diff options
Diffstat (limited to '78640-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 78640-0.txt | 3038 |
1 files changed, 3038 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/78640-0.txt b/78640-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d60c419 --- /dev/null +++ b/78640-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3038 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78640 *** + + + + + THE OPAL + + + + + [Illustration: THE OPAL + _From a painting by J. H. Gardner-Soper._] + + + + + THE OPAL + + A NOVEL + + + [Illustration: Riverside Press logo] + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND + COMPANY THE RIVERSIDE + PRESS CAMBRIDGE 1905 + + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1905 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 1905 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I DRAMATIS PERSONAE 1 + + II MERELY PLAYERS 9 + + III A THOUSAND WOMEN IN ONE 40 + + IV ONE WOMAN IN A THOUSAND 63 + + V A DIRECTOR OF DESTINIES 84 + + VI A PUPPET IN TRAGEDY 103 + + VII THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW 150 + + + + +THE OPAL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DRAMATIS PERSONAE + + +Mary Elton was a girl whom her friends called unusual, and her friends’ +friends, peculiar. She was young enough to be judged leniently by her +elders on the ground of her immaturity, and old enough to be looked +up to by her juniors as a clever woman whose character was past +the formative period. An undisguised interest in her own character +frequently laid her open to the charge of egotism, but she had never +been accused of conceit. A sort of fundamental frankness, combined with +a remarkably clear vision, was the basis of her nature. Seeing things +without disguise made it possible to speak of things without reserve, +and neither timidity nor politeness ever tempted her to call black +white, or even gray, and a spade was given no less definite a name when +she found it necessary to refer to that symbol of the unmentionable. + +Men discovered in Mary Elton certain masculine characteristics of mind +and heart, an almost grim sense of humor and a readiness to see the +man’s point of view, which, paradoxically enough, made her the more +feminine, there being no quality regarded as so essentially womanly as +intelligent sympathy for the superior male, and understanding of his +complexities. + +But, as Mary acknowledged with equal openness to herself and to her +friends, no man had ever been in love with her. Many had given her +their warmest friendship, and had confided their affairs of the +heart to her as to one of their own sex, but no one had ever faintly +intimated that marriage could concern her in any more personal way +than as a subject of abstract discussion. + +Among her clear-sighted and warm-hearted friendships there was +none more sincere than that which bound her with mutual chains of +comprehending sympathy to Philip Morley. There had always been good +comradeship between them, their temperaments being sufficiently unlike +to enable them to act and react upon each other to their common +advantage and stimulus. He confided his small love affairs to Mary, +and she gave them either the sympathy he craved or the scolding he +deserved, as circumstances seemed to demand. + +To outward view he was tall, with a suggestion of latent power about +him, which was in singular contrast with the superficial laziness of +his manner. Mary used to tell him that it was a mere toss-up of chances +whether he became a leader of men or a follower of women. Certainly +hints of both tendencies lurked in his handsome features, the strength +lying in his firm mouth and decided chin, the sentiment and love of +pleasure looking out from his blue eyes. + +One morning, after a lapse of time longer than Philip usually allowed +to pass without having seen Mary, he found a bulky envelope on his +office desk, addressed in so boldly and blatantly masculine a hand that +it instantly proclaimed the writer to be a woman. He glanced at the +pile of letters it surmounted, with the constitutional indifference +that extended even to his morning mail; then a slow smile brightened +his features into an expression of half-amused pleasure. + +“Mary’s screeds generally deserve to be read first,” he said to +himself. “She always insists that the length of her letters is in +inverse ratio to their importance, by which token this must be a trifle +of exceptional airiness.” + +With a slit of his finger he liberated two closely written sheets of +letter-paper and read as follows:-- + + MY DEAR PHILIP,--I am sending cards to the rabble (and notes to the + elect) to bid them come here “very informally”--whatever that may + mean--next Wednesday afternoon, November twenty-seventh, to meet + Miss Edith Dudley. I am perfectly aware that every one hates teas, + and I know that nothing less than a personal appeal eight pages + long would bring you to one, but I do want you to come and see this + holiday novelty that I am exhibiting for the first time in Boston. + “Who under the sun is Miss Dudley?” I hear you inquire, “and why + did I never hear of her before?” Because, I reply sententiously, + like all Bostonians, your knowledge of men and women is limited to + State Street and the Back Bay; and this lovely creature, who is + a sort of step-cousin-in-law of mine, happens to be known only in + Europe and the southern and western portions of this continent. + Listen, my children, and you shall hear why she is what she is. + Don’t fancy that you are beginning a Balzac novel if I go into + her ancestry sufficiently to tell you that her mother was French, + her father Kentuckian, her education as cosmopolitan as her + inheritances, and her beauty as bewilderingly elusive as that of + the opal or the rainbow. Her mother died several years ago, and by + some strange inconsistency of temperament her hot Southern father + must needs marry the cold Northern cousin of my uncle. (Doesn’t + that sound Ollendorfian?) The alliance instantly froze him to + death; so this lovely wonderful daughter was left to the mercy and + justice of her stepmother. They went abroad together and stayed + two years, and now Edith has come to pay me a long visit on the + feeble strength of my relationship to the second Mrs. Dudley. She + will be in Boston most of the winter, first with me, and then + with the Warners. You are the only person to whom I have given a + word of preparation as to what to expect; but you may pass on the + information to those whom it may concern. As usual, my note has + grown into a foreign letter, the gist of which may be summed up in + the refrain, Come early and avoid the rush! November 27th. One day + only!! Beauty and the Beast!!! + + Always faithfully your friend, + MARY ELTON (the Beast). + +“How exactly like Mary!” the young man exclaimed out loud. “Her voice +gets into her letters in the most extraordinary way, and makes her pen +talk instead of writing. Of course I shall have to go and meet this +siren who has bewitched the most clear-sighted of her sex;” and he +jotted down in his note-book the date of one of the few “teas” he was +not glad to forget. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MERELY PLAYERS + + +Philip Morley ascended the steps of Mr. Elton’s house on the afternoon +of the “very informal” reception, at the psychological moment between +the hours of four and six, when the first reluctant black-coated +figures began to give character to the steadily flowing stream of +gayly dressed women. Having succeeded in fighting his way to the door +of the drawing-room, the young man paused a moment to nerve himself +for the plunge into a noise and heat that seemed almost tangible. The +sharp, shrill voices of women buzzed in his ears like the trills of +persecuting insects, and high mirthless laughs cut his nerves like +little steel blades. + +“This is not civilization, it is barbarism!” Philip exclaimed to +another timid male explorer into the wilderness of women. “Talk about +giving the franchise to any class of human beings who take pleasure in +assemblies of this sort! It’s preposterous! Women may be very charming +individually, but collectively--O Lord!” + +He looked helplessly into the room to try and locate his hostess, who +would be sure to straighten him out into his customary ease of body and +mind with a grasp of her friendly hand. + +“Why are the men so thick in that corner?” he continued querulously. +“Oh, I see.” + +The crowd had thinned a little at the entrance to the room, and between +eager faces and nodding heads, Philip Morley caught sight of a girl +standing beside Mary Elton. Her beauty, her extraordinary quality, +defied description or comparison. To say that she was tall, graceful, +dignified,--radiant in coloring and expression,--would have been +to describe half a dozen other good-looking women in the room. She +positively seemed to radiate light, and to give a dazzling impression +of eternal youth and of the beauty that is in living, moving things; +not the cold perfection of a statue, or any work of art, but the +vitality of the work of nature,--the sparkle of running water, the +changing wonder of a landscape played upon by sun and cloud and breeze. +Her very dress seemed part of her, and to a man’s ignorant eyes gave +a bewildering impression of misty gray, toning into a delicate pink +that in turn melted into the color of pale heliotropes, as it caught +different rays of light. Her own soft yet vivid coloring was opalescent +like her dress, for her hair was of the warm brown that grows golden in +the light, her eyes were so clear that they seemed to reflect blue, +green, and gray shadows, and the delicate color in her cheek came and +went as she talked. Nor was her wonderful beauty that of line and color +only, for intelligence, sympathy, and humor shone from her speaking +face. Assuredly Mary Elton’s guest was possessed of the kind of beauty +one reads of in old-fashioned romantic novels, but with an added touch +of indefinable modernity and subtle mystery. In contrast, Mary Elton +looked plainer than usual,--which was saying much. She was so far from +good-looking that no one but herself ever commented on it. Plainness +of feature was simply one of her attributes, like height in a tower or +strength in a fortress, and invited no comment. + +She caught sight of Philip standing by the door, and made a humorous +face at him, signifying her own aversion to the hubbub around. Then she +beckoned to him, pointed encouragingly at Edith Dudley, as to a goal +that was worth much pushing and elbowing to attain. When he was within +arm’s length, she held out her hand. + +“Quick, what do you think of her? Isn’t she lovely? Isn’t she +wonderful? Shouldn’t you think I was the last person in the world to +get hold of such a drawing card? Aren’t we splendid foils for each +other? Oughtn’t she to pay me to travel about with her? Why don’t you +say what you think of her? You’re always so slow, Philip!” + +“On the contrary, it’s you who are fast,” he replied laughing. “I am by +no means slow to admire Miss Dudley. She is certainly stunning, but I +am not sure that I want to meet any one so lovely. She can’t fail to be +a disappointment with such a face as a handicap to her brain.” + +“You just wait. She’s wonderful,” Mary exclaimed triumphantly. “Stop, +look, and listen, as the railroad warnings say. Don’t