair, she was firmly +convinced that the tone of her grandmother's conversation was adjusted +to young ears. It made her long to shout out: "Oh, he tells me a great +deal more than ever he tells you!" + +Mrs. Gano would sometimes interrupt her son with scant ceremony and say, +glancing back at the child: "Great is the mystery of godliness. There is +a point at which the finite mind must stop," and so on. + +Val's contempt for this was profound; she felt it was not in alignment +with what they had been saying before she came up with them. She would +slip her hand into her father's, and squeeze it gently, to restore the +sense of secret understanding. They would often, when she was there, +talk about the stars, perhaps as being "safe ground," if one may so +speak of the plains of heaven. + +Did John Gano say, dreamily, "The Polar star is dim to-night," she would +as likely as not answer with significance: "Is _it_ dim, or our eyes?" + +"No fault of our eyes this time, for we can see Mars well enough. He's +in a warlike mood to-night, flaming angrily." + +Mrs. Gano would pause, and half to herself repeat: + +"'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His +handiwork.'" + +"Can you find the Scorpion, little girl?" her father would say. + +And if she wasn't quick with eye and answer, her grandmother would stop, +lifting her shawled arm with curious unmodern largeness of movement, and +point the constellation out, half chanting: + +"'By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens; His hand hath formed the +crooked serpent.'" + +As if gently to divert her attention, the son would perhaps face about, +and, walking slowly back with her to the house, would do a little +quoting on his own account: + + + "'Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, + Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.' + + +Ah! the music--the sheer music in that man!" + +"There was music before _his_ day. And Tennyson is one of them that hath +ears to hear, as well as tongue to speak. Small doubt but from his ivied +casement in the West he heard the voice of the Lord from out the +chambers of the South. 'Canst thou bind the secret influences of +Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth +in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his suns?'" + +"I can see Cassiopeia," Val would observe, just to show that she was not +quite out of it. + +And she would grasp her father's hand tighter, to remind him of their +agreement that the straggling W stood for "We"--Val and her father. Then +he would find Lyra and the Little Bear, and tell how the Milky Way, +instead of being, as Hiawatha and Val had thought, "pathway of the +ghosts and shadows," was really star-dust, the scattered nebulae of other +suns and systems. + +Mrs. Gano would look back before going in-doors, and say, with solemn +upward gaze: + +"Yes, yes! 'An undevout astronomer is mad.'" + +Then they would go in silently to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +A letter by the late post from cousin Ethan! It would be the last before +he himself would appear. Emmie watched, with luminous eyes, her +grandmother's opening of the envelope. Val, in banishment, waited +impatiently outside in the dusk on the stairs to hear the news; but the +face of the reader in the long room darkened as she read. She dropped +the letter in her lap at the close, speechless. + +"Oh! what is it, gran'ma?" quivered the sympathetic Emmie. + +The old lady merely turned away her head. + +"Gran'ma, he isn't _dead_?" + +"No, not exactly dead," she said, very low. + +"He is very ill?" + +"No. He is gone again to France." + +"But I thought he was coming here for _sure_ this time?" + +"So did I; not so Aaron Tallmadge!" + +The name swept out like a sudden gust, scattering to the winds her +unnatural calm. + +"But you said he was nearly of age, when he would be his own master." + +"Aaron Tallmadge remembered that." Her lips trembled with anger, and the +big chair seemed to share her agitation. She held on to the red padded +arms, as though she rocked on the high seas in a gale. "When Ethan comes +of age he'll be five thousand miles away." + +"But can't you stop him? Let Venie take a telegwaf." + +"No, no!" The high wind, in which the great chair rocked, died down, the +angry animation faded out of the old face, leaving it older still and +very weary. "No, no; these things are not to be forced. It's natural. He +has been with Aaron Tallmadge all his days; he is his heir. He lives in +a world where men think much of the bond of money, and little of the +bond of blood. I shall not write again." + +She folded up the letter and put it in its envelope. Her head drooped +over the task. + +"I thought cousin Ethan loved being here?" + +"A long time ago. He was very little." + +"But he never forgot?" + +"It used to seem so." + +Lower the old head sank, till the folds of white veil, falling on either +side, met like two drawn curtains across her face. + +"But you could see in his letters he was terribly sad and sorry to have +put off coming--just to please his grandfather." + +"Ah, well! it was a long time ago, and he was very little." + +Mrs. Gano lifted her head--and, behold, her face was wet with tears. She +found her pocket-handkerchief, and wiped them away angrily, as if she +resented the salt-water drops more than her grandson's defection. + +"Natural enough, I suppose," she said, with an assumption of +half-scornful indifference. "Ethan's a man now, with wide means and the +world before him. Why should he come to this dull, smoky town, when he +can 'improve his accent' under brighter skies? There's no fortune here +for him to inherit, and nothing new for him to see." + +"He hasn't ever seen _me_," said Emmie, "nor Val." + +Her grandmother drew her close and held the beautiful little face in her +hands, looking down with unaccustomed tenderness, while again the tears +gathered. A sudden movement of "This will never do." She cleared her +voice and rose hurriedly. + +"Good-night, child; go to bed. I must tell your father we needn't look +for Ethan after this." + +Emmie kept on going to bed at half-past eight, even when she was old +enough to have struck for another hour's freedom. But Emmie had not so +much to get into her day; in fact, she was constantly going about saying +she had nothing to do, and begging her grandmother to find her some way +of getting through the hours. This frame of mind was, like godliness, +one of the mysteries to Val. How anybody found the day long enough, and +what being "bored" meant, were matters equally impenetrable. Her father +was right. The world was a beautiful and absorbing place to one whose +pleasure in it was unjaundiced. Val reflected with pride that _her_ +capacity for enjoyment was not blighted by too great early piety. It was +no doubt because she was so singularly enlightened and advanced that, to +her, just being alive, was so rapturous a joy. There was Emmie, now. +With all her advantages, she wasn't happy; and she was as religious as +her grandmother, if not more so. The inference was plain. People who +were worried about their souls could not be expected to relish the +selfish joy of being first in the games at recess. They probably didn't +even eat their meals with the immense relish of the unregenerate. They +didn't feel their hearts swell up with unaccountable gladness, at mere +waking in the morning, to receive a broadside from the sun straight +between the eyes. But it was just the same if the wind blew, or the rain +fell. For no discoverable reason beyond lack of piety, Val would feel +herself filled from crown to toe with tingling delight at this mere +"being alive." There were, alas! other times when, for reasons partly +patent, partly obscure, she was sore oppressed; but never did any hour +find her so bowed down that the wild tumult of a storm would not +stimulate her like strong wine. She would run about the house with +flying hair and wide, excited eyes, when she couldn't manage to escape +out-doors, and feel the rapturous buffet of the winds and dash of the +rain in her face. + +"She is like an electrical eel when there's a thunder-gust," she once +overheard her grandmother say. + +"Some affinity between the child and the elements," her father had +replied, half seriously. "She came into the world during the wildest +and most destructive storm that ever swept over the State." + +After hearing that, Val felt no apology was needed for her desire to go +out and romp with the winds. It was all very well for other people to +shut doors and windows and sit in the middle of non-conducting +feather-beds (as her mother had done), but how should Val be afraid of +thunder and lightning? They had come forth in their splendor and their +might to welcome her into the wonderful world. Dangerous to others? Oh, +very likely. They were friends and allies of Val Gano. + +But not only through these more or less usual avenues did gladness reach +her, but through some of the thorny by-ways before which men had set up +the warning signal, "Pain!" + +There was that affair of the hornet's sting. How lustily she had howled +when, stepping into the ash-gray nest down by the choke-pear-tree, she +found herself surrounded by an army of angry enemies, darting little +poisoned knives! How frantically she had run back to the house, rending +the air with shrieks, and yet queerly conscious, after the first shock +of surprise, that this was a curious experience and a great discovery, +not alone of the power of hornets, but a discovery, too, of the power of +pain in herself! Before she reached the house, and leaving a lusty yell +only half finished in her throat, she had stopped to notice, with an +excitement akin to pride, how the back of her hand and arm had puffed up +to an enormous size, and was stinging still, as if a thousand knives +were being turned about in the flesh. Here was something quite new. +While it agonized her, it kept her sense of curiosity in a tumult of +painful pleasure. She stood still, watching the hand swell, while the +tears poured down her flushed cheeks, absorbed in noting the action of +the poison, wondering how much more the uncanny power of the sting could +swell her poor little distorted hand. Was there any pain more horrible +than this? Was it possible human beings could endure anything worse? And +if so, what? She shut her wet eyes, dizzy with suffering, and yet in +the dim background of her mind almost avid of that intenser pang, if any +such there were in the arsenal of Nature's weapons against man. + +Later came the memorable attack of diphtheritic sore throat, that made +them all so kind. _That_ was one of the most diverting things that had +ever happened to her, not merely because her father sat by her nearly +all the time, when her grandmother was or wasn't there; not only because +her unwary elders fell into discussions that, no matter where else they +led, could not terminate in Val's being ejected from the room, just as +they got to the interesting crisis; not because of the thrilling tales +of her grandmother's old acquaintance, Betsy Patterson, of Baltima', her +marriage with Jerome Bonaparte, and her journey, alone and friendless, +half across the world, to meet her mortal enemy and brother-in-law, the +great Napoleon. Not in these obvious delights alone lay the whole +advantage of the diphtheria incident, but in the discovery that there +was a sensation, in or under the actual pain itself, that was new, +exciting, almost agreeable. It was touching experience at a fresh point, +and was far from being altogether regrettable. This sharp pain when one +tried to swallow was only a keener way of feeling alive, a new +accomplishment of the alert, responsive body. As if with foreknowledge +that her experience in this direction was going to be limited, or as +though she had heard Sir Thomas Brown say, "There is some sapor in all +ailments," Val showed every inclination to make the most of this one. + +"Now, you've got to behave, Emmie," she would say, if her sister seemed +likely to forget that here at last her customary privileges must for the +nonce give way. "You've only got a weak chest, but _I've_ got a +diphtheritic throat!" + +It was during the agreeable time of convalescence that her grandmother +showed her the faded samplers that she and her sisters and Aunt Valeria +had worked as children. She got out the little boxes of old trinkets, +too, and told the "story" of each and every one. There were volumes in +these simple rings and mourning brooches, watch-chains of hair, +badly-painted miniatures, enamelled hearts and charms. She seemed to +have literally dozens of gold and silver pencils. One was to be Val's +and one Emmie's, when they were "old enough to take great care of them." +But all the best ones seemed to belong to cousin Ethan. And there was +that priceless and magnificent possession (that was also to be Ethan's), +Grandfather Calvert's gold snuffbox, presented by the Burns Club, of +"Baltima'," and inscribed with a verse of good-fellowship. This was the +ancestor that Val took most interest in, even before the revelation of +the snuffbox. He had been a merry gentleman, who amused himself so well +in the "Baltima'" of his day, that he had to be sent when only nineteen +as "supercargo," whatever that meant, to the West Indies. It was evident +paternal punishments in those times were slight, for he had loved +"supercargoing." He came home with a store of stories and a fortune, +and--as it presently leaked out, to Val's and Emmie's delight--he ran +away with his wife when he was only twenty-one and the little lady +barely fifteen. Mrs. Gano had been betrayed into admitting that she was +born before her mother had reached her sixteenth birthday. + +"Why, then, our great-grandmother had a daughter when she was fifteen!" + +"No, no; she was very nearly sixteen--one may say she _was_ sixteen." + +But Val and Emmie preferred the other form. A baby of your own to play +with when you are only fifteen! Ha, _that_ was the way to begin life! +People in these times shilly-shallied so wastefully. This +great-grandmother hadn't missed anything by her promptitude in marrying. +After she was a wife and a mother, she used to call her girl friends +into the high-walled garden, and stationing a slave on the gate-post, to +keep watch and give warning when the husband could be seen coming home +from his counting-house, this real, proper kind of a great-grandmother +would tuck up her long skirts and have a rousing game of hide-and-seek, +stopping breathless in the middle when Sambo cried from his +watch-tower, "Massa comin'!" She would let down her gown and pin up her +curls and go demurely to the gate to meet her lord, and tell him the +baby and she had had a good day. Ah, it was plain they had been a +frivolous pair! Theirs were the mahogany tables with slender, twisted +legs and baize-lined folding tops, that in these serious days never +caught sight of a card. Instead of reading Blair's "Sermons" and +Baxter's "Rest," this agreeable ancestor had accumulated all those +French romances down-stairs, and even when he left gay youth behind, he +had sat in his counting-house, not like the King of Hearts, counting out +his money, but revelling in the novels of the Wizard of the North. And +when it was noised about at home among his growing daughters that he had +nearly finished the latest one, and would bring it back that evening, +the three girls would start fair and even from the bottom step, at his +coming-home hour, and race to meet him. The lucky one who reached him +first got the new _Waverley_. + +To the adaptable eye of youth "all things are possible," with parents as +with God. It never occurred to Val and Emmie as a subject for surprise +or inquiry how such a person as their grandmother had come to find +herself _dans cette galere_. Mrs. Gano would usually wind up her Calvert +stories with a half-humorous, half-reverent smile. + +"Your great-grandmother"--she never said "my father" or "mother," but +with a detached, impartial air--"your great-grandmother was the best +woman I ever knew; and your great-grandfather lived a useful life, and +died, after receiving extreme unction, in all the odor of sanctity." + +"He wasn't a Pisspocalian, like us?" Emmie asked. + +"No; Roman Catholic. We had all gone different ways by that time, but he +would say, 'Ah! wait till you're as old as I: you'll all come back into +the bosom of Mother Church.'" She would smile at this. "He was not a +thinker--he had lived all his best years in the active world of work and +pleasure, and when he saw his end in sight, he looked about him for a +priest." She would smile again--less tenderly, more ironically. "This +was priests' business; best leave it in their hands." + +It was interesting to the children to observe that not even for the +benefit of the young was family history falsified. + +"Oh, he was consistent enough. Even before he embraced Roman +Catholicism, he never spoke of religion except with the greatest +reverence." She would glance sharply at the children's father, if he +were present when she reached this point in that or any similar +narrative, seeming for the moment to lose sight of the younger +generation in her desire to point the moral for the benefit of her son. +"I never heard of a Calvert who questioned revealed religion; and as for +the Ganos, any one who has a mind to look, may read in the family record +that they were all eminent for piety in their day and generation." + +"Does that little record go further back than 1760?" her son once asked, +meditatively. + +"No: but that's quite far enough to show what's expected." + +During this illness in particular, there were times when Val was drawn +unaccountably to the strange old woman. If the child had had more +encouragement, she could have loved her well and openly, renouncing for +her sake domestic heresy and schism. The secret passion for loving and +being loved had grown in the girl with every year. It was not only the +strongest current that swept through her being--that is true of +many--but even in this young and sheltered life it rose betimes to +freshet and to flood, hungry, devouring, unappeased. The girl led three +lives--the gay, triumphant surface one at school, the checkered +existence at home, and that deep heart life apart in the sunlit valley +of imagination, whither, when the wind of destiny blew bleak on the +uplands of domestic life, she would retreat with all the honors of +war--rally and "captain her army of shining and generous dreams." + +The intensity of the craving for approbation, the love-hunger in the +child's heart, would be called morbid by those who find that epithet a +ready one to apply to heights and depths from which they themselves are +debarred by a niggard nature. It was true (even if, like many another +fact about this young creature, it is not to be approved) that she had +had an affair of the heart in New York--princes apart--when she had +attained the ripe age of seven. It had been a kind of infidelity to the +dark-browed hero of dream, for the gentleman in question was not a +nobleman, not even a Nimrod, and he had red hair. But, nevertheless, he +was a peril to the peace of mind of a diminutive maid, and all +unconsciously to himself "brought her acquainted with" a more thrilling +joy and a more poignant pain than some women can look back upon from the +height of fifty years. Oh, these strange stirrings of the too eager +heart!--the sharp rapture and the sharper pain, the whimsical, bitter +pathos of them read by the light of later "exultations, agonies!" Who +that has had this window opened for him into the virginal chamber of +awakening woman-life can look through it without tears? But this +particular window is not for our eyes. After that premature romance had +come to an untimely end, or, rather, when its hopelessness was comforted +and covered by the quick-growing ivy of new affections, there was peace +for a time in the camp of love, or only border skirmishing. Not, of +course, for any lack of enterprise, or any dearth of heroes, for almost +any passer in the street will serve for a peg to drape the gossamer of a +dream upon. He is perhaps the unrequited lover--he is some one in +disguise; not Mr. Ernest Halliwell, the son of the local doctor, but +heir to an earldom over the sea. You are sorry you can never love him; +he must break his heart in vain. It is almost _too_ sad, for his hair +curls prettily over his ears, and his smile is gentle and haunting. But +high above all these little "foot-notes," as it were, to the great main +text of the romance, ran the radiant "continued story" of that one who +cometh--he with swift, unfaltering feet, he with the sheltering +arms--bearing the great gift in his bosom, and his face, still for a +little space--still hidden. + +Meanwhile, eager friendships at school, and devotion to her father at +home, and to Jerry's handsome brother in the promised land beyond the +osage hedge--not all these and hope besides could fill the foolish, +hungry heart. Nobody else in the world but a few novel-writers and +herself seemed in the least concerned about the chief business of life, +which was plainly loving and being loved. It did not appear to be a +subject of conversation with grown persons. Not only at the Fort, with a +grandmother who plainly could know nothing of such matters, and a father +who, besides his children, loved only rocks and trees, but in the homes +of the other girls as well, the supreme topic was neglected, ignored, +except when considered covertly among the young, as conspirators whisper +treason. It was very queer. Evidently her absorption in the subject was +part and parcel of her perverted nature, her "low curiosity." It was, at +all events, a weakness to be hid except from that very best of all her +"best friends," Julia Otway. Not that Julia even was told of the Great +Romance, but the two girls wondered and surmised together, bringing day +by day to their common store every new scrap of knowledge or conjecture +that came their way. Val was the more adventurous, the less fastidious. +She it was who would speculate most boldly, sketching out certain +chapters, certain scenes even, in that great coming drama, that are +currently supposed not to enter the imagining of maidens. Yes, yes; it +was all wrong perhaps to think about these things; but why, then, were +they so interesting? It wasn't her fault. But at last one day, when the +more modest-minded Julia said, "I want awfully to hear, but I don't +think we'll tell these stories any more. I don't feel somehow as if it +was quite right," then Val knew that indeed she was "low-minded," and +was as humiliated as the sternest moralist could desire. + +She admired Julia more than ever for her rigid asceticism. Ah yes! there +was no blinking the fact. _That_ was the kind of strength of mind it was +fine to have, but the richly merited rebuke of herself made her wince +with shame. The very memory of the moment was like a dagger-thrust for +years. + +And still there was a buoyancy in her that was always lifting her +mountains high after these deep descents into the pit. One potent device +for the recovery of self-respect was to name a day from the dawn of +which she should start a new life, absolutely different from the past, +which was by this act cut off and dropped into oblivion. Monday mornings +began not alone a new week, but a new era. Her great fresh start of the +year was taken annually at Christmas, or if one made a slip--one always +did--the New Year was the time, or else Easter, or, after all, one's +birthday was a fitting moment for such regeneration. The girl who had +been only eleven was inevitably a poor creature, but the person of +twelve! Ah, when the clock struck that complete and significant number a +new and quite perfect existence was inaugurated! The next year, to be +about to enter one's teens, was discovered to be, after all, the +psychological moment for starting a new life. Then fourteen! Ah, _that_ +was the true age of understanding, besides being twice the sacred number +seven! If she was much happier than other people for the most part--as +she knew she was--she had also moments of being much nearer despair. +There were all the times when people hurt her feelings, and when her +only consolation was the old one of pretending she hadn't any feelings +to hurt. If life ministered to her more than it did to most, it bruised +her too from crown to sole. + +There were those hours of reaction, after long expectation of some +birthday-party, or the Fourth of July fireworks, or the school +Commencement, when a blank wretchedness fell upon her. It hadn't been +what she had hoped. How or where it had failed was partly a mystery, but +there was a strange bitterness left behind. She refused vehemently in +her own mind to accept for truth the rumor abroad in the world, "Nothing +ever comes up to expectation." Oh yes, things would by-and-by come up to +and exceed anticipation. It was only now, and through some fault in +her, that they fell short of perfection. As she grew older she developed +a pitiless self-criticism--of her speech, her manners, her looks, her +attainments. This creature, among certain girls that were awkward, and +certain others that put on airs and graces, this profoundly egotistical +little person, was actually commended for being "perfectly +un-selfconscious"; the fact being that she was far _too_ "aware" of +herself, saw herself far too vividly in her mind's eye, to go on making +the current mistakes of affectation or of clumsiness. She knew +unerringly when she giggled with embarrassment, when she had been +"making eyes," when she was in danger of seeming superior, or what her +grandmother called "toploftical." She was keenly, quiveringly +self-conscious, and conscious too of other people; feeling their moods +as an AEolian harp feels the light wind, brightening under their +unspoken, their merely looked approval, and shrinking beneath her +careless exterior at their unuttered blame, wearing her reputation for +hardness like an inversion of the magic suit of mail, seeming stout +armor, and yet letting every arrow through. Still, it served its +purpose, since no one dared say, "See! that struck home!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +After several years' supremacy as "the greatest dancer on the earth," +that brilliant career was suddenly abandoned. It was evident that a +mistake had been made. Val's true destiny was to be Queen of Song. It +was difficult to illustrate the fact in your unmusical grandmother's +house, but you could do a good deal in that direction at the New +Plymouth Seminary for Young Ladies. You could roar down several hundred +girls in the morning hymn, and you could even have occasional +surreptitious performances in the gymnasium, or at home in the kitchen, +where whole cycles of impromptu operas were given in a season. For the +rest, you sang to yourself in lonely places and exulted. Sometimes you +trembled, shaken to the verge of tears by the beauty and pathos of your +own voice. + +There had been a brief interval when the sum of achievements in the +drawing-class seemed, in Val's mind, to point to her becoming a second +Rosa Bonheur. It was certain that her copy of Landseer's "Rabbits" was a +work of extreme merit. Even her grandmother, who usually said "Hum!" +when she looked at Val's original designs for wall-paper or carpet, +remarked on beholding the rabbits: "I'll have them framed." + +If that were not distinction, where shall it be found? + +But it was grasping to set more than one snare for greatness--let Emmie +be Rosa Bonheur, Val would be the great singer of her time. + +"Let me have music lessons," she prayed. "I'll practise at school and at +Julia's." + +"It is out of the question," said her grandmother. + +Val knew "out of the question" meant it was a question of being out of +pocket. + +"I'll give up drawing." + +"Drawing is much less expensive; and even so, you and Emmie must give it +up after this term." + +"Then, what on earth are we going to learn besides common lessons?" + +"I'll teach you botany and gardening," said her father. + +"I don't care about botany," said Val, hotly, "and"--unmasking the +hypocrisy of years--"and as for gardening, there isn't _any_thing I hate +so much." + +"_What?_" + +Her father couldn't believe his ears. + +"Yes. I'm sorry. It's very kind of you to offer so often to teach me; +but I really quite hate flowers." + +Her father looked at her with a severity she had seldom seen in his +face. + +"Then, in that case"--he spoke as though originating a punishment fit +for a new unnatural crime--"in that case you should learn cooking." + +After such a blow, there was nothing for it but to remember that for +weeks Jerusha had wanted her to take some household sewing to poor old +Miss Kirby up on Plymouth Hill. Val would run all the way to the Dug +Road and there, in the deep cut in the hill-side, or in the even more +lonely ravine above, she would sit with the bundle of sewing on her +knees, raging solemnly over it at fate, and devising spirited revenges. +In a wood on the farther side there was a place deep hidden in bush and +brier, where a wild grape-vine made a swing between two old forest +trees. It was a distinct source of comfort to Val that she didn't know +the names of these trees. She would shut her eyes tight, and swing high +out in the free air, with a sense that she was flying from two calling +voices, afraid the accents should reach her clearly, afraid lest by an +unwary peep something in bark or leaf should press back upon her +impatient memory "their ugly names," cheered and strengthened after each +escape by finding her ignorance intact. + +Out, far out, on the wild grape-vine, swinging till she forgot the +importunate trees, forgot all threatened ignominy, forgot everything but +the ecstasy of living and swinging and singing, and looking +forward--looking out past home perplexities and wild wood tangles, out, +far out, towards the secure beauty and the certain wonder of the coming +years. + +Emmie came home from school earlier than usual one memorable day, and +told Mrs. Gano with frightened eyes that Val had done something awful. +She couldn't make out what, for all the Academic and Collegiate girls +whispered about it secretly at recess. But Val was locked up in the +Principal's room, and it was considered doubtful if she'd _ever_ be let +out, so angry was Miss Appleby. But even the Principal's wrath was less +than the wrath of her niece, Miss Beach, the new teacher of the primary +school and of gymnastics. + +Emmie had naturally felt humiliated at her sister's disgrace. She +thought she could never, never go back to school again. By the time the +miscreant got home, Mrs. Gano was properly worked up to receive her. + +Val saw at a glance from Emmie's cloudy eyes and her grandmother's, cold +and gleaming, how her story had been forestalled. She held up her head, +and said, carelessly: + +"Well, I've got myself into a scrape." + +Her grandmother fixed her silently for an instant, and then said: + +"'Scrape' is not the word. You've heard that expression from Jerningham +Otway. _We_ don't get into scrapes." + +Emmie seemed to Val's overheated imagination to sit and plume herself. + +"All the members of your family have been well-mannered and +well-conducted people. We leave 'scrapes' to others." + +Val fell a sudden prey to the old loneliness in the midst of so much +family rectitude. + +"I am waiting to hear what has happened." + +Mrs. Gano folded her blue-veined hands across the open book on her +knee. + +"Well, I think they mean to expel me." + +"Expel you!" + +She shut the book with a snap. + +"Oh, Miss Appleby's coming to see you," said Val, with overacted +indifference. "She'll tell you everything that Emmie hasn't told you +already." + +"I don't choose to ask Miss Appleby for details that I ought to hear +from you." + +Val looked at Emmie's curiosity-lighted face and kept silence. Her +grandmother understood. + +"Run out and play, child; you sit too much in the house," she said to +the younger child. + +"I've got nobody to play with," came from Emmie, not budging. + +"Then go and get me some jonquils and narcissuses." + +"I've hurt my finger." + +"Then take a book and sit in the porch." + +"I've read all the books on the juvenile shelf." + +"Leave the room!" + +Val's heart swelled up in gratitude. It was considerate of her judge not +to hold the court of inquiry before Emmie. + +"Well," said Val, plunging into the unhappy business the moment the door +was closed, "you know how we hate and despise--I mean how we don't like +Miss Beach." + +"Humph! I dare say Miss Beach doesn't like all her pupils." + +"I should think she didn't! She hates us!" + +"I don't want to hear such strong expressions. I've nothing to do with +the other girls; but it's a bad lookout for you if you haven't earned +the respect of an estimable woman like Miss Beach." + +"You wouldn't call her that if she gave _you_ unfair marks, and said and +_looked_ spiteful things at you." + +"Looked! What nonsense are you talking?" + +"Well, she"--Val dropped her eyes and crimsoned--"she laughed at my new +gymnastic dress." There was a pause. "It _is_ unlike the others." + +"Beyond a doubt. Far too good for the purpose. That broche came from +Baltima'. Your aunt Valeria never wore it but once. It was as good as +new." + +"Well, all the other girls wear blue serge, but they never laughed. Miss +Beach _did_. Perhaps she didn't mean me to see, but I did." + +"Humph! Well?" + +"Well, she invents new marches--in-and-out figures, you know--and she +only does them once very quickly, and makes me lead off afterwards, and +blames me if there's the least mistake. So I--I--just thought the next +time she invented something new I'd see if I--I--couldn't make her do it +slower. So--well, I collected parlor-matches for a week." + +Mrs. Gano's quick movement said, "_That's_ where the matches have gone." + +"And I cut off their heads, and I gave some to--three of my friends, and +I had a lot myself; and as we marched we threw 'em little by little +under Miss Beach's ugly fat--I mean under her feet." + +"I'm amazed at you--simply amazed!" + +Mrs. Gano's eyebrows had shot up to the middle of her forehead. Val +studied for the hundredth time the hairless bony arches above the +piercing eyes, and the strange look of the patches of eyebrow sitting up +on her forehead in that amazed fashion. + +"Well, she _did_ do that new march very slow, stopping and looking round +surprised when the matches exploded, and at last she gave up marching +altogether, and kind of exploded herself. She _was_ angry, and red +too--_purple_, all over her ugly podgy--over her face." + +"I don't wonder she blushed for you. I am very much ashamed of you +myself. It was the action of a ruffianly street-boy." + +"_She_ wasn't ashamed. She was just mad--I mean angry. She asked who had +done it, and nobody said--" + +"I'm not surprised you wanted to hide it." + +"Then she said she should get her aunt to suspend the whole class; so I +had to tell her it was me, and they shut me up in Miss Appleby's room." + +"Quite right," said Mrs. Gano, backing up the authorities as usual. + +"Oh yes," said Val, bitterly, "that's what Miss Beach thought too; she +_said_ it was the only thing to do with a wild beast." + +"She didn't use those words!" + +The eyebrows suddenly shot up again. + +"Yes'm, she did. Ask Julia Otway. Miss Beach'd say _anything_. Why, she +was educated at a mixed school." + +"You don't mean blacks and whites together?" + +"Yes'm--Oberlin." + +Mrs. Gano had some ado to recover her rigid attitude of respect for +those in authority over her grandchild; but she relaxed the upward +tension of her eyebrows and was studying Val straight through her +spectacles. + +"You can learn manners at home. Miss Beach is quite competent to teach +Emmie spelling and you dancing and calisthenics, and her manners are not +your business. It is only the young people who are quite perfect +themselves who can waste time criticising their elders." + +"Yes'm," answered Val, meekly. She was surprised that her crowning +misdeed and public disgrace were taken so calmly. "Please, who's going +to tell my father I'm expelled?" + +"Nobody is to tell him anything of the sort!" she fired up. "Now that +things have come to this pass I must try to make you understand. We +can't go on like this. What you have done to-day would disgrace a street +urchin; and yet you are old enough to be a comfort to your father." + +Val fidgeted miserably. + +"You have given us more trouble than all the other children of the +family put together; and yet I have discovered there is a kind of +reasonableness in you when it's deliberately appealed to." + +Val looked up quickly. She felt there was a new note in these remarks. + +"I should be very sorry to go to your father with this miserable story; +he has enough to trouble him, and he is ill; he does not get better." +She had laid convulsive hold on the red-padded arms of the great +rocking-chair, and the purple veins started up on the long hands. "I +sometimes think--I sometimes think he gets worse." Her voice had sunk +very low. There was a look in the waxen features that made the girl's +heart grow chill. "I have noticed your impulse to be considerate towards +your father, to spare him the knowledge of your antics. I have been glad +you had this instinct. _You_ will be glad when you are older--when you +are alone." + +There was a long silence. Neither looked at the other. Presently, with +lowered eyes, Val came closer, and on a sudden impulse, kneeling, she +laid her cheek on the long left hand that still clutched the chair-arm. + +"You'll see," she said, fighting down her tears--"you'll see I shall be +better." + +She felt the other hand laid softly on her head, and neither of the two +spoke or moved for a long time. + +A sharp ring broke the spell, and the quick following clatter of "E. +Gano's" knocker sent all gentle influences flying. + +"Miss Appleby!" Val sprang up. Yes. They could hear her voice. Before +Venus had time to come and say she was in the parlor, Mrs. Gano had +opened her own door and closed it behind her. Val stood looking out of +the window, trembling with anxiety, registering vows that if she were +let off this time, if by some miracle she were not expelled, she would +be such an honor to the family, such a comfort to her father, that he +would be encouraged to live practically forever. + +Emmie presently opened the door very softly, and crept in. + +"She's just goin', I think," whispered the little sister, who seldom +bore a grudge. "Oh, she _has_ been getting it!" + +"Not gran'ma?" + +Emmie squirmed with suppressed merriment at this notion. + +"I should think not! Miss Appleby's been getting it. Gran'ma said they +were making a mounting out of a molehill--and expelling people did the +school no good. Said you'd tell Miss Beach you were sorry, and that was +a good deal, 'cause you didn't like beggin' pardings." + +"_Did_ she say that?" + +"Yes. An' Miss Appleby said she was very grieved, but she had promised +her niece not to take you back this term." + +"Her niece! Her sneaking Black and White Oberlin woer-r-r-rm!" + +"_Gran'ma_ didn't call her that," whispered Emmie, with an air of gentle +reproof. "She just said, 'Unless your niece is very foolish'" (Emmie +could mimic astonishingly well), "'and unfit for her post, she will be +glad to reconsider.' Miss Appleby got mad at that, and seemed to be +going away, so I ran into the dining-room. When I got back gran'ma was +saying, if they expelled you, I should be taken away too." + +"Gracious!" + +"And they were both _awful_ mad then, an' gran'ma said, Oh, she'd _just +as soon_ take us away, and she wouldn't hesitate to say why. 'We don't +send our daughters to school to be called wild beasts by young women +from Oberlin.'" + +"Hooray! hooray!" Val spun about the room, waving her arms victoriously. +"We've got a oner for a grandmother after all!" + +The room door opened and the hall door banged. + +"What _are_ you doing?" said Mrs. Gano, stopping short. + +"Oh, nothing," replied Val, composing herself expeditiously; "only I +_do_ love you, gran'ma," and she held up her face to be kissed. + +"If you love me, keep my commandments," said the lady, without +enthusiasm, and equally without sense of irreverence. "That will do. Now +go." + +She was turning away, when some sudden thought occurred to her. She +gleamed at Val through her glasses in an enigmatic way, and said: + +"Is this true about the trouble you've given your preceptors over the +Bible verse every morning?" + +"I don't give trouble _every_ morning; but it's so tiresome, gran'ma, to +begin exercises every day the same way." + +"I should think so, if several hundred girls _will_ go on repeating +exactly the same texts year in and year out." + +"Well, when they scolded us for never learning new ones, I tried to +oblige them--I did, indeed." + +"Hum! Miss Appleby tells me you appeared next day with 'Jesus wept.'" + +Val grinned, and then grew grave. + +"They are very hard to please. They want something we hadn't all said a +thousand times, and something longer than--" + +"Naturally." + +"You can't _think_ how furious they are now if we happen on the same +thing. I do my best to oblige them. I suppose a--Miss Appleby--" + +Val tried to find out from the non-committal face whether the principal +had entered upon this. If not, so much confessing all in one day was +perhaps overdoing it. + +"Well," said her grandmother, "Miss Appleby _tells_ me--I can hardly +credit it--that you stood up in your place yesterday morning and +recited, 'Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.'" + +"Well, it wasn't _me_ that laughed; and I told Miss Appleby it was in +the Bible right enough." + +"Yes. Well, I'll pick out your texts for you in future." She spoke with +charming geniality, and a glint through her glasses. "Now go and get +your lessons for to-morrow." + +After the failure of Miss Beach to have Val disgraced and expelled, the +girl felt that though her grandmother might herself abuse her, she would +not permit any one else to do so. The early years of warfare merged by +degrees, and in spite of lapses, into a less lawless scheme of life. + +The reason of it was not in any great measure regard for her father. He +lived too much apart from the din of daily events for their remote +effect on him to be much present to the preoccupied mind of youth. The +change came about through a growing, albeit unwilling, admiration and +sense of friendship for her grandmother. She was entertaining, this old +lady, in spite of her terrible faults. One was never dull with her. She +told delightful stories, and she laughed at yours when they were good. +Indeed, no matter how abandoned had been your conduct, if you could make +her laugh you were saved. It was not in child-nature not to lay traps +for that pardoning gleam of the fierce eye, that involuntary twitching +of the judicial mouth. An exchange of anecdotes tends inevitably to a +good understanding. But more than by any other means, perhaps, the +perverse school-girl and the autocratic old woman were brought together +by a mutual recognition of a common regard for justice. When Val found +out that her grandmother was not as arbitrary as she had supposed, the +battle was half over. Mrs. Gano had been overheard advising her son, +"Don't try to coerce Val. If you can convince that child's reason you +can do what you like with her, but you can't drive her an inch." The +girl felt that she was being understood. Perhaps the truth was they were +both changing, both developing, the old no less than the young. + +Certain it is they became better and better friends, and had +surprisingly much in common. Still, Val had struggled so long against +owning to herself that any good could come out of this Nazareth, that it +was some time before a belated sense of fairness led her to avow +guardedly to her old fellow-sufferer her new view of the autocrat. She +must try, little by little, to convince her father that, contrary to +appearance, and despite many sore experiences, his mother had her good +points. + +"Gran'ma's been real kind to me and Julia to-day." + +"Has she?" + +"Julia thinks she's awfully nice." + +This rather in the tone of "there's no accounting for tastes." + +"Yes," said her father, not seeming enough impressed. + +"She says I may read _The H---- Family_ and all the Frederika Bremer +books now that I've finished the _Waverleys_." + +"H'm! I never looked at them myself." + +"But do you know why she was so nice about _The H---- Family_?" It was +one thing to do justice to her good deeds, but it was no use setting up +a false ideal and pretending she was better than she was. "You see, we'd +read all the horrid silly little Harry and Lucys and Sandford and +Mertons and _Moral Tales_ and things, and I'd begun Bohn's _Wilhelm +Meister_." + +"Oh, ho!" + +"I put down the book while I tied my shoe, and when I looked up she was +putting it into the fire." + +He laughed. + +"But it wasn't _her_ book at all; I got it out of your room underneath +the big Brande and Taylor's _Chemistry_. It had your name in it." + +"Yes"--reflectively--"I bought it on April 9, 1870." + +"Well, it's burnt now." + +He was still smiling and stroking his ragged beard. + +"I hope she isn't going to keep the big bookcases locked up forever," +sighed Val. + +"She will never like to see Valeria's books knocking about." + +"Gracious, no! She _refused_ to lend Mrs. Otway _Helen Whitman's Poems_, +because she said it had Poe's notes in it; but I knew it wasn't a bit on +account of Poe. It had some of _Aunt Valeria's_ notes in it, and that +was why she wouldn't let it go out o' the house. I was awfully ashamed, +and Mrs. Otway looked so snubbed." + +And still he only smiled. + +"She isn't a bit like other people, but sometimes I'm not sorry." + +"Never be sorry, my child. Never be so dull as not to realize that the +woman who stands at the head of our line gives us our best title to +honor--and to hope." + +Val opened astonished eyes. Her father was indeed +forgiving--fantastically generous. He was gazing off into space now, and +his look was strangely lighted. + +"She belongs to the heroic age," he said, with a kind of worship in his +face. "She was born before we began to split hairs, and have nerves +instead of nerve." + +Val couldn't stand it. Her father was worth fifty grandmothers. + +"I should imagine she _thought_ she was a pretty fine sort of person." + +"She hasn't a notion how utterly she stands alone. I've gone up and down +the world for over forty years, and never seen her equal. Her _equal_?" + +He laughed derisively, and began to talk of her as he might have talked +of Semiramis or Boadicea, only more vividly. It was very annoying. _He_ +had come to care about her too, "only more so." But the real blow fell +when it came out that he had felt like this all along. Appreciation, +fairness were all very well, but this besotted heroine-worship was a +little pitiable. All these years that Val had been so sure he was +silently nursing his injuries and modestly contemplating his own +superiority, he had been on the side of the oppressor. + +"H'm!" mused Val. "I s'pose she was different, then, to her _own_ +children." + +"Ah yes; I've often observed the softening of late years." + +"The _what_?" + +"The growing tolerance, the forbearance with my children, that she never +showed Valeria and me." + +Val's imagination reeled at the thought of what her grandmother could +have been like when she was more intolerant than she was to-day. And it +was all forgotten and forgiven! Here he was now leaving glittering +generalities, and telling story after story of his mother's courage and +her wisdom. She did seem to have been a useful kind of parent, and it +appeared she had been more generous in money matters than Val had +thought. + +"And what she did that time she has always done. She never failed +anybody who depended on her. I always think of her when I read the +lines: + + + "'Oh iron nerve to true occasion true, + ... that tower of strength + Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew!' + + +Try to understand your grandmother, my child," he wound up; "she is the +Pallas Athene of our line." + +Val did not know that an American is never so happy as when he is +vaunting his womenkind. But in her estimation Pallas does better over +your chamber door than in an arm-chair looking at you--through you--with +a grandmother's spectacles. You forget what a heroine she is when she +criticises the way you sit--"A lady never crosses her legs;" and the way +you walk--"I used to swing my arms too--very bad habit; you should study +repose." And when wrought upon by your too generous-judging father, or +by some private discovery of her worth, you burst out: "Oh, I _do_ love +you!" it chills you to get for all response: "You _don't_ love me, or +you'd behave differently. 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'" + +It was no better later on, when, with growing freedom of speech and +warmth of feeling, you would ask in an engaging way: "Why don't you love +me?" and get for answer: "It's a mistake to think your relations owe you +love; you have to earn it from them as you do in the world outside." +Worst of all, and most humiliating to the eager spirit, was it to be +"warded off" if you came to kiss her oftener than good-morning and +good-night. "We are not a kissing family," she would say; and you +cringed under the blow. + +No; Pallas Athene was not an unqualified success--as a grandmother. + +There were times, indeed, when her shortcomings nearly drove her +granddaughter into considering an elopement with Harry Wilbur, the +eighteen-year-old son of Judge Wilbur. With mental apologies to her +ideal hero, Val had kept up a vigorous correspondence with Harry, +pending the time when the superior suitor should carry her off, and save +her the trouble and ungraciousness of breaking the pleasant chains that +bade fair, as the days went on, to bind her to her gallant young +Hercules. Harry Wilbur was captain of the base-ball team, and the +darling hero of the entire New Plymouth Seminary. Most of these studious +young ladies thought more of manly strength and of that particular grace +that is born of bodily vigor than they did of the qualities of the mind. +It was as if, all untutored, they had the improvement of the physique of +the race at heart. Julia Otway, for instance, would descant almost daily +upon Harry Wilbur's "splendid figure," and how he held his shoulders; +how he walked from the hip, and how _easily_ he played the hottest game. +She would give as adequate reason for despising some more wealthy or +more intellectual citizen, that she hated men who did uninteresting +things for a living or did nothing at all. Val shared this spirit of +Julia's to an extent that gave her a pleasant sense of victory when +young Wilbur showed her more attention at dances and archery tournaments +than he showed the other girls. Besides, this open devotion made Ernest +Halliwell sad, and Jerry Otway "mad," and that was highly agreeable. But +Harry didn't "care a fip," as Jerusha said, about music, and music was +the supreme affair of life until--until-- + + +Every year saw the resources of the Ganos lessening, the problem of life +more difficult to solve. + +"You see," Val would say, radiant, "it just shows the _need_ for me to +study singing and make money." + +"You? Ridiculous and most improper! No woman of your family has ever +dreamed of taking money for anything she has done." + +The following summer--or "on June 18," as he would have said, taking +care to add the year, and even the hour--John Gano received a shock. A +kindly letter had come to him from his old flame, Mrs. Otway, to say +that, although he seemed to have forgotten her, still, for old +friendship's sake, and out of affection for Val, she felt it a +neighborly duty to tell him in confidence that his eldest daughter was +making preparations to run away and be a chorus-girl in New York. Mrs. +Otway's own daughter had been so oppressed by the enormity of the +secret, that she had told her mother. Julia had broken open her bank and +given all her savings to "the cause." It was understood, too, that Val +had other sources of revenue not revealed. However, merely to deprive +her of the money might not be sufficient to head her off, as she had +been heard to say she was going to New York, if she had to walk there. + +John Gano did not break the awful news to his mother. He betrayed +nothing unusual in his aspect, as he said to his daughter: + +"It's a glorious afternoon! Shall we go for a walk?" + +Val was not as enthusiastic as she had been wont to be, but after the +fraction of a moment's preoccupied hesitation she answered, brightly: + +"I should love it!" + +"Come, then." + +He caught up his blackthorn stick, and they set off. Val chatted about +the school Commencement, about the new archery club, and how "horrid +much" the bows and arrows cost. + +"I dare say I could make you a set," said her father. "I always made my +own cross-bows as a boy." + +"I know. And when you were only eight you cut and carved and glued +together a perfect model of a stage-coach. You are wonderful about +making things; but these big bows have to be of orange-wood, tough and +limber, you know." + +"Hickory would do." + +"No; they _have_ to be all alike. That's what parents never realize. +Gran'ma was just so about my gymnasium dress. But Jerry Otway's going to +bring a piece of orange-wood back. He traded with another boy at the +Military Institute, swopped an old racket for it. He's going to see if +he can't do a home-made bow, so's you can't tell the difference, varnish +and all." + +"When does Jerry get back?" + +"A week from to-morrow, in time for Julie's birthday-party." + +They had gone a mile or so along the old turnpike road. The sun was +still very hot and the dust ankle-deep. Mr. Gano stopped meditatively, +and struck his blackthorn into the gray "MacAdam" powder. + +"Yet, in spite of all this to occupy and amuse you, you want to turn +your back on it all." + +"I--what?" + +"I understand you are thinking of running away." + +Val gave a little gasp, and prayed the dusty road might gape and swallow +her. + +"I--I--" + +"Don't be frightened, and don't be sorry that I know," he said, gently. +"I think you ought to have told me before." + +She ventured to lift a pair of very anxious eyes. + +"I don't blame you. You are an unfortunate child." + +"Child? I am in my sixteenth year," she interposed, with dignity. + +"You are an unfortunate child," he repeated, firmly, "with a great deal +of surplus energy. It must go somewhere. It's a law of nature; only I +hadn't quite realized how it was with you. You never seemed at a loss." + +"You knew I was just dying for want of proper music-lessons." + +She could not keep the excited tears out of her eyes. + +"Well, well!" her father muttered, leaning with both hands on his stick +and scrutinizing the dust. "I wonder if a few music-lessons couldn't be +managed." + +"A few? I don't want a _few_: I want months and years! I want to act and +sing in grand opera, and--be famous," she said, to herself, but +aloud--"make heaps of money." + +Her father turned to walk back to the town, saying, calmly: + +"Oh, as to acting and singing, _that_ of course--" + +She opened her eyes wide. Did he understand? Was he going to relent? + +"A young person's wanting to go on the stage and astonish the world with +her genius--that's natural enough." + +Val began to shrink. She hadn't mentioned genius. + +"It's a very usual sentiment, I believe, among young people," he went +on, in the same calm voice. "It's a ferment natural to their time of +life--not very serious, any more than first love or measles." + +Val grew stiffer and more dignified with each word he uttered. + +"Anybody would think from what _you_ say, father"--she was holding +herself down with difficulty--"that people all gave up music when they +arrived at years of discretion. There _is_ such a person as Patti after +all, and there may be somebody somewhere _better_ than Patti, just"--her +voice began to shake--"just waiting for a little help." + +"Ah, better than Patti!" + +He smiled. The look of tender amusement fell like a lash upon the spirit +of his child. + +"Oh yes, it's all very well to laugh, father. _You_ don't care. Nothing +matters any more to you. I dare say, even when you were young, you +didn't know what it was like to feel that you'd be chopped up into +little fine pieces rather than go on in the old dull way that most +people do." + +A quick, dim look, like the ghost of an ancient pain, flitted over the +worn face of the man; but he walked on, saying nothing. + +"You don't know what it's like to look over there for years and +years"--she flung out a hand to the horizon--"and say to yourself, day +in and day out, 'Beyond that blue line is the world! Oh, when shall I be +seeing the world?'" She stopped, and so did her father, turning now to +look at the excited face. "Some people _never_ do," she said, with a +kind of incredulous horror. "I can't sleep sometimes for thinking of +how, here in New Plymouth, there are all these people, with all their +senses (so far as you can see), and arms, and legs, and money, and _yet_ +here they sit, just where they happened to be dumped--sit and wait till +they die! Oh, it's like a nightmare, thinking of them! I feel if I don't +run away quick while I'm awake and able to move, I shall freeze fast in +my hole, too, and never be able to reach all the beautiful things that +are waiting--out there!" She nodded over to the encircling hills. +"_Think_ of it!" and the bright tears tumbled out of her shining eyes. + +"I don't want my little girl to miss any good thing," he said, +presently, as they were nearing the town. + +"Then help me, father. Be kind to me." + +She came closer, and touched his sleeve. + +"But the things waiting for those who venture out there"--he turned a +look full of foreboding on the blue horizon--"they aren't all, or even +most of them, good things." + +"No, no. I've heard that; but I'll make the best of them." + +He shook his head. + +"You haven't a notion what a hard world it is for women--and for men, my +dear. I want to save my little girl from--" + +"What does it matter if I _do_ have a hard time? I expect a hard time. +Nobody could invent a time so hard that I couldn't bear it, and come out +of it! Oh, you'll see--" + +"Perhaps, when you are older--" + +"Older!" Her face flashed quick alarm. "I'm dreadfully old already. I +ought to have begun when I was twelve. There's little enough time to +learn all I have to. If I don't run away quick--father, I feel it in my +bones--something will happen; I shall _never_ go, I shall stick here +like the rest, till--till the end." + +He glanced sideways at her. She met his eyes with a look he had never +seen in them before. + +"Val--" he cleared his throat as they neared the Fort. + +"Father!" she interrupted quickly. "Don't ask me to say I won't run +away. I couldn't keep such a promise." + +"That was not what I was going to suggest," he answered, completing a +sudden mental readjustment. "I have nothing more to say against your +plan, only I think it must be rather dull to run away alone. Suppose we +run away together?" + +"Together, father?" + +"Yes; I--I think I'm on the track of a valuable discovery, and I must +follow it up." + +"Oh--what?" + +"Well, you needn't speak of it to--a--to any one, just yet." + +"No, no, father." She was strung up to the great romantic revelation. + +"Well, I believe--indeed, I am sure--that all the hot gas and blinding +electric light in use in most houses are very injurious to eyesight." + +She stopped and stared at him. Was he going mad? Had she heard aright? +The great romantic revelation that wasn't to be spoken of to any one-- + +He struck his blackthorn energetically on the ground and went on: + +"The increase of eye troubles is appalling. What the world wants"--he +looked up suddenly with enthusiasm, and Val took heart--"what the world +wants is--is a safe and soft-burning reading-lamp at a moderate price. A +whole family shouldn't depend on one or two; every man his own lamp. I'm +inventing it. I shall take out a patent next winter, and--well, it might +make a fortune." + +"How nice!" said his daughter, slowly. + +John Gano seemed to hear no hint of disillusionment in the tone. He +straightened himself up. + +"I'm giving Black a share in it," he said, with a magnanimous air, "for +a mere nominal sum, which I am spending in inspecting all the new +burners and contrivances; they're all failures, not worth house-room. +I've promised to see Black in New York next November, and he and I are +going on to Washington for the patent. All anybody need know is that I'm +taking you East with me on a little visit, and you can look over the +field." + +"Father! _Father!_" she felt for his hand. As they went up the +tumble-down steps to the porch, two pairs of eyes were bent on the blue +horizon. + + +What helped a little to reconcile Val to waiting till November was not +only the simplification of the money question, but also the fact that it +gave her time to carry out a daring scheme that had been suggested by +the contents of the last foreign mail. No letters; but addressed in +cousin Ethan's hand, a French magazine with a queer mystical kind of a +story in it, marked, and a London _Pall Mall Gazette_ with a poem signed +"E. G." It was not the first time Mrs. Gano had received matters of this +sort in lieu of a letter, and when she did she was always angrier, Val +thought, than if she had got nothing at all. + +But the poem in the _Pall Mall_ set Val thinking. It was no part of her +scheme of life to have a pleasure trip to New York and return with a +mere "look over the field." She must lay her plans carefully and not +trust to luck. No stone should be left unturned in her endeavor to make +the most of this glorious opportunity. Cousin Ethan! Could he, perhaps, +be turned to account? If there were any influence or advice he could +offer, of course he would be most happy. Val would be intensely grateful +to him; but all the same, it would be the crowning pride of his life +that he had helped to launch his cousin on the tide of fame. + +She sat down and wrote to him surreptitiously, made a score of drafts, +and finally evolved this copy: + + + "THE FORT, _June 20_. + + "MY DEAR COUSIN ETHAN,--I have never written to you but once since + I was a child. I have never told you anything except that I wished + you 'A Merry Christmas,' or was glad you were coming--which you + know you never did. I don't think you ever will, and, besides, I + can't wait for you. It may seem funny that, not knowing you any + better, I should write you now about a matter of the deepest + importance, but you are my cousin, and, after my father, you are my + nearest kinsman, and I am in need of help. I want to be a + singer--not a mere parlor warbler, but a Great Singer. I have a + tremendous voice. I am obliged to tell you this, since you can't + hear it. I practise every day by myself, though I can't use the + piano much on account of grandma. I have always led the singing at + school; all the rest, nearly three hundred girls, follow. But I + have never been able properly to study music. I was going to run + away and be a chorus girl till I could earn enough to study for + grand opera, but my father has induced me to wait--just a little. + He is going to take me East in the fall, and says I may 'Look over + the field.' He says, too, it will give me an opportunity of seeing + how difficult it is to do what I mean to do. But I don't think it's + a good plan to take all that trouble (his cough is very bad) just + to show me the thing is difficult. What I want to be shown is the + way--no matter how hard--that it may be done. The trouble is, that + my dear father, who knows many great scientists, and a few + politicians, doesn't know any famous singers, and nobody about here + does, and nobody seems to know any one who ever _did_ know an + opera-singer, much less a manager. My grandmother has often told me + that you have artistic tastes, and now comes the _Pall Mall_ of + London with your 'Song for Sylvia.' I've made up five tunes to it, + and I think you would like them, since, unlike my family, _you_ are + artistic. I've been thinking a person like you must have great + opportunities. You probably know singers, managers, musicians, and + all sorts of delightful people. I wonder if you would help me to + find out how a girl with a very exceptional voice can get it heard + and get it trained? I know there are people who do these things, + and when they discover a great voice they make their fortunes; so + it is not a favor in the end on the part of the manager. But if you + showed me the way, and could lend me five hundred dollars, it would + always be a favor from you, and I would be grateful to you for ever + and ever. If you will send me a letter of introduction to a + manager, I think that would be best--that and five hundred + dollars--and perhaps you would be so very kind as to send me the + lives of Jenny Lind and Patti. It would help me to know what steps + they took. I don't mind any hardship or any labor--I mind _nothing_ + but not getting my chance. Don't be afraid of encouraging me to do + something the family has not been accustomed to--my father is on my + side; and, anyhow, they would have to kill me before they could + keep me back now. So you will not feel any responsibility. I would + rather be helped by you because you are my relation, but if you + won't, I must find somebody else. I remain, your affectionate + cousin, + + "VAL GANO. + + "P.S.--I am a good deal over fifteen; strangers all think I am + twenty. + + "P.S. No. 2.--Of course I will pay back the five hundred dollars, + principal and interest. I will send you a promissory note, like the + arithmetic says." + + +This document was conveyed to the mail with secrecy and despatch. The +days went by like malicious snails; she had never known time drag +before. The slow weeks gathered into monotonous months, and still no +answer. Never mind, she would do everything just the +same--better--without his help. Her future triumphs took on more the +aspect of a judgment on cousin Ethan than a mere reward to Val. She made +up scenes of the coming encounters, when, from the vantage-ground of +being "better than Patti," she would overwhelm her cousin with scorn. +She would meet him as a perfect stranger, declare her surprise at his +claiming her for his cousin. He would find his chief distinction in this +kinship. He would lay his millions at her feet. She would spurn them. "I +have my own millions now. Had it been earlier, cousin, it had been +kind." + +September was drawing to a close. Everything was merging now in the +excitement of the Eastern trip, fixed for the end of November. + +Idling in the autumn sunshine at the front door after breakfast one +morning, Val and Emmie had a friendly scuffle as to who should take the +mail from the postman. The little heap of letters and papers was soon +sown broadcast in the fray, and still no sign of either yielding, till +Val was arrested on catching sight of the addressed side of one of the +envelopes--"Mrs. Sarah C. Gano," in cousin Ethan's hand. But the real +significance lay in the stamp. Not this time the scantily-clad gentleman +and lady, clasping hands over a mauve world, of the Republique +Francaise; no goggle-eyed, mustachioed Umberto, in blue, with his hair +on end, and _Poste Italiane Centesimi Venticinque_ round him in an oval +frame; it was not even the twopenny-half-penny indigo head of Queen +Victoria; but their own rosy two-cent Washington, risking his health in +a low-neck coat, but saving his dignity by the queue. This was the first +letter from Ethan in five years that did not bear a foreign postmark. +While Val stood staring, Emmie had whipped up the letters and carried +them in to her grandmother. + +Val, in an agony of suspense, remained in the hall. Presently Emmie +came flying out, clapping her hands. Mrs. Gano followed briskly with the +open letter. + +"All those old Tallmadges are dead!" cried Emmie, jumping up and down +behind her grandmother. "He's been back in America over two months, and +he's coming here next week." + +Mrs. Gano was hurrying up-stairs to tell her son the great news. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Despite the distractions of a host of wandering fancies, Ethan Gano had +been kept fairly closely at his studies till he had passed his twentieth +birthday. To be sure, there had been a threatened interruption the +spring before, when he seemed suddenly to lose interest in his work, and +went about with vacant looks and airs of profound preoccupation. Old Mr. +Tallmadge, observing him narrowly, decided that his grandson had got +into debt, and that he was nervous about confessing. Ethan had never +shown a proper regard for money. This was one of the many +un-Tallmadge-like qualities developed by the years. It was a matter of +paramount importance to counteract this flaw in Aaron Tallmadge's sole +surviving heir, since of late years the old man's affairs had prospered +more than ever. About the time of his brother Elijah's death, he had +financed a manufacturing enterprise which, starting on a modest scale, +had turned out fabulously successful. He was one of the "moneyed men" of +the State. In addition to this piece of shrewd speculation, he found the +income from his newspaper doubled in the last few years. Ah, yes! +nothing was of so much importance now as Ethan's fitness to gather in +and husband the golden harvest. If he had been further exemplifying his +unthrifty proclivities, if he needed to be told that borrowing dulls the +edge of husbandry--Mr. Tallmadge, not trusting to any unperceived +facilities for impromptu speech, rehearsed mentally the lecture he would +administer. Ethan mustn't run away with the idea that the Tallmadge +accumulations were only waiting for a lavish hand to redistribute. The +first lesson a young man with his prospects must be made to learn was +the value of a dollar. But Ethan wore a gracious kind of reticence +wrapped like a mantle round his young life. His grandfather knew very +little about him, but the old man had himself belonged to the +inarticulate ones of earth, and he never realized that, to this quiet, +non-committal grandson of his expression of some sort was a master +passion. How should Aaron Tallmadge have suspected such a thing? Some +time before this Ethan quietly, alone, without making a sign, had gone +through a religious crisis not uncommon to his age and era. "No use to +upset the family," he said to himself when he found he had come out on +the other side of Tallmadge-Presbyterianism; and he went regularly to +church with his grandfather without comment and without misgiving. There +were still grave problems to be faced--too grave, in fact, for him to be +beguiled into fancying this was one. + +Now, in the midst of a perturbation not greater, but less easily +disguised, he held his peace as a matter of course. Some early developed +quality of aloofness in him held inquiry at bay. Then suddenly the +clouds lifted. He was radiant and full of covert smiling. + +Mr. Tallmadge resented this phase more than the former gloom. + +"He's paying heavy interest, the young fool! and can't realize that that +way damnation lies." + +But all the old man's clumsy efforts to bring about an explanation were +unavailing. Ethan declared with some surprise that he was not in need of +funds. Mr. Tallmadge began to scrutinize the letters that came. Three +mornings in succession a business-like envelope addressed in the same +clerkly hand! Alone, before the fire in the dining-room, waiting for +breakfast that third morning, the old man solemnly deliberated, glanced +at the clock, and grumbled to himself that Ethan would certainly be ten +minutes late as usual these days. "Perhaps he doesn't sleep." He +examined the suspicious envelope. The flap was not securely gummed down. +Mr. Tallmadge glanced again at the clock. He had not the least doubt as +to his right--"duty" he would have said--to open the letter of this +unconfiding minor, who was his ward and grandson--an unpractical youth, +moreover, of absolutely no business capacity whatever. Still, although +Mr. Tallmadge would never have admitted it, he was a little in awe of +this grandson, with so little "Tallmadge" in him. It was essential to +open the letter--no doubt about that; but it would be well to have the +business over before Ethan appeared. Mr. Tallmadge's desire not to be +interrupted in the act might have enlightened him as to its +defensibility; but he was no casuist. He took up the letter, adjusted +his spectacles, and walked to the window. Inserting a long finger-nail, +he easily pried up the flap. + + + "MY DARLING ETHAN,--Your last poem is the most beautiful thing I + ever read in my life. It is far more wonderful than anything + Shelley ever did. I shall be in the Beech Walk at five. + + "Your wife, ALMIRA." + + +Aaron Tallmadge clutched the red damask curtains, with a stifled groan. +The breakfast-bell clanged loudly. Its echoes had not time to die before +Ethan appeared, with shining morning face. + +"Good-morning," he said, lightly, looking down at his plate. "No +letters?" + +"Yes, sir." Mr. Tallmadge turned his ashen countenance round. "There +_is_ a letter." + +Ethan stared at him and ran forward. + +"What's the matter? Are you ill?" + +Mr. Tallmadge warded him off with a shaking hand. + +"You scoundrel!" + +Ethan drew himself up arrow-straight, and his warm brown eyes grew cold. + +"I knew there was some devilry afoot. I never dreamed it was as bad as +this." + +The old man flung the open letter down on the nearest chair. + +Ethan colored, catching sight of the hand. + +"So you've been reading my letters?" + +"Yes; I only wish to the Lord I had exercised that right before. I +might have saved you from this ruin!" + +"You couldn't have saved me, sir, if that's any satisfaction." + +"It's no use to think what might have been--" The old man sat down, +almost fell into the chair by the window where he had thrown the letter. +"Was she a decent woman?" + +"Was she a--" Ethan repeated, bewildered. + +"Who is she?" thundered old Tallmadge, with renewed rage. + +"Almira Marlowe." + +"Marlowe! Any relation to--" + +"Daughter of the new Professor of Physics." + +"Ha! _might_ be worse, I suppose. But--Marlowe? Marlowe? He's the new +man, isn't he?" + +"Yes." + +"Marlowe? Why, it isn't a month since he was installed." + +"Six weeks." + +"And all this happened in six weeks?" + +"Yes." + +Mr. Tallmadge's lean face worked, speechless; then, finding a +fury-choked voice: + +"Tell me the circumstances, and let me see if anything can be done." + +"Nothing can be done. It's irrevocable." + +"But it isn't legal. You haven't a penny. You're under age." + +"We can wait." + +"Just what you couldn't do, apparently. You--you--" + +After he had worked off his fit of incoherency, he resumed: + +"Well, you've succeeded in wrecking your life pretty thoroughly. And +only nineteen! How old is the girl?" + +"Twenty-one." + +"I see," muttered the old man. "Well, I suppose now that it's +'irrevocable,' as you say, you'd better take me into your confidence." + +"I don't see that you've left me much choice." + +"Where is she living now?" + +"In Cambridge," said Ethan, with some surprise. + +"With her father still?" + +"Yes." + +"You saw her there?" + +"Yes." + +"When?" + +Ethan grew scarlet, and then, frowning doggedly: + +"I saw her first in her garden one morning as I was going to Hall." + +"Well?" + +"I've answered your question." + +"No, you haven't. I must know the facts of the case before I can-- You +made acquaintance with her that first day?" + +"I didn't _speak_ to her." + +The old man stared with mystified little eyes at his grandson's flushed +face. + +"She was there every day when you passed by?" + +"Yes." + +"H'm! Of course she would be there. When did you speak to her?" + +"Not for three weeks." + +He half turned away. + +"Good Lord! Barely a fortnight ago!" + +Ethan didn't deny it. + +"How did you come to know her?" + +The young face grew dark. He was writhing under the catechism. + +"Charlie Hammond showed her a poem I had written for the _Harvard +Oracle_. She sent me a message about it." + +"Well?" + +"Then I went to call with Hammond." + +"Well?" + +"Then--then I met her in the Beech Walk." + +"Ah! The Beech Walk." + +"Yes; twice." + +"And then?" + +"That's all." + +"Don't tell me lies, sir!" + +Ethan stood before him cold and rigid on a sudden. No flush now on the +clear-cut features. + +"You've no right to speak to me as you're doing, not if you were fifty +grandfathers." + +"Where did these other meetings take place, sir? Did old Marlowe +countenance them?" + +"There were no other meetings." + +Ethan turned away. + +"Now, look here!"--the old man arraigned him with a shaking hand--"you +can't undo the bitter disappointment you are to me, but you can and you +owe it to me to tell me fairly and squarely the details of this wretched +business. I can't proceed in the matter if I'm in the dark." + +"_You_ proceed in the matter?" + +Ethan wheeled about and faced him. + +"It's quite plain that you were merely a yielding fool in the +matter--girl older, and you--" + +"Grandfather!" + +"--and you easy to convince that you ought to make reparation." + +Ethan seemed to have ears only for the first part of this accusation. He +spoke through Mr. Tallmadge's last words with a passionate shake in his +voice. + +"It's quite plain, at all events, grandfather, that I love her, and that +nothing in heaven or on earth can part us." + +"Of course--of course. A fortnight--a girl you barely knew by sight!" + +"I know her absolutely. There isn't another like her on this earth." + +"And you want me to believe you've spoken to her only three or four +times in your life?" + +"I don't specially _want_ you to believe it, but it's true." + +"Who could you find to marry you?" + +"Who could I--to marry me?" He looked as if he had begun to doubt the +old man's sanity. "Why, I've never asked anybody but Almira." + +"Yes, yes, yes. Who could you find to overlook the age question? Who +performed the ceremony?" + +"_Ceremony?_" + +"Oh, ho! Registry-office performance, eh? and perjury! Monstrous +irreligion! _My_ grandson!" + +"What _do_ you mean?" But a light was beginning to dawn. + +"Who were your witnesses?" + +Ethan laughed and flushed, and then grew serious again. + +"Of course, it's exactly the same as if we _were_ married, _exactly the +same_." He flashed a broadside of defiance out of shining eyes. "But we +know we can't well be married while I'm a minor, and--" + +"You _aren't_ married?" + +"Oh no. But--" + +"Then, what in the name of Jehoshaphat is all this damned--what's all +this disturbance about?" + +"I'm sure I don't know." + +Mr. Tallmadge mopped his brow, and looked about distractedly, like one +who has lost his thread in a labyrinth. + +"However, it's exactly the same as if we were--" + +"Exactly tomfool!" + +The old man got up and walked a few shaky paces back and forth. Turning, +he caught sight of the letter he'd been sitting upon. + +"_Wife!_" he exclaimed. "What the d---- What does she mean by calling +herself your--" and he stopped suddenly with a look of contemptuous +comprehension. + +"Does she?" + +Ethan, with a start forward, had clutched the letter greedily. He +couldn't, perhaps he didn't even try to keep the great gladness out of +his face as he read. Mr. Tallmadge watched him with equivocal eyes. +Then, dryly: + +"If I were in your shoes that signature would alarm me." + +"I think it very beautiful of her," said Ethan, softly. + +"And not alarming?" + +"Alarming?" He knitted puzzled brows. "I begged her to think of me +as--like this." + +There was a pause. + +"It's not _her_ doing," he resumed, hastily, striking out at some +indistinct enemy lurking behind the old man's looks. "No ceremony could +make us surer of each other. That's why we're not unhappy. It's exactly +the same as if we were married." + +"_Exactly?