meet her for a +little while, but just stand on the outskirts, and watch her tact and +grace and cleverness. Oh, she’s wonderful!” Mary repeated. Here Mary’s +uncle came up to give to Philip the official greetings of a semi-host. + +Mr. Elton was a fair type of the average business man. His mental +horizon seemed bounded by the wool in which he dealt, but he was kindly +in disposition, and truly attached to the niece who had lived with +him since she was left an orphan at twelve years of age. There was no +intimacy between them,--perhaps the difference in their temperaments +had helped to encourage the girl’s introspection, and forced her +to find her best companionship in herself,--but there was genuine +affection, even although Mr. Elton might be said to have cared for his +niece with all his conscience, rather than with all his heart. + +“Our young friend seems to be meeting with a fair measure of success,” +he stated, with the precision that characterized all his trite +utterances. “It is not often that one finds so good an intelligence +combined with so beautiful a face. I was really surprised at the +knowledge she showed of the way in which a big business,--like that of +wool, for instance,--is conducted. She seems to be well informed on +many subjects, without being superficial; a rare quality nowadays.” + +Mary rescued Philip from the wearisome task of feigning an interest in +her uncle’s dry and woolly comments, by sending Mr. Elton off to do +the polite to a lady whose deaf smile was the index to her infirmity. +“There, Uncle Charles, do go and scream at poor Miss Green. She won’t +hear a word you say, but she is touchingly grateful if one merely +recites the alphabet to her. Why _will_ deaf people come to afternoon +teas, and why does every one who isn’t deaf assume that every one +else is? I never heard such a cackling. The parlor is turned into a +barn-yard. Oh, how do you do, Miss Milton?” + +Mary turned suddenly to greet a new arrival, who bore the hall-mark of +a charitable spinster, from the neat little white path that divided an +expanse of smoothly plastered hair, to the broad soles of her sensible +shoes. She was the scion of a family which had many branches and was +less conspicuous for its manners than its customs. + +She proved her birthright by staring across her hostess at Miss +Dudley for a moment before answering Mary’s greeting, and then saying +abruptly, “What an extraordinary-looking young woman to be a friend of +yours! Who is she? Has she relations in Boston?” + +“Nothing nearer than myself. But she’s all right, Miss Milton. I +shouldn’t have asked you to meet her if she hadn’t been,” Mary suavely +declared, with an intentional humor that missed fire. “You’ll find she +isn’t as frivolous as you think. She has an extraordinary insight, +and will probably divine by intuition that you are more interested +in the poor than the prosperous, and she will unquestionably give +you the latest wrinkle in philanthropy. You just see. Come,” Mary +continued, dragging her elderly victim after her by one end of her +dateless mantilla. “Edith, I want you to meet Miss Eliza Milton. This, +Miss Milton, is my friend--and cousin by courtesy--Miss Dudley. Be +acquainted, as they say in the country.” + +Philip saw the girl turn from the young men surrounding her, and +speak to the unfashionable aristocrat in a low rich tone that fell +soothingly on the ear among the sharp staccato waves of sound that +filled the room. The sympathy and kindly human interest that beamed +from the girl’s face could not be the result of training alone. Even +her double-distilled inheritance of Southern courtesy and French +grace could not explain a responsiveness that had no touch of the +professional veneer that glazes eyes and lips into a perfunctory +assumption of interest. Miss Milton had not been talking to the girl +two minutes before the conversation had veered from the general to +the particular, and Edith Dudley was giving the charitable spinster a +little account of an experience she had had among the poor in a New +York college settlement. + +“I am very much interested in sociology,” Philip was astounded to hear +the young girl glibly declare, “and I’ve been fortunate enough to have +seen a little of the practical workings of various schemes for the +regeneration of mankind.” + +Miss Milton drew herself up with pride at representing the One +Perfectly Organized Body of Workers on Earth. + +“It is easy to dispose of a large subject with superficial +catch-words,” she proclaimed. + +“Yes, isn’t it?” Miss Dudley agreed sympathetically. “Some personal +experience, some knowledge from the inside, is necessary. I have had a +little,--less than I should like,--but I should be so grateful to you, +Miss Milton, if you would put me in the way of taking some small part +in the special form of philanthropy in which you are interested. Of +course I have already read and heard a good deal about the Associated +Charities here in Boston.” + +“Naturally,” Miss Milton interposed. + +“I am immensely impressed by its aims and accomplishments,” Miss +Dudley continued. “I wonder if I couldn’t do a little visiting for you +while I am in Boston.” + +“We are always glad of intelligent assistance,” the Philanthropist +guardedly admitted. + +“I don’t know about the intelligence,” the girl said smilingly, “but I +speak Italian fairly well. I believe you always need some additional +visitors in the Italian quarter, don’t you? I should be so glad if you +would let me practice my Italian on some transplanted organ-grinders +and fruit-venders.” + +Miss Milton acquiesced, with a slightly distrustful manner, in a +suggestion that seemed to her as surprising as if a butterfly had +suddenly offered to lead the strenuous life of a bee. Her frankly +expressed astonishment was broken in upon by the introduction of a +clerical young man, whose studiedly sympathetic smile seemed to preach +the duty of cheerfulness to a quite professional extent, and whose air +of worldly ease was the logical sequence to his ministerial waistcoat. + +“Ah, this does make me feel at home!” Miss Dudley exclaimed, with a +cordial grasp of the ineffective white hand extended to meet hers. +“I never expected to see anything so anomalous as a clergyman of the +Church of England in Mary Elton’s drawing-room. I haven’t dared to +breathe my sympathy for anything so conservative as--as you, in this +hot-bed, no, cold-bed of radicalism.” + +“There are a few of us left, Miss Dudley, a few of us left,” he +replied, with the easy reiteration of the obvious in which his calling +had perfected him. He grasped an imaginary surplice with two delicate +fingers. “May I hope that you will persuade Miss Elton to bring you to +St. Matthew’s next Sunday, and see for yourself that Unitarians and +Christian Scientists do not yet control all Boston,--not quite all of +this fair city?” he eloquently preached. + +“Of course I’ll come, but my cousin won’t come with me. I feel sure +that she secretly goes to some hall where Emerson is the Deity +worshiped, although she pretends not to go anywhere. She is much too +unconventional to attend any church that preaches legitimate doctrine, +but I’ll come alone.” + +The little clergyman beamed unctuously, and expressed the belief that +he should draw fresh inspiration from the sight of Miss Dudley in his +congregation. + +“I really long to confess myself a miserable sinner,” the girl went on, +with the blending of seriousness and lightness that is the ambition and +admiration of young society clergymen. “These sincere, self-respecting +Bostonians refuse to ‘cringe to the Almighty,’ as Mary calls it. They +think on the whole they’re a pretty virtuous set of people, but for my +own part I never feel so good as when I say I’m bad, so I’m coming to +confess with the other sinners in your congregation next Sunday.” + +The young divine was reluctantly hurried by, his impressionable heart +stirred by a remembered vision of a serious and spiritual face that had +contradicted the lightness of the spoken words. By this time, one of +the former satellites that had revolved about the new planet drifted +again into the orbit of her smile. His coldly critical and clever face +was stamped with the lines of fastidious modernity. + +“What an anachronism is presented by the sight of a parson at Miss +Elton’s reception!” he commented, smiling somewhat sneeringly at +the cordial shoulders of the clergyman that were writhing, with +ostentatious sympathy, over an old lady’s confessions of rheumatism. +“I am sure you agree with me, Miss Dudley, that the Church in America +to-day is merely a picturesque ruin,--the only ruin in this terribly +new land,--that we value merely for its traditions and associations. +There is no longer such a thing as living faith. Occasionally we think +we have found it again, but when we turn the electric light of modern +science on its poor groping shape, we discover only the ghost of +something that once lived ages ago.” + +Miss Dudley smiled with sad understanding. “You are right, of course. +But I believe in ghosts, and that’s all right, isn’t it, as long +as I don’t mistake them for their living counterparts? I know that +faith is dead,--I mean the real vital faith that made martyrs of +people,--but I like to play it’s alive. I really care for the forms +of religion,--for its picturesqueness, its traditions; and therefore +I prefer the Catholic Church to the Protestant. I like to recall my +early associations with what my mother taught me, by going to church +and getting into rather a slushy state of virtuous emotion, but as for +a real reasoning belief”-- + +She gave a little shrug,--the national gesture of her mother’s +race,--and suddenly her eyes were veiled by a mist of sadness. “Don’t +let’s be serious at an afternoon tea!” she exclaimed. “I should like +to talk to you about all kinds of things sometime, Mr. Marston. I’m +sure we should agree about a great many of them. You are cynical +outside, and I am cynical inside. I have to drug myself with all these +‘frivolous little anodynes that deaden suffering,’ in order not to lose +my grip on life.” She signified the pleasure-seekers around her with a +wave of the large bouquet of sweet peas that seemed part of her. + +Philip Morley, still an eye and ear witness to Miss Dudley’s +variations, gave a curious little grunt of mystification, not untinged +with contempt, but he drew a little nearer to the enigma, to hear what +further contradictions she would reveal. + +A young Harvard student lounged up to Miss Dudley’s side, with +overacted ease, and continued a conversation that had evidently been +interrupted. “Then you will really dance the cotillon with me next +Thursday night? You won’t forget?” he asked, impaling her eyes with a +gaze of boyish admiration. + +“Forget?” she laughed, clasping her hands with mock intensity. “I am +not likely to forget what I enjoy more than anything in the world, +dancing with a good partner,--for I know you dance well; I saw you last +night.” + +“What flowers do you care for? What color are you going to wear?” he +asked with the blasé manner of an experienced society man. + +“Oh, I care for all flowers; I shall wear all colors,” she cried +lightly; but then added, “you will please me best, Mr. Warren, by not +sending me any flowers at all. It is one of my very few principles, not +to let college men send me flowers. There