_" He eyed the young face shrewdly, and then, a little baffled +by its mixture of sensitive shrinking and frank defiance: "You will +oblige me by not keeping this appointment"--he motioned to the letter. + +"I'm sorry I can't oblige you, sir." + +"Reflect a moment." + +"I can't even reflect about it. She's going away to-morrow to spend +several months with her sister. After that she goes back to Vassar. I +may not see her again till next summer." + +"You don't mean she's going back to school this fall?" + +"Yes. She lost a year. They couldn't afford-- But now she's going to +finish her course." + +"Good Lord!" + +"I beg your pardon." + +"There's no reason why she shouldn't go back to school?" + +"Reason why--? No." + +A light broke, or rather a darkness spread, over the young man's face, +wiping out the grace, stamping it fiercely with detestation of him who +had dared think insulting thoughts of Almira. But the old man was +smiling and rubbing his parchment hands. + +"Tempest in a teacup! Come and have breakfast," he said, walking to the +table; "everything's getting cold." + +But Ethan put the letter of the clerkly hand into his breast-pocket, and +went towering out of the room. + +Aaron Tallmadge chuckled genially as he rang for hot buckwheat cakes. + +"Romantic! absurd! Great baby!" he muttered, and opened the morning +paper--his paper--Ethan's by-and-by. + +Ethan had not needed his grandfather's recommendation to abstain from +mentioning in any letter to Mrs. Gano that her more and more irregular +correspondent had been ill that last severe winter before he came of +age, or that he considered himself engaged to be married to a girl older +than himself and penniless. Mr. Tallmadge persistently affected to put +this last achievement aside as sheer youthful nonsense. But those +letters in the misleading hand came to Ashburton Place with irritating +regularity. He began secretly to await with no small anxiety Ethan's +view of the moral as well as legal liberty conferred by the distinction +of being twenty-one. Before that moment arrived, the doctors were +agreeing that the young man must not, till his health should be +established, spend another Christmas in New England. + +"At the end of the Indian summer away with him." + +"By all means," said Mr. Tallmadge. "Why wait even for the summer? All +he needs is a thorough change." + +The old man was thinking--thinking not alone of the health, but +ambitiously of the future, of his grandson. + +"Where shall I send him?" asked Mr. Tallmadge. + +"It doesn't much matter where he is in the summer," the doctors agreed; +"but get him south of Mason and Dixon's line next winter." + +These insensate _medicos_ had no bowels of political compassion. They +must have known well enough that the region indicated was not a part of +the world lightly to be recommended to Aaron Tallmadge. + +"I'll go and visit my Gano relations," Ethan had said, promptly. + +"You'll do nothing of the kind," returned his grandfather. "It's no +reason, because you feel the cold here, that I should send you where +you'd catch yellow fever and malaria." + +From the Tallmadge point of view, Mason and Dixon's line did no less +than divide habitable from uninhabitable America. Voluntarily to cross +the kindly boundary was contrary to reason. There was no difficulty in +deciding that Italy or the South of France would be more advantageous +for the young man's conversance with modern languages, as well as +farther away from Almira Marlowe, and more tolerable to his grandfather +and guardian than Virginia or Florida. + +Mr. Tallmadge's capable junior partner was able to relieve his chief of +all active concern in the conduct of business till Ethan should be ready +to assume command. To this latter end, a few years' foreign travel, and +a thorough re-establishment of the young man's health, were next in +order. The plan worked well on the health score. A summer in England and +a winter on the Riviera seemed to have set Ethan free from the family +infirmity, but also to have whetted his appetite for foreign life, and +increased his indifference to the proud post of chief proprietor of the +greatest Republican organ in New England. But this might be merely the +first effects of Miss Almira's having thrown over her first love and +married a lawyer in Poughkeepsie, New York. + +After all, Mr. Tallmadge reflected, his grandson was still very young, +and intimate knowledge of life in other lands might not come amiss. So +the energetic old man went to and fro, joining Ethan, now in Paris, now +in London, travelling about with him during the summer, and returning +alone to "the great Republican organ" in the autumn, leaving his +grandson to new friends, new pursuits, and warmer winter haunts. + +The young man was not all this time merely seeing life, he was recording +it in desultory fashion. Some of his verses appearing in English +periodicals raised a little dust of praise among a set in London calling +itself critical. But it was the French point of view that most appealed +to him. + +He was under that spell which France knows so well how to cast round the +young man of artistic instinct. Her tongue was the peerless language of +letters. Through no medium less supple, less subtle, could the +complexities of modern life and thought hope for adequate literary +expression. + +And so the pleasant facile days went by in idly roving, idly writing, +meeting interrogatively his predestinate experience and setting the more +presentable answers down. Where answer there was none, he aped the older +men, whom he called "Masters," and made shift with more or less cynical +guesses. It was these last that brought him his little meed of +precocious success. He had not originality enough to see that the +cynicism was not his own. He was not, and seemingly was not to be, of +the stature that can wear simple sincerity in the grand manner. That +writer, young or old, must have something of true greatness in him who +can hold out long in these days against the flattering temptation of +hinting that he is laughing in his sleeve at all solemn persons. And yet +no doubt seriousness was the dominant note in the young American's +character, a seriousness that still looked askance at itself, and smiled +oftener at its own gravity than at any other wrinkle in the tragi-comic +mask of humanity. + +He had seen something of what people in London and Paris called +"society," had been very well amused, but not enamoured of it. When men +who made letters a profession--perhaps one should say trade--admonished +him: "Never refuse a swagger invitation. Your opportunities, considering +you're a foreigner, are simply unheard of. Go everywhere, see +everything. You must know life before you can write about it," Ethan +would say, half impatiently: "As if you could escape from life! As if +art kept her treasures in the jewel-cases of the aristocracy, and never +displayed them except at social functions!" + +Even in indulgent Paris he was a good deal chaffed about his success +with the fair. It is a thing other men reconcile themselves to with +difficulty. Some one said once to Ethan's old school friend, De Poincy: + +"No one but a woman has any business to be as good-looking as that +fellow Gano. I couldn't trust a man with a face like that." + +"Oh, you may trust him right enough," De Poincy answered. "And as to +his face--look at that jaw of his." + +"Anything the matter with his jaw?" + +"There's 'man' enough in that to relieve your mind. Oh, he's a stubborn +brute, Gano is; but you can trust him." And people did trust him. + +But not only did he tire presently of the gay and flaunting aspect of +social life, his fastidiousness by-and-by turned aside as well from +those less presentable experiences that dog the rich and idle youth of +capitals. + +At first with a dull old tutor, and presently without him, he had for +headquarters a tiny _appartement_ in Paris. It was there, or with the De +Poincys in Nice, that he felt most at home. Something over two years had +gone by in this agreeable fashion when his grandfather addressed to him +a temperate but very serious letter inviting him to return, either to +complete his interrupted studies "on American lines," or to enter at +once on his initiation into the practical duties of editorship. Ethan at +first temporized, and then, being pressed, declined to pursue either +course. He "liked living abroad." This fact, thus stated, greatly +irritated old Tallmadge. He ordered his grandson home. Ethan wrote, +still very politely, but quite definitely, refusing to come just then. +Mr. Tallmadge, angrier than ever, cabled, "Is it on account of health? +Are you afraid of climate?" Ethan cabled back: "Perfectly well. Prefer +Paris." + +This lack of patriotism on the part of a grandson of his seemed to Aaron +Tallmadge nothing short of revolutionary. It was no use Ethan's quoting +to him, _Tout homme a deux pays, le sien et puis la France_. The more +Mr. Tallmadge pondered the matter, the more he felt convinced that this +incredible preference for Paris was the shameful mask of some other +preference. "Some woman's got hold of him again," he decided. "I'll soon +settle that." Whereupon he wired: "Come right home, or I stop +allowance." + +Then was his grandson most unreasonably angry. He sent back, in a blank +sheet of writing-paper, the recently received check for the next +quarter, which he had neglected to cash, and he looked about for +employment. Henri de Poincy, who had recently passed into the diplomatic +service, was now in Russia; but young Gano started out on his quest of a +living with no foreboding. He went to see various men of affairs, firm +friends of his, he felt convinced, and stated the case; in fact, a +cooler head than Ethan's might have suspected he overstated it. It was +true he had received a "final" letter, which he thought most insulting, +full of a crudely expressed conviction that Ethan was in the toils of +some foreign woman, and saying that unless he returned instantly his +grandfather would know this suspicion was well founded, in which case +the young man had nothing to expect from him in the future. + +Those persons of influence whom young Gano had consulted in his dilemma +all promised to keep him in mind and see what they could do, and most of +them thereafter forgot even to invite him to dinner. He began to realize +that being a young American of leisure, with no axe to grind, with an +absurdly large income for a man of his years, and known to be sole heir +to one of the big fortunes "in the States," was an altogether different +matter from being a person suddenly bereft of these advantages. He gave +up his charming _appartement_ in the Champs-Elysees, and presently found +that he couldn't keep even the single room he had taken in the Rue de +Miromenil. He moved to the Rue de Provence. + +He was in low water--very low water, indeed--before he got the post of +Parisian correspondent on a London paper. With this diminutive buoy he +managed to keep afloat; but his former position as an independent young +gentleman with large expectations was blown upon, and no one more +hypersensitive than he to the outward and visible signs of people's +appreciation of his altered circumstances. He withdrew more and more +from the swim. Smart Parisian society and the rich American colony knew +him no more. After a while his English editor complained that his news +was becoming too exclusively "literary and artistic; we expected +something about the races last week. Give us more society." + +To this the Parisian correspondent replied: "I never yet wrote about +society unless indirectly, and I do not propose to begin." + +"There was formerly," persisted the editor, who knew quite well what he +wanted, "a flavor of the fashionable world about your Parisian notes, +which our readers miss. French art and Bohemia are overdone." + +Gano sold some valuable books, and went over to London with the proceeds +to have it out with the editor. The upshot of the interview was that he +declined to furnish any more "Notes." The editor seemed perfectly +resigned. However, after the struggle in Paris, Gano was convinced that +London was the likelier place for him to find a footing. In the +background of his mind he had already, when he sold his books, foreseen +and accepted the result of the further discussion of his "Notes." He +would at all events be on the spot in London, and would quickly find +some opening. Talent was not the drug in the market here, he told +himself, that it was in France. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +And day after day, week after week, while he sought an opening, he very +nearly starved. In a couple of months he had arrived at the conclusion +that the fight in London was more sordid and more dispiriting than the +direst poverty in Paris. About this time he came in for a distasteful +piece of hack journalism, that brought him a disproportionate loathing +and an inadequate reward of five pounds. He was strongly tempted to +invest a part of this sole capital in returning to France. A couple of +days later a letter arrived through the London branch of the Paris +bankers from Henri de Poincy, back in the South of France on a holiday. +He asked for Ethan's private address, and said if he did not hear +something satisfactory by return he would conclude the beastly English +climate had made him ill; in which case he was straightway coming over +to look Ethan up, and persuade him to return to his friends in Nice. If +he did not hear by wire or letter in three days, De Poincy would come to +London and see what was the matter. They were all anxious at his +silence. + +This determined the matter. Gano was not going to have his old friend +find him in his present plight. Besides, he already owed him money, and +had sworn to himself that he would not meet De Poincy again till he +could go to him with the sum in his hands. Henri was far from well off, +and, since his father's death the year before, had helped to support his +sisters. Ethan wired: "Leaving London; quite well; remembrance to all; +writing," and took the night-boat to Dieppe. He delayed further +communication till he knew Henri would be back in Petersburg, and by +that time he was able, by living on next to nothing, to return a part +of the loan, and to represent himself as intensely glad to be in his old +haunts again. These haunts were in reality very new, albeit in Paris; +but he did not enter into details further than to say he was +rediscovering the fact that he could write French much more easily and +much better than he could English, and was doing some book-reviewing for +the _Lendemain_. + +He might have added, but did not, that he was getting at first-hand a +very considerable knowledge of the darker side of life, but had no +impulse to make artistic use of it. It did not stimulate, it did not +even interest--it paralyzed him. "If I'd had the makings of a genuine +poet in me," he admitted to Henri de Poincy afterwards, "those years +might have buffeted some good work out of me. But _my_ muse was a +miserable time-server, like the rest of my fine acquaintance. She left +me when I wanted bread. The fact was, I was _feeling_ life too keenly to +write about it. Poetizing in the face of such suffering as I saw and +shared seemed a drivelling impertinence. Life was more terrible, more +tremendous than anything any poet had said about it, or _could_ say." + +Gano was unconsciously making of himself an obscure example of the fact +that a man's temperament will find him out upon the removal of the +artificial ballast. This removal so seldom takes place that the vaguest +notions abound as to any given person's specific gravity. We go through +life unconsciously floated, balanced, by family, by inherited friends, +inherited pursuits, inherited opinions, inherited money--by a thousand +conditions not made by ourselves, but found ready-made to our hands, an +expression of other people's energy, supporting or neutralizing our own. +Gano's inclinations, not being volcanic or epoch-making, had been, up to +the time of the break with his grandfather, dutifully filtered through +environing circumstance. Even so, Mr. Tallmadge had had occasion to +condemn his grandson's "queer tastes," his "visionary notions," his +girlish compassion for suffering, his hypersensitiveness to blame, his +even greater shrinking from hurting the feelings of others. The tough +old New Englander's contempt for "sensitiveness" had at least done Ethan +the service of giving him an exterior self-control, which seemed so far +to deny the feelings it only masked, that he was able to pass +comfortably in the crowd as a person more impassive, if anything, than +the majority. But as soon as he was left to himself, and followed no +longer by critical eyes, his natural bias announced itself. He felt less +and less drawn to the insouciant artist life of the town; the +happy-go-lucky ways lost their first fresh savor; the suppers, the +orgies, the endless comment, quite as eager as any of the work and often +more brilliant; the short, merry life of the happy little flies that +buzz so busily about the flower-garden of art, and that vanish with the +vanishing of day--they all ended by striking some note of discord in +him, and making him feel out of place there. "Was he getting too old for +this kind of thing?" he asked himself, with modern youth's morbid +consciousness of the value certain people set upon one time of life to +the exclusion of any other, forgetting that "to travel deliberately +through one's ages is to get the heart out of a liberal education," and +the heart out of enlightened satisfaction as well. + +But Gano was, perhaps, only following the unwritten law that rules such +haunts and their frequenters, for these gay Bohemians are all young--and +very young indeed. No one knows where they go when their short hour is +done. Their laughter lags a little behind the rest one day, and the next +they are not there. A new face is in the old place, a younger voice is +screaming theories and outlaughing the laughers who are left. + +Gano knew whither one of these superannuated revellers of twenty-five or +so had retired. This was a great good-looking Irishman, with an +unaccountable French tongue in his rough, tawny head, the hardest +worker, deepest drinker, and wildest theorist in the particular little +circle that Gano had of late frequented. Dick Driscoll and he had got +into the habit of coming away together from the modest cafe where the +circle met. Now and then the older man would drag Gano off on some wild +adventure, or they would scour Paris with no definite end in view, +arguing, disputing, catching effects, till midnight met the dawn. From +living in the same quarter they came by-and-by to live under the same +roof, as a direct result of the Irishman's being as ready to discuss +theories of life in general, or even Gano's work in particular, as he +had been to harangue "the painter fellows" about brushwork and values. + +He pronounced those early poems "most awfully good, you know," and +prophesied great things for the future. But for all this, deeper and +deeper the conviction cut into Gano that he was not of the stuff that +"makes its way in the world." This without any of the feeling that +usually accompanies it--of contempt for those who were differently +constituted. He sometimes soothed his harassed spirit, and consoled +himself for his failures, by an odd inversion of common hopes. He bade +himself realize that success would not bring him happiness, so why join +the thoughtless chorus condemning poverty, obscurity, and hard work? +These last were not the heads of his indictment against life. At other +times he would shut his eyes to this revelation of himself to himself. +"Skin-deep! skin-deep, like yours!" he burst out at Driscoll's +observation on his friend's growing dissatisfaction with the scheme of +things. + +The Irishman was rather proud of his Schopenhauerism. It represented to +him a mere mental gymnastic. This, too, although hard work, hard living, +and hard drinking had injured his health, and the fact was more and more +apparent. However, it is something behind experience that determines +whether a man shall be an optimist or not. Gano shrank from an +imputation of pessimism, as people do in whom the tendency is inborn and +inveterate. "I tell you, Driscoll, if we weren't sharing it, we would +think there was some good served by the ugliness and pain in the world, +just as our betters do. If we took our place again in the holiday-making +class, we should be as diverted as the rest, with all the games and +make-believes. We, too, should forget the essential cruelty of things." +But behind the boast was a heart-sinking, and a sense that it was a lie. + +He would try again: "Because life has treated me cavalierly I think I +have little zest for it. If I weren't bruised from crown to toe, I'd +think the world a bed of roses." And then he would remember that that +was far from being the account he would ever have given of his +consciousness of things. + +Before he betook himself to Bohemia, Gano had spent no small portion of +his time in the brilliant circle Madame Astier's grace and wit had +gathered round her. The young American not only cherished an enthusiasm +for his middle-aged hostess, but he discovered a deep admiration as well +for the lady's husband, a distinguished advocate, whom she obviously +adored. Gano's sensibilities did, it is true, shrink at first before the +man's pitiless cynicism, which spared few persons and fewer ideals. But +although merely dazzled at the beginning by his brilliancy, Gano came in +time to be proud of his friendship, and to recognize in his point of +view a wholesome, bitter tonic, a corrective to certain ills that young +flesh is heir to. This man of fifty-four, who would have shrugged +derisively at the notion of "teaching" anybody anything, was still in +many young eyes the very type of the modern philosopher: believing +blandly in the scientific point of view, unmoved by sentimentalities, +unblinded by enthusiasms, keen-witted, farsighted, practising with +eminent success, in the most highly civilized society in the world, the +most difficult of the arts--the art of living. + +Gano was very much shaken by the terrible story of the double suicide of +this brilliant pair, whose marriage had been so romantic, whose life +together had seemed the one ideal of the old kind that they admitted +into their smiling existence. + +M. Astier, as all the world was being told, had returned home as usual +on this particular afternoon from the Palais de Justice. His wife had +been holding a reception. One lady remained after the other visitors had +gone. When at last the door closed upon her, too, Madame Astier went to +her husband's library and told him that the last visitor had outstayed +the others to say that her husband was going to fight a duel on her +account the next day with M. Astier, with whom she (the visitor) had an +intrigue of three years' standing. She had come to Madame Astier to +prevent the men's meeting. + +A violent scene between husband and wife. + +"The end has come!'" exclaims Astier. + +"Yes, yes; we can't go on living after this!" cries the distracted wife. + +She flies to her dressing-room and attempts to swallow poison. Astier's +secretary rushes after her. While he is wrenching the poison away, the +report of fire-arms. Both rush back to the library, where they find M. +Astier bathed in blood, dying. The wife, before she can be hindered, +puts the smoking pistol to her head, fires another fatal shot, and the +tragedy is done. + +Gano had talked to Driscoll from time to time of the Astiers, of +Clemenceau, and the other habitues of those delightful soirees, and of +the regret he sometimes felt that he had not told his friends frankly of +the change in his fortunes, and the reason he did not any longer +frequent the Faubourg St. Honore. + +"But I couldn't, somehow, talk to them of a thing we couldn't either +laugh at or satirize. Still, they'd be among the first people that I'd +go to if I had a stroke of luck." + +And now, out of that atmosphere of gayety and _blague_, this! No sky +apparently so cloudless but from its blue a bolt may fall. Ethan had +rushed out and bought the _Justice_. He read Clemenceau's article aloud, +translating hurriedly as he went on for a compatriot of Driscoll's, who +had happened to drop in for a pipe and a crack: + +"'This pitiless scoffer, Astier, this despairing sceptic, who spoke so +slightingly of women and love, is now discovered to have been a man of +soft and sentimental nature, without any reserve of appliances against +woman's wiles or surging passion. The so-called libertine, cauterized +by Paris against Paris, was upset by an event which could have been +easily foreseen. In a situation of the most commonplace kind, he so +thoroughly lost all self-control that he could hit upon no other remedy +than self-destruction.' How contemptuously he writes of his old friend's +'losing self-control' and the rest of it," said Gano, angrily, "as if +the double death was the real tragedy!" + +"What then?" + +"Why, the moment when that nice woman discovered that the husband she +had married so romantically, and who had been so devoted to her all +those years, had turned round and betrayed her in the last chapter. I +agree with them both: it wasn't much use to go on living after that." + +"Oh, as to going on living," observed Driscoll, shortly, "it would +puzzle most people to tell why they think that much use." + +"But _these_ people--" began Gano. + +"More like the rest of the world than they pretended, that's all," the +visitor summed up, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I've once +or twice come near to some tragedy, as Gano has to this. It does feel a +bit odd to realize we're all living our peaceful lives on the edge of a +volcano. But, bless you!"--he clapped on his hat with a rakish air--"we +get so used to it we forget all about it till our turn comes." + +"Meanwhile, we're all in the conspiracy to pretend that tragedy is dead +and buried in the works of the great dramatists," said Driscoll. + +"Good job, too," commented the departing visitor, nodding to the two +friends as he went off. + +"Your cheerful compatriot is right," said Ethan, shaken suddenly out of +his role as Nature's apologist. "Life simply doesn't bear being thought +about." + +Whereupon they proceeded to talk about it for hours on end. They uttered +a deal of raw philosophy in those days, often with passion, sometimes +with hope. Driscoll, for all his profession of pessimism, had moments +of splendid confidence that he had stumbled upon the Perfect Way. Gano +would shake his head, repeating: + + + "'Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent + Doctor and saint, and heard great argument + About it and about: but evermore + Came out by the same door as in I went. + + "'... Their words to scorn + Are scattered, and their mouths are stopped with dust.'" + + +Through a young painter from Basle, these two were among the first +outside of the German circle to have some realization of the magnitude +of Friedrich Nietzsche as a force to be reckoned with. But Gano shrank +from the sound and fury of the iconoclast as much as from his more +coherently expressed doctrines. It was as abhorrent to his new doubts as +it was to his old faiths to hear that Nietzsche had said (speaking of +Germany), "Nowhere else has there been so vicious a misuse of the two +great European narcotics--alcohol and Christianity." Driscoll, knowing a +good deal more about the first than he did about the last, professed his +withers to be unwrung. What was there in the utterance that Gano should +gibe at? + +Almost from the beginning they wore their rue with a difference. +Driscoll raged at concrete mistakes and injustices in the scheme of +things as presented to Richard Driscoll. The other, seeming to think he +had fewer personal wrongs to complain of, capable of too keen a +self-criticism to imagine himself a genius to whom the world owed +special privileges, was coming rapidly to a more serious indictment of +life on the basis of "the dread irrationality of the whole affair." + +It is not a happy subject for contemplation, perhaps, but it is possible +to ignore too absolutely that this is the attitude of mind of a vast +number of the young people of the time. No one with his classics in his +mind, no one even who has not forgotten Montaigne and Shakespeare, +thinks that this desperate guessing at "the riddle of the painful +earth" is an exercise peculiar to our day. What is perhaps new is the +commonness of the interrogation among young men, rich and poor, +industrious and idle, who have not genius wherewith to clothe and deck +their failure to produce the answer. Such men have not the distractions +and rewards of genius to take their minds off the fact of failure. + +What does it matter if you, in common with all the laboring earth, are +feeling in every fibre the force of the Duke's bitter exhortation to +Claudio? what does it matter if you can turn life's discords into music +such as this? Even a less lofty strain is reward sufficient for the +singer, reason enough to reconcile the monstrous egoism of genius to the +presence in the world of great sorrows that can be transmuted into +little songs. But to those whose music is shut up within them all their +days, what shall help them bear the deafening discord of the jangling on +and on of things that hurries them towards silence? There is an answer +to this question, but it is not found among those usually given, which +are for the most part variations of the philosophy of the ostrich. + +Gano used to tell, laughing, of the way a great English lady met her +son's shrinking confession of some deep, intellectual difficulty: "Do +rouse yourself, St. John. Low spirits are such bad form." + +"What was cultivated society?" Gano demanded of the Irishman. "A device +for preventing people from serious thinking. Acceptance of this view was +implicit in the very roots of language. You had to 'divert,' to +'distract' a man from the peril of looking facts in the face before you +could expect him to be moderately happy. Games for grown-up children, +the puerilities of country-house parties, what are they? Sage devices +for preventing people from thinking, traps to snare and cage the +intelligence--civilization's harmless anaesthetics. Oh yes, no mistake +about our diversions being more wisely chosen in these 'scientific' +times than in the days when the one escape was into the wine-cup's +_cul-de-sac_. What were they all--drinking, opium-eating, and the +rest--but simply forms of that protest most thinking creatures find +themselves making at some stage of their too-conscious life?" + +Driscoll accepted this view of his excesses with equanimity, reminding +Ethan in turn that there are in all ages bystanders at the board while +the cup goes round--old ladies of both sexes ready to ask, "What +pleasure can men take in making beasts of themselves?" and there is not +always a philosopher at the objector's elbow to answer, "He, madam, who +makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." The great +moralist knew from personal experience what he was talking about. He had +the sincerity to admit that his own long-abandoned drinking had not at +any time been from love of good-fellowship. Away with the genial lie, "I +drank to be rid of myself!" + +But Gano's point was that these old childish ways of hiding the head +under the bedclothes to keep out of the dark no longer comfort so many +of the grown-up children of the world. "They are afraid," he said, "not +only of the night, but, with a surer wisdom, of the morning. It is not +so easy to keep to-morrow at bay. Men need less and less the warning of +the taverner's wife: 'They one and all regret it in the morning.'" + +Said Gano to himself, summing up his survey: "We should not depend on, +but keep in reserve, some draught with no such menace in the dregs. What +one surer than that which brings a good-night and no morrow at all +forever any more?" + +Not, he felt, as a result of his own hard knocks, but out of unbiassed +observation of the common lot, again and again, without personal +resentment and without passion, he found himself reverting to the +thought of the unlivableness of life, unless a man should carry about a +conviction of freedom in his soul--a freedom that should be not a phrase +but a potent fact, conferring sovereignty over life and death, and so +lifting men above the meaner tricks of chance. + +If solving the riddle in "high Roman fashion" did not "make Death proud +to take us," which he felt to be beside the mark, the more intimate +realization that escape is possible seemed to rob life of her more +intolerable menace. It was not food for fear or brooding, but for +exultation, this recognition that, should other remedies fail, one might +still do + + + "That thing that ends all other deeds, + That shackles accidents, and bolts up change." + + +If the sovereign remedy had not been discovered in the past, the +Nineteenth Century would have invented it. Never before had life been so +hard for the many, never before had its value been so impugned. It might +be true that every one should make a good fight. It could not be +recommended to any but the craven that he should accept a degrading +captivity in addition to defeat. Yet those were the terms upon which +more than half the world lived. As for himself, it grew plainer and +plainer that he should bear as many buffets as he could take like a man, +but no one had a right to ask him to accept the disgraceful terms on +which many of the excellent of earth were given their dole of bitter +bread. As for the women, the power of human endurance was in them not +glorified, as the foolish had thought, but debased, brutalized, a thing +for scorn and pointing. It was this side of the subject that ultimately +roused him out of the apathy that had threatened him. He had the sense +of being secretly a lantern-bearer, of carrying under his coat a +wonderful sort of Aladdin's lamp, and feeling it a selfish monopoly not +to cry out his discovery in the streets. For this light, that had been +so gallantly upborne, so well honored, of old, had been put out in the +more effeminate times, and fallen to utter discredit in these new "dark +ages." It was degraded to the uses of the vile, instead of shining +beacon-like upon the hill of honor, a guide less to the fallen than to +those who would keep from falling. Men had so many new inventions to +make, they had clean forgotten this. It was one of the lost arts, and +had need of rediscovery and new proclaiming with the accent of our time. +A strange ardor of proselytism fell upon him as he looked upon those +about him in whom he traced his own old fear of life: delicate women +toiling in terror and incommunicable agony of spirit, or those others, +more horrible still, accepting dully, or in the devil-may-care French +fashion, an existence incredibly vile. Why were they not told + + + "Ye have no friend, + But resolution and the briefest end." + + +It would be absurd to say not one would listen. He couldn't take up a +paper without seeing that some desperate soul had made the discovery +alone, unprompted, and with all the weight of Society, Law, the Church, +and ignorant human shrinking against the anarchy of the act. It should +be made less horribly hard, more admittedly honorable. Illogically +enough, perhaps, these were not thoughts he felt it possible to share +with a man in Driscoll's state of rapidly failing health. Gano would +drop any questions in their later discussions that tended too much that +way, and the conversation showed in this a curious alacrity. If Driscoll +pursued the matter, Gano would even go the length of cutting the +interview short. The intellectual barrier thus raised was the first +check to the deepening friendship. For himself, from the day that Gano +realized that life was voluntary, it became sweet. He found himself +growing more light-hearted than he had thought it lay in him to be. He +worked with a new zest. Poverty, hunger, they couldn't cow him now. He +had the whip-hand of them. "I haven't forgotten," he said to himself, +"what it's like to be well housed, and fed, and friended, and to listen +without misgiving to the world's fairy-tales; but, remembering the +gladdest day the old life had to give, I know it never brought me such a +surging, God-like joy as the burst of that revelation, _We are free!_ If +we endure the worst evils in this life, it is because we are willing to. +Even the meanest of mankind are not caught like vermin in a trap. Man's +best boast and inalienable patent of nobility is that he holds in his +hand a key to all the prisons of the earth. He may open the door of +escape for himself. How curious to feel anew the solace of the old Roman +boast: In this the gods are less to be envied than the beggar or the +slave; the high gods must live on, but man may die if he will. Oh, glad +tidings of great joy! oh, the sweet, fresh air of liberty, the sense of +power, the exaltation of the crushed and stifled spirit!" In his bare, +ill-lighted room the man who had so long been the spoiled favorite of +material good fortune, now with empty pockets, dinnerless, nearly +friendless, would, nevertheless, lift up hopeful young hands in a +defiant gladness, whispering to himself: "They taught me many things in +many schools for many years, but no man ever whispered I was free! I had +to find that out for myself." + + +In these latter days, when he went up-stairs to sit with Driscoll, he +sometimes found a woman moving quietly about the room. When she had +gone, there was always something there for the invalid's supper, and +Gano would suppress the fact that he had brought a double provision in +his pocket for an impromptu meal. + +The woman wore one of those feature-destroying veils that made it +impossible to judge much of her appearance, but Gano had a vague +impression of slim middle age and unimpressive looks, soft ways, and a +sort of "mother-tenderness" about her. But she was so colorless, so much +more an influence than a person, that he did not realize he had never +heard, or at least never noticed, her voice, till one evening she said +_Bong soir_ in an amazing accent. + +"English!" commented Ethan, involuntarily, as the door closed. + +"Australian," corrected the sick man. + +"She's rather neglected you lately," remarked Gano, as a kind of apology +for the unmistakable bulginess of his pockets. + +He unloaded on the rickety table. + +"I say, why do you bring all that truck in here?" Driscoll demanded, +ungraciously. + +"You keep quiet! You've got to have somebody to do your marketing for +you, I suppose. I thought your Australian friend had thrown up the +post." + +"So she had," grumbled the invalid. "Women are damned selfish." + +"Well, they repent sometimes; there's that in their favor." + +Gano set about making coffee. + +"She didn't repent," mumbled Driscoll. + +"Oh, is this the last of her?" + +"No; I only meant I had to send for her." And then they talked of other +things. + +The next time Gano saw the woman was after Driscoll got worse. He went +up one night, and found him pallid, speechless, wrestling with one of +his worst attacks of pain. The woman was bending over him. + +"Please go and get that filled." She held out an empty bottle, hardly +looking at Gano. + +He hurried obediently down-stairs. Behind his anxiety for the man he had +come to feel so much liking for, was a sense of surprise that the +Australian was not so middle aged as he had thought. "She's not +thirty-five," he speculated in between his wondering how Driscoll could +get on without a night-nurse; "and she's not bad looking." He was back +again, two steps at a time, with the medicine. Driscoll was quieter. The +woman motioned the bottle away. She was taking his temperature. + +"Hospital nurse," was Gano's mental comment upon the air of usage and +competence. He sat there awhile, and then whispered: + +"I'm in the room on the left at the bottom of the first flight, if you +want me." + +She nodded, and he went down to his work. + +When he looked up from his writing it was a quarter to one. Had the +woman gone and he not heard her pass? How was Driscoll? It was awfully +quiet overhead. With a tightening of the nerves he took his lamp and +hurried up-stairs. He knocked softly. No answer. Noiselessly, so that +the invalid should not be wakened, if indeed he were not ... he opened +the door. Driscoll was asleep, and breathing audibly. The woman was +asleep too, sitting on the floor, her head leaning against the side of +the bed, Driscoll's hand in one of hers. She looked still younger in the +peace of sleep, though obviously older than Driscoll, softened out of +her customary wooden immobility. Gano felt that he was seeing her real +face for the first time: the mask had fallen. She could never have been +pretty, but there was something in her face of nobility that prevented a +man from coming to an easy conclusion about her. Her black hair was +sharply silhouetted against the white sheet. The hand that held +Driscoll's wore a plain gold marriage-ring. She seemed to feel the light +or the scrutiny of a strange glance, for she stirred and opened her gray +eyes. Gano was momentarily embarrassed--she not in the least. She turned +quickly to look at the sleeper. + +"Wait!" she whispered, as Gano seemed to be turning away. + +She put her finger on the sick man's pulse, and, still kneeling there, +counted the beats with absorbed, unselfconscious face. Gano was struck +again with the "mother" quality in the woman. It gave all she did a +definite modesty. She was getting up. + +"Can you spare the light?" she whispered. "I forgot to bring--" + +"Of course," interrupted Gano. + +He set the lamp down, and turned to the door. + +"Wait a moment." + +She hung the _Figaro_ over the back of the chair between the sleeper and +the light, then, quietly and without haste, she took her brown cape and +hat off the peg and put them on. She leaned a moment over the sleeper, +and then, "Come!" she signed rather then said, and they went softly out. +At the foot of the stairs she stopped. + +"Can you get a candle and a piece of paper?" + +"Yes; this is my room," said Gano, opening his door. + +The moonlight came palely in at the single window. Without hesitation +she had followed him. He lit the candle by his bed. + +"I want to leave you my address," she said. "I think he'll be all right +now, but if he should be worse don't leave him; send some one to this +address--send a _fiacre_." + +She scribbled on the piece of paper, and laid it by the candle. + +"Do you think I ought to sit up with him?" Gano asked, watching her +intently. + +"No need to sit up; you can sleep on the sofa, can't you, or--" + +"Or on the floor?" he asked, smiling a little at her matter-of-factness. + +"Or on the floor," she repeated quietly. "Good-night." + +She went out. + +"Sha'n't I get you a cab?" + +"No; I shall walk. Good-night;" and she was gone. + +On the paper was written: + + + "_Mrs. Mary Burne, + 21 Rue Blanche._" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Driscoll was better next morning, and able to eat breakfast. Gano had +got into the habit of making coffee in the invalid's room in the morning +as well as at night. Driscoll had waked with an appetite. + +"Ha! cream! Did Mary bring that?" + +"Mary?" + +"Yes; Mrs. Burne." + +"No; I got it. I thought we deserved cream to-day." + +"How long was Mary here?" + +"Oh, pretty late, I should say." + +"H'm! That woman's had a damned hard time," Driscoll said, ruminating +between his sips of coffee; "does those colored things for the _Semaine +Illustree_. She's drawn ever since she was a baby. Never had a lesson in +her life till two years ago. I met her at Julien's. She was working like +the devil." + +"Making up for lost time?" + +"Yes, poor girl! Married a brute of a Melbourne ship-builder when she +was seventeen. Stood him till three years ago, and then--Lord! the +audacity of these women--came to Paris to study art, if you please. +Thirty, and never had a lesson in her life!" + +He laughed, and held out his coffee-cup. + +"Ship-builder dead?" asked Gano, filling it up. + +"Dead! No! alive and kicking, or I'd have made her marry me." + +"Lord! the audacity of these men," laughed his friend. + +When Driscoll got definitely worse, Mrs. Burne stayed with him through +the day, and Gano sat up with him at night. + +"If you _can_ do it, it's best so," she said, simply. + +"Of course--of course," agreed Gano, hastily, his Puritan mind +involuntarily considering the proprieties, even in these haunts. + +"You see, while you sleep I can look after him, and do my work too if I +have daylight. You can write by lamplight." + +And the practical sense of the arrangement shamed his first +interpretation of her plan. He found himself during their brief +meetings, morning and evening, watching the woman with a deepened +interest. + +"Am _I_ in love with her, too?" he wondered, as he caught himself +following with something like envy her ministering to his friend. + +But all she did was strangely lacking in any hint of the supposed +relation between Driscoll and herself. There was infinite gentleness in +her, but no happy confusion. Gano never saw in her quiet eyes that look +he was always dreading to surprise. + +"She doesn't care about him in the way he thinks, poor devil!" he said, +at last, to himself. + +The only time he ever ventured to speak of her goodness to the sick man, +"Oh, Mr. Driscoll has been kind to _me_," she said. "He got me my place +on the _Semaine Illustree_." + +Why, it was a sheer case of extravagant gratitude! Gano was conscious +this explanation pleased him. + + +"How's the club getting on?" Driscoll asked her one evening, as she was +leaving. + +Gano was spreading out his writing materials on the rickety table. + +"Oh, all right," she said, pinning her brown hat firmly on her coil of +black hair. + +"_You_ haven't had the honor of being admitted to the club," said +Driscoll, laughing and nodding over at Gano. "_You_ aren't considered +worthy." + +"_You_ weren't considered worthy," said Mrs. Burne, smiling faintly, +"but you would come." + +"And if I adopted the same tactics," suggested Gano. + +"No, no," she said, hastily; "it's really only for women." + +She hunted about for her gloves. It was the first time Gano had ever +seen a look of embarrassment on the calm face. + +"What kind of a club?" he asked. + +"A--debating club," she answered. "Good-night." + +"Ha, ha, ha! I like that." + +But she was gone with a look of pleading cast on Driscoll as she went--a +look that was like a prayer. + +Gano felt absurdly piqued to know more, not of the foolish club, but of +this fellow-being. + +"You say you've been?" + +He fitted a new pen in the holder. + +"Oh yes; but they didn't do anything very remarkable the night I was +there. They meet in Mary's lodging. There were only three then. She says +there are sixteen now, two or three of 'em men, in spite of it's being +'only for women.' Can't think where she puts 'em." + +"What did they debate?" + +"Oh, some rot about social duties. They really go to sit by a fire and +get a cup of hot tea. But it's a very good thing," he added, with a +sudden rush of loyalty. "It's grown out of Mary's keeping one or two +women from going the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire." + +His desire to "guy" the club seemed to have gone out with the founder's +going. The same thing had happened before. + +"Lots of English and Americans let loose here, you know, without a +_notion_--" + +He made an expressive movement of his big hands. + +"I see. The club's a rescue party." + +"Something of the sort. She doesn't say much about it." + +"Funny place, Paris." + +"Yes; all kinds here." + + +Gano knew to the hour when the tide of his ill-luck and apathy had +changed. His new interest in Mary Burne did not blind him to the fact +that life had suddenly grown endurable, even attractive, _decent_ in his +eyes, from the moment he had fully realized and fully accepted the fact +that he was under no nightmare of obligation to go on with it. It was as +if the noisome prison-house of his soul were flung open once and forever +to the blessed life-giving air. No more misgiving, no more shrinking +from the deep insecurity of things. He began to write with a new vigor +and resiliency. There came into his work not only buoyancy, but a fine +temper it had lacked before. The love of literature took hold on him +again as it had done in those first years of awakening abroad. He came +to care again about his own little performances, and by degrees did more +and more work for the paper. The editor had several times complimented +him warmly. Presently he was offered a regular position on the staff. He +paid back Henri de Poincy in full, and would have moved into better +quarters but for--but for--Driscoll, he would have said. Driscoll was +still very ill--worse, indeed, than ever. + +"Never could do anything well in a hurry," he repeated his dreary old +quip. "Have patience, and I'll make a thorough job of this." + +Gano felt more and more that whatever had been their relation in the +past, Mary Burne was absorbed now, not by Driscoll, but by Driscoll's +illness and dire need of her ministry. If she had not exactly +encouraged, she certainly had not repelled, Gano's growing devotion. Her +demeanor was perfect, he said to himself. How could she give her new +lover a sign by the death-bed of the man who had adored her for years, +who had befriended her, and who was in such need himself of befriending? +Gano schooled himself to keep the growing assurance and victory out of +his face and manner. He would follow Mary's lead, and when in the gray +unpromising life of the sick-room they found some dumb way of +communicating, some unasked aid to give, some slight unnoticed contact +in the common service rendered, Gano would school his thrilling nerves +to keep the secret of his gladness as calmly as Mary Burne kept hers. + +As he grew worse, Driscoll grew more exacting, and more variable in +temper. He had less and less compassion on his friends, and demanded +Herculean labors of wakefulness--watching, reading aloud, etc. No +invalid had ever a more comfortable confidence in the boundless strength +and amiability of those who are well. Gano tried with scant success to +save Mary from bearing the brunt of the sick man's exactions. + +He hurried up-stairs to relieve the watch a little earlier than usual +one evening. + +"Once more I _appeal_ to you," he heard Driscoll saying, with raised +voice, before the door was opened. The turning of the knob had either +drowned or prevented the reply. Driscoll lay breathing heavily, and +Mary, with impassive face, was drawing on her gloves. She looked up and +nodded to Gano. + +"Good-bye," she said, after a moment. But on the threshold she stopped. +"Dick," she said, without turning to face Driscoll, "I think I won't +come to-morrow." + +"Yes, you will," he shouted. She turned and looked at him. + +"Good-bye," was all she said. + +"Damned selfish women are!" Driscoll growled as the sound of her steps +died. + +"I shouldn't call her exactly a case in point," observed his friend. + +"Well, she is. She sees how hopeless this is, and how damnably I'm +suffering, and she won't help me to get out of this cursed hole. _You_ +won't either," he added, defiantly, and yet with a gleam of hope, almost +lunatic in its cunning and its greed. + +"I won't what?" said Gano. + +"Get me some morphine, or fetch me a pistol, or light some charcoal." + +"Lord, no! You'll be better yet, old man." + +"Rot! and you know it; and so does she. But _she_ pretends to care, and +yet she won't help me. Damned selfish--damned selfish!" He turned over +in bed, and went on cursing under the bedclothes. + +Gano wondered how long the idea had been in his head, and how long +Driscoll had worn a beard, and whether there was a razor in the +dressing-case. He shuddered as he glanced surreptitiously about. Wasn't +it a little odd that he should find the notion so ghastly? Ah yes, the +ugly violence of it! When the sick man got to sleep his friend rummaged +his room from end to end, finding nothing to confiscate; and, after all, +Driscoll had a fair night. The morning was gray. A fine drizzle shot +spitefully down out of a leaden sky. Mary did not appear at the usual +hour. Towards noon Gano went down to his own room, worn out, and flung +himself on his bed without undressing. He was waked by the noise of a +dull fall overhead. He sprang up in a horror of apprehension, broad +awake on the instant. He rushed up-stairs and burst in on Driscoll, to +find him angrily pushing books off the table on to the floor, as a +summons to his friend below. + +"You sleep like the dead," was his greeting. "Where's Mary?" + +"Great Caesar! I don't know." + +"My watch has run down," Driscoll went on, querulously. + +Gano set it by his. It was five o'clock. + +"Don't go to sleep again; let's have some coffee." + +"All right," answered Gano, yawning. "I believe I'm hungry. I'll go and +forage." + +When he came back with the provisions he brought up some letters and +papers. He tumbled everything down on the table. There was nothing for +him but some proof from the office, and two letters from America, sent +on by Monroe & Co. + +"Birthday greetings from New Plymouth," he said to himself, as he +recognized the familiar old-fashioned hand, the violet ink, and the +brown five-cent stamp that had grown to seem foreign to him. He hadn't +the curiosity to read birthday commonplaces till the impromptu meal was +finished, and Driscoll had become a bore, asking him to look out and see +if Mary wasn't coming, the only variation being, "Hark! isn't she on the +stairs?" + +It was only then that, turning the letters over, it occurred to him to +doubt if the second was a cousinly salutation. + +"No, by Jove! Boston postmark!" + +He tore it open. A brief note from the legal firm of Bostwick & Allen, +announcing the death of their client, Aaron Tallmadge, and the bare fact +that his entire estate was left to his sole surviving heir and grandson, +whose instructions they awaited. The letter had been to Nice and back. +It was nearly two weeks old. + +"By Jove!" Gano dropped the letter on the table among the coffee-cups +and bits of _brioche_. + +"What! is she here?" Driscoll sat up in bed. + +"No, no; I don't know. Listen to this." He read the letter aloud. + +"_That's_ all right! _Mille felicitations!_ Look out, like a good +fellow, and see if she isn't coming across the court." + +Gano went over to the window and looked out with an ironic consciousness +that, even in the face of such news, he was scarcely less concerned than +Driscoll for the coming of that enigmatic woman across the lamplit, +reeking court. The drizzle had turned into long gray rods of rain; they +streaked the gaslight and pricked the shallow pools unceasingly. And he +had all that money! and it was just as he had always known it would be. +The essentials of existence were unchanged. Was she never coming? It's +the child surviving somewhere in most men, he argued with himself, that +gives a woman like that a charm beyond beauty. But she's beautiful, too, +he protested silently. Aloud he said: + +"No, I don't see her." + +"Look here, Gano; do me a favor, old man! Go and fetch her." + +"Oh, I hardly think--" + +"I tell you I must see her! Only for five minutes. Tell her that. If I +don't see her, I'll have a hell of a night. I'd do as much for you, +Gano." + +"Oh, all right." He turned on his heel. + +"Hold on! you don't know where she lives." + +Gano knew perfectly, but he said, "Oh-h." + +"Going off like that without--you're full of your millions! Small +blame--small blame!" Driscoll wrote down the address and handed it to +his friend. "Bring her back with you, if you can; but it'll do if she's +here by ten." + +Outside the court Gano hailed a _fiacre_ and drove barely five minutes +before he was set down at a door in a tenement not conspicuously +different from his own. A shabby man with long hair, wearing a velveteen +jacket, had just stopped, closed his dripping umbrella, and rung. + +When the door opened he passed in without question. + +"Madame Burne?" asked Gano. + +"Au quatrieme. Encore de la boue dans mon escalier!" muttered the +_concierge_. "Faudra qu'elle s'en aille a la fin." + +Gano ran up two flights, passing three girls in the dim light, who were +coming down. He almost overtook the shabby man, who seemed in feverish +haste. Gano slackened his pace at the foot of the third flight. The +shabby man hurried up without looking back, fled round the passage to +the left, and knocked at a door facing the banisters. Without pausing +for permission, he turned the knob and went in, letting out a gush of +light and the confused sound of voices. Gano was conscious of a glow of +comfort in the assurance of his heart that the room entered by such a +creature, with ceremony so scant, was certainly not Mary Burne's. The +shabby fellow had flung the door to, but the worn-out fastening didn't +catch. The door rebounded and stood partly open. Two-thirds of the way +up this last flight Gano turned his head in the direction of the voices, +and saw through the banisters and the open door Mary Burne shaking hands +with the man who had just entered. Gano stopped dead. He didn't hear +anything she said; he wasn't conscious of trying to do so. He stood +staring, incredulous. Presently she passed out of his range of vision. +He could see some of the others now, and caught here and there a single +unenlightening word. He wondered vaguely at hearing a room full of +persons speaking English again. Should he go in, or should he go back? +He felt an indescribable shrinking from meeting Mary among that shady +lot. Men, too--more than one! What was a woman like Mary Burne doing +with such disreputable-looking-- He had lately been killing time for +Driscoll by reading aloud that original story, _Beggars All_. It came to +him like a form of nightmare that their Madonna Mary was a confidence +woman. This gathering was a grim kind of thieves' tea-party, but they +had left the door open! As he gave up straining to catch a glimpse of +Mary, and looked closer at those nearest the door, he saw there were one +or two women he would not have thought suspicious under other +circumstances. Then one of these moved away, and revealed a creature +with raddled cheeks and pencilled eyes, wearing her dingy finery with a +clumsiness not French, and speaking now to Mary Burne, who had come to +her side--speaking with a cockney tongue, and eying her hostess with +mixed suspicion and curiosity. A man, as obviously American, looking +like a broken-down billiard-marker, stood behind, and sitting by the +door was a well-dressed gray-haired woman, with frightened, shifty eyes. +Obvious tramps and beggars would have fitted better into any +preconceived scheme of benevolence. But these were people of some former +decency, some present alertness of intelligence, like the dregs of the +foreigner class in any land, lower than the outcast born, because these +aliens had once ambition, had initiative enough to venture forth to +better their estate, and had not fallen so low without desperate +clutching at foul means to keep afloat. On each face that undefinable +stamp of failure. What is it? Where is it? Not always in the eyes or on +the lips, not always expressed in dress or even bearing--in no one thing +that one may lay a finger on and say, "I know him by this mark!" There +is no name for that elusive, eloquent, yet indelible sign life sets upon +the faces of the lost. Yet all men know it when they see it, and +instinctively turn away their eyes. + +In the group that closed about Mary, some one was protesting about +something. + +"Perhaps Jean Latreille was right," said a man Gano couldn't see. + +"Of course he was. _You_ need not to blame him." + +Some one was speaking with a strong French accent. + +"Well, well," said the woman with the gray hair. "I don't feel sure it +ought to be encouraged _openly_." + +"Zen, ought you not to belong to zis club?" + +The woman turned up an anxious face. + +"I've sent the girls away, Mrs. Pitman," said Mary, gently. "I think +those of us that are left here, even the new members, have borne so much +that they are able to bear the truth." There was a rustle and a noise of +sitting down. "M. Pernet is right, I think, although I'm sorry Jean +should have deserted his wife and child. It would have been manlier not +to buy his liberty at the price of others' suffering." + +"That's what _I_ say." + +The gray-haired woman nodded at some one out of sight. + +"But who can decide the problems of another soul?" Mary Burne's white +face grew weary. "We have enough with our own." + +"Parfaitement." + +"You may be sure," she went on, nodding gravely at her dingy audience, +"a young man in vigorous health doesn't wrench himself out of the world +without good cause. It's grown too common to be any longer a +distinction"--she smiled bitterly--"and yet it's not common enough to be +any easier, or any less reviled." Her eyes travelled from one forlorn +face to the other with a kindling compassion. "But let us take courage, +friends; we who have done without bread can do without approval--except +of one kind." She paused an instant; a look of fanaticism leaped into +the white face. "No matter what we have done in the past, we will not +live, from this time on, without self-respect. Two or three of us have +talked a good deal here about our duties to each other. Let us think +to-night of the ultimate duty we owe ourselves. You know already how +some of us cannot find courage to live till we have first assured +ourselves of courage to die, if need be. I've told you, one or two of +you, that it was like that with me; that when hideous things drove me +away from home, things I'd borne for years, and should never have borne +a moment"--she flung up her head with swelling nostrils--"when my +awakening came, I said to myself, 'I'll go away and work; I'll go to +Paris; and if I can't live there decently, I shall die there.' All +through the long voyage I kept thinking that I was probably going, as +fast as the ship could carry me, towards my grave. When one has lived +days like that, life doesn't daunt one any more, nor death either." + +"No, no!" murmured a voice behind the door. + +"How shall any of us justify the desperate clinging to life for the mere +sake of living?" She asked the question as if she were addressing a +drawing-room full of prosperous people who had the merest speculative +interest in the inquiry. "How many instances do we see of men and women +who have outlived not only their usefulness, but their satisfactions? +And yet they drag along their gray existence, a dreary penance to +themselves, and a menace to those who still can hope. There are those +who cling to the pleasant fiction that every one is of some good use in +the world. If that is so, it is equally true that every one does _some_ +ill, stands in somebody's light, and bars his way to progress. But it is +not with the real or imaginary 'helpers' we have to deal, but with those +who through misfortune have lost their grip on circumstance, and whose +whole remaining energy is absorbed in an animal-like clinging to +existence. Many of the world's sick and wounded are capable of feeling +the attraction of the idea of suicide, and are held back from freedom by +two superstitions. One was made current by the people who lacked the +courage to 'go and do likewise,' and who, therefore, have branded all +suicides 'lunatics' or 'cowards.' The other superstition was given the +world by the priests, who would have been less zealous and less astute +than history shows them if they'd not barred this escape with mighty +threats and penalties." + +"Bah!" "Priests!" "Oh yes!" + +A little undercurrent from the crowd crept through her words. + +"Many a gentle soul in the past," she went on, "has endured years of +needless agony rather than buy release at the price of public +execration--being denied decent burial, and flung into a ditch at the +cross-ways with a stake driven through the body. We don't treat these +refugees quite that way now, but in being less violent we are not less +cruel. When we hear of a suicide, the first insult we offer him is to +ask, 'Were his accounts right?' Next, 'Was he a victim to bad habits?'" + +"Exactly!" cried the voice, in broken English. "What Babin said of +Jean--" + +"Sh! sh!" + +"If it is found the dead man was a defaulter or an opium-eater, the most +aimless cumberer of the earth experiences a certain sense of +justification. If a man is a villain, he must _want_ to get out of the +world; but for honest folk life cannot be too long. Consequently, to +support existence (or let some one else do it) seems in some way a +tribute to a man's personal worth or mental poise. If it is found that +the suicide had the audacity to leave the world without the urging of +some vulgar misdeed to account for his unpleasant independence, then up +goes the universal cry, 'He was insane!' Without doubt! The world is +good enough for his betters, why not for him? 'Oh, the fellow was +crazy!' And that settles it. As a proof _we_ are mentally sound, we will +live on at any cost, be it our own souls or our brothers'. No, no. I +tell you this thirst for life cannot be proved so worthy an instinct as +some have hoped to show. It is the instinct that makes the brute world +one vast slaughter-house. 'One must live' would be the motto of the +shark, if he had one. 'One must live' is in the roar of the Bengal +tiger, and the jackal's cry. I do not see but the greed of life is the +strongest survival in man of primitive animal instinct. But it is not +the noblest of our legacies. Over many an unworthy page of human history +is that legend, 'One must live.'" She stretched out her hands, crying, +"_It is not true!_ One must live _worthily_, or one can die! I feel a +passionate sense of the wrong and ruin wrought by the general view. I +feel it"--she dropped her eyes--"when I hear that a man steals to keep +from starving, when"--her voice was heavy with shame--"when I see wide +thoroughfares full at night of young girls and brazen women 'who must +live.' 'Why don't they see there is an escape?' I think." She threw back +her head with a quick movement, and just as suddenly the look of courage +dimmed. "Then I realize that some of them, even if they could rise above +the animal instinct to prolong life at any price, would remember +priestly warnings, and fancy their chances in the hereafter brighter if +they lived on--vile scavengers on the highways of the world!--than if +they were brave enough to disdain an evil heritage, and wise enough not +to fear death. Those who are so lustful of life"--far beyond the little +company she gazed, as one gathering in a survey all the peoples of the +earth--"they are like beggars at a feast. They glut themselves +indiscriminately, afraid to let a single dish go by. They sit stupid and +gorged, still mechanically taking of everything passed them, with dulled +taste and jaded appetite, eating and drinking, with sense left to think +only, 'Who knows? we may never be at such a feast again.' I tell +you"--she was back now with her dingy guests--"it is the beast in us +that clings so fiercely to life. In the case of the unfortunate, the +hard-pressed, the ancient instinct often outlives hope, principle, +innocence--all that's best in humanity." + +"But there are a good many--" interrupted the gray-haired woman, feebly. + +"Yes, yes, thank Heaven!" Mary Burne agreed, in the old gentle voice. +"For those happy ones who have found, or think they have found, a chance +of doing some service, or to those who for any reason find the world or +themselves an interesting and compensating study, there are only +congratulations, and a plea for fairer judgment of less fortunate, maybe +not less sane or noble, men." + +"Like ze poor Jean Latreille," lamented the Frenchman behind the door. +"No work; only me for friend." + +"Yes, yes," assented Mary Burne, as if she knew the story, and others to +cap it. "No one who is in sympathetic touch with his kind can honestly +affirm that every man and woman has something worth living for, and can, +if he and she choose, make an honest livelihood. It is frankly untrue! +Life is becoming more and more difficult to the majority; worldly +success is more and more bought at the price of personal dignity. Mere +existence for the million is secured only by a warfare in which he who +does not slay is slain. But it is idle to enlarge upon the results of +our civilization; every one with eyes sees how the conflict rages, and +how the weak and often finer-natured go to the wall. It is not for me to +urge that it is sad, or wasteful, but only that it _is_. My plea, as +some of you know, is that more should realize there is honorable retreat +this side moral overthrow." + +The gray-haired woman moved uneasily. The speaker, glancing at her, +seemed to answer an unuttered protest: + +"Let no one say God would have a man yield bit by bit his faith and +charity, accepting any terms, so that he may be allowed to draw his +coward breath a little span the more. There is a kind of spiritual +cannibalism among us, more appalling than the simpler sort we shudder to +think is practised in Darkest Africa, or the islands of the South Sea. +It flourishes on our fairest hopes, and fills its witch's caldron with +the consciences of men and the honor of our women. 'We must live!' the +victims cry, and give up all that makes life worth the living. Maimed, +stripped of grace and dignity, they wander forth into the world, to +deaden the public sense of moral decency by the spectacle of their +shame. The people who are shocked that one should think of suicide +permit themselves a mild enthusiasm that long ago a blind King of +Bohemia could care so much for his cause that he gathered a sheaf of his +enemies' spears in his breast rather than face defeat. We are told there +was once a Brutus, too, and many another in the brave old time, who +showed there was a refuge this side dishonor. But the world has +forgotten, and ancient valor is renamed modern cowardice." + +Her scorn-filled eyes dropped an instant on the gray-haired woman's +fingers fumbling feebly under her mantle. Below it the end of a rosary +could be seen twitching against her gown. Mary Burne lifted quiet eyes +from the dangling crucifix. + +"Looking at the question from the religious standpoint," she said, "it +is impious to suppose we can take the Creator by surprise or defeat His +ends. If He sent us into the world, He knew just what weapons He put +into our hands, where the weak spots in our armor were, and what foes +would meet us. In the case of the suicide, He knew just how many hard +blows he could meet like a soldier and a man, as well as He knew there +would some day come a stroke that would cut him down. Does God sleep +while the battle rages?" she cried, with swelling but uneven +cadence--"while the wounded man drags himself away from the dying, +pursued by visions of captivity and the loss of all he fought for?" She +shook her head with slow, pitying solemnity. "Believers must think the +eye of God is on this child of His, as he creeps wearily out of the +strife and turns into a dark by-way, groping along to the little gate at +the end. The fugitive looks back an instant"--into her own clear eyes +came a curious filminess--"he is too calm to seem heroic, and the pain +is fading out of his face. 'Good-bye, my enemies'"--she made the +faintest little gesture of farewell to some world without her +walls--"'good-bye, my friends'"--she nodded to the dingy crew within, +and lifted haggard eyes above their heads--"'temptations, ghosts of +failure and of grief, good-bye!' Silently turning, he passes out through +the little gate and shuts it fast behind him. Wherever he goes, no +believer can suppose he has defeated God, or strayed outside the limits +of His mercy." + +As she ended she came forward. Gano, forgetting the dusk of the +staircase, and thinking on the spur of the moment that she had caught +sight of him, turned and made his way noiselessly down the three +flights. He reached the street before he realized that Mary's motion +forward had been to the gray-haired woman with the crucifix. But why had +he been so afraid she should speak to him? He leaned against the lintel +of the open door watching the rain. What strange thing had befallen his +tender interest in this woman? It was gone. Simply wiped out. In its +place a shrinking of his very soul. He had thought her so "womanly," +full of protecting tenderness and steadfast cheer; and, behold! this +abyss of hopelessness, this dark, iron resolution, this unshrinking +acceptance of the tragedy of life. + +The opinions she had given out, to be sure he shared them more or less; +but it hurt him to think women shared them, above all the woman he-- A +woman without hope--better she were without heart! Away, away with this +unfeminine acceptance of the worst. It made the underlying horror of +things more real, more unescapable! Away with such views, except for the +occasional philosophic mood of man. Who wanted to have them daily, +hourly brought to mind? He knew he should never see Mary Burne again +without seeing that dingy circle of the lost, and the look of +unshrinking despair that hardened and whitened in her face. + +Her old sheltering mother-gentleness, where was it? _His_ old tenderness +for the tenderness in her, where was that? Gone, gone, and in its place +this staggering dislike! He tried to think that, unselfconscious as she +had been in manner, she had been theatrical in thought; he recalled some +of her sentences--she was a phrase-maker! She liked standing up there, +even before such an audience, listening to the sound of her own voice, +and airing views that she no doubt thought original and bold. He did not +for a moment realize that just because he in the main agreed with her +"beyond refuge," he shrank from hearing himself echoed back to himself +from the imagined haven of a woman's heart. It was a situation meet for +wry, ironic laughter that the woman he had been drawn to for her +supposed embodiment of man's soothing ultra-feminine ideal should be +caught playing the part of a dingy nineteenth-century Joan of Arc, +urging men to battle and to death. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The _concierge_ appeared, angry and shivery, and bade him either come in +or go out. He was in the act of doing the latter when he remembered +Driscoll. He turned back and faced the angry woman. + +"Go up to Madame Burne," he said, giving the woman a franc, "and tell +her--wait!" He searched his pockets, and finally drew the envelope off +Mrs. Gano's birthday letter, and wrote on the back: + + + "Driscoll unable to sleep without some word from you. Please send + down a message for him." + + +"Give her that and bring me the answer." + +The woman shuffled up-stairs. He stood there in the dingy passage, +waiting, cogitating. Suppose Mary were to send word that after all she +would come when that infernal club broke up, what should he do? He would +certainly have to protect poor old Driscoll against her pitiless +fanaticism. That much was clear. It took her a long time to scribble a +line. He paced back and forth from the foot of the mud-tracked stair to +the open door, where the rain fell ceaselessly. With a sudden elation he +thought of the change in his fortunes, and how soon he should have +turned his back upon all this squalor. A millionaire! Yes, it had a good +ring. It took the sound of Mary Burne's voice out of his tortured ears. + +Suddenly he paused, hearing with relief the shambling footsteps of the +returning _concierge_, a relief rudely dashed with fear of the message +she might be bringing. + +A quicker figure slipped before the square, slow-moving woman; it was +Mary Burne, running down the stairs, dressed to go out. + +"I am sorry to have kept you," she said. If she noticed Gano's changed +manner, she put it down to anxiety for his friend. "Come, I've brought +an umbrella," she said, almost sharply, as Gano stood an instant looking +out for a _fiacre_; "it's nearly as quick to walk, and I--I--" + +He took the umbrella from her silently, and they hurried on side by side +in the rain. Gano, with growing agitation, searched for some way of +letting her know that he was in possession of the situation, and meant +to remain in possession. + +As they turned into the Rue de Provence she stopped, breathless. + +"Are you quite sure he wants to see me only for a minute?" + +"So he says." + +"He understands that just at present I can't sit up with him any more?" + +"He doesn't expect you to stay to-night, at any rate," Gano answered, in +a determined voice. He began to walk on. + +"Mr. Gano." She laid an arresting hand on his arm. He looked down coldly +at the white face. "You've shown too plainly in these last weeks to what +lengths your friendship for Dick can go. I don't pretend to apologize +for asking if you can spare the time to take him away for a few weeks as +soon as he gets a little better." + +The man hesitated. She misunderstood. + +"I've just got some money from the _Semaine_," she went on, "and I can +anticipate my next payment. I've told you how I owe it to Mr. Driscoll +that I have the money at all. It's his in a sense, anyhow." + +"You want to get him out of Paris?" + +"Yes, _anywhere_ for a change." + +"I might do that if he can be moved." + +"Oh, thank you, thank you. Dick can't say he hasn't got friends. You +_are_ good about it." They splashed on a few steps in the downpour, and +she slackened her pace again. "But since you are going away alone with +him--and, anyhow, I ought to tell you. He's developing a kind of +monomania. He doesn't want to live--wants--" Her voice choked. + +"I know," said Gano. + +"You know! He's ventured to say it to you?" + +"Yes." + +"Then, you see, it's serious." She was clinging to him again. Gano +nodded. Before he could help himself he was trying her. + +"You see, he'll never get well." + +"How can you say that? and say it so--so--" + +Indignant tears stood in her upturned eyes, and she took her hands off +his arm. + +"Surely you know it's true." + +"I only know that he's still alive, and that I love him." + +They walked on--they were nearly at the door. + +"You know how he suffers," began Gano. + +"Everybody suffers," she interrupted. "He knows nothing about the worst +pain. And he has his art; he has you to care about him, and--he has me. +Oh, Mr. Gano"--she turned on him suddenly--"help me to take care of +him--help me, for God's sake--help me to keep him in the world!" + +"Yes, yes; I give you my word." + +A great weight was lifted off them both. They went up-stairs together, +but Gano left Mary at Driscoll's door. He wrote some letters in his own +room, then he went softly up-stairs, heard the low, pleasant sound of +voices, and came down without interrupting them. He went to bed, and +slept soundly till the morning. + +"I shall cable Bostwick & Allen first thing after breakfast," he said to +himself. + +When he was dressed, he went up-stairs as usual to Driscoll, knocked +lightly, and, without waiting, went in. Mary Burne was still there, +kneeling by the bedside. It flashed over Gano that it had been something +like this very picture that had first set him thinking about Mary +Burne. But the spell had lost its potency; something had happened; some +chord of sympathy had snapped. He could think of his friend +whole-heartedly now, without a woman's thrusting her face between them. +Driscoll was asleep this morning, just as he had been that other time +when Gano had found Mary Burne worn out with watching by the bedside; +but his face was hidden. Mary stirred and turned round. Gano started. No +sleep weighed down her eyelids; her eyes were wide and quick-glancing, +but seemed unseeing; the agonized face was pinched and gray-white, like +chalk. + +"What is it? What--" + +Gano sprang forward to the bed. Driscoll's face was no longer in the +shadow now. + +"He's gone," said Mary. + +"Not dead?" + +"Yes, dead." + +She got up slowly, staggering a little. Her cloak was round her. She +went unsteadily to the opposite side of the room and picked up her hat. +She seemed to forget to put it on, and stood with it aimlessly in her +hands, those strained, bright-glancing eyes moving uncannily in the +drawn white mask of a face. Gano had flung himself down by the bed. He +laid his hand over Driscoll's. It was cold. + +"When did it happen?" Gano asked; and as the word "happen" left his +lips, he started up and stared at the woman. + +"About four o'clock," she said, going in that blind way to the table. + +He had the impulse to rush forward and seize her by the shoulders. He +would force those restless eyes to meet his steadily for once, and give +up their secret; but she was counting some gold pieces out of her purse, +doing it by the instinct of touch, while her roving, animal-like glance +seemed to dash itself against window, wall, and door, seeking an escape. + +"How did it come?" Gano demanded. + +"Quite quietly; no pain--no pain at the last." + +Her muffled voice seemed to reach him from far off. + +"Why didn't you call me?" + +"No good," she said, tonelessly; "and besides, he held fast to my hand. +I am leaving some money here." She motioned to the little pile of ten +and twenty franc pieces on the table, and moved towards the door. +"You'll see to what's necessary." And, without waiting for his +assurance, "I've enough to pay for everything," she said, and went out. + +Gano found his first impressions weakened by Mary Burne's clear and +convincing official account of the death. The doctor accepted it without +misgiving. Why should a layman have a doubt? + +Driscoll was buried, and his few effects were bought in by Mary Burne at +the sale. When Gano went to say good-bye to her the next day he was told +she had given up her old lodging, and left no address behind. + + +Gano's original reluctance to return home had not been so very serious. +Had his grandfather been a little forbearing, he could have had the +young man back in Boston in six months; but now, too much had been +sacrificed on the altar of an impetuous resolve for Gano to consider +kindly going to America at once. There was plenty of time for that. He +had sent instructions to Messrs. Bostwick & Allen, and he allowed the +"great political organ" to remain in the experienced hands that had done +so well by it in Aaron Tallmadge's declining years. + +He went to Nice, and brought the De Poincys back with him to Paris, +where he had taken a house. Henri de Poincy, even when little by little +he learned something of those years of struggle, could not see that his +friend was essentially changed by their rough lessoning. Ethan had +never, even in the ignorant and care-free days, been either very +outgoing or very light of heart. De Poincy, as the elder, had long ago +recognized his friend as one of those unexpected, but not uncommon, +products of luxurious modern life--a young man whose vivid perception +of the underlying tragedy of the common lot had seemed out of all +proportion to his possible experience. If any difference appeared in him +now, it was that his old easy faith in concrete human nature, as opposed +to his deep mistrust of life in the abstract, had been somewhat +corrected--and that was well, Henri de Poincy thought. The young +diplomat did not discover that, of all the faith-destroying spectacles +his friend had looked upon, not the least, to just his cast of mind, was +the hot haste made, in that same city where he had walked wanting bread, +to court and fete the new millionaire. But Gano had left this phase of +life so far behind him, he had got so out of touch with it, that he was +obliged to learn over and over again that inevitable lesson taught +affluent young America by the sage Old World--that money-bags are less +easily and quickly filled in Europe, and the man who carries one that +overflows will lack little that the craftier civilization can lay at his +feet. Gano's particular kind of self-love revolted at some of his +experiences at the hands of certain elegant and well-born adventurers, +male and female, who, the American had fancied, liked him and sought him +for himself. He was very young in many ways, for all his hardships and +his twenty-six years. Still, he was not so much of a fool but that in +time he learned his lesson. His fault lay in taking it too seriously. So +it was that, despite his renewed literary activities and successes, and +the need impressed on him of studying _les moeurs_, he yielded more and +more to his fondness for camping out, for fishing, and for cruising +about the Mediterranean with Henri de Poincy. + +"I never knew a fellow," that amiable young Frenchman would say--"never +knew a fellow so much at his ease in the world, who seemed so anxious to +be rid of people as you are." + +"I'm not at my ease in the world." + +"Ah, I should have said in drawing-rooms." + +"Another matter. The drawing-room is the best place I know to avoid +knowing people. I should like to spend all my days that aren't spent +with a rod on a river-bank, or lying in a boat with you, in +drawing-rooms. I'd like"--he stared up into the high-piled clouds +sailing across the intense blue--"I'd like the big Engine-driver up +yonder to look down through the white steam-puffs, and say: 'My boy, I +give you my word of honor that I'll never run you into any closer +quarters with life than you are in now.'" + +"I see," laughed De Poincy, "lovely woman has pursued you till you fight +shy. But don't lay it all to your looks and your winning ways, my +friend; you're known to have dollars." + +"Yes." His dark face flushed under some quick wave of feeling. "The most +surprising thing I've found in Europe is the dominance of the money +motive, that quality that they had told me distinguished the American." + +He laughed a little bitterly. + +"Well," said De Poincy, "you know you do hear more in America about +money than you do anywhere." + +"Exactly. Money's talked about with childlike and damnable iteration; +but, by all the gods! if decent people with us want it, they work for +it; they don't cringe and angle for it; they offer labor in exchange, +not _themselves_. They don't, as a nation, make it the basis of +friendship, of marriage." + +"If you don't, it's because American women are too self-willed to hear +prudence." + +"Yes, thank God! And yet we have the intelligent foreigner saying the +climate makes our women sexless." He stopped and laughed. "I admit les +Americaines don't so universally look on love and marriage as a +profession, their only means of settlement in life. But I'll tell you +what it is, my friend: the American, with all his outward frankness and +_naivete_, cares more, like men of other nations, for the thing he +doesn't talk about than for things he's always flinging in your face. +With people on this side, it's money which is too sacred to be mentioned +except on solemn occasions"--he made the slightest possible +grimace--"but which is the supreme consideration. With us, the thing we +don't talk about, and yet care for the more, is the relation between the +sexes, the ideal of a chivalry that the elder world has lost, or, more +truly, never had, I think." + +"The truth is, you've been long enough away from America to begin to +idealize it. By the way, I thought you were of the _elite_ asked to the +Chateau d'Avrancheville this autumn." + +"This is better than Normandy," he said, shortly. + +"Ah, but think of the dear creatures gathered there?" + +"I'd rather think about 'em." + +"Mademoiselle Lucie this time, _hein_?" + +"Oh no--only that I don't love my kind." + +De Poincy shook his head. + +"That you don't love _that_ kind shows you're getting _blase_." + +Gano sat up, and fixed his dark eyes on his friend's face. + +"You know you're talking nonsense. You'll allow I met her under peculiar +circumstances." + +"After helping you to fish her out of an Italian lake, I will allow the +circumstances were romantic." + +"I thought she--" + +"Of course, love at first sight. Just the thing to fetch you." + +"I thought she liked me as a girl at home might have liked me, who +hadn't heard that my grandfather--" + +He thumped out an oath as he thrust his hands deep down in his +yachtman's jacket. + +De Poincy smiled. + +"She's so young," Gano went on--"probably less sophisticated, I thought, +than our American girls." + +"To be sure, a ravishing _ingenue_." + +"And here she was, ready to throw over poor Parthenay like that"--he +tossed his cigarette overboard--"caring for him all the time, as +Parthenay showed me. Then this _ingenue_, after turning the Tallmadge +dollars into francs in her pretty baby head, was calmly arranging to +help me to spend them here in France. How the devil they knew on such +short acquaintance--before the settlement question came up--" + +"Oh, her brother asked me that first day." + +"What?" + +De Poincy nodded. + +"And when I thought they didn't so much as know that I was American!" He +laughed with that excessive bitterness of youth perturbed, and pretended +to speak apologetically. "You see, I've plumed myself on my French since +I was seven, and my name tells nothing." + +"Your French is all right, but you don't imagine people like that would +put themselves out for the _premier venu_ as they did for you from the +start." + +Gano shrugged. + +"My mistake was that, even without my banker's reference, I didn't look +upon myself as the _premier venu_." + +"I must say I admired the charming way they conveyed the idea to you +that Mademoiselle Lucie--" + +"Shut up." + +"My dear fellow, you would never have dreamed of Mademoiselle Lucie, +enchanting as she is, if it hadn't been for their tact in pointing out +that--" + +"And you looked on!" + +"To be sure, and envied you your damned good luck. She's an adorable +creature, and would spend your money with distinction." + +"Thanks. I needn't have come so far to find a woman who could manage +that." + +"I'm in the enemy's camp," De Poincy went on. "I want you to settle in +France." + +"And I--I want--" + +Gano looked out over the dancing waves, face to face on a sudden with +something so new and unexpected as to be almost incredible. + +"What do you want?" asked De Poincy. + +"I want to go back to America by the first boat." + +"You're joking." + +"I'm in dead earnest. It sounds sudden, but it isn't. Something's been +the matter with me for a deuce of a long time. I haven't known what it +was. I do now. I'm homesick." + +"Doesn't it strike you you've postponed it a bit?" + +"Dare say. We're offered every inducement to postpone it. We Americans +are as pleased with Europe as children at a fair. We run up and down +your marts with our purses out, delighted, astonished at your wares, at +your ways; we want a souvenir from every booth, we want a peep at every +side-show, we think it impossible ever to tire of the merry-go-round." +His voice dropped. "When the night comes we're ready to go home." + +"Night? _Niaiserie!