are so many things they must +want to get that will last so much longer. Please don’t send me any; I +really mean it. Come and take me to walk some afternoon instead. Show +me Bunker Hill Monument, and teach me some local history.” + +Her frank kindliness, just tinged with coquetry, was what the boy most +wanted. “If you won’t let me give you flowers, you might give me one,” +he said, stretching out his hand toward the variegated sweet peas that +lay in the bend of her arm. She gave him a blossom, with a pretty +little foreign gesture. “There. Now we won’t either of us forget our +engagement for next Thursday,” she said in her softly Southern speech, +and then turned with a radiant smile to bid good-by to a gray-haired +lady, whose hand she held in both hers. “It has been worth my coming to +Boston to hear what you have told me of my mother,” she said gently, +her eyes softening with impulsive tears. “Each person who knew her +contributes something to my own memory of her. It is like a mosaic,--my +thought of her,--all made up of little stones of memory pieced together +by different hands. _Wasn’t_ she beautiful, Mrs. Warner? Wasn’t she +like a creature of another species beside the rest of the world?” + +“She was, indeed, my dear, and you are like her,” the lady replied +gently. + +“It is so good of you to have asked me to stay with you, before seeing +me,” the girl went on, “and still kinder now that you have seen me. I +shall love to come when Mary is tired of me.” + +“That means I must wait a long time,” Mrs. Warner said, as she pressed +her hand for farewell. + +“Will you please take these flowers?” the girl cried impulsively. +“Sweet peas were Mamma’s favorite flowers. They will thank you better +than I can,” and with the grace of perfect unconsciousness, she put the +big bunch of fragrant blossoms into the old lady’s hands. + +Philip Morley turned to Mary Elton, who was vigorously denouncing +afternoon teas to an amused clump of her guests. “Will you introduce me +to Miss Dudley?” he asked rather formally. “You know I haven’t met her +yet.” + +“You’re no better than an eavesdropper!” she declared. Then, “You are +sure you want to meet her?” she asked earnestly, looking at him with +the boyish straightforwardness that some men found disconcerting. + +“Naturally. What am I here for except to meet Miss Dudley from four to +six?” he expostulated. “From the droppings that have fallen off the +eaves into my ears I gather that Miss Dudley is all things not only +to all men, but to all women, boys, and clergymen as well. I don’t +wonder she enslaves every one, with her combination of extraordinary +beauty and flattering sympathy with the point of view of the person she +happens to be talking to.” + +“But it isn’t that she’s nothing,” Mary insisted, “she’s _everything_. +She’s not a chameleon that sits on a piece of blue paper and turns to +indigo,--she’s an opal: she’s blue and red and green and yellow, and +good and bad and sweet and sarcastic and religious and skeptical and +frivolous and serious! Come on and be introduced.” + +He followed her obediently, but Mary had no time to mention his name, +for Miss Dudley met his look with one of recognition. As Philip Morley +came under the direct personal fire of her compelling personality, +he felt the overwhelming rush of admiring excitement that one feels +in seeing and hearing the swift flight of a sky-rocket in one’s +immediate vicinity. The comparison flashed upon him in a moment. She +was like a wonderful firework. He was constrained to admire, with +quickened pulses, the upward rush, the downward flight, the shower of +many-colored stars. Would he later see the stick fall to the earth? + +“You are going to be Mr. Morley,--isn’t he, Mary?” the girl said, +holding out a frankly cordial hand. “You see I have made Mary give +me biographical sketches of all her particular friends, and her +descriptions of you have been so vivid that you might just as well +have your name scrawled over your face.” + +“I must plead guilty of being myself,” Philip assented. “It would be +quite impossible to escape detection when Mary’s vigorous language has +been employed on one’s behalf. You, also, Miss Dudley, have been duly +catalogued. Perhaps you do not know that you have been called an opal.” + +“Opals crumble away to nothing; they are short-lived and rather +sensational,” the girl answered. “Mary, there, is like a +pearl,--staunch and unchangeable.” + +“I’m a black pearl, then,” Mary replied grimly. “They are fortunately +very rare, and so ugly that they are considered beautiful by some. +I myself would as soon have a boot-button set in a ring as a black +pearl. If a thing is ugly inherently, its cost cannot make it valuable +to me.” A note of bitterness was stinging her voice, but she cast it +out with her customary tone of light banter. “At least I am grateful +for not being called a moss-agate, Edith. Isn’t it just like me +to have that for my so-called ‘birthday stone’? Good-by,--there’s +Miss Grantley. I’d forgotten I’d asked her. She’s anti-all-existing +conditions. Anti-vivisectionist, anti-vaccinationist, anti-imperialist, +anti-everything. But of course you’ll cater to all her aspirations +towards reform, Edith. Miss Dudley is a born caterer,” Mary threw back +at Philip, as she left them, to resume her irksome duties as hostess. + +“I suppose ‘caterer,’ in Mary’s sense, and ‘opal’ mean much the same, +don’t they?” asked Philip. “It is most refreshing to find anything so +acquiescent as either name implies.” + +“I don’t think I can be like an opal, for it is my favorite stone, and +my own character is the kind I most detest,” Miss Dudley said simply. +“Mary Elton is the type of person for whom I have the most genuine +admiration. She is splendid. Her strength and clear-sightedness and +absolute sincerity and certainty of conviction are wonderful. If I were +a man,--the kind of man I’d like to be, not the kind I should be,--I +should strain every nerve to win that woman, and if I failed, why, +I’d at least be thankful I hadn’t succeeded in winning any one less +unusual.” + +Miss Dudley spoke with such simple sincerity that Philip Morley’s +heart warmed to her. “Mary is indeed refreshing, and astonishingly +satisfactory as a friend,” he heartily agreed. “One misses neither men +nor women when one is with her. I confess I am too selfish to wish that +you were a man, for if Mary married I should feel that I had lost my +best friend.” + +For an instant Edith Dudley looked into the young man’s eyes with a +glance of eager scrutiny, but all she saw there was half-indifferent +amusement. + +“Perhaps I exaggerate Mary’s remarkable qualities,” she said quietly. +“She is cast for so much better and bigger a part on the world’s stage +than I, and acts it so much better, that I suppose I think of her +with something of the same feeling with which a performer in private +theatricals regards Bernhardt or Duse.” + +“I should have fancied you were a better actress than Mary,” Philip +commented. + +“Oh, I am not speaking of consciously adopting a rôle and playing it +consistently,” Miss Dudley explained. “I was merely speaking--tritely +enough--of acting in the sense of living. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ +you know, ‘and all the men and women merely players.’” She spoke with +the slightest touch of scorn for his literalness. “At all events,” she +went on, “I thank whatever gods there be that I am still capable of +feeling enthusiasm for people. You are, perhaps, lazily thanking the +same indefinite deities for never being carried off your feet.” + +“Oh, but I am, if a strong enough person comes along,” he declared. + +“Is it irrelevant to own myself the weakest of my sex?” the girl asked +with a challenging smile. + +“Not unless it is impertinent in me to hope I may have the opportunity +of proving you otherwise. I have been listening to you talking to these +people. You are not weak; you are daring, as only a person well armed +can be.” + +For a second she looked at him beseechingly. “I hope that you will +sometime understand Mary, and will never understand me,” she said with +strange seriousness. + +“I already do one, and I intend to do the other,” he insisted, with +his pleasant personal smile. “I am hoping to see you often while you +are in Boston, Miss Dudley. I am almost like one of the family in this +house, you know.” + +The girl was prevented from answering by the introduction of another +young collegian by her recent sophomoric conquest. + +“Where do you come from, Miss Dudley?” was his correct opening, in the +tone of a player of twenty questions. + +“Oh, I am like George Macdonald’s baby,” she smiled, shaking off her +serious mood with a dismissing nod to Philip; “I come ‘out of the +Everywhere into the Here!’” + +Philip turned away, his brows knitting with mystification. He was +curiously interested by the dazzling inconsistencies and overwhelming +beauty of the strange girl who had spoken to him of Mary Elton with +an inexplicable emotion. He must see her again, and often. She was a +riddle worth pondering over. + +He stopped in his flight to the door to say good-by to his hostess. +There was in her eyes a strange look, almost of physical suffering, +that he had noticed more than once lately, and her expressive ugliness +seemed more than usually pathetic under its veil of humor. + +“Well, what do you think of her?” she said, with strangely vibrating +intensity. + +Her small eyes seemed to swim in unshed tears for a moment, and she bit +her under lip viciously in self-scorn as she waited for his answer. He +looked over her head, and for a moment did not reply. + +Since speaking to the beautiful Miss Dudley, since her eyes had looked +into his,--not boldly, not flirtatiously, but with a special intimacy +and understanding,--Philip had felt almost as though he were under +a hypnotic influence. Even to Mary he could not reply seriously, as +to what he thought of her friend, for, if he spoke truthfully, his +sentiments would sound exaggerated; so he spoke with exaggeration, and +trusted that his words had the ring of truth. + +“My dear Mary,” he said, laughing as he shook her hand, “she is a +thousand women in one; but you are what is far more satisfactory, one +woman in a thousand.