_" + +Gano jumped up and paced the deck. + +"I say, Henri, do you mind going back to Marseilles? If you do, mind, I +must--" + +"Of course I don't mind. It'll give you time to recover on the way." + +He laughed good-naturedly. + +His companion paced silently up and down in the fading light. + +"I've known other fellows," De Poincy went on, after a long +silence--"plenty of others, get rather feverish about the U. S. A., but +I didn't expect it of you." + +"Oh, I'm just like the rest." + +"Hadn't observed the likeness before." + +"I've found the Old World life a good enough game to play at; _I've_ got +no reason to complain." + +"Thanks, I'm sure, in the name of France, not to mention England and +Italy." + +"Oh, you understand me well enough. It's wonderfully attractive, this +charming Old World, but from our point of view it isn't life." + +"Pretty good imitation." + +"That's just it," he laughed. "It's pretty and it's good, but it's +_imitation_. It copies, with Chinese fidelity, old originals that were +once, long ago, alive and quick; but to-day--" + +"You're taking a leaf out of your old governor's book," said De Poincy, +with smiling malice. "I hear cousin Aaron now." And he caricatured him +mercilessly. "'To an American, sir, Europe is either a museum or a scene +out of a comic opera.' Now, if one said anything like that of America +you'd declare war by return of post. But we"--he lit his cigarette and +threw away the match with a flourish--"we are amused; we give you +exactly the license you demand--that of the child at a fair." + +"Well, look here, old man"--Gano laid his hand on De Poincy's +shoulder--"this child wants to catch the first boat home." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +He was really coming this time; in less than an hour he would be at the +Fort. They were all sitting in the parlor, waiting, in festal array. +Late as it was in the year, the clear autumn afternoon was steeped in +warm sunshine. An occasional golden dogwood leaf fluttered past the open +windows, like a lazy yellow bird. + +"It reminds me of October in Maryland," said Mrs. Gano, looking up from +the book she was not reading. It was, at all events, mild enough to +afford Emmie the extreme satisfaction of wearing her white Confirmation +dress in honor of the momentous occasion. Emmie called the new frock her +"Confirmation dress," although she had not been confirmed in it, and was +not expecting to be till next spring. When it had been decided before +Julia Otway's party that Emmie must have a new frock, she had not needed +to be told that, by a system of tucks and turnings in, it would have to +serve for high days and holidays for a long time. It was characteristic +of the child that, looking into the future, the day of her Confirmation +should loom so large. + +Her dark curls were tied to-day with apple-green ribbon, and a +green-and-white sash lent an air of festivity to the simple frock, and a +snow-drop look to the pale little girl. + +There was nothing new in Mrs. Gano's appearance as she sat in state +between Daniel Boone and the centre table, nothing save the light in her +eyes. Her veil, her lawn sleeves, and kerchief could not be whiter, even +in Ethan's honor, and her rusty black silk wore resolutely its air of +changeless age. But An' Jerusha, very rheumatic and tottery, went brave +as an autumn sunset. She was peeping in at the parlor door now, her head +done up deftly in a purple and orange bandanna. + +"I jes' think I'll go, mehm, en wawtch fur Marse Efan f'om de terrus." + +"You are sure everything's ready?" + +"Yes, mehm. It wus po'ful short notice, en I kin tell you it's been nip +and tuck. No onery niggers could 'a' done it; but me and Venie, _we_ +done it." And Jerusha carried her splendid turban off down the terrace +with the air of an aged generalissimo. + +Even John Gano had made his toilet with care to-day. He joined the +others in the parlor a few minutes before setting off to the station to +meet his nephew. Mrs. Gano's sharp eyes travelled over him for once +without protest. + +"You do look nice, father," said Val. + +John Gano was prematurely old. His untrimmed beard, his bent head with +its leonine mane of iron-gray hair, lent him an almost patriarchal look. +And yet this man was still in the forties. Such forestalling of old age +is no unfamiliar phenomenon in America. He stood by the window drawing +on the well-worn left-hand glove; the right, carefully folded, and good +almost as new, had been much carried, but never worn. + +"I must thin out these maples and dogwoods," he said, with critical eyes +on the abundant gold and scarlet foliage in front of the house. + +"No, no," protested his mother; "I like something before my windows. +Your pruning is too ruthless." + +"I can't have the symmetry of the maples interfered with," he said, with +great decision. + +"Don't be too late to meet Ethan." + +"... grown astonishingly!" he ejaculated with pride, as he went off; +"and only planted in the fall of '81!" + +Val had put her hair up. But there was too much of it; it overweighted +the small head. The shifting lights in the unruly waves, and the blue of +the eyes, were brought out by the particular shade of navy cloth that +she wore--so plainly made that it had the effect of a cunning artifice +to show off the lithe figure. + +But it was less art than necessity and scarcity of cloth that governed +the design. Aunt Valeria had worn it, remodelled to the flamboyant +fashion of her day, but it was the identical blue travelling-habit of +family legend in which Mrs. Gano, as a girl, made that journey across +the Alleghanies in a stage-coach. It was the first time Val had worn it. +She was saving it up for New York. The tiny silver disks down the front +of the bodice found themselves again, after half a century, buttoning up +an eager young body, panting, impatient to cross the mountains from this +side, with back to the westering sun, and with bright silver buttons, +like bosses on a shield, ready to receive the first dart from out the +east. + +The party in the parlor were weary enough waiting before An' Jerusha +hobbled into the front hall with a negro lad in tow, who brought the +news that: + +"Dey's bin a accidunt on de line; nobuddy hurt, but the train'll be +seberal hours late. Mr. Gano reckons he'll stay ober at de station till +it gits yere." + +"Isn't it just like cousin Ethan!" Emmie burst out, when the two blacks +had gone. "I don't believe he'll ever come--I don't believe we've got a +cousin Ethan!" she wound up, with exasperation. + +Partly to reassure herself, partly to kill time, she went into her +grandmother's room and brought back her cousin's latest photograph. + +"Don't you sometimes think this is the crossest-looking of any?" she +whispered to Val. + +"I don't think it's cross--just grave. I hate grinning men." + +"I don't want him to grin; but his mouth looks--looks---- Still, I _do_ +like his mustache brushed that way, so you can see his lips a little. +And his eyes!--oh! his eyes are beautiful!" + +They studied the picture for some moments held between them. + +"Do you quite like his chin?" pursued Emmie. + +"I like that best of all except his nose," said Val, firmly. + +"Oh, what makes you like his _nose_?" + +"Because it isn't too little, and because it's rather bony, and because +it's got a bridge." + +"Oh, well, I think I'd prefer it quite straight instead of aquiline. But +he's very handsome. It's nice having him look like that." + +Emmie held the photograph off, and tilted her head from side to side. + +"Grandma says cousin Ethan and me used to be rather alike as children." +She smiled contentedly. "I hope he'll go to church." + +She took the picture back presently, but before she replaced it on the +mantel-piece she looked round over her shoulder. Reassured, she kissed +the pasteboard fervently, and put it down with shamefaced, fluttering +haste. + +The sun set and the light faded. Still no Ethan. A brief interval for +supper at six, and the three returned to the parlor. Mrs. Gano +manifested a hitherto unsuspected leaning towards illumination. The +branch candlesticks, for the first time within the memory of man, held +each its triple flame, and a shaded lamp shed a crimson glow over the +centre table. She made an excursion into the hall, and complained that +the Moorish lamp burned faint and insufficiently. She came back, saying: + +"It will seem cold after France," and with her own hands she lit the +ready-laid fire in the grate. Later, she went to the front door and +objected to the absence of the moon. + +"It's really dangerous coming up those steps in the pitch-dark, +especially since the second stone was broken." + +At half-past eight she shut her book suddenly. + +"Val, couldn't you get your father's new-fangled lantern--that patent +incandescent contrivance--and set it lighted at the top of the steps?" + +"Y-yes, ma'am, if you think it won't look funny. It's like the +head-light of an engine." + +"Funny? Not at all. There's nothing your cousin Ethan dislikes so much +as the dark--unless he's greatly altered." + +So Val got the lantern, and set it where the wide diverging rays flared +out across the street, as a fan of zodiacal light opens gaudily across +the Milky Way on arctic nights, leaving travellers on the ways of this +world but little illumined, for all the glory of heaven. + +So with the patent incandescent lantern. It picked out the whitewashed +hitching-post with an ostentation of good-will, flooded the farther side +of the street, and fell with a kind of fierce satisfaction upon the ugly +new wooden tenements opposite. But this side, gutter, and gate, and +little flight of worn and broken steps, were left in denser darkness. + +Val came in, complaining for the first time at the delay. + +"I hope poor father isn't waiting all these hours for his supper." + +"Oh, he'll go to the hotel, you may be sure." + +Mrs. Gano did not speak as if the thought brought her particular +satisfaction. + +"It's getting cold; I just wish he'd come home. I don't believe there's +the least use expecting cousin Ethan before to-morrow." + +But when Emmie, half an hour later, asked for serious advice: + +"Now, _do_ you think I'd have time to eat another apple before he +comes?" + +"I wouldn't risk it," said Val; "we'll tell fortunes with the seeds +you've got already." + +The two girls sat on the moth-eaten velvet sofa. Emmie had spread her +apple-seeds out on last evening's _Mioto Gazette_, and rubbed her fruity +fingers on a diminutive pocket-handkerchief. + +"Now I've named them," she said, in a whisper. + +Val pointed at random: + + + "One I love, two I love, three I love, I say; + Four I love with all my heart, five I cast away; + Six he loves, seven she loves, eight they both love; + Nine he comes, ten he tarries, + Eleven he courts--" + + +"Oh," sighed Emmie, "only one more needed." + +She rumpled up the paper, and with a glance towards her grandmother she +thrust it behind the sofa. + +"Pig!" remonstrated Val, under her breath, for once on the side of law +and order. + +"Ain't a pig. I shall see what my new shoe-buttons say," Emmie +whispered. "Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, doctor, lawyer, +merchant. Ha! going to be a chieftess. Now what shall I wear? Silk, +satin, calico, cotton," and on till she was able to announce, with dark +eyes glancing and full of glee: "Satin!" + +"You cheated. You haven't any right to count the one that's off." + +"Course I have. They're brand-new shoes, and the buttons haven't any +right to come off first time. And it's _goin'_ to be satin--green satin, +bright, beautiful grass-green satin. Now I'll tell _your_ fortune," she +added, amiably. + +But Val sprang up, crying: + +"He's come." + +There was the rattle of wheels, at all events, in the quiet side street. +The two girls rushed to the door and down to the gate. A carriage +stopped. Their father got out with his usual air of weary haste. He was +saying something disparaging of that Europe he had never seen, +applauding his nephew's return to his native land. Val, her +grandmother's warning fresh in mind, caught up the lantern and held it +high above her head, slanted slightly, so as to catch within the radius +of light the tall, slight figure that followed her father so lightly up +the broken steps. + +"Your own country has need of you," John Gano was winding up; "she is +waiting for just such a man." + +He paused under the red-bud tree. + +Val still stood with the lantern conscientiously held up, lost for that +first moment in her own absorbing impressions. Young Gano looked at her +with quick realization of the eager, buoyant attitude, the uplifted face +on which the strong light streamed, the wide, earnest outlook of eyes +with so much more in them of question than of welcome, they might have +been accustomed to sweeping far horizons from the watch-towers of the +world. + +An infinitesimal pause, and then: + +"How do you do, America?" he said, smiling, and took his cousin's hand. + +Val felt instantly he was laughing at her for a kind of travesty of +Liberty Enlightening the World. She drew back quickly, lowering the +lantern. + +"I am Val," she said, "and this is Emmie." + +The younger girl held up her pretty face, and her cousin kissed her. + +"Where's grandmamma?" he said, eagerly, as he looked up. + +She stood at the door. In the cross lights of lantern in front and +Moorish lamp behind, she seemed to be in all the animate world the thing +least changed since she had stood there to receive the boy nineteen +summers before. Only a little frailer, a little whiter haired, subtly +fined down by the years. With an impetuosity that made Val tremble for +the fragile watcher at the door, Ethan sprang forward and up the two +steps of the porch. He stopped before her with a curious reverence, and +took her gently in his arms. Her head drooped on his shoulder. Val saw +she had drawn the veil across her face. His arm still round her, Ethan +turned with her into the hall. + +"What!" he said, seeing the parlor lit, "am I company this time?" + +"Tell Jerusha to serve supper," said Mrs. Gano, tremulously, to Val. + +"Jerusha! Fancy her being still alive! But no supper, thank you; there +was a dining-car on my miserable train." + +The others went into the parlor, while Val took the lantern and the +message to the kitchen, and then hurried back. + +Emmie was beaming beside her cousin, sitting as close to him as she +could get on the old velvet sofa. Opposite sat Mrs. Gano, animated, +smiling. John Gano stood with parted coat-tails in front of the fire. + +"And how does life abroad compare on the whole with life in America?" he +was asking. + +"Well, outwardly it is very different, of course." + +"Different! I should think so," said Val, impulsively. + +"_Outwardly different_," repeated John Gano. "I should think the spirit +as well--the point of view utterly alien from ours." + +"I believe _I'd_ like Europe," said the sympathetic Emmie, "but Val's +been wondering a great deal how you could bear it so long, especially +after your grandfather was dead, and you could do as you liked." + +Mrs. Gano sat very straight, not joining in the conversation at this +point, but succeeding to admiration in conveying her opinions. + +"I dare say," explained John Gano; "there has been some not altogether +unnatural fear that the Old World might infect even you, as it has done +other good Americans." + +"How is that?" + +John Gano shook his lion locks ominously. Ethan looked at his +grandmother. Her slow head-shake set the white veil waving. Evidently, +whatever the danger might be, it was something too hideous for words. He +looked at Val. She turned away her eyes. The infected one began to smile +involuntarily. His youngest cousin alone of that patriotic company +looked at him with no shadow of misgiving. + +"There's a young man belongs to this town," she said, beginning in +gentle explanatory tones, but waxing indignant as she went on, "and his +name's Jimmie Battle--used to be quite a nice young man. Grandma knew +his father's father--" + +"Certainly, I knew all about the Battle family, from A to Izzard." + +"Let _me_ tell, grandma. Well, Jimmie Battle went to Paris for a week, +and when he got back to America he called himself James Battelle. +Everybody loathes and despises--I mean, doesn't like Jimmie any more." + +The tension gave way at this point, and they joined in Ethan's laughter. + +"I'm afraid, like the abhorred Mr. Battelle, I didn't object to the +French variant of my name; but I did mind the English persistence in +calling me Eth-an Gay-no." + +"Quite ridiculous," said his grandmother. + +"But did they go on speaking of you in that horrid way?" asked Val, +incredulously. + +Ethan nodded. + +"I wouldn't have stayed with such people a minute," she said--"at least, +only long enough to see how ridiculous they were, and then come straight +home." + +"Miss Hills, she's my Sunday-school teacher," remarked Emmie, "she's +been abroad, and she says all English people call cake _cyke_." + +"Ah, let us hope Miss Hills is more conversant with the manners and +customs of the ancient Hebrews." + +"We _thought_ you'd be standing up for Europe," said Val, with a +commiserating smile. "Perhaps you'll say all the English don't say +_militree_ for military." + +Ethan only laughed, and began to talk of Paris. Val found herself +listening, not to the words, but to the tones of her cousin's voice, +with a sense of rising excitement. Of all kinds of beauty, and of all +forms of fascination, that which found the girl most defenceless was +harmony in sound. It is doubtful if any eloquence could have reached her +through a cracked or raucous voice. But this one, with its vibrant, +searching resonance, that yet held no effect of harshness, its pliancy, +its command of half-tones, its haunting timbre--this was a voice that, +no matter what it said, made music and uttered charms. No one in New +Plymouth, no one Val had ever heard before, spoke like this. Yet the +accent was frankly Northern, and the diction free from any obtrusive +elegance or trace of pedantry. It was the voice that gave the words +their quality. + +Before to-night Val had judged of speech and matter critically enough, +being an even uncomfortably observant young person; but this sound went +thrilling along her nerves, setting up so strange a tumult as to shut +out sense. After all, he was only talking about France. What did France +matter? It might as well be Mars. The important fact was that in the +grave, dark face, great wonderful eyes were shining, deeper, gloomier +than Emmie's. But his smile made generous amends. It made the heart beat +to look at the mobile mouth. And Emmie had dared to kiss him! Something +caught in Val's breast as she thought of such boldness. But speaking of +boldness, it was to this person she had written for help to get her into +opera. How had she dared? Did he have the letter in his pocket? Would he +take it out presently, and bring her to confusion before the family? + +"This room's exactly the same," he said, suddenly, breaking away from +the discussion as to whether Republicanism suited the volatile, +spectacle-loving Gaul. "My old friend Daniel Boone's still at his post, +I see; and, why, the very silver paper on the walls is the same!" + +"No, no," protested Mrs. Gano. "This is new. It hasn't been up more +than"--she reflected. + +"Nine years ago, this coming May," said John Gano. + +"Oh, really!" Ethan passed his slim, brown finger-tips lightly over the +wall behind the sofa. "It's just as nice as the old kind was," he said, +smiling; "it comes off on your fingers, shiny and metallic." + +"Yes," said Val; "just like the dust off a butterfly's wings." + +"So it is." He nodded across the room at her. "I remember what fun I +used to think it to rub it off--just a little, grandmamma." + +"If you remember that," said Mrs. Gano, indulgently, "you remember I +always reproved you for it." + +"No, no." He jumped up, and stood very tall and smiling in front of +her, with his hands behind his back, like a guilty urchin. "You've +forgotten. When you caught me with silvery fingers, I used to be awfully +alarmed. I always tried to disarm you by saying 'I was _afraid_ you'd +scold.' Then you would say, 'I never scold. I point out your +defects--it's what I'm here for.'" + +They all laughed, the two girls with some misgiving. + +This repartee still did service on occasion. + +"Oh, but those were good times!" Yet even as he said the words the gay +look faded out of his face. "It was a long while ago." + +"It's nineteen years," said John Gano, who was wrestling with a fit of +coughing. These attacks were such a commonplace in the family life that +the rest were aware of this one only when Ethan said: + +"What a frightful cough you've got, Uncle John." + +"No--nothing unusual. It begins like this when the cold weather comes +on." + +"Oh, father, you don't call to-day cold!" said Emmie. + +"Your uncle is much better than he used to be," said Mrs. Gano, rising +with her habitual every-day decision, and glancing at the clock. "You +must be tired, Ethan?" + +"Do you think you're _too_ tired--" Val began, and hesitated, seized +again with an unaccustomed shyness. + +"I'm as fresh as possible." + +He turned and looked inquiringly at her. + +"I was just thinking how excited An' Jerusha's been about your coming, +and--" + +"Why, of course; I'll go out and see her a moment." + +"May I come, too?" asked Emmie. + +"Yes, do." He glanced towards Val, but she turned away an indifferent +face. "Come." + +He went off with Emmie, leaving Val behind, consumed with longing to go, +but feeling as if she were chained to her chair. + +"I don't like to see him looking delicate," said John Gano. + +"Delicate! What an idea!" remonstrated his mother. + +"He is young to have that slight inclination to stoop." + +"Mere habit. You see, he is so tall. A man of six feet can afford to +stoop just a little. It's hardly perceptible." + +John Gano shook his head. + +"Thinner than he ought to be." + +"My patience, but you're hard to please! As if a fat man weren't an +abhorrence." + +"I didn't say I wanted to see him porpoisical." + +"A man of Ethan's age ought not to have an ounce of superfluous flesh." + +"Well, I should say he hadn't." + +"All of us have invariably been thin." + +"Exactly what I have in mind. Ethan has all the physical characteristics +of our family." + +Out in the kitchen An' Jerusha was expressing similar sentiments. + +"Law sakes! I's tickled t' death you's come home. Jes' de same as ebber; +spit en image ob yo' father. I monstus glad t' see yo', Mars Efan. Been +ve'y jubous 'bout yo' gitten back fo' I done kick de bucket," and she +laughed to keep from crying outright. + +Emmie brought him back in triumph to the parlor, and they all said +good-night. + +When Val got into bed and began the inevitable story where she left off +the night before, behold, the hero's face was the face of her cousin, +and the hero's voice was the voice of Ethan Gano. + + +Val woke next day with a flashing sense of something wonderful having +happened. She sat up in bed. Ah, yes! A bound, and she was out on the +floor, pushing wider open the heavy shutter. + +Ah! how good the air smelled, a little frosty, and yet golden, with +something in it aromatic, tingling. She raced through her toilet, but +after it was finished she stood a long while in front of the glass. +Suddenly she threw back her head and snapped her fingers in the air. +Then she ran down-stairs. Going out by the veranda, she saw her cousin +standing at the farther end, where the wisteria hung down in festoons. +He was looking out through the loops and tangles. He turned, hearing the +suddenly arrested step. + +"Good-morning, America," he said, coming forward with that easy swinging +gait of his. + +"Good-morning," said Val, half laughing, half offended. + +She stood a little awkwardly, seeming not to see his hand. He only +smiled, and leaned his tall figure in the fawn-colored clothes against +the pillar. + +"Tell me, America, do you have much weather as fine as this?" + +"We have Indian summer in this country, if that's what you mean." + +He looked so well against the pillar. Val longed to take up some +nonchalant attitude by the one nearest her, but she remembered it was +black with the all-pervading coal-dust, and forbore being picturesque at +the price. + +"Of course," Ethan assented. "I'd forgotten you had a fifth season in +your calendar. Naturally, the old regulation four wouldn't content you." + +"I can't think why you talk as if you weren't an American yourself. You +might be some poor foreigner--" + +"Just what I am, I'm afraid." + +"_You?_" + +He nodded. + +"That's the worst of living abroad a lot," he said: "you are always a +foreigner there. But it's only when you come home, and find that you are +more of a foreigner than ever, that you begin to mind." + +"You don't look as if you minded much." + +"Ah, that's the good face I put on." + +("Horrid, sneering French ways," she commented to herself, not really +thinking so, but feeling it a duty and a kind of instinctive defence to +pretend she did. Something rueful in his laugh was not lost upon her.) + +"Still, I do appreciate your Indian summer," he added. + +"I should think so." She threw back her head and drew in the sweet, +sun-laden air. "It's the very best time of all the year." He didn't +answer. "Don't you think so?" + +"I think it a little melancholy, for all it's so beautiful." + +"How curious! It's the time that makes me happiest." + +"Is it?" + +"Perhaps you prefer spring?" She spoke as one condescending to +childishness. "A good many people seem to." + +"Yes, all the old, and all--" + +"All what?" + +"All foreigners." + +The breakfast-bell rang. + +No trays went up-stairs that morning. Everybody appeared, and the two +girls couldn't remember when so gay a party had assembled in the dingy +dining-room. But the pleasantry was of that strictly family character +whose special savor is withheld from the outsider. + +As Ethan was taking his place by Mrs. Gano, he stopped suddenly, +catching sight of the preternaturally tall silver coffee-pot, and made +obeisance. + +"Sir or madam," he said, "I've travelled far since we parted, but I've +never seen your equal." + +Mrs. Gano laughed with the rest. + +"That means the Mioto air has made you readier for your morning cup than +you've been since you were here before. Or perhaps you agree with +Frederika Bremer's old woman, 'When I see a coffee-pot, it's the same to +me as if I saw an angel from heaven.'" + +"She must have meant this one." + +"Emmie has another name for it," said John Gano, also unbending. + +"Father!" remonstrated his little daughter, blushing, "it's a great many +years since I called it anything but coffee-pot." + +"But before that?" persisted cousin Ethan. + +"Possi-tot!" + +And everybody but Emmie laughed as if it were the finest jest in the +world. + +After breakfast they all walked about the grounds in a body, John Gano +pointing out the superiority of his trees, and Ethan indicating his +best-beloved old haunts, the two girls exchanging looks of amazement +that he should know their playground so intimately. Ethan was much +struck by the general dilapidation. If Uncle Elijah--peace to his +ashes!--had found cause to remark nearly twenty years before that the +place was going to ruin, there was good ground for the assertion to-day. + +Ethan remembered the wilderness as being inexorably confined to that +vast region (pitifully shrunken to the older eye) below the second +flight of stone steps. But "Mr." Hall, who had mowed and clipped and +gardened the upper region, having joined the ghosts, for whom he had +felt so little fellowship here on earth, the wilderness had risen in his +absence and howled, mounting terrace after terrace, and was now laying +open siege to the very Fort itself. To be sure, there were garden +borders under the front windows, where John Gano lingered with a tender +solicitude, lamenting for the Eschscholtzia's sake the lack of sun. But +the flourishing and carefully tended pansy border marked only the more +definitely the surrounding desolation. + +"There's a strange dog!" said Mrs. Gano. "Some one has left the gate +open." + +"He may have got in down there where there's a picket missing in the +fence," said Ethan. + +"Oh, that picket hasn't been there for ages," Val answered; "but the old +hundred-leaved rose-bushes are so thick in that corner, and so thorny, +nothing can get past." + +As she ran forward to eject the strange dog, she caught her foot in the +dry, tangled grass, and, but for Ethan's quick hand, would have fallen. + +"_Oh!_" she said, flushing and looking confused; then, without any +proper acknowledgment, she darted off after the dog. + +"If _I_ did that, father, you'd say I was clumsy," said Emmie, smiling +up into his face in the prettiest way in the world. + +"The grass is very long," said John Gano--"long and matted." + +"It grows with great rapidity," said his mother. "It seems only +yesterday we had a man here cutting it." + +"It was the 29th of June." + +"Oh, you must be mistaken." + +John Gano shook his head. + +"I remember quite well. It was the anniversary of Clay's death." + +Val joined them again, breathless from the chase. Ethan had paused +absent-mindedly near the corner of the wooden L, where the +weather-boarding was hanging loose. It wasn't in the best taste, Val +felt, that he should stare so at that strip of rotten wood, that refused +any longer to hold the rusty nails. She longed to touch his arm, to +rouse him. + +"All this needs renewing," admitted John Gano, as though in answer to a +verbal observation. + +"A--yes," said Ethan, and they went on. + +It was odd how the unsparing sunshine and a new pair of eyes in the +party revealed the wide-spread dilapidation of the place to its old +inhabitants. Val had hardly noticed it before. + +John Gano picked up a blackened, weather-worn shingle off the grass. + +"The equinox brought down a fresh crop of these," he said, tossing the +old shingle into the wood-shed. + +"Comes off the L, I suppose," said Ethan. + +"No, the main roof." + +"Doesn't it leak, then?" + +"A little," answered his uncle, cheerfully. + +"That must be bad for the house." + +"We shall be roofed with slate next time," said Mrs. Gano; "it lasts +longer." + +"Oh, we can't complain of the way a shingle roof has lasted, that's done +duty more than a quarter of a century," returned her son. + +"Whenever it rains we have such fun," said Emmie. "We carry up an army +of buckets and basins and washtubs to catch the rain in the attic. Last +week it came through into father's room in the night, and Val--" + +"Emmeline," said Mrs. Gano, "walk on; the path is narrow here." + +As they passed the kitchen-window Ethan glanced in. + +"Good-morning, Aunt Jerusha! Morning, Venus!" + +"Mawnin'!" + +"Mawnin', Marse Efan!" + +The old woman hobbled delightedly to the window, avoiding a broken place +in the flooring. + +"I see you don't neglect my knocker--shines like gold." + +"Go long, Marse Efan!" Her rich chuckling bubbled over. "Tooby suah I +ain't disremember dat ar knocker o' yourn--not oncet in twenty yeah." + +"Why do you have those little squares of zinc nailed all over your +kitchen floor, Aunt Jerusha?" + +"Law sakes alive!"--she rolled and shook--"dey's a despit lot o' rats +down sullar, an' I can't b'ar 'em up yere nohow." + +Ethan was the only one of the party outside to join her cheerful +laughter. But the ruinous state of the property was too obvious for him +to realize that he could possibly be expected to overlook it. + +When they went in-doors Ethan followed his grandmother to her own room, +where he had sat with her that first evening so long ago and heard that +Jerusha was his aunt. They had a long and eminently satisfactory talk +until, towards its end, Ethan straightforwardly introduced the subject +of the evident need of repairs, and the pleasure it would give him to-- + +He was "quite mistaken," she interrupted, drawing herself up, and, to +his amazement, receiving the suggestion at the point of the sword. There +was nothing wrong with the place. He had his head full of chateaus and +palaces. Of course, this was quite an ordinary-- + +"No, no, it's not the least ordinary. It's picturesque and beautiful; +but it--you must see for yourself it's falling to decay." + +"Like ourselves, it doesn't get younger; but it naturally suits us +better than it can hope to suit you." + +He gave up his point for the time being, finding a sudden flaw in his +own taste, that could so soon after his arrival suggest that anything +here could be changed for the better. + +"Come to the upper hall," he said to Val after the mid-day dinner; "help +me to unpack, and see if anything I've picked up in my travels will do +for a present to Aunt Jerusha." + +Val followed him up-stairs, into the seventh heaven. She knew she ought +to call Emmie; but why spoil it? + +"You never answered my last letter," she said with lowered voice as they +reached the landing. + +"Didn't I? I'm so sorry. I thought I had. But it's so long ago." + +"Not so very." + +"About three years. You've rather neglected me of late." He smiled down +into her lifted eyes. + +"Perhaps I didn't know your new address." + +"'Monroe et Cie, 7, Rue Scribe, Paris,' always finds me." + +"I thought you told grandma to write direct to the Rue de Provence." + +"Ah yes, at one time. I left there a long while ago." + +He was unlocking his trunk. Should she tell him about the letter that +had evidently got lost? It somehow wouldn't be so easy as she supposed. +And what was the use? Anyhow, here was Emmie trailing up-stairs with a +rather downcast face, saying: + +"Grandma thought I might come too and see Aunt Jerusha's--" + +"Of course; and why not, I'd like to know?" said Ethan, with a welcoming +look, as he tumbled his clothes out on the floor. It was awfully +interesting--embarrassing, too. What a lot of things he had, for a man! + +"I hope he isn't a dandy," thought Val, with a moment's misgiving. As a +top-heavy pile of linen and flannel fell against her arm, she was +conscious of an odd sense of pleasure, under her shrinking from the +contact. It was as if he himself had touched her. Emmie knelt down and +gathered up the things, and folded them with her characteristic clumsy +helpfulness. These mechanical offices were as far from her limited range +of dexterity as the wish to be of service was ever present in her +amiable soul. + +"Now, this was what I thought might do." He opened a box and took out an +Indian silver necklace. + +"Just the thing!" cried Val; "how she'll love the dangles!" + +"And these for Venus, eh?" He laid down two bangles. + +"Yes, yes." + +"Think of Venus havin' 'em _both_," murmured Emmie, hanging over them, +fascinated. + +Val saw there were more silver ornaments in the little box, but Ethan +was diving into the trunk again. + +"This is what I've brought you," he said, still on one knee over the +trunk. He turned and handed them each a little morocco case. A murmur of +surprised thanks, a click of opening clasps, and before each girl's eyes +gleamed a tiny watch, round which lay coiled a fine little chain. + +"Oh, oh, oh!" Emmie dropped a pile of shirts on the floor and danced +about. "My initials on the back in pink coral!" + +"Mine in turquoise! Oh, how _did_ you know blue was my color?" But Emmie +had precipitated herself upon Ethan's bosom and was hugging him wildly. + +He was laughing, and crying "Help! help!" And when Emmie desisted, "Help +me to throw those clothes back." + +They put everything away in wild disorder, except one small package, +which he had pocketed. + +"Let's go and show our watches to grandma," said Emmie; and they all +went down to the long room. + +Ethan had his hand on the door-knob. + +"Oh, we always knock," said Emmie, not too excited even by a gold and +coral watch but what she could supply so alarming an omission. + +"Come in." + +Ethan paused a moment on the threshold while his cousins rushed in. He +was thinking how that particular "Come in," aided perhaps by the +preliminary formality of a discreet knock (how could he have +forgotten!); the unchanged aspect of the big room and its occupant in +the queer red chair--how it all gave him back his childhood; gave him +back, too, in some indefinable way, his old feeling of being "in the +Presence." All the adulation of which he himself had been the object at +home and abroad had not changed this. In Paris he was a personage; in +the press of two continents he was a respectfully mentioned millionaire; +in the select circles of half a dozen capitals he was courted and fawned +upon as a great _parti;_ but in the long room he was a vassal, if not +still a child. It amused him to think that he humored the notion. Mrs. +Gano had received the deputation smiling, and had put on her spectacles. +But as she examined the watches, while the girls chorused, and Ethan +walked about, hands in pockets, looking at the browned engravings, the +old woman grew grave. + +"These watches are very handsome," she said; "too handsome for little +girls." + +"Oh _no!_" + +"I'm not a little girl," said Val; "I'm--" + +"They won't be in keeping, but they are very beautiful." + +She was shrivelling up in some unaccountable way. + +"I couldn't think," said Ethan, coming forward, "what souvenir I should +bring _you_ of France." He drew the package out of his pocket and opened +it. "Do you remember how I used to ask you about the French Revolution +when I was a child, and all the stories you used to tell me, and how +sorry we were for Louis and poor Marie Antoinette? You remember telling +me how, when she heard the people were dying for want of bread, she +asked, 'Why don't they eat cake?'" + +He had opened a box and taken out an enamelled crucifix, from which +hung a long chain of small but exquisitely chosen pearls fastened with a +jewelled clasp. + +"This is something Marie Antoinette wore. I thought you'd like to have +it." + +"Oh no!" drawing back quickly. + +He stared at her. She added, almost nervously: + +"I--I never wear jewelry." + +"But--but this!" he protested, not a little dashed. + +"Why, grandma, you're wearing pearl pins in your veil this very moment," +said Val. + +"They--oh, they are little old seed-pearls; they are nothing. I couldn't +think of wearing a costly thing like this." She waved her long fingers +towards the chain with an air of distaste. "Such things are not suitable +here." + +"But why--why not?" exclaimed Ethan. + +"You have only to look about," she said, gravely. "That is a beautiful +and costly toy, my dear. Keep it for your wife." + +"Let's go and give Jerusha _her_ necklace," suggested Emmie, by way of +carrying off a trying situation. + +"Ah yes," said Mrs. Gano, with an air of relief; "I'm glad you've +remembered Jerusha," and she gave the silver collar praise unstinted. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The next afternoon Mrs. Gano and her son took Ethan out driving in +state. Val and Emmie watched them off with eyes of envy. Ethan looked +back at the young people with something of the same expression. The hack +was old and fusty, and was drawn by a single sorrowful beast, but there +was an air of ceremony about the whole proceeding not lost on Ethan. His +uncle pointed out the sights, and, in the intervals of bouts of +coughing, discussed town and national politics. Mrs. Gano, in excellent +spirits, planned a series of drives to points of interest, in every +direction, as long as the fine weather should last. Ethan began to quail +inwardly at the prospect, and yet these odd relations interested him +infinitely more than he had expected. And as soon as that cough of his +uncle's became intolerable he would have urgent business in Boston. +Meanwhile, apropos of these drives, he realized that he would never dare +to offer to pay for the carriage hire. He turned the problem over in his +mind, and after they came home he went out and had a conversation with +the liveryman. A telegram was despatched to a Columbus carriage +manufactory, and an appointment made with the liveryman to go next day +to a neighboring farm and inspect some horseflesh. + +Before the week was out, a brougham and a well-conditioned pair of grays +stood daily before the Fort, when the weather was clement. Mrs. Gano, +less enthusiastic over this new arrival than any one else, nevertheless +drove about day after day in the lovely mild weather, with the top off +"Ethan's newfangled coach," and a look of extreme satisfaction upon her +face. But her son decided that, mild as was the autumn air, it came to +him in too great draughts behind the flying grays. After that first +august apparition of the three elder Ganos in Ethan's equipage, John +Gano declined to sustain his part in the daily triumphal progress +through the streets of the appreciative town. Naturally, in a place of +that size, Mrs. Gano's millionaire grandson was the talk of the hour, +and Val and Emmie sunned themselves in his reflected glory. Such is the +callousness of youth, that it was a moment of scarcely clouded rapture +to the younger generation when John Gano decided to stay at home and +prune the dogwoods. + +Val and Emmie accepted the proffered places on the front seat with an +excitement not to be conveyed to those souls deadened by the luxury of +"keeping a carriage" all their lives. + +Ethan had tried to insist that one of his cousins should sit by Mrs. +Gano. + +"Nonsense!" said that lady; "children always sit in front." + +Aunt Jerusha and Venus peeped discreetly round the corner of the house, +as usual, to see them start. + +"My! Miss Emmie's growin' beautifler and beautifler," Venus had said, as +the younger girl smiled and blushed her soft "Thank you, cousin Ethan," +for his helping hand. + +Val, who had already hopped in, turned and waved excitedly to the +servants. + +"My _dear!_" remonstrated her grandmother, while old Jerusha nodded her +bright turban and whispered: "Yah! Miss Emmie's awful handsome, but she +ain't wavin'; dose chillens tickled to death. Why, Miss Val's face is +like a lamp." + +As the grays leaped forward, and the two young hearts leaped responsive, +Emmie had a flashing realization of what Elijah felt like, going to +heaven in his chariot of fire. + +To Val the rapturous excitement of the thing was just another proof of +the infinite possibilities life afforded for being ecstatically happy. +She would not have admitted there was even a heavenly comparison +wherewith to match this blissful flying along with cousin Ethan +opposite, he talking mostly to grandmamma, of course, but sometimes +meeting his cousin's eyes, and smiling in a way that made the breath +catch in the breast. + +Julia was coming out of her gate that very first day that the four drove +by. Val sat up very straight, and made her a sign, subsiding quickly +upon a look from Mrs. Gano. But Ethan turned round and looked back. + +"What a pretty girl! Who is she?" + +"My best friend," said Val. "You know, I've shown you her house." + +"Ah yes--Julia--" + +"Otway. Such lovely people, all the Otways." + +"A most estimable family," admitted Mrs. Gano; "rather free-and-easy in +their ways. As Emmie said when she was five or six, 'They's the kind of +people that sits on beds.'" + +Emmie smiled a pleased smile at this recollection of infant +perspicacity. + +"That was when the Otway children were too little to know any better," +Val said. "You wait, cousin Ethan, till you know Julia. You just ought +to hear her play the piano! She's coming to supper to-morrow, and, oh! +she wants to know if you like tennis." + +"Yes. Has she got a court?" + +"A splendid one. Haven't you noticed? Just behind the osage-trees." + +"Oh, we'll go and play some morning." + +"There! you see, grandma, he _doesn't_ think he's too old or too busy to +play games. But I can't go in the mornings. I have lessons with grandma, +you know, till one o'clock, and Julia's at school till half-past two, +except on Saturdays." + +"So am I," said Emmie, sadly. "I wish I were going East, and needn't +begin a term that I couldn't finish." + +Val was conscious of something like a qualm at not having thought about +the East, or even the opera, for days. But wait! she would find an +opportunity of taking cousin Ethan into her confidence. Then the great +scheme would resume its former gigantic proportions. Hitherto, whenever +she had been alone with her cousin, she had been seized with a strange +shyness, an excitement that put everything else out of her head except +that here was she, and here was he. It was very queer and very +disconcerting, but it was a heavenly feeling, all the same. + +"Here's Miss Tibbs coming," said Emmie, wishing to acquaint their guest +with all the leading characteristics of the place. "She's quite the most +hideous--ahem!--well, she's a very plain lady. And _oh! do_ you see that +man going into the red-brick house?" + +"That's Jimmie Battle," said Mrs. Gano. + +"Yes. Val, show us how he talks when he tries to be English, and then +forgets." + +"Oh yes," said Val, nothing loath. "He was telling something funny that +happened: 'I laahfed and I laahfed, and, oh _golly!_ how I laffed!'" + +"Val, I'm amazed at your language!" + +"It's Jimmie's language--of course, we're all amazed." + +"Look, Val, there goes Harry Wilbur," said Emmie. + +Yes, it was Harry, pretending not to see them. Val had not answered his +last letters, and since he had not called all these days, he must be +"mad." + +"Who is Harry Wilbur?" Ethan asked, perceiving the interest taken in +this citizen. + +"Son of our old friend, Judge Wilbur," said Mrs. Gano. + +"We _used_ to say he was the handsomest man in New Plymouth," said +Emmie, looking reflectively at Ethan. + +"And he's the best bat in the West," added Val, loyally; but, oh! how +insignificant blond men were in comparison with-- + +They passed Miss Appleby taking a _posse_ of her young lady boarders out +for a walk. + +"They all know _you_, cousin Ethan, and they're just _dying_ to turn and +look back. We talked about you all recess." + +"Did you?" he laughed. + +"Girls chatter too much," said Mrs. Gano; "they were more discreet in my +day." + +But Emmie knew this was a time of privilege. + +"The girls at the Seminary are nearly every one Presbyterians. They +don't like being Presbyterians at all." + +"Why not?" + +"'Cause they can't come to _our_ church on Sunday." + +Now they were going up the hill. The young people must get out and walk. +Delicious moment of being helped to dismount. The unskilful Emmie, for +all cousin Ethan's hand, had stumbled and twisted her foot. She was +lifted back, to a sympathetic chorus. Ethan had taken off a glove to try +the catch on the carriage door, which did not work easily. He held the +glove in his hand as Val and he trudged up the cinder road. Why, that +was like her father! And now that Val thought of it, cousin Ethan had +several little ways that recalled her father. Both indulged in fits of +gloomy, absolute silence "all about nothing," when they might be +discoursing pleasantly to their fellows. She glanced at her cousin +sideways. Certainly he and John Gano were very different, too, in a +sense. The elder man seemed hewn out of wood, Ethan was cut in ivory. +Why did he say nothing? He began to draw on his glove, absently, with a +preoccupied air. + +He was thinking to-day of Mary Burne. Where was she? Had she solved the +enigma? He tried to shake her out of his thoughts, but she came back and +back. + +Val snatched a mullein leaf from the hill-side as she passed. + +"Don't you love these velvety things?" she said. "Just feel before you +put on your glove." + +"N-no"--he looked suspiciously at the silver-gray leaf--"no, thank you." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't like touching things like that." + +"But why?" + +"Oh, just an absurd notion of mine." + +"But is it a notion, or is it a real feeling?" + +He laughed. + +"Now I know what reality is to my cousin Val." + +"But this isn't prickly. It's soft as velvet." + +"I know--too much like velvet." + +"Do you hate soft things?" + +"No, but I hate things that catch my nails." He gave a little comic +shiver. + +"Is _that_ why you won't take a peach in your fingers?" + +"You've noticed?" + +He turned his head and glanced down at her. She looked away. + +"I wonder what makes you like that?" she said. + +"Can't imagine." + +"It must make you shiver inside just to _look_ at our velveteen +jackets." + +"I don't so much mind looking at them." + +"But you'd hate to touch them?" + +He laughed. + +"Yes, fair catechist, I would; and if the murder must out, it's because +of Emmie's velvet jacket that Emmie's ankle's hurt. She wouldn't have +fallen if I had lifted her down instead of giving her my hand." + +"Well, you _are_ funny! I don't think much of velveteen myself, but I +like real velvet. And all of us girls simply love the feel of mullein, +and when we want to have nice pink cheeks," she said, in a burst of +confidence, "we do like this." + +She rubbed the leaf hard first on one cheek and then on the other, till +each one flew a scarlet flag. + +"Most effective," said Ethan, with deliberate eyes on the girl; "but for +my part, I'd rather my cheeks were white, or even pea-green, than have +that thing touch me." + +Val threw the mullein away. + +"I'm afraid I haven't any fine feelings," she said. "I like everything." + +"I don't believe it." + +She couldn't bear that compelling look of his. + +"It takes so long like this," she said; "I'm going to run to the top," +and she raced on before him. But even so he reached her again before the +slow-moving carriage, going the long way round. + +When he, too, got to the top, he saw her standing some little distance +from the road on the brow of the hill, looking down upon river and town; +her dress blown well back from the firmly set feet, the old velveteen +jacket following--more from long habit than from excellence of cut--the +slim young outlines, the shabby little hat held down upon the +wind-roughened hair with one hand, the other hand thrust in a +side-pocket. It was an unkempt picture of no great prettiness, and no +thought of prettiness, but it gave a curious impression of eager life; a +kind of dauntlessness and good faith that hit upon the heart. + +"Well, America, what do you think of the prospect?" said his voice +behind her. + +She turned round with a bright look. + +"Much more than I'm going to tell you, to be laughed at for my pains." + +"Oh, well, I can see it for myself--a smoky valley, a muddy river with +many bridges, some stormy-looking clouds--" + +"Oh, _that's_ not what I see." + +"What then?" + +"Well--" Her eyes sparkled, and then she pursed her mouth as one +determined not to let out secrets before the fulness of time. + +"Yes?" + +"I hadn't noticed the smoke in the valley, or the mud in the river, and +_certainly_ wasn't thinking about the scenery at all. I never do." + +"What's your objection to scenery?" + +"So horrid dull. Not just this--_all_ scenery." + +"You think so?" + +"Oh, dreadful! And it's just the same with birds and trees, and all the +things the poets make such a time about. _I_ can't be bothered." + +"Really!" Ethan was laughing at her harassed, overdone look. + +"Oh, do forgive me! I quite forgot you were a poet, too." + +"I'll forgive you on condition you tell me what you'd write about if +_you_ were a poet." + +"Why, people, of course. People are the only things that matter. I +_always_ skip the scenery. Everybody does, only they don't tell." She +had lowered her voice, as if the very faded grasses and the sunburnt +golden-rod might gossip of the heresy. "It's been rather hard on me that +my father, who is so interesting and wonderful to talk to about +everything else, should waste so much time on trees and things. I've +thought more than once that some day, when he's in better health, I'll +just tell him." She nodded portentously. + +"H'm! How will you put it?" + +"Oh, I should tell him just honestly the beauties of Nature make me +sick." + +A pause of satisfaction at finally unburdening her soul, and then a +little start. She studied Ethan's face with some anxiety. + +"I'm forgetting again that you-- Do you mind if I don't care much +about--" She made a vindictive gesture towards a small, wry-growing +oak-tree clinging desperately to the side of the hill below them. "Do +you mind?" + +"I don't know that I do." + +"Why should you? I don't mind that you hate my jacket--at least, not +much. I tell you what, we'll make a compact. I'll never wear velvet or +mullein leaves while you're here, and you will never mention the +scenery." + +"Very well; it's a bargain." + +They shook hands. A sudden impulse made him loath to loosen his grasp. +As he did so: + +"Now tell me," he said, "what _were_ you looking at with such a rapture +of expectation. What interests you in that dirty little town?" + +"It's only dirty because it's so enterprising," she said, +apologetically. "You can't stop to trouble about your looks if you've +got a lot to do." + +"Quite true, America. But still, what is there besides enterprise in +that dirty little town that makes you--" + +"_Little!_ Why, my father says there are 35,000 inhabitants." + +"Ah, there's safety in numbers. I fancied from your expression you had +forgotten 34,999 of them." + +"There's the carriage," said Val, not looking in his face. + +"How long is he going to stay, grandma?" asked Emmie, as the two figures +came towards them. + +"I don't know, my dear." + +"I think he means to be here a long while." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"Well, he said something to Val about hating Christmas, 'cause it always +made him miserable. Val said: 'Stay here with us and you won't be +miserable.' He said: 'No, I don't think it would be easy to be miserable +with you.' And he looked so pleased. Let's ask him to stay." + +Mrs. Gano watched the advancing pair with grave eyes. It was rare to see +Val with such a heightened color. + + +It rained the next day, and there was no driving. But Val, in any case, +had an old engagement of much importance. Jessie Hornsey, a cousin of +Harry Wilbur's, was giving a "tea-fight." Miss Hornsey had "graduated" +that June, and was, in spite of her great age, a particular friend of +Val's, who had been much honored by her condescension in the past, and +by the special mark of favor in the present invitation. At the last +moment came little pink note No. 2, to say that Miss Hornsey had heard +that Miss Gano had a cousin staying with her: would she bring him? Val, +already dressed and ready to go, precipitated herself down-stairs to +find her cousin. He was stretched out comfortably before the parlor fire +reading an old battered book. + +"Here, read this instead." She spread the blushing sheet triumphantly +over the yellow page. + +He looked up, smothering a yawn behind his even white teeth, stirred +lazily in the depths of his arm-chair, and then dropped his eyes upon +Miss Hornsey's note. + +"Well?" asked Val, impatiently. + +"Well?" + +"What you think?" + +"That this is a very handsome proposition." + +"Will you come?" + +"Ah, that's another matter." + +"But do." + +"What for?" + +"She's awfully nice--she's Harry's cousin--and all the _older_ girls and +boys will be there. You'll like it. I should think there'd be hardly +anybody else as young as I am." + +"Won't you feel your inferiority?" + +"I think it's _very_ nice of Jessie Hornsey to ask me." + +He could see she had been proud of the distinction. + +"Well, you go and tell them I--I've got rheumatism, and have to sit in +an arm-chair." + +"Oh, do come!" + +"Just look at the rain!" + +"We can take the horse-cars." + +"Ugh!" he shuddered. + +"What's the matter?" she said, suspiciously; "you too grand for +horse-cars?" + +"Not too grand, too cold." + +"Put on an overcoat." + +"Don't you think it's very comfortable here?" + +"Yes, but Jessie Hornsey--" + +"Do you know"--he laid the old book on the floor by his chair and +stretched out his shapely hands to the blaze--"do you know, I think this +is _much_ nicer than tea-fighting at Jessie Hornsey's." + +"What if _I_ don't go, either?" said Val, with a sudden inspiration. + +"Why should you?" returned Ethan, smiling. + +She whipped off her hat and jacket and flung them on the sofa. + +"And you're all alone," she said, in extenuation of her sudden change of +front. + +"Exactly." + +"Do you know, you are not at all what I expected?" + +"I'm very sorry." + +"I used to imagine what you were like, and it wasn't at all like this." + +He sat up with a look of amusement. + +"How do I fall short?" + +"You don't; this is _much_ better." She was staring into the fire with +great gravity. + +"You don't give me a flattering idea of your anticipations," he said. + +She ignored the opportunity to reassure him. + +"I used to wonder so if we were never going to meet; I was so tired +waiting," she said. + +"Oh, then you thought on the whole you'd like to know me?" + +"Well, it's a very queer feeling--the feeling I mean. I have it about +Patti, too." + +"Oh, Patti, too." + +"You've heard her sing?" + +"Yes." + +"Of course, you've heard everything!" she sighed. + +"What's the 'queer feeling'?" + +"Well, if I've heard and thought a great deal about some one, and if +they sing wonderfully, or if they write beautiful songs, and travel and +do interesting things, I feel--not so much that I want to meet them as +that it would be nice for them to meet me. No, you aren't taking it the +way I mean. It's that I know I should appreciate them, and it must be +rather nice to be _awfully_ appreciated, even if it's Patti or you. Of +course you go about meeting all kinds of people, but there aren't many +among them that take such an interest as I do, that know all about you +when you were little, how you blacked yourself all over in the attic and +brought down the door-knocker; about the Tallmadges and Henri de Poincy, +and all your photographs and letters to grandma. Naturally, nobody +_could_ take such an interest in you as your own cousin, and it used to +seem such a waste that you shouldn't know us." + +"I quite agree; it would have been losing a golden opportunity." + +"Oh, here she is!" said Emmie, putting in her head. "I told grandma +you'd gone to the party." + +"No, I'm not going. It's cold; shut the door." + +Emmie was proceeding to perform this operation on the inside when Mrs. +Gano called "Val." With a gesture of impatience the girl got up and went +out. Mrs. Gano was standing on the threshold of the long room. + +"You'll be very late for the party." + +"I'm not going." + +"Why not?" + +"It's raining so." + +"Well, I never in all my days heard you make that excuse before!" + +Val traced an invisible design on the back of the hall-chair. + +"Cousin Ethan was asked, too. It strikes him as being a very bad day." + +"_Ethan?_ Preposterous! Why should he bother with the Hornseys?" + +There was a pause. Suddenly she asked: + +"Was there not an Archery Club meeting yesterday?" + +"Yes, but I--I thought I wouldn't go when we had company." + +"My dear child, the company need not be so much on your mind. Your +father and I are quite capable of entertaining Ethan." + +"Oh yes, of course." + +"You are a mere child in the eyes of a man of the world, don't forget +that." + +Val went on making patterns. It did not escape Mrs. Gano that this was +only the second time in all her days that Val had not furiously +contested the injustice of looking upon her from so mean a point of +view. The girl stood quite meek and reflective. + +"Don't miss your party because of Ethan," added the old woman, more +gently. "You have not understood. Your cousin has a great deal to occupy +him in a world we do not belong to. It's of no use for us to disarrange +our lives for a person who pays us a visit once in twenty years--here +to-day, gone to-morrow." + +"Of course not," said Val. + +"There is one thing in particular that we must all be careful about." +Mrs. Gano sank her voice, although the heavy parlor-door was shut. +"Emmie has just told me that Ethan has some plan of giving you children +a dog-cart. Now, I can't have that." + +"I thought you would object. I said so." + +"You were perfectly right. Of course Ethan doesn't realize; he offers +these things out of sheer amiability and carelessness. It's a bagatelle +to him. To us"--she laid her hand on Val's arm--"it is a question of the +principle. We must guard against nothing so carefully as a habit of +accepting things from a rich relation. It is a situation full of peril +to personal dignity, to continuance of esteem." + +Thank Heaven, thought Val, that shameless letter asking for money had +the sense to go and lose itself! What a disgrace to have brought upon +her family! She felt a spasm of nervous relief go down her spine at the +thought of that guilty secret having escaped detection. + +Mrs. Gano had gone and opened the front door. + +"Make haste, and you won't be so very late." + +Val went with lagging steps to the parlor, and came hurrying out with +her things. Ethan had not even looked round. He was laughing at +something Emmie was saying. + +"We haven't seen Harry Wilbur lately; ask him if he can't come in +to-night," said Mrs. Gano, as she saw Val off. + +Oh yes, a great deal of water had flowed under the bridge since her own +daughter was young. + + +It was plain that Ethan was a great success in New Plymouth. Not that +any of the neighbors knew him as yet, not that he had gone anywhere +except to St. Thomas's that first Sunday; but such glimpses as the +inhabitants had of him, whether at his rather absent-minded devotions or +driving about with Mrs. Gano, had roused a fever of interest. The fact +of his great wealth, combined with his somewhat glowering good looks, +his slow transforming smile, ran away with hearts by the score, and made +the tumble-down Fort a centre of seething gossip and excitement. Harry +Wilbur was known to look upon the new-comer with open suspicion. + +"Can't say I've much use for an American who _isn't_ an American," said +the florid Westerner to Julia Otway at the Hornsey "tea-fight." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well, look at him." + +"Where--where?" + +Her unblushing excitement seemed further to annoy the usually equable +Wilbur. + +"I don't mean he's here. But you've seen him, haven't you?" + +"Oh yes, but only at a distance. Have you?" + +"Quite near enough. He's like a Spaniard, or some kind of foreigner, and +goes about looking as if he owned the earth." + +"Well, he does own a good slice of it, and as to his looks, he's very +much like all the rest of the Ganos except Val." + +Julia had put great pressure upon herself not to rush over at once and +make the new-comer's acquaintance. But there was a general feeling that, +however much one naturally yearned to meet the attractive stranger, Mrs. +Gano's house was not the place that one could run in and out of without +invitation. Julia's patience was rewarded by the bidding to supper, to +which she had responded by the suggestion of tennis. + +Her presence made a great difference in the family evening at the Fort. + +John Gano's form of contribution to the entertainment of his guest was +to play chess with him after supper, or else engage him in conversation +on the subject of State Rights _versus_ Centralization. Several nights +of such frivolity had satisfied Ethan. + +"I hear that you play," he said to Julia Otway, as they came out from +supper. + +She, nothing loath, and seeming magnetized into forgetfulness of her +usual restraint in Mrs. Gano's presence, followed him to the piano. + +"Locked. Where's the key?" Ethan asked. + +"In my dressing-case," said Mrs. Gano, nodding to Val. + +As the girl came back into the parlor with the key, she caught sight of +the expression of demure coquetry with which Julia, seated on the +piano-stool, was looking up into Ethan's face. He was leaning against +the piano, talking and laughing. Why, he hadn't looked as amused as that +since he came! What _could_ Julia have said? With a sudden chill upon +her spirit Val came forward and handed Ethan the key. + +"Ah, here we are!" + +He opened the piano, and Julia began to play. Ethan went over to the +window and watched her. + +Val sat by her father. Julia was distressingly pretty; there was no +disguising the fact. Evidently cousin Ethan thought so. How absorbed he +was! He was quite angry at the clatter some one was making at the front +door. He knitted his dark brows impatiently. The interrupter must be +Harry Wilbur; nobody else approached door-knockers in so athletic a +spirit. Yes, it was Harry. + +"How do you do? I'm _so_ glad to see you," said Val, with an overflowing +cordiality that surprised her visitor quite as much as it gratified him. + +He went and spoke in an undertone to Mrs. Gano, and then came back and +sat on the other side of Val. + +"You haven't told me yet why you were so late at the Hornseys to-day," +he whispered. + +"It just happened; everybody's late sometimes." + +"Why didn't you come to the archery party yesterday?" + +"Had something else to do." + +"Had to go driving with cousin Croesus, eh?" + +"If you saw me, why didn't you bow?" + +"Why have you got your hair up? In honor of cousin Croesus? Don't look +at me like that or I shall cry." His frank face wore a broad smile. "I +_like_ your hair up; you look scrumptious." + +"Hush! and listen to the exquisite playing." + +"I ain't musical like cousin Croesus. _Your_ singing's the only music I +care about." + +"You don't care about it; you only pretend." + +"I assure you, on my honor--" + +"Sh! cousin Ethan's looking at us." + +"What if he is? Great Caesar's ghost! Not that I blame him for looking at +_you_. Specially lately, you--" + +"Hush! and don't talk nonsense." + +But cousin Ethan had lifted his head impatiently, and was making her a +little sign for silence. + +She shrank together as if at a blow. Ethan went back to the piano when +Julia finished, and bent over her, speaking thanks and praises. He was +asking for something of Brahms'. Julia began again. This was another +success. Cousin Ethan was really impressed; no doubt about it. Emmie +went over to the piano in the midst of the general conversation, and +said in her clear treble: + +"Me and Val can sing 'Maid of Athens.'" + +He seemed not to hear; he was talking so earnestly to Julia. _She_ heard +plainly enough. She was only pretending to be oblivious. But Emmie was +not to be done out of a share of the festivity. + +"Cousin Ethan, do _you_ know 'Maid of Athens?'" + +"Eh? What? 'Maid of Athens?' Yes." + +"So do Val and me. Let's sing it." + +"Very well. Will you accompany?" he asked Julia. + +She nodded, and began the prelude. + +Val didn't budge. + +Emmie beckoned. Val studied the long, narrow, heelless silk shoes on her +grandmother's feet, and made no sign. + +"Come, Val," said Ethan, in an off-hand way. + +"Go and sing when cousin Croesus calls," murmured Harry Wilbur. + +"I don't care about 'Maid of Athens,'" said Val, out loud. + +"Oh yes; come," Ethan urged, good-humoredly. + +"Go and sing when our guests ask you," said Mrs. Gano, in a reproving +undertone; and then, as Val got up to obey, she said, in her usual clear +accents: "Not too loud. You know I don't like boisterous singing in a +parlor." + +Val began with the others, in a voice quite depressed enough to please +Mrs. Gano. Even Emmie's faint fluting came out more effectively, and Val +could easier have wept than gone on singing. Emmie sang two more songs, +Julia laughing and coquetting with Ethan over prelude and interlude; and +then Julia played a nocturne. + +Harry Wilbur made a despairing grimace at this last performance. He rose +presently with a determined manner, and quietly bade Mrs. Gano and her +son good-night. Val went with him to the front door. They stood talking +about her approaching departure, and how Wilbur, too, hoped to get +something to do "in the East," so that he might be a witness of Val's +triumphs. The conversation pleased her, but her grandmother would be +"making eyebrows" if she stayed so long. + +"Good-night, then. Look here, Val"--he took her hand warmly in both his +own--"I've been awfully cut up lately. I was beginning to be afraid"--he +nodded his yellow head towards the parlor--"afraid you might be--" + +"Don't be a great silly;" and she ran back to the family circle. + +After Julia finished, she got up while Ethan was still talking to her, +and made her good-nights all round very prettily. + +"But it's quite early," Ethan had said. + +"They always send for me at nine." + +"Send! Don't you live next door?" + +"Not exactly. I have to walk half round the block to get to our gate. We +aren't allowed to climb the fence," she added, in a confidential +undertone, with a sly look back at Mrs. Gano as she gave Ethan her hand. +"Good-night." + +"Sha'n't I see you to your gate?" he said, coming out into the hall. "My +uncle ought not--" + +"No, thank you. I think by the time I get my things on some one will be +here for me." + +He had refused to go to the Hornseys with Val, but he was quite ready to +face the elements in order to take Julia home! + +Critical eyes marked the unusual haste of the guest's hat-pinning and +jacket-donning. + +"Mrs. Gano always sends for Val," Julia said to Ethan, accounting for +the origin of the repulsive custom. + +He held her jacket for her. + +"You haven't told me yet," he said, "how you learned to play like this?" + +Julia laughed, too much pleased to venture on words. + +"She has taken lessons," said Val, "ever since she was seven." + +"You were sent away to study?" + +"No," said Julia, tying her scarf with an effective air. + +"But she's had _private_ lessons," Val explained, "besides the music +classes at the Sem." + +"You really mean"--he was ignoring Val and looking down upon the happy +Julia--"do you mean you've learned to play like this in New Plymouth?" + +"Yes; of course I practise a good deal." + +"As much as ever she likes, and nobody to say 'Not so boisterous,' and +then go and lock the piano." + +"Well, I must say I think it a very creditable result--with only +provincial masters." + +As he reached for his hat, he caught sight of Val's face. + +"America, thou wear'st a threatening aspect. Mustn't I say provincial?" + +At that moment a knock resounded loudly on the door. Julia carried off +her disappointment discreetly enough, departing with the servant. + +The young people went back to the parlor, but a gloom seemed to have +fallen on the party. Mrs. Gano was closing the piano with her son's +help. + +"Emmie tells me," she was saying, "that Miss Julia complains my piano is +out of tune. I wonder, that being the case, she is so fond of playing on +it." + +"It is out of tune," said Val; "but I suppose she thinks it better than +nothing. Isn't she pretty?" Val asked her cousin, in a dogged tone. + +"Extremely--most charming little person." + +"She _usually_ has rather nice, retiring manners," remarked Mrs. Gano. + +And then they said good-night. + +Ethan looked inquiringly into his cousin's face. "It isn't late; come +out on the veranda while I smoke a cigarette." + +"I thought you objected to going out such weather as this." + +"But we won't get wet on the veranda." + +"No, not _on the veranda_"--but seeing Julia home was a different +matter. + +"It's your bedtime, Val," interposed Mrs. Gano--"and long past yours, +Emmie. Ethan, you must not demoralize the children." + +He laughed, and went out by himself. + +"Ethan forgets himself," said Mrs. Gano, with low-voiced indignation. +"Imagine his asking a French girl, or a young Boston lady, to come out +at this hour--_while he smoked_!" If it had been while he did a little +murdering, she could not have looked more horrified. "He must not think +manners are superfluous here!" + +Val undressed by the open window, where she could smell the ascending +smoke, and then she cried under the bedclothes for what seemed to her a +long, long time. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Val's unwonted silence and aloofness the evening before had not been +lost upon her cousin. He recalled these unaccustomed manifestations the +next morning, smiling to himself, and promising his jealous little +relative amends. The day, scarce well begun, beheld him on the way to a +discovery that he kept on making for years: while you were occupied in +realizing that Val Gano was hurt or disappointed, she was apparently +getting over it with such despatch that, as you approached with suitable +looks of sympathy, lo! she would advance to meet your condolence with +banners flying and trumpets blaring, so to speak, obliging you hurriedly +to readjust your expression, in order fitly to greet a person so +entirely pleased with the course of affairs. + +But to think Val miraculously expeditious in "getting over things" was +hardly to go to the root of the matter. She did not get over +disappointments; she remodelled them in her imagination till they were +strokes of luck in disguise, or, at the very least, stepping-stones to +some dazzling victory. As she lay in bed in the early morning, she +redressed the unequal balance of the night before. After all, Julia +wasn't going to have the world-resounding triumphs that awaited Val. +Poor Julia! let her enjoy her little hour of drawing-room success; and +Val sailed away into a realm of glory, carrying cousin Ethan in her +train, and making her toilet to the sound of cymbals and hosannas. + +As the breakfast-bell rang, she burst open her bedroom door and went +flying down-stairs three steps at a time. + +"What's happened?" said Ethan, as he came down behind her, reminded +suddenly of his old friend Yaffti, the patron demon of the stair. All +that had "happened" apparently was that Ethan had grown decrepit, else +why not go toboganning down the banisters to breakfast, or turn a few +somersaults along the hall by way of beginning the day? "In honor of +what saint is that?" he called after her, as Val cleared the last three +steps with a leap and a bound. + +"In honor of St. Sunshiny Morning," answered the girl, turning a radiant +face over her shoulder, and waiting for Ethan to overtake her. + +"Thought you told me yesterday you didn't take any interest in the +weather. Oh dear, no! never noticed it at all." + +"I don't care a bit whether the old sun shines or not; can't think what +people mean, to go bleating about the bad weather as they do. As if it +_mattered_?" + +"And yet it's 'Hurrah!' and three steps at a time for a sunshiny +morning." + +"Only said that for an excuse--not to tell you the real name of my +patron saint." + +"But do. Tell me what's your pet superstition, and I'll tell you mine." + +"Honest Injun?