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A THOUSAND WOMEN IN ONE + + +Philip Morley’s imagination was not in the habit of being appealed to +by individuals, so often as his mind and heart. But that he had plenty +of imagination, waiting for the human touch, was proved by its response +to all that was beautiful in literature, music, and the other arts. +Perhaps the fault lay in an absence of the kindred quality in most of +the people of his intimate acquaintance, for his particular circle +was Bostonian in the narrowest limitations, as well as the broadest +boundaries, of that indefinable term, and imagination was not the +salient quality possessed by the inhabitants of his world. + +During his first glimpse of Edith Dudley, she had warmed his +imagination, and after his second and third interviews she had fairly +set it on fire. Her beauty changed but never decreased, and her +sympathetic nature, with its wonderful responsiveness to each mood +of her companion, was rendered the more fascinating to Philip by an +inexplicable drawing back of her real self into its shell, when he +probed for a deeper knowledge. + +He had formed the habit of dropping in for a frequent cup of tea at +the Eltons’, and though Mary at first made a congenial third in the +conversations with her two friends, she gradually made excuses either +for coming home late or going upstairs to rest. + +Repose had not, until recently, figured on Mary Elton’s daily +programme, but she had looked ill all through the autumn, and though +she resented any inquiries, and snubbed all attempts to discover her +malady, it was evident that physically she was not herself. She begged +Philip to take her place in showing her guest the sights of Boston, +and thus it happened that he became the envy of all his friends, by +his constant attendance at the side of the beautiful girl who not only +trod with him the conventional paths of the Back Bay, but explored the +remoter ways of more unfashionable quarters. + +There were soon plenty of other men who talked with her and walked with +her, who danced with her and flirted with her. She began to identify +herself with the life of the people around her, and to interest herself +in whatever most absorbed her new friends. + +She took an active part in various church clubs and organizations, +under the guidance of her clerical conquest; she delighted her +collegiate admirers by going with them to theatres and variety +shows,--displaying all the unsophisticated enthusiasm of a child,--and +she converted Miss Milton to a belief in the sincerity of butterflies +by keeping a weekly appointment with five poor families in the North +End. But in spite of these side-tracks for her interests and energies, +it soon became evident to all that Philip Morley had appropriated the +largest share of her time and thoughts for himself. + +Between the girl and Philip, Mary Elton was a frequent and absorbing +subject of conversation, and whenever she was mentioned, Philip +received the same impression of repressed feeling in his companion’s +voice and manner. + +“I have never felt about any one as I feel about her,” Edith said +to him one day. “You can’t understand what I mean. She knows me +thoroughly, and when one’s character is very weak, and yet one is loved +by a person of strength,--of one’s own sex,--it somehow gives one hope +to keep up the fight.” + +This interesting stage of unformulated sentiments between Edith Dudley +and Philip Morley was broken in upon by the unexpected arrival in +Boston of an old friend of Edith’s from Baltimore,--a man whose manners +soon made it evident to shrewd observers that he was a rejected lover, +as well as an accepted friend. His appearance suggested the villain +in a modern melodrama, and one almost expected to hear gallery hisses +arise from protesting Philistines when he appeared. He was dark, +handsome, scrupulously polite, suspiciously unvillainous. + +But from the moment Grant Lorimer appeared on the scene, Edith Dudley +seemed to lose her poise and happy ease of manner. It was as if he +exerted an influence which she could not resist, yet to which she did +not wish to yield herself. Mary at once christened him Dr. Fell, for +obvious reasons, and he seemed to justify the title if not the name, +for he had seen her only once for a few moments, when he said to Edith, +“Your friend Miss Elton is a very sick woman. I don’t mean nervous +prostration and that sort of thing, but something really vital. I’ve +been in hospitals. I know the signs.” Edith gave a cry of real pain. + +“Oh, don’t say so! You don’t know what it would mean to me,” was her +first selfish word. “It would be like taking a crutch away from a +feeble old woman, to snatch Mary out of my life. You know what I am, +Grant; you and she alone in the world understand my weakness.” + +“Yes, and we both love you,” he stated firmly. + +“Please don’t say so,” she shuddered. + +A few days after this the two girls were in Mary’s room one morning, +engaged in various jobs of leisurely domesticity, such as mending +stockings, polishing finger nails, and running ribbons into sundry +lace-trimmed garments. The conditions seemed to invite confidence, +and Mary accepted the invitation by saying suddenly, “Edith, forgive +my impertinence, put it down to my being physically upset, if you +wish--but which do you mean to marry, Grant Lorimer or Philip Morley?” + +The girl flushed. “And must I marry one?” she asked. + +“I think you will have to. You see I know you.” + +“Then why do you care for me?” Edith asked impulsively. “Why do you, +who are all strength and conviction, care for a blank like me?” + +“I don’t know,” Mary confessed. “I suppose it’s because you’re so +extraordinarily pretty; and then you’re clever, too, and most +good-looking women are fools.” + +“I’m not a fool,” Edith acknowledged, “but then I’m not anything.” + +“I know it, and it’s really refreshing in these over-strenuous days to +find some one with no character at all. Excuse my frankness,--I love +you just the same, Edith; that’s the funny part of it,--but it has only +lately begun to dawn on me that you really might be said not to exist +at all, unless there is some one with you to bring out some response, +and then you are vivid as a rainbow. You are like that hero in Henry +James’s story,--do you remember? They suddenly found that he simply +melted into thin air, unless there was some other intelligence in the +room to play upon his.” + +Edith’s eyes grew blank and expressionless. “Yes, I am like that,” she +said in a dull monotone. “I have been brought up from the cradle to +produce an effect. My mother and my father bent all their efforts to +make me into what they wished me to become. All my natural passions +were curbed, all my impulses checked. I was not created by God, like +other people,--I was manufactured by my parents. I am like one of those +toys labeled ‘made in Germany.’” + +“But it takes a long time to find you out,” Mary protested. “You’re +a wonderfully good imitation of a human being. You don’t seem a bit +mechanical.” + +“Oh, I have been well educated,” Edith acknowledged, dispassionately. +“When I am with people, I do not merely reflect their ideas, I can +furnish others in the same line, only not in opposition. I have some +intelligence, but I have no character, no beliefs, no convictions.” + +“It is very strange,” Mary mused. “Are you happy?” + +“Happy? No, I don’t think so, nor unhappy. I like to be with you. +You have so much character and force that it is almost infectious. +But I like any one I am with. If a strong will is brought to bear on +mine, it can control me utterly. I am not bad by nature, any more +than I am good. I am simply what the other person wants me to be. +It is my misfortune, Mary; not my fault, but my curse--the curse of +my inheritance, my bringing up. I am not deliberately a turncoat, a +caterer, as you called me once to Mr. Morley. I am simply a cipher, +waiting for a definite figure to stand in front of me, and give me +meaning.” The girl was pathetic in her unavailing self-knowledge. + +“You would interest the psychologists,” Mary said. “You are a living +example of the power of suggestion.” + +“Yes,” Edith continued earnestly, “I seem to have no Ego. There are +hundreds of different individualities shut up inside me, waiting to +pop out as they are wanted, yet none of them is _me_,--there is no real +_me_. If I am suddenly asked, by a person I have never seen, what I +think on a certain subject, I can’t answer till I feel what the other +person’s point of view is, and then I express it as well as I can.” + +“You’re like a prism, waiting for the sun of outside personality to +shine on you and scatter your colors. Well, I go back to my first +question,” Mary insisted; “which of them do you intend to marry?” + +“How can you ask? I suppose whichever has the stronger will,--unless +some outside influence or event is stronger than either,” the girl +confessed hopelessly. “Mary, I tried--I mean I tried to try--not +to let Philip Morley fall in love with me. But I couldn’t make the +effort. I hoped that you would. You and he should have belonged to +each other,--but you threw us together. I was utterly powerless and +weak,--he is attracted by a pretty face and by a character that he can +mould and influence. Mary, why did you not keep him for yourself? It +would have been better for all.” + +Mary rose to her feet and stamped. “_Me?_ What are you thinking of, +Edith Dudley? Any man--even the most sensible man--would rather marry +a pretty fool than an ugly and embittered jade like me. Not that you +are a fool, you poor dear lovely nonentity, you! You are as clever and +intelligent as you are fascinating; and I truly believe that you--a +non-existent being almost--will bring more happiness to a self-reliant +man like Philip than any of the strong-minded women he might marry. The +whole question comes down to one of love. He loves you; he does not +love--us.” + +“Oh, why doesn’t he _feel_ what you are, Mary!” her friend exclaimed. +But this was not a subject on which Mary cared to expand, although +she always rose to the bait of her own character as a subject for +discussion. + +“I am likable, but not at all lovable,” she explained, with her +relentless self-analysis. “There is no charm or illusion about me. +Besides, look at my face!” + +Edith Dudley did look at her friend’s small green eyes, indefinite +hair and complexion, and too definite nose and mouth; but, with her +never-failing desire to say the kindly thing, replied, “Some day some +one will care tremendously for you. All men don’t fall in love with wax +dolls. Besides, you are”-- + +“Now, my dear Edith, don’t tell me that I am interesting-looking, +or have a sweet face! That is always the final insult of beauty to +ugliness. I know perfectly well that I am extremely plain. I am not in +the least self-deceived.” + +“But there are so many more attractive qualities than mere flesh and +blood good looks,” the beauty tritely suggested. + +“Are there? Well, I would give every virtue I possess in exchange for +that mere physical beauty you carry so lightly,” Mary exclaimed, with a +bitter little laugh. “People who are good-looking and charming ought to +find it easy to be amiable and sweet. They are born in harmony with the +world. Every one is predisposed in their favor from the start, while we +ugly people can hope to call forth no more flattering sentiment than a +half-contemptuous pity.” + +“What extreme statements you do make, Mary!” interposed Edith Dudley. +“I don’t know any one who has more friends than you. What do they care +whether you have a Grecian nose or not?” + +“They don’t care,--that’s the pity of it,--and they think I don’t care +either. By some strange system of reasoning they imagine that because +my hair is straight and thin I must find it easy to tell the truth; +and they fondly believe that because my mouth is large, I must enjoy +visiting in the slums. People associate certain physical attributes +with certain mental qualities; but all I can say is, that in my own +case my character and my features are in constant warfare.” + +Edith, having no comforting rejoinder ready, merely looked distressed, +and Mary continued:-- + +“Of course I know that Charity, with a very big C, is the generally +accepted refuge of the plain,--and I am expected to enjoy philanthropy +more than frivolity, and to prefer committee meetings to dancing +parties,--but the truth is, my soul or spirit or whatever you choose to +call the thing that makes me _me_, and not somebody else, is not ugly +at all. It enjoys the pleasant and prosperous side of life; it would +like to have admiration and love affairs and all the agreeable things +that you attractive people are born to as your natural inheritance. +But fortunately I have a saving leaven of common sense and humor, +which prevent my reaching out my skinny arms to grasp at blessings +that are not meant for me. Sooner or later, I suppose, I must accept +my inevitable destiny of philanthropist, but incidentally I shall +turn into an embittered, caustic old maid, unless an early death cuts +me down in my prime. Then, my dear, you would find that I had given +promise of being ‘a noble woman.’ Premature death is the only artistic +end for souls and faces that are uncongenially yoked together.” + +Mary had worked herself into the state of rebellion that always +followed any reference to her personal appearance. + +“Do let’s change the subject,” she said, abruptly. “Let’s talk about +you again. One thing I don’t understand is why you haven’t succumbed +before this, and married some of the men who must have been crazy to +get you. If you are a mere pipe for fortune’s finger to touch what stop +she pleases, why haven’t you yielded to the persuasions of some of your +suitors?” + +“Because,” Edith explained with simple straightforwardness, “there +has always been a stronger will brought to bear on me, before I could +yield. My father was very ambitious for me, and he was a man of intense +feelings. He always took me away before things reached a climax, +and then some other man would come along, and he would feel more +strongly than the last; and so it went, my father’s will controlling +me more completely than that of any lover. Besides,” she explained +ingenuously, “Grant Lorimer is the only one that knows I have no +character. The others all thought me very strong; but they were mostly +foreigners, and abroad, you know, the parents have so much more control +over a girl. Mary,” she cried suddenly, “I am really afraid of Grant! +Sooner or later he vows I must be his, and if that is to be, it’s +better sooner than later, for later I may be married to some one else.” + +“Have you no will at all?” exclaimed Mary, passionately and with a +touch of scorn. + +“Absolutely none,” Edith acknowledged sadly; “only the will to +acquiesce in the strongest influence that touches me. My one safety +from Grant Lorimer is to have Philip Morley show more strength of will, +and make me marry him, yet I know I shouldn’t make him happy long. I +can’t love any one, Mary. I feel everything a little, but nothing +much. I can’t even cry, though I can shed tears. I would give all my +good looks, that you admire so unduly, to be capable of feeling as +strongly about _anything_ as you do about--your nose, for instance.” + +“Well, there seems to be no satisfying us, does there?” Mary commented +with a short, cynical laugh. “My only hope is that I shan’t live to see +the people I care most for--myself among them, of course--made unhappy. +I can’t help feeling that if you married Philip Morley, the strength +of his love would create a soul and heart in you, and if you once had +the spirit of life and feeling breathed into you, you would be the most +perfect wife a man could dream of possessing.” + +Mary closed her eyes a moment, and a spasm of pain passed over her +face. “Heaven keep me from ever witnessing that happiness!” she +groaned, too indistinctly for Edith to hear the words. Suddenly her +tone changed abruptly, and she straightened herself up. “Edith, I may +as well tell you that I’ve got something pretty serious the matter with +me. I’ve suspected it for some time, but I only found out yesterday.” + +Edith gave a sharp “Oh!” of sympathy. “Tell me, dear,” she said softly. + +“No, that’s just what I don’t mean to do,--at any rate not yet. I do +hate this modern fashion of having one’s insides the subject of general +conversation. It positively makes me blush, when I stop to think how +much I know about the organs of people with whom I am scarcely on +bowing terms. I did hope I could escape this fad of being operated on; +it’s worse than bridge whist.” + +That Mary was not in a mood for sympathy was very evident, and her +friend’s genius for tact led her to do the right thing in replying, +“You may trust me, Mary, to say nothing about your illness to any one +till you wish me to, and you’ll please me immensely by letting me do +anything I can to make the next few weeks easier.” This unemotional +little speech was followed by a matter-of-fact kiss deposited on Mary’s +sallow cheek, after which Edith obeyed her friend’s unspoken wish, and +left her alone. + +During the week that followed this conversation, Grant Lorimer’s +attentions to Edith redoubled in violence. It was unfortunate that +Philip Morley should have selected this period of emotional storm +and stress to declare his love and humbly ask for its reward. Edith +Dudley’s will was temporarily dominated and controlled by that of her +Southern lover, and to Philip’s pleadings she could only dumbly shake +her head, and whisper painfully, “I can’t, I can’t.” + +What she would have liked to say was, “Wait a week till Grant Lorimer +goes away, as he has to do for a time, and then try again;” but instead +of that her refusal had the sound of finality to Philip’s inexperienced +ears. + +The combination of Philip’s strong and genuine love, and Mary’s strong +and genuine hate of Grant Lorimer, availed to keep the girl from +actually yielding to the persuasions of the man who knew her weakness; +but though the combined pressure of wills was sufficient to prevent her +accepting one lover, it was not sufficient to keep her from refusing +the other. Thus an equal balance was temporarily maintained. + +At this crisis in her love affairs Edith was invited to go with a party +to the White Mountains for a week, and though she regretted leaving +Mary in her poor state of health, the will of the invalid was so much +stronger than hers, that she found herself constrained to accept. +Mary had grasped the situation pretty correctly, and she rightly +guessed that the best thing for all was her guest’s absence for a +time. Fortunately Grant Lorimer’s mother was ill enough to demand his +presence in Baltimore, and home he was obliged to go, with his campaign +of conquest unaccomplished. + +Left to herself, Mary breathed a sigh of stoicism rather than +resignation, gave up her fight with appearances, and acknowledged +herself to be really ill. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ONE WOMAN IN A THOUSAND + + +Mary Elton lay on the couch in her room, thinking of the last words the +doctor had said. He had been perfectly honest with her, partly because +she was morally strong and desired absolute frankness, partly because +there was no one else to whom he could speak, except her self-absorbed +uncle, and Mary had taken charge of her own case from the first, and +sworn the doctor to secrecy. + +The next day she was to be taken to the hospital, and there an +operation was to be performed, which would be a matter of life or +death,--probably of death. It was her only chance of life, but it was +one chance out of a hundred. This she had made the doctor tell her, +and this was the thought she faced alone, lying in the winter twilight, +her mood well suited to the season and the hour that most suggest death. + +Mary had prepared herself for the news that the chances were against +her,--had expected and had almost hoped for it. Without being morbid +in temperament, she had a deep strain of melancholy in her nature, and +though she possessed rather a spasmodic fund of animal spirits and +a keen power of enjoyment, she was no lover of life, in the deepest +sense. She feared what she herself might become, and dread of her +future too frequently poisoned her enjoyment of the present. + +She lay silent in the dusk for an hour, thinking, thinking, screwing +her courage to the sticking-place in a decision she had just formed. +She rang the bell, which was close to the head of her couch, and, when +the maid came, Mary asked to have the curtains drawn and the gas +lighted. “And, Jennie,” she added, as the girl was about to leave the +room, “if Mr. Morley comes to inquire after me to-night, I wish to see +him. You may ask him to come up here.” + +“Up to your room, Miss?” queried the girl, in dignified surprise. + +“Yes,” responded Miss Elton, shortly, “and when my uncle comes in I +should like to speak to him.” + +That afternoon the uncle and niece had a long talk together; and after +the interview was over, Mr. Elton’s voice was husky with unaccustomed +emotion. Not all the wool in the market could soften the blow that his +brother’s only child, and his own companion of so many years, might +leave him forever. + +Mary had said as little as she could about the probable failure of the +operation, but a few plans had to be made, and her uncle had been +astonished at the coolness and self-control with which she had spoken +of her own death. He thought she seemed much older than twenty-five. + +As Mr. Elton went out of the room, she called after him, “By the way, +if Philip Morley comes to ask after me to-night, I am going to see him; +so don’t be surprised if you find him making himself at home to the +extent of coming upstairs.” + +“Very well, my dear; I know you and Philip are great friends. It is +quite natural that you should want to say good-by to him. I suppose you +may be away from us a fortnight or more.” + +“Probably more, the doctor thinks,” Mary replied, laughing; “but I want +to see Philip in any case.” + +That evening Mary looked more animated and stronger than she had for +days. A faint color had brightened her sallow cheeks, and excitement +burned in her eyes. When a knock came at her door, and Philip Morley +tiptoed in, he uttered an exclamation of pleasure at seeing her look so +well. He drew a chair up beside her sofa, and extended his long legs +with a sigh of comfort. + +“We’ll be having you about again in a week,” he said, with his +sympathetic smile. “I’ve missed our friendly disputes awfully. Since +you’ve been ill, I can’t get any one else to fight with me, and it +kills all ambition when one isn’t opposed; so you must hurry and get +well.” + +Mary pulled with nervous fingers at the fringe of the shawl that +covered her. + +“Philip, it seems absurd, but I’m not going to get well. You’ll have to +find some one else to fight with you.” + +The young man started, and looked at her quickly. “What do you mean, +Mary?” he cried. “Don’t joke about such things.” + +“I’m not joking. I am going to the hospital to-morrow, where the +surgeons will do what they can to save my life; but they say there is +very little chance of my recovery. I _know_ that I shan’t live, and +that is why I wanted to see you to-night. _Don’t, don’t_ look like +that,--as if you cared,--or I shall cry; and I don’t want to be a baby.” + +She looked at him piteously, but would not let him speak. + +“There is something I want to tell you, Philip. No, I don’t _want_ to +tell it to you, but I want you to know it before I die. Doesn’t it seem +ridiculous for me to talk of dying! But I’m not going to try to harrow +your feelings like that horrid little May Queen, though I confess the +dramatic side of the situation does appeal to my imagination, and I am +secretly longing for a band to strike up some dirge outside.” + +“Ah, you’re just trying to frighten me,” said Philip. “If you really +thought you were going to die, you wouldn’t joke about it like this.” + +“Wouldn’t I? Well, I always said you didn’t know me. Never mind. It +certainly would be just like me to live, as an anticlimax, after +getting off my last speeches--but for once, I really think I shall do +the right thing.” + +“It wouldn’t be the right thing, Mary; don’t talk so. I _hate_ to hear +you.” + +“Yes, it is the right thing, Philip, I’m perfectly sure of it. Now +don’t keep interrupting me. I want to talk, as usual, and you are just +here as audience. Now listen. I am perfectly serious when I say that +the best thing I can do is to die. If I lived, I should become more and +more hard and snappish and unreconciled to my lot every year. Handsome +people say it is easy for ugly ones to be good because they have no +temptations, but I know that it is a thousand times harder to keep +your temper sweet, and your spirit unruffled, with eyes and nose and +mouth like mine, than--like yours, for instance. There is the first +compliment I’ve ever paid you.” + +Philip made a futile attempt to interrupt her flow of words, but she +frowned him into silence and continued, “The trouble is, I am not good +enough to be ugly. If I lived, I should have to turn into a woman +with a mission,--a temperance lecturer or an anti-vivisectionist or +something; and though I should look the part, I couldn’t act it. But if +I die comparatively young, my bad qualities won’t have time to mature +(or rather to decay), and perhaps half a dozen people will be able to +squeeze out a few perfunctory tears at my funeral.” + +Through the veil of her levity, Philip could detect grim Truth looking +him in the face, and his eyes fell before hers. + +“You’re only joking, of course,” he maintained insincerely. + +“No, no. I am altogether serious now, Philip. I can’t joke about it any +more. Promise to feel badly about me for a little while,” Mary cried, +with sudden wistfulness. + +“It wouldn’t be for a little while only, Mary,” the young man said, +laying his hand on hers. “It would make a difference to me all through +my life. But, Mary, this won’t happen. You’re morbid and unnatural +to-night. You have the making of one of the finest women in the world. +You know I’ve always said so, and you must live to acknowledge that I +was right. Besides, I can’t possibly get on without you.” + +“Oh yes, you can; yes, you can!” she moaned, dropping the mock-heroic +tone she had assumed at first. “Listen, Philip, I am going to tell you +something which proves me to be unfeminine, unwomanly, and altogether +shameless, but when I’m dead perhaps you’ll be glad to remember. Now +don’t look at me, Philip, or I can’t say what I want to. Let me look at +your nice straight profile, and then perhaps I can talk.” + +She laughed in her old way, and made him turn his face toward the fire. + +“Now don’t move, don’t speak,” she said, “till I have finished, and +then I can tell whether you think me altogether contemptible. Philip,” +she continued, with a queer catch in her voice, “I have loved you for +two years! There, I’ve said it, I’ve said it,” she exclaimed, wildly. +“No, don’t try to speak, don’t look at me. Now you know whether I +am going to die or not. Do you think wild horses would drag such a +confession from me if I didn’t _know_ I was speaking from the edge of +the grave?” + +Philip had instinctively turned to look at her with bewilderment in +his eyes, but if he felt doubts of her seriousness or of her sanity, +they were driven away by the sight of her earnest and intense face. He +gave a short, sudden groan, and dropped his forehead into his hand. + +“You mustn’t feel too badly about this,” she went on with calmness. “I +know that you are as much in love with Edith Dudley as you can be with +any one. It is because I know of your love for her, that I am able to +talk to you like this. She may have refused you once; I suspect that +she has, but that’s only because that wretched Dr. Fell came along and +hypnotized her. If you love her enough, she will care for you in time, +and you will be happy, but--oh, Philip, she will not love you as _I_ +have loved you; she will not make you happier than _I_ could have made +you, if I had been beautiful and graceful and gentle and sweet as she +is!” + +There was a ring of something that had never been heard in Mary’s voice +before, as she gave herself up to the bitterness of longing and regret +that filled her heart. + +“People talk of the power of affection to work changes in character,” +she continued more quietly, “and that is another reason why I have +chosen to tell you of my love. Philip, I don’t know whether I love +you because I believe in you, or believe in you because I love you. +My love and my belief are all tangled up together, so that I can’t +tell which is cause and which is effect. You could be anything you +want to be,--but I am so afraid you won’t want! Oh, I do wish that my +love could be some little incentive to make you do and be all that +you might if you only would! It seems as if it ought to be of _some_ +value,--a love like mine. There ought to be _some_ result from such a +strong emotion. It would be so ridiculously easy for me to die, or +live, or anything, if only your happiness, and success in the highest +sense, could result from it! Of course it isn’t easy for me to say all +this, though I seem to have got wound up to it somehow. I suppose I am +fearfully lacking in a proper modesty of sex,--but this is my death-bed +(figuratively speaking), and after all we are just two human souls, +aren’t we?” + +“You are the sincerest, truest woman in the world!” cried Philip, +turning towards her and seizing both her hands. “What does the purely +conventional modesty you feel you have offended against matter, in +comparison with a courage like yours?” + +“Oh, dear! If only my friends could have heard me making an unprovoked +declaration of love!” cried Mary, laughing, with a sudden instinct of +incongruous amusement. “They all think I’m a perfect old cynic, with +no germ of romance or sentiment about me. Well, that’s what I should +have grown to be, if I had lived. You see I already speak of myself in +the past tense. Be thankful, Philip, that I have escaped the fate of +becoming an unloved, unloving old woman, with bitterness and regret in +her heart. You have shown me what life must be to people who have love. +It’s the only permanent possession. But if I had to choose between the +two, I would rather feel love than inspire it,--and this isn’t sour +grapes either. Of course the perfect thing has to be reciprocal. And +now about you, Philip. I am sure that Edith will come to care about you +some day; but when you’re happy and prosperous, don’t forget that you +must be something more, that you are worth something better, that you +owe it to yourself, and to Edith,--and to me. And now there is just +one more thing that I want to say. If I _should_ live,--I _can’t_ and +I _shan’t_, but if I _should_,--you must let the memory of all that I +have said be absolutely blotted out. I shall have killed our friendship +to-night. However, all this is nothing, because I know that I shan’t +live, and on the whole I’m not sorry. Please tell me honestly whether +you despise me for my weakness, or whether”-- + +“Despise you, Mary!” cried Philip. “I can’t possibly tell you what your +brave, true words have meant to me.” His voice was choked with mingled +emotion and embarrassment. “What you have said has meant more to me +than anything else ever can. I feel somehow full of humility, and yet +full of pride. What have I been or done, to win the love of a woman +like you? Where have my senses been, not to give you some better return +than my best friendship for a love like yours!” + +“Ah, my dear Philip,” said Mary, half laughing and half crying, “you +_couldn’t_ have loved me, no matter how hard you tried. No man could. +You see I am so dreadfully ugly. I should hate myself if I were a +man,--in fact, I do as it is.” + +“You’re perfectly absurd about your looks, Mary. Why do you persist in +exaggerating the importance of beauty? You have been a constant delight +and refreshment to every one you know. As for me, I don’t believe I +amount to much anyway; but if I ever turn out anything at all, it will +be because of what you have been brave and honest enough to tell me +to-night.” + +“Oh, no, it won’t,” said Mary, smiling and shaking her head. “If you +do turn out to be anything more than a successful business man (which +I sometimes doubt), it will be because of the love of a much sweeter +and better woman than I. You see this humility on my part is really my +most alarming symptom, and must mean approaching death.” + +She was her old self again for the moment, half mocking and half sad. + +“Mary,” said Philip suddenly, “I don’t believe I shall ever _like_ any +one half so much as I do you. Love is different; it is outside our +control, I suppose, but liking is somehow founded on fact,--it’s more +deliberate.” + +“Are you trying to make out that friendship is more flattering than +love?” Mary interrupted. “Perhaps you’re right. I dare say it’s more +natural that you should like me than that I should love you,--however, +go on.” + +“It isn’t altogether easy to go on, in the midst of your +interruptions,” said Philip, laughing nervously, “and everything I +say sounds artificial, when I only mean to be straightforward. What I +want you to understand is that whether you die or whether you live, +or whatever happens to either of us, our friendship is something +permanent. Even if we have to meet as strangers after to-night, the +real You and the real I will be friends just the same. I wish I could +make you realize all that it means to me to be told what you have told +me to-night. It will give me new courage and new self-respect, and I +thank you with all my heart.” + +In answer to the look in his face, Mary’s eyes filled with sudden tears. + +“Now don’t let’s be theatrical, Philip,” Mary laughed in order not to +cry. “I’m afraid I’ve made things horrid for you. It’s my fault. I +ought to have been contented with playing the rôle I am suited for. The +trouble is I have been cast for low comedy, and I insist on playing +high tragedy. With my make-up I ought to be content with playing the +fool, yet here I am striving to blend pathos and tragedy behind the +mask of Harlequin. Now Edith Dudley can play _any_ part well. Her life +is a series of wonderful impersonations, and her face adapts itself to +the part she plays. Don’t make the mistake, Philip, of thinking you +can walk through your part of innocuous-young-man-about-town without +exerting yourself to _act_. I am enough of a fatalist to believe that +we can’t alter the text of the drama of life; but I do believe that the +seriousness of our impersonation is as important in result as the words +we are set down to speak, and our acting is within our own control, +even if our actions are not.” + +“If life is a play it’s a mighty badly written one, and I’ve made an +awful botch of my part. I don’t know the text, Mary, and I need your +promptings.” Philip looked at her with the look she used to call his +“dumb animal expression.” + +“Life is just a tragi-comedy, that’s all. When we’re not shrieking +with pain, we’re shrieking with laughter. Now go, dear,” she said +brokenly. “I don’t think I can stand it another