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, my pet superstition--only it's _not_ a superstition--is, that I +was born lucky." + +"Oh! what's the sign?" + +"Sign? Nothing outward and visible, just an inward and spiritual grace. +You needn't jeer; it's quite true. I'm _sure_ I'm lucky. Now I've told +you my great article of faith, what's yours?" + +But Emmie appeared at that juncture, and Val was secretly pleased that +Ethan postponed his answer. Breakfast was already late, and still they +waited some time before any one else came down. + +Presently Aunt Jerusha appeared with a coffee-pot and a smoking plate +piled high with something brown and golden. + +The girls received her with a round of wild applause. + +"Hi! flannel-cakes--flannel-cakes!" and they executed a war-dance round +the popular favorite, who "took her call," so to speak, as pleased as +any star-actor at having brought off some noble appeal to the great warm +heart of the populace, which ever beats true, etc. + +"Law sakes! de way dey goes on!" The black woman stood laden and smiling +like some ebon effigy typifying plenty and good cheer. Evidently loath +to stop the popular demonstrations in her honor, she still urged feebly: +"Shucks! go 'long, Miss Emmie, wid yo' teeterin' up and down! Law sakes! +look de way Miss Val kin jump Jim Crow. Yo' gran'ma 'ud be hoppin' mad +if she cotch yo' doin' dat ar 'fore folks. He! he! Sakes alive, chillen! +stop dem monkey-shines, and eat up dis yer firs' batch fo' dey spile." + +"Yes, yes." Val cut "Jim Crow" suddenly short. + +With a lightning change, taking the place at the head of the table, and +adopting a dignified and official air, she poured out the piping hot +coffee. + +"Nobody waits for anybody on flannel-cake days," said Emmie, drawing in +her chair with a chastened satisfaction. + +"Did they give you flannel-cakes in 'Gay Paree'?" asked Val, as she +passed Ethan his coffee. + +"No, they didn't." + +"I suppose," she said, incredulously--"I suppose it's much gayer in +Paris than it is here?" + +"It's not gayer than this so early in the morning." + +He looked at the confident, shadowless face, and instead of comparing it +with Mademoiselle Lucie's _ingenue_ countenance or any beauty of the +_salon_ or the stage, memory unfairly conjured up Mary Burne and her +despair-whitened features as she harangued her dingy followers. "Not so +early in the morning!" Even when the lamps were lit there were places in +Paris not so gay as this. + +To speak by the card, there were people everywhere, rich and poor, a +good deal less pleased with the world than Val Gano. Ah yes! this was +why she specially interested him. It was a satisfaction to have +stumbled on the explanation, for she was surprisingly much in his +thoughts, this untutored child, with her bland belief in the world and +in Val Gano. She was a kind of pleasant anodyne to a mind over-full of +misgiving, overcharged with fear of life's panther-like capacity for +quick-leaping revenge. + +It was the first morning since Ethan's arrival that his uncle did not +appear. + +No, he had not had a very good night, Mrs. Gano said, when at last she +came in. She changed the conversation abruptly, and went up-stairs when +the letters were brought, having scarcely tasted breakfast. French +postmark! A letter from De Poincy; not very long, and not much news. He +wrote chiefly to ask when Ethan was coming "home" to France. + + + "I am wondering if you had the courage to carry out your bold + design of hunting up your poor relations in the West. If you did, + I'm sorry for you. I see it all from here. The provincial setting + which all your democracy won't prevent from getting on your nerves, + the fervor of the poor relation's devotion, the bottomless pit of + his need, the unblushing designs on every single woman's part to + marry you, will, I fear and trust, send you back to us with a + chastened spirit and a decent regret for your folly in taking + exception to Mademoiselle Lucie's charming way of playing the + universal game. She, by-the-way, is lost to you forever, having + just married a wealthy English brewer. But there are other Lucies + over here, ready to hold out their pretty hands in welcome as soon + as you weary of the crudities of the New World." + + +Ethan looked up with a smile at his poor relations, thinking how badly +they played their parts. + +"What conspiracy are you two hatching?" he said. + +The two sisters, who seemed not, as a rule, to have much in common, were +whispering with great animation. + +"Let's tell him," said Emmie. + +"No," said Val, getting red. + +"Yes, tell me." + +"No," repeated Val. + +"Why not?" urged Emmie. "He'll never tell." + +"Never." + +"Well, we're talking about the _Comet_," confessed Emmie. "You don't +know about it, do you?" + +"No." + +"Of course he doesn't, silly. I'll be very angry if you tell." + +"Isn't a comet a difficult thing to keep quite to yourselves?" + +"Not ours. It's a paper." + +"_Emmie!_" + +"Well, he knows now. It's an awfully nice kind of magazine. Val and me +write it. It's our secret." + +"Pretty kind of secret now!" said Val. "But _I_ don't care; I'm going +away. I said I wouldn't do another." + +"But finish this one. Oh, do it, just a single solitary last time, +_dear_ Val." + +"Do, dear Val," echoed Ethan, smiling. + +The quick blood flew into the girl's face. "Dear" on his lips seemed not +only a new word in the language; it called into being something that the +wide world lacked before. It struck Val into silence. She sat and looked +in her plate. + +"We do the printing in father's room when he's well enough to be out +digging and fussing with flowers," said Emmie. + +"It's a thing we started ages ago, when we were young," Val explained. +"It amuses Emmie." + +"But there's _no_ reason to give it up _now_," urged the younger girl. +"We thought we'd have to once for lack of paper," she said to Ethan. +"Grandma gave us only half-sheets. Then Val discovered great-grandfather +Calvert's old counting-house books." + +"How did you do that?" + +"They were in the closet under the stairs," said Val. + +"An' Jerusha and Venie and most everybody thought there was a ghost +there," added Emmie, with a certain reverence in her voice. "Val said +she was goin' to see, and that was how we found all that jolly paper for +the _Comet_." + +"Emmie writes most of the poetry and all of the stories; I do the +illustrations," said Val. + +"_And_ the conundrums _and_ the 'Advice to Parents' column. Oh, Val, +what would happen to you if grandma ever saw--" + +She began to laugh. + +"Miss Val," said Jerusha, putting her head in at the door, "yo' kin run +so fas', honey, an' Miss G'no say de doctor's kerridge is a stan'in' at +de Tibbses do'; will yo' say de doctor's wanted yer fur Massa John." Val +was off like an arrow from a bow before the old woman had finished. + + +Dr. Wharton was some time up-stairs. Mrs. Gano and Ethan were both in +the sick-room. The verdict was that Mr. Gano was not, after all, +dangerously ill, but ought to go South before it was too cold for him to +travel, and that, at all events, the idea of going to New York in +November was absolutely out of the question--"sheer madness." + +The first keen edge of Val's anxiety wore off in an hour or so. Her +father sent for her. He wasn't really even so ill as the doctor made +out. Still, it was very sadly, and with a misgiving foreign to her +experience, that she agreed to put off their joint expedition till the +spring. + +"And meanwhile," said her father, "since you are ambitious to be of use, +it would be well if you took a more active part in the care of the +house. Jerusha is very, very old, and--" + +"I _do_ take care of my own room." + +"Ah yes, but there are other things--" + +"Before cousin Ethan came I used to help Venus on Saturdays with the +parlor." + +"_Before_ Ethan came?" + +"Yes; I can't do it while he's here." + +"Why not?" + +"Oh, it looks so odd. None of the other girls do. Head in a dust-cap, +and horrid black hands! Grandma wouldn't like it at all, not while we +have company." + +Val seized the opportunity afforded by her father's fit of coughing to +consider her audience at an end. + +When she came down-stairs from this interview, she found Emmie wandering +about disconsolately. Ethan closeted with grandma. No lessons this +morning. + +"Come," said Val to Emmie, clutching for diversion at their one common +interest, "we'll do the magazine." + +Emmie got the red and black ink, the fine and the broad nibbed pens, a +pile of paper oddments tied with string, and a gigantic ledger, with one +of its massive calf-skin covers torn off, revealing the pages, blank at +this end, coarse like drawing-paper, and tough, like nothing one sees in +these flimsy times--a fabric that, besides never wearing out, had been +found to take kindly to the refinements of ornamental printing. + +The girls established themselves in the dining-room. After executing the +title of Emmie's story in florid Old English lettering, Val did a +pen-and-ink sketch of the hero. That gallant individual had started out +rather like Harry Wilbur. In this final issue he appeared with Ethan +Gano's marked and clear-cut profile, having borrowed from that gentleman +not only his tall elegance, but the slight droop of the shoulders and +the even more elusive characteristic by means of which, despite the +occasional droop, he never lost the air of carrying himself well in some +indefinable way. + +"Now," said Val, bestowing a finishing touch. + +Whereupon, with much gusto, Emmie began to read the last instalment of +"The Brown House on the Hill," Val printing at dictation in a rapid, +clear italic. The minutes flew. Venus would be coming in presently to +set the dinner-table. The clock, chiming the hour, masked the sound of +footsteps approaching from the opposite direction. Emmie raised her +voice to be heard by the printer above the dozen strokes of noon: + +"Ever--and--anon--Archibald--Abalone--murmured--in--Editha's--ear:-- +'Angel--I--adore--thee.'" + + +"What nonsense is that you are reading?" said Mrs. Gano, in the sudden +silence. + +The two girls started like criminals. Not only was their grandmother +standing at the door, but cousin Ethan was looking in at their +discomfiture over her shoulder. + +Val obscured the _Comet_ with the blotter. Emmie, grown very pink, had +thrust Editha and Archibald Abalone under the table. + +"What is it you have there, Emmeline?" + +"Just a--just a thing I was reading Val." + +"Let me see it." + +"No, grandma, please." + +"Let me see it." + +She came towering into the room. + +"Grandma," said Val, turning at bay, "it isn't _meant_ for you." + +"Emmeline, hand me that paper." + +Trembling, the younger girl brought up the manuscript. + +"It isn't honorable to read things that aren't meant for you," said Val, +starting up and displacing the blotter. + +"_Read_ it!" + +Mrs. Gano caught "The Brown House" out of the child's hands with strange +excitement, and tore it across and across. + +"Oh, oh!" wailed Emmie, with fast-flowing tears, while Val and Ethan +stood transfixed. + +There was "the magazine" in full sight, flaunting on its cover a +splashing red comet with a fiery tail. Mrs. Gano blazed back at it +through her glasses as she threw down the fragments of "The Brown +House." + +"Whose is this?" she said, opening the stitched and folded sheets of her +father's ledger. + +"_Mine_," said Val, laying determined hands on the folio. + +"I perceive part of it to be unmistakably yours," said Mrs. Gano, with a +cutting inflection: "'_Vale_, a ballad sung at the Grand Opera House by +the world-renowned diva, Signorita Val Gano.'" + +Val's hands had dropped from the paper as if paralyzed. + +"Now, this verse-stringing is one of the things I will _not_ have," +said the old woman, with a curious tragic intensity. "I've seen enough +of young girls ruining their figures, and their eyesight, and their +prospects, bending over stuff like this, till it becomes a craze, and +they're fit for nothing better." + +She took the _Comet_ in her hands and tried to tear it up. The ancient +paper would have held out well against less fragile fingers, but Ethan +did not realize the toughness of the Calvert ledger. He hurried forward. + +"Oh, don't tear it. Really, really, a little scribbling isn't so fatal." + +"I don't expect you to think so, my dear Ethan, when you do it yourself +in two languages, having nothing better to do in either. But if I'm any +judge, we've had enough of it in _this_ family." She turned upon the +hushed, awed Emmie. "_Go out and play_," she commanded, but with an air +of saying, "Off with your head! So much for Buckingham." "As for +_you_"--she flashed back a look at Val as she went towards the +fireplace--"never let me find you wasting your youth in this pernicious +fashion again as long as you live under _my_ roof." + +She put the _Comet_ in the fire, and with the poker she pushed it down +among the red-hot coals. She waited grimly while it burned, then, +without another word or look, she went back to the long room. Ethan had +been perilously near laughing at the total rout of the two malefactors. +No sooner had the guardian of the family virtue disappeared, and it was +possible openly to relieve one's feelings, than Val began striding back +and forth with clinched hands and a look of concentrated rage. + +He was rather startled at the transformation in the sunny face. It was +convulsed, ugly with passion. + +"I won't stand it; no, I wouldn't stand it from the Angel Gabriel!" She +took a turn up and down the room and burst out afresh: "_She_, Pallas +Athene! She, patron of the arts! It's this sort of thing"--she stopped +before her cousin with tragic eyes--"it's this sort of thing that has +embittered my youth!" + +"What!" he said, holding fast to his gravity. "Has she done this +before?" + +Val shook her head, and then, in a stifled voice: + +"The _Comet_ has been kept dark, but there are other things--things I +really care about." + +"Is there something you care about more than about writing?" + +"_Writing?_" she echoed, with limitless scorn. "I don't care _that_ +about writing. It just does to fill in. But the way she behaves about +the _Comet_ is just a sample. I really thought she was getting to be +more liberal-minded. It's a long time since we've had a terrible scene +like this; but it just shows you." She turned away and strode up and +down. "The only thing she ever let me do was to take drawing lessons; +and the only thing she ever took my part about was in defending me from +learning cooking. But do you think _I_ ever had piano lessons? No! Do +you think _I've_ ever had a private singing lesson in my life? No! Do +you know what that means to me? No--because the piano's kept locked, or +else I'm made to sing as if I were ashamed of myself, and you haven't a +notion that I've got a voice that would make a singer's fortune. Now, +have you?" + +"N--no." + +"Course not. How should you?" + +"I suppose," he said, "they naturally don't want you to face the +hardships of--" + +"As if we didn't face hardships at home. Have you any notion how poor we +are? I don't mean holes in the kitchen and rain through the roof--who +cares about that? We're so poor"--she advanced upon him step by +step--"that we can't have proper clothes, we can't have proper fires, +and, except when you're here, we don't have proper food. And me with a +voice of gold!--so people say. What's the good of a voice of gold with a +grandmother like that?" She pointed a shaking finger of scorn in the +direction of the long room. A black face was put shyly in at the +opposite door. "Here's Venus to set the table." + +Val tumbled down from her climax and stalked miserably out. Ethan +followed her. + +"Come to the drawing-room," he whispered, in the passage. + +"Parlor, I suppose you mean." + +"Yes, parlor." + +"What for?" + +"We can talk there." + +They pushed open the door. + +"She's left the key!" cried Val, springing towards the piano. + +"So she has," he admitted, with less enthusiasm. + +"That's for _your_ sake. Cousin Ethan, you could try my voice if you +liked." + +"Of course," he said, with misgiving. + +How was he to let her down from the dizzy height of her illusion without +hurting her cruelly or stultifying himself? The voice that had joined in +"Maid of Athens" had been so unremarkable, he could not recall anything +about it save that, unwillingly, she had sung. She opened the piano. He +saw with pitying amusement how her fingers shook upon the ancient +rosewood. + +"I am a mezzo-soprano," she said. "I'll show you my range first." + +And she proceeded to do so, her voice as shaky at the beginning as her +hands, but steadying itself on the second note, rising slowly, with a +kind of conscious pride, swelling audaciously rich, mounting higher and +clearer, leaping at the top notes like some spirit of delight sounding +silver trumpets to the sun. + +Ethan stood staring when she finished. + +"Either something's wrong with my ears, or else you _have_ got a +wonderful voice!" + +"Oh, cousin Ethan, cousin Ethan!" + +She caught his hands, and pressed them in an ecstasy of relief and +gladness. He was moved himself when he saw her happy eyes were wet. + +"I didn't hear one of those notes last night. What did you do with your +voice then?" + +"Grandma--she'd put down her foot--soft pedal--she's done that all my +life." + +"Sing something--I'll play for you." + +He swept her off the piano-stool. + +"I don't know much but ballads." + +She pulled the yellowed sheets out of the stand, wondering as she turned +them over which, if any, of these songs he had heard sung by great +artists. She was on the point of asking him, when, "Oh," she said, +jumping up, "here's this from 'Trovatore,'" and she set the music before +him with the firm intention of rivalling that Patti people made such a +fuss about. She sang the English words, "Ah, I've sighed to rest me," +and not without a certain largeness of effect intensely satisfying to +herself. + +"There's no doubt," he said, at the end, "that you have a voice. You, +naturally, don't in the least know how to use it; but it's there." + +This was not what she had expected--in fact, it was a blow; for, in +spite of her old desire to be taught, she looked towards a +singing-master chiefly as a personal influence to help her into the +operatic field. She felt it a grievance against her family that she had +had no early advantages, and yet she had thought it more than probable +that genius could do without them. But what if cousin Ethan was right? +All the more need not to lose time. + +"The question is," she said, "What's to be done?" + +"Done?" + +"Yes." + +It flashed over her in the pause that he might think she was hinting +that he should defray the expense of her training, and this suddenly +seemed as repulsive to reason and to dignity as if five months before +she had not calmly suggested it herself. It was Heaven's own mercy that +letter had got lost! She must have been crazy when she wrote it. + +"Of course," she said, "my family can't do much, and"--looking at him +half apologetically, and feeling the necessity to forestall him--"I +couldn't allow any one else to do more than give me advice and letters +of introduction. I have my plans all laid--but now my father's ill." + +"What plans?" + +"I was going to New York with my father next month to look over the +field"--at his look of incredulity, she added: "operatic field. As I +haven't any money, and can't possibly borrow, I must find a way to be a +chorus-girl first." + +"What an idea!" + +He got up from the piano, and walked the length of the room and back. + +"A very good idea." + +"My dear Val--" + +He stopped. + +"No, cousin Ethan"--she motioned away his imaginary offer--"the Ganos +don't borrow money, they do without." + +He smiled a little. + +"Did grandmamma approve of this chorus-girl plan?" + +"Of course she wouldn't. It's only father who knows." + +"Does he approve?" + +"Well, not to say approve, but he knows it's no use objecting." + +"Do you know, I don't approve of it either." + +She sat down on the piano-stool, looking at him doubtfully. Was this an +offer of a million in disguise? or could it be-- + +"You don't mean," she said, "that you won't give me any letters of +introduction?" + +"I mean, little cousin, that I'll do all in my power to keep you from +the hardships and the hurts of public life." + +He put a hand on her shoulder, and was looking down upon her. She opened +her lips, but no sound came. + +"There won't be any lack in _your_ life of beautiful and worth-while +things; don't spoil it all--don't spoil yourself by being too eager." + +"Y--you don't understand," she faltered, with a suffocating sense of +throbbing in her throat. + +"Oh yes, I do. I understand a lot. Promise me you won't take any steps +about this without letting me know." + +She shook her head, and tried to draw from under the thrilling touch of +his hand. + +"I shall not let you go till you promise." + +The other hand had fallen on her other shoulder. It was as if chains +were being hung upon her. But why wasn't she struggling? Why--why was +bondage so sweet? + +"I'm waiting. Promise!" said the masterful voice. + +"I--promise." + +The tumult in her heart made the clang of the dinner-bell sound as if it +were ringing in some far-off place. + +"What--what was it I promised?" she asked herself again and again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It struck Mrs. Gano the next day, as they were out driving, that Val was +unusually subdued. She seemed to see nothing that they passed, hear +nothing that was said. But it could not be said she looked unhappy. And +Ethan was in excellent spirits. Emmie was bowing right and left, bowing +with that air she had rapidly acquired, and was sedulously cultivating, +a royal-condescension-to-the-crowd kind of bow. + +"Who is that?" asked Mrs. Gano, seeing Emmie's pantomime, and seeing, +too, that Val had made no sign. + +"Mr. Peter Hall." + +"What! Not the young Pete Hall that I recommended to Blakistons?" + +"Yes'm," said Emmie, meekly. + +"Why do you bow to him?" + +"Oh, I know him." + +"We all _know_ him, but that's no reason you should recognize him out of +the store." + +"I don't see why--" began Emmie. + +"I've told you before, you do not know such persons except in their +capacity of salesmen." + +"He bowed to me, grandma." + +"Impertinence! Teach him a lesson next time. Don't notice him." + +Mrs. Gano's point of view not only seemed to Val quite natural, but this +very same conversation, with some immaterial variation, had taken place +too often to merit notice. Cousin Ethan, however, was looking from one +to the other in frank amazement. + +"'Tisn't as if Peter Hall was a servant," said Emmie, appealingly. +"I've given up bowing to the Otways' coachman." + +"Isn't all this very undemocratic?" Ethan asked. + +"It's a most essential consideration in a democracy." + +"But do you realize that it shows a degree of class prejudice that +doesn't exist in the older, the monarchical countries?" + +"Quite possible. Where the differences are broadly and indelibly +stamped, there's no need to remind anybody that they exist." + +"Three months ago," said Ethan, meditatively, "I should have called such +considerations absolutely un-American. However, a season at Newport, not +to speak of glimpses of life in the Boston clubs and on Beacon Hill, +have helped to readjust my views. Still, I didn't think I should find +out here in the West"--some quick look in Mrs. Gano's face made him +modify--"out here in the Great Middle States--" + +"You forget your father's family are Southerners, root and branch. But +as to that, you will leave distinctions behind when you reach heaven, +not before. And even there we are told one star differeth from another +star in glory." + +"Well," said Ethan, smiling, "I only wish I'd brought Drouet." + +"A friend of yours?" + +"Well, yes, if I may be so bold. A more necessary friend than most. I +rather missed him at first. Drouet is my valet." + +"There would have been accommodation for him." + +"You see, I didn't know. I thought you would have been scandalized." + +"I don't see why you should think that. My father never travelled +without his body-servant. You must have had the Tallmadges in mind. +They, you know, thought themselves wiser than the prophets. There was no +need of hewers of wood and drawers of water. Every one would be free and +equal once black slavery was abolished. Childishness! Three-fourths of +the human race is in bondage to the other fourth. Whether your servant +is a Frenchman and white, or an African and black, the root of the +matter is the same. We exact menial services of our inferiors, being of +the dominant race." + +The carriage drew up before the ruinous Fort, and "the dominant race" +got out, while two black faces and a colored turban went scuttling back +to the rear. John Gano, in a shabby old coat with a tear in the sleeve, +was standing on a step-ladder, lopping off twigs with a huge pair of +garden shears. + +"John--John! What a mad proceeding! You will take your death!" cried his +mother from the carriage window. + +The gentleman so addressed climbed carefully down the step-ladder, while +Emmie tumbled out of the carriage and ran to meet him. + +"What do you think, father?" she said, confidingly. "Cousin Ethan's got +a valet." + +"A what?" + +"A valet," whispered Emmie. + +"Valet! What does he want a valet for?" + +In vain Emmie squeezed his arm. He spoke in a loud, astonished tone. + +"Ah ha! I felt it wouldn't do to produce Drouet in New Plymouth," said +Ethan, who was conducting Mrs. Gano to the porch. + +"Well," answered his uncle, dryly, "if you were too old or too ill to +wait on yourself, I should understand it." + +"Do come in out of the draughts, John, and don't stand talking nonsense. +Your father had his body-servant before he was either old or ill, and so +did my father." + +"That was in the antebellum days, before men realized they couldn't +oppress their fellows with impunity." + +"What _do_ you mean?" asked Mrs. Gano, turning sharply on her son. + +"I mean that if our forefathers had realized what an awful inheritance +they were laying up for their children in the negro problem, they would +have gone without their valets and left the negro in his native wilds." + +"Oh, if you only mean that the initial mistake was in having the +shiftless creatures here at all, I agree. The negro enslaved was a care +and a drag on the South; the negro free is a menace to all America." + +She opened the door of the long room and rang for Venus to take off her +shoes. + +"Yes, the Color Question," said John Gano, sitting down heavily on one +of the fleur-de-lis chairs--"the Color Question is just one of the forms +of ferociously usurious interest one generation has to pay on the debts +incurred by another. The world learns its lessons with infinite pains. +The same thing happens over and over again, and no one raises a finger." + +He sat gazing at some impending peril with prophetic gloom. + +"What is happening over again?" asked Ethan, divesting himself of his +outer coat. + +"The importation of ignorant debased foreigners to do the work that the +American born not only won't do himself, but won't, in his haste to get +rich, allow to remain undone. Why do the offscourings of the earth flock +to America? Not because it's any longer the New World. They don't go to +Australia or South Africa in the same numbers. They come _here_ because +the American born is more of an arrant fool and snob than any creature +God permits to breathe. Hardly any one so poor but he will pay the +highest wages for the worst alien service." + +"Father!" Val, half-way up-stairs, came running back to her country's +rescue. "Cousin Ethan won't understand you are just arguing. Father +doesn't really think Americans are snobs." + +"Yes, snobs of the worst kind! What respect have we for the laboring +man? What do we know or practise of healthy German industry, of the +thrift of the French?" + +"I thought our industries were our strong point." + +"Industries, yes--not our industry. We can establish mills and +manufactories, and then get ship-loads of Teutons and of Irish to come +over and work them." + +"If they'd only be content with that," said Ethan, "but they end by +working our municipalities too and running our country." + +"They always do," said John Gano, shaking his forefinger in the air. +"They always _have!_" With that he brought his clinched fist down on his +knee. "If you can't hoe your row yourself, don't call in a man to help +you. He'll end by helping himself. You'll have saved the hoeing and lost +the row. But the average American won't do anything himself that he can +get another man to do for him." + +No wonder, thought Ethan, that the foreign visitor to these shores has +such difficulty in classifying American opinion. Here, under the same +roof, within the bonds of the closet kinship, were to be heard the old +views of "the dominant race" from Mrs. Gano, and here was her own son +railing. + +"Nobody is content any more to work his own land or learn a trade; +everybody must scramble for the big money prizes, the privilege of being +an _employer_ of labor." + +It was a deed of some daring to interrupt the flow of masculine talk, +but Val sat down on the bottom step of the stairs, saying firmly: + +"Americans can't help being ambitious. They know there's a great deal to +do." + +"There _is_ a great deal to be done; but the American has mistaken +notions as to what. The American artisan thinks his son must aim at +being a boss, if not being President. The farmer thinks he's doing his +share when he hires hands and sends his own boys to swell the stream of +clerks and town-strugglers. The infection seized on the women about +thirty years ago." + +"Stick up for us," whispered Val's voice behind Ethan. + +"The result is," her father went on, "it's harder to find in America +to-day a good cook or chambermaid than to find a woman musician, +novelist, linguist, or painter." + +"Say something," admonished the low voice from the bottom step. + +"I imagine," the perfidious Ethan remarked, "that there are accomplished +persons on both sides the sea who are ready to excel in any art except +the art of being of use." + +"Exactly. These people no doubt exist everywhere, but they should be +swept off the face of America." Val looked out anxiously past the +sheltering form of her cousin. "Farmers', tradesmen's daughter's all +over the land are giving up house-work"--Val withdrew her head and sat +in obscurity--"giving up field and dairy work. Their foolish fathers buy +them pianos, buy them novels; and able-bodied young women idle away +their days in rocking-chairs, breeding discontent and disease." + +Val appeared to be making preparations to retire. + +"You think," asked Ethan, "there is any application in the fact--to--a +people of another class?" + +"Most assuredly. What the ignorant ignorantly despise, we must elevate. +We must show them the bottomless vulgarity of their view." The restive +movement on the bottom step augmented his ire. "I assure you the market +cries aloud for house-keepers, nurses, laundresses, sempstresses. We are +not in need of any more poetesses, department clerks, _singers_." + +He had got up and was glowering unmistakably at the girl who had risen +from the bottom step. + +"It's too bad, father, your going back on my singing, just because I +forgot to mend your coat. I thought you were an invalid in bed. I didn't +expect you to climb trees to-day." + +"To-day has got nothing to do with it, although I _am_ surprised and +disappointed that you want your grandmother to engage some raw Irish +girl--" + +"Only while we have company." + +"Company!" he said, bristling more than ever. "What can 'company' get +but profit out of seeing that _we_ think nobly of work; that we're ready +to do our part towards turning domestic and industrial service from an +ugly slavery into a beautiful and noble privilege." + +"Come, Emmie," said Val, "let's get our things off." + +The two girls simultaneously took to their heels. John Gano leaned back +in the chair, coughing feebly, all his animation spent. + +"She has set her heart on my taking her East to learn singing," he said, +in a low, dispirited voice. "I've been feeling to-day I may never go +East again." + +"You are not strong enough just yet," began Ethan. + +"I wish Val would get over this craze about opera, especially if I'm not +here. I've been thinking a great deal about it to-day. If she could take +up some of the duties here--" He looked round helplessly, as if to find +something she might with advantage begin upon. + +"Oh, we must get the opera idea out of her head. I am quite of your +opinion there." + +"Ha, really?" said John Gano, with a relieved, almost incredulous air. +"You think there's something in what I say?" + +"Indeed I do." + +"_Most_ assuredly." He got up with renewed energy. "I'll tell her that +the women who take up the despised craft of home-making and home-keeping +will be not only the true artists of the future, they'll be the only +order of working-women, never in want of a place." + +As Ethan went to his room he indulged the cynical suspicion that his +uncle had some definite vision of the particular home that Val was to +labor for and ornament, and it was not the Fort. Well? He smiled. Pshaw! +"Am I growing old, that a little school-girl should get hold of me after +all my escapes?" For so much had his social experience warped him that +he seldom thought of marriage now, save as of something others plotted +and which he must frustrate and elude. + +Val! He laughed to himself. Absurd! But his face had little amusement in +it, and less irony than he would have credited. "The older men grow," he +said to himself, "the more the fainter-hearted among them shrink from +age, the more they worship youth. Now, if I were fifty I might be in +danger." + +Going down, after writing some letters, an hour or so later, he heard +"the little school-girl" coming behind him, and then stopping suddenly. + +"That you, Val?" He stood waiting. No answer. She had gone back into her +room. He stood stamping his letters under the hall lamp. + +Val's head presently peered down from the top of the stair. + +"Yes, I'm here," said Ethan, provokingly. + +"I'm looking for one of the servants," Val said, descending with +dignity. + +Ethan looked up, laughing at her over the banisters. + +"What makes you look so solemn?" he asked. + +"My sister's got a sore throat, and I can't find the stuff for a +compress." + +"No use telling me you're such a sympathetic sister as you make out. +What's the _real_ matter?" + +Ethan had come down-stairs, intending to be more discreet than ever in +the future. De Poincy was no doubt right--even here it was necessary to +be _en garde_. With this idea dragged well into the foreground again, +what demon of perversity made him lift a hand above the banisters and +hold the girl's fingers fast to the polished rail? It was the first time +he had touched her. He was rather startled at the commotion set up in +his own nerves by the trifling action, but it was mainly, he assured +himself, the reflex of the evident agitation of the girl. She had +dropped her eyes, and he saw her upper lip tremble. + +"What's the real matter?" he repeated, letting go her hand, not all of a +sudden, but drawing his own across it lingeringly; "I thought you were +always happy." + +"Happy!" she said, making a gallant effort to recover her usual manner. +"Well, it's nobody's fault if I am." + +"Now that I come to look at you, I believe you _are_ happy, all the +same." + +"Course I am; but it's only because I was born that way and can't get +out o' the habit." She came on down-stairs. + +"Your father was quite right, you know, in what he said this afternoon." + +"Oh, he didn't really mean it. It was partly just arguing--father does +so love arguing--and partly because Emmie told on you. I've been saying +she deserved to have a sore throat." + +"Told on me?" + +The supper-bell rang. + +"Yes," said Val, when she could make herself heard; "let out that you +had a valet. Emmie's so indiscreet. It was all right to tell grandma, +she _likes_ splendor, but Emmie might have known father would shy +awfully at a valet. Sh! here he is!" + +Ethan went and sat by Emmie a little while after supper that evening. +They were great friends, these two; but somehow Ethan's conversation +flagged. For no discoverable reason he had fallen into the clutch of one +of those fits of gloomy silence that before he came to the Fort had been +growing in frequency and in power to cripple and to numb his spirit. He +had just given Emmie an old silver pounce-box that had belonged to some +dead and gone Tallmadge, and that Ethan for years had carried in his +pocket. Emmie was to keep menthol in it, Ethan said, and to sniff the +aromatic remedy through the open-work inner lid of gold. Emmie was +delighted at this attention on the part of her cousin, but she glanced +up now and then from her occupation of crumbling the menthol into the +tiny receptacle, keenly conscious of Ethan's black-browed preoccupation. + +"Why do you think so much?" she said. + +"Heaven forfend! I never think." + +"Oh yes, you do--unless Val's here. Grandma has often said," she +continued, with her little air of superiority, "no one can think when +Val's in the room." + +"Ah," said Ethan to himself, "that's at the bottom of my affection for +Val." + +If he was unconscious of any change in her enlivening influence in the +days following, it did not escape Mrs. Gano that Val's humor was more +capricious than her family had been accustomed to find it. The old +on-looker at the game could not, of course, know that alone with Ethan +the girl was embarrassed, breathless, almost terrified, and yet +deliciously happy. She was no sooner alone with him than she wanted to +run away--no sooner had she run away than she wanted to go back. When he +was present, she was often in the wildest spirits; when he went out of +the room, he seemed to take her soul away with him. She sat silent, +helpless, till he came again. She seemed to have lost her hitherto +unfailing gusto for games and outings. She saw as little as possible of +Julia and of Harry Wilbur. She did her lessons absent-mindedly, and was +not much heard from in the general family talks. Val! Who had never +found it possible before to realize that young people should be seen and +not heard! Mrs. Gano had not lived seventy years in the world for +nothing. She saw enough of the state of affairs to feel sore at heart +for the poor foolish little girl, who was groping her way through her +first great initiation into the mystery of mysteries. + +For all Mrs. Gano's pride in, and affection for, Ethan, she felt scant +patience at his lingering on at the Fort, amusing himself with Val's +oddities and adorations, carelessly absorbing her generous capacity for +hero-worship, building himself a shrine in her imagination before +turning his back upon the Fort, perhaps for another twenty years. It was +plain to Mrs. Gano that Ethan was a person exercising no little +fascination upon womankind; equally plain was it that the school-girl +worship of his little country cousin was in the nature of a smiling +incident that could not arrest him long. + +"What an absurd infant you are!" she had heard him exclaim. + +"I'm not in the very least like an infant," Val had retorted. + +"Well, you are _quite_ the youngest person I've ever known," he assured +her. + +As Val sat at her lessons in the long room of a morning, Mrs. Gano had +no need to look out herself to see, or to ask, who was passing under her +windows. If, at the morning's end, the door behind them opened, she saw +in Val's face if it were Ethan coming in. Old Jerusha was right--the +face was like a lamp, and like an open book the young heart underneath +its light. + +"John," said Mrs. Gano, at the beginning of the next week, "has Ethan +told you how long he means to stay?" + +"No." + +"H'm! Well, I think you should talk to him about taking life more +seriously. He ought not to idle away his youth as he's doing." + +"We can't complain that he's idled much of it away here hitherto." + +"Why doesn't he prepare himself for some profession?" + +"He's done a good deal of preparing. He tells me he's going into +politics." + +"Humph! politics. When?" + +"Well, I dare say when he goes East again." + +"I don't approve of idle men." + +"No," said John Gano, with some asperity, "I know you don't." + +Body-servants and "splendor" were all very well, but it was not pleasing +to Mrs. Gano that her only grandson should be regarded even temporarily +in the light of that character, looked at askance even in the old +unenterprising South, "the gentleman of leisure." In her heart she +thought it undignified that Ethan should spend so many mornings playing +tennis; that he should laugh and sing with Julia Otway (another victim, +plainly) as though amusement were the end of existence. Harry Wilbur, +too, who had begun with a good honest detestation of the visitor at the +Fort, was at the end of three weeks one of his most ardent friends. + +"The Wilburs want cousin Ethan to go and dine with them on Sunday," +Emmie reported. "They simply love him. I don't wonder. He's going to get +Harry Wilbur something to do in Boston." + +"Humph!" ejaculated Mrs. Gano; "when is he going to get himself +something to do?" + +Emmie and her cousin continued the best possible friends. No cloud upon +that relation, at all events. He had promised to teach her to ride, but +Emmie was not strong enough for violent exercise, her grandmother +thought, and Emmie herself thought riding must be "awfully scary." Val, +in what her elders took to be some unaccountable mood, had also declined +to ride, saying, mendaciously, that she had enough riding on Julia's +pony. This resulted in Ethan's going out several times with Julia. She +was nearly two years older than Val, and "quite the young lady." People +began to smile and speculate, and the Otways took to asking Ethan +"over." + +"Change your mind, Val, and come out with us this morning," Ethan had +said, before going off with Julia for that second ride. + +"I can't; I have lessons." + +"Not to-day," said Mrs. Gano. + +"No, it's Saturday. Come, I'll get you a mount." + +"No, thank you, father's better now. We're beginning algebra again +to-day." + +"_Algebra!_ What on earth do you want with--" + +"She must keep up with her classes," said Mrs. Gano, answering for her, +as Val went out of the room. + +But it was a good hour before the algebra lesson. Val went up to her +father's room and climbed into the window-seat. There, with judicious +arrangement of blind and the curtain closed in round her, she watched +for Ethan to mount and ride away. Julia must have grown impatient +waiting. She called for him to-day. How beautiful she +looked--_beautiful_ in her new habit! Away they went laughing in the +sunshine. Val opened the window; now they were turning into Mioto Avenue +at a hard gallop. She drew her cautious head in out of the sweet keen +air and buried her face in the musty old red moreen curtain. + +"Why didn't you go, child, if you wanted to so much?" She uncovered +startled eyes. Her grandmother was standing there, looking strangely +gentle. "Your father would have postponed the algebra for once." + +"I haven't got a riding-habit." + +"The cashmere skirt you wear when you ride out with Julia does quite +well." + +The girl shook her head. "Besides, I've only got the skirt." + +"What's wrong with your nice velveteen jacket?" + +"Hideous!" + +They were silent for a space. Then Val: + +"Oh, I don't care, I've got lots to do." + +She slid off the window-seat and went down-stairs. Val had her full +share of the young heart's passionate instinct to keep its aching to +itself. She had no idea that her grandmother had seen her standing +outside the parlor door when Ethan was there alone, hesitating, trying +to go in, trying to go away, and in the end succeeding only under strong +inward compulsion in compassing the latter. It was well she never +dreamed how much the old eyes saw. She was sure that the world she was +dwelling in was a place no mortal foot had ever trod before. The girl +felt herself a solitary way-breaker through a virgin forest; if she +should tell the thousandth part of the magic and the mystery of this new +world of her discovery, no mortal would believe such travellers' tales. + +She listened fascinated the night Ethan said, in answer to his uncle's +platitude about "the common experience": + +"There's no such thing! Experience is no more reduplicated than faces +are." + +"Of course, I don't mean down to the smallest detail," John Gano had +explained. + +"Oh, as to that, we have birth and death in common, if that's all." + +"There's a wonderful family likeness in the other facts of life," his +uncle persisted. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Gano; "it is when we are young that we think there +could never have been anything to match our experience." + +"Then do you think now that your life has been a replica of Mrs. +Otway's?" + +Mrs. Gano smiled. + +"Oh no," said Val, with a pleased confidence, "there was never anybody +just like _us_ before." + +They all laughed. + +"No doubt we are 'the peculiar people," said Mrs. Gano, calmly deserting +her first postulate, and seeming quite equal to facing "the comic +laugh." + +"I mean," said Val, "that if there never was any 'me' in the world +before, the world's a different place now there's 'me' in it." + +They laughed with less misgiving. + +"You have Goethe on your side, my dear," said her father. "Goethe says +Nature is always interesting because she's always renewing the +observer." + +"I like my way of putting it best," the girl maintained--"sounds more +interesting." + +"I've found out, Val," said Ethan, "that most people who make believe +that human nature is everywhere the same, and that we're all as alike as +pins in a row, usually except themselves. That shows they're wiser than +their theories." + +"No one denies," said John Gano, "that a slight difference in the +conditions makes some difference in the result. We were speaking broadly +of the main outlines of life. They are curiously common to us all." + +"I don't see those 'common outlines,'" Ethan answered, "any more than I +see the same pattern twice in a kaleidoscope. I see the same boundary +walls--birth and death--and all between the two, endlessly different for +each." + +"Yes, yes; I believe it's like that," said Val. + +"It would be much pleasanter to agree with you, uncle," Ethan remarked, +as he got out the chess-board. "It's more comfortable--more +companionable. I think there are few thoughts so overwhelming as what +John Morley calls 'the awful loneliness of life'--the loneliness that +there's no help for, that no one can reach, no one can ever share. Each +one of us"--slowly, absently, he set the chessmen in their places--"each +man sits apart, with his own soul and its unique experience forever +incommunicable, forever different." + +"No; not even incommunicable, if he have genius," returned his uncle. +"The odd thing is that in that case what he has to communicate is +something we all recognize. We expect him to be different; we are amazed +to find him just like ourselves, with the trifling addition of being +able to say what the rest of us have only felt." + +"You have more faith in the capacity and the veracity of genius than I +have. In my opinion, not one of those who have tried to reveal +themselves has been able to give us more than shreds and patches of +reality. And they've discounted the fragments of truth by romancing, +consciously or not--making themselves better, or making themselves worse +than they were. The real revelations are the unconscious ones." + +"St. Augustine," suggested John Gano. + +His nephew laughed and shook his head. + +"Well, Rousseau," he amended, looking in the table-drawer for a missing +bishop. + +"Rousseau, too--exactly a case in my favor. You can't see the forest for +the trees, nor the man for his confessions." + +John Gano shook his lion's mane. + +"If you could project your notion of Rousseau, uncle, and I could do the +same by mine, do you suppose they would be alike?" + +"Possibly not; we are not in agreement about Rousseau." + +"Exactly; and do you think if we could summon him from the shades he +would own either your Jean Jacques or mine? Not he. And he'd be right. +There's more bound up in men than they've ever been able to liberate. +Even genius can do no more than make signals over the prison wall." + +"Shakespeare, of course, never tried." + +"No; think of it." Instead of beginning the game, Ethan stretched out +his long legs under the table, and leaned back reflectively with his +hands in his pockets--"think of it. Shakespeare, with all his knowledge, +and his miraculous gift of expression, his vocabulary double that of the +Bible, and greater than that of the Bible and Milton put together--even +Shakespeare was too wise to try to do more than give a hint here, a +little signal there, just as people do in real life." He looked up +suddenly and caught Val's eye. She nodded faintly. "Reminds me of a talk +I had with a fellow from Bengal who came over on the same Cunarder with +me. He was telling me about the murder of the manager of a tea-garden in +the Dooab--police a long time utterly at sea, till somebody discovered +that, rummaging among his victim's belongings, the murderer had smudged +a Bengali atlas with his thumb. This atlas was forwarded to the bureau +where the thumb impressions of criminals are kept, and it was discovered +that the impression on the atlas corresponded with the thumb recorded of +a noted criminal then at large. The man was arrested on this fact alone. +Other evidence was brought to light, and when the game was up the +murderer confessed." + +"Oh yes," said John Gano, quite unimpressed, "it's a good many years now +since Galton--" + +"Exactly, but when it comes to verifiable differences in our thumb +whorls, who shall guess at the hidden differences in our brains and +nerve ganglia? No, no; we are not alike. We are terribly and wonderfully +and forever different, and it's your first play." + + +The next afternoon Emmie, warmly tucked up on a sofa by the fire, had +fallen asleep while her father read aloud. Mrs. Gano made her son a +sign, and they went up-stairs to his room. Without preface she began to +urge him to take the money he had been going to use in his journey to +New York and go instead to the far South, as the doctor advised. She +could put a little to it--enough to serve. No, no; he wouldn't. Why not? +At last he said it was because of Val. He had promised her they would go +East in the spring. He doubted if he would ever be strong enough to +carry out the plan, but Val must not think he had gone back on his word. +If he spent the money this winter, there would be nothing when the warm +weather came. + +"John," said his mother, "it is partly out of consideration for Val that +I urge this." + +John opened his eyes. + +"I want you to go away for a change, and I don't want you to go alone. I +want you to go with Ethan. I've already mentioned it to him. He knows of +a place near Savannah." + +John Gano seemed to be considering in a bewildered way. + +"I must go back," said his mother, uneasily. "Emmie may wake and want--" +She seemed oddly nervous. "Pity Emmie should choose this particular time +for one of her colds." + +"Yes, poor child! she's missing all the festivity." + +"Festivity!" echoed his mother. "Hump! Anyhow, it leaves those two young +people a great deal alone." + +John Gano blinked. + +"Ethan and Val?" he said, absent-mindedly. + +His mother nodded. + +"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. He might be left to less entertaining +people than Val." + +"Precisely." + +They looked at each other in silence for a moment. + +"You don't mean--Val? Why, she's a child." + +"She is older than my mother was when I was born." + +"You don't think that Ethan--" + +He was suddenly alert, anxious. + +"No, no; I don't think it's his fault. He, too, looks upon her as a +child. But it would be better if he went away." + +"Ah! Ah, indeed; I wish I'd realized. We'll get him away as soon as +possible." + +His air of sudden energy seemed perhaps over-anxious. + +"Don't do anything to excite suspicion. He is quite ready to go away +with you at the end of the week." + +"Where is he now?" demanded her son. + +"In the parlor with Val." + +They came down-stairs together, Mrs. Gano going back to Emmie. Her son +laid his hand on the parlor door with something both anxious and +inflexible in his manner. It might appear that the little scene on the +other side was easily interrupted by a less extravagant expenditure of +energy. So little may we know the people we spend our lives with, that +the not unobservant old woman at the opposite door thought there was no +more in her son's mind than in her own--a wish to save Val the pain of +an unrequited devotion. + +The talk with Ethan to which Mrs. Gano had just referred had taken place +less than an hour before. Although it had been a most discreet +interchange, beginning and ending with John Gano, it had left the young +man in a state of acute discomfort and vague rage at fate. Why had he +not gone away before? Why should his lingering be punished by this awful +infliction of the care of his uncle, or at best his escort hundreds of +miles away, and his establishment in Georgia? It was too much. He had +been ready to deal generously with these queer relations in the matter +of money. But to refuse his help to keep a whole roof over their heads, +and then calmly to demand this of him! It made him laugh, but it made +him angry too. He cursed his folly and inertia, as he called it, in +staying on. Why, he might have been at Tuxedo at this moment! He had +wasted enough time here to have gone to the Riviera. But as he thought +of the dozens of things he might have done, a sharp realization came to +him of the inner dulness of these outwardly glittering ways of killing +time. He had tried them all; he knew them for what they were worth. +Whether work or play, they were just so many devices for shortening the +spun-out tale of days. He knew of old where such thoughts would lead +him. He walked up and down from Daniel Boone to the mirror, glowering +out from time to time at the rain. Beast of a day! Where was everybody? +Suddenly he opened the door. Val started back. + +"Oh--a--oh!" she said, confused. "I was just coming to see if--" + +She stopped, obviously at a loss. + +"And I was just wondering where you were all this time." + +She came in smiling and flushing, and shut the door. + +"What an awful day!" he said, drawing up a chair for her to the +neglected fire. + +"Is it?" she inquired, blandly. + +"_Is_ it?" + +He walked to the window. + +"I hadn't noticed." She looked after him and beyond him, through the +blurred window-panes. "Yes, it is rather rainy and blowy." + +"Hardly four o'clock, and dark as a wolf's mouth." + +"Yes, the sun sets early these days. I love the long evenings." + +She poked the low-burned fire till a feeble flame sprang up. He turned +and looked at her through the twilight. + +"What do you do, little cousin, when you want to kill time?" + +She glanced over her shoulder with sudden gravity, shovel in hand. + +"Do you know, I think to 'kill time' is the most hideous, murderous +phrase in the language. I wish you wouldn't use it." + +"What do you propose as a substitute?" + +"Just remembering how little time there is for all there is to do with +it." (No coal left in the scuttle--she must go and tell Venie.) + +"Ah, yes," Ethan said, coming back and sitting down. "But suppose you +haven't got a mission? Suppose nobody and nothing has any particular +need of you?" + +"Oh, I wasn't thinking of missions and needs. I was just thinking of how +much there was to see and--to--to feel--to _find out about_! Enough to +last a million years, and we aren't given (in this life) a hundred." +Gloom settled down upon her face. "I think it's simply awful that we're +allowed so little time. Even elephants and ravens are better off." + +He looked into her woe-begone countenance, and began to shake with +laughter. + +"Well, well, this _is_ the other side of the shield." + +Val was disconcerted at his mirth. + +"I'm glad to see you so cheerful about it," she said. "_I_ think it's +simply tragic." + +"You observe that even such optimism as yours has its dark side too." + +"Dark? Yes, coal-black, but never dull." She spoke with great solemnity. +"No matter what comes, it can't help being frantically interesting." + +"How can you be sure of that? You may be--" + +He stopped. + +"How can I be sure? Why, just because, don't you see, it will be +happening to _me_. That makes it quite new--makes it tremendous." She +studied the dark enigmatic face, and her radiance paled a trifle. "You +said so yourself the other night." + +"_I_ said so?" + +"Don't you remember?--about everybody being different." + +"Different? Yes." + +"Oh, that made me so happy." She bent towards him, beaming again. "I so +love thinking that none of the dull old rules hold for me--that I'm the +first one of this sort. What did for other people won't do for me--what +happened to them needn't make me afraid. Oh, it's splendid to think it's +all new and different because of me!" + +She pressed her hands together, and her face, yes, it was like a lamp in +the gathering gloom. + +"I wonder what you'll do with your life?" said the man, with something +very tender in the low voice. + +"Do with it? I shall love it so, it will _have_ to be good to me. I +shall sing, and I shall travel--go everywhere, do everything. I mustn't +miss a single thing--oh, dear no! not a single, single thing." Silence a +moment, and then, "There's just one thought troubles me," she said. + +"Ah yes, there's always one--when there aren't more." + +"Less time than a silly old elephant's got--and here my father's had to +put off starting till the spring. I hope I shall be able to wait all +that time for him; but sometimes I feel as if I shouldn't." + +"Ah, but your promise to me!" + +"What was it I promised, cousin Ethan?" + +Sharply, in the silence, a cry rang out. Ethan leaped to his feet. + +"It's only the ghost," said Val, quietly. + +"Of course--Yaffti. But what on earth--" + +"Yaffti?" + +"I heard it as a child, and called it 'Yaffti.' What the devil is it?" + +"Only the clumsy old lightning-rod shrieking in its rusty fixtures when +the wind blows." + +"How do you know?" + +"I lay on the rug here and listened, and then walked round and round the +house in the wind till I found out what it was made the crying sound." + +"Weren't you frightened?" + +"Oh yes, dreadfully." + +"H'm! So Yaffti turns out to be the spirit of the blast!" + +"I was awfully disappointed. I hoped it was a real ghost. Why did you +call it Yaffti?" + +"Oh, well, what would you call it if you didn't call it Yaffti?" + +She laughed. + +"I'm forgetting you hate the gloaming. I must go and tell Venie to bring +the coal, and--" + +"Don't go!" he said, suddenly, holding out a hand. + +She laughed, a little nervously. + +"I believe you're afraid of the dark." + +"Yes, little cousin, I've always been afraid of the dark." + +She moved away towards the door. + +"Val!" The voice seemed to fall on her naked heart, and made it shrink +deliciously. "Val!" + +"Yes," she said, hardly above a whisper. + +Was anything else said? She never knew. She remembered nothing but +groping blindly two or three steps, and then suddenly realizing that she +was going towards him in the dusk with shaking, outstretched hands. For +what? "Oh, God! what am I doing?" She wheeled about with a sharp inward +twist of mortification. Blessing the kindly dark, she made for the door. + +"Don't go!" said the voice. + +"Only to get the light," she said, clinging to the door-knob, shaken +into trembling from crown to toe. + +"It's not dark, little cousin, while you're here." + +She did not stir--nor he. The clock ticked loud. The wind had risen and +was howling like a beaten hound. How curious, thought the man, vaguely, +that the natural sounds of wind, or sea, or falling inland waters, or +the voices of night creatures, are all sad or else discordant. Surely, +surely the spirit of the world is the spirit of plaint and dole. + +"Val!" + +"Yes, cousin Ethan." + +"You are too far off. Bring the light nearer." + +She heard steps creaking down the stair. Or was it only that Yaffti +turned and strained in his rusty fetters? The door was hurriedly opened. + +"Why are you two sitting in the dark?" said John Gano. + +"We've been telling ghost stories," said Ethan, as Val slipped out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Mrs. Gano sat with Emmie that evening in the long room. The little girl +had been having restless nights, and had fallen asleep just before +supper. Val went alone into the parlor after that meal, and waited for +the two men to join her. They were smoking in the dining-room--a thing +unprecedented. They stayed a long time. Eight o'clock--nine +o'clock--nearly ten. Val lay down on the sofa in the shadow behind the +big arm-chair, so worn out with emotion she fell asleep. By-and-by, +through the mist of her dreaming, the low sound of voices broke: her +father's, with that familiar note of weary cheerfulness, and now +another, deep, vibrant, full of mutiny and music. She lay a moment with +shut eyes, her half-awakened senses luxuriously steeped in the sound, +careless of the meaning. Now her father answered. Ah, how long his +insistent staccato kept striking the troubled air. It was plain he was +in one of his talking moods, when there was no stopping him, just as for +days--sometimes for weeks--there would be no such thing as getting more +than "Yes," or "No," or "Thank you," across his tightened lips. She was +dropping off to sleep again when suddenly Ethan's voice stabbed her +broad awake, saying: + +"The world is a cruel place, the world is an evil place, _ergo_, I hate +the world." + +"No, no, you're wrong," said John Gano. "You're blind if you don't see +the world is beautiful, is rooted in triumphing good." + +Val sat up in the dark corner behind the chair, ready to cry "Hear, +hear!" + +"I admit," her father went on, "that man has defiled it and made it a +den of thieves." + +"Comes to the same thing in the end, although I don't agree--" + +"It does _not_ come to the same thing. There's all the difference in +what it "comes to" between the curable and the incurable. You and I may +not live to see it, but the world will one day be a fit habitation for +better men than we." + +Val, peering out, saw Ethan shake his head. + +"When men are truly brothers, when we have worked the ape and tiger out, +when we may be fortunate without blood-guiltiness. Even _you_," his +uncle went on, a swell of enthusiasm lifting up his voice--"even you may +live to see men realizing that Science is the great Captain, the true +Redeemer. I should envy you your chance of hailing the beginning of that +bloodless revolution, except that I am as sure of its coming as my +neighbor's children's children will be when they have ocular proof and +daily profit of it." + +"I wish I were as sure of it as you." + +"My boy, you've only to look about you. Mind, I don't say _within_. No, +no"--his voice dragged--"one sees there one's own failures and defeats, +and one is blinded to the larger good. I'm no sentimentalist, either." +He flared up. "I'm not saying I shall reap any, or even you much, of +this harvest. But come!"--he pulled his shambling figure out of the +chair and stood before the fire almost erect--"life is nobler than men +thought. Some men's share is to see, before they stumble into the dark, +the light that other men shall walk by--see it, and tell the +shorter-sighted to be of good cheer, for the light is at hand." + +"And those who stumbled before the light came near enough?" + +"Oh, well, at most they 'fell on sleep.'" + +"Ah-h-h!" + +"Such men are no worse off than Plato, and Christ, and Buddha. The great +thing was to know there was light." + +"I wonder the memory of those old hopes doesn't lessen your faith in the +new." + +"Why? Progress isn't a passing fashion; it's the _life_ principle, +another name for the power that makes for righteousness, the impulse +towards the light, the force that pushes the acorn sprout out of the +mould, and goads man night and day towards some ultimate good. As long +as there's life, my boy, it will be better and ever better life. _It's +the law._" + +As he stood with arm extended, girt about with sudden authority, Ethan +had a vision of Moses on Mount Sinai. This was too old an aspect of her +father for Val to be much impressed. She watched the effect on her +cousin, however, with feverish interest. + +"You're an incurable optimist, uncle," he was saying. + +"Ah, don't mistake me. I'm not one of those who drug themselves with +dreaming." No Hebrew prophet now; it was the keen, practical-minded +American who spoke. "The new order won't be brought about by idle +optimism any more than by prayers, or politics, or private +magnanimities." + +"How, then?" + +"It will be the direct result of a higher standard of public health." + +He spoke briskly, as one making a business proposition. + +"_Health!_" echoed Ethan sharply--"health of the public conscience, I +suppose you mean." + +"Health of the body first of all," growled the prophet. "Health mental +and moral as the natural result. But since the Maker of the world +established the physical basis aeons before he bothered about the soul, +the first thing _we_ have to do is to make strong our foundations, since +for ages we've systematically neglected them, when we haven't occupied +ourselves in actively undermining them. The halt, the blind, the +diseased, are not for this New Jerusalem. Its first condition of +citizenship will be _mens sana in corpore sano_. And the beauty of it is +that, to attain this health, no one man's welfare will avail. All men +must share it, or all men are menaced. It means a perfect Socialism." + +"Ah, Socialism!" + +"Not the travesty that masquerades with banners and brass bands, and +issues pamphlets against property; but the Socialism that is the true +science of life, and that will make possible the men I see in the +future." + +Ethan regarded the rapt look of the seer with a kindly cynicism. The +absent eyes of the elder fell upon the critical young face with a gleam +of suspicion. Again and again since his arrival something in Ethan's +easy, lounging attitudes had not only roused an obscure antagonism in +the older man, but had seemed the most irritating expression of his +nephew's habit of mind. His nonchalant grace seemed to say with smiling +superiority: "What's your hurry? Why should _I_ exert myself? Let the +other man walk." John Gano, looking at him now, felt, in addition to the +unreasoning rage at Ethan's _laissez aller_ way of taking life, a kind +of half-morbid, half-fanatical desire to prick the young man into +action, into some likeness to that desperate American strenuousness that +had died so hard with John Gano. + +"The men I'm thinking of aren't grown in arm-chairs or under glass, any +more than they are made in filthy workshops or in thieves' alleys; they +are the sons of happy, voluntary toil, and pure air, and honest +dealing." + +"Ah," said Ethan, "very likely." + +"Not very likely--_certain_. It's one of the few things a man may be +dogmatic about. It ought to be the prime article of faith. Now, you're a +rich man, and you say you're going into politics--you're going to help +prescribe for this sick old world. Very good. You have the more need to +mark well how man's oppression of his brother recoils upon himself. It +is accounted prosperity--'getting on in the world'--to be able to have a +horde of grown-up, hardy men and women about you in your hot-house homes +to wait upon you, to prevent you from doing any part of that work which +alone will keep you whole. Why, as I think of it"--he tossed back his +lion's mane with a fine contempt--"it sounds incredible this should be +the rich man's _own_ desire. It's like some cunning artifice practised +by a nimble-witted slave upon an imbecile and cruel master, a slow but +certain process of undoing. You not only pay another man to take away +your means of health, you usually maltreat him. _Think_ of it from the +point of view of economy, you who are going into politics. The precious +contrivance spoils two constitutions, not to speak of possible heirs. +One man dying for lack of physical exercise, another killing himself by +doing two men's--ten men's--share. You don't believe me. You are sitting +there hugging some mental reservation." + +"No, no," said Ethan, "I was only turning it over." + +"I assure you I know whereof I speak. These men who grind the faces of +the poor; these railroad magnates, manufacturers, corn kings, bankers, +toiling day and night in stuffy offices--oh, I saw them in New York; I +lived among them; I see them still"--his eyes blazed--"toiling, +oppressing, cheating, to lay up riches. What have they in reality left +to their children--a hoard of yellow gold? More than that; more than an +inheritance of strained nerves and bending backs. They have left them +the means of gratifying their sloth and their gluttony." + +He took a turn up and down the room, shaking his head. He stopped +suddenly before his nephew with a look of grim pleasure. + +"It's poor comfort, but let the beggar in the street know himself +revenged. The rich man, who has just refused him a dime to buy a dinner, +goes home, and what he overeats and overdrinks, that would feed and +revive the beggar, provides your rich man with his gout and fifty fine +disorders unknown among the poor. When he refuses to share his dinner +with the hungry, your Dives gets not only curses, but diseases of the +digestive organs." + +Ethan burst out laughing at the vindictive satisfaction of the climax. + +"Come, can you deny it?" his uncle urged. "Drugs, kurs, baths--these are +needed only to repair the waste of stupid living; they are substitutes +for the right kind of labor and of fare, but they only patch the breach +that simpler living would make whole." + +"You make me think of James Benton. You know him by reputation?" + +"Specialist?--nerves? Yes, very good man." + +"Well, he'd been attending a fashionable woman in New York--for about +ten years, he told me. She'd paid him enormous fees to run over from +Boston and 'keep her going.' He was rather sick of it, and one day he +said: 'Oh yes, I can vary the tonic and bolster you up for the season; +but I _could_ cure you, you know.' 'Brute!' she screamed, 'then why +haven't you in all these years?' 'You won't take my medicine.' 'Which +medicine?' 'Six months' service as housemaid in a farm-house in the +White Mountains.'" + +"Well," said John Gano, with interest, "and the woman?" + +"Oh, she only laughed. However, there are a certain number of people, I +find over here, who do care about physical culture. Fellows at the +universities think a lot more about athletics than they did in my time. +Girls' colleges pay tremendous attention to that sort of thing. Haven't +you noticed? Our women are finding out it touches the 'beauty question.' +That's done more than all the books and doctors in creation. Oddly +enough, our society women in particular, as I saw at Newport--" + +"Yes, yes," interrupted his uncle. "We're moving in the right direction, +but slowly--very slowly. Even health is little more with us as yet than +a newly discovered prerogative of the prosperous. They're finding out +it's the condition of survival. Oh, give us time, and it'll come all +right." + +"Perhaps. But even in the Old World, where you'd think they'd had time +enough, they've got at only one aspect of the evil. They're alive to the +need of mere exercise, especially in England. Oh, the devices!" laughed +the young man, "by which the idle well-to-do may, in default, as you +would say, of trees to fell or coal to dig and bricks to lay, develop, +notwithstanding, their biceps and their chests! I've seen many a fellow, +with a quite ludicrous absence of enjoyment, doing dumb-bell whim-whams, +or shouldering his golf-clubs, or going off to play rackets, with the +stern resolve to get his quantum of exercise, whether it amuses him or +not." + +"Yes, yes, yes," John Gano broke in, "mere cultivators of muscle don't +interest me much, though they go a step in the right direction. A man +must face and overcome hardship, _real_ hardship, before he's good for +anything. Man is like the good wheat, he flourishes where it's cold +enough to give him a good pinching frost once a year. Your +finest-flavored fruits are grown where man contends with Nature, not as +in the tropics, where she drops her insipid increase into his idle lap. +Those games that men play at while their brothers starve are well enough +for those who like 'em, but the great majority of average boys and +girls, and even, to some extent, perverted men and women, too, are never +so well amused as when they're _making something_. If every one had some +bit of manual labor to do, something he could do with love, studying to +bring it to perfection--" + +"Ah yes," said Ethan, with a livelier interest, "that might bring men +back a sense of beauty." + +"At all events," said the elder, sturdily, "it would bring man back to +the bed-rock of wholesome endeavor; and while he was strengthening his +muscles and his morals, and laying up a fit inheritance for his +children, he would be helping to solve the industrial problem of the +world. The vulgar stigma would be lifted from the laboring class." + +"Ah--h'm--yes," murmured Ethan, with a somewhat lackadaisical air. + +John Gano studied his nephew's long, careless, lounging figure with a +growing disapproval. + +"In the time to come," said John Gano, significantly, "the only idle +will be the few, and ever fewer, sick, and the very old. Chronic disease +will be looked upon as the only lasting disgrace. The evil will hide +their complaints as carefully as to-day they hide their crimes. They +will be more ashamed of an attack of indigestion or of gout than a man +is to-day of being seen drunk in public, or caught robbing a till. He +who passes a disease down the line will be looked upon as a traitor, the +only criminal deserving capital punishment." + +Ethan looked up quickly, scrutinizing the grim face for a moment, and +then, unaccountably to himself, his own look went down. + +Val had lost the sense with which she awoke of overhearing something not +intended for her, and of being under the necessity of making her +presence known in the first pause. The talk was just an amplification of +views to which her father had accustomed her from childhood. She would +have gone to sleep again, or come out and said good-night, but for the +interest of seeing their effect on Ethan, who had already been wrought +upon to the extent of saying that he "hated" the beautiful world. Why +was he looking so black-browed and forbidding now? She must pay +attention and follow this. + +"There'll be fewer hospitals," her father was saying, with staccato +emphasis, "and less vapid sentimentalizing over those who suffer from +violation of the plain laws of health." + +"Well, it strikes me," said Ethan, "that if the poor devil has got his +weak digestion, or his gout, or what not, from some unenlightened +ancestor--" + +"It must strike you that in that case he's in the position of the man +whose father died in debt, in disgrace. The loyal son must wipe out the +score." + +"It's devilish hard on the son. He'll say he has his own debts to +pay--an obligation to himself." + +"As a man of honor, or"--with a gesture of impatience--"of mere sense, +he will know he has no obligation so binding as to end the evil with his +life, leaving no offshoot to sow the seeds anew. It is civic duty, +it"--the stern voice wavered--"it is fatherly pity. When I see my little +girl's eyes bright with fever--with this old fever that's been wasting +me these forty years--do you suppose I find much comfort in thinking I +had it from my father, and have by foolish living only augmented a +little my inheritance?" + +He shook his lion's head fiercely. The break in her father's voice, even +more than the words with their dimly comprehended menace, brought back a +quick realization to the girl that her father had no notion of her +presence. Should she come out now? It would be embarrassing to them all, +for he was strangely moved. If she waited a few moments he would get +back to generalities, and then she would come out and say good-night. +But under this playing at expediency was an eager curiosity to hear +more, to understand better. + +"What do you mean by 'this old fever'?" Ethan asked. + +"Well"--his uncle turned his rough head slowly to the door to assure +himself it was shut--"I mean something that my mother and I agreed not +to talk about. There is a word that no one ever hears mentioned under +this roof. We don't mention the word because"--he sunk his voice to a +whisper--"because the thing itself is here." + +"What is the word?" + +"Consumption." + +Ethan sat looking at him in silence. Val half rose. She must let them +know she was there. But--consumption! She sank down. Was it true _that_ +was the ghost that haunted the Fort? Certainly it was true that she had +never heard the word on the lips of her elders. + +"My father and my wife died of it," John Gano was saying. "My mother has +the old lingering form of it. It was 'galloping consumption' that +carried my sister Valeria out of the world at thirty. I am dying of it. +My children--" + +A curious hoarse sound tore its way out of his throat, and he buried his +head in his hands. When he looked up his eyes were wild and bright. Val +held her breath, and the nails of her clinched hands dug into her palms. + +"I have just one hope," her father said, "that my innocent children will +go out as painlessly as may be, before the great battle begins." + +Val drew back, crouching behind the chair-back with blanched face. + +"It is too late to hope that," said Ethan. + +"No, it's not too late; the enemy is still in ambush." + +"The enemy?" + +"Yes. The battle won't begin till sex finds them out." + +"What then?" + +"Then they will have to be told what I was not told in time." + +"What would you say?" + +"I"--the hoarse voice shook--"I'd tell them how full of holes their +armor is." + +"Uncle John, you'll never be so cruel." + +Val, behind the big chair, lifted her scared face in the shadow, looking +on as a woman might at a duel fought for her. + +"It is the only kindness. When I thought I shouldn't live to see them +old enough to know, I wrote the matter down. Ha!"--he laughed +wearily--"in the form of a last will and testament; a legacy from a +father who will leave them nothing else except--" He got up and turned +away, coughing. He walked up and down the room again, with dragging step +and bent head. He stopped suddenly and laid his hand on the young man's +shoulder. "I see too plainly the lesson of the past not to hand my +knowledge on. It's all I'm good for now. This fair future for the race +that I've believed in, that I've foreseen so long--" He was interrupted +by the painful cough, but conquered it an instant. "Not only have I +always known I could have no personal share in it, not even through my +children--" + +The cough gripped him again, and he turned away with handkerchief to his +lips. + +Ethan watched him, unmoved, with a kind of unsympathetic fascination. + +"I think," said the young man, before his uncle found his voice again, +"you are going on to say something I had to try to disabuse my mind of, +years ago, when my own health smashed up before I went to France." + +John Gano dropped into the rocking-chair by the fire, and lay back a +moment with closed eyes and laboring breath. + +"I didn't know," he said, faintly, "that you'd had your warning, but I +see"--he opened his eyes suddenly--"I see that your New England blood is +too thin, too office-stricken, to save you. You've nothing--absolutely +nothing to hope for from the Gano side." His voice was strong. It rang +like a challenge. "My mother is wrong! Our fathers _have_ eaten sour +grapes." + +Ethan leaned forward about to speak, but his uncle broke in harshly: + +"I tell you you belong to a worn-out race. _We_ are among those who are +too remote from the soil--'there is no health in us.'" + +"Oh come, Uncle John, don't talk as if we were Aztecs, or an effete +monarchy." + +"We _are_ effete, and we deserve to die out root and branch." + +The little movement over in the dark corner passed unnoticed in Ethan's +attempt at protest. + +"Or perhaps you think," said John Gano, "because we are not of noble +descent, that being an old or rather a long dominant and idle race, +doesn't count." + +He smiled with a tinge of superior pity. + +"How do you know we're so old a family?" demanded his nephew. + +"I feel it in my bones; they ache--_they ache_." He had begun the +sentence with a hoarse laugh, and at the end his haggard face settled +into lines of pain. "But whether we're an old family in the paltry +social sense is beside the mark. Nature doesn't care a continental +copper," he went on fiercely, "whether you're a king or a bankrupt +cotton-planter, or any other cumberer of the earth. What people don't +realize is that a peasant or a rag-picker may come of an idle, worn-out +stock, and if so, be sure Nature has marked him down. If purple and fine +linen don't deceive her, neither do rags. No sickly sentimentality about +_her_. She'll find her enemy, the unfit, through any and all disguise. +As for your aristocrat, she won't distinguish him even by her revenge. +She has nothing to do with that figment of the pompous mind, 'belonging +to an old family.' Families are _all_ old. The question is: How closely +are you related to--well, to use the ready-made phrase: How near are you +to the soil?