minute. This has not +been easy for either of us. I won’t try to say anything else except +good-by. Don’t ever forget that I am thankful to have known and to have +loved you.” + +“Oh, Mary, Mary!” he cried, impotently. Then, realizing the futility +of language to express all that he felt, he quietly stooped and kissed +her. “Good-by,” he said very softly. Then he went out and closed the +door. She held her breath till the sound of his footsteps had died +away; then she burst into hysterical sobs. + + * * * * * + +A week later Edith Dudley was admitted to a room in the hospital, where +a white form lay in a white bed. She went softly up to the figure, and +kissed its pale face. + +“Dear Mary! So the operation was a success,” she whispered. + +“No!” replied the figure, opening its eyes with sudden energy. “It was +a failure. I am going to get well.” + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A DIRECTOR OF DESTINIES + + +When Mary Elton was able to be out and about once more, she seemed to +have undergone what she herself termed “a change of heart, from bad to +worse.” + +“A peep inside Death’s door would soften and chasten most people,” she +told her bewildered uncle, “but on me it has had just the opposite +effect. I suppose it’s because I made all my plans for a death-bed +repentance, and now that the Devil is well, the devil a nun is she. I +always did hate to have my calculations upset, and this recovery is +too much of a surprise for an old maid to adjust herself to all of a +sudden.” + +But if the physical shock of a serious operation was hard to recover +from, the mental torment caused by the recollection of her confession +to Philip Morley was a thousand times more difficult to endure. She +knew that the thought of it would poison her whole life. It had been +hard enough before to bear the anguish of a kind of love known only to +deep and undemonstrative natures, a love doomed to remain unrequited, +but now added to biting sorrow was the sting of shame and humiliation +that Philip should have heard from her own lips of her love for him. + +“I might have known I shouldn’t die,” Mary berated herself fiercely. +“The Fates have too much sense of humor to lose the joke of my +recovery. Well, Destiny has beaten me again; but my will is not +defeated, and though I can’t die, I shall at least go abroad. When bad +Americans can’t die, they go to Paris. Uncle Charles shall take me if +the eloquence of one risen from the bed can move him to action.” + +On Edith Dudley’s return from the mountains she had gone directly to +Mrs. Warner’s, feeling that her visit to the Eltons had better be +shortened, in view of Mary’s unexpected illness. She came to see Mary +every few days, and their friendship continued the same, although +Mary detected a subtle change in Edith, the clue to which lay in the +circumstance that Philip’s name had not once been mentioned between +them. + +Mary’s clear vision and quick mind had jumped to a conclusion which +made even the most tactful interference seem an impertinence, and +yet she felt that she held, in a way, the reins of her two friends’ +destinies. She herself had seen Philip only in the most casual way, but +she was not so utterly self-absorbed as to be blind to the difficulties +and painfulness of his situation, which she interpreted thus: knowing, +as he did, that she (Mary) was in love with him, he had determined not +to persist in his courtship of her friend, who had already refused him. +He was not so stupid as to greet Mary’s recovery with a proposal of +marriage, but she knew him well enough to suspect the line of conduct +he meant to pursue. Having accepted Edith’s refusal as final, he would, +after she had left the house, resume his friendly visits to Mary, then +slowly,--very slowly,--he would show her that not her declaration of +love, but her own fine qualities, had magically touched his heart, +transforming friendship into a more vital emotion. + +And, after all, Mary asked herself, might not the result bring +happiness to both? Once married to him, Mary would _make_ him love +her, for he would know by the revelations of daily life the depth and +strength of her affection. She knew that no one else could make the +man of him that she would make. All the latent sweetness of her nature, +all the buried wealths of tenderness and unselfishness would blossom +under his hand. Each would be the best for each, and yet--he did not +love her. + +Mary’s qualities, good and bad, were vigorous. Capable of two extremes +of conduct, she recognized the situation as demanding a great act of +heroism, or an equally large act of selfishness. In the wakeful hours +of many nights, her conflicting emotions met and fought bloody battles, +till the final victory was won. Her irrevocable decision was made. She +dispatched two notes, one to Edith Dudley, asking her to come and see +her at four o’clock the next afternoon, the other to Philip Morley, +summoning him half an hour later. + +Mary never indulged in the tentative tactics known as beating about the +bush. Edith and she had hardly exchanged greetings when Mary made a +bold attack. “Edith Dudley, now that your old Dr. Fell is out of the +way, should you accept Philip Morley, if he proposed again?” + +Poor Edith looked vainly about for escape from the revolver of truth +with which her friend was holding her up. The sight of her gave Mary a +curiously complex emotion, in which scorn, admiration, pity, and wonder +were blended. How was it possible that this beautiful, clever creature, +who was neither good nor bad, and who was to all outside influences +as the weathercock to the breeze, could yet subdue criticism to a +blind acceptance of her with all her weakness and weaknesses, and her +irresistible charm? + +“If Philip Morley should ask me now, I should accept him,” she said, +her luminous eyes shining like mirrors of truth. “But it will be +better for him if he does not ask me again.” Then, with a passionate +gesture unusual to her, “Mary, Mary, don’t desert me! Don’t go back on +me ever,--whatever happens!” she cried earnestly. “Let me feel that +you are always here, firm and sure, a rock for me to cling to,--poor +helpless seaweed that I am,--when the waves get too strong for me. No +one else has ever made me feel as you do--that perhaps I have a soul +and a will somewhere. I am generally conscious only of being _nothing_; +a Laodicean, from whom the power to feel hot and cold and love and hate +have been squeezed out by early training. I should like to be the wife +for Philip. Perhaps, if he is strong enough, he can make something out +of me; or if he is weak enough, he may never find me out. But I think +he is neither. He is simply human. He loves me a great deal. I feel it +even when I am away from him, and I don’t with every one,” she naïvely +added. + +“I am quite aware of his affection,” Mary acquiesced grimly. “Let’s +talk of something else,--me, for instance. One reason why I wanted you +to come and see me this afternoon, is to tell you that I have at last +succeeded in persuading Uncle Charles to take a holiday. He and I are +going abroad next month, to be gone a year. Isn’t that splendid? You +know how I’ve always wanted to see Paris and London, and this means +Italy and Egypt added. Don’t you congratulate me?” + +“Oh, Mary, I do, I do!” cried Edith, instantly radiant with sympathy. +“And I congratulate Europe! Won’t you say nice, funny, original things +about everything, and make the antiquities feel that they’ve never +been appreciated before? And, oh Mary, how you’ll _hate_ the traveling +Americans,--and the traveling English, and worst of all the traveling +Germans!” + +Her voice rose in a crescendo of amused horror. Philip was forgotten, +she herself was forgotten,--she was living only in Mary’s prospective +travels. + +They talked for some time, till presently the door-bell rang, and Mary +jumped up saying, “I don’t want to see any one,--I’ll just tell the +maid,” and with that she slipped out of the room. + +At the head of the stairs she met Philip Morley. He had not been in the +house since the night before she went to the hospital, and for a moment +the recollection of their talk that evening gripped them both by the +throat. Then the girl recovered herself, and she smiled courageously. +“Go in there. Tell her she’s _got_ to marry you,--don’t ask her whether +she will or not,” she said rather incoherently, then turned and dashed +upstairs, and Philip heard her chamber door slam after her. + +Feeling as if he were a puppet to which Mary held the string, he +obediently went into the room she had just quitted. Edith Dudley stood +by the mantelpiece, lightly touching a bunch of pink and white roses in +an iridescent vase--suggestive of herself as was everything delicately +lovely and changing. To Philip her beauty was so overwhelming that +even his love seemed a sacrilege, yet the rush of warm emotion which +filled him at the sight of her--even if unreciprocated--was something +for which a man would give all other bliss. She was dressed in gray, +except for a touch of blended colors in her hat and at her throat,--her +“trade-mark,” she called this opal touch in which her nature seemed +to express itself. She was waiting for the intruder to be dismissed, +and for Mary’s return, and a sunny smile warmed her face as the door +opened and Philip entered. She was not disconcerted, but she instantly +realized that she was the victim of a plot. “How do you do, Mr. Morley! +This is just where we first met, isn’t it? Did Mary send for you, too, +to tell you her great news? Where is she?” + +“She went upstairs,” Philip said stupidly, still dazed by the part he +was expected by Mary to play in the scene she had arranged. + +Miss Dudley sat down and motioned to a sofa with her muff. “We are +evidently expected to entertain each other,” she went on lightly, “and +I’m going to punish Mary for her rudeness in deserting us, by telling +you her secret. She’s going abroad with her uncle for a year.” + +Philip’s handsome face was working with emotion like that of a +girl. “It’s no use,” he burst out, hypnotized by her mere presence, +and paying no attention to her words, “I didn’t mean to ask you +again; I know it’s useless, you wonderful, beautiful creature,--you +could marry any one in the whole world; but I’ve got to go away +somewhere--anywhere--unless you can care a little for me. I’m too +unspeakably wretched! You don’t know what it is,--this feeling I +have about you. I didn’t know there were such feelings in the world, +myself.” He saw her eyes looking towards him, softened with affection, +and he jumped to his feet. He rushed to her, and grasped her hand. +“Edith, you’ve _got_ to marry me!” he cried, the gentleman for once +lost in the man. “You’ve _got_ to. I shan’t take no, again. I am mad +with love for you, or I shouldn’t ask you this, here in this house. You +don’t know what I’ve been through. I didn’t mean to do this again. I +tried not to. It’s Mary’s fault. Edith, I love you with all there is in +me of good or bad, and my love demands a return!” His gaze pierced her. + +Her face cleared into an expression of exquisite happiness. Oh, the +peace of being told to do something so easy! She showed no instinct of +the flirt, who likes to torture her prey. With childlike confidence she +gave him both her hands, and her eyes spoke as eloquently as her lips. +“Philip, I will love you. I will