--to the fountain-head of blood made sweet by denial and +swift by strenuous living? Ah, my boy, our fathers sat too long at their +ease in houses that the building and the tending of made muscle and +brawn for others. We lounged in arm-chairs by our fires of fat Southern +pine, but the men who got the vital warmth were the men who hewed the +tall trees down. We've blinded our eyes over books, and blunted our +humanity in a petty concern about our souls, while our bodies were going +to destruction." + +There was dead silence for a few minutes. + +"And those more fortunate ones," his nephew said, in a dull, resentful +voice, "who are they? How is it possible to be _sure_? How shall your +elect be known?" + +"As of old, by their fruits. They and their children have broad +shoulders; they haven't chests like ours--they haven't hands like mine." + +He held his up, and both men (the girl, too, in the far corner) saw the +fire glow red behind the thin, transparent fingers. He dropped them with +an air of one who throws up a desperate game. Val pushed aside the rug +that still partly covered her, and slid to the ground, arrested on the +sofa's edge by Ethan's saying more angrily than she had thought that +voice could sound: + +"I tell you straight, Uncle John, I don't accept this paralyzing +doctrine of yours, still less do I think your children will. I tell you +frankly I rebel against--" + +John Gano's wax-white hand caught him by the shoulder in a grip that +made the young man wince. + +"So did _I_ rebel, and I've been paying for it these sixteen years. Oh +yes, I knew very little, but I rebelled against the little I knew. I did +worse--I married. I did worse even than that--_I married my first +cousin_." + +He drew off, as if the better to watch the effect of his words. Ethan, +looking at him darkly, felt there was a devilish ingenuity in his +uncle's ignoring the possibility of any further mixing of Gano blood, +and yet holding up his own misdeed as a hideous warning to the world in +general, a thing of unmitigated evil. + +"These matters were not understood in my day," he went on, "but happily +the men and women of these times are not left in darkness." + +"Oh yes, they are," said Ethan. "The men and the women are new, but the +darkness is the old darkness." + +"No; science has put it to rout. I had no one when I was young to tell +me the things I'm telling you." + +Ethan's face was undisguisedly satirical, but his uncle was oblivious. + +"The Ganos have all been well-intentioned people, and yet they went on +down there in Virginia and Maryland, generation after generation, +marrying their own cousins, breeding in and in, till--well, you, for +instance, and my children are more like brother and sister than cousins. +You are even nearer than some brothers and sisters are. You each have in +you the concentrated essence of a single family's strain. As I've told +you, when I look at my innocent children, I could curse the eternal law +that will not let me pay my debt alone. If we rebel"--he fastened his +lean fingers on Ethan's shoulder again, and spoke with growing +excitement--"if we rebel against _that_ commandment, we and our wretched +children are punished." He released his grip, but with eyes bloodshot, +menacing, he stood over the young man still: "If we rebel, instead of +dying out calmly and gently, we'll have to be stamped out." + +"What do you mean?" + +No lounging now; the young man sat arrow-straight and eagle-eyed. + +"I mean that certainly in _this_ race the weakest go to the wall. We +Ganos can't compete." + +"I wouldn't if I were Hercules. I loathe competition." + +"Exactly--exactly. It's the very cry of the unfit." + +"I deny it. It's the cry of the man willing to work without ignoble +spurring, who doesn't want his comrades' disaster to sweeten victory, +who wants to be fortunate, as you say, without blood-guiltiness." + +"When that sentiment comes of strength, my friend, it means one thing; +when it comes of weakness, it means another. There's hard fighting +ahead, and Hercules will be to the fore. He'll be needed. The Ganos will +be occupied in hating competition." + +Ethan gave vent to a sound of stifled indignation. Val watched him with +suspended breath. His uncle watched him calmly, and then he said: + +"A Gano can inherit money. I doubt if he can make it. I doubt if he can +even keep it. I doubt if he can lose it like a man." + +Ethan winced, recalling the days of the lost allowance, and his impotent +railing at destiny while he starved in the streets of Paris. + +"There isn't the shadow of a doubt what the end of our family history +will be," the hoarse voice ended. "Those of us who aren't ground under +the heel of poverty will be snuffed out by disease." + +"My God!" Ethan broke out; "and to think I called you an optimist! Why, +you're just such another as Job, crying out: 'Let the day perish wherein +I was born.' 'Oh, that I had given up the ghost, and no eye seen me'; or +the Genevan confessing: 'Ma naissance fut le premier de mes malheurs.'" +He would have been ready to swear that he was writhing, not under the +sense of an impassible barrier raised between him and some concrete +coveted good, but at being confronted, where he least expected it, with +a new aspect of the ugliness and pain and helplessness of the human lot. +"It doesn't seem to matter which way one turns," he burst out; "the +sound loudest in one's ears is the lament of all the generations that +have gone up and down hunting happiness, till, as you say, they fell on +sleep. Whether I go to the classics or read the new philosophies, +whether it's Socrates or Seneca preaching the dignity of death, or the +volcanic Nietzsche trying gloomily to exalt self, and losing himself in +madness--whether I wander the Old World, or fly for better things to the +New, it's the same thing. You began by telling me life was beautiful and +good; you have ended by showing me afresh that it simply doesn't bear +being thought about. Why, _Val_!" + +He had risen and caught sight of the white, tear-drowned face looking +out behind the chair. + +"Val!" echoed her father; "I thought you were in bed!" + +"Oh, I wish I had been!" She came out of the corner with her plumage of +brave looks crushed and broken, all her young brightness tarnished. +"Father," she said, while the tears rained down, "I'm sorry you're so +sad about the world, and about all us Ganos, but you needn't try to make +cousin Ethan sad too, and me--and me--" + +Ethan made a gesture forward, as if to take the girl in his protecting +arms. John Gano's angry eyes flashed warning. He tried to hush his +daughter's sobbing in his breast. + +"You are my wise little girl, and you--" + +"Wise! Yes; a great deal too wise to believe all this. I don't know +_why_ I'm crying so." She looked up, smiling miserably through her +tears. "Why, it's just nothing but arguing. When cousin Ethan's with me +he never has such awful, awful notions. He's a little sad sometimes, and +has to be cheered up, and you oughtn't to argue with him like this--" + +The heaving sobs clutched her voice, stifling the last words. + +"Come, come, child; you're over-excited. There--there!" + +"When _I'm_ old"--she flung back her head with a poor little travesty of +her common gesture--"I'll tell my children--_all_ of them--that it's +been a good world to be in, and that they're not to be afraid, and--and +not to be any sadder than they can help." + +"Come, come; dry your eyes and go to bed." + +She turned away with her handkerchief over her face. + +"Good-night, little cousin," said Ethan, steadying his voice and taking +her hand. + +"Oh, good-night," she faltered, and with a movement full of exquisite +young tenderness she lifted her little handkerchief and brushed it +lightly across his misty eyes. "Father was only arguing," she said. + +But the tears flowed down her cheeks afresh as she opened the door and +went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Two days later Ethan was on his way South with John Gano. + +He stayed with his uncle for a month, and then sent for the despised +Drouet, who was an excellent nurse. As he grew weaker, John Gano +developed not only a tolerance, but a liking, for the alert, amusing +Frenchman, and stayed contentedly in the quarters Ethan had found, until +the spring, making a herbarium of the flora of that region. At the +beginning of May he was to return home. Early in April, Drouet wired to +his master in Boston to say that the doctor was alarmed at the patient's +condition. Ethan went South at once, and three days after his arrival +his uncle died in his arms. + +"Don't drag me back to the North," he had said; "bury me where I fall." +And it was done. + +Mrs. Gano was too ill to travel, and telegraphed that Ethan was to come +back afterwards to the Fort. + +It was a very different arrival from the last. The little cousins, +dressed in black, looked more than ever like snow flowers on the fringe +of winter. + +Mrs. Gano was profoundly moved on seeing Ethan entering alone. She +motioned the children out of the room, and had one long talk with her +grandson about the end. Afterwards, in her fashion when she was +suffering most, she shut herself up, and no one except the servants saw +her until the following Sunday, which was Easter. + +It struck Ethan as curious, and unexpected, that even the girls should +put such restraint upon their grief. Emmie, it was true, was often seen +in tears, but the most she ever said of her father was, "He knows +there's a heaven now." Val conducted the household in default of her +grandmother, and Ethan caught himself smiling surreptitiously at the +old-fashioned decorum she imposed upon herself in playing the +unaccustomed role. + +Emmie was to be confirmed this Easter. She was going through a very +devout phase, and, when Val was not there, she talked to Ethan about the +coming consecration with a curious religious fervor. There was a strain +of unconscious mysticism in the girl that struck Ethan oddly, against +the bare American background. It was to him more of an anachronism than +any manifestation he had yet encountered, even at the Fort, that +stronghold of the past. + +"I love to talk about these things to you, cousin Ethan," she said; "Val +doesn't understand." + +Learning something of these confidences, Mrs. Gano took the first +opportunity of saying, privately: + +"I do not know quite where you stand, my dear Ethan, in matters of +religious faith--" and she waited. + +"I don't know quite where I stand myself," he had answered. + +"You used to have a fine perception for things spiritual." + +He smiled. + +"I _once_ thought I might find Rome at the end of my wandering." + +"Ah!" she said, quite calmly, "my father used to say, 'You will all have +to come back to Mother Church.'" + +"I do not mean that I felt like that long," Ethan said, hurriedly, +realizing that he was sailing under false colors, "or that I think now +as I suppose you do. It's probably little more with me than that 'I was +born in the wilds of Christianity, and the briers and thorns still hang +about me.'" + +"You got that from your Uncle John," she said, coldly. + +"No; it was said the century before he was born." + +"To me, God is the great fact of life. To be without God is to be +without hope in the world." + +Ethan shaded his lowered eyes with one hand as he answered: + +"Yes, I've thought that, too." + +She looked at him reassured. + +"Ah! I have ceased to be troubled at minor differences of creed; but +when we are young, we are less--catholic," she smiled, and then grew +grave. "I hope you will never say anything to unsettle the faith of the +little girls." + +"Oh, I shouldn't dream-- But Val has not been confirmed, I understand." + +"No; I don't believe any longer in pressing these things." + +"She would have required pressing?" + +"She has not developed any great concern about spiritual matters. And +yet, as a child, she was much occupied about religion. Not as you and +Emmie were. With Val it was all the wrong way up." + +"Wrong way--" + +Mrs. Gano nodded, reflectively. + +"Her interest in the Bible seemed founded upon the large opportunity it +gave her for the exercise of rank unbelief. I was always hoping to +overcome the tendency. But"--she shook her head--"if, as a treat, I +allowed her to choose what portion of the Scripture should be read +aloud, it was always the Revelation." + +"Oh, I don't think that so depraved." + +"Neither did I, till one Sunday, as I got to the words, 'And I, John, +saw,' I was arrested by a movement from the child sitting at my feet. I +looked down and saw the small face puckered with the concentrated +essence of suspicion. 'Who saw it 'sides John?' she demanded. And that, +briefly, has been her attitude ever since. I lament it, but I don't talk +to her about it any more. The one Christian tenet that I am satisfied +Val holds is the doctrine of the Resurrection. Strange--strange! Now, +Emmie is like all the rest of the Ganos." + +Ethan nodded. "Yes, Val is a stranger among us. Poor Val!" + +Emmie was certainly a vision of innocent loveliness, as she went up to +the chancel that Easter morning, to be received into the communion of +the faithful. There was something poetic, something not wholly of this +world, in her fragile beauty, her rapt and lighted look. Ethan +recognized in the sweet face--never so unclouded as to-day--the subtle +ecstasy of the devotee. Something in him stirred painfully, regretfully, +answering to it with a sense of unwilling sympathy, of kinship that +would not be denied. People in the church that day whispered to each +other: + +"Emmie Gano and her cousin are more alike than most brothers and sisters +are." + +Very different was the mutinous face of the elder girl, sitting beside +Ethan in her mourning, looking neither at bishop nor white-robed brides +of the Church, but with unreconciled, tear-filled eyes at the white +cross, in memory of her father, that hung among the Easter decorations +in the chancel. The wreath upon the lectern, that all the town knew to +be the annual "In memoriam" to that Valeria Gano who had been in her +grave these twenty years--for that, only Ethan of the dead woman's +kindred had eyes and tender remembering. + +"Father's cross looked very beautiful," Emmie said, in a hushed voice, +to her grandmother that afternoon. + +Mrs. Gano inclined her head. + +"I am glad we chose calla lilies; he loved them," murmured Emmie. + +"He didn't love to hear them called calla lilies," said Val, without a +particle of feeling in her voice. + +"Yes," said Emmie, "I mean those great--" + +"He would be very angry to hear you call them lilies." + +"Angry?" Mrs. Gano looked up. + +"Yes, angry," said Val. "Callas are not liliaceae, they are araceae, and +belong to the Jack-in-the-pulpit family. If he hears us, he'll hate to +think we've forgotten so soon." Her defiant eyes suddenly filled up. "He +taught us not to be so ignorant as to call them lilies, just as he +taught us not to say 'wisteria.'" + +"What are you to say, then?" asked Ethan. + +"Wistaria." + +"Not really?" + +"Yes, it _is_ wistaria, and we must all _say_ wistaria, because he told +us to, and because it's named after General Wistar." + +"Why have you put these fine linen doilies on the arms of the chairs?" +asked Mrs. Gano. + +"Because the arms are covered with velvet," Val answered, without +thinking, and then shot a shy look at Ethan. + +"Velvet? Of course. What then?" + +Val looked in her lap and said, mendaciously: + +"I don't like velvet arms. Please let the doilies stay." + +Mrs. Gano was satisfied in her own mind that Val was ashamed of the +condition of the ancient covering. The difficulty plainly was that it +_had_ been velvet. She forbore to pursue the question before her +grandson. + +The days went on; Ethan refused to count them. + +One late afternoon a deluge of rain brought down a part of the ceiling +in the old red room that had been John Gano's. Ethan took his courage in +both hands, and described to Mrs. Gano, in forcible terms, the extent of +the damage and the danger of leaving the roof as it was. + +"I don't propose to leave it as it is." + +He studied her. + +"Do you remember telling me when I was a little chap that this was my +home?" + +"H'm--did I?" + +"I haven't any other _now_. Let me think of the Fort as my home." He +paused, but her aspect was not encouraging, was hardly hospitable. He +went on: "Let _me_ look after the roof, and--" + +"Certainly not. I have looked after everything for half a century. When +I'm dead some one else may do it--not before." + +"Ah, you know what I mean. You've lost your only son. Give me some of +his privileges." She jerked away her head, as she did when she was +moved, and wanted not to betray the fact. "I am tired of being +homeless," Ethan said. + +"You will make a home of your own, my dear." + +"I want this for my home." + +She turned suddenly, and looked at him with eyes that were keen and +intent under their film of tears. + +"No," she said, slowly, "this does for us. It is not the kind of home +for you." + +"It is the kind I want." + +He smiled in that sudden, radiant way of his. + +"No; the Fort is here to shelter and protect other people. You don't +need it." + +"But I do; and it's _my_ Fort. Why, you've never even taken my name off +the door." + +The old woman recalled a glimpse she had had the evening before of Val +laying her cheek against the graven name. + +"I'm not sure but I _shall_ take it off," she said, half smiling, half +threatening. + +"You don't want to get me out of the habit of thinking of the Fort as +'home'?" + +"You've never really been in the habit--you belong elsewhere." + +He studied her in perplexity. + +"Do you realize that at this moment the rain is coming in floods into +Uncle John's room?" + +"The rain won't trouble your uncle John." She had turned away again. + +"But there are others here--" + +"It is those others I have to consider. Your uncle John's insurance will +mend his children's roof." + +"And you won't give me the happiness--" + +"My dear boy," she said, with some impatience, "your happiness doesn't +lie here." + +She began to rock back and forth with lowering brow. + +"You want to get rid of me." + +She stopped rocking, and turned to him with a moved and gentler aspect. + +"Personally, I very much want you to stay; but there are many things to +think of. I am not alone here. You bring an atmosphere of--of unrest +from out the world you belong to. I see the danger that you may import +some of it into our quiet lives." + +"How little you realize! The young life here is seething with unrest." + +"That is what I am realizing." + +"But I found it like that." + +She shook her head. + +"You must go away, my dear." + +She was of the same mind, then, as her son had been. Go away! Go away! +That was all the welcome they had here for Ethan Gano. A feeling of +bitterness took hold on him, of such loneliness that it was as if, +without warning, he had heard pronounced a sentence of perpetual exile. +"For that's what it is," he thought: "she will never ask me to come +again." And he was right--she never did. + + +He had got up after a moment or two, and gone out to the veranda, where +he walked up and down, with the noise of the rain in his ears. + +Presently Emmie looked out. + +"Where's Val?" asked Ethan. + +"Up-stairs. Ever since supper she's been seeing if the tubs and things +are under all the leaks." + +"Ask her to come out here when she's finished, will you?" + +"Yes," said Emmie reluctantly, and turned away. + +Ethan had no eyes for the sudden shadow on the sweet face. He began to +stride up and down again, angrily, eagerly, looking out through the +tracery of the wistaria as an animal might through the bars of its cage. + +"Well, here I am!" + +Val stood smiling as he turned. + +"Oh, good! Let us sit down." + +"On the black benches? Never!" + +She gathered her skirts round her with a gesture of comic horror. + +"Here, then"--he spread out a large white handkerchief--"sit on this." + +"And you?" + +"Sit down!" he commanded. + +She took the place meekly, with hands crossed in mockery, and laughing +eyes, but her pale cheeks flushed. + +"Now, you are to promise me something," he said, standing before her +with folded arms. + +"Oh, I've always got to promise you things. What have you ever promised +me?" + +His moody eyes caressed the upturned face. + +"What do you want me to promise?" he said, more gently. + +"Will you do it?" + +"I--a--" + +"You _see_!" + +"I only want to know what it is." + +She looked away. + +"Tell me what _you_ want first," she said. + +Instead of answering, her cousin turned and walked to the end of the +dripping veranda, where the wind had blown the rain in several feet +across the boards. She watched him furtively, biting her upper lip the +while, catching it cruelly with her sharp white teeth to still its +trembling. She watched him turn slowly, come back a few paces, raising +his eyes as he was passing the first of the long room windows, and stop +short with a queer, guilty start. He nodded gravely to the watchful eyes +within and continued his walk, only more rapidly, muttering to himself, +"The old lioness!" + +Val had an impulse to go and look through the window nearest her, but +something held her where she was. Presently, as Ethan paced back and +forth, a pale shine came through the panes, mixing uncertainly with the +evening light. Venie must have taken in the big bronze lamp. Yes, one +could hear her now letting down the blinds. Val was glad she had +resisted the impulse to look in. Ethan had stopped his restless pacing, +as soon as the blinds were drawn. + +"I have asked her," he said, with a motion of the head towards the long +room, "to let me attend to the roof, and a few little things like that." +He paused, and looked sharply at the shrouded windows. + +"She says you take a great deal upon yourself," Val smiled. + +"Oh, she does! Well, I shall take more. I am going to take the liberty +of giving you five hundred dollars, to do what you can here without her +knowing; and when's it's gone I shall give you as much again, and you're +not to tell anybody. Promise." + +"I couldn't do that." + +"Why not?" + +"Simply, I couldn't. I know so well what she'd say--'It's against all +our traditions.' And the money you are offering--" + +"Well?" + +"You see, _it's Tallmadge money_!" Val resented a little his whimsical +look. She drew herself up. "You can't expect us Ganos--" She broke off +as he took a letter out of his pocket and unfolded it. "Oh!" She turned +a sudden scarlet and grasped at the incriminating document. + +"No, no," he said. "I was defrauded of this letter a long time by an +imbecile postal system. But I'll take good care of it now I have got +it." + +"I--I was very young when I wrote it." + +"--a little over a year ago," he completed her sentence, laughing. + +"Please don't think I'm wanting you to help me now." + +"Well, that's a good thing," he said, with an unexpected hardness, "for +I haven't the smallest intention of doing so." + +Val's eyes were angry and bright with drops of humiliation. + +"I wouldn't take it if you begged me to," she said. + +"Don't you see, dear Val"--he leaned nearer, but she averted her face +from him--"don't you see that, at all events until Emmie is older, you +can't desert the Fort?" No answer. "Don't be angry with me, little +cousin. Don't you feel how much your own people need you?" Still no +answer. "Seventy-five!" he went on; "you mayn't have long to wait." + +She turned on him sharply. + +"As if I grudged--as if I wanted to shorten the time!" + +She swallowed a little sob. + +"No, no; of course you don't. I understand you quite well." + +"The last thing father said to me was, 'Take care of her, she's growing +old.'" + +He nodded. + +"That's all I mean by putting this money into your hands." + +"Oh, but I _can't_ take five hund-- I understand better than I did when +I wrote that stupid letter; she'd half kill me!" + +"She's not to know, and I"--he glowered down at her with a +laugh--"_I'll_ half kill you if you don't do what I tell you." + +She looked in her lap. Her eyelids fluttered. + +"You must write me regularly, and tell me all that's happening." + +She lifted her head as if she had been stung. + +"You--you aren't going away!" + +"Yes." + +"When are you coming back?" + +"I don't know." + +The dull rain poured, the defective spouts at the eaves played gray +fountains, the great tulipifera rhododendron waved answering arms to the +signals of the storm. + +In the momentary lull, An' Jerusha in the kitchen could be heard +quavering out wild notes, among which Ethan recognized the words: + + + "No mo' peace on de earf." + + +"I don't _believe_ you'll go," said Val. + +He couldn't see her face so well now in the gray light. + +"What makes you believe I won't go?" + +She clasped her hands and wrung them unconsciously. + +"Val--" + +"Or, if you go, you'll come back?" + +"Don't you know that's what I must not do?" + +"No," she said, in a muffled but resolute voice. + +They sat silent, motionless, for some time. She turned at last with +wide, shining eyes, putting her face close to his in the uncertain +light, and saying, with a quick-drawn breath: + +"Why, cousin Ethan!" + +"What is it?" + +"Why do you look like that?" + +"Like what?" + +"So--so terribly unhappy." + +He didn't answer. + +"What's the matter?" + +He tried to say something, moved his lips faintly, but no sound came. + +"Oh, what is it?" she cried; "something new?" + +He nodded, echoing: "Something new, and something very, very old." + +"And sad?" + +"Saddest of all sad things." + +"What is?" + +"Haven't you ever heard? Love is the saddest of all." + +A ray of light fell like a sword between them, and a sharp rap on the +window at their backs made them fly to their feet. Turning, they saw +Mrs. Gano's face against the pane. She had lifted a corner of the blind, +and was beckoning with imperious hand. + +"I must go," whispered Val; and she vanished. + +Ethan walked up and down till the early bed hour, listening to the rain +and to the sound of An' Jerusha's crooning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Emmie had begun to teach a class in the Infant Sunday-school. She would +go off soon after breakfast, the others following an hour or so later, +and meeting her at morning service. + +"I don't think I'll go to-day," said Ethan the subsequent Sunday. "Why +don't you take a holiday, too?" + +"No," answered Val. "If I stay at home grandma will-- But you might walk +part way with me, mightn't you?" + +"Yes, I don't mind a walk. I'll take a book along and go up on the Hill +after I leave you." + +As they set off, Mrs. Gano stood at the window looking after them. Ethan +made her a little half-mocking bow, whereat she smiled grimly. + +Val, glancing back at her, said, "Though you do pretend to be so gloomy, +you always put other people into better spirits. I haven't seen her +smile since--not since.... She cares more for you than she does for +anybody." + +"She won't be sorry when I go." + +Val flashed a side look at him, and the brightness dimmed in her eyes. +But here was Miss Tibbs, hurrying by with a sharp glance and +"Good-morning," and other people passing on their way home from +Sunday-school. She mustn't cry in public. + +"You oughtn't to say that she won't be sorry. You ought to be +gratefuller to people for caring so tremendously for you--as she does." +Her heart seemed to be beating high up in her throat. "Emmie and I often +notice how she lets you do all the forbidden things--pick the myrtle and +narcissus, play as loud and as hard as you like on the piano, have +sangaree and julep when you aren't a bit ill"--she was trying to +laugh--"even lets you go through the bookcases and take out anything you +like." + +She glanced down at the book in his hand. He made no rejoinder. A side +glance at his face showed him with brows knitted and abstracted eyes. + +Suddenly the dark face lit up; he had caught sight of a charming +apparition over the way. Julia was crossing the street "just in time to +meet Ethan," thought Val, although her friend was coming from her +Sunday-school class, at the usual time, and by the usual route. + +"Good-morning," Ethan called out with a cheerfulness that made Val's +heart drop in an instant, down--down. + +"You two pious ones off to church?" asked Julia, as she shook hands with +them. + +"Not me," answered Ethan; "it's too fine a day to waste in church." + +"Just what I think," said Julia, wistfully. + +How bewitchingly pretty she looked in her field-flower hat and +leaf-green gown! Val felt dowdy and dull in her mourning; it was an +insult to the fair summer weather to go about in such clothes. No wonder +cousin Ethan had brightened as he looked at Julia. + +They were all walking on together now to the Otways' gate. Val breathed +a silent prayer of thankfulness that Julia was a Presbyterian. + +"What are you going to do, Mr. Gano, if you don't go to church?" asked +Miss Otway, leaning across Val, who walked in the middle. + +"Find a comfortable place under a tree." + +"And read that very un-Biblical-looking book?" + +They were at the gate now, which Ethan opened; but Julia lingered, in +spite of Val's "Heavens! is that the church-bell?" + +"Mightn't it pass for a hymnal?" + +He laid the book open on the top of the gate, very willing to prolong +the interview, as it seemed, in spite of Val's disingenuous +interjection, "I'm afraid I'll be late." + +"Too cheerful for a hymnal," said Julia, shaking her head and smiling +up into his eyes. + +"Cheerful only on the outside, I'll be bound," said Val, suspiciously. +Then turning to the title-page: "'An Anthology collected by--' What +makes you like reading poetry?" + +"Why, don't you?" said Ethan to them both. + +"Yes, indeed," responded Julia. + +"Not a bit," said Val. + +"Why not?" laughed Ethan. + +"Too sad," said Val, firmly. + +Julia looked pensively away from Ethan up to the blue sky, over the line +of hills. + +"I love sad things," she said, sympathetically. + +"Oh yes, _you_ like 'em blubbery. I don't. That's why I hate poetry. +It's all sobbing and groaning, and 'Oh!' and 'Alas!' or else the silly +scenery." + +"Oh, not all," said Ethan. + +"Well, most of it is. Now, see! I'll shut the book and open it at +random: + + + "'O star, of which I lost have all the light, + With herte sore well ought I to bewail, + That ever dark in torment, night by night, + Towards my death with wind in stern I sail.' + + +That's Mr. Chaucer. Now try again: + + + "'My days are in the yellow leaf; + The flowers and fruits of love are gone; + The worm, the canker, and the grief + Are mine alone!' + + +That cheerful gentleman is Lord Byron!" + +She shut the book with a vicious snap and opened it again: + + + "'Out of the day and night + A joy has taken flight: + Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, + Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight + No more--O, never more!' + + +That's Shelley's account of things. And here's Keats's: + + + "'The weariness, the fever, and the fret + Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; + Where but to think is to be full of sorrow + And leaden-eyed despairs.'" + + +"Oh, but aren't there any ballads and pretty stories?" asked Julia. + +"Well, here's the 'Pot of Basil' and 'Waly Waly'"--Val turned the pages +vindictively--"and all the rest of the desperate and deserted. Now, the +man that made this anthology"--she turned sharply to her cousin--"I +suppose he got together all the _best_ things, didn't he?" + +"I suppose he thought he did." + +"Do you think he succeeded?" + +"Very fairly." + +"H'm! You see, when they do their best they are bound to be moaning and +groaning, these poets. Now, the man that chose these things, was he a +jaundiced kind of person, very sad and sorry?" + +"Quite the contrary. I should say he's as cheerful as a man may be who +isn't a fool." + +Val looked at him a moment. + +"Then, I say it's a good thing there are women in the world." She had +forgotten the third person for the moment, forgotten that Julia, too, +professed to like things "blubbery." Even when she remembered, she only +clapped the book to and said: "Oh, I shall be _so_ late!" + +"I envy you your walk." Julia tilted up her round chin, catching in her +loose golden hair the sunlight that filtered through the fresh green +maple leaves. + +"I'm going up on the Hill; you'd both of you better come." + +"Gracious! we'd be killed if we did." + +"Yes, _indeed_," agreed Val, with conviction. It would be too dreadful +to have Julia tacked on to them to-day. What _was_ Ethan thinking of? + +"I've come back from Sunday-school to take my mother to church; but +there might be time for a _little_ walk afterwards." Julia's air was +charmingly wistful. + +"Well, come towards Plymouth Hill," said Ethan. + +If it was anybody else, thought Val, angrily, it would have to be called +flirting. Julia, too, was undoubtedly "making eyes." Oh, it was +disgraceful! + +"I don't believe, after all, there'll be time before dinner," Miss Otway +was saying. + +"She knows perfectly well she's going to make time," thought Val, and +then--oh, dear! oh, dear! what was becoming of her old affection for her +friend? + +They had said "Good-bye," and walked on in silence for a few moments. +She noticed with a passion of resentment that, since leaving Julia, the +cloud had settled again on her cousin's face. + +"Since I'm going away so soon, I think I ought to say--" he began +presently, and stopped. + +"Say what?" + +"That Harry Wilbur has taken me into his confidence." + +Val turned away her head. + +"First-rate fellow, Wilbur." Another pause. "Fact is, he is one in a +thousand." + +"He's very good, but he isn't interesting." + +"I think he is, you know; and so did Uncle John. I believe your father +would have liked--" + +"Do _you_ like talking like this to me?" Val demanded, darkly, +"or"--with a ray of hope--"are you being a martyr?" + +"Something of a martyr, perhaps," he said, smiling in spite of himself. + +"Oh, well, that's all right, just for once." + +"For once?" + +"Yes; please don't do it again. I can admire it--_once_, but I can't be +of any help. I suppose it's because of what my father told you that you +said that--about--love." + +"What did I say?" + +"That it was the saddest of all." + +"I'm afraid the reason is deeper than any your father gave." + +She looked up baffled. + +"At least, it's because of what my father said that you--that you--began +about Harry Wilbur." + +"Well, perhaps." + +"I'm very much disappointed in you." + +"I'm very sorry." + +"I thought you were more--understanding. If you had known my father +better," she continued, with all-unconscious irony, "you wouldn't have +minded him a bit. It was just a theory." + +"Ah, my child, it isn't a theory that we're first cousins." + +The note of finality in the low voice pierced her through and through. + +"But plenty of people--" she burst out; and then one by one her father's +arguments and menaces, like curses, came back to roost. "If we rebel +against that law, we and our innocent children are punished," she seemed +to hear him say. + +They walked on some time without speaking. Twice Ethan glanced down at +the face beside him. For all its profound trouble, it was not the face +of one defeated. He drew a perverse pleasure from the observation. +Curiosity had from the first played no small part in the charm his +cousin cast about him. What would she do under such and such conditions? +And, meanwhile, what new longing, what new pain, that mutinous little +face had planted in his heart! "I have never kissed her," he kept +thinking as he looked at her mouth. "Has Wilbur ever kissed her?" The +idea was revolting. He put it from him. He thought of the people that +never have children. Suppose-- He looked down at her again. This time he +caught her eye, and she flushed hotly. He had no need of speech to +assure him they had been thinking along the same lines. + +"Of course," said Val, with an obvious effort, "I ought to behave as if +I didn't understand what's involved. Any _nice_ girl would pretend +she--" Her voice got tangled and lost in a dry little sob; but she burst +out again under her breath: "Oh, they aren't like _me_--the nice girls. +Nobody ever cared so much as I do. Everything's different when +you--when you care like this." + +His heart contracted sharply. Had this come into his life only to go and +leave him stricken in poverty? Under the girl's extravagance of speech +was a richness of nature that gave her fierce young words authority. +This primitive, unfaltering passion, naked and unashamed, was not only +beautiful in his eyes with a kind of pagan splendor, but it soothed and +satisfied his weary, doubting spirit. For the moment it carried his +questioning down its swift current, making of his fears a mock, and +whirling his heavy doubts like straws. And yet he kept a vigilant watch +upon himself. With a man's abiding fear of being ridiculous, he was +uncomfortably conscious of the little group of belated church-goers +turning into St. Thomas's from Market Street, not so hurried but they +might notice Val's excited face. To his companion, in her absorption, +these acquaintances had been thin air. + +"I dare say my father knew that, to many a girl, it wouldn't really +matter much whether she married Harry Wilbur, or any other nice +convenient person; but to _me_--" + +"Come down this street," Ethan said. "You don't want to get into that +mob." + +He felt himself to be in one of those positions where to turn left or +right, to go forward or go back, is equally to find offence and +suffering. "It doesn't matter about me; I must think of her," he said to +himself. At all hazards he must not forget that the girl at his side was +little more than a child. He could neither explain to her why he was +bound in honor to leave her, nor must he leave her with any haunting +memory of the pain this going cost him. She had turned obediently when +he suggested the side-street. + +"Oh, I'm certain of it"--she brought one tight-clinched hand with a +quick movement to her breast--"nobody ever cared like this before. Just +look at their faces." + +She stopped on the corner, eying, with a kind of impersonal disdain, the +people that passed up the church-steps. + +"You can see from their faces they've never cared--like this." + +"Come," said Ethan, nervously, "they'll wonder why we are hanging +about." + +"Most people are only half alive," she said, walking on; "they don't +feel, they don't hear, they don't see, they don't even smell." + +Ethan began to laugh almost hysterically. + +"They can't turn such unexpected corners, anyhow," he said. + +His laughter seemed a little to clear the atmosphere. + +"You don't believe?" she inquired. "No, I suppose people _wouldn't_ +believe. But I've felt quite dizzy with joy at smelling hay after a +rain. Heliotrope makes me want to laugh and sing. Violets make me feel +meek and wistful; but they all _do_ something to me. You, now, simply +dislike the pungent smell of marigolds. I feel it stick into me like a +kind of goad. But I oughtn't to tell anybody." She sighed. + +"Why not?" + +"Even you laughed." + +"Forgive me, dear." + +For the "dear" sake she smiled up at him, thrilling. + +"Oh, I forgive you, though I don't much like the idea of having told +you--even that much." + +"What nonsense! You must tell me everything." + +"Must I?" She moved closer to his side. "Only I should like you to have +a good opinion of me--and--well, to care so much about smell, I'm +afraid, is very vulgar." + +"Oh, I don't think so." + +"Novelists do. They are ready to tell you her hearing was 'most +sensitive,' and all about his 'eagle eye,' that nothing escaped, but +they are too refined to say nothing escaped the heroine's nose. Your +friends the poets, too, have a very low opinion of smell. Of course, if +I could always remember to call it 'fragrance,' it would be better, but +I don't always mean fragrance." + +"No, no," he laughed. "I admit that smell used to be the poor relation +of the senses, and was kept decently in the background; but over in +France _nous avons change tout cela_." + +"Oh, well, that's all right, then." + +"You aren't going to church?" + +"Of course not." + +"It's so ugly here. Shall we turn back and go up on the Hill?" + +"No. Yes." (They could come down before the Presbyterian Church was +out.) "Let's walk very fast." + +They talked little on the way, but neither of them noticed the fact. +They were approaching that point where _nur das reine Zusammensein_ was +interchange enough. From the Dug Road they turned into the ravine. Ethan +caught her by the hand, and they scrambled breathless to the top. + +"Let's rest here," he said. + +Val sat down under the elder-bush that grew in the cleft of the Hill. +She looked up at him smiling, and then turned away her conscious eyes. +Instead of sitting down, he stood with his hands in his pockets, looking +at her with a sense of vague uneasiness behind the tingling in his +blood. + +"I suppose you know that I ought to have taken you home after your flat +refusal to go to church?" + +"You aren't my master--yet." + +"Yes, I am." + +The blood flew to her face obedient to the call. + +"Yes," she said, slowly, "you are." + +He turned away, cursing his traitor tongue. + +"I've imposed upon you," he said, after a moment, flinging himself down +on the grass a little distance off--"imposed upon you frightfully, if +I've made you believe that. I'm far enough from being even master of +myself." + +"Too late to try to patch it up now," she said; "the murder's out." + +He studied her. + +"I suppose you think you know me?" + +She smiled confidently. + +"You don't. I'm compounded of all the things that are most abhorrent to +you." + +Still she smiled. The unconscious passion in the young eyes warmed his +blood like wine. He moved a little nearer to her, and the mere movement +broke the spell. The physical obviousness of the action stung him into +self-criticism, self-contempt; and then as he turned his face away from +his cousin's magnet eyes, he fell to criticising his self-criticism. Why +couldn't he take things simply, naturally, as Val did? Vain ambition! He +must submit to seeing, always and always, the skeleton under the fair +flesh, the end from the beginning. + +"You are mistaken about me," he said. "I look out upon a world eternally +different from the world you see." + +"What's it like?" + +"I hope you'll never quite realize." + +"Oh, I shall; but I sha'n't mind." + +"I might be doing you the best service in my power if I gave you a +notion of how _much_ you'd mind." + +"I give you leave." + +He looked into the tender, happy eyes, and, "I haven't the heart," he +said. "After all, it may not be necessary for you to lower your opinion +of the world. It will, perhaps, do if you merely modify your opinion of +me." + +"Don't you see I can't do that?" + +"Oh yes, you can." He pulled himself together and sat up. "You're at +bottom such a rational creature. You've only to realize I'm a dreadful +fraud. I've talked about--you'd be sure to find me out some time, so I +may as well make a clean breast of it--" + +"It isn't anything you've ever _said_, that I depend upon." + +"Oh, really!" + +He threw back his head and laughed. + +"It's partly just the look of you, but it's most of all just--just that +I'm certain no one in the world is so kind and brave--" + +"I brave! You poor child!" + +"Yes, and kind, deep down to the core," she said, with beaming eyes. "I +know it by your voice, and by the way you feel everybody else's +feeling. That's something like me: I feel, too, but it doesn't make me +kind." + +"Neither does it me. I'm a mass of deception. I put on a solemn look, +and you think I'm sympathizing. I'm not: I'm actively engaged in +despising the universe." + +"That's because your standards are so high." + +He laughed out an ironic "_Exactly!_" + +"You make other people seem about so high." She held an out-stretched +hand a few inches above the grass, dropped it, and, leaning forward upon +it, said, with a quick-drawn breath: "It's been so exciting for us all +here, knowing you. It's been like knowing Robert Bruce or Richard +Coeur de Lion--" + +"Oh, very like Richard Coeur de Lion especially." + +"Just what _I_ say, particularly when you put on that black look and +your eyes burn. I know then you'd have the courage for _anything_!" + +The whimsical amusement died out of his face. + +"I told you I'd taken you in. I'm a mortal coward!" + +"_You?_" + +He nodded, looking off down the ravine. + +"I'm afraid of death. I'm even more afraid of life." + +They were only obscure phrases in her ears. + +"I know you're afraid of the dark," she said, smiling gently, "but only +when I'm not there. You see--I must be there." + +"Poor little cousin! Lucky for you that Fate and your father have +settled that you can't be 'there.'" + +"I settle things for myself," she said, hotly; "and _don't_ call me +little cousin." + +"Why not?" + +"It seems to cut me down to childhood. Besides"--she stood up--"I'm +really very tall, and I've heard enough about being a cousin." + +"You hardened optimist!" He lay on his back with his hands clasped +behind his head, and looked up at the tall, slight figure of the girl. +"You're actually ready to pit yourself against the laws of the universe, +and expect not to suffer for it. Do you know that your invincible +belief that _you_, at least, were meant to be happy, is the most +pathetic thing I've found in the world?" + +"I'm not in the very least pathetic," she said, with deep indignation. + +"Shouldn't wonder if it would be always like that with you," he went on, +unmoved. "Stark inability to comprehend personal misfortune! Ruin will +rattle about your ears--you'll believe blindly it's somehow for the +best. How like life's diabolical ingenuity that just the man I am should +have come across just the girl you are!" + +"Thank you, most particularly. Life and I are both obliged." + +"Of course, you've read that last will and testament--the one your +father wrote--" + +"No; haven't asked for it. Grandma hasn't mentioned it." + +"Ah! She probably would if she knew--" + +"You may be sure," Val interrupted, "my father doesn't think those +hideous black thoughts now." + +"Ah, yes, I'm sure enough of that." + +"You are?" + +"Oh yes--he's done with all that now." + +"Then why on earth should _we_ go on--" + +"We're not dead, my dear." + +"You don't mean--" + +She looked at him with horror-filled eyes. + +"What's the matter?" + +"You--" But she couldn't bring the awful doubt to birth. That any one in +her own range of experience should be heard to hint that the dead were +done with thinking! Not that a mythical person in a book, but some one +she knew, should be found saying calmly that he had abandoned hope of +the life to come! "My father," she whispered, coming a trace nearer, +"did he ever say he didn't believe in immortality? No! no! he couldn't. +But did he ever tell you he wasn't _sure_?" + +"How can any one be sure?" + +"How can you bear to live if you're not sure?" she cried. + +He stared at her in astonishment, forgetting Mrs. Gano's saying, "The +one Christian tenet I am satisfied Val holds is the doctrine of the +Resurrection." + +"I thought you said your father talked quite freely to you." + +The girl grasped the slender branches of the elder-bush. + +"Then there _are_ people, and I know them, who don't believe in +immortality." + +The world seemed to swim. As she lifted up her dazed eyes, she saw a +green-clad figure lingering disconsolately along the brow of the hill. +Another instant Julia and she had recognized each other. + +"Not to believe in immortality!" she repeated, as though she had never +heard of the idea before. "Then, for such people it's all this +life--_this_ life. They can't afford to miss anything here; it's their +only chance. Do you hear, cousin Ethan? This life--this life may be +all." + +On an uncontrollable impulse he seized her hand to draw her down beside +him. + +"Julia's coming," said Val, hurriedly, and advanced to meet her friend. + +"Oh, here you are!" called out the new-comer. "I didn't get to church, +after all. And I've a message from my father," she said to Ethan, as he +came forward. "He wants you to come to supper to-night to meet Senator +Green." + + +When Val and Ethan got home late for dinner, they were met in the hall +by Mrs. Gano. + +"Lo! she comes, 'with high looks like the King of Assyria,'" Ethan +quoted. + +Mrs. Gano levelled an unmistakably cold stare at the culprits. + +"Emmeline tells me you were not in church." + +"No; we were late," said Ethan. When Val had run up-stairs to take off +her things: "You must forgive me this once," he added, speaking low, +"for I'm going away to-morrow." + + +He had no word alone with his cousin till the next morning. Nothing +further had been said about his going, but his trunk was packed and the +carriage ordered. He found Val sitting alone in the parlor, in a corner +of the sofa by the window. + +"What are you doing here?" he said, shutting the door. + +"Just thinking." + +"Don't do that, such a bad habit." + +"Oh, I'm just trying to get accustomed to realizing there are people who +believe"--she spread out her hands and let them fall--"this is all." + +"Don't bother about such people," he said, sitting down. + +Val, usually so ready of tongue, was seized upon by silence. Ethan, too, +sat speechless, struggling with the sense of keen-edged wretchedness +that pressed knife-like on his heart. How was he to say good-bye? +and--with a long look down the road--how was he to live afterwards? +She--oh, she would console herself; she was very young. But for him ... +the immense dead weight of life pressed intolerably hard. The futility +of it extinguished the very sun. Presently, as they sat there so silent, +Val bowed her head, hiding her face in her hands. It shot through him +that some realization had come to her of the unseen forces that make of +us their sport--some vision of the bitter absurdity of the pigmy human +lot we make such a pother about. + +The sense of a vision shared, of a common pain, merged swiftly into +physical yearning. The physical yearning cried aloud for assurance that +it, too, was "common." He looked down upon the bowed head and the little +white nape of her neck. He noticed how out of the upturned swaths of +firm-bound hair the wild love-locks were falling--locks so fine that +they looked like faint wavy shadows falling over the ears. + +Had she any faintest notion of the hunger in him that would not let him +sleep? As he bent over her the white neck was suffused with rose. Ah, +she knew! The traitor blood had signalled him behind her back. + +"Kiss me, dear," he whispered. Had she heard? The little ears glowed +scarlet. "Dear--" He slipped his hand under her chin, and turned her +face to him. The curtaining lids still hid her eyes, but the lashes +quivered, and that odd little pulse in her upper lip, that was beating, +too, "piteously," he said to himself. "Look at me, dear. Val, open your +eyes, I say." + +She did. + +It was like a shaft of sunshine; the rapture of the look startled him. +He would have been prepared for tears, but this cloudless joy-- + +Ah, she was very young! + +"Kiss me, child." + +He did not bend towards her. She should come to him for this last +greeting that was the first as well. + +The radiant face, flushing, paling, came closer. He felt the breath from +out her parted lips. + +But the sweetness of her nearness could not for him wipe out the fact +that before them lay parting and long heartache. + +"Good-bye," he said, brokenly. + +She drew back before the kiss was more than inhaled. + +"Good-bye!" she echoed. "No; I will never kiss you 'good-bye'" She freed +herself from his prisoning arms. "Never, never, never!" She sprang up. +"To get that kiss from me you must be lying dead." + +And she fled out of the room. + +A little later he made his farewells to the assembled household in the +hall. Having kissed Emmie, he turned to Val. + +She grasped his hand as she averted her white face, whispering: + +"I will kiss you when you come again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +After Ethan had gone, life seemed to stand still for a long, long time. +The only real events were his letters, not to Val, although she had +written him the very night after he went away. His letters were all +addressed to her grandmother, and yet every syllable seemed to the +girl's mind to be meant for herself--to be charged with subtle meaning, +intelligible to no one else. + +At Christmas he wrote the two girls a single perfunctory page of +cousinly greeting that arrived with his presents, a couple of Russian +silver belts. But this letter was addressed to Val, and she would not +open it till she was alone. Inside was an enclosure in a separate +envelope: + + + "DEAR COUSIN VAL,--Forgive me for not answering your letter. It + would be nice of you to send me a line, now and then, to tell me + how things go on at the Fort, and whether I can do anything for + anybody there. I enclose cheque. + + "Your affectionate cousin, ETHAN GANO." + + +"'Cousin!' 'cousin!' forever 'cousin!'" ejaculated the girl; and she +answered him the same day: + + + "DEAR ETHAN,--Thank you for the beautiful belt, but I do not + forgive you for not answering my letter. Still, I will do anything + in reason that you ask me if you don't ever call me cousin again." + + +And then followed an account of her surreptitious household +expenditures. He answered early in the New Year: + + + "DEAR VAL,--I obey your mandate, and will not hereafter own you for + a cousin. I believe that by strenuous wishing you could almost + think yourself out of the relationship." + + + "I am very sure I could" [she wrote back] "if you would let me." + + +That letter, and several to follow, elicited nothing. She ate her heart +out with humiliation and with longing, and then salved the hurt with +dreams. Her best times were when she was quite alone, in the dark of the +night or early in the morning. Regularly as she rose up, or lay down to +sleep, she kissed the face of the little watch he had given her. +Sometimes, under the spell of an old and long-abandoned habit, she would +slip to her knees by the bedside. But instead of any prayer, old or new, +she would fling wide her arms, crying under her breath: "How long, O +Lord--how long?" Never in her blackest hour did she believe there was +worse in store for her than waiting. + +In a quiet way people came and went at the Fort more than ever before. +Julia and Jerry, when he was home for the vacations, Ernest Halliwell, +and Harry Wilbur in particular, after he had thrown up the fine position +in Boston that Ethan had put in his way--they, and others, trooped in +and out, carrying Val off riding, sleighing, dancing, boating. Harry +Wilbur proposed to her on an average of six times a year, and took her +smiling and affectionate refusal for mere postponement. It was to Val a +life of waiting, but not of inaction. + +Mrs. Gano, growing feebler and feebler, had allowed her eldest +grand-daughter (as a special mark of favor, be it understood, and merely +to "teach her how") to take the reins of household management. Yet from +the royal elevation of the great four-poster, where she now spent most +of her time, did Mrs. Gano rule the house as absolutely as before. Val, +however, was not content to do merely the necessary, the expected. To +Mrs. Gano's quiet satisfaction, the girl developed a passion for careful +household government. Not only were none of Mrs. Gano's directions +slighted with Val at the helm, but she bettered her instructions, +discreetly not taking credit. Privately she kept expense books, learned +cooking--yes, and laughed to think of her old detestation of it. With +Venie's help she made cretonne covers for the furniture, and seemed to +renew all things by the magic of her industrious hands, for most of +Ethan's money had to lie at the bank out of very fear. She brought down +old lamps and ancient household gods from the attic and made "effects" +with them. She did not care about gardening, any more than she cared +about cooking, but she hated the neglected, weed-grown borders under the +windows. So she cleared and made them blossom again, filled the house +with flowers, and thought a thousand times: "If he comes to-day he will +find it beautiful." + +It would not be true to suppose that this quest for beauty in such a +barren field was satisfying. It filled in the time. It was part of the +endless satisfaction of life that the world was full of so many things +to do "by the way." She had her days of fierce anger at the delays, the +vagueness of the future, the fear of the new interests that must be +filling Ethan's life. + +After nearly a year had gone by, he answered one of her letters. She +acknowledged the civility in such caustic fashion that he was piqued to +reply by return of post. And so started on its uneven course that +interchange of letters that was soon the greatest joy of her existence +and the permanent stuff of her dreams. It gave her a feeling of having a +fresh hold on him. She knew where he was now, and something of what he +thought and did. Her own days were lived twice over, that he might share +them, only the time she re-lived on paper was more vivid, more +significant than the actual hours as they sped. Life took on such an +edge in the process of being presented to Ethan that the girl wondered +sometimes to find she enjoyed telling about the dance or picnic a +thousand-fold more keenly than she had cared about the thing itself. At +first she wrote flippantly, touching chiefly on the humors of the New +Plymouth life; and when he took to sending her books, she bade him keep +all the improving ones to himself. A certain English novel very much in +vogue she promptly returned. + +"If I want to read political economy, I've got my father's books. I like +a story to be about love, and to end happily. If you think of sending me +another novel, remember _I like plenty of orange-blossoms, not little +bits of brain_." But oddly enough, she had no rooted objection to +reading aloud to her grandmother any non-religious book, however +serious. Val found that many of these dignified tomes were not as dull +as you might think; but for long she laid the credit to Mrs. Gano's +door. It was an old story that that lady had a way of making things seem +interesting. Val was always privately grateful, even touched, at being +let off from the religious readings. Once when Mrs. Gano was recovering +from an illness, Val, sitting at the bedside, was visited by a fresh +sense of her growing comradeship, even her growing dependence upon that +alert and sympathetic mind. In a softened mood she fell to thinking how +ready her grandmother had always been to put the worked book-marks in +her Church histories and doctrinal treatises, and listen to Val read +biography and travel aloud, all the while letting the girl feel that she +was not only adding to the "common stock of harmless pleasure," but was +sparing the older eyes. + +"You are very good to me," Val said, leaning her head against the +"painted calico" coverlid. It made her happy to feel the long, thin hand +upon her hair. She had never got over the old childish sense of its +being a proud thing to receive a mark of favor at those hands. + +"Shall we read?" said the girl, presently. + +"If you like." + +In a flush of generous feeling, she reached out and took up _Literature +and Dogma_ from the table at the bedside. + +"What's that?" asked Mrs. Gano, narrowing her eyes. + +Val told her. + +"Oh no"--she sat up and looked round--"I sent to the library after +Chevalier Bunsen for you and me." + +"Let me read you this. You mustn't always think about what I like." + +"Nonsense, child; Arnold's book would bore you, and you'd read it so it +would bore me. Find Bunsen." + +"You let Emmie read you this." + +"Emmeline's different. Find Bunsen. You'll like Bunsen." + +"Why do you suppose I have such a rage for biographies?" Val demanded, a +shade anxiously. + +"Partly because you're young." + +"Emmie's younger still." + +Mrs. Gano smiled and shook her head enigmatically. + +"Young, and more interested in people, as yet, than in ideas." + +"That has a very poor sound--like the personal column of a newspaper." + +"Oh, it's natural enough. The walls of your own room tell the same +story--all faces." + +"Yes, but to hang up in your bedroom, what else is there?" + +Mrs. Gano smiled, and then half whimsically: + +"I don't say there's any special advantage in it, but I've always had a +liking for the 'flower pieces' we painted in our youth, and for +landscapes and marine views." + +"Oh, _those_--" + +"Exactly!" and the older woman laughed outright. + +"Well, I'm sure," said Val, eager to defend herself, "cousin Ethan says +that to the American, to the unjaded mind the wide world over, it is the +'life' in any picture or description that interests and fixes itself in +the memory. A vast amount is said and written about St. Mark's in +Venice. But in how many minds does it stand a beautiful and stately +background for flights of pigeons to wheel and circle against, or to +settle down before, on friendly terms with the populace? Not the glories +of architecture, but the brief and gentle life of doves, makes the +picture _vital_ in the mind." + +"Ah, and when did Ethan say all that?" + +"When--while you were ill I had a letter from him." + +"Oh, indeed!" She turned with an indescribable look and settled down +among the pillows. + +"Shall I get the letter and read it to you?" said Val, to her own +surprise and most unwillingly, but acting under a sense of strong +coercion. + +"As you please," said the wily old woman. "Have a look for Bunsen, +too." + +Val absented herself long enough, looking for Bunsen, to adapt Ethan's +letter for a grandmother's ears. It had been no love-letter even in its +original form, but it unconsciously paved the way for one and more to +follow. Val wrote to her cousin that night: + + + "I have usually read your letters to the family, and think it would + be better to go on doing so. It's not that my grandmother tries to + make me. When I offer to, she says, 'As you please, my dear,' but I + have a horrid, uncomfortable feeling if I don't. She seems to be + looking through me into the back of my spine, to see why I want to + keep the letter to myself. It's funny, but when I don't show it to + her she makes me think she has divined not only all there was in it + that I didn't want to show her, but a _great deal more_. It's that + I resent most. So, if you want to say something you don't want her + to see (about the money, you know, and things like that), just put + a tiny check opposite the stamp-corner, and I'll know there's an + enclosure meant only for me." + + +It was these "enclosures" that worked the mischief. They were a standing +invitation to say things too intimate for other eyes. Brief and discreet +at first, and dealing with figures, they expanded as time went on, till +they had to be written finely on foreign note, that the discrepancy +between the letter's bulk when brought to the front door, and the letter +as it appeared in the family circle up-stairs, should not challenge +attention. Mrs. Gano's confinement to her room made the matter easy. +Only the blind and unobservant Emmie ever saw the letter when it came. +If it bore the significant check, it was opened alone; if not, the seal +was ostentatiously broken under the vigilant eye. It was sure to be an +exciting hour. Great preparations preceded: a propping up of pillows, +and mending of the fire, if it were winter, that the reading and +inevitable discussion might be uninterrupted; a proper arrangement of +light and general careful "setting of the scene." Emmie, with soft eyes +shining, sitting demurely by in the little green chair that had been +hers--her father's, too, when a child--and Val close to the bedside, +reading with beating heart and a careful emphasis (for she was scolded +else) the accounts of Ethan's varied life--accounts punctuated by +comment, laughter, and sometimes by scathing disapproval. + +"I'd tell him, if I were you," Mrs. Gano would say, sitting up with +sudden vigor; and the opinion she would express seemed frequently too +provocative and "pat" to be dispensed with. Val would unblushingly annex +it, and reap her reward in Ethan's spirited rejoinder, which in turn +never failed to "draw" Mrs. Gano. That lady was, perhaps, not a little +diverted at playing a part in the game; conscious, too, beyond a doubt, +that with a girl like Val to deal with it was probably a question of +accepting the correspondence and sharing in its entertainment, or +knowing that it went on without her having power to direct or color it. +It was so the correspondence (all save the "enclosures") came to be +family property, for Val would bring in her reply, that she might be +approved for her line of argument, and that she might hear the keen +enjoyment of that laugh which, unconsciously, she "played for" as much +as any comedian ever did. + +"I corresponded with several gentlemen when I was young," Mrs. Gano once +said. "I hear the fashion is going out. It is a pity. A good letter is +too good a thing for the world to lose." + +Val burned with a wild desire to show the "enclosures," for they were +the best of all. Her grandmother would rage, but she couldn't help +appreciating them, the girl said to herself, with a mixture of terror at +the thought, and of longing to make the confidence. It had come to be +such a habit to share things, to "try" them against the steel of that +wit and judgment, that she was conscious of an incompleteness of +enjoyment in keeping any specially good thing to herself. If it were a +book--"No," she would say, "I'll save this for our evenings"; and even +if in a dull or mediocre page some one phrase or happy word shone out, +she would fly up-stairs, and at the foot of that four-posted throne lay +down the treasure-trove, getting in return a finer zest and a truer +value. + +If, as the time went on, Ethan had hours of feeling that his continued +absence from the Fort was a piece of fantastic self-sacrifice which he +would end by boarding the next train, Mrs. Gano no less was minded, more +than once, to yield to her hunger for a sight of him. The thought of the +little boy Ethan who had begged that the Fort might be his home, even +more than the thought of the man, tugged at her heart-strings. Would she +die before seeing her only grandson again? If in one of these moments +Ethan had himself suggested coming, she would have welcomed him with +open arms. Meanwhile she waited for the news that must be on the +way--the news of his marriage. + +Even in "enclosures" to her cousin, Val's only reference to that +"barrier," which she would not admit, was characteristically by way of a +gibe. + + + "We were talking the other day at the Otways'" [she wrote] "about + its being rather funny to think my grandmother was my great-aunt + and my father was my cousin--my mother, too, and my sister as well, + all cousins. Emmie and I gathered that, according to the popular + superstition, we ought by rights to have very few wits, or only one + arm or a piece of a leg. Emmie and I assured each other on the way + home that no reflection can be cast upon our arms and legs, but we + agreed that we must take _great_ care that we are not idiots; so + you may, after all, send me a few improving books." + + +It was at the end of a brief visit to Cincinnati that Ethan's strongest +temptation assailed him. It came in the commonplace form of a photograph +in a forwarded letter from Val. Partly the picture, but, even more, +something of the girl's eager spirit that had got between the lines of +the letter, something unsaid, yet eloquent, of her unexpected power of +holding out, took sudden hold on him, made his nerves tingle as if by a +bodily contact. There she was, vivid as she had been for so many +yesterdays, to-day triumphant, irresistible. He must go--he must go to +her! He had been attempting more than he had strength to carry through. +He flung some things into a valise and went down to the station. Train +just gone--another in an hour and ten minutes. He got his ticket and +bought papers and magazines. In the _Enquirer_ the report of an address +before the Medical Congress caught his eye. The famous Dr. Gage had been +haranguing his colleagues upon the supposed deterioration of the +American race, because the birth-rate among the well-to-do classes was +lamentably low, the reason being that more and more the women of these +classes shrank from motherhood. In the course of his address Dr. Gage +made a passing reference to his forthcoming work on _Consanguineous +Marriage_. + +In the next column, among the hotel arrivals, it appeared that the great +doctor was registered at the Burnet House. Ethan took out his watch. +"Why not? There's time." He jumped into the nearest carriage and drove +to the hotel. + +In something over an hour he returned, gave up his New Plymouth ticket, +and got one for the afternoon express to New York. Nobody at the Fort +ever knew how near Ethan had been to taking them by surprise. + + +The Otways always went away in the hot weather. The summer that Val was +twenty-two, Julia and her family went to the Jersey coast for their +holiday. There, at Long Branch, they found Ethan. Both he and Julia +mentioned the fact in their letters, and Val tried to think the meetings +as casual and unimportant as they looked on paper; but it was the +hardest summer she had known. + +Besides the fact that Julia was enjoying opportunities of seeing Ethan +denied to Val, there was matter in her letters even more +disturbing--references to Mr. Gano's constant appearance in the train of +a young and wealthy widow who had a house at Long Branch. This lady, +Julia wrote, was known to have been one of a party Mr. Gano had taken +yachting before coming to Long Branch. Val had heard about that party +from her cousin, but no mention of Mrs. Suydam. The lady was much in +Val's thoughts. At last, upon an exasperated reference in one of Julia's +letters to Mr. Gano's "Circe," Val wrote to him: "Tell me something +about this Mrs. Suydam, whom you have never once mentioned, although you +see so much of her." + +Ethan answered with a brief biographical sketch of the lady, carefully +edited; for, in truth, Adelaide Suydam had led an eventful existence, +albeit keeping her hold on society by virtue of her money and her good +old Knickerbocker origin. Of other virtue she was held to have no +embarrassing amount. But she was a highly accomplished person, handsome, +daring, and obviously determined to make life interesting to Ethan Gano. + +Her added and special attraction for him lay in his discovery that she +had no design to marry him; but he was presently made aware that she +meant none the less to absorb him. A little puzzled, and a good deal +intrigued by her, he returned from the yachting trip very much under her +spell. She had skilfully arranged the Long Branch episode for the +crowning victory. + +It may have been the mere act of writing about her, however +discreetly--seeing her perforce through Val's eyes for a moment--that +brought about the recoil. The very discretion he found himself obliged +to employ convicted him, and opened wide a window on the future. A +glimpse of Val through it--however distant, unattainable--brought the +prospect into truer perspective for him. He saw less of the Suydam, and +went to the Otways to hear about Val. + +"Circe" herself, not understanding the situation, and being far too +adroit to underline her temporary defeat by putting questions, believed +the handsome Julia Otway was the distracting influence. She arranged an +exodus to Mount Desert. A friend had lent her a house there. "Long +Branch was getting stupider and vulgarer every year--it was +intolerable!" She found to her dismay that Mr. Gano was not inclined to +take this view. It was then she realized that she was tired, run down, +even a little ill. "Would Mr. Gano take her in his yacht to Bar Harbor? +He needn't stay if he really preferred Long Branch, but it would be a +charity," etc. Well she knew he was the kind of man to find just the +appeal she made a hard one to withstand. Before he quite realized the +full significance of the scheme, he had promised she should go round by +sea. By the time he "understood," she had practised her arts with such +success that he no longer wanted to alter the course she set. "Circe" +saw herself on the point of being the captain's captain. + +They were to start the next day, accompanied by Mrs. Suydam's very +amenable half-sister. Ethan was going over the yacht to see that all was +in readiness. Rummaging through one of the inconveniently full drawers +in his cabin, he threw out on the floor a number of superfluous things +to be carried away. In impatient haste he tossed out some old novels, +caps, a blazer, a roll of moth-eaten bunting. "Wait a minute--isn't +that--" He stooped and picked the bunting up. It unrolled--a blue flag, +bearing the name "Valeria" in white letters. He stood with the end in +his hand, staring at it. It had been in the bottom drawer since the day, +four years before, when he had thrust it out of sight after getting that +letter from Mrs. Gano: "I do not wish you to call your yacht 'Valeria.' +There are plenty of other names without using that of an unmarried +girl." + +He remembered his old satisfaction in thinking how, under the new paint +as well as in the cabin drawer, the boat still bore the forbidden name, +faithful to the first allegiance. He had encouraged Val to call the +yacht hers in her letters, and the habit had clung to them both. And now +to-day, of all days, this blue flag comes out of hiding and goes +flaunting along the floor! It was as if Val herself had walked into his +cabin, to reassert her right, to keep "her" ship--that she never yet had +sailed in, and most likely never would--to keep it, notwithstanding, +free from profanation. + +He went direct to Mrs. Suydam's. She had gone for a drive. Mrs. Ford, +her sister, was also out. Only Mr. Ford was at home. Ethan found that +gentleman in the billiard-room, and explained that he had a sudden need +to go to California--was, in point of fact, taking the night train. Mr. +Ford was an experienced yachtsman; would he look after the ladies, ask +whom he liked? etc. It was all arranged in ten minutes, and Ethan was on +his way to the Pacific Coast before Mrs. Suydam had heard of the failure +of her plan. Had it been the sudden effect of looking at the little +drama through Val's eyes that had made him sicken and shrink from the +denouement? Or was he simply once again (as had happened before in that +first year after parting from Val) taking flight from a temptation that +would have interposed an evil memory between him and--the marriage that +he had determined should never be? + + +For the first time in her life the New Plymouth gayeties seemed to Val +insignificant, even irritating. She rejoiced that Mrs. Gano was so much +better that she let Val drive her out almost daily. They were more than +ever together, Emmie being absorbed by her church and charity work. One +day, driving back into the town, Val was laughing delightfully at her +grandmother's caustic remarks upon the "flabby philanthropy" of a +certain local society. They passed some soldiers on parade, and a +military band playing "Marching Through Georgia." Mrs. Gano's face +changed, and, to Val's amazement, she began to weep. Her grandmother! +who, since Val was a child, had said at times when other people cried +and marvelled that Mrs. Gano sat dry-eyed, "My tears lie very deep, and +most of them I shed before you were born!" This sudden gust of sore +weeping that shook her to-day stirred the young girl's pulses with a +shamed excitement, an obscure gladness. _She_ could feel, too, then, +even yet, with passion and unrestraint. But the girl looked away, and +presently the shaken voice said: + +"The poor old South! Did you see the ragged flag, my dear?" + +"Yes, I saw. We must have made a good fight that day." + +The "we" on the lips of one born after the war, who never had had her +foot in the South, forged a new link. Mrs. Gano had put her hand through +the girl's arm and leaned lightly against the strong young shoulder. + +"One may be proof against a good many things and not be proof against a +tattered flag," she said, half apologetically, and she pulled the +flapping veil across her face. + +The old woman and the young one had drawn together in friendship +absolute. Not that Mrs. Gano developed an angelic complaisance, or Val a +superstitious reverence for the head of the house. They were not merely +the elder and the younger of the same race, but two human beings who, +side by side for many years, had struggled with themselves and with each +other, striking on the flint of character, each knowing at last exactly +when the sparks would fly, and each content to feel that the fire and +the flint were there. + +But if Val Gano were not the most irrational of her sex, how was it she +could live year in, year out, this narrow life, refusing without +misgiving the only apparent ways of escape, waiting for an event that +even the eye of faith might well have wearied looking for, while summer +passed to autumn and winter waned to spring? + +The girl believed, or made herself pretend she believed, that the +longest conceivable term of her waiting was the term of Mrs. Gano's +life. But the truth was even simpler. Val, unfortunately, was one of +those persons who do not easily accept whatever Fate chooses to lay at +their door. She was rather of those who stand ready to turn away the +blind bringer of gifts with the rebuff: "I will have nothing at your +hands but the thing I asked." + +Vain, apparently, for Harry Wilbur, vain for the dashing new-comer, Mr. +Lawrence O'Neil, to think time was working the will of each. Time was +doing nothing so sensible. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +One of the things nobody had been able to get Val to do any more was to +sing. This had been at first set down to the death of her father, and a +special association of him with music. Even Julia shared that view. + +The next spring after the summer the Otways had spent at Long Branch, +the three girls--Julia, Emmie, and Val--sat one chill afternoon on the +hearth-rug before the fire in the blue room. With very buttery fingers +they were eating the last of a great bowl of popcorn. Val, who had +presided over the popping, was losing the becoming flush that occupation +lent her. The years had taken from the face something of its old look of +frankness and love of fun, that had been almost boyish in its +simplicity. The subtler woman-look, the faint suggestion of brooding in +the eyes, had matured the face and lent it meaning. Emmie was the same +pretty creature, a little more fragile than before, whereas Julia was +blooming and bourgeoning into a very handsome woman of somewhat majestic +proportions. Instead of two, she looked five or six years older than +Val's twenty-three years. The brown and choral chine silk Julia wore +this afternoon was turned away at the neck, and a lace fichu carefully +drawn down over the fine bust left visible the prettiest throat in the +world, as well as a little V-shaped space of fair white neck. + +Emmie was tired of the talk of a party to which she was not going. It +was on the night of the choir practice, and, besides, she didn't approve +of dancing. She wiped her buttery fingers on her handkerchief. + +"Let's go down-stairs and try our new hymn," she said, getting up. + +"All right," agreed Julia. + +"You two can, if you like," said Val. + +"You must sing us 'Den lieben langen Tag;' I haven't heard it for +years." + +"Don't care about it any more." Val gathered up and crunched the hard +scorched grains that had remained in the bottom of the bowl. + +"Why not?" + +"It's absurd to try to sing just after eating pop-corn." + +"Nonsense!" said Emmie. "Grandma's reading old letters in the pack-room, +so she won't hear. If you'll put away the corn popper, I'll get the key +of the piano." + +"It's a great pity not to keep up your music," said Julia, as Emmie went +off with the empty bowl. "You'll get hopelessly rusty." + +"I shall never sing a note as long as I live," said Val, "and I wish you +wouldn't bother me about it before people." + +Julia stared at her. + +"You ought to understand without my telling you. It kills me to do it +half and half. I'll forget I ever wanted to have music in my life." + +"You mean, I must never ask you to sing again?" + +"It's the one thing about the whole matter that hurts most. You see," +Val said, with an effort to speak in a commonplace tone, "I'm not +sulking about it, I'm not angry; I've simply wiped off the score." + +"Dear Val, I'm so sorry!" Julia got up and put her arms about her +friend. "I didn't realize-- Oh, dearie, how hard it's been for you all +this time, when you take it like that!" + +"Like what?" + +"So--so quietly, so splendidly," said Julia, vaguely. + +"Oh, you needn't think I'm trying to be a heroine," said Val, a little +defiantly; "it's just that I prefer not being a bungler when I know that +if I'd had half a chance--" She choked suddenly, and flung herself down +before the fire with her face hidden. Julia kneeled beside her, +murmuring sympathy. + +"I think such a lot about my aunt Valeria these days," said Val, +sitting up presently and wiping her eyes. "This was her room, you know." + +Julia nodded, looking round upon the walls. + +"She painted these things, didn't she?" + +"Yes," said Val. "Ain't they awful? It would half kill my grandmother to +hear anybody say that, and yet it's her fault that they're awful. You +know she wouldn't let Aunt Valeria go away and study when she was young. +Sh!" + +Mrs. Gano's voice was heard outside the door calling Emmie to hunt for a +certain portfolio. She came in, looking through her spectacles at some +papers in her hand. She was heavily shawled and wore gloves (as she did +constantly now), and she had an old white Indian scarf over her head. +The broche ends hung down to her knees. She looked up sharply from the +yellowed papers as she came in. The two girls jumped to their feet. Mrs. +Gano greeted Julia cordially. + +"Do you want us to go?" asked Val. "I brought Julia in here because +there was a fire." + +"Certainly don't go," said Mrs. Gano. "I only came in for Valeria's +little desk." + +Val helped to take off the carefully made cover that fitted over it. +Between the cover and the desk was something lying flat, carefully done +up in tissue-paper. Mrs. Gano opened it and smiled, recognizing the +scrawl on the square of card-board. + +"Ah! Valeria's first attempt at a portrait of her father! She was a mere +baby." The old eyes beamed through the gold-bound spectacles, tender +with memory. "Her brother Ethan laughed at her, and said it was more +like the pear-tree than like their father--you see what he meant." She +laughed gently. "But Mr. Gano comforted Valeria, and said, 'It's quite +like enough, my dear. I've no desire to have my daughter a limner.'" + +"Do you know, I can never get over the idea that 'limner' is something +immoral--indecent," said Val. + +Mrs. Gano smiled reflectively. "Neither could your grandfather. That +was the dash of Puritan in him." + +"Oh, but I mean the mere word. You told us that story when we were +children, and I didn't dare to ask; but I was sure it meant something +horrid, like some of the words in the Bible that look quite innocent and +yet mustn't be used in general conversation." + +"Not at all," said Mrs. Gano, with a dignified air. "Your grandfather +was merely agreeing with Dr. Johnson that portrait-painting was an +improper employment for a woman. 'Public practice of any art and staring +in men's faces is very indelicate in a female,'" she quoted, but she +smiled again. "If your grandfather had lived, none of you would ever +have had a drawing lesson. I am more liberal about these things." + +Val flashed a covert look at Julia. John Gano and others had filled in +the dim outlines of Valeria's life, and the things she had left behind +were eloquent in a way their creator never dreamed, and would bitterly +have resented. Mrs. Gano was lifting up the desk. + +"Let me carry it in for you," said Val, preceding her grandmother with +the little rosewood box. + +As she came back Julia heard Val in the hall dismissing poor Emmie and +her piano key with short shrift. She closed the door sharply, and +confronted her friend with ominous eyes. + +"How my grandmother can bear to be so much in that room!" + +"Without a fire on a day like this?" + +"Yes; but anyhow, it's horrible in there." + +"I thought you used to love it when she let you in." + +"Yes, when I was little, and didn't understand. It's full of dilapidated +things that belonged to dead people. Ethan's father's fiddle--smashed. +My father's patent lamps--none of 'em work. Our grandfather's +walking-sticks, very tired-looking, leaning dejected against the wall +under a faded dirty picture of the Baptist college he built--it's a +Roman Catholic hospital now. And then that thing of Aunt +Valeria's--that's the worst of all!" She came nearer, and crouched down +on the rug beside her friend. + +"What do you mean?" + +"A pile of what used to be modelling clay. It's quite black now, but if +you see it in one particular way a face seems to look dimly at you out +of the dust, and, oh! it's the sorrowfullest face I ever saw. It's the +face of somebody who hadn't a chance." + +"What is it like?" + +"My opinion is it's Aunt Valeria's face, but sometimes--sometimes it +looks like me." + +Neither spoke for awhile. Val sat huddled together staring into the +blaze. + +"_She_ used to lie on the rug here before the fire, too." + +The girl threw back her head like one shaking off an evil dream, but her +eye was suddenly arrested. + +"I wonder what she thought of Mazeppa." + +"Mazeppa?" echoed Julia. + +"Yes." The other nodded to the iron bas-relief above the grate. "The +first time I heard father talk about natural law, about lines of least +resistance and all kinds of horrors (ante-natal tendencies and the +rest), I used to think of Mazeppa, and feel I was being bound on the +wild horse of the Past and left to the wolves. But I always knew I +should escape. It troubles me when I remember that Aunt Valeria didn't. +And perhaps she sat here with the same faith I have." She gave a little +shiver and stood up. "No, no; of course we've been utterly different +from the beginning." + +"You've changed in the last two years more than anybody I ever knew." + +Val turned quickly upon her friend. + +"You mean, I'm getting to be like Aunt Valeria?" + +"I don't know; I never saw her. But you--you are getting awfully +civilized." + +She laughed. Val was very grave. + +"Do you remember," Julia went on, "your plan of running away to be a +chorus-girl?" + +"Yes"--the answer rang sharply--"and I would have done it too but that +grandma needed me--" She stopped, with a face suddenly fear-stricken. +"It looks as if I _was_ growing like Aunt Valeria"--she walked up and +down the room with her head caught between her two hands--"but I'm +not--I'm not." + +She stopped before Julia, a prey to the feeling that if she allowed +Julia to think so she _would_ be like Aunt Valeria. She had the sense of +one lying in a trance: that if he does not make a superhuman effort now +and protest effectively he will be buried alive. The girl glanced +excitedly round the room, and felt the old presence egging her on. It +was here that other Valeria had dreamed and tried to work; it was here +she faced defeat--here she died, looking out at dawn to the rampart +hills that had hemmed them both in beyond escape. + +"Don't think I'm the very least like her. I don't want to be a sculptor +or a poet, and that's not like Aunt Valeria. I'm not staying here out of +respect for any silly old family traditions, nor even because my +grandmother needs me. I've been pretending. I'm really staying for +Ethan's sake"--her face grew crimson--"_that's_ not like Aunt Valeria." + +"For Ethan's sake!" echoed her friend. + +"Yes. He made me promise. It's only for a little while I am giving up my +music not because I'm growing civilized, as you imagine, but because I +shall get something I want more, and that's not like Aunt Valeria. And +it doesn't matter who says 'No' to what I want: _I'll have it_--yes, +I'll have it in spite of all the angels in heaven and all the demons in +hell, and _that's_ not like Aunt Valeria!" + +Julia, still sitting on the hearth-rug, had leaned forward, and was +staring at Val with a curious expression. The crouched-together attitude +had caused an envelope the girl had hidden in her bodice to work up to +the bit of bare neck revealed by the low-folded fichu. Val fastened +sharp eyes upon that part of the familiar gray-blue paper where in +Ethan's unmistakable hand she read as much of Julia's last name as +"tway." Val's fixed stare made the other look down. Two guilty hands +flew to her breast. + +"Will you let me see that letter?" said Val. + +"No." + +"You must. I've told you my secret." + +"I didn't ask you to." + +Julia got up. + +"There's something in it you're ashamed to show," said Val. + +"Not at all." + +"How long have you been corresponding with Ethan?" + +"You've no right to cross-question me. I'm going home." + +She moved to the door, and turned as she put her hand on the knob to say +good-bye. The word died on her lips as she saw Val's face. Before Julia +quite realized what was happening, the other had leaped upon her like a +young panther, and was tearing away the fichu at her neck. A short +struggle, and the letter was dragged out of its hiding-place. Val tore +open the door and fled down-stairs, out across the back and round the +wooden L, in at the side-porch, through the kitchen, crying to Jerusha, +"Don't tell Julia where I am!" up the back-stairs, and into an unused +room opening onto the long hall. She locked herself in, and sat down in +the dim light. Every pulse in her body was thumping like a stamp-mill. +She slipped onto her knees before the shrouded window, and with +quivering hands took out of the crumpled envelope several sheets of thin +blue Irish linen-paper closely written. + +"Oh, longer than any of mine!" she wailed, in her sore heart. + +But, stop! it wasn't all one letter. A little note was to apologize to +"Dear Miss Julia" for not answering her two former "charming letters," +and to decline with many thanks the Otways' kind invitation to come and +visit them. + +"The audacity! To visit _them_ indeed!" + +His excuse was the pressure of political engagements. + +"She had to write _two_ charming letters to get this." + +But the postmark was the capital of the State. He was less than two +hours away! The other--the long communication--lacked the first page, +according to the numbering. She turned to the broken sentence at the +beginning: + + + "... realized I was rather too notoriously a 'rich man' to stand + much chance of election, but I was at least a man who could + _afford_ to be defeated, and yet go on doing his level best to + serve his country. I started in, believing that the way to serve + her best was by being a Republican and a Sound Money man. It was + all very well to say my own private interests lay along that line; + I believed the public interest did as well. But I was not satisfied + to be 'run' in blinders by an agent or a committee, pledged to see + nothing but party advantages, pledged to controvert opposing + opinions, however sound or unforeseen. I couldn't help seeing the + other side. That's my special curse, by the way, and will stand + forever between me and effective action. I have been about among + the working-classes and the idle poor. I took nobody's word. I + investigated for myself the trades-unions, the various political + and industrial organizations. I looked into Pullman patriarchal + tyranny and into Carnegie despotism, and recalled the more humane, + more _democratic_, attitude of masters to men in the effete + monarchies abroad. Here, in free America, tyranny stalks naked and + unashamed. The employment of politics for mere private gain, the + abuse of patronage, and in business the war of extermination waged + by trusts and combines--everywhere the right of moneyed might, the + rich playing into the hands of the rich while pretending to serve + the people--all this opened my eyes. I have just come from + Ironville. The strike is not going to be settled so easily, + although the suffering is appalling. The masters mean to starve the + men to death; the men mean to blow the masters to atoms. This is + the _union_ I find in my native land--this the new free brotherhood + of men. Sharks devouring little fishes! + + "What with lawless greed on one side and lawless need on the other, + the outlook frowns. The question of the future isn't silver versus + gold, it isn't Republican against Democrat, nor North against + South, nor East against West, but human dignity and decency against + capitalist slave-drivers and despoilers of the poor. _You_ know the + spirit of fervor and of patriotism that carried me into the + campaign. I tell you I'm sick with disillusionment. + + "I am far more afraid of being elected than of facing defeat. I + have learned that these measures I proposed in such good faith are + half-measures foredoomed to failure. Give me, if you can, some good + reason to believe that this great and prosperous America is not + like to become the devil's drill-ground. Yours very sincerely, + + "ETHAN GANO." + + +"Well, of all the funny letters for a man to write a girl!" + +_Julia_ give him a reason! Julia setting herself up as understanding +politics! To be sure, she was two years older than Val, and was always +seeing her father's political friends; but that didn't account for.... +It came over her how little one woman knows the side another woman turns +to men. It must be immensely flattering to have a "politician" writing +to her on terms of equality. Oh yes, Julia must be enormously uplifted. +Val was sure of it by the heaviness that weighed _her_ down. Julia, no +doubt, had "studied up" in order to share Ethan's interests on a side +that Val and other girls couldn't reach. + +As she came out of her hiding-place she was concocting in her mind a +letter which the servant should carry over to Julia with the confiscated +correspondence. + +Her excitement had died down, leaving for the moment a dead weight of +wretchedness. Ethan's letters to her had seemed before so full and +satisfactory, even her hungry curiosity had felt no want in them that a +letter could supply. For even the love he did not put into words seemed +not only implicit in every line of each "enclosure," but more subtly +delicious being veiled. His letters had filled up the empty spaces in +her life, seeming to carry her along step by step through his. But if +there was all this besides which he cared to write to Julia, what more +might there not be in a life so full and varied as his? How had she been +so blind, so easily content? It was years since they had said good-bye. +Wasn't nearly every novel in the world a warning against believing that +men remembered long the girl who was out of sight? No doubt, what she +had dimly feared had happened at Long Branch last summer--Julia had +improved the shining hour. + +Val went wearily down the long hall, feeling that all the zest had gone +out of existence forever. She stopped to lean against the last window at +the head of the back-stairs. Looking out, she saw to her surprise that +Julia was sitting on the terrace under the crooked catalpa-tree. Ah, +she couldn't go and leave that precious letter behind! Val went down to +her with angry-beating heart. The other girl, leaning back against the +tree, watched with sullen eyes the slow approach. She had wrapped the +torn fichu up close about her throat. Something in Julia's handsome +impassivity stirred the other to a rage, more becoming had she not been +the arch offender. She dropped the crumpled envelope into Julia's lap. + +"I congratulate you on being able to hold up your end of such a weighty +correspondence." + +"Is that all you have to say after leaping at me like a wild-cat and +taking what didn't belong to you?" + +"Oh, you're waiting here for me to apologize?" + +Julia got up slowly. + +"I never thought _you_ would do such a dishonorable thing!" + +"It wasn't dishonorable. You and I were '_best_ friends.' I had just +given you my whole confidence. You owed it to me to be as frank with me. +I took what belonged to me." + +"And I say that if you broke into our house and stole the silver, you +couldn't be more of a thief than you are this moment." + +Val stared at her speechless, and then: + +"I think if you were a man I could kill you. Why do you stay here?" she +said, coming a step nearer with ill-controlled fury. "We aren't +expecting Ethan to-day. Why do you stay?" + +Julia squared her Junoesque shoulders against the crooked tree and stood +her ground. + +"You can, of course, behave like a wild savage if it suits you, but I'd +like to know what you mean to do." + +"Do!" Val dropped her arms listless to her sides. "What is there to do?" + +"Shall you tell your cousin you stole his letters?" + +"No. I shall tell my cousin exactly what happened." She turned to go up +to the house. + +"I wouldn't, if I were you. Look here, there's no reason, because our +friendship's broken, that we should do more things we shall regret. +You've no right because you've got hold of my secret--you've no right to +pass it on to Ethan." It was an agony to hear her call him Ethan. "You +mustn't tell him that I--that I carry his letters about. And I won't +tell him that you--" + +"Tell him what you like!" + +Val went angrily up the terrace-steps; but all the same, Julia knew +perfectly that she had secured herself now against Ethan's hearing what +had happened. Val could, most indefensibly, tear her secret out of her +keeping in the passion of the moment. But Julia had little fear that in +cold blood her old friend would "give her away" to the man they both +loved. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +That night Mrs. Gano was prostrated by a feverish cold. The doctor was +sent for, and Val carried out his instructions so faithfully that in +twenty-four hours the patient was comfortably mending. + +In the intervals of nursing Val had written to Ethan in pencil: + + + "I've got to see you. It doesn't matter that I can't ask you to the + Fort, or that grandma is not to know. You must come and stay a day + or two at some small town quite near here. I'll get a day off for a + picnic or something, and meet you either in Blake's Woods, or at + one of the steamboat landings up the river. Don't hesitate about + this. I'm not a child, and I've a right to see you about a matter + so important to me." + + +She closed without a hint as to what the matter was. + +He answered by return of post, pointing out that he couldn't possibly +come to see her clandestinely, for her own sake. + +"For my sake! Not a bit of it. For grandma's sake. He's afraid." + +The conclusion was the easier in that she was herself afraid. It was +then Val remembered that Mrs. Ball, the former Jessie Hornsey, who now +lived in the capital of the State, had several times asked Val to visit +her. The girl went out and sent the lady a telegram. "I'm going to stay +a few days with Mrs. Austin Ball," she announced with outward calm and +much inward trepidation when she came home. + +"_You are going_--" Mrs. Gano sat up in bed and stared. + +"Oh, Val," remonstrated Emmie, "and grandma ill in bed!" + +"That has nothing to do with it," said the invalid, shortly. "But my +house is not a Family Hotel for people to come and go as they--" A +sneeze spoiled the effect she was making. + +"There, you've caught more cold!" + +Emmie rushed across the room and brought a shawl. Val wanted to help put +it round her. Mrs. Gano waved her off, took the shawl herself, and with +some premonition, perhaps, of a coming crisis, said: + +"What does this mean?" + +"It means that at last I want to accept one of Mrs. Ball's dozen +invitations. The doctor says you're better. You could telegraph me if--" + +"That's all very well, but in this house it is customary--" + +"Yes, yes, dearest; I know it's customary to ask leave, and I do ask it. +But you must let me go. I--I never go anywhere, I never do anything; all +my life is slipping away, just as Aunt Valeria's did." + +The old woman looked into the young face and read the signs there +misguidedly enough to say: + +"Well, well, we can't very well afford it, but perhaps a little +change--" + +"I'll make it up, you'll see." + +No later than that same afternoon the girl was on her way. She had given +Ethan no warning--did not even know if she would find him still at the +hotel from which he had written to Julia; but she drove straight to the +Wharton House, learned that he was in, and sent up word that a lady +wanted to see him. + +While she sat there, oblivious of the expensive ugliness of the empty +hotel parlor, the thought of seeing Ethan after all these years did not +shut out the haunting remembrance of her grandmother. If that scorner of +deceptions could see her now! If she ever came to know that Val, whom +she trusted, had acted this complicated lie in order, most +unmaiden-like, to beg a stolen interview with a man! She cringed at the +thought of the old woman's high unsparing scorn. "Why do I always think +of her! Other girls don't take even their fathers and mothers so +seriously. They aren't _haunted_ by them." She hunched her shoulders +with discomfiture. Why didn't Ethan come? What would her grandmother +say? It would be distinctly awful to be despised by her. Should she save +her reputation by running away without seeing Ethan? It seemed a sudden +blessed way of escape from domestic degradation. She half rose, staring +absently at the sofa pattern. Suddenly the perplexed eyes widened; the +vague design of the satin damask had wrought itself into her brain. Out +of the scrolls and arabesques a face seemed staring at her. With a twist +of pain she recognized it--that sorrowfullest of all faces--that face of +some one who never had a chance. The poor dim ghost that had been shut +up so long in Aunt Valeria's dusty heap of clay, that had appeared to +Val like a shadowy face at a prison grating--it had escaped at last: it +was here! + +As she sank back in the corner, the old tide of revolt rose high within +her; but the flood to-day was chill with fear of failure, and bitter +with the memory of those others who had been overwhelmed. Val had +herself given up all "chances" for this one that she was reaching out +for to-day. She was here to put that one to proof, and-- Ethan was at +the door! In that first instant of his non-recognition her heart turned +sick, so cold he looked, and so remote, forbidding even. She got up and +came forward. + +Ethan cried out in astonishment, throwing down his hat: + +"_You!_ No, not really!" + +"Yes." + +He took both her hands, and looked into her face. Had she really thought +him cold? Turning, he glanced about the room, as if to assure himself +they were alone. She disengaged her hands. + +"Come out and walk; I don't like it here," she said. + +He looked at her reflectively, and yet with a kind of smouldering +excitement. + +"We'll get a victoria, and drive out to the country." He led the way +down-stairs. "But how on earth have you managed it?" he said. + +"I didn't manage, I just came." + +"Grandmamma is with you?" + +"Oh no." + +"Who, then?" + +"Nobody." + +"She hasn't let you come alone?" + +He stopped. + +"Oh, it's all right," she said, a little impatiently. "I've come to +visit an old school-friend." + +They chose one of the carriages in front of the hotel, and drove rapidly +out of town. + +She shrank back into her corner, feeling his eyes too keen upon her; but +when by chance she encountered them, she would have been less than woman +if she had not been reassured by the admiration in their kindling +depths. + +"I suppose I'm changed too," he said, smiling. + +"Y-yes; you're a little more alarming than you used to be." + +"Oh, really!" he laughed. + +"I suppose the change in me is a different one?" + +He nodded. + +"You've kept your word." + +"My word?" + +"Don't you remember telling me that I was rather good-looking at that +time, but the difference between us was that you'd improve and that I'd +grow repellent and plain if I wasn't very careful?" + +"I _never_ said such a--" + +"Oh yes. You used to be a wise child. Are you a wise woman?" + +"Not enough to hurt," she said, with a little grimace. + +He asked about Mrs. Gano and Emmie, and the bedridden An' Jerusha. The +year before, Venus had married the mulatto postman, and Val, at Ethan's +suggestion, had bought them a cottage, where they all lived very +happily. Val told him of the advent of the twins. + +"What are you doing here?" she inquired, presently. + +"Political business." + +"I suppose you think I wouldn't understand that." + +"I think it would probably bore you." + +"Why bore me more than any other girls?" + +"I didn't say so. But most young ladies of your age--" + +"I'll soon be twenty-three; Julia is only twenty-four." + +She could have bit her tongue out for her maladroitness. + +"Julia? Ah, how is Julia?" + +"This is pretty; let us stop here." + +"All right. Driver, just pull up in that shade and wait for us." + +They walked across the field, to a clump of trees by the Virginia +rail-fence that separated them from the large market-garden on the other +side. + +"Now that I've come all this way," Val said, leaning against one of the +elms, with her hands loosely clasped in front of her, "I want to run +home and leave things to chance." + +He made no answer. She glanced up to find him looking at her with an +intentness that confused her. She turned away, sat down, and took off +her hat. Her hair was loose; she pinned it up as well as she could, but +her hands felt unskilful, helpless. She could not free herself from the +sense of those deep eyes arraigning, caressing, compelling her. She +looked up with a fluttering smile. + +"Sit down, and don't stare." + +He only leaned back against the opposite elm. + +"Yes, there's some other change in you besides the growing prettier. +What's happened?" + +In the hypersensitized state of her nerves the question hurt keenly. +That they should not have met for all this time, and he ask that! It was +all she could do to keep the tears out of her lowered eyes. + +"Come," he urged, "is some of the gilt worn off your particular piece of +gingerbread?" + +"No," she said, with recovered firmness; "I've not come to complain. +I've only come to be helped to understand." + +"Ah, life has pricked you, I see that--and"--he smiled faintly--"you +don't understand." + +"Yes," she said--the voice was not quite so steady--"I've got hurt. If +I'd sat quiet, I wouldn't have bumped myself against sharp corners. But +I shall not sit quiet." + +"Oh no, you may be depended on for that." + +"But I _have_ sat quiet, you know, for years. That's done with, now." + +He shifted his position uneasily. + +"I don't want any longer to be always fortunate, always happy. I want to +know about life. I want to understand." + +Still he said nothing. + +"It's a kind of death not to understand," she said. + +"And has some of Death's peace to recommend it. But let's come to +Hecuba. What do you want to understand?" + +"It--is so--hard for me to say." + +"Harder than not understanding?" + +"No. I--want to know--if you have any objection to releasing me from my +promise?" + +"What promise?" + +She put her hands up, quickly, to hide her convulsed face. He had +forgotten! + +"If you don't remember, that's release enough," she said, getting up. + +He came forward and put his hand on her arm. + +"You don't mean that about your going away from home?" + +She nodded her averted head. + +"Certainly I won't release you from that promise." + +"Why not?" She turned swiftly on him. "What is it to you?" + +"It's a great deal to me." + +"Well, it's more to me. I've come to say I take my promise back." + +He bent down to her. + +"You _didn't_ come to say that, Val." + +Her wet eyes fell before his softened looks. + +"I--I can't say just what I came to say." + +"Why not?" + +"You're gone so far from me." + +"No, I haven't, dear." The dark face was close to hers. "I've tried, +perhaps, but I haven't succeeded. Val--" + +He drew her suddenly into his arms. She resisted a moment, and then, +with a little cry of self-abandonment, she hid her face on his breast. +They stood so till, with an infinitely tender movement, he turned the +lithe body over into the hollow of his arm, and kissed the upturned +face. She broke away trembling. + +"Now I can ask you what I came to ask. Have you been caring about some +one else more than you've been caring about me?" + +"What in the world put that into your head?" + +"You have--you have!" she said, getting white. + +"But I have not." + +"You like writing to others more than you do to me." + +"I don't, indeed. It bores me horribly to write to other people." + +"Why do you do it, then?" + +"Oh, you're thinking of the letters I write Otway." + +"Who?" + +"Hezekiah Otway. You see, he's chairman of our--" + +She darted forward and seized his hands, laughing and holding them to +her breast as she looked up, radiant, into his face. + +"Now we'll drive into town, if you please." + +They went back to the carriage, and Val talked gayly about the Fort and +the people Ethan had known when he was in New Plymouth. + +"Where shall we meet to-morrow?" she said, when they were again in the +town. + +"Where does your Mrs. Ball live?" + +"In the Chestnutville suburb. But that's no good." + +"No good?" + +"No; I've told you she's Miss Jessie Hornsey." + +"Is that fatal?" + +"Well, she'll want to do all the talking. You can come there of course, +but it won't be seeing you." + +He considered. + +"How long shall you stay?" + +"Mustn't be more than three or four days." + +He crossed swords with his conscience and still considered. + +"You must come in the morning and take me boating," she said. + +He laughed. + +"Oh, adorable directness! How it simplifies all things! Boating be it." + +"We must go quickly to the station for my things; the train I'm due by +is just in." + +After getting her trunks and travelling-bag, they said good-bye, and Val +drove alone to West Walnut Street. + +Mrs. Ball received the girl warmly, and with apologies at having only +just come in and found her message. + +"I'm simply delighted to have got you at last. I only hope you won't +find it dull. If you'd given me a little longer notice, I would have had +some parties planned, and got Harry Wilbur to come. How is my handsome +cousin?" + +"Oh, he's all right; and dear Mrs. Ball"--the girl sat down on a stool +and crossed her arms on her hostess's knee--"the fact is, I've come on +some private business. I haven't time for parties. If you want to be an +angel to me, just let me go and come as I please, for the two or three +days I'm here." + +"Days? Make it two or three weeks, my dear. You know you've always been +an immense favorite of mine; my husband likes you, too. He said when we +visited my mother's last year that you were the most charming girl in +New Plymouth. Now it's settled, and I think I heard Austin come in." She +kissed Val on both cheeks, and went down-stairs to confide to Mr. Ball +that "the most charming girl" was not in New Plymouth, but under his +roof, and was evidently up to some mischief, and what ought they to do? + +"Play dominos!" Mr. Ball's childish old father suggested vacantly. + +That favorite pastime meant to him shuffling the dominos aimlessly about +the table, and in his more lucid intervals rising to the height of +matching them. + +"Yes, paw." The good Mrs. Ball emptied the dominos out of the box and +set the old man to turning them face downwards. He went to sleep before +the task was done. + +"_Oh!_" ejaculated Mrs. Ball, suddenly catching sight of something in +the evening paper her husband was unfolding. + +"What?" She pointed to a paragraph announcing the meeting of the Sound +Money men at the Central Hall. Chairman, Mr. Hezekiah Otway. Debate to +be opened by Mr. Ethan Gano, etc. + +"That's why she's come." + +"Oh, think so?" + +"Sure of it." The round good-natured face grew grave. "Husband, I think +I ought to put Harry Wilbur on his guard." + +"Don't you meddle with outsiders' affairs," said husband. + +"My dear, Val Gano's as good as engaged to my cousin. Harry was very +confidential with me the last time he was here. This Ethan Gano was at +one time the barrier. Such a fascinating creature," she sighed. "Not a +marrying man, and _most_ dangerous. He sha'n't come between them again." + +"You can't interfere if--" + +"I can wire my cousin to come and make us a visit, and I will." She +bustled out. + +While Val was in her first beauty sleep, Harry Wilbur arrived. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +The morning was warm and balmy. Val put on her blue muslin gown, +thinking rebelliously how Ethan had once said that a serge coat, and +skirt, and sailor hat were the proper "togs" for the river. + +"Togs" was a proper ugly word for such garments. No stiff tailor-made +things for Val! "He said I'd grown prettier," she thought, gayly, as she +took a last look in the glass. But it was the thousandth time she had +quoted the comfortable assurance to her happy heart. + +She met the unexpected Harry at breakfast with such apparent cordiality +that Mrs. Ball was slightly perplexed, even slightly disappointed. + +"Now, what are we going to do to-day?" asked the hostess, in the middle +of the meal. "It's such a comfort, Harry, that you happen along at just +this moment. A man is so useful in helping to arrange things; and +Austin, of course, is too busy." Austin was already at the office. + +"I've just had a note from my cousin, Ethan Gano." Val put her hand on +an envelope that lay, address downward, on the cloth. "He's at the +Wharton House. He'll be here at ten to take me for a row." It had given +her acute discomfort to make the announcement, and the look on the two +faces opposite did not restore her equanimity. + +After an expressive little silence, Mrs. Ball said: + +"Yes, it'll be nice on the river to-day. We can all go. I'll see about a +luncheon-basket;" and she rang the bell. + +Thereafter the conversation flagged. At ten o'clock Ethan duly appeared, +spotless in boating flannels and white shoes. There is no more becoming +garb for the modern man. Val forgot her discomfiture a moment, looking +at him. Mrs. Ball compared her cousin's "business suit" unfavorably +with the new-comer's elegance, and promptly set down Gano's grace to his +clothes. + +Val had been afraid her cousin would be uncomfortably restive under the +infliction of the extra couple. Before long she was resenting his too +amiable acceptance of the addition to the party. They drove down to the +river in the Balls' carryall, Harry and Val in front with the basket, +Mrs. Ball and Ethan behind. Gano was laughing and talking with an +unusually gracious air. Was Val to believe that under that charming +exterior he was burning with the dull rage that kept her silent and +_distraite_? His unwonted gayety looked suspiciously like relief. + +When they got down to the landing it was found that Ethan had already +provided the boat and the hamper. But Val told herself that was not the +reason that he, as it were, took command of the little expedition. He +would always do that. Other people found it as natural as he did +himself. Mrs. Ball was to sit in the stern, "and, Val, you take the +tiller." When they had pulled a few yards up-stream Ethan shipped his +oars, stood up, and slipped off his white flannel coat and waistcoat. + +"Will you keep my watch?" + +Val nodded. How warm it felt! She put it in her bosom. No movement of +her cousin's was lost upon the girl, though her eyes never rested on +him. There had sprung up between them again that old, alert physical +consciousness that is like a sixth sense. + +That the genial, broad-chested Wilbur should appear to advantage +out-of-doors was a matter of course. Val had told him once that he was +like a great Newfoundland dog--"too big for the house." But the +impression made by Gano's skill in open-air pursuits was partly due to a +sense of surprise on the part of the on-lookers that this fine-limbed, +small-handed, slender-footed creature should be as strong, apparently, +as the obvious athlete. + +Mrs. Ball talked incessantly about people in society--about her plan for +"going to Europe" when Austin should have a holiday; about any and +every thing she poured out an unfaltering stream. + +During luncheon Val, in sheer desperation, began to show some +consciousness of Harry Wilbur's existence. Finding that Ethan seemed not +to notice, she redoubled her friendliness and gayety. At last, "Let's go +for a walk--you and me," she said, jumping up and going towards the +dogwood thicket. + +Harry, nothing loath, strode after her. Mrs. Ball felt herself a +diplomatist, and began to relax under Mr. Gano's unruffled courtesy. The +little match-maker did not know that Val's high spirits went down like +foam in a champagne-glass as soon as she was beyond the reach of her +cousin's eyes. But she came back smiling and trailing great branches of +white dogwood over her shoulder and down her sky-blue gown. She felt it +must be pretty, but she got no assurance that Ethan caught the effect. +Harry's ingenuous compliments only heightened her hidden wretchedness. +The day was a dreary disappointment to the girl. Ethan's apparent +satisfaction in it was the most disturbing element of all. Only once did +she have a word with him alone, and then not by his arrangement. She +left Mrs. Ball and Harry repacking their basket, of which almost nothing +had been used, and ran down the bank to help Ethan to put the cushions +back in the boat. + +"I suppose Julia told you her father was coming up to-morrow night?" + +"No. What for?" + +"He's chairman of our committee." + +"Don't say anything about my being here." + +"Really?" + +"Really." + +"All right. I wish he weren't coming, though." + +"Why?" said the girl, preparing to hear her own views set forth. + +"Well, you see, the trouble is, old Otway is getting very deaf; he's not +really fit for public business any more, and nobody has the courage to +tell him. Isn't it appalling the way people cling to things--to the +things, too, that we're all forewarned will be taken from us if we stay +here long enough?" + +She looked at him with a fresh sense of curiosity and wonderment. What a +strange new note he put into life! Yet those others laughed and jested +with him, and thought him one of themselves. + +He took off his jacket again. + +"I'll take care of that." She began to fold it. "What's in the pocket?" +She put her hand in with a thrill of joy at her audacity, and brought +out an old duodecimo of battered calf-skin. "Why, I remember this: it's +one of those little volumes that you brought from Paris." + +"Did I have it with me--" + +"Yes. Have you gone on carrying it about ever since you first came to +the Fort?" + +"I hadn't seen it for years till the other day. I can't think how it got +among my things." + +"You've marked it up frightfully. Grandma would scold you if she saw +that." + +"The book marked me, why shouldn't I mark the book?" + +"What does it say here?" + +He shook his head. + +"Please tell me." + +"I thought you had studied Latin." + +"Y--yes; I know what the words mean, but I don't know what the sentences +mean. Do translate this little bit." + +"Nonsense! I might as well have it in English at once." + +"You don't like people to know what you read?" + +"I don't like people to read what I mark." + +"Why not?" + +"It's like leaving your diary open. Why should people--" + +"I'm not 'people.' Mayn't I know this tiny bit?--'Meditare utrum +commodius sit, vel mortem transire ad nos vel nos ad eam.' What's that?" + +Ethan only smiled. + +"You never gave me back my watch." + +"I forgot. No; I can't think why I tell such lies. I didn't forget at +all. Oh, here comes Mrs. Ball," she said, with an accent of despair, +"and we've not said a word about--" + +"Bother Mrs. Ball!" Ethan ejaculated under his breath; and his cousin +blessed him. + +Val's hostess hurried down the bank, and Ethan handed her into the boat. +Harry was left to cope with the basket. + +"Now, what are you two arranging for to-morrow?" said the lady, settling +herself in the boat. + +"We weren't arranging," replied Val; "we were speaking about a book." + +She had put the volume back in the pocket of Ethan's jacket. + +"There's a dance at the O'Connors' to-morrow night," said Mrs. Ball; +"perhaps you'd like to come with us." + +She saw herself entering on Mr. Gano's arm. + +"Ah, thanks; you're very kind, but I don't go to dances these days." + +Mrs. Ball tried to think she was relieved on Val's account, but she +couldn't help saying, with an air: + +"The O'Connors are among the first people here; they entertain in the +most princely way." + +"_I_ was suggesting a day's fishing down by the Gray Pool," said Harry, +appearing with the basket; "it's that place on the Little Choctaw +River." + +"Nothing could be better," Ethan agreed. + +And then he stopped, having caught Val's unenthusiastic glance. Another +day to be lived through, cooped up in a boat, she was thinking; or +pursued, at all events, by two superfluous people. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Ball, "the scenery on the Little Choctaw is very wild +and splendid. A cousin of mine--you know, Harry, cousin Bettie +MacFadden--she says it's just like some place abroad--in Scotland, I +think." + +"Oh, really," said Ethan, in his charming way, "I must see that, but we +might go fishing on a dull day. If it's as fine as this to-morrow, why +not-- Don't I remember"--he turned to Mrs. Ball--"that you're a very +good horsewoman?" + +"Oh--er--well--" + +"They were telling me at the hotel you have a ride hereabouts out to +some wild park." + +"Yes; he means Forest Park Lodge," said Wilbur. + +"Let us go there," said Ethan, "and I'll wire them to have luncheon +ready." + +It was all arranged before they parted, Mrs. Ball salving any prick of +conscience by assuring herself it was far better not to seem afraid of +this masterful Mr. Gano, with his reputation for being dangerous. It was +right, and even politic, not to "leave him out." All that was necessary +was that she, Mrs. Ball, should "be there." + +"I don't ask you to come back with us to-night," she said, on their +return to town. "We have time only to snatch a mouthful before going to +a concert." + +Mrs. Ball had a sense of playing up with grace and distinction to some +imaginary standard of life abroad. "He will find me much more like the +ladies he knows in London and Paris than most people about here." + + +Val had told herself that Ethan had invented the ride so that they +should be freer; they would get ahead of the others, or fall behind, and +have some time to themselves. But Mrs. Ball started off next morning +with Mr. Gano, and ruthlessly rode beside him all the way. Val +alternately raged in her heart, and forgot how sore it was, watching one +of those two on in front. How well he sat his horse! But so did Harry. +What was it in Ethan that distinguished him so from other men, and set +him for ever apart? She tried to give it a name while Harry's small-talk +trickled vaguely through her brain. + +They stopped to lunch, and put up the horses at the Forest Park Lodge. + +While they were dismounting, a buggy dashed up with a man and a girl in +it. The miserable old mare had been driven to death, and was covered +with sweat and foam. + +"Brute!" said Ethan under his breath, glowering at the man, who threw +the reins round the whip, and helped his companion out. + +"Pretty sort of girl to let him drive like that," was Val's comment, as +the couple went towards the hotel. + +"Never saw so much of a beast's ribs before without the trouble of +taking off his skin," said Wilbur. + +"My goodness!" added Mrs. Ball, "that's not a horse; it's a plate-rack." + +"Look here," said Ethan to the man who was leading their horses to the +stables, "you're going to rub this other beast down, I suppose, and--" + +"Never have no sich orders from Mr. Joicey," said the man. "That's +Joicey." He jerked his thumb after the two figures. "Comes here a lot. +Mare looks wuss'n she is. D'ye know that there nag is Blue Grass?" + +"Not the filly that won--" + +"Yes, siree bob; won a pile fur Joicey's father. Goes like hell even +yet." + +"Give her a rub down and a feed, and say nothing about it," said Gano, +transferring something from his pocket to the man's hand. "For the sake +of battles long ago," he added to his companions, seeming to apologize. + +As they walked up to the hotel Mrs. Ball ran on volubly about the +ill-treatment of animals. + +"I like to remember some magnificent thoroughbreds I saw the last time I +was in Holland," Ethan said in the first pause. "I fell in with their +owner afterwards, a certain Monsieur Oscar." + +"That the fellow that trains horses?" asked Wilbur. + +"Yes, founder of the Continental Cirque. He'd been all over the world, +and was giving his last performance while I was at Scheveningen. When I +came across him afterwards, he had sold all the animals and properties +of his great show. 'All,' he said, 'except my eight favorite horses.' I +asked if he was going to keep them. 'No,' he said; 'I shot them after my +last performance. I might have sold them well, but I thought perhaps +they might come down in the world, and end by going between shafts. No, +I cared about 'em, so I shot 'em.'" + +"Oh, how could he have the heart!" Mrs. Ball was shocked. + +"You should have seen the fellow's face! He had cared. I couldn't help +thinking what a lot of room there was in the world for that kind of +caring." + +"Gracious no, it's too brutal! He should have given them to people who +would appreciate them." + +"As Mr. Joicey does Blue Grass? You've heard of General Boulanger's +celebrated black charger--he's a cabhorse now in Paris. Marshal +Canrobert's splendid animal is in the Pasteur Institute at Garches, +where it is used for the production of serum. Saint-Claude, too, the +winner of the Grand Steeplechase at Auteuil in '90, he's there being +experimented upon. No, dear Mrs. Ball, there seems to be just one safe +asylum for horses as for men. Hello, there! did you get my telegram?" he +called out briskly to the hotel-keeper. "Gano--luncheon for four." + +In a moment he seemed to have the entire staff of the place bustling +about him, waiters throwing open the windows at his complaint of +closeness, putting fresh flowers on the table laid for the _partie +carree_, deaf to the appeals of the few other people in the big +dining-room, the landlord praying Mr. Gano to remember that he was +nearly half an hour before the time. + +"Do they know him?" Mrs. Ball whispered to Wilbur. + +"Must; or why should they take all this trouble?" + +Val smiled to herself, believing it superfluous to dive into her +cousin's pocket for the reason; it was there in his face, in his air. It +was so, she told herself, that princes walked the world, barriers going +down before them, and people vying to do them unasked service. Yes, it +was not for nothing she had dreamed about the prince. + +The luncheon was a distinct success. It soon became evident that Ethan +was making great headway with Mrs. Ball. Her vivacity, and his unwonted +responsiveness, had kept the ball rolling merrily. Was he making himself +so agreeable, Val began to wonder, that he might be surer of a welcome +in West Walnut Street? "Jessie Ball is bent on impressing Ethan," +thought the pitiless young observer. "She's growing quite affected"; and +she watched her hostess coldly. It seemed to Val a part of Mrs. Ball's +desire to play up to some imagined standard of extra punctilio that led +her, towards the end of the meal, to pass her purse to Harry under the +table, while Ethan wasn't looking, forming with her lips the words "I'm +hostess." Val's sense of embarrassment was acute. Ethan wouldn't like +it, after ordering things himself. Val knew, too, that if her cousin had +not been a rich man, Mrs. Ball's breeding would have appeared better. +She would not have troubled about the bill. + +Ethan's later amazement when he called for the account, that there +should be a discussion as to who should pay for the repast he had +ordered, made Val want to get under the table. By so much was she +relieved at his giving way before Mrs. Ball's shrill insistence. + +"Oh, very well, if it pleases you better so." He jumped up to cut the +discussion short. "Send it out after us. And when will you have the +horses--in half an hour?" + +Mrs. Ball was uncomfortably conscious that her fine straw-colored hair +had come out of curl in the wind, there, under the trees. With the +indomitable spirit of woman in pursuit of beauty, she was determined to +borrow the chambermaid's tongs, and restore the fuzziness with which she +had started forth. It was essential, therefore, that she should take +time as well as herself by the forelock. She hurried Val up-stairs. + +"What a fascinating man!" she said, with a sigh, as she stood before the +glass. "Val, dear, I hope you won't lose your heart to Mr. Gano." + +"Oh, I've got past that," said the girl, with a misleading air of +frankness. + +"Well, I'm relieved to hear you say so. There's something about him very +magnetic to my way of thinking--positively irresistible." She sighed +again. "But he'd make a shocking bad husband, that's one comfort." + +"_Comfort!_" Val laughed a little hysterically. + +"Well, now, what _have_ I said?" + +But Val was hatted and gloved, and ran down-stairs. Ethan was smoking in +the porch. + +"Where are those funny friends of yours?" he said. + +She was up in arms at once. + +"You always say my friends are funny." + +"And so they are, dear child." + +"They're not a bit funnier than my relations." + +"Oh, they don't compare." + +"How long before the horses will be ready?" said Val, loftily, as one +who chafes at a delay, making meanwhile a rapid calculation as to how +long Mrs. Ball's work of restoration might be counted on to keep her +up-stairs. + +"They'll be here presently," said Ethan, throwing away his cigarette. + +"Let's go and see." Val led the way round to the back of the hotel. "My +friends are perfectly delightful, but I don't mean to let them +monopolize every minute of our time." + +He looked at her with an odd expression, and then turned away his face. +Her heart gave a great leap. They went on to the stable. Wilbur was +there. The buckle on Gano's saddle-girth, he said, had got bent. While +it was being taken off Ethan moved about, looking in sheds and open +doors. + +"What are you hunting for?" Val called after him. + +"A place for you to sit down. They'll be some minutes repairing that +thing." + +"You'd better go back to the house," said Wilbur, who was showing the +man how to get the metal straight without breaking the tongue of the +buckle. + +"No," said Val; "I shall go in there, and up those cobwebby stairs, and +sit on the hay by the door that opens into mid-air." + +As she walked towards the barn-door it seemed to her that her whole +existence depended upon whether Ethan followed her. + +At the door she turned, and saw him looking after her. Then she went +in. Was he coming? oh, was he, _was_ he? She began to mount the stair, +but her heart seemed to stay down there on the bottom step. She wouldn't +look back again, but there was no sound, no sign. It was not +overwhelmingly important to _him_ to see her alone. She felt the hot +tears stinging her eyes. Then the sunshine that streamed into the musty +place through the open half of the double door--suddenly it was +darkened. She knew it was Ethan on the threshold. He came after her up +the narrow seed-strewn stair, that had no banister. + +"Don't walk so near the edge," he said, and he came on the outside, +pushing her a little towards the inner wall. + +They went up side by side, the girl quite silenced by the sense of his +nearness. She half held her breath, expecting every second he would say +something--something that for her would be momentous. When they had +reached the loft, and he had not opened his lips, a disappointment swept +over her so acute it was almost humiliation. She waded heavily through +the hay to the open door, that looked out on the horses and the group +below. + +"I can't think what I am to say about this visit, when I get home," she +said. "It seems as impossible to tell them I've been seeing you as it +does not to say so." + +"When must you go?" + +He accepted it, then. No crying out against her going, but merely +"when." She turned away from the open door, where she could see Mrs. +Ball just arrived on the scene making her a sign, and she steadied +herself an instant with her hand against the wall in the shadow. The +close smell of the hay choked her. Was it like this people felt before +fainting? "Oh, why did I come?" she heard herself saying. And then, +instead of losing consciousness, an electric sense of life and joy +spread through all her body. Ethan's fingers had closed about her hand +that had hung so limp at her side. There must have been some virtue in +him, for at the touch she was whole again. + +"Don't be sorry you came," he said. + +"Mustn't I?" + +She tried to subdue her gladness. + +"No; even though parting is more than I have courage to face." + +She waited an instant for what was to follow, and then, "What? I--I +didn't hear what you said." + +"But there are some things," he went on, "that we must do without +courage." + +"Ethan"--she turned and faced him with a kind of fierceness like a +creature at bay--"if you find you can do that, it will be because you +don't care much." + +"Don't care!"--his face came closer, his voice was so shaken out of its +even cadences it sounded like a stranger's--"don't _care_! Do you know +that I never in all my life knew what caring meant till I knew you? Do +you know that I'd give everything I have on earth, and every other hope +of happiness, just to be able to believe there is no barrier between you +and me?" + +He stopped. Val's heart was too full to speak on the instant. In the +silence Wilbur's voice rang out clear at the bottom of the stairs: + +"I say, Val, aren't you ever coming?" + + +Mrs. Ball asked Ethan to come in after their ride and have a cup of tea. +He thanked her, and seemed to accept. They all went into the dim parlor, +and when Mrs. Ball had drawn up the blinds old Mr. Ball was discovered +asleep in the arm-chair. He woke at the noise, and blinked feebly. + +"Why, paw," said Mrs. Ball, "how did you get in here?" + +The old man grunted. + +"You've dropped your knitting," said Val, stooping and picking up a +strip of gray wool-work with needles sticking in it. + +He took it, and began feebly moving his rheumatic hands, while Mrs. Ball +bustled about making the tea and sending the maid-servant in and out. +Ethan turned his back, and looked out of the window. Val suddenly felt +the repulsiveness of the old man as she had never felt it before. She +saw that Ethan had taken out his watch. + +"It isn't possible it's nearly five o'clock!" he said, as though that +were an unheard-of hour for tea. "I'm sorry, but I must get back to my +hotel," and almost before Mrs. Ball knew where she was, he had shaken +hands and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +"Grandma is not so well to-day," said Emmie's letter the next morning. +"I think you oughtn't to be away long. She is surprised to have only a +'safe arrival' telegram from you and no letter. She says she doesn't +count the post-card. But she does, and I think you'd better not send her +another." + +Val read it out at breakfast. + +"Well, you just write and tell them I'm giving a Pink Luncheon for you +to-morrow, and that there are two more dances next week. You can't +possibly go till a week from Saturday." + +"But perhaps, if grandma really isn't so well, I oughtn't to stay quite +so long." + +"My dear girl, she's been 'not so well' since before I was born." + + +The Pink Luncheon was a huge success. The fame of its pinkness--of Mrs. +Ball's "perfectly fascinating" visitor, and that visitor's perfectly +adorable cousin, Mr. Gano--were long discussed among Mrs. Ball's "first +people." The ungrateful guest alone was not content. + +"Miss White has just asked Will Austin," Harry whispered to her as they +were leaving the table, "if I'm the man you're going to marry." + +His laughing eyes left her in no doubt as to the audacious answer he had +given. She glanced across at Ethan. He was lingering a moment with his +neighbor, Baby Whittaker, while they ate a philopena, smiling and +talking for all the world as if-- But, after all, what did it matter? +Since the moment when Ethan had said that about his "caring," she had +lived in a cloudy rapture. Nothing but a blessed happiness was clearly +defined, not even the wish to define. For a time Ethan's confession was +all-sufficient. She had borne with his absence and his engagements with +Mr. Otway, as she bore now with his polite pretence that Miss Whittaker +really existed. Val endured the inconclusive hours with a patience that +would have been more surprising had it been patience at all, and not +sheer absorption in the unreasoning joy of living over that moment, +which she felt had justified her coming, even if it presaged no easy +issue. She had determined to stay at least a week longer. A week was a +lifetime; a thousand things could happen in a week. + +Dimly in the background of her mind she was feeling her way to a +conclusion that, if all else failed, should beyond peradventure break +down this nightmare barrier. But she did not even subconsciously face +the extremity. + +They had all been going to ride out to Miss Baby Whittaker's in the +afternoon. + +Val was no friend to the plan, but too much had been said of Baby +Whittaker's conquest of Ethan the day before at the Pink Luncheon for +her to venture an objection. When the discreet Saturday brought with it +floods of rain, Val's heart went out in gratitude. + +During the little lull in the downpour, about two o'clock, Ethan had +ridden over, whereupon the Ball household smiled covertly at his +eagerness to go to Baby Whittaker's. But it was no use, the roads were +already very bad, and down came the torrent again. It was just as well, +perhaps, as Mrs. Ball wouldn't, in any case, be able to go. Old father +Ball had had a seizure of some sort in the morning, and Mrs. Ball hung +over him solicitously, fearing another. + +Val's chief concern was lest, when Ethan saw the dropped jaw and leaden +eyes, he should turn and flee. "Why _did_ they keep their old and sick +in the parlor?" thought the girl, angrily. + +Suddenly Mrs. Ball gave a scream. "Harry, help me to take him into his +room!" + +He was struggling. Ethan went forward, and he and Harry carried the old +man out. + +"Is he dead?" asked the girl, when Ethan came back. + +"No, he's not in luck this time, I'm afraid. I've lent Harry my horse to +go for the doctor. The _doctor_!" He gave a little dry laugh. + +They stood at the window, looking out. + +Surreptitiously she glanced at him. + +"Oh, you wouldn't look so grave if you knew what I know," she thought to +herself. "I _feel_ it's coming all right for us. It must, it _must_! But +I dare not say so yet;" and with her sense of superior knowledge, of +being in the councils of the gods, her spirits rose. + +"How can you bear to be in the house with that awful old man?" Ethan was +saying. + +"Oh, he's not often like this. Isn't it wonderful," she remarked, with +recovered cheerfulness, "to think he's nearly ninety?" + +"Repulsive. He gave me the horrors the first time I saw him." + +"I can't help staring at him. He seems hardly human." + +"He's not human. Only the animal survives. To think that we can go on +eating and sleeping so long after the heart and the brain have burned +themselves out!" He moved away impatiently, saying, half to himself: +"How perishable the best things are! How long the lower nature lasts!" + +"Twenty-three--ninety"; she did the sum. "Sixty-seven years more, +perhaps." + +"For you!" He wheeled round and looked at her. "Heaven forbid! Upon my +soul, if I thought that _you_, with all you stand there for--of beauty +and gladness--if I thought you'd go on living till you were the feminine +counterpart of that old horror, I"--he choked with a half-whimsical +fury--"I believe I could kill you with my own hands." + +She came closer, smiling. + +"It would be just like me to go on till I'm a hundred, if I'm not +stopped." + +"What prompts you to say such things to me?" he said, sharply, and +turned again to the window. + +"But all the old don't end like Mr. Ball. _I_ shall be a lively old +lady, if I'm not stopped." + +"Oh, nothing could stop you." + +She laughed. + +"Don't be so hopeless. You see, I've studied the subject of old age. The +reason it isn't more valued is because it's taken too modestly. I +suppose it's difficult not to be modest if you're ninety. But no old +person should be unselfish or patient. That's fatal. You see the success +our own grandmother has made." + +Without turning round, Ethan began to laugh, too. + +"A woman must be gentle and amiable (if she can manage it) while she's +young. It's becoming in the young," she said, piously; then, with a +cheerful gleam, "but all old women should be defiant--yes, they should +study a dictatorial style, and make the young ones toe the mark. It's +the only way. Oh, I'll be an aged Tartar, and, you'll see, they'll all +say, 'A person of remarkable character is old Mrs.--' H'm!" + +She stopped short, and he turned round smiling and glowering at her, and +then back again to the window. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, looking over his shoulder. + +"What? That poor devil over there? Yes, I've been watching him." + +"I don't see-- Oh, yes, the cripple. Ethan, Ethan, what _is_ one to do +with you!" + +She dropped on the sofa with a face of comic despair. + +"Do with me?" + +"Yes--if every time you look out of the window you see a 'devil' of some +sort." + +He laughed, and then: + +"But you said 'Oh!' and I thought--" + +"I said 'Oh!' because the rain's stopped and the sun's trying to shine. +And all you can see is a cripple dragging his leg through the mud! Come +along"--she jumped up--"the rain's ruined the roads, but it hasn't hurt +the river, and we'll go for a row. It's going to be beautiful." + +She dragged him off without ceremony. + +As they passed by the Wharton House, "There's Otway," said Ethan, +looking up at a group of men at the entrance. + +Mr. Otway came down the steps and shook hands. + +"This is a surprise!" he said to Val. "Come in and see Julia. She has no +idea you're here." + +"Oh, thank you, not this evening. We're going on the river, and it gets +dark so soon. I didn't know Julia was coming." + +"Neither did I," laughed the indulgent father, "until this morning. +Well, come in to-morrow. Good-bye!" + +They got a boat, and by half-past four were speeding up-stream to +Ethan's steady stroke. + +"It'll be a simply glorious evening. We shall have a flaming sunset, +you'll see!" + +"Yes. The rain has washed the world till it shines." + +They talked very little at first. + +"I don't think we ought to go beyond the Gray Pool," said Val, +regretfully. + +"Where's that?" + +"About a mile on." + +"Oh, we can get farther than that." + +"Well, they don't know where I am, you see, after all, and it's nice by +the Gray Pool, where the trees bend down. You could rest there." + +"Do I look as if I wanted to rest?" + +"Can't say you do." + +"You've never told me what brought you here all of a sudden." + +"I wanted to find out something." + +"Well, have you succeeded?" + +He smiled at her in that sudden way of his that made her heart contract. +She couldn't speak directly, but her silence seemed to her to say too +much. She rushed nervously for the light veil of words. + +"I was afraid my life was growing poorer than I had imagined. If you +were going out of it, I knew I must go and find something to fill up the +empty place." + +"Going out of it?" He scrutinized her keenly. "Where should I go?" + +"Oh, there are so many people and things beckoning to you. How could I +tell? I was afraid you'd gone into some world where I couldn't follow--" + +"So you came after me?" he smiled tenderly. + +"Some world," she said, getting a little red, "where you didn't want +me." + +"I _always_ want you--" he stopped short, drew his forward-bending +figure up, and pulled hard at the oars. "But as to my world, you'd hate +it if you found yourself at close quarters with it. I give you the best +side of it in my letters." + +"I've told you I don't want only the best." + +"What do you want?" + +"All." + +The brave, yet shamefaced look left nothing doubtful; but he affected to +think she spoke only of letters. + +"If I wrote you 'all,' I'd make a pessimist of you in no time." + +"Would it be things about--about other women that would make me--" + +"Chiefly about men; most of all, about the things that are stronger than +men." + +They were silent a moment. + +"I don't know how it is," she drew her hand across her eyes; "but you +give me again the old feeling that you're somehow a prisoner--" + +"A prisoner--yes." + +"And that I must set you free." + +His dark eyes were misty for a moment. "You couldn't do that without--" + +"Without?" + +He shook his head, turned, and glanced behind him. "Oh, look at the +sun!" + +It was going down in a crimson flood that dyed the whole country-side a +red that was like new-spilt blood. It was one of those atmospheric +effects under which the most contradictory colors in nature are subdued +to a common hue. One has at such times a sense of looking at the +landscape through colored glass. The white and yellow farm-houses flamed +a dull orange. Their windows glowed like brass reflecting fire. The very +trees and grass were soaked in the strong dye of the sun. Ethan's steady +pull took them swiftly on, out of sight of farms, into the wilder +country. Still the girl sat with uplifted face. Her love of autumn and +of sunsetting had been no sad reflective sentiment, but something more +than common--eager, subtly exhilarated, joyous. To-day, stimulated and +at the same time balked, she found in the splendor of the hour a sharper +sense than ever of the drama in life, the essential poetry in human +experience. + +"I think I must be growing old," she said, with a happy sigh. + +"What are the signs?" + +"I'm beginning to notice the scenery. I'm grateful to the sun." + +Her eyes fell suddenly on the clean-carved features opposite; the dark +head and the pale ivory of the face seemed alone of all things in the +responsive world to refuse to wear the livery of light. + +"Oh, I forgot," she said, "you don't like sunsets any more than you like +autumn. Here's the mooring-place." + +He stopped his long, steady stroke, and paddled the boat under the +overhanging trees. + +"On the contrary," he said, making fast, and looking the while through +the branches to the conflagration in the west--"on the contrary, I've +changed, too--'growing old,' perhaps, like you." He smiled and sat down, +his eyes on the slow-sinking sun. "These, and scenes like them, are the +conditions that reconcile me." + +"Reconcile! They lift me up so high that I am dizzy." + +She closed her eyes an instant, and then opened them with a fluttering +smile. They seemed to have forgotten there had been any thought of going +ashore. + +"It is so splendid and yet so calm," he said, in a low voice. "It sets +me free from the burden and heat of the day." + +"It doesn't set _me_ free--not that I want to be set free. I love the +burden and heat of the day. But this--_this_ sets me thrilling. It +clutches me at the heart, and makes my breath taste sharp, like steel, +against my tongue. This is the wonder-time of day." + +"Yes," he said, dreamily--"yes, in a sense, it is the wonder-time. No +morning or high noon, anywhere up and down the world, can match this +hour." + +"But it makes you sad," she said, resentfully, as though he had spoken +an ill thing of some one dear. + +"No, I'm not sad any more; I'm reconciled. It is the moment when I can +most easily forget my own existence, and feel melted into the general +life." + +She turned away with flashing eyes. + +"Why are you so angry?" he said, softly, "or is it the sunset dyes you +redder than it did?" + +"That you can say such things so calmly, and at such a moment--with all +this" (she opened her arms as if passionately to embrace the beauty of +the world)--"all this spread out before us, with only you and me to see +it, the unconscious world not caring _that_"--she snapped her quick +white fingers in the lazy air. "You sit there saying the eyes that glory +in it, the hearts that ache at the wonder of it, _they_ are nothing; +they are here to look on a moment, suffer, and die, while the great +spectacle goes on and on and on. Why did we come here, then? What's the +good of it?" + +"_I'll_ never tell you." + +"I'd begin to believe some of your libels on life if I thought there +wasn't more in it than just--" + +"Just?" + +"That we are brought here with all _this_ inside us"--she drew her +doubled hand across her breast like one in pain--"all this, and with the +destiny of brutes--cheated a little while with gladness while we're +children--" + +"_That's_ a superstition, too. The happiness of children is more than +half an illusion of the old. _I_ remember. Others have forgotten; that's +the difference." + +"No, no; I remember, too!" The raised voice was half challenge, half +appeal. "_I_ was happy, and I'm happy still, except when you--" She +broke off near the brink of tears. "And I mean to be happy. Oh, it's a +good, _good_ world, and I'm glad I'm here." + +"_I'm_ glad you're here." + +"But if you were right"--she looked out with a vague fear to the fading +west--"if all this keen consciousness existed just to be tortured a +little while, and then flung down in the dark--if that is all"--the +eager face grew white--"then human life's an outrage." + +Silence for a moment, and then in a low voice came the words: + +"It _is_ an outrage." + +"Don't say so, Ethan; I can't bear it." + +"Oh yes, we can all bear it; and by so much we ephemera get back our +lost significance, our sovereignty." + +She looked up. + +"Through this strange fate of ours," he said, "we fulfil the end of the +world." + +Old doctrinal associations flitted before the phrase, blurring for her +his pagan use of it. + +"The end, the aim of the universe, seems to be beauty--beauty so varied +in spirit and in form that it often gets strange names from men." + +"Yes, it is _all_ beautiful, isn't it, Ethan?" + +"That you can always see it so, and that even I can see it sometimes, +proves we are not the lowest in the scale of life. That power of finding +Beauty through her disguises is the best seal civilization sets on men." + +"And so even you believe we fulfil the end of the world?" + +He nodded. + +"It's as magnificent, in its way, as a mountain peak, or the going down +of the sun, that puny men should accept the outrage of life and the +insult of death so nobly, with so little crying out. When one thinks of +it"--he laughed harshly--"the old gods and heroes were pygmies compared +with modern men. What were their doings and their destinies to the +hopeless, silent battle men are waging, without God and without hope in +the world? The men of to-day don't go reeling into battle, drunken with +the wine of hope, or dazed with the fairy tales of faith. But they fight +none the less well, knowing they go out to die, and not even sure for +what cause. It is so they fulfil the end of the world. Nothing in it is +mightier than the spirit of man calmly confronting his fate." + +She drew a quick breath. + +"You've put it into words," she said, "but I've _felt_ it." + +He looked at her with dull foreboding. He had expected contradiction, +not acquiescence. + +"Come," he said, rising and catching up the boat-cushion. "It's chilly +here in the boat. Why did we come under these wet trees? Let's land, and +go and sit in what's left of the sunset there." + +"You're not calmly confronting your fate," she said, smiling dimly. + +"Come." He held out his hand. + +She took it and laid her cheek against it. + +"I'll come with you," she said, "into the light or into the dark." + +"Child, child, what have I done to you?" + +He dropped the cushion in the bottom of the boat. She clung to him. He +wavered, the boat rocked violently. + +"Be careful, it's deep here," she said, and drew him down on the cushion +at her feet. + +"Val"--he averted his face--"you must try to understand. The barrier +between you and me is a real one. It's not a question of whether your +father's views were right or wrong, but that our imaginations have been +infected by them. I, at least, would always be fearing, expecting +disaster, and the fear would bring the evil to pass. Or even if it +didn't, the fear would--would destroy us." + +"No, no!" + +"It's true. I have no courage equal to facing either my family +inheritance, or my own dread of life--in a little child." He threw off +her clinging hand. "_Think_ of any one feeling as I do about life, +thrusting it on another--on some one I would love as I would love +your--" He dropped his head and covered his eyes with his hand. + +"Why do you think always of some possible other person? Why do you never +think of _me_?" she cried. + +He made a sudden movement, dropping his hand on the gunwale of the boat, +and looking straight into her eyes, with something new in the mobile +face, something that inundated, drowned her in one hot flush of passion. + +"Oh!" she cried, half closing her eyes, "do you care like that?" and she +drooped forward into his open arms. + +"Like this and like this," he said, kissing her fiercely. "Oh, my love! +my love! why have you infected me? Why have you poured yourself into my +very blood?" He had taken her by the shoulders almost roughly, +arraigning her with sombre-burning eyes. "You put that face of yours in +all my dreams. I go to sleep with it on my pillow; I wake up, it still +is there. In the blackest night I see you as I saw you first, standing +above the darkness, holding a great light in your hand. But the light is +not to light my way. Get you back into your fortress as quickly as you +can." He pushed her from him. "I am the enemy." + +"'Enemy,' 'coward'--I've another name for you," she said, trembling; +"and if I have any light, it surely is for you. Dear Ethan, don't you +see? Don't you see?" + +"See?" The moody eyes were heavy with passion. + +"It's all quite clear." She sat before him in the bottom of the boat, +with hands clasped, and a veiled exaltation in her eyes. "We must make a +compact. We Ganos are honest people; we'll play fair." + +"A compact?" + +"Yes. It will seem to other people like the common one. They'll call it +marriage. It may be, we'll live a lifetime together without doing the +ill you most dread doing. But if--if the worst comes to the worst, we +will have had one perfect year." + +"What do you mean, Val?" He seized her wrists. + +"It's more than every man and woman gets," she cried. + +"And then?" + +"Then, according to the compact, we will go out together before--before +we've opened the door--to another." With a broken cry she flung herself +on his breast. + +"Hush, hush, child! this is all--" His eyes were full of tears. + +"You'll see it is the only way. No one but ourselves will pay for our +being glad a little while." + +"Glad! Do you think you could be glad, poor child, with such an end +forever before your eyes?" + +"Hasn't all the world that end in view? Aren't many of us glad in spite +of all?" She smiled up into his face. "But can't you see that I'd rather +be sad with you, than be glad with any other?" + +He kissed her, and then: "This is nothing but madness--and my work, +too," he added, bitterly--"_my_ work." + +She put her fingers on his lips. + +"You take too much credit. It wasn't you who said, 'All mankind is under +a sentence of capital punishment.' It isn't as if we could escape, you +know." + +The old sense of all the ways being barred, of being a creature trapped, +lay heavy on him. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" he said, with a weary laugh, "we ought to be +less rational, or more so. You think you love me, little girl?" + +He laid his hands about her throat, and as he looked into the face his +senses swam again. She neither spoke nor moved, but the quick, bright +scarlet was in her cheek, and all her womanhood was in her eyes. + +"This leaping of the importunate blood," he thought, "all this +heartache, because of the will to live of that creature who is never to +be born; the spirit of the race, heedless of 'compacts,' clamoring for +reincarnation." + +"If life's as terrible and strange as you say," Val whispered, drawing a +little away, "and if this life's _all_, why, it's as clear as daylight, +we'd be less than rational, we'd be stark mad, to let our little day of +happiness go by. You see"--she crept closer to him again in the failing +light, half crying--"it concerns only us. We'll live our perfect day, +and when the evening comes we'll lie down--" + +"In each other's arms," he said, hiding his face in her loosened hair, +his tortured mind turning with passion to the image of ultimate peace. + +"Yes." Sobbing faintly, she drew away that she might see his face. His +voice had sounded strangely. "This is our compact," she said, and she +kissed him on the lips. + +"Our betrothal," he answered, dreamily, as one who has set his lips to a +philter. + +"Betrothal? Yes. I didn't know what a strange sound the word had. We +must exchange rings. Oh, Fate, be kind to us!" She lifted up her face as +she drew off the ring she wore. "You needn't be afraid to be kind. We +are honest people. We'll keep faith. Ethan," she whispered, "they +_can't_ grudge us so little as we ask." + +"The powers that be?" + +She nodded. + +"You said yourself that what we ask is more than many men and women +find. A year with you"--he gathered her up to his breast--"a whole year +of beautiful life and beautiful love without fear of the long decline! +It's a dream to draw the very gods out of their heaven. Oh, be sure +they'll be jealous of you and me." + +He kissed her again and again. + +"We mustn't let them be jealous. Where's your ring?" + +He drew off his signet, and took from her the little old band set with +pearls and two small rubies. + +"Too little for me," he said, "and too--" + +He smiled at the obvious femininity of the old trinket. + +"It's not for you to keep. We must make a sacrifice. I'll give yours to +the Spirit of the Air." She threw the signet as far up into the twilight +as she could, and they both listened. "Yours is accepted," she said, +triumphantly. "You must give mine to the Water." + +"Aren't you afraid the Earth will be jealous?" + +He held the ring over the side of the boat. + +"Oh, no; the Earth is patient; she knows we'll give her more than a +ring. Why do you wait? The Water-spirit will be angry." + +"You never told me who gave you this." + +"It was my grandmother's engagement ring." + +"No; was it? If this ring hadn't been given, neither you nor I would be +in the world." + +He dropped it into the river. They sat quite still, each knowing +perfectly what new train had been started in the other's mind, and +neither wanting to unpack the heart with words. A couple of boats came +up the river, full of boys and girls, laughing and singing. When they +got nearly opposite the pool their voices rang out plainly, complaining +of the current, and suggesting turning back. + +"What a pity you asked me that about the ring!" Val whispered. + +"I'm not sure it was a pity, dear." + +The passion had gone out of his voice. + +"You _like_ her standing here between us?" + +"I don't like to forget what must be remembered." + +If Ethan were conscious that the mental apparition of the old woman with +her silent, but effectual, "I forbid the banns"--if he were quite +conscious that her coming brought behind the dash of disillusionment a +sense, too, of reprieve, he forbore to say as much. It was enough that +the first wearer of the sunken ring had made not only the difference to +those two of being summoned out of the infinite, but the difference of +holding them back from the infinite as well. The compact they had made +was null and void as long as their common ancestress lived. Her +character and influence built high an impregnable barrier between her +descendants and this thing she would despise, and which they knew would +give her her first taste of the cup of humiliation. + +"It cannot be while she is in the world," said Ethan. + +With unconscious cruelty the other answered: + +"But she is very, very old, and we are young." + +A sudden stifled cry rose apparently out of the bushes and tall +water-weeds just to their left. Ethan sprang up. + +"It's only those boys," said Val, as a chorus of confused exclamations +came from beyond the Gray Pool. + +"No, it was nearer. Didn't you hear a splash?" + +The screams grew more distinct. + +"One of 'em's in the water," he said. "Hallo, there!" + +He paddled out from the overshadowing tree. + +"Ethan!" Val held out her hands in a sudden agony of fear. "It's +horribly deep here, and there's a current! It's the most dangerous place +on the river!" + +"Yes. Bad place for a little chap. Where did he go down?" he shouted. + +"It was a lady. Her boat's just behind you." + +Ethan turned, and saw dimly, a few yards off, Mr. Otway grasping the +side of a row-boat, and looking over into the water in a pitiable +paralysis of horror. + +"Where? where?" Ethan called, scanning the river on all sides. + +Something vague rose up a few yards below the boats, and moved quickly +down the current. Ethan was overboard in an instant, striking out in the +direction of the dark object. + +Val caught up the oars and followed in the boat. It was all over in a +few minutes. Ethan had laid hold on the unconscious girl, and swam with +her to the bank. Val rowed across, and Ethan and she, between them, +dragged Julia into the boat. The boys, who had followed, called back to +Mr. Otway that the lady was saved. + +When the father got up with them, Julia was reviving. + +"You'd better get into their boat," said Ethan to Val; "the old man's +not fit to go alone down-stream, you know. You won't mind?" + +"No," said Val; "but let us keep close together." + +"Of course." + +"She _would_ come," Mr. Otway kept saying, helplessly. "I _told_ her my +river days were over. She _would_ come." + +"How did the accident happen?" said Val, keeping eyes and ears intent +upon the boat just in front. + +Ethan bent to the oar, looking back now and then to see that Val was +close. Julia lay motionless, with Ethan's coat over her. + +"We must go as fast as we can," he called out. "We'll be able to get +some brandy at Leigh's Landing, and a trap." + +"How did it happen?" Val repeated. + +"Oh, we started only five minutes after you did, and Julia rows so well +we could have caught up with you. But she changed her mind or else got +tired, and when you got out of sight"--he put on his _pince-nez_ and +looked anxiously after the boat in front--"when you got out of sight, +she wanted to rest." + +"Where was that?" + +"Near the Gray Pool. She pulled the boat in among the rushes. I was +tired, too. I think I fell asleep. First thing I knew we were out of the +rushes, and Julia was leaning out of the far end of the boat."--("I +wonder how much she heard?" was the thought that haunted Val.)--"Whether +it was my speaking suddenly startled her, or whether she lost her +balance, I don't know--I don't know at all." And he droned on about, +"She _would_ come. I _said_ my river days were over." + +They found, as Ethan prophesied, dry clothes and warming potions at +Leigh's Landing, and a farm wagon to take them back to town. + +The two men sat talking volubly in front, Ethan driving. The two girls +occupied the back seat, in a silence never once broken till they said +"Good-night" at the Wharton House. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +"Well, Val, where have you been?" + +"I've been boating, and--" + +"Boating, after all! And poor Harry so anxious, riding along those awful +roads to the Forest Park Lodge." + +"Why should he do that? He might have known--" + +"He knew there was a very urgent telegram for you here." Mrs. Ball was +deeply reproachful. "We thought it best to open it." + +Val snatched it up and read: + + + "_Come home at once_.--SARAH C. GANO." + + +"Oh, she's ill; dying, perhaps! Oh, God! not dying!" She leaned against +the wall; her face frightened her hostess. + +"My dear, it doesn't say a word about being ill." + +"It's what it means; she knew I'd understand." + +"Don't take it like that, Val." She put her arm round the girl. + +Val threw her off, exclaiming: "Oh, I must go this moment. Can we send +Ethan word? Quick, quick!" + +"I'll let him know soon enough," returned the other, fastening +suspicious eyes on the girl's pitiful face. "I expect Harry back every +moment. I'll help you with your packing." + +In a dim way Val was relieved on second thoughts that Ethan should not +be summoned. He and she had been plotting treason. The poignant fear and +grief that swayed her would wear an artificial air in his presence after +what had passed. + +The packing, Harry's return, the hurried supper, all went as in a +nightmare. Now she was driving to the station, now she was saying +good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Ball, and to Harry. No, he was coming with her +apparently. Now they were in the train. Now they were rattling and +clattering through a tunnel. She sat in a corner with closed eyes, while +tears trickled incessantly from under the lids. + +"Dear, dear, I love you," she said to herself, and her lover was far +away from her thoughts. On the throne of life a bowed old woman seemed +to sit alone. "Oh, I'll be better to you after this, only live and give +me a chance." She drew her limp figure up suddenly and turned her back +on Harry's whispered solicitude. A lightning-like realization came, as +she sat there, of what the life of this woman had meant to her. And it +was going--going--would be gone, perhaps, before Val got home. She +covered up her face. She told herself it was no common relation that she +bore to the ancient _chatelaine_ of the Fort. Something deeper than the +blood tie, a thing wrought out of sheer personal force, hammered out of +antagonisms, welded with fear and with love, and binding, abiding +gratitude for a glimpse of the unconquerable mind. + +She saw now that if life from the beginning had never worn that cheap +and shabby air that it did to many girls without wealth or family +distinction; if, from the beginning, and day by day to the end, life had +carried itself bravely in the tumble-down old home; if in the leanest +years it had never lacked dignity, nor ever lost its faint old-world +fragrance; Val knew who it was who had wrought the spell, and who had +maintained it against all comers. + +And this magical power was threatened; this costly life in danger. It +suddenly seemed the one thing in the world best worth preserving. A few +hours before she had faced the idea of its loss so willingly--her tears +gushed afresh at the memory--even with an obscure, impatient longing she +had thought of this thing, that she saw now in its true aspect, as +unspeakably terrible and tragic. For it was something irreparable. There +was nothing like _her_ in the world; the things that went to her making +had passed away. To think that all that was represented by such a +spirit--that a force like this, after enduring and dominating life so +long, should go out into Nothingness--why, it was merely incredible. But +the presentment of the possibility had shaken the foundations of the +world. + +It was close on midnight when Val and Wilbur drove up to the gate. + +"Harry," said the girl, "you've been so kind, be kinder still: let me go +in alone." + +"Very well. I'll come back in a quarter of an hour to see if I can do +anything." + +There was a light in the long room. Val lifted the knocker, and as it +fell Emmie opened the door. It seemed to Val that her sister's face said +"Death." She pushed past her without greeting, and into the long room. +Mrs. Gano was sitting in the great chair. She leaned forward, holding +fast by the arms. The veil falling on either side her face did not hide, +or even soften, the expression of concentrated contempt with which she +said, very low: + +"So you've come back." + +"Y--yes. I thought--" + +"You thought you'd come before it was too late." + +"Yes; I was afraid--" + +"I'm glad there's _something_ you're afraid of doing, though I can +scarce imagine what." + +Val put her hand up, bewildered, to her eyes. + +"The last thing I would have believed of Valeria Gano was that she would +do something underhand." + +"Oh, but I didn't--" + +"You didn't pretend to me that you were going to visit Mrs. Austin Ball +when you were really running after Ethan?" + +"I haven't been running after any one." + +"Did he write you to come?" + +"No." + +"Did he expect you?" + +"No." + +"Some one who went up in the same train with you has had the audacity +to bring back the report that you went to the hotel to see Ethan before +you went to Mrs. Ball's at all." + +Val did not make the expected denial. + +"I'm ashamed of you"--the old face worked--"I've never been ashamed +before of a woman of this house." + +"I am not ashamed," said Val. + +"Then all I can say is"--Mrs. Gano extended her shawled arm--"you are +without the feelings of a decent woman." + +Val had sat down like one dazed. + +"Ask Emmeline," said the old voice, shaking as it rose; "the whole town +is ringing with the story, how you left your home under false pretences, +and pursued this man, who cares nothing for you--" + +"He does care for me." Val's nerves quivered under her grandmother's +derisive laugh, but it did not escape her that Emmie had caught +convulsively at the corner of the great buffet, and was leaning against +the pillared cupboard. + +"I dare say," observed Mrs. Gano, "that Ethan cares for a good many +ladies, if the truth's told, but he doesn't get most of them to run +about the country after him; that honor is reserved for you." + +"Wait!" Val struggled to her feet with a sense that she was choking. +"I'll tell you the honor that's reserved for me: Ethan cares more for me +than for any one in the world." + +Emmie leaned forward with white face and glittering eyes. + +"Indeed," said Mrs. Gano, "and when is the wedding, if one may know?" + +Val sank slowly back in the chair, dropping her hands at her sides and +her gloves on the floor. + +Emmie drew herself up, and the color came back into her face. + +"It's only an indefinite engagement as yet, perhaps," said the younger +girl. Her dark eyes flew to Val's hands. "Did he give you a ring?" + +"Yes," said Val, mechanically. + +"Why don't you wear it?" + +"What is that to you--to any one but Ethan and me?" + +"It _is_ something to your family," said Mrs. Gano. "I, too, should like +to see the engagement ring." + +Val thought of the gossip-loving town, the endless questions, "When is +the wedding?" "Why the delay?" + +"There is no engagement." + +"You said he gave you a ring." Emmie's words were quick and glad under +their suspicion. + +"I can't show you Ethan's ring." + +"Why, where's your own?" Emmie came nearer. + +Val got up and faced her sister with angry eyes. + +"How dare _you_ cross-question me? Don't you suppose I know it's _you_ +that have brought in the town's chatter, and magnified it, and--" + +"Your sister has done no more than her duty. She at least cares +something for the family dignity. She has felt all this gossip to the +quick." + +"I've no doubt of it," said Val. + +"Where is _my_ ring?" + +"Y--your ring?" + +"Yes, _my_ engagement ring. There has never been any need to hide that." + +"I--" + +"Ah, I see! there, too, you took the initiative. You don't bring back a +ring, but you left one behind. _He_ has a pledge to show, if you +haven't. But my ring was never meant for that; send and get it back. +Give me your arm, Emmeline." They passed Val by. At the threshold the +old woman turned. "Send and get it back, I say!" + +A soft knock at the front door arrested her. + +"Go and see, Emmeline." Mrs. Gano sat down on the chair just inside the +door, averting her face from Val. At the sound of Wilbur's voice she +half rose. "At _this_ hour!" + +"Oh, he just wants to see me a moment." Val moved forward. + +Mrs. Gano stood up, blazing through her spectacles, and cut off the +retreat. + +"Emmeline will remind him that you are not now away from your own home. +As long as I'm here, life under this roof must be conducted with some +decorum." + +"Oh, grandmamma, grandmamma!" said Val, hysterically, beginning to laugh +and to cry all at once, "don't you see? We thought you were dying, and +he's come to see if he can do anything." + +"_Dying_, indeed!" Her tone was that of one resenting some far-fetched +impertinence. "Go and tell him that I never felt better in my life, and +that he'd better go home." + + +Mrs. Gano did not appear the next day, nor the next. Val watched her +opportunity that second evening, when Emmie was out of the way, to go +into her grandmother's room and see for herself how she was. + +Mrs. Gano certainly appeared in excellent health. She was up, and she +was dressed with all her customary care. Standing by the window in the +waning light, she bent her veiled head over a book. + +"Good-evening, grandmamma; how are you?" + +Mrs. Gano turned and looked over her spectacles. + +"Good-evening." + +"I was afraid you were ill." + +"You are very determined I shall be ill, it seems to me." + +"No, no, but I naturally wanted to come and--" She stopped, feeling too +chilled and rebuffed to say more. + +"To come and bring me back my ring?" + +Val, without answering, walked to the door. + +"You _did_ give it to Ethan? Answer me." + +"Yes, grandmamma." + +"Have you got it back?" + +"No, grandmamma." + +"But you've heard from him?" + +"Yes--Emmie must have told you--letters and telegrams." + +"Had you written him to send back my ring?" + +"No, grandmamma." + +"Why not?" + +It crossed the girl's mind, "Suppose I tell her, 'Because I saw him +throw it away.'" She smiled faintly. + +"You will write for it to-night. Go and do so at once." + +"No, I'm sorry; I can't do that--I'm sorry;" and she went out. + +Val had a glimpse of her the next morning, when Mrs. Gano made her final +cold-weather "flitting" from the blue room up-stairs to the long room +down-stairs. But it was Emmie and the servants who assisted. The removal +was in the act of being finished when Val appeared on the scene. No +notice was taken of her. She went out and walked about the garden. +Returning to the house a little later, she met Emmie coming down the +steps of the porch with a letter. + +"Where are you going?" + +"To the post-office, and grandma doesn't want to be disturbed." + +"Then you'd better go stand guard at the door." + +"Oh, she can lock the door." + +"I'm going to the post-office; I can take the letter." + +"No." + +"Give it to me, I say." + +"I won't!" + +"I saw the address; it shall never go." + +"Grandma!" Emmie called, with all her might, holding the letter to her +breast and backing up the steps. "Grandma!" + +"How the old scenes of childhood repeat themselves," thought Val. "I've +been 'going for her,' and she's been shouting 'Grandma!' ever since we +came here as little girls." + +"_Grandma!_" Emmie was still calling, and the long room door opened. + +"I want to speak to you," said Val to her grandmother. + +"Val won't let me take your letter--" + +"Go this instant and do as I told you," said Mrs. Gano to Emmie. + +Val barred the front door. + +"I must speak to you, grandmamma, before that letter goes out of the +house." + +"Let me go, I say." Emmie struggled to get by. Val stood firm. + +"How dare you--" Mrs. Gano began. + +"I dare for a very good reason, and I'll tell you what it is if you'll +take the letter and let me speak to you alone." + +They stood looking at each other for a moment over Emmie's shoulder. +Then Mrs. Gano caught the letter out of Emmie's hand and went back into +her room. Val noticed how feebly she walked, followed, and quickly shut +and locked the door. + +"Open that door," said her grandmother. + +"I want to speak to you alone." + +"Open my door." + +Val did so. + +"Open it wide." + +She obeyed. + +"Emmeline, go away, and don't come back till I call you. Now," she +resumed, as Emmie's footsteps died away, "let us understand--Who is +mistress in this house?" + +"You are." + +"Very well, then." + +"But you are not _my_ mistress." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean there are some things I must decide for myself." + +"I've ceased to trouble myself for the moment about _your_ decisions." + +"That letter of yours to Ethan is to take something that concerns me +more than anybody here--to take it out of my hands." + +"If you can't manage your own concerns with propriety, your family must +help you." + +"No, I won't be helped." They looked at each other. "I must make my own +mistakes. It's I who have to live with them; I've a right to choose +which they shall be." + +"As your natural guardian, it is well within my province to write to my +grandson about your unheard-of conduct." + +"No." + +"Oh," she laughed derisively, "then, maybe, you will at least permit me +to write and ask that my property be returned to me." + +"Your ring?" + +"My ring." + +"No--please--" + +But the "please" was drowned in a tide of indignation. + +"I've had enough of your preposterous assurance. I'll write what and to +whom I choose." + +"Ethan won't read your letter. I'll wire that he is not to." + +"It's likely he'll obey you!" + +"Oh, be very sure he will." + +The angry old eyes were wide with wonder. What was the relation between +these two? + +"Has he asked you to marry him?" + +"No;" and she smiled. + +"You think he will?" + +"Yes, I think he will." + +She opened her lips to say "When?" but some astute sense had come to her +of how far she could go. She contented herself with a haughty lifting of +the head. + +"In my young days--" + +"Yes, yes, but things aren't always so simple now. Oh, haven't you any +faith in me, or in Ethan either?" + +"My faith has had a rude shock." + +"That was only because I didn't take you into my confidence. But don't +you know there are some things it's hard to tell to older people? Oh, +_don't you remember_, grandmamma!" the girl cried. + +"H'm!" but the face gradually softened. + +"Give us a little time, and it'll all come right. You don't want to get +rid of me instantly, do you?" + +"You know quite well--" + +"Yes, yes, you'd like us to be old maids, but I--" she shook her head in +the manner of one regretfully declining an impossible request. "May I +shut the door?" + +"Yes." + +She came back, sat down on the crimson footstool at the side of the +chair, and laid her head on the arm. + +"Please be kind to me," she said; "it's very lonely here at the Fort +when you aren't kind." Neither moved for several moments, and then Val +felt the touch on her hair. The tears rushed suddenly into her eyes. She +took the hand and kissed it. "How beautiful your hands are!" she said, +laying her cheek in the palm, and then raising her head to look again. +"The inside is the color and the texture of a rose-leaf." + +"Is that the kind of thing Ethan has been saying to you?" The inquiry +rang a little grimly. + +"Oh no," Val laughed. "He couldn't. _My_ hands aren't beautiful." They +were quiet awhile. "I haven't much that I can tell you, dear," the girl +went on, "but that I'm very happy--oh, the happiest person in the +world!" She smiled up into the vigilant old face. "And that in the end I +shall have what--what I've wanted since I was sixteen--oh, ever since I +was born, I think." She lowered her eyes, and the red came into her +cheeks. + +"And Ethan?" + +"Oh, he's happy, too. But that's not the part _I_ can tell you." + +"Where is he? What is he going to do?" + +"He's got a great burden of responsibility on him just now, with the +elections coming on. He's going to the Chicago Convention, you know." + +"H'm! Well, I don't pretend to fathom those newfangled arrangements--but +understand one thing--" + +"Yes?" + +"I won't have him here till there's a formal announcement." + +"Very well, dear." But the bright face fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +It was a little over a year after this that Mrs. Gano's life was +despaired of. + +"A complication of troubles, no one of them very serious, but all +together, and at her age--" + +The doctor completed the sentence with a gesture. + +The next day Ethan stood with his cousins at the bedside. + +"I did not send for you," was Mrs. Gano's greeting. + +"No; Val did," volunteered Emmie, who had not been told the result of +the doctor's consultation. + +"_Val_"--the sick woman raised her head--"you take a great deal upon +yourself." + +She sank back exhausted. Val could not read in Ethan's eyes that he had +abandoned hope. But the girl's heart was full of dread. She went softly +out of the room. + +"Oh, grandma, you've hurt her feelings," said Emmie, gently. + +"Nonsense!" + +"I saw tears in her eyes. Think of Val crying!" + +"It's no great affair that one should cry now and then. Perhaps it's +just as well that you've come, after all." She fixed a far from +hospitable look upon her grandson. "I was about to write you. Leave us +awhile, Emmeline." She closed her eyes as the girl went out, as if to +summon strength. "I don't approve of the tone of your last letter to +Val." + +Ethan stared. + +"Oh, she reads me parts still. She reads me a great deal. The tone of +the later ones, especially the last--" + +She shook her head with a weak, slow movement. + +"I am sorry you think--" + +"We haven't time to waste being sorry; let us be different." With sudden +energy she pulled out one page of a letter from under her pillow. "I +haven't eyesight to read your shocking writing, my dear--" + +"No, no; don't try. I remember what you mean. I won't make fun of the +Churchman in politics any more--not in my letters. I apologize to the +bishop." + +"Oh, _that_"--she smiled--"that was rather amusing, though not in the +best taste. No; what I mean was on the last page. Read from 'whom the +gods love.'" + +"Do you mean this quotation?" + +"Yes." + +"'Life, though a good to men on the whole, is a doubtful good to many, +and to some not a good at all.' Is that it?" + +"Yes. What's the rest?" + +"'To my thought it is a source of constant mental distortion to make the +denial of this a part of religion--to go on pretending things are better +than they are. To me early death takes the aspect of salvation.'" + +"Now I ask you, Can you find nothing better than that to say to a girl?" + +"It was not I who found it." + +"You say it's George Eliot. Well, she had too much sense to present that +view to a young girl. She put it in a diary. If you've nothing better to +put into yours, so much the worse for you. Don't you know there are two +ways of interpreting 'whom the gods love die young'?" + +"Yes"--he smiled--"'young' when they die at eighty." And he looked at +the living commentary. + +"Very well; it's a view to keep in mind. But it's not only occasional +things like that that I deprecate in your letters; the letters +themselves should cease." + +"Really." He drew himself up and returned her direct look, but the +wasted face and sunken eyes struck compunction to his heart. "Very +well," he said, soothingly. + +"It's not very well at all, but very ill, that you should try to waive +the subject." + +"Waive it?" + +"Yes. You think I'm dying, and you won't oppose me. I'm not dying, and I +mean to see Val through this before I _do_ die." + +"Through what?" + +"Through her foolish befogment about you. I had a long talk with Harry +Wilbur last week. He has behaved well. _You_--" She paused, as if trying +to pluck out the heart of his mystery; then, abandoning the attempt: "I +want you to promise me before you leave this room that you'll go away by +the next train, and that you won't see Val, or write to her, till one or +other of you is safely and suitably married." + +He had a moment's temptation to pacify her at all costs, but as he +looked into the old face he felt that a degradation would cling to him +if he played falsely with a spirit as honest and courageous as this. She +wasn't a woman one could lie to comfortably. + +"I can't promise you that," he said, after a struggle. + +"Why not?" + +"Oh, the old reason," he answered, with a look of weary pain. + +"What is that?" + +She craned her head forward. + +"You have to ask?" + +"I have to ask." + +"I love her." + +"And don't you know--" Her loyalty to Val stopped her. "Why don't you +tell her?" + +"I have." + +"Then, why aren't you-- What's the trouble?" + +"What's the trouble?" he echoed. + +"Yes. You surely aren't waiting for me to go?" + +"No, no," he said, hastily, feeling his fears for the moment dislodged +and feebly flying like a flock of bats and owls before the daylight in +the brave old eyes. "No, no; you are not the barrier." + +"What then?" + +"I suppose, primarily, it's Uncle John. He left us a legacy." + +"John!" + +A sudden mist of weakness rose before her like a veil. + +"Yes." + +Ethan turned away, and paced the dim room from the bedside to the +fireplace, back and forth. It came over the sick woman that it was just +so John had walked and talked about this life he lacked the energy to +live. How like him Ethan was growing in air and manner! It was as if +John had got up out of his grave to walk the old track in the old +restless fashion. What was it he was saying about "the wreck of creeds"? + +"--the mere expediency of the conventions right and wrong, and yet man's +hopeless struggle to be rid of the phantom Duty. If you pass the +churches by, she confronts you in the schools, in the laboratory, +follows you in the streets, dogs you day and night, the 'implacable +huntress.' We may free ourselves from all superstitions but Duty. She, +in one guise or another, is ever at the heels of men." + +"You wouldn't be a Gano if you didn't feel so," she said, wondering +vaguely if she had dreamed Ethan's coming and John's going. + +Which was it, walking the worn and faded track on Valeria's old blue +Brussels? + +"Exactly. So Uncle John said." + +Ah, then it was Ethan! + +"What was it John said?" + +She drew herself up, and shook off the veil of faintness. + +"Several unforgettable things about man's first duty to the race--about +not inflicting upon others the burdens Val and I must bear." + +"Burdens!" (Ah, she remembered now what they had been talking about.) +"What burden, I'd like to know, does Val bear that you can't lift?" + +"Her father's." + +"Humph! And you?" + +"She and I are of one blood. We carry a double share." + +"And let me tell you"--she sat up straight in the great bed--"a double +share of Gano is no bad addition to the world's brew." + +"Did you ever say that to Uncle John?" + +"Good Heaven! To hear you talk, a body'd think you had invented the law +of heredity--you and your uncle John." + +"God forbid!" + +"Well, God _has_ forbid, and let that content you. He is quite capable +of looking after His own world." + +Ethan's faint head-shake and his smile seemed to infuriate her. + +"My good soul, you take too much responsibility. It doesn't lie with you +to refashion the world. God's universe has been good enough for a great +many good people." + +"That it has been good enough for you doesn't cover the question," he +said, brutally, adding in haste, "even if you didn't deceive yourself. +It is not, as things are, good enough for all. But Uncle John was right: +it would be a better place to live in if people hesitated to perpetuate +disease." + +"Perpetuate disease! What folly you talk! Don't you see that your +improved new modes of living breed new diseases? If you have not the +cholera of my youth, you have the Bright's disease and the influenza +that we knew nothing of. Disease is part of the plan." + +"What an awful doctrine!" + +"Not at all. _I_ can't be sure that it wouldn't leave the world poorer +if disease were got rid of. I'm not, like you, ready to arraign the +Everlasting." (Val opened the door softly, came in, and stood at the +foot of the bed.) "To my finite mind, unsearchable are His judgments, +and His ways past finding out. I only know that they are just, and that +I am the work of His hand." + +"I envy you your faith." + +"No, you don't. You think yourself superior to it, and what's the +result? You walk in darkness." + +"Not altogether in darkness." He looked across at the girl. + +"Yes, in darkness and in fear. Not the fear of God--that's tonic--but in +the fear of pain. Oh, I've watched this phase of modern life. It's been +coming, coming for years. The world to-day is crushed and whining under +a load of sentimentality. People presently will be afraid to move, lest +they do or receive some hurt." + +"All people don't wear your armor." + +"There is no armor but God," she said, in a clear voice. "'We are +troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in +despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.'" + +He bent and kissed her hand. She withdrew it and laid it on his head, +smoothing the thick, dark hair. + +"You carry one Gano burden that I pity you for: you think too much about +life." + +"Ah, and it doesn't bear being thought about?" + +"But Val will help you there," she went on, ignoring the question. "All +she asks is the wages of going on." She reached out a hand to the girl, +who came and stood by her cousin. "Val hasn't the letter, but she has +the spirit. Remember, you two, when you come in the modern way to pick +flaws in the Faith, that if I wore stout armor, as you say, it was not +of this world's forging. Remember, that I told you I could not have +lived the half--no, nor the quarter part of my long life, if I had not +been 'persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor +principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor +height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us +from the love of God.'" She closed her eyes. "Now go and leave me, you +two. I am tired." + +Treading softly, Ethan went out of the room. Val watched beside her till +the night-nurse came. + +The next morning Mrs. Gano sent for the clergyman (through Emmie, saying +nothing to the others), and took the Communion. + +"It's a habit of mine," she told Ethan afterwards. "I always commune +several times a year." + +"Only at Easter and Christmas," Val told him privately, afterwards. +"But she is angry if we seem to notice anything unusual." + +About four o'clock Emmie, who did not appreciate the gravity of the +situation, came in from visiting a young girl who was very ill--not +expected to live. + +"Oh, grandma, you should have seen her! so gentle and so resigned; +saying good-bye to all her friends." Emmie broke down. + +"H'm! I consider that an unnecessary strain on the feelings." + +"Oh no," remonstrated Emmie; "it was beautiful! She prayed for us all." + +"She might do that without making a scene." + +"Oh, grandma, you don't realize what it was like. I never saw any one so +ready for the other life as Ada Brown." + +"Oh yes, you have. The best 'getting ready' isn't done on death-beds." + +"You're so unsympathetic," murmured the girl. + +"Yes, I've hated scenes all my life; but death-bed scenes I consider +indecent." + +"_Oh!_" Emmie got up and, with deeply injured looks, prepared to +withdraw. + +"If you haven't done your best, it's too late when you're dying to try +to mend things. If you _have_ done your best, there's no more to be +said." + +And no more _was_ said for several hours. She lay quite peacefully, took +the half-hourly restoratives from Val, but was visibly weaker on each +occasion. Ethan went out and sent for the doctor. He came back in time +to lift the half-unconscious form up in his arms, while Val held a glass +to the pale lips. + +"Enough," she whispered; "lay me down." And it was done. She opened her +eyes and faintly pressed Val's hand. "Good girl," she said. + +A slight spasm passed over her face. She turned her head away, clutched +the sheet, and, with what seemed a superhuman effort, drew it over her +face. Ethan put out his hand to take it away, but Val arrested him. + +"Don't! don't! She would never let any one see when she suffered." The +girl fell sobbing at the bedside. + +Some time after, Val drew the linen down. The suffering was over, so was +the long life. + + +Venus and the "new" servant had taken turns to sit through the day in +the long room, where the body lay. Ethan was to watch through the night, +but Val had insisted that she should be there from ten till midnight +while Ethan slept, before his watch began. He opposed her plan, but gave +way at last and went to lie down--not to sleep. Just before twelve +o'clock he came out of his room, down over the head of his old enemy +Yaffti, and stopped outside the long room door. Again a remembrance of +his childhood's awe, and the queer sense that he ought, in spite of all, +to knock to-night before going in. He turned the knob and entered +softly. + +The long, straight outlines of the coffin set high upon a bier, the +candles burning at the head, and in the shadow at the coffin's side a +deeper shadow on the floor. As his eyes became accustomed to the light, +he saw it was his cousin crouching there on her knees, with bowed head +and hands folded straight before her, palm to palm. He went forward and +tried to lift her. + +"No, let me alone; I--I want to pray." + +"To pray, Val?" + +She bowed her white face. + +"Not to God--I don't know about God--but there's some one else now out +in the vague, and I--I have need of her." + +Her face drooped out of sight, and the moments passed. The motionless +figure with the folded palms might have been a mortuary marble on an +ancient tomb, so rigid was it, so uninformed by life. Ethan sat at the +coffin's foot and watched the candles flare. + +What if this shock and jar were to send Val back to the faith of her +fathers? What was it in its lesser effect upon himself? What was it +working in him? He looked at the long, dim outlines. Death! For the +girl, too, with her joy of life, her greed of consciousness, and for +him, this hour would come, of rigid quiet, and of watchers in the +candle-light. He shivered involuntarily, glancing at the kneeling +figure. Death! How much he had thought about it, and how little he had +seen. Here it was beside him in a narrow box. He turned away his eyes, +seized upon afresh by its horror and its fascination. That moment of +dissolution, what had it been like? Even the brave old woman had covered +up her face. He peered a moment into the pit, realizing for that instant +the wrenching away of life's supports, the plunge, the sinking to the +bottom. With an effort he reminded himself of the peace, too, awaiting +all down there, and its being the only possible solution to the riddle +of the world. But the end--the end! Earthquake and avalanche it is, for +the one who lies a-dying; fire and flood and shock of battle, the true +end of the world. For us the lamp of the sun was lit on the day of our +birth, for us the stars will be snuffed out and chaos come again when we +lie down to die. + +Had it been like that with her--this dead woman at his elbow? He stood +up; cautiously he came to the coffin's head, with parted lips, like one +about to put an eager question. He laid back the white sheet. At sight +of the tranquil features his own tense look relaxed. Ah, no; for that +steadfast spirit the end had brought no terror, or if it had, the quiet +face kept triumphantly its secret. A movement down in the shadow, and +Val lifted her head, but not as high as the coffin. + +"Ethan!"--she clutched his hand--"don't you feel how alive she is? Hush! +in a moment she will speak. I've asked her for a sign." + +They waited--in that silence that wraps the world. Then Val stood up, +and gave a cry as she beheld the face for the first time since the +"laying out." She caught up the candle, and held up the light before the +dead, as she had held it before the living woman on that evening long +ago, when Ethan saw her first. + +"Oh, Ethan, Ethan," said the girl, "_she's smiling_! That's her answer." + + +They had come back from the burial, and for the first time in their +lives Val and Emmie were in the old house without that constant presence +that had come to seem as much a part of the Fort as its very walls. +Ethan was still there. Mrs. Otway had come to be with them through those +first days; but since the dead body had been carried out of the house +loneliness was lodged there like a bailiff, violating the sanctity and +blessedness of home. + +Ethan found Val in the long room the next evening, sitting on the floor +crying, with head against the big empty chair. + +"Even you can't make the awful loneliness go away," she said. "I must +wait awhile before I can think about taking up life." + +The next day she said to him: "You must go away now, and you must come +back for me." + +"You still think it possible?" + +"For you to go away?" + +"For me to come back." + +"Possible? Inevitable!" She smiled up at him with an air of tender +mockery. "No escape from _me_. But never forget"--she was grave enough +now--"we may escape paying the penalty--people do." + +He studied her a moment. No; she was thinking only of the natural +"chance." No idea of trying to control it had come her way. "Nor could +she comprehend," he thought, "how, even if I am wrong in my inveterate +mistrust, or if science should to-morrow carry us so far that we should +be demonstrably beyond the reach of danger--she could not realize that +no power on earth or in the heavens could make us fully credit our +security, could carry us beyond the reach of _fear_. Imagination is, by +so much, mightier than reason. Trust imagination to keep the fear +alive, to work without ceasing, by day and by night, subtly to destroy +the fabric of our lives." + +But even when the strong contagion of his fear had reached and mastered +her a moment, it was fear with another face. + +"I see plainly"--she laid her hands on his shoulders--"you think that it +will mend matters if you have the treachery to go the long journey by +yourself, and leave me alone in the world. But it would only mean that +we should die apart, and now, when we might have died later and +together, and--and"--she laid her face against him--"after great joy." +He stroked her hair with an unsteady hand. "Look at me!" she cried on a +sudden, lifting up her face. "You aren't afraid? Don't you see that I'd +keep my word?" + +"Yes, you'd keep your word." + +In his inmost heart it would have helped him at that moment to have +found any softness of shrinking there. + +"Then you'll come when I send--you'll come and take me away?" + +Was it fancy, or had she lightly stressed the "me"? He thought of how he +had come first of all and taken John Gano to the South to die; how he +had returned to follow his grandmother to her long home. He had a sudden +vision of himself in the guise of Death. "Each time I come," he thought, +"I see some one of this house off on his last journey. Soon little Emmie +will be left alone." + +But Emmie was not left to the last, and Ethan, though he never knew it, +was responsible for her, too, turning her back upon the Fort--upon the +world. + +The effect of Mrs. Gano's death on a clinging and dependent nature like +Emmie's was painfully apparent. Val's new-born sense of tender +guardianship over her younger sister was certainly not weakened by the +younger girl's confession, after he went away, of her passion for Ethan. + +"I always thought it might come right for me," she said, "till--till I +saw the look on his face when he bade you good-bye. When will you be +married, Val?" + +"I don't know, dear." + +"Some time during this year?" + +"I should think so." + +The younger girl bowed a meek head, and turned to her faith as a refuge, +or, as Ethan would have said, an opiate. But the old helps seemed to +have lost somewhat of their efficacy. She began to go to mass, and one +day sought an interview with the Roman Catholic priest. A few months +afterwards she was received into the Roman Church. + +Val would not leave her sister while she was going through these phases, +and forbade Ethan to come till she should send for him. + +But Mrs. Gano had not been in her grave a year when Emmie herself made +the final move that broke up the old home. How much religious fervor had +to do with it, how much a sense of unfitness for the battle of life, how +much a feeling in the gentle heart that she was delaying Val's +happiness, no one ever knew. She bade her sister good-bye with many +tears, turned her back upon the Fort, and entered the first year of her +novitiate at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. + +A week later, in early August, Val was married very quietly to her +cousin, in the Church of St. Thomas. "But the real marriage was that +evening on the river when we propitiated the Fates," she whispered, as +they came down the church steps. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +They went abroad at once. At first, in a rhythm of rapture and of +terror, the time went by, now with flying, now with faltering feet. But +albeit living on the volcano's brink is possible to men--living there +with fear is not. The fire still rages under foot, but the terror must +burn out, or else the life. + +It had been to Ethan a standing marvel that +happiness--forgetfulness--had visited them so persistently even in these +first months. In vain he said to himself, "Fool! be sure Nemesis keeps +the score!" Of what avail that a man should tell himself Nemesis would +exact the uttermost farthing for every care-free hour, when life, in the +guise of the woman he loved, was luring him on from one day to the next, +and the next, and the next? + +April found them at Nice. They had come back to their hotel one night +after the play, and Val had gone out on the balcony that opened off +their sitting-room, declaring the night too glorious to waste indoors. +Ethan followed her, and while the town went to sleep, they sat there in +the moonlight, and talked of many things. In a moment of protest against +the anodyne of gladness that he felt stealing into his blood, he burst +out with something of his wonder at their frequent and utter forgetting +of the shadow. + +"It's not wonderful at all--it's what all the world does without our +good reason." She pressed closer to his side; then, as if feeling the +sudden frost that had fallen on his spirit, she drew away, but smiling +and unchilled. "Dear lord and master, I give you warning, I've done with +fearing. I see that Life means well by us; I sha'n't doubt her any +more." + +"Unberufen"; and he smote the wooden balustrade with his hand. + +"I tell you plainly"--she flashed a tender defiance in his face--"the +Fates gave me a very small stock of fear to begin with, and I've used it +up. It's"--she held up her little hands and flung them out to the right +and left--"_all gone_!" + +"Hush; don't jest about it, dear." + +"Never was more serious. I'm warning you. Not all the king's horses nor +all the king's men--" + +"Hush, hush!" + +"Not even"--with a disdainful toe she touched the yellow-covered book +that lay on the balcony floor--"not even your old Dumas fils can +frighten me." + +"I never heard him accused of trying." + +"Oh yes, and most insidiously, in those lines he wrote to go before +_Diane de Lys_." + +"The lines to Rose Cheri?" + +"Yes. If I were going to be frightened-- Ugh! I did have a black +moment." + +He drew her into his arms with a sheltering impulse. + +"I had forgotten the verses were--" + +"Oh, it wasn't the verses, it was the situation. He had loved her--" + +"Yes, I remember; and she died." + +"Isn't it queer that it should be left to poor Rose Cheri's lover to +convince an American, with a very pessimistic lover of her own--left to +Dumas to _convince_ me of death? You know when Henri de Poincy came for +you this afternoon?" + +"I left you to rest and read up _La Dame aux Camelias_; not meditate on +mortality." + +"See how you've corrupted me. I was just dropping asleep over the play, +when the book slipped, and the leaves turned back to the dedication of +_Diane_. I read it. Quite suddenly"--she sat up, and her face was pale +in the moonlight--"I realized Death. Not merely as a thing that might +come to one's grandmother, but.... You see, I had considered it too +much to realize it. But there was that dainty Rose Cheri before me. +_She_ had been loved--almost as well as I--" + +"No, no." He pressed his lips on hers. + +"All those kisses didn't keep the red on Rose Cheri's lips. They turned +to evil gray ashes. Her jewel-bright eyes, back they sunk to blackness +in their sockets. All that beauty and feeling--all that _feeling_, +Ethan--wiped out." The living lovers clung together for a moment. "I +suddenly saw," the girl went on, "for the first time in my life, really +_saw_, that death wasn't a strange infrequent happening, but that +everybody has the face turned that way. Yet, as I sit and tell you about +it, the realization slips away--once more it's only words." + +"Yes," he said, "that's part of Nature's colossal imposture." + +At the word "imposture" she seemed to try to recapture the revelation of +the afternoon. + +"Dumas is dead," she murmured, looking across the bay from under knitted +brows. "He felt all that, and yet he's dead. The beautiful woman and the +strong man, they are now as if they'd never been here. Nothing availed +them. His genius, her faith, her beauty, their love--futile, +futile--they had to go. Were they alive as I'm alive?" She turned +suddenly on her lover, in a kind of panic. "Did they feel life so keen a +thing as we?" + +"No, no; he hadn't you to love." + +"Surely it was not like this, or they _could_ not have died." She lay +back in his arms and looked up at the full white moon. Presently she +smiled. "As I sit here to-night I simply do not believe one little bit +in this rumor of death--not as touching me. Other people--yes--only not +me." + +As she lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up so straight and +sure, the man's nerves shrank under a sense of desertion. In a sudden +access of physical pride and joyous sovereignty, she seemed to have cast +him off, along with Rose Cheri and the rest of that great "nation that +is not." + +"No one was ever truly alive before," she was saying half to herself, +her wide shining eyes turned upward to the stars. "That was why they +died. But me--" + +"Oh, my darling!" he said, bending towards her, "you are quick in every +fibre and in every sense. The wild taste of life has stung your palate, +and I sit and wonder how long--how long--" What need to finish, she must +understand. But her thoughts were turned another way. + +"How long?" She laughed low and joyously. "I've enough life to last as +long as the sun has heat to warm the world. I shall go on and on and +on." She turned to him with a quick, free movement, and stopped at sight +of his face, as though she had been smitten into stone. After a moment +she bowed her head down on his knees. They sat motionless. When she +raised her head, it was to say: "Never mind, we've come safely so far;" +but her face was bright with tears. + +"O life," she said softly, looking upward to the stars, "don't let me +die!" + +"Are you so happy?" he said, hungering to hear it was for what he +brought her she would stay. + +"Yes, yes," she said, grasping his hand; "and I'm so hungry for this +_being alive_." + +He drew his hand away. + +"A thousand years," he said, with a kind of anger, "wouldn't quench your +curiosity, or weary your quest for joy; but a little sorrow may." + +She shook her head dreamily. + +"I think my soul must have waited long about the gates of life begging +to be let in. I'm so content to be here, so willing to take the rough +with the smooth, so grateful for the good--" + +"So patient with the wrong," he added, with tender self-reproach, and he +gathered her up to his breast. + +She laughed, a low laugh, with her face pressed close to his, and he +felt forgiven, but the girl was only saying to herself, "To think that +I've bothered about--why, it would be grotesque for _me_ to die. There'd +be no meaning in it--a kind of violence against Nature and probability +that reason revolts at. Everything matters so to me. It's for my sake +the sun shines, it is for me the moonlight is mysterious, and the ways +of life so many, and so thickly set with adventure." + +"You'll admit," she said aloud, at last making ready to go in, "most +people have never suspected how good and wonderful the world is--so, +plainly, it must be for me (and one or two besides) that it's so fine +and terrible a thing to be a dweller in it. Poor world!"--she stopped on +the threshold and looked back at the night--"when men rail at you so +dully, no wonder you stop their mouths with dust. But for me, I love +you. Even when you hurt me I love you--I love you! You'll not get many +to bear so good-humoredly with all your wild moods as I--make the most +of me. Let me stay a long, long time." And again she went blithely to +face death, after the manner of women. + + +In London and Paris Val made her husband renew his old friendships, and +show her that picturesque and holiday side of life so charming to the +American woman. Dressed for Lady Eamont's garden-party one day at the +end of June, Val stood radiant in her pretty clothes before the long +mirror in the drawing-room of her house in Bruton street, waiting for +the carriage. + +"I feel like a lady on a Watteau fan," she said, rejoicing frankly in +the dainty elegance of her Paris frock. "It's all so airy and so +cobwebby. Don't breathe hard," she cried, as Ethan bent over her; "a +breath will blow me away." + +"Are you as happy as you look?" he asked, smiling. + +"Happy! I think nobody was ever so happy before. I believed I knew how +beautiful life was, but I didn't." + +She looked out of the open window. It was one of those peerless summer +days with which England repays her months of gloom. The white silk +curtains waved in the soft air, bringing in wafts of mignonette from the +window-boxes. Val threw back her head with the old movement, smiling. +"Yes, it's easy to see," said Ethan to himself, "easy to see what she's +thinking." + +"I'm glad you're so happy. I was afraid you didn't sleep well last +night; you were so restless." + +"Was I?" She laughed. "Oh, I suppose I grudge the time I waste in sleep. +There's the carriage." + + +As the days wore on he lost his fear of pricking the bright bubble of +her gladness. The life they led left little time for meditation, and +Val's enjoyment of balls, races, and kindred festivities, gave him an +interest in the old round that surprised no one more than himself. He +saw it all in a new and tender light, this mask of fair women, leagued +in their age-old conspiracy, gliding across ballroom floors, trailing +flower-like fabrics over velvet lawns, decorating the tops of coaches, +and making of boats up the river floating gardens. There was much art in +this determined turning of life into a festival; there might be +philosophy, too, in woman's light-hearted begging of the "Question." + +If the men tried here and there to wile Val's heart away, why, that was +part of the game, and the women certainly did not neglect Val's husband. + +"You are so different to most American men," said a certain smart lady +who had shown him frank preference. + +"Oh," said Gano, "have you known many?" + +"Well, several; and you're quite different." + +"I am sorry to fall below the standard." + +"You don't fall below; you do the opposite." + +"You make me wonder about the others." + +"Oh, they were all right, but I don't like American men as a rule." + +"You must try to keep the awful knowledge from crossing the Atlantic." + +"Oh, they know we don't care much for the men." + +"I'll tell you what we'll do"--he spoke as one having an +inspiration--"we'll kill off all our men if you'll kill off all your +women." + +She laughed good-humoredly. + +"We'd spare the Southerners for your sake; besides, the English have +always had a weakness for Southerners. You're more like us. _You_ don't +make little set speeches, and you are delightfully quiet and grave." + +Ethan burst out laughing. + +"One has to come to England to be praised for one's blemishes," he said. + +"Blemishes! Do you know the most objectionable thing in the American +manner is excessive cheerfulness?" + +"You surprise me." + +"I've already said I didn't mean you." + +Whereat Ethan laughed again with more amusement than he often showed. + +"Say the most obvious, commonplace thing, and an American will laugh," +she said, reproachfully. + +"Ah, you see, our national sense of humor--" + +"Nonsense; it's just uneasiness and excessive desire to please." + +"Ah yes, we are very simple-minded." + +"There's nothing so maddening as a constant smile. That girl over there +in the pervenche silk, an old school friend of mine, was condoling with +me before you came upon having a brother-in-law whose habitual +expression is a fixed frown. I said it didn't trouble any of us in the +least. Both my sister and I had long ago agreed, if we had to choose +between a man with a perpetual laugh or a perpetual scowl, we'd take the +scowl and be grateful." + +"Ah, I begin to understand your ladyship's tolerance for me." + +"Come, now, be honest; don't you realize how much more Americans laugh +than other people?" + +"If it is so, it's because we're the saddest race under the sun." + +Still he smiled. + +"Saddest--" + +"Yes; in proof of it our feverish activity, and our frequent laughter. +You remember the boy who whistled in the dark? The American laughs on +the same principle." + + +It was early August, and they were in Scotland. A letter came from Emmie +saying that she had been ill, and was a little better; but there was a +settled sadness in the few lines that roused Val out of her engrossed +delight in her first experience of country-house life. + +"I'm so sorry, Ethan--when we're having such a good time, too; but I +almost think-- Emmie has no one in the world, you know, but me." + +They took the next steamer back to America. + +The news they found awaiting them at the Fort was in the shape of a +letter from the Mother Superior, saying that Emmie was certainly better, +but that she refused to see her sister. She was for the moment immovable +in her resolve to hold no personal communication with the outside world. +This, from the clinging and affectionate Emmie, was a great blow to Val. +She shed the first tears since her marriage over the letter. But until +Emmie relented, or was quite well, she wanted to be within call. + +"You think you'll like staying here?" Ethan looked about the faded room. + +"Yes; I love the Fort. I belong here." + +"I must have it freshened up for you, then." + +"No, I like it as _she_ left it." + + +The first person to call at the Fort was Harry Wilbur. He appeared to be +laboring under a suitable depression, and never addressed Val without +Mrs. Gano-ing her. She said, at last: + +"You mustn't be politer than I am, and I can't possibly call you +anything but 'Harry.'" + +He flushed and laughed. + +"All right;" and he presently gave himself up to an undisguised +satisfaction in Val's return. + +It was from Wilbur she heard that Julia Otway was engaged to be married +to Mr. Tom Scherer, Judge Wilbur's new law partner. The late-comer was +reputed to be tremendously clever, and to have written a very "modern" +and highly successful novel. + +"Scherer's _great_," Harry said, in his good-natured way. "He does and +is all the things my father's been bothering so long to make me." + +"And do you like him--this Scherer?" + +"Course; he's taken a frightful responsibility off me. Besides, he's a +capital fellow." + +Val and Ethan were going over the river one morning soon after their +arrival, when, on the bridge in the narrow footway, they met Julia and +Jerry face to face. Val shook hands with them both, and as she talked to +Jerry she heard Ethan saying they had expected to see Julia before +this--when was she coming to the Fort? Julia made plausible excuses for +not having called before, and Ethan laughingly blamed Mr. Scherer. + +"Bring him to see us," he said, as they parted. + +The next morning, Julia passed by while Ethan was giving some directions +to the gardeners. He called out to her, and they talked awhile at the +gate. Val, at an upper window, wondered what she could say to her +husband that would not betray the ground of that old quarrel, and that +yet would relieve her from pretending she had shaken off the effects of +it. As she stood there the bell sounded. Julia glanced up and saw her. +Ethan, seeing a change in the face, looked up, too, and called out: + +"Oh, Val, here's Miss Julia; make her come in and lunch with us." + +Val went down and seconded her husband's invitation. Julia declined, but +Ethan insisted. In the end she came. Twice in the following week Ethan +went over to play tennis at the Otways'. The last time he brought Julia +and Mr. Scherer back with him. + +Val was sitting on the back veranda with Ernest and Sue Halliwell. + +When the Halliwells had gone, and Ethan and Mr. Scherer had strolled off +to see how the newly rolled and sodded croquet-ground was looking, +Julia said, with a slight embarrassment: + +"Your husband just _made_ us come back with him." + +"I'm very glad." + +"I told him you didn't want to see me." + +Val looked up quickly. + +"He must have thought that strange." + +"He did. So then I knew you had never told." + +"Told what?" + +"Oh, about that old school-girl silliness of mine." + +"You must have known that I would never--" + +"Yes, yes--especially now that I'm engaged." + +"I don't see how that affects the situation," said Val, a little +haughtily. + +Julia was looking after the men. + +"You've never forgiven me," she said, "and yet I should think you'd been +happy enough to--" + +"To what?" + +"Not to harbor ill-will." + +"I don't see what my being happy has to do with it." + +"Why, everything. The one who has got what she wants hasn't much ground +for complaint." + +"_Much_ ground for complaint?" Val's eyes sparkled. "What do you mean? +What have I to complain of?" + +"Nothing, of course, really. But I've thought the few times we've met +that you--that you didn't particularly like--" She stopped. + +"When I don't like things I change them," said Val, privately +congratulating them both that Julia's sentence was left hanging in the +air. Pride was working strongly upon her. "It's true enough that I've +got what I want; but haven't you?" The two men came back round the L, +crunching the new gravel under their feet. "The Halliwells said you are +to be married next month." + +"Other people always know what I'm going to do so much better than I do +my myself." + +"It's not true, then?" + +"It's not settled." + +The men were within ear-shot. + +"You and Mr. Scherer must stay to supper," said Val, with a deliberate +cordiality, as the men rejoined them, "mustn't they, Ethan?" + +In the evening old Mr. Otway and Jerry came over. Julia played, and her +_fiance_ sang student songs. + +Julia noticed that Mr. Gano made no effort to get Val to sing, and she +fell to imagining what his feelings had been when he found that he had +silenced that wonderful voice. She went home full of secret pain and +irritation--irritation at Tom Scherer because--well, because he was not +Ethan Gano; pain at finding how the old feeling she had thought dead had +sprung up quick, tormenting, under the careless glance of those sombre +eyes. + +Almost every morning she resolved to go no more to the Fort; almost +every evening saw the resolution broken. + +If, in the days that followed, Julia's odd footing in the house was not +discouraged by Val's proud tolerance, it was maintained by an attitude +on Ethan's part, entirely friendly, sometimes even flattering. With +Scherer, too, he was on the best of terms. Scherer, immensely pleased at +Gano's liking for his society, was ready to smoke and talk politics or +literature till two in the morning. He could sit in court all day, play +tennis or sing songs in the evening, and again sit up half the night. + +"Do men always need outsiders? Is a wife never enough? Still, it isn't +Scherer I mind," Val said, honestly enough, to herself, "although he is +beginning to echo and imitate Ethan absurdly." + +The real trouble was that they went almost nowhere without Julia. It was +Julia and Ethan who one day, when Val was confined to her room with a +cold, arranged the steamboat excursions up and down the Mioto. + +Val, lying in bed in the blue room, heard them laughing down on the back +veranda. + +Ethan came up-stairs an hour or so later. + +"Oh, you're awake!" + +"Well, yes; it isn't likely I'd sleep with all that noise." + +"What noise?" + +"Why, Julia and you laughing." + +"Oh, I'm sorry. It was stupid of us to leave the door open." + +The answer jarred. + +"Does Julia know my cold's worse?" + +"Yes, she wanted to come up and see you." + +"She did!" + +"I wouldn't let her disturb you. But she's got a plan--rather an amusing +plan. Julia is full of ideas." + +"What kind of ideas?" + +"Oh, plans for passing the time. This, for instance: going one of these +fine days with hampers and some good fiddlers on an absurd flat-bottomed +steamboat, that stops every time a passenger comes out of the virgin +forest to the water's edge and waves an umbrella to the man at the +wheel." + +"Going an excursion on the steamboat is an idea that every man, woman, +and child in New Plymouth has had for the last century." + +Ethan smiled. + +"Shall I read to you?" + +"You don't want to talk?" + +She had some ado not to cry, but she kept saying to herself: "Silly! +silly! silly!" + +"I don't mind," he answered; but he walked about the room looking at +Aunt Valeria's atrocities, and naturally, Val said to herself, growing +grave. How he had laughed down on the veranda! + +In a couple of days she had shaken off her cold sufficiently to go on +the river with Julia's party. Although it was little pleasure to Val, +she offered no slightest objection to this excursion or to the second +"up river." + +But although no one noticed anything amiss, the days were bringing her +an acute disquiet. She saw clearly that Julia was not in love with Tom +Scherer, and she saw further. A new sense came to her, not altogether +depressing, of life's fecund possibility for unhappiness. So many ways +of going wrong, only one of going right! Well, it was very exciting. + +"Is this what the story-books mean? Am I what's called jealous?" she +asked herself. "Am I secretly afraid of Julia? Was Ethan right? Does +even joy like ours change and pass? No, no; it will be all right +to-morrow." + +Although she called herself a thousand fools, and guilty of vulgar +suspicions into the bargain, she presently could not rid herself of the +feeling that Ethan was a little cold to her; the mere fancy that this +might be so made her shrink from him, lightly evade his caress, first +frustrate and then deny his tenderness. + +"You are tired of being kissed?" he said, one morning. + +As she only smiled and made no answer, he did not for thirty-six hours +offer to repeat the offence, and went with lowered looks, silent, +impenetrable, when they were alone. + +"Is it really so?" she burst out that second evening, after Julia and +the rest went home. "Is it only when others are here that you are +happy?" + +"It's only when others are here that I can forget that there's a rhythm +even in such love as ours." + +"What do you mean by a rhythm?" + +"A rise and a fall. A winter because there has been a summer." + +"No, no, Ethan." Her voice rang piteously. + +"I'm not blaming you, dear." + +"Blaming _me_? I should think not." She spoke almost cavalierly. + +"It's the same with the fortunes of love, I suppose," he went on, "as it +is with the fortunes of families, of nations, creeds, crops." He laughed +a little ironic laugh. "The very planets have a time of prosperity, a +point of ascendancy reached, a time of failing, an ultimate--" + +"Ethan, Ethan, what are you saying!" She stopped him as he paced the +parlor from Daniel Boone to the mirror. She remembered the evening that +her father, in that very room, had "forbidden the banns." "You know I +don't let you talk like that of our dear love." + +"I only say it to myself, child, as a kind of comfort." + +"_You_ need comforting, too?" + +He nodded, smiling in his grave way. + +"I tell myself it's not my darling that is to blame. We've been almost +too happy. The old leveller, Nature, is at her eternal work of rotation, +turning the big wheel round. By so much as we've been on the top we must +go under for a little." + +"Ethan, that may be good science, but it's very poor love." + +"It's the best apology I can invent for you." + +"For _me_?" Her voice rang along an indignant circumflex. + +"It's certainly not I who was tired." + +"Oh, Ethan, I was never tired for the smallest little bit of an instant. +Kiss me! kiss me!" She clung about his neck. "It was only that I was +tired of Julia's high laugh, and--and tired of her altogether!" she +burst out. + +"Then why do you have her here?" he asked, without a moment's +hesitation. + +"Oh, only because you like her so much," Val said, with her old childish +frankness. + +"As to that, I like her well enough. She's provincial, but she's lively +and good-tempered. However, if she's got on your nerves, I don't want +her about." + +"It would be very selfish of me--" Val began, with reluctantly righteous +air. + +"Nonsense. How long do you want to stay here, anyhow?" + +"Do you mean you're ready to go away?" she asked, her lips parting and +her white teeth gleaming in a half incredulous smile. + +"I do call that ingratitude." + +"Of course I know it was for my sake at first--" + +"First and last, Mrs. Gano; though what good it does Emmie--" + +"Oh-h!" She leaned her head against him with a happy sigh. "You're +thinking of Emmie!" + +"As to Julia," he said, reflectively, "I didn't know enough about +women's friendships to be able to tell--" + +He looked down at the face on his shoulder considering. + +"Yes," she said, smiling, "let me in--tell me the worst." + +"You see, Julia"--he hesitated--"it won't be easy to make you understand +without hurting you." + +Val stood suddenly erect, the smile gone. But very gently he pressed her +head down on his shoulder again, and rested his cheek on her hair. + +"You see, Julia is like a game of tennis, or a pleasant picture of the +anecdotic kind. She doesn't give one cause to think; she is mildly +amusing and agreeably irrelevant." + +"What is there in that to hurt me?" said the suspicious voice under his +chin. + +"There is nothing that ought to hurt you. But such a person may at times +be a sort of--a sort of--" + +"Distraction--refuge; just what I used to be." + +"As if any one ever could be what you used to be!" + +He held her closer. + +"You're saying what I _used_ to be, as if--" + +She struggled to get out of his arms, but he kept her prisoner. + +"Hush! Listen. It's only this, dear: In sharing my life you have come a +little--a little under the shadow. No, you aren't what you used to be--a +gay little cousin that one could laugh with, and, as I thought, leave +behind. You are something so much nearer that you are a dearer self. You +give hope a new gladness"--she looked up with happy eyes--"you give fear +fresh poignancy." + +"No--no," she said lightly, concerned only to lift him out of his grave +mood. "No, Ethan, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have not found it +dull or gloomifying to be with you. You invent sad things to say, but +we've had a heavenly time--till just lately." + +"Yes, we found happiness if ever two people did!" But he looked at her +with so strange a passion of questioning that she kissed his eyelids +down. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +She longed more and more to go abroad again. + +"As soon as ever you please," said Ethan. + +How good he was to her! How he indulged her! How wonderful it was to be +loved by such a man! Soon they'd be off again on their travels, seeing +the beautiful Old World. Oh, Life was keeping her promises every one! + +Five days after the talk about Julia came a letter from Mother Joachim, +saying that Emmie's health was quite restored, but that she was +inflexible about not seeing her sister. Mother Joachim herself thought +it best that, for a year or so, nothing more should be said of the +proposed meeting. Perhaps the girl would be willing to see her friends +before taking the black veil. + +With a joy, for which Val, thinking of her sister, reproached herself, +she and Ethan had begun to lay their plans for a winter in Italy. +Suddenly, without reason as it appeared to her, his interest seemed to +falter, his good spirits to flicker out. + +Although even Val would not have denied that her husband could, if put +to it, produce at any moment of the day or night the blackest charges +against the order of the world, he had not hitherto proved a depressing +person to live with. Like certain other unsanguine souls, he was a +pleasanter companion than many an arrant optimist. + +This was more certainly the case when politics were a little in the +background. Val longed to see the subject banned. It seemed the one +thing that took Ethan quite out of her sphere, and kept him in some +world of scorn and indignation, at whose borders her smiling +jurisdiction stopped. + +"No more politics!" she said to Tom Scherer when he appeared after +breakfast the morning after the letter had come from Mother Joachim. +"I've come to the conclusion that it's bad for the digestion to talk +bribery and corruption night after night till the small hours." + +"_Your_ digestion ought to be all right. You deserted us at eleven +o'clock." + +"I? Oh yes; but other people--" + +"Never know when to go home?" + +"It's not the people who go home that I am concerned about, if you'll +forgive my saying so. Ethan's in one of his moods this morning." + +"What sort of mood?" asked Scherer, looking into the cloudless face of +the young wife. "Not very grim, to judge from its effect on yours." + +"Oh, very grim indeed." As Ethan came in she waved her hand and made a +little mock bow. "You knew him yesterday as His Serene Transparency, +to-day Don Inscrutable Furioso of Grim Tartary; smokes like a chimney, +and won't say a word." + +Ethan laughed and threw his cigarette into the fire. + +"Morning!" + +"Good-morning! I thought before I went to the office I'd come and have a +little talk with you about that piece of property out by Ely's Farm." + +Val glanced through the window. + +"Hi there! Jack and Jill, where you off to? Wait!" + +The men looked out, and saw two small chocolate-brown infants +precipitate themselves upon Val. She sat down on the grass with the two +small creatures in front of her, and soon had them rolling about and +squealing with merriment. + +"Where on earth did she find those pickaninnies?" asked Scherer. + +"Offspring of Venus; little sunburned, that's all." + +Val's dog-cart came to the gate, and she called out: + +"Ethan, come and mind the twins while I get my hat." + +He came out, and the children scuttled at sight of him. + +"Do smile and reassure them," Val said, reproachfully. "There _are_ +ways of looking black that darkies don't mind, but-- Oh, forgive me!" +She caught up his hand and smiled tenderly at him. "I was only making +fun, but it was stupid fun. I don't make light of your political +anxieties, but life must go on, you know, and we must smile--just a +_little_." She ran into the house and came out with hat and gloves. "Put +the babies into the cart, Ethan. They're coming for a drive." + +The black children, preternaturally solemn while Ethan and Scherer +lifted them in, grinned and squealed with excitement the moment they +were landed by the side of "Miss Val." + +"Miss Val" had been in wild spirits since she opened her eyes. The +reaction had set in. After those days of vague, jealously hidden pain, +she saw at hand a speedy freedom from the burden of Julia's presence. + +She drove the fleet little Arab madly about the town "doing errands," +she called out to the Halliwells and others, as she clattered by them in +the dog-cart, with her grinning little guests breaking into shrieks of +laughter at each jolt and every sudden turning of a corner. Val bought +them oranges and sticks of candy. One of her "errands" was to call at +the bank for Jerry, who, she said, alone understood how to make the +perfection of a swing. She _must_ have a swing. She was dying for a +swing. It was so silly to give up delightful things just because +children found them delightful too. And old Mr. Otway was coaxed to let +Jerry come back in the cart. + +On the crooked limb of the catalpa-tree they rigged up a splendid swing, +and Jerry stayed to luncheon. + +"I won't keep you after three," his old playmate said. "Ethan and I are +working at Italian from three till four. But come back this evening, and +receive the thanks of the assembled community." + +After Jerry took himself off, Ethan and she went into the long room and +began their reading. Usually this hour over their books was a time that +Ethan seemed frankly to enjoy. To-day, in spite of Val's gay +good-humor, he was sometimes languid and sometimes nervously alert. He +scolded her a little for forgetting a rule he had told her the day +before. + +"Yes, I'm stupid; forgive me," she said. + +Again, towards the end of the hour, her attention wandered, remembering +joyously that she was going abroad again. + +"You are thinking of something else," he said, looking at her almost +angrily. + +"Oh, well, I won't." + +"Yes, but you do. You lose half the good of learning a new language if +it doesn't teach you to concentrate. Shut out everything else," he said, +gravely. "It's the only way." + +"Yes, yes, I'll be much better next time. But are you loving me to-day?" + +He dropped the book like one whose strength is spent. Then he leaned +over the arm of the great red chair and kissed her, holding her close, +clinging to her. + +"In spite of my sins, are you loving me more than you did yesterday?" +she said, smiling. + +"Twenty-four hours more," he answered, seeming to fall in with her mood. + +"All that much more?" + +"All that much." + +"What are we going to do to-day after lessons?" She got up and stood +before him with her finger in her book. + +"Scherer and I are going to ride out to Ely's Farm a little after four, +to look at that property. You had better come, too." + +"All right. But what makes you look at me so--so--" She dropped her book +and perched herself on his knee. "What are you thinking about?" + +"I was thinking about this bit of Dante." + +"No, no; it's wicked to tell lies. You don't smile to-day except when +you _make_ yourself. What--are--you--thinking--about?" she demanded. + +But she waited in vain. He seemed to forget her question--forget her +presence. She put one arm about his neck, and lifting her other hand +doubled, she knocked at his forehead. + +"Let me in--let me in," she said. + +His answer was to crush her against him, and hold her so, in a silence +that was broken only by the loud, insistent ticking of the tall gilt +clock. When Val spoke again it was subdued and dreamily: + +"Isn't it odd how much we sit in this huge old chair of hers whenever +we're here alone?" + +"It's a friendly old chair," he answered, putting out his foot and +setting it in motion. "Ever since the far back times when I was rocked +to sleep in it, and made to forget Yaffti and all the spectres and the +hurts of childhood"--his voice was sweet and lulling--"the old chair has +been a haven." + +"It was more of a judgment-seat to me," she said, and it crossed her +mind that it must be near the anniversary of the day her grandmother had +died. + +She mustn't forget that date as she did all others; her whole life long +she meant to remember that day, to keep it holy with special remembrance +and with flowers, and some little deed of the kind _she_ would have +liked--done in memoriam. She lifted her head from Ethan's shoulder and +looked for the calendar. It always hung on a brass nail beside the +fireplace. It had been there three or four days ago, she was sure. She +sat thinking this, with her head turned away from her husband, and then, +while she speculated as to the calendar's whereabouts, another portion +of her brain was thinking idly: + +"Why doesn't he draw me back into his arms as he always does, and say, +'Don't be such a restless creature'? He sees I'm looking for something; +why doesn't he ask for what?" And then a sudden, formless presentiment +seized her. "It must be because he knows. Why should he have guessed +just that? Had he taken the calendar away himself? Why should he? What +was the date?" + +Like a blow between the eyes came the knowledge and awakening. As if it +had actually come in the form of a blow from a fist, she shut her dazed +eyes, and saw the blackness sown with stars. But for that closing of the +eyes, no muscle had she moved. She had indeed lost track of time. Her +ineradicable failing there had made forgetfulness possible; the time of +painful preoccupation about Julia had made it easy; the last days of +all-absorbing gladness had made it sure. She did the mental sum again +and again. Yes, it was September 16. To-morrow was the anniversary of +Mrs. Gano's death. Yesterday was the last day of the old life for Val. +To-day the bolt had fallen. But had it--had it? Had she not lived +through moments like this before? In those first months--yes; but then +she had taken Time and Fear by the forelock. To-day she was far behind. + +It was strange to herself how all her dreads--physical shrinking and +mental anguish--focused in the fear of reading Ethan's consciousness in +his face. If blindness could only come upon her, if only she could +escape seeing the knowledge in the face she loved, she would, she knew, +escape the sharpest pang of all. + +What was he thinking now of her long immobility? Why didn't he speak or +move? What need? Why should they look each other in the face? She felt +his eyes on her back, and a shiver ran between her shoulder-blades. +Those eyes of his, how she dreaded them! They pierced through to the +brain. They looked into her heart and watched it as it shrank, showing +her the while that, whatever she endured, his agony was more. + +She bowed her head down over her knees. He gathered her up as if she had +been a little child, and rocked her dumbly in his arms. They sat so for +a moment, each hiding the face from the other. A loud resounding blow +upon the knocker made them start apart. + +"The summons!" he thought. + +And that morning in the attic came back to him when, as a child, he +glowed with excitement and pride to find the old brass knocker bearing +his own name. + +Val had kept her back turned when she started up, and was standing now +before the window looking into the street. The horses were at the door. +Ethan went out. She heard him speaking with Scherer, and Scherer's voice +saying: + +"Julia will be round in five minutes." + +Val fled up-stairs and locked the door. She heard her husband coming up, +and listened breathless--Scherer, too! A light knock on her door as they +passed, and Ethan's voice: + +"Don't be long getting ready, dear." + +He never said "dear" to her before people. + +"No; I won't be long," she heard herself answer. + +She tore off her house-gown and hurried on her habit. She must be down +first. If she were not, she felt she couldn't go, and since he was +going-- + +When she got down to the gate the only person in sight was Julia, +drawing rein by the new white mounting-block at the gate. Calling to the +gardener: "Tell Mr. Gano we've gone on before," Val mounted her horse. +"I'll race you to the Maple Grove," she cried, and set off at a gallop, +Julia following. + +Val reached the goal first, and rode back nearly half a mile to propose +a shorter contest. Then another and another, till the men caught them +up. They, too, seemed to have a fancy for hard riding, and when they +reached Ely's Farm the four horses were in a foam. + +They went over Scherer's property while it was light, and had a +nondescript meal afterwards at the farm. + +On the way home she heard her husband telling Scherer he must come back +with them and get a book Ethan had promised him in the morning. They +left Julia at her gate. When Ethan lifted Val down from her horse he +whispered: + +"I may walk back with Scherer after we've had a smoke. Don't wait up for +me ... go to sleep, darling." + +She clung to him an instant in the dark, and then went in-doors. Her +maid was waiting for her up-stairs. + +"A bath," said her mistress; "I'm very hot and dusty." + +The warm water refreshed and revived her. She put on her long blue +dressing-gown of soft unrustling silk. She saw with the old pleasure how +white and shapely her arms showed when she lifted her hands to her hair, +the wide open sleeves falling back almost to the shoulder. She uncoiled +the long brown braids, and let the hair flow loose. + +"Something to read, ma'am, before I go?" asked the prim foreign maid, +placing the shaded lamp on the table by the fire and drawing up the +arm-chair. + +"No; that's all." + +Val sat there alone, before the fire, till twelve o'clock; then, +lighting a candle, she went to the head of the stair and listened. No +sound. He had gone back with Scherer; he must surely come soon. A sudden +noise, a sound like the shutting of the gate. She flew back to her room. +On an uncontrollable impulse she shut and locked the door, and put out +candle and lamp. Had he come that moment she would have feigned sleep. +But it was a false alarm. Presently she relit the candle, opened the +door, and stood listening. Slowly she went down-stairs, peering over the +banisters, trailing her blue draperies from room to room, her hand about +the candle-flame and her wide eyes intent. + +"Looking for what? God knows. It must be Ethan I'm looking for. Why +doesn't he come? I'm to 'sleep'--to _sleep_!" + +She went to the front door and opened it. The night smelt fresh and +pungent. The scent of the first falling leaves filled the air. + +"Yes," she said to herself, "it's the time of the year when things +happen." + +The heavy burnished knocker caught the candle gleam, and she laid her +hot forehead against the cool brass. + +"He came, first, on such a night. And _she_ went away from us two years +ago to-morrow--no, it's to-day." + +She came in and shut the door, but some one had entered with her. Val +stood a moment in the silent hall, quite still. The dead woman seemed to +have come back from her grave. The quiet house was full of her. Val +stood before the long room door, and almost before she realized what +she was doing, she had lifted her hand and knocked. Smiling faintly, she +went in. In that dim light it was all just as it used to be. The only +reason she couldn't see the figure in the great crimson chair was that +the high back concealed the judge and comforter sitting there. + +Val set the candle down, and, for the first time since the blow had +fallen, she felt the rush of tears filling her wide strained eyes. They +blurred the dim outlines of things, but, with hands out-stretched, she +went towards the empty chair like one praying help and succor. At the +side she knelt down and laid her cheek on the arm, crying noiselessly, +remembering other days and other pains, but never before this stark +denial of all comfort. How good it had been, as a child, to feel the +light hand on her hair! Ah! the hand was lighter now. "Well, and so will +the hearts of her children be, when _they're_ dust," she said to +herself, and rose up. She looked into the parlor. Daniel Boone, his +hunters and his dogs, and before the big painting a picture etched on +the air of a wild little girl with long flying hair, dancing in the +dusk, until a fear fell on her that struck the quicksilver out of her +veins and hung her limbs with lead. On the other side of the room was +the new grand-piano that had come too late. + +The Ethan of ten years ago stood in the corner with his hands on a +girl's shoulders, saying "_Promise!_" And the girl sang no more. + +She went on from room to room as if still looking for that something she +had lost. Up-stairs again--into the room that had been her father's long +ago, her husband's now, and full of the impress of his spirit. His +pictures, his books--it was the one room in the house wholly, utterly +changed, in atmosphere and outward seeming. In the corner of the red +damask lounge by the fire, a little old book. She picked it up. Seneca! +She hadn't seen it since that day two years ago on the river, when he +refused to translate the passage he had marked. She would take it away +and spell out for herself those things in the marked book that had +marked the soul of the man she loved. A large empty envelope, folded +double, had fallen out. It bore the stamp of the Navy Department, and +the Washington postmark. A memorandum in pencil in Ethan's fine +handwriting: "Army contracts--fight corruption." On the other side some +verses. + +Ah! he was beginning to write again. No; there was an unfamiliar name at +the end. Still, what was it that he had taken the trouble to copy? + + + "Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle, + Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong. + Think, rather--call to thought, if now you grieve a little, + The days when we had rest, oh soul, for they were long. + + "Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry + I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn; + Sweat ran, and blood sprang out, and I was never sorry: + Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born. + + "Now, and I muse for why, and never find the reason, + I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun. + Be still, be still, my soul--it is but for a season; + Let us endure an hour and see injustice done. + + "Ay, look! high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation; + All thoughts to writhe the heart are here, and all are vain: + Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignation-- + Oh, why did I awake? When shall I sleep again?"[A] + + +She looked up and saw her husband standing at the door. With a cry she +let fall paper and candle, and fled into his arms. + +"My dear, my dear!" he whispered, trying to soothe her. They stood there +locked in each other's arms while the minutes went by. At last, "Help me +to find the candle," she said, faintly, and as they both went towards +the fireless grate, groping and stooping to feel about the floor, +"Perhaps we should rather try to get used to the dark," she said; and +he, with breaking heart, caught at her, crying hoarsely: + +"Val! Val! I can't bear it!" + +"I'll help you, dear." + +"I can't let you die." + +"Isn't it strange?--everybody's said that who has loved some one. And +where are they all?" + +"But you are so young." They had reached the sofa in the dark, and sat +there locked together. + +"Yes, thank Heaven, we're young." She pressed her face against his wet +cheek. "Ah! don't be so terribly unhappy, dear. To die!--why, that's the +most wonderful of all." + +FOOTNOTE: + +[A] By permission, from _A Shropshire Lad_, by A. E. Housman. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +In her own room--Valeria's old blue room--she stood late the next +evening, in her night-gown, before the fireplace. + +"Well, Mazeppa, we've had a good run for it; but it's ill-going when +one's bound--and when death follows." Only her lips stirred at the +opening of the door. "That you, Ethan?" + +He came in and shut the door behind him. + +"These things I ordered for you in Paris came this morning," he said, +speaking very low. + +"What are they?" she asked, still staring at the bas-relief. + +"A turquoise girdle for your beautiful white body, and a turquoise comb +for your hair." + +"Oh, beautiful! beautiful!" she said, as he, standing behind her, held +the things across her shoulder before her eyes; "but beautiful beyond +_anything_!" She took them in her hands. "It was dear of you--" She +stopped as she glanced over her shoulder and saw the look in his eyes. +Her own went down before them, and slowly filled, but no tear fell. With +an effort she seemed to force the salt-water drops back to their deep +well. When she spoke, it was in a tone deliberately quiet, even +every-day: "You say I've always counted so serenely on being happy; you +don't know how I've dreaded getting to be too old to wear pale blue." +She fondled the stones of the girdle and laid the heart-shaped clasp +against her cheek. + +He watched her woman-joy in jewels with a look of hardness. + +"It would take more than mere years to cure you of your passion for +turquoise." + +"That was what I've been afraid of." She was smiling. "I should never +have been able to resist pretty blue things." + +How young she looked in her straight white gown and loosened hair! + +"What a baby you are, after all," he said, thinking that those eyes of +hers seemed to have caught, or kept, no reflection of the glare of life. +His own were hot and bloodshot, hers seemed always to have looked down +on the pale cool blue of turquoises, or up to the blue of heaven. + +She had nodded when he accused her of being a baby. + +"And it's all very well to be a baby with brown hair and smooth +forehead; but a gray-haired, wrinkled baby, dressed in baby-blue! It's +just as well to be delivered from that." + +"Upon my soul!" He stared at her with his strained, sleepless eyes. +"You've no sooner wrenched your mind away from this joy in life, than +you fall to setting up a new shrine where you may worship Death, and +give him thanks and praise." + +"You think _I_ make a god of Death?" she said, very low. "If I do, it's +only a new form of 'Thy gods shall be my gods.' If I've thrown away the +old idols, it's not because they failed me, but because they failed you. +I have more need of you than I have of them; I cannot leave you to go +and kneel apart." + + +"Shall it be here?" she asked. + +"Here? No." + +"I think I'd rather it were here--where for me it all began." + +"No, no; not where _she_ lived." + +"You think she'd come back and interfere?" + +He studied her face, wondering a little. "She might interfere without +coming back, if we stayed here." + +"Besides, to stay here would be to waste time. We must go and see +countries we have never seen before." + +"Yes, and the journey's end must be far away from any place where we are +known." + +"Why?" + +"Why should we shock people?" + +"But it's bound to shock people." + +"No, that's a popular fallacy. If I hear a stranger in the street saying +that some one, a stranger to us both, took his life a little while ago +in the opposite house, I am slightly disturbed, perhaps, at having the +mask men wear pushed away for a moment; but I continue my walk, I eat my +dinner as usual." + +"How shall it be, then, so that our friends shall continue their walks +and eat their dinners?" + +"Somewhere a long way from here--" + +"Yes, yes; we'll go to the Far East--we'll go to the end of the world." + +"Yes, to the end of the world." + +"And then it will be quite easy, when we've come to the end, just to +step off." + +"Quite easy." + + +Val busied herself unceasingly in the preparations for going the long +journey. Ethan looked on at her calmness and activity with growing +wonder. His first sense of revolt and horror was little by little merged +in mere incredulity, then rank suspicion. + +"Is her acquiescence genuine, complete?" he tormented himself with +thinking, and then scourged his doubting spirit for foul unfaith. + +Still, no self-reproach could rid him quite of his mental attitude of +jailer watching, argus-eyed, over a prisoner whose resourcefulness might +any day or night find suddenly a way to freedom. + +Life during these days of setting her house in order went on with a +regularity, an outward tranquillity, that would have made a less +sceptical soul than Ethan's pause and wonder. It was not Val who refused +to see their few friends. + +"Ethan is very busy." "Ethan is writing." "He's so sorry he can't join +us to-day; but I'll go with you," etc. These were the fragments that +floated up-stairs from the hall, or through his curtained windows from +the gate. So little did Val seem unnerved or pain absorbed, he was sure +that she was more friendly to her friends than ever, more mindful of +them. He watched with wonder her childish pleasure in making little +farewell presents. + +"Nobody is forgotten, I think," she said, looking with outward content +at a table piled with labelled packages. + +Ethan in his heart was saying: "All this looks like a genuine +leave-taking, all but her own face, her even, unjarred voice, her +unfrightened eyes." + +"This is what I'm best pleased about." She took up the long envelope +with the papers referring to Venus's cottage, which had been settled on +that faithful servant for life, and was afterwards to go to the twins. +"Grandma would have been glad about this." + +"What are you doing with all _her_ things?" Ethan asked, with restless +dark eyes searching her face for weakness or for subterfuge. "Those +things you are giving away seem all to be yours." + +"Yes, all yours and mine." + +"And what of hers?" + +She shook her head vaguely. + +"You'll have to sell them." + +"Never! never!" + +His eyes gleamed. Was he on the track? + +"Other people will sell them if you don't." + +Her face clouded. + +"I've already given away a great many household things, to Emmie's poor +people, and others Venus has told me about." + +"And the rest?" + +"I hear Julia." + +"She won't come up here." + +"She may." + +He hastened to secure the door. Val ran out and met Julia at the top of +the stair. Ethan listened to the greeting, and heard Julia say: + +"Why, _Val_!" + +"What is it?" + +"It's true, then?" + +"What?" + +Val's voice rang quick and anxious. + +"You are nicer to me these last few days." + +"Oh, do you think so?" + +Relief breathed through every syllable. + +"Don't you realize that, until just now, you haven't kissed me since--" + +"Sh! Let's go down; we mustn't disturb Ethan." + + +That evening, while Ethan sat smoking and writing letters in his room, +Val got up from the sofa where she was lying. + +"Where are you going?" he said, without turning round. + +"Down-stairs. I'll be back by-and-by." + +"Come here." + +She stood beside him. He leaned back in his chair looking at her till +she put her hand over his eyes. + +"Don't! don't!" she whispered, leaning her cheek on his hair. + +He put his two hands round the little waist, touching the turquoises in +her belt. + +"Who is to have this--afterwards?" he said. + +She stood up straight. + +"You didn't think I would give that away?" + +"Well--" His air puzzled her. + +"Would you be content," she said, "to think of any one else wearing it?" + +"Content! But sometimes it's hard to believe you are facing the thought +of laying it aside." + +She flushed under his look. + +"I don't know that I _shall_ lay it aside." + +While he stared she went out of the room, shutting the door. + +He sat for a moment, following up first one train and then the other +suggested by her speech, till he had convinced himself finally that the +explanation of these last days lay in the fact that she was _not_ facing +the compact. She would elude it. He started to his feet. It was as if he +had been brought face to face with proof of wifely infidelity. + +He found her in the long room kneeling before the open escritoire. + +"What are you doing?" + +"Getting ready," she said. + +He sat down in the great chair and watched her. She carried handfuls of +yellowed papers and bundles of letters, and heaped them on the bed of +red coal in the grate. She tore the morocco binding off old diaries and +burned the manuscript leaves. + +"What are you doing?" he reiterated, starting up like one shaking off a +dream. + +"She always said she'd rather things were burned than pulled about by +careless hands, by strangers." + +"I remember." He sat down. This did not look like evasion, for Val +shared his own strong sentiment for family things. "I remember, too," he +said, with dull regret, "she used to tell me 'the whole history of a +family is locked up in that escritoire.'" + +"It takes a long time to burn." + +She stirred the slow-smouldering papers to a blaze. + +"It took a hundred years to make," he said; "and many hundred +agonies--and joys," he added, watching her dim smile--"yes, and joys." + +He helped her with the next load, looking at the writing on the outside +of the letter-bundles as he undid them. + +"Grandfather Gano," he said, throwing a handful on the fire. "Your +father"--another handful. "Aunt Valeria"--another. "Grandm--" + +"Don't," cried Val, with quivering face; "you mustn't call their names!" +He looked back at her. "It's like calling them to look at the way we +treat the things they left us." + +He went on silently with his task. There was no doubt she felt it +keenly; why do it, then? Only out of shrinking from those "stranger" +hands. Then she was facing the compact, after all. + +"Ethan?" + +"Yes." + +"Why do you stay here?" + +"Because the time's so short." + +"Dear one"--she came and leaned against him--"go and finish your +writing; I'll come back in an hour." + +"No, I'll stay here till you've done." + +"Oh, I sha'n't have done all for several days," she said, pleading. + +But she knew that look in his face. No use to urge. She turned away, and +scattered the charred paper down on to the hearth among the journal +bindings. He made the fire up again for her. Then, one by one, she took +from the mantelpiece all the old photographs of her husband, and laid +them on the flame--all but the one of the baby Ethan, which she thrust +in her dress, keeping her face hidden from her husband. Then she went +over to a pile of pictures he had not noticed before, lying by the +buffet. + +She took a little hammer with a claw handle out of the drawer, and bent +over the frames, loosening the nails, taking out the pictures and +tearing them up. + +"What are those?" + +"Aunt Valeria's--" + +"Why do you bother with them?" + +"I don't want people to be smiling at them. Oh, Ethan," she cried out +with the sharpness of intolerable pain, "I--I can't bear it, if you sit +there watching me! I can do it alone almost callously, thinking very +little of _them_, thinking about you and me, till all these poor +reminders are just old paper; but you--" She hid her face. + +"They _are_ just old paper, dear." + +He went over to her, and she turned from him, trembling. + +"No, no; when you are here, they all come alive in my hands. Oh-h-h!" +She lifted her tear-wet face, and held up clasped hands like one praying +pardon. "You were right; they are a hundred agonies, they cry out while +I tear and burn them." + +"No, dear, no; the dead are done with crying." + +"But these people--" She looked up and down the long room with misty +eyes, like one dimly descrying a throng. "_They_ aren't dead, Ethan." + +A sharp fear seized him that the strain had been too much. + +"Come--come away," he said. + +But she clung to the great brass ring in the lion's mouth on the buffet +drawer. "They won't _really_ die till we have destroyed all their +work--and destroyed ourselves." + +"That's true in a sense," he murmured. + +"Of course it's true. Does anybody think my grandmother died when the +breath went out of her body? She won't really die till the last person +dies who remembers her. And the others; here they've been all these +years, kept tenderly alive, in letters, in wills and certificates, +diaries, poor little pictures!" Her voice wavered and recovered itself +fiercely. "Shall I tell you what it's like, destroying these things?" +She broke into wild weeping. "All these are like hands clinging on to +life. I wrench their fingers away; I force them down. The glimpses I +have of them--it's like the last look on drowning faces." + +"Val," he said, hoarsely, "there's time yet. Suppose we don't shirk our +trust. Suppose we hold the Fort for the Ganos as long as ever we can." + +She took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped away her tears, +but they flowed and flowed afresh. + +"An understanding like ours," he said, hurriedly, "may be +superseded--wiped out by a better understanding." With an eagerness that +seemed strange to himself, he tried to soothe and reassure her. + +His heart shrank at her unlighted look. + +"Do you hear, Val? We are not so primitive that we must make a fetich of +our compact." + +"I'm very primitive, dear; you told me so yourself." + +He loosed his hold upon her with a sinking sense of having done +something he could never quite undo. Feeling his arms no longer about +her, she looked up. + +"Poor darling!" she said, framing the dark face in her two hands; "I +didn't mean to cry and unnerve you. But it wasn't for me I cried--not +even for you. You ought to forgive me that a few tears fell, just this +once, over those other graves that nobody will ever remember any more." + +He stared down at her, seeing how unmoved his words had left her. + +"Haven't you heard what I've been saying to you, dear?" + +"What was it?" she said, wearily, putting out her hand to take up +another of the faded water-colors. He caught the hand, lifted her in his +arms, and carried her to the big chair. He sat, holding her against him, +thinking how he should put it to her--this new, this growing sense of +his, that the family will to live was stronger than his individual will +to die, and that there was justification in this realization for a +different compact. He sat weighing the chances of the new life, trying +for Val's sake to find loop-holes of escape from the prison he himself +had builded, for Val's sake coercing himself to face payment of the long +penalty of life and guilty fatherhood; in Val's name even trying to +think all might still be well. + +He looked down at the face on his breast, and saw that for the moment +all was well without his troubling. Val had cried herself to sleep. + +Instead of being glad, he was conscious of an absurd irritation. She +could sleep, then! + + +Covertly he watched her the next morning, thinking with surprise: + +"Yes, even in the broad daylight and away from the haunted long room, +I'm of last night's opinion still. It doesn't matter about me--for her +sake I must go on." + +"Come and sit on the terrace," he said, when she was leaving the +breakfast-room. + +"Oh, dearest, not now." + +"Why not?" + +"I--I'm a house-keeper, you know. I have many things to do in the +morning." + +"I give you ten minutes by my watch to order dinner." + +"Ethan, if you never leave me to myself, I--I can't get ready." + +He put his arm through hers, and led her out by the veranda down to the +second terrace. The servant was spreading a Navajo blanket on the +ground, under the catalpa-tree. Val sat down on the barbaric colored +rug, and watched Ethan walking to and fro on the edge of the terrace. +When they were alone-- + +"Did you misunderstand me yesterday, that you talk again to-day of +getting ready?" + +"No, I understood--I understood that because I cried you were ready to +let me break the compact if I wanted to." + +He had never heard such contempt in her voice. He stopped and looked at +her. Her face was strangely hard. + +"Not because you cried, but because I see the matter from another--I +think better--point of view." + +She shook her head. + +"You're deceiving yourself because of me." + +Her words angered him unaccountably. + +"I should have thought it natural that any woman, especially one of your +temperament, would have welcomed the suggestion." + +"As if I didn't know it!" + +"Know what?" + +"That you've been looking out hour by hour, minute by minute, to see if +I wasn't showing the white flag." + +In his sense of being convicted, he was ready to curse her keenness. + +"Do you know, it strikes me you have no inkling of the mother-sense?" + +"That's part of my luck," she said, doggedly. + +"You don't _want_ to keep to the first compact?" + +"Of course I do; I _shall_ keep to it." + +"No," he said, quietly. + +She started, clasped and unclasped her hands. + +"You are only tempting us," she said. "It may look for a moment like a +possible thing--it isn't." + +"It is perfectly possible if we are not superstitious. The new claim +brings a new insight, a new wisdom." + +She shivered. + +"Think of founding a new existence on broken faith, on cowardice." + +"You know you are talking sheer superstition." + +She seemed not to hear. + +"Do you realize," he went on, "that many people, enlightened enough to +admit we have a right to do as we like with ourselves, would deny we had +a right to deprive another--" + +"You talk as if you didn't know a girl 'deprives' a whole possible +family of life every time she says 'No' to a man who asks her to marry +him. No use to talk to me, I'm a hardened criminal." + +She made a nervous, mocking motion to get up and cut the colloquy short. +Ethan stopped her with a gesture of grave rebuke. + +"Do you know that, if you had committed all the crimes in the calendar, +a capital sentence could not be executed upon you now." + +"Think of it!" she said, with indignant eyes. "They'd not only keep the +sword hanging over a poor wretch all that time--they'd let her horror +and shrinking stamp itself on an innocent creature. Oh, man's justice is +an odd jumble!" + +"If public justice falls short, what of mine to you?" He walked a few +paces up and down. "I've never seen you like this before, Val." + +"I've never before lived through such days," she said, very low. + +"You deceived me with your calmness." + +"You see how necessary it was--you wouldn't have understood that I +didn't want to break my oath." + +"I understand now." He stopped before her with haggard face. "I come +here into a girl's happy life--I take away her content, I snuff out her +ambitions, I give her nothing in return. For years I bar the way to +marriage--for all time I've shut the door on music. It is _my_ fault you +were allowed no outlet for your energies. I force you back on a barren +love for a life-interest, and saying, 'There is only this,' I add, +'Accept it at your peril.' I am filled with horror at the thought of the +way I've marred and broken a beautiful life." + +"Oh, dear one, don't, don't! It's not true, you know. It wasn't really +beautiful till you came." + +He shook his head. + +"Do you want to make it possible for me ever to think of myself without +intolerable loathing?" + +"Dear, dear!" She held out her hands. + +"Promise me to forget the old evil compact." + +"Ethan, you'll regret this," she said, dropping her hands; "it's not you +who ask it of me--it's all those others." She nodded towards the dark +mass of shadow made by the Fort against the gay autumnal background of +scarlet maple and golden elm. "It's the Ganos--it's _she_ most of all. I +might have known. If you live under her roof, you come under her law." + +She knew him too well to imagine she could stand out successfully +against his resolution that the compact should be abandoned. What little +by little helped to heal her spirit was presently her belief that he not +only willed the new course, but desired it. Of that he had fully +persuaded her--he had almost persuaded himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +They were still discussing plans of travel, or, rather, as the days went +on, plans of avoiding travel. + +"Italy is a long way off," Ethan had said; "we'll go there another +year." + +Val fought hard and long against abandoning her darling scheme of +spending the winter abroad, not giving her persistency its right name. +To Ethan's "Why?" she would answer, coaxingly, "I am so amused abroad." + +"Dear child, you're amused everywhere." + +"It's unfair to take advantage of that." + +He did not say so, but he dreaded for her the fatigues of protracted +travel. Still, he saw it was imperative they should winter in some warm +place. Val's series of colds and threatened delicacy were instinctively +avoided in their discussion of plans; but these considerations were +seldom out of her husband's mind. As he visualized the coming months, +Ethan thought, man-like and naturally enough, "Val will have plenty to +occupy her, but I--I must find work to help me through the time." He +cast about for the saving grace of hard labor. "I will write my +Political Confessions," he said to himself; "just my case has never been +put." And he set about sifting his books and notes; ordering government +and party reports; indulging freely in the beguiling pastime of +"collecting material." About this time he was deep in correspondence +with a group of young men who had formerly rallied round him in Boston +and New York, but whom, as he now saw, he had too much neglected since +his marriage. He felt anew that these men, organized, led, supplied with +the sinews of war, had it in them to render America a sorely needed +service. + +"Val," he said, one day, "how many people can we put up comfortably +here?" + +She opened her eyes. + +"Guests?" + +"Yes." + +"I thought we were going away ourselves." + +"So we are in a fortnight or so, if we can decide where. I should like +to have some men here for a few days, if you don't mind." + +She turned her head, and looked out of the window. + +"Who are the men you want to ask--relations?" + +"Relations! No. What made you think-- Besides, you know I haven't any +but De Poincy." + +"Y--yes. Still, I couldn't imagine, just at first, that you'd want a lot +of strangers here--now." + +"Not if you object, of course. But, since you seemed quite ready to set +off to Persia or China at any moment, I couldn't be expected to know you +objected to strangers." + +"Whom did you want?" + +"Oh, it doesn't matter. I was thinking of the two Careys, and Williams +and Dunbar." + +"The men who are trying to make you get up a Labor paper?" + +"The men that _I'm_ trying to make devote their great talents, their +lives, to saving the country." + +There was reproach in his tone, even a kind of hardness that had come +into his manner more than once of late. His usually quick-following fit +of remorseful tenderness never quite healed the hurt. + +"Of course, ask your friends if you like." + +She got up and went out of the room. Back and forth under the big +tulip-tree she walked in the crisp October air, commanding her face to a +pale incommunicativeness, but clinching and unclinching her hands. + +A deep discouragement had been growing upon her at Ethan's feverish +eagerness to get to work. "You don't seem to have any time at all for +play nowadays," she had said to him, half laughing, more than once. He +sat over his writing-table all day, and he read late into the night. +For days and days they had not been alone in the old idle blessed way of +lovers, and never had she needed him so much. "How shall I be able to go +on," she said to herself, "unless he keeps close beside me?" + + +It was at a garden-party at Julia's that Val went across the lawn to +Ethan at the end of a game of tennis, and said: + +"_I'd_ like to give a party at the Fort before we go. What do you +think?" + +"What kind of a party?" + +"A ball. We could light up the grounds and make it look lovely. There's +never been a big party at the Fort." + +"Well, I don't mind. But you haven't much time now to get it up." + +"Let's go and find Julia and Mr. Scherer, and talk it over." + +Mrs. Otway told them that Julia had gone into the house for an ice, and +they must do likewise. As they passed through the parlor they noticed a +group about a portrait of Mrs. Otway, taken in her youth. Some of her +neighbors were discussing in discreet undertones whether it was credible +that their rotund hostess ever looked like this daughter of the gods. + +"I'm sure she did," said Val; "my father has often told me." + +"She ought to have died young," said a stranger standing by. "To have +looked like that was a great achievement, but the dear lady has +cancelled it." + +As they moved away Val tried to throw off the impression the speech had +made upon her by whispering to Ethan: + +"Men seem to forget women have any reason for living except to please +the masculine eye." Winning no response, she looked up, laughing. "One +comfort of not being a beauty is that people aren't forever remarking +how you change." + +"Oh, we can do wonders in the way of change without being beauties." + +They found Julia, and arranged that she and Tom Scherer should come over +in the evening and discuss the ball. The rumor of it went abroad, and +little else was talked of in New Plymouth for the intervening days. + + +Val and Julia sat on the veranda at the Fort the evening after, making +out lists of invitations. After all, some of Ethan's friends had been +telegraphed to, and were coming from a distance. Mrs. Ball was expected, +with all her circle. Val was asking even Baby Whittaker, of abhorred +memory. + +Ethan, with Scherer and Harry Wilbur, was walking up and down the +gravel-path, smoking and talking. Ethan suddenly called out: + +"You'd better go in-doors, Val." + +"Go in! Why?" + +"The dew is falling. You'll take cold." + +"Oh no." + +He urged the point. + +"Don't drive me in this heavenly Indian-summer night!" she pleaded. + +They all exclaimed against his barbarity, and he went to get her a +shawl. There was nothing in the hall. He rang; no one answered. He went +up-stairs. + +In vain Val called after him: "I've got my scarf." + +Scherer was teasing Julia for not being able to think of anything but +the ball. + +"You're just as bad." + +He protested. + +"You men were talking about it, I'll be bound," Julia said. + +"No, we weren't, feather-brain," replied Scherer, with a patronizing +air. + +"Something very far removed from balls," Harry Wilbur put in, with a +laugh. + +"What?" + +"Oh, we were cheerfully considering the ethics of suicide," said +Scherer, stretching himself comfortably in a long wicker-chair. + +Val started, but no one observed her. + +"Pleasant topic," said Julia. + +"Quite, if looked at rightly," responded Scherer. "Gano was saying how +curiously illogical people are. We've all heard Christian people who +shudder at the word 'suicide'--tender women, mothers--who hasn't heard +them say, looking back to the early death of a child, 'I've come to +thank God for taking him unspotted from the world.'" + +"Yes," remarked Julia, "I'm sick of hearing the saying that's always +trotted out, 'Our loss, but his gain.'" + +"Ah, but don't think it's insincere," said Scherer. "Even the +simple-minded may appreciate the safety and dignity of death when the +deliverer is introduced by cold, or fever, or ghastly accident, by +inherited weakness, even by neglect--in _any_ way but by the calm and +steadfast will of the one chiefly concerned." + +Val sat up and stared. Ethan's very intonation had got into Scherer's +voice. + +"If a fellow's trapped into death," he went on, "it's a blessing; if he +goes voluntarily, a disgrace." + +"Disgrace or not, it's on the increase," said Wilbur, "and fellows like +you had better be careful how you go about advocating--" + +"No; I agree with Gano about that. Even when public opinion is more +civilized, natural cowardice will keep the death-rate down. _Certain_ +to, if social conditions are improved. But even if the number who go +that way should be much greater, are you so certain that a voluntary +exit is such a mistake? Isn't it the great question that each man should +answer for himself?" + +"No!" roared Wilbur, excitedly; "he should satisfy a public functionary +that he's paid his debts and provided for those who are dependent on +him." + +"Accepted!" cried Scherer, delighted, "although we'd be establishing an +aristocracy of the dead. But, seriously, isn't it for social reformers +first to make life less of an indecency for the masses before they +insist that each man should hold his life as sacred? Society degrades +and brutalizes a man, and yet, forsooth, for the _sake_ of society he is +to hold his insulted life as sacred." + +Val leaned back in her chair, wondering if Julia was annoyed at +Scherer's aping of Ethan. Was it conceivable that the others didn't see +it--didn't hear it? + +"Why, the world is overrun," he was saying, in a travesty of Ethan's +manner--"overrun with superfluous myriads who are freely allowed to +groan, travail, starve. Only, society insists, they must die slowly, and +not shock our sensibilities. Or they may turn over a new leaf, and live +prosperously by selling their bodies and their souls--_anything_ rather +than reproach us and arraign life by taking themselves off. But cheer +up, Wilbur; we can always bring in the usual verdict. Oh, more blessed +than Mesopotamia are the words 'temporarily insane'!" + +"That's what such people usually are," said Harry, unmoved. + +"Of course; don't we read it in every paper?" jeered Scherer--"this +woman, that man, starved to death, a paragraph of sentimentality. A +suicide gets his column of calumny. The same society that cheerfully +permits a man to starve, that supports the system under which he _must_ +starve, is outraged if the victim doesn't die with decent slowness. +Starvation is 'a sad case,' suicide is 'punishable crime.'" + +"I used to hear my father," said Val, in a low voice, "wondering at the +great sums devoted to the use of hospitals full of idiots, cripples, +incurables, and people who _want_ to die, while the streets of all the +cities of the world are full of the young and strong and +poverty-stricken who need bread, and are filled only with a passionate +desire for life on almost any terms." + +Ethan came out with a shawl and a rug. As he was putting the wraps round +his wife, he chanced to touch her hand. + +"You are cold as ice!" he exclaimed. + +"No, no; this is lovely!" + +"You mustn't stay out another minute." As he saw she was about to +protest again, he cut her short. "If you want to argue, come inside and +argue. If you don't, I'll have to carry you." + + +After their friends had gone, Ethan said something half jocular about +Scherer and his new political enthusiasms. "But Scherer will rise. +You'll see, he will help to accomplish some of the reforms I've only +talked about." + +"I dare say; still, I think I prefer your theories at first hand." + +"What theories?" + +"He kindly continued your conversation after you went to hunt for a +shawl." + +"Damn him!" + + +He damned him to his face the next morning. + +"What!" said poor Scherer, with open mouth, "not a subject for +conversation?" + +"Certainly not; the world's not ready for it." + +"No, no," said Scherer, rapidly reconstructing; "perhaps not. If the +theory were widely accepted it would bring about many avoidable +disasters." + +"How so?" demanded Ethan, ready in a minute to defend his faith against +all comers. + +"It might," said Scherer--"might sap the energy and courage of people +who, but for its teaching, would go on bravely to the end." + +"It is itself 'the brave end.'" + + +Three days before the ball, Val, coming in from a drive with the Otways, +found that Ethan had had a Mexican hammock put up between one of the +locust-trees and the giant tulip. + +"What a good plan! People who are tired dancing will be glad to find +this." + +"I wasn't thinking of the ball, oddly enough. What a _horrible_ racket +those men have been making all day putting up the pavilion!" + +He leaned his head on his hand. His face looked worn. + +"I'm so sorry they disturbed you, but I'm glad the hammock's just for +me." She ran out as soon as supper was over to contemplate her new toy. +"Ethan!" she called, presently. + +He came on to the veranda wearing a hat and carrying a walking-stick. + +Her countenance fell. + +"Aren't you coming to have a swing?" + +He laughed. + +"Not for me, thank you!" + +"Where are you going?" + +"Just for a little walk. It's not good for you to be out after sundown!" +he called back as he went off. + +She lay in the hammock very still a long while. The frogs far off were +iterating their hoarse melancholy. Was it a belated firefly that +flickered dejectedly in the chill air? An oppression settled down on her +chest, but she never felt it for the greater weight on her heart. She +pressed her two hands tight over her face, that the servants might not +hear her crying. + +"To think that this should be _me_," she said to herself, in a kind of +excitement, "when I meant to be so happy! After all"--she sat up and +steadied herself as she swayed--"it's very wonderful to have found life +so much better, and so much worse, than anybody ever said. If only Ethan +and I could go through the hard places by ourselves, if only there were +no one else--oh, God, if only there were no one else!" + +She lay back again in the hammock. By-and-by a noise in the house: Ethan +putting quick questions, several servants speaking at once, then Ethan's +voice, sharp with anxiety, calling: + +"Val! Val!" + +"Yes, out here." + +Hastily she dried her face. + +He came out. + +"You surely have not been out here ever since--" + +"Yes; ever since you went away and left me." + +But she spoke almost brightly. + +"Well, I must say I think you might have remembered--" + +"Can't remember but one thing at a time. I was thinking about something +else." + +"You're not to be trusted," he said, gravely. + +"Not a bit," she agreed. "I'm an eye-servant. The minute your back's +turned-- Oh, I require a great deal of looking after--and"--with a laugh +that broke suspiciously--"I don't get it." + +She had stood up, holding fast to him, as she freed herself from the +hammock and the rug. He drew her hand through his arm and went with her +to the house. + +"No, no," she said, stopping at the veranda, "_I_ want a little walk, +too." + +Demurring, he put the rug round her and they went on. + +"I've been thinking it would be a good idea to go to California for the +winter," he said, presently. + +"You've seen California." + +"But _you_ haven't." + +"No, and I don't want to." + +"Is that true?" + +"Well, it's true that I want to see other places more--queerer places, +farther off, that I can't imagine for myself." + +"Don't flatter yourself that you can imagine California. I was thinking +I ought to look after my ranch there. And, besides, the place in Oakland +is really beautiful. I could make you very comfortable there." + +"Could you?" she said, wistfully. "But, after all, 'comfortable' is for +ninety." + +"It is curious that I should have to remind you we mustn't think now +only of ourselves." + +How stern the eyes could look--the mouth, how hard! They walked on in +silence, down the first terrace, and along the second. No wilderness +rioted below, all was pruned and trimmed and primly smiling. In the +middle of what Mrs. Gano had been used to call "the Lower Plateau" stood +the dancing pavilion, finished that day, all but the outward trappings +of flags and lanterns. + +"I believe you'd like the house at Oakland." He spoke more gently than +before. "There's a garden and a little orange-grove, and the land slopes +down to the sea." + +"Do you look out on the Golden Gate?" she asked, quickly, and then +added, involuntarily: "But, after all, what do I care about that? I want +to see people in other lands, and find out what life looks like to +_them_." + +"You can do something of the sort later, if you like." + +"Oh, later! later! Everybody's said 'later' to me ever since I was born. +Who knows whether I'll _ever_ go at all if I don't go now?" + +"Ha!" he said, with a flash, "now we have the _real_ reason." + +She lowered her eyes and was dumb. + +"Will you tell me why, just lately, when you have greater incentive than +you ever had before, you seem to have less hope, a weaker hold on life?" + +"All imagination," she said, evasively. "Listen to that woodpecker." Her +head drooped, dreamily. How pale she looked in the gray light! "He's +tapping the old locust-tree under my window, just as he used +to--hundreds of years ago--when I was a little girl." + +"Val," he said, "you are not like yourself." + +"No," she answered, vaguely. + +He took her face between his hands as if to catch and concentrate the +wandering spirit. + +"Where is the old Val gone? I want her back." + +The slow tears filled her eyes. "You mustn't mind, dear; she went away, +I think, one of those days--" + +"What days?" + +"When, with all that pain, everything was made ready." + +He dropped his hands, but she caught them. "I wish _we_ could go away, +too. But far, very far from here, where everything is new and strange." + +"Oh, my dearest," he said, brokenly, "surely, surely, with so much at +stake, we can readjust ourselves to the changed conditions." + +She drew one hand across her eyes. "You call yourself weak," she said, +"but it's no surprise to me to find how much stronger you are than I. +_You_ can make yourself face about, manfully enough." + +"Well, and so can you." He searched the sensitive white face that gave +no sign. What strange and unsuspected enemy had that not unvaliant +spirit encountered in her path? As he looked at her, something born of +their nearness--terrible offspring of true marriage--spoke to him out of +the silence, telling him how each time this woman went straying in +thought along that way of promise that is wont to smile so benignly upon +young expectant wives, each time, before she could taste any of the +natural joy and pride in her estate, came crushing back upon her the +dead weight of their long fear, the gathered momentum of all their long +terror-stricken fleeing. + +The sudden change in his face showed her that her secret was no longer +her own. + +"Oh, what is it like?" she cried out, suddenly. "What is it like to have +hoped and longed all these months, instead of dreaded?" + +"Hush! hush!" he said, shrinking. + +"I, who was so eager to know all that women _can_ know, I shall never +know that." + +He sank down on the terrace-steps in the twilight, and buried his face +in his hands. + +"Did I ever tell you"--her voice sounded faint and far above him, like +the voice of some disembodied spirit--"did I ever tell you how proud I +used to be to know my father once said that I was the symbol of my +parents' single year of perfect happiness, the inheritor of the best +moments life had brought them? Ethan"--she bent over him, whispering +hurriedly and panting a little like one pursued--"the thought clutches +at me in the night, it won't let me go--" + +"What thought?" said the muffled voice. + +"That for a child of fear and shrinking there isn't much place in this +world." + +No answer. + +She sat down beside him. Like a frightened child she crouched up against +him. "All those times of dread come back, their evil faces frowning. Bad +fairies! they wait for--for the new-comer with sinister gifts in their +hands." + +"Don't think such thoughts." He seized her arm roughly. + +"No, no; help me not to," she said, shuddering. "But I wish I knew what +it had been like to my mother--that first knowledge." + +"You may be sure she was glad." + +"Yes, yes; not like that hour in the long room, not as _we_ welcomed +our--" + +"You shall not talk so! to think of it so is a crime." He leaped to his +feet. "Do you hear?--a crime." + +She seemed to cower there below him on the step. + +"And yet," she whispered, "whenever we look at the child we shall +remember that hour. He'll wear my shrinking in his poor little face. Oh, +what shall I do? In that hour, it may be, I branded my child!" + + +He sat beside her all night long while she tossed and dozed, and in her +sleep pressed both hands to her breast, moaning faintly now and then. +The doctor had been sent for at midnight, and came again in the early +morning. + +"He's frightened!" said Val, watching the door as he went out after the +second visit. "So are you." She smiled. "You're forgetting how hard we +Ganos are to kill." + +"You'll soon be all right." + +She studied him. "You're only frightened on top." He wondered if she +were wandering. "_Underneath_," she went on, "you're thinking this would +be a solution." + +"Hush, hush!" He put his arms round her. "You must remember me, dear." + +She nestled in his arms. "She used to say we Ganos were _dreadfully_ +hard to kill. We have to face that." + +"Don't think of having to face things; forget it all." + +She scanned his face eagerly. "Where shall I begin?" + +"Begin?" + +"Yes--to forget." + +Did she mean to ask whether she was to forget the old compact, or its +new annulment? + +"Begin to forget where the pain begins," he said, evasively. + +"That would carry us back a long way. But anyhow, I won't do it. Pain or +no pain, _I_ don't mean to forget." + +"Yes, yes," he said, soothingly. + +"But I don't _want_ to." + +He looked down at her perplexed. + +"I don't mean to forget anything, not even the sad things. I don't want +to let _anything_ go." + +"Well, well." He smoothed the wild brown hair. + +"To forget is to lose a bit of your life," she said, catching at his +hand. "What was it you said once? it was a first victory for that +spectre Annihilation that dogs us all. I didn't believe in your +Annihilation then. Not very sure I do now." + +She laid his hand, for comfort, over the ache in her breast. + + +Worn out towards morning, and yet afraid to undress lest the doctor +might have suddenly to be brought, Ethan stretched himself on the sofa +under the east window. He was scarcely comfortably relaxed, when Val, +who had not spoken for hours, said: + +"Why do you stay so far off?" + +He was up in a moment. + +"Do you want something?" + +"Yes; I want you near." + +"Oh, very well; I was afraid of waking you." + +Heavy with sleep, he threw himself across the foot of the big +four-poster. She pushed herself down in the bed till her feet under the +covers felt his body through all the clothes, then she lay quite still. +Ethan dozed and dreamed. + +He awoke suddenly with the impression Val had called him. He raised +himself on his elbow. She seemed to be asleep. He leaned his tired head +against the bedpost, turning his face to the east. The gray dawn was +coming in faintly at the window. The things in the room looked spectral. + +Dimly through the window he thought he could see the shadow of the +encircling hills. As he lay looking out, a little voice, so faint and +far it might have come with the dawn from behind the hills: + +"It is no superstition that oaths are binding." + +He held his breath to listen. + +"If we deny them with our lips, our nerves are loyal still." + +Then silence. The light grew clearer. + +"Our lives were set to the key of our oath," said the little voice. +"When we denied it, discord came." + +He tried to speak; a kind of paralysis held the muscles of his throat. + +"It's like the one lie that calls for a thousand, for a life of lies. We +don't lie well, we Ganos." + +Another longer silence; then a fluttering sigh as of one eased from a +mighty burden. + +"Oh, I'm so glad the morning's come! You haven't kissed me, Ethan." + +He rose up without a word, kissed her, and went out. + + +Of course, the ball had been postponed--"only for a week," Val insisted, +and Ethan had agreed. Later this same day, he, still sitting there in +the blue room, wondering against his will at her recovered spirits, +refusing to understand, asked her if the pain was gone. She made the +motion "No," moving the brown head from side to side on the pillow. + +"You are suffering a great deal?" he faltered, as he bent above her. + +She was evidently not thinking of the kind of pain he meant. + +"If I were partly paralyzed, as lots of people are," she said, with +something of the old defiance, "it would hurt less, I suppose. When I +feel like shrinking, I just remember it's a sign none of me is dead yet, +that I can suffer from my head to my feet as horribly as this." + +"Val!" He sank down on his knees and buried his head in the coverlet. + +"But I'll have all eternity for being free of pain. When I remember +that"--she pulled herself up and spoke in a clear, practical tone--"it +brings me to my senses." + +"What can I do for you, dear--what can I do?" + +"Don't go away." + +"I won't." + +"I'm afraid you will." + +"Don't be afraid." + +"Not to collect material for 'Confessions'?" + +"No," he said, smiling dimly. + +"Not even to write to the Saviours of America?" + +"No." + +"I hate those Saviours! America doesn't need 'em." + +"She has only to say so," he said, his old sensitive vanity a little +stung. + +"Oh, America is all right." + +"Very well, America." + +He drew up the chair again and sat closer to the bedside. + +"I shall love being ill, if you don't go away," she said, smiling. + +"I sha'n't go away any more, even when you're well." + +"Really?" + +"Yes." + +"You sure you're an honest Injun?" + +"Injun of flawless integrity." + +"Then I shall be well to-morrow." + +And to all appearance she _was_ well two days afterwards. When she came +down-stairs she was protesting gayly that she was really quite ill, and +must have all an invalid's privileges. + +"Is it a bargain?" she stopped half-way down the stair. "If it isn't, +I'm going back to bed." + +"Yes, all the privileges," he agreed. + +"And you won't go away and write for the 'Saviours'?" + +He laughed, took her down, and established her in the long room. + +"I shall be very particular, or else what's the fun of being an invalid? +And I know what to expect. I was ill once before. Grandma gave me a +delicious glass of sangaree." + +"You shall have sangaree." He made it himself. "Now, what else did she +do for you?" he demanded, like one put upon his mettle. + +Val glanced up at him slyly. + +"_Grandma_ used to read suitable selections from the Bible." + +He leaned against her chair, looking down into her face, smiling as she +hadn't seen him smile for many a day. + +"_I_ can give you suitable selections," he said, with shining eyes. +"'Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast +doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats that +appear from Mount Gilead.' 'Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet--'" + +The voice that to her was different from all the voices of earth went +thrilling along her nerves as it had done the first night she heard it +at the gate, when in ignorant girl-fashion she had known no more than, +"I must follow, follow, follow, wherever it may lead." + + +That night she whispered passionately, "You are loving me more than ever +you did." + +"Yes," he said, holding her close; "the old Val has come back to me." + +"There's another reason," she said in her heart. + + +Val had at last agreed to go to California. + +"Are we sure to be ready to leave the Fort on Thursday?" she asked. + +"Why Thursday?" + +"Because of the ball." + +"I should think we would be quite ready; but does it matter?" + +"Very much." + +"Why?" + +"Oh--a--there'll be a kind of lull after the ball, and I'd rather--a--" + +"Go out with flags flying? I understand." + + +She had laid even New York under tribute for her _fete_. With the help +of a _chef_, a florist, and a decorator, a good deal of money had been +spent to astonishingly effective ends, considering the smallness of the +space at command. It was hard, even with tons of flowers, to make the +old Fort anything but simple and grim; but the more gracious garden, and +above all the terraces, lent themselves kindly to flower aisles and +arches, and a fairyland scheme of lighting. + + +The maid was putting the last touch to her mistress's ball-dress. + +"That's enough. Now go and ask Mr. Gano to come here a moment." + +Val turned a moment later and saw him at the door. The dead black and +white of his evening dress gave the fine ivory of his face an added +pallor. She looked at him with quickening pulse. No wonder women had +found the haunting beauty of that face a troubling memory. As he leaned +against the door, fastening a flower in his coat, smiling in at her in +the old enigmatic way, she felt suddenly what it would be to her to lose +her empire over that restless, homeless spirit. If they were meaning to +go on and on, as other people did, how could they hope to escape other +people's ending? And she smiled back at him suddenly in a fierce, +triumphant fashion. He came forward into the room. + +"What is it? Why do you look like that?" + +"How do I look?" + +"As if--as if--well, I should keep out of your way if I'd done you any +wrong." + +She laughed as she pulled on her long white glove. + +"Am I such a gorgon in my new gown?" + +His eyes went slowly over her with a kind of worship in them. She +trembled slightly. "Not one pretty word for all my pains?" + +He knelt down before her, bent the dark head, and kissed her little +white shoes. + + +As they met a moment in the lancers, Val said: "I wish _she_ could have +seen the old Fort to-night. _She_ loved splendor, too." She laughed up +at him like a delighted child. + +"I've been amused," he whispered back, "to hear people saying it's the +most beautiful ball that's ever been given in the State." + +"Well, of course, I meant it to be"; and she was whirled away. + + +It was about two o'clock in the morning that Ethan made his way out of +the pavilion, with a feeling of unsupportable weariness. He must get +away from all those noisy, irrelevant people; above all, he must get +away from the sight of Val's unthinking joy. He walked on to the far +corner of the osage-orange thicket, and stood there in the deepest part +of the shadow. Down below the terraces the music clanged and jarred. The +round Japanese lanterns, festooned from tree to tree, were like strings +of giant gems, yellow topaz, rose and scarlet coral, lapis lazuli, +turquoise, and opal. The late Indian summer night was not cold; every +one had been saying, "What wonderful weather!" but to Ethan there was +more than a hint of winter in the pungent air. There was that obscure +menace, that sense of melancholy lying behind all, and round all, like +the sea. Autumn had brought this message to him since his childhood. It +was the time when Nature seemed to pause a while in her ceaseless masque +of the seasons to whisper her one honest word into the ear of man. "Be +warned!" she seemed to say; "be warned!" + +Then he remembered--without reassurement, rather with displeasure--that +Val's pulses beat time to a brisker measure. To her the mysterious +message had translated itself into a breathless sense of something new +and strange on its way to her, "something wonderful going to happen, +that never happened in the world before." Fresh realization of this +"difference" that spread through all their life made to his harassed +sense a clear line of cleavage down between their souls; and he felt +himself alone. He remembered her merry look as he passed her and Wilbur +on the way up the terrace, her mocking whisper, "Not one of the +'Saviours' can dance. Oh, _poor_ America!" Even while he smiled at the +remembrance, he was saying in his heart, "At this moment she can laugh +and jest, and give a ball!" Then he reproached himself. Bah! woman is a +grown-up child. How should she _realize_ existence! She has no system of +faith or of philosophy. Her life is a string of moods--white pearls and +black upon a thread of hazard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +It had pleased Val's love of travel by water, and helped her to endure +the thought of her long overland journey to the Pacific, that they +should go down by river to the great railway centre and junction for the +West. Just before noon, on the day after the ball, all was in readiness +for the last leave-taking. The heavier trunks had gone down early to the +landing below the Fort. Ethan was leaving his agent and several servants +to wind up affairs, and the house was still in gala-dress, and overrun +with people. Many of the guests from a distance were not leaving till +later, and they all went down to the river "to see the Ganos off." More +than half the population of the town seemed to Ethan to be bent on the +same errand. He got out of the crowd at the landing, looked at his +watch, said he had forgotten something, and hurried back, shaking off +Scherer and others, by the way, with scant ceremony. When he reached +Mioto Avenue, instead of crossing it and continuing on up to the front +entrance of the Fort, he walked hurriedly along the avenue skirting the +bottom of the old wilderness, now the garden. When he came to the +barberry-bush, he stopped, casting a quick look to right and left. With +some pains and no little violence to his hands, he wrenched one of the +new palings off the fence, and let himself in. Past the garish pavilion, +up the first flight of steps, with a glance towards the thicket of the +hundred-leaved rose, where An' Jerusha had stood so long ago with apron +to her eyes--on, round the deserted house to the front porch. He stared +at his name on the door with a sense of its being strange to find it +there still. He lifted the knocker and let it fall; no one came. He rang +the bell. + +"The people who used to live here must all be gone away," he said to +himself, playing with the idea that it was "many years after." + +He went round to the back veranda. The door stood ajar. He looked in, +wondering to find the place open, and yet fearing to see a face. All the +world was down at the landing. He ran up-stairs three steps at a time. +Out of the writing-table drawer in his room he took an old note-book. It +had come to light the day before, but there had been no fire in his +room, and there was no means now of burning it. But he was glad he had +remembered it in time. Down-stairs, as swiftly as of old when Yaffti +followed hard; a moment's pause before the long-room door. He opened it, +stood looking in a moment at the high red chair, and before passing on, +bent his head like one who acknowledges a greeting. + +As he hurried down the terrace he started, catching sight of some one +crouching down by the rose-bushes. He called out sharply: + +"Who is that?" + +"Me, sir," said the shamefaced Venus, getting up from her kneeling +posture. + +"What are you doing there?" + +Up and down her gingham apron she was furtively rubbing her knees. Think +of Venus losing her youth and acquiring "rheumatics!" How exactly like +An' Jerusha she was growing! + +"I wus lef' in chawge, sah." + +"Well, you've left the veranda door open!" + +She stopped rubbing her knees and wiped her eyes. + +"Dat do' sutny am open, sah. I wanted--t' see de las' ob yer. Dis w'ere +me an' maw done spy out fo' yo' dat firs' time. Ole Mis' G'no--_she_ +didn' min' me an' maw bein' yere." + +"You saw me come back?" + +"Yass, sah." Then, as if to palliate the crime of the open door: "Mebbe +a long time fo' I see yo' comin' in agin." + +"Yes," he said, "it's likely to be a long time," and his slow look went +round the place, shying at the pavilion. + +Venus seemed to think it incumbent upon her to hold up her end of the +conversation. + +"Huh! Can't say fo' sho' why I'm carryin' on like dis yere." She mopped +her eyes. "Miss Val gone away laffin' fit to kill." + +"Yes, she takes it better than we do. Good-bye, Venus." + +"Goo'-bye, sah. Trufe is, sah, Miss Val mighty sot on seein' de worl'. +Goo'-bye, goo'-bye!" + +She waved her apron till he was out of sight. + +"They've rung the 'all aboard' bell twice!" Val called excitedly from +the deck of the steamer as Ethan appeared at the landing. + +He gladly cut his good-byes short, with an eye on the figure up there +against the sky, in dull blue tweed, belted in with white wash-leather. +She had shown him one morning, nearly a year ago, how neatly that same +white leather strip fitted over the old Russian belt that she had clung +to until he got her the one of turquoises. + +"Of course," she had said that day in Paris, laughing and showing her +white teeth, "if I were a clumpy lady now--if I hadn't such a nice +little waist, I couldn't wear two belts, and I could never wear white at +all! So mind you appreciate me." + +It was that day he had gone and ordered the turquoise girdle. Was she +wearing it now? Of course. Absurd child! she never dressed without it. +He glanced up at her in the midst of the handshaking, seeing neither +Wilbur nor Scherer nor Julia, but a wind-blown figure above him on the +brow of Plymouth Hill, looking out to the future. And to-day? The same +questioning eyes, shoulders well set back, the little head held +high--she was still looking the world in the face; it would be defiance +but for the smile. + +As the paddle churned the water there was a chorus of good-bying and +hurrahing. The whistle shrieked--the steamer lumbered fussily +down-stream. + +"Why don't you wave, too?" said Val, excitedly. "Is that old book under +your arm what you went back for? Why is your other hand full of leaves?" + +"I can't imagine why." He opened his fingers and let the scarlet +barberries and the small crisp leaves fall into the river. + +The faces in the crowd were growing dim, but still she waved her +handkerchief. + +"You remember that man you once told me about?" she said. + +"What man?" He looked dreamily back at the throng as though expecting to +find him there. + +"Don't you remember he was at play when the Roman guard came to carry +him to his execution? I should like to call back to my friends as he +did: 'Bear witness when I am dead that I had the better of the game!'" + + +Ethan's prophecy proved true. Val loved the place at Oakland, and all +the walks and drives about. She delighted in San Francisco, and she +ransacked Chinatown with unabated curiosity. + +"You've never told me what you think of _Yaffti_," Ethan said to her +some days after their arrival. + +"_Yaffti?_" + +"My sailboat." + +"Oh, I haven't encountered _Yaffti_ as yet." + +He presently realized that she had never been down to the beach since +she came. Instinctively he avoided suggesting it again. He would go off +for a sail sometimes himself with his man, Sam Cornish, an old sailor +who had been with him years before on his yacht. But Val was ingenious +in inventing inland outings. _Yaffti_ for the most part was tethered +fast in the little cove, and Sam smoked endless pipes on the pier. + +But Val made the old sailor's acquaintance nevertheless, and delighted +in him. One day, in an encounter down at the stables, Sam made bold to +remonstrate with her upon her "fear o' the sea." + +"'Tain't wot I expected by the look o' yer, mum." + +She laughed a little nervously, and went up the drive to meet Ethan. + +"What's Sam being saying?" he said, conscious of the faint trace of +agitation in her face. + +"Sam? Oh, nothing! Sam and I are great friends." Restless under her +husband's continued scrutiny, she asked: "How long have you known Sam?" + +"Oh, seven or eight years, I should think." + +"Well, he likes me best, anyhow," she laughed. + +"I dare say," said Ethan, adopting her note; "all ignorant persons do." + +"Yes, it's true!" She stopped a moment. "Now, why is that, do you +suppose?" she said, with the candid air of a scientific investigator. + +"Merely because you have the _beau role_ to play," he said, still +smiling. "You help them to believe in happiness. I'm apt to verify their +worst suspicions." + +Ethan left his wife very little alone, and it was strange and pitiful to +him--a daily mockery of the human lot--that they should be so often +happy, and in spirit closer together in these hours, than they had ever +been in their lives. They clung to each other like two lost children, +and the days went by in a dream. + + +They had had three weeks of quite perfect weather. To-day, for the first +time since their coming, the sky lowered, the air was heavy. Still, the +sun showed his dazzling Californian face at intervals, and Ethan watched +the weather signs while he dressed, his heart secretly set upon going +off, by-and-by, with _Yaffti_ and Sam for a sail. He must find out +discreetly how Val was going to spend the morning. + +"What's for to-day?" he said to her at breakfast. + +"I've a beautiful plan if the weather behaves," she answered. + +They stood at the door of the summer-house after breakfast. Val would +leave him every now and then, go to the lattice-window that looked out +to sea, and come back with the latest Signal Service report. Her version +was so uniformly favorable that Ethan laughed at last. + +"You're like an old night-watchman!" + +"I'm not a bit like an old night-watchman." + +"Yes, yes," he insisted. "Weren't you told as a child how they used to +go crying the hour under the windows in Baltimore, 'Eleven o'clock, and +all's well!' 'Midnight, and all's well'?" + +"Very nice of them, I'm sure; and if the family watchman says 'All's +well' after luncheon, you are to take me to China." + +It was so she always spoke of Chinatown. He thought of the narrow, +malodorous alleys, the stifling shops, and regretted, with a double +pang, the breezy bay and _Yaffti_. However, he would have a couple of +hours' sail before luncheon to sustain him. + +"All right," he said out loud, "we'll go to China this afternoon." + +As she leaned against him he put his arm about her waist. + +"Where's your turquoise gewgaw?" he said. + +"Here"--she lifted a hand to her hair. + +"No; I meant the other--the--" As he noticed the shade on her face: +"You've lost it! Aha! I knew you would if you wore it every day." + +"I haven't lost it," she said. + +"Tired of it already?" + +"No; I didn't put it on this morning." + +He looked at her with changed eyes. She dropped her own, went over to +the lattice, and stood there facing seaward. When he came in to get the +tobacco-pouch he had left on the rustic table, she went out. He thought +of that morning in Paris when he had designed the belt and chosen the +stones. How he had dwelt in imagination on the moment when he would +clasp it round her, see her joy, and be given his reward! Then came back +the actual moment of his giving her the gift--came back with an even +greater anguish than he had known in living through the moments by the +fire in his wife's room at the Fort. He tasted the intolerable bitter of +the contrast between what he had hoped that hour would bring, and what +it actually had brought, till he was ready to cry out: "What demon made +me mention it? She's right not to wear the accursed thing!" + +As soon as Val went in-doors he would go for a sail. For nearly half an +hour she had been trailing about the garden in her soft white draperies, +now bending down to look at some growing thing, now looking up to the +wind-blown cloud masses, to where the strong sunlight poured down +between the rifts. He leaned against the door of the summer-house, +rolling cigarettes. He suspected rather than heard her talking her +foolish "little language" to the bird in the juniper-bush, the spoiled +bird that always got crumbs after breakfast. By-and-by she came towards +him across the lawn with a little green branch in her hand. He realized +that she must be weary, she was dragging her feet. Something curiously +unlike Val, something inelastic, shackled, struck him in her gait. His +face darkened suddenly; an involuntary shock of repulsion went through +him, a resentment keen, impersonal, unconscious of everything save his +own inward recoil, until he noticed Val had stopped short and the green +branch had fallen at her feet. He went forward to pick it up. As he +handed it to her he saw her eyes were full of tears. + +"My dear one, what is it?" he said, with sharp remorse. + +"Don't--don't look at me! Turn away your eyes." + +"Why--why, dear?" + +"Your eyes hurt--oh, they hurt me!" + +"How _can_ you say such a thing!" he exclaimed, ready to perjure +himself. He would have laid his arm about her, but she shrank away. +"It's not like you, Val!" he began, almost indignantly. + +"No, no," she said, on a wave of her old impetuosity, "it's not a bit +like me! I would have loved the great miracle. I would have waited upon +it reverently every step of the way, so proud, so happy--" + +She broke off and went from him into the house. + +His painful remorse was checkered by the reflection, "And I was going +for a sail! Impossible now." + +He stayed all the morning in the house or garden, reading to Val when +she would let him, surrounding her with every offering of tenderness his +keen self-reproach could invent. But he was too close in spirit to the +woman at his side not to divine a little how she shrank from this new +considerateness that was own cousin to pity. + +As he sat in the library reading aloud before luncheon, he became +acutely conscious of a change in her mood. At first he thought the story +was interesting her deeply, and began to pay more attention to it +himself, glancing up covertly now and then at the face opposite to him. +The languid eyes were full of light again, her apathy swallowed up in +some unexplained alertness. He was so struck with the change that he +bent forward and laid his hand over hers. It trembled sharply under his +touch. She rose and walked about the room. He read on till the +luncheon-bell rang. She sat at the table scarcely eating, answering his +remarks with gentle vagueness, and looking much out of the window. + +"No hope of going to China to-day," he said, at last, following her +eyes. + +"Not at two," she answered. "That was why I didn't dress." + +After luncheon they went back to the library. + +"What do they mean by shutting the windows?" she exclaimed, and flung +them wide. + +The papers in the room flew about, and he closed the door. He took up +the book again, feeling that neither of them was much in the mood to +talk. But the day had grown so overcast that he went and sat in the +bay-window, so that he might read the small print more readily. Val +moved restlessly about. He refrained from looking at her again until he +became conscious that she had stopped suddenly. He glanced up, and saw +her standing rooted, with a look of tension on her face, her head +slightly tilted, lips parted, breath held. + +"What is it?" he said, nervously. + +"Don't you hear?" + +"What?" + +"Yaffti." + +"What nonsense!" he laughed. + +"Sh! Listen!" + +In the silence he caught the faint far-off growl of thunder. + +"You forget," he said, after a moment, speaking as one who tries to cast +off some evil spirit, "you forget I've made _Yaffti_ fast in the bay." + +"He's coming inland to-day," she said; "he's tired of waiting for us." + +Ethan had picked up the book, and read on with a curious under-current +of excitement. As he turned the leaves he would throw out a swift +glance, almost like one running for his life who keeps an eye on an +enemy. + +The flying cloud squadrons had rallied. They were drawn up now in +serried masses, black and threatening. The sun had fallen back +overpowered, vanquished utterly. Such noonday darkness in the lands of +sunshine is a commonplace of sub-tropical climate, but to Ethan it came +to-day as a portent and a warning. + +Val moved from window to window, watching the great red-wood trees +swaying and lashing, and taking the wind in her face. + +Ethan closed his own window, and suggested that the others be put down. + +"No, no," she opposed him, almost sharply. + +"What's the matter with you to-day?" he said at last, unable to endure +her restlessness any longer. "Can't you follow the story--can't you +think when there's a thunderstorm?" + +"Oh yes," she said; "I can think best of all then." + +As she stood looking up in a kind of ecstasy, suddenly the lightning +played about her. Involuntarily Ethan shrank and shut his eyes in that +first instant. In the stupendous crash that followed he sprang up. Was +the house struck? + +She stood quite still with exultant eyes, listening for the +thunderpeals as if they were answers to some question, waiting for the +lightning like one lost in the dark, who sees a torch borne nearer. + +He put down the windows in spite of her "Ah no! ah no!" just as the +rain-cloud broke over the house. + +"I keep thinking it's the big tulip-tree at home," she said, "making +that sound like surf on the shore." + +The rain dashed in floods against the window-panes, and ran down in +sheets like sea-water off the port-holes of a ship. + +"One good thing," said Ethan, "it's too violent to last long." + +The house groaned and trembled under the bombardment of the storm. + +"Listen!" she said again. "Oh, Yaffti is very angry this time. I told +you he was tired of waiting so long in the bay." + +She opened the library door. + +"Where are you going?" he demanded. + +She went back and kissed him. + +"Only up-stairs. I want to write to Emmie." + +Ethan had been right: the storm was too violent to last. When it had +spent itself he went down to the pier. Sky still a little overcast, but +louder than ever the sea called to him. + +He walked up and down, up and down. The salt blew keen in his face. +By-and-by he went to the boat-house to consult Sam. + +"Well," in Sam's opinion, "they mout be a bigger gale on the way, and +then, again, they moutn't." + +But after a while the warm wind seemed to blow the clouds low down on +the threshold of the ocean. The dome of heaven was swept bare and clean +except for a little corner of the west. And louder than ever the sea +kept calling. He would go up to the house, he told Sam, and see what +Mrs. Gano was doing--if she minded his going out for an hour. + +She had written to Emmie a simple family letter, full of affection and +reminders of the old days. "I hope you've forgiven me for being so +horrid to you when we were children. You have the comfort of remembering +you were always very gentle and forbearing to everybody. I was a +monster. I'm still rather a monster, but I'd like you to go on thinking +kindly of me." + +She found she had no stamps, and looked in Ethan's room. His travelling +letter-case--it was really a portable writing-stand--lay open on the +floor of his dressing-room, with his bunch of keys in the lock. + +"Careless boy," she said to herself, and went over to close it. + +Her eye fell on the old note-book that Ethan had gone back for that day +they left the Fort. She opened it idly. He had shown her the first pages +himself, with their odds and ends of verse, jottings and subjects, etc. +Absently she turned the leaves to the end. The last entry was the +longest, the date early in that year: + + + "NICE. + + "Forgetfulness! That is all my prayer. Do I blame the men who + drink? No. Opium-eaters? Not I. I wonder we do not all--all who + have the taste of suffering on our lips, and the knowledge of the + aimless grotesque end--I wonder we do not buy oblivion at any + price. How is it we are cajoled to bear this aching at the heart?" + + +"What date is this?" said the woman aloud, and read again: "Nice--why, +he was with _me_, and we were happy! Nothing had happened then," she +said, forgetting all the pain of the old doubt in the greater pain of +the new certainty. + +She read on: + + + "Forgetfulness! Dear saints in heaven! it's not a crown, not the + white robe and palm I crave--forgetfulness! A little sweet upon the + threshold, and then the dark. By sweet I mean the present love of + some one dear; or, more honestly set down, I mean the companionship + of the one dear soul on that far quest. Story-makers write at the + end, 'And they lived happy ever after.' Give me and my dear one the + epitaph, 'And they were dead together forever after.' For those + myriads who merely skimmed the surface of thought and feeling--for + those who had few fears and fewer heartaches, there may come a + Resurrection Morn. The loud trumpet, dear, shall pierce our sleep + as well, perhaps, and we will rouse and stir a little in our folded + shrouds. I will whisper in your drowsy ear, 'Dear heart, it is the + morning. Shall we arise? Shall we take up the round again?' And you + will lie closer, with your arms of dust about me, and the dear + voice will say in my ear, 'No, no, beloved; it is well with us here + in our narrow house.' And I will say, 'Bethink you, this is the day + when all men rise and greet their friends.' 'Friend,' you will + answer, 'I give you greeting here.' And I, 'The just who rise + to-day are given great reward.' But my beloved says, 'You gave me + my reward; I have it in my heart of dust.' 'But Life and Light are + waiting for you there.' And you will say, 'I know them both; and + Death and Darkness are the better part.' Then, as I feel the + blessed numbness stealing over this quintessence of the dust, I + will rouse me one last moment, remembering how fair and fit for + living and for loving my beloved was, and I will say with all the + old world-anguish aching anew in every atom of my body's dust, + 'Dear, there is much love awaiting you up there--that love you did + so hunger for. Rise up. Love calls.' 'Hush, hush! I have found my + love,' I seem to hear you saying, low and faint, like one who + lingers but a moment on the hither shore of sleep. 'Oh, dear, dear + heart, I'll say one word before we sleep. There is no other day of + waking. If you stay here now, it is the end. There comes no more a + Resurrection Morn.' 'There comes no more a battle or undoing,' I + hear you say, so faint, so low, I scarce can part the sound from + silence; 'no more retreat, no more defeat, no aching of the brave + and hopeless heart.' Then, 'Good-night,' say I. And you, + 'Good-night.'" + + +"No, no!" cried the living woman. "I'm apter at 'good-morning.' _I'm_ +not that woman down beside him in the dark." + + +"Val!" he was calling in the garden; "Val!" he was calling on the stair. + +She had closed the book, and slipped it guiltily into her pocket. + +She left her letter on the floor and ran out to meet him, catching up +hat and gloves as she hurried through her own room. + +"I was just coming to ask you--" he began. "Oh, you've changed your +dress!" + +"Yes," she said, not meeting his eyes. + +"Well, what shall we do?" They went down together to the door. He +thought regretfully of _Yaffti_ and the shining bay. "What do you think +you'd like?" + +"Let us go down--" She nodded towards the boathouses. + +"You don't mean down to the beach?" + +"Yes." + +He studied her a moment. + +"The wind off the bay is fresh after the storm," he hesitated. "You are +dressed very lightly." + +"No, no--quite warm." + +"In that blue cobweb, open at the throat?" + +"It's the dress you like best," she said, in a low voice. + +He saw now there was something more than common careful, something +selected, in the simple toilet--her creamy laces, her favorite jewels. + +"Very charming; but you can't deny you're not dressed for rough +weather." + +"Yes, I am; you'll see. But bring my reefer, too." + +While he got the jacket she put on her hat and gloves. + +Down on the pier she found the wind stronger than she had expected. She +shivered a little, although it was warm, and drew the rough reefer +together. She saw Ethan throw back his head, and his nostrils expand +slightly as he inhaled the strong sea smell. + +"Will ye be goin' out?" Sam asked. + +"No, not to-day." + +"Why not?" asked Val, quickly. + +Ethan turned with a sudden light in his face. + +"Do you mean you really don't mind?" + +"Not--not if you take me." + +He looked into her eyes and then across the bay. It was some time before +he spoke: + +"Sam to the contrary, I'm not sure but what the worst is to come." + +She shook her head. + +"'The worst' is over." + +"Do you see that bank of cloud?" + +"It will make a fine sunset," she answered. While Sam was getting the +boat ready: "He must stay behind," she said, very low. + +Ethan seemed about to give the order, but it stuck in his throat. + +"Shall I tell him?" she asked. + +Still no answer. + +"Sa--" she called. + +"We can go alone another day," Ethan interrupted, hurriedly. + +She shook her head. + +"When that other day comes I may not be able." + +"What should prevent you?" + +"Something stronger than I--or you." As he looked at her: "I may come to +feel too much that sense you said I lacked. Quick, quick! Make him +hurry: it's late. It might come to seem too late." + +"Late. Do you realize it's not four weeks since the ball? You who wanted +to go to China and Persia, and God knows where!" + +"Well, I _am_ going--God knows where." She turned away her head. + +Sam was waiting to hand her in. + +"No, Ethan, _you_," she whispered. But she looked back when she was in +the boat, and smiled at the old sailor. + +"You needn't come this time," she said, as he was preparing to follow +Ethan. "I can manage the tiller." + +Sam's doubtful looks vanished as he observed the lady's air of custom. + +"Where shall we go?" said Ethan. + +"I think I'll steer for the sunset," she answered, in the same level +voice. + +He paused with the sheet in his hand. + +"That would bring us--" He looked out across the water, far across it, +beyond it, till his cloudy eyes found the cloud-hung entrance to the +open sea. + +"It will bring us out at the Golden Gate," she said. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Open Question, by Elizabeth Robins + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OPEN QUESTION *** + +***** This file should be named 37827.txt or 37827.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/8/2/37827/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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