be to you as good a wife as I can be, +if you are _sure, sure_ you want me. There were reasons why I could +not say yes, the last time you asked me. Now I _can_ say it, indeed I +_must_ say it.” + +Philip was too dazed with surprise and joy to do anything but foolishly +kiss her hands. In a moment he burst out, “It’s no use. I can’t believe +it. Tell me again. Are we really to be always together, you and I, +after a little while?” + +“Oh, I hope not always,” the girl expostulated. “Married people who +never get away from each other grow frightfully uninteresting. Listen, +Philip,” and she laid a shy finger against his mouth. “This is all +Mary’s doing. If we are unhappy it will be her fault. If we are happy +it is her we must thank. She made this match.” + +“God bless her!” cried Philip fervently, but with a spasm of pain +crossing his bliss. + +Then a sudden seriousness clouded Edith’s sunshine also. “Philip, I +want to tell you something. You won’t believe me, but I shall tell you +just the same. _I am nothing_, do you understand? The reason people +like me--when they do--is because most people like themselves, and I am +rather a flattering mirror, that is all.” + +“Then I must be an arch-egotist,” Philip interrupted her. + +“You are. Your affection for me proves the extent of your self-love.” +She spoke with surprising gravity. “You see, Philip, I was brought up +to seem, not to be, and my education was extraordinarily successful. I +lost my life in childhood.” + +The young man threw back his boyish head and laughed. “Yes, you look as +if you were not alive!” he cried. “You, whose every nerve and fibre +are instinct with life. You are the epitome of sensation. You respond +to every slightest emotion, to every touch of feeling. I would believe +anything else you tell me, but not that you are unfeeling and dull of +sensation. You are anything but a Belle Dame Sans Merci.” + +“Not sans merci alone,” she said sadly, “but sans _every_thing, like +Shakespeare’s old man. I have warned you, you see. I have strength +enough for that, because I know in my heart that it will make no +difference to you, as you won’t believe me; but I haven’t the strength +to refuse you, Philip. I will marry you as soon as you want.” + +Her personal charm surrounded him like a vapor, and obscured all else. +Like two happy children they sat side by side, making plans for the +future. All that she stipulated was, that she should be married from +her stepmother’s house in Kentucky, and that she should have time to +get a few clothes. + +“Please always have the rainbow motif in all your dresses,” Philip +said, pointing to the opal hues at her neck. “It matches your +temperament. I remember when I first saw you here in that wonderful, +changing, pinky-grayish-heliotrope, crapy thing. You seemed to me like +a woman that Hawthorne would have rejoiced in describing, with your +dress the symbol of your nature. Then there is one more thing, dear, I +want to ask. Will you let me give you an opal for an engagement ring? +It is what I should like best, if you are not superstitious. It is my +favorite stone, and I think you said it was yours. You are _my_ opal, +you know, and I should like you to have one, beautiful as yourself, +with a heart of fire.” + +She laughed gayly. “Philip, you are waxing poetic! Of course I’m not +superstitious. We defy augury. I will have nothing but an opal. It is +alive, though it is not as permanent as I should like the symbol of our +love to be. Philip,” she said, a trembling wistfulness in her voice, +“you know opals crumble and fall to pieces, and there is no mending +them,--they just disappear, and their beauty is gone. Are you sure you +want _your_ opal for better or worse?” + +“I am quite sure,” he said decisively. “And your opal shall be set in +diamonds, to keep it from crumbling and guard its beauty.” + +“And so shall yours, Philip, for when I am married to you your opal +will be truly set in strong and precious stones, to defend it from its +own weakness.” Her little Frenchily sentimental speech did not sound +artificial, as with the naturalness of a trustful child she lifted her +face to his. + +Upstairs a very different drama was in progress. Mary Elton was +pacing her room, with hands clenched and brows knit. Now that her +self-appointed rôle of fairy godmother was played, she not only +wondered how she had found strength to go through with it, but scolded +herself for having been sensational. “After all, it was none of my +business,” she told herself. “I wish I hadn’t interfered. If I had let +things alone, Philip might have come back to me of his own free will, +and Edith would have married some one else who would have made her just +as happy.” + +At the end of half an hour she opened her door and listened. She heard +the murmur of low voices, and once Philip’s laugh rang out,--confident, +happy, proud. + +With a sob between clenched teeth, Mary closed her door again, and +seated herself in front of her mirror. She watched the cynical, +scornful face before her contort itself into lines of bitterness and +grief. Relentlessly she stared at the slowly puffing eyelids, the +quavering mouth. Never had she looked less attractive, less romantic. + +“A picture of unrequited love,--realistic school,” she announced +mockingly, for her own amusement. And as a watery smile intruded upon +the grimness of the tragic mask at which she gazed, Mary found herself +wondering, irrelevantly, whether Edith Dudley looked pretty when she +cried. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A PUPPET IN TRAGEDY + + +When Mary’s year of foreign travel was over she found herself so +completely unprepared for the flatness of life at home, that she +shipped her uncle off for Boston, and decided to remain abroad another +year. She had made many delightful acquaintances during her travels, +and had found it easy to map out twelve more months of traveling, +visiting, “stopping over,” and “settling down.” + +When she considered the loneliness and helplessness of her uncle’s +returning to an unkept house, she felt the sense of guilt that +accompanies an act of unaccustomed selfishness, but a poor relation +had been invoked from the shades of the “unexhausted West,” and +Cousin Rebecca had gladly consented to supply creature comforts to Mr. +Elton till Mary’s return. “I know I’m selfish,” Mary acquiesced to her +accusing conscience, “but I can’t go home and see Philip and Edith +yet” (they had been married a month after she left Boston),--“I’m too +battered and bruised. My scars must heal, and my wounds grow callous +before I can see their happiness. If I had died Uncle Charles would +have got on somehow, and this will only be a year of desertion, and +perhaps it will be the only vacation in my life.” So she quieted her +qualms, and persisted, as usual, in the line of conduct she had laid +out for herself. + +The second year passed as delightfully as the first, and Mary finally +turned her back on the land that had fulfilled her desires and +satisfied her senses, with a devout feeling of thankfulness that Europe +still existed as a memory and a hope, even though it was rapidly +fading from her natural vision. On the steamer that was bearing her too +rapidly towards her undesired home, she found various acquaintances, +among others an old school friend, Helen White, who was returning from +a six weeks’ tour in France. She was familiar with Mary’s immediate +circle in Boston, and able to give her much news and gossip that had +failed to be recorded in letters from home. Naturally one of Mary’s +first inquiries was in regard to the Morleys. How are they getting on +together, and in society, and with the world? Mary had had frequent +letters from Edith, full of her own peculiar aroma, containing amusing +and shrewd observations on the people that formed the background to her +new life, speaking often of Philip and his interests with affectionate +understanding, but always ending with an appeal to “come home soon +to the person who needed her most.” At the mention of Edith Morley’s +name, Helen White’s rather inanimate face woke up. “She is a wonderful +success in Boston!” she exclaimed. “There is not a more popular woman +in society. Every one wants her all the time. She seems to be equally +sought after by the smart and the stupid sets, and by all the unlabeled +people in between. I declare Philip Morley is a lucky man!” + +“I suppose he’s as much pleased with Edith as the rest of the world +is,” suggested Mary, as a “leader.” + +“How could he be otherwise? She is always perfectly lovely with him, +and evidently doesn’t cross his wishes in the least particular. She +is a model wife, and I must say--nice as Philip is--I think she +deserves some one a little more--more--well, interesting and unusual +and stimulating.” Mary grunted: “H’m. Well, if Edith is satisfied, I +suppose _we_ must be. What effect has marriage had upon Philip?” + +“Between ourselves, I don’t think he has developed and broadened as +much as you would expect,” said Miss White, with her confidential +manner. “He is a little disappointing. He never seems to arrive +anywhere, and at thirty-eight one expects a man to be something more +than promising.” + +Mary’s heart gave a protesting throb that was a physical pain. She +had dreaded to hear exactly what her unsuspecting friend had told +her without knowing it,--that Philip had found Edith out, and that +his nature, in order to expand to its potential capacities, demanded +outside stimulus,--opposition even, and that it had met nothing but +enervating echo and reflection. + +When Mary was alone her eyes filled with tears of self-reproach +and suffering. “It was all my fault,” she accused herself, in her +exaggerated consciousness of disaster. “I was fool enough to think that +the hardest thing to do must be the right thing. The punishment for +stupidity is harder to bear than the punishment for sin,--and it ought +to be. The wages of folly is remorse, and that’s a good deal worse than +death,” she added, with her usual impersonal relentlessness. + +During the thoughtful hours of the next few monotonous days, while +Mary’s impatient eyes questioned the horizon line--that symbol of +symmetry--for something visible beyond, she tried to persuade herself +that she had been over-subtle in her interpretation of Helen White’s +indifference towards Philip, and enthusiasm for Edith. Certainly no +hint of an unhappy marriage had been put into the words, although it +had been taken out of them. But she must possess her soul in patience; +she should know enough soon. + +She knew two days after her arrival, when she and her uncle went to +dine at the Morleys’. Edith was dazzlingly unchanged. Her embrace of +Mary was the spontaneous hug of a child, who abandons itself to the +present emotion. “You dear old thing!” she exclaimed. “You’ve got a +French dress and an English accent, but I know you’re the same old +sixpence underneath.” + +“Yes, I’m the same old nickel,--put me into American money, +please,--for I never was a better Yankee than under this foreign +veneer. The accent and the dress both come off, you know,--I only wear +them on formal occasions. Hello, Philip!” she broke off suddenly, as +he ran downstairs with unwonted speed to greet her. “Well, here we are +again,” she rattled on. “Let’s be rude and all stare at each other, +and then be polite and say we all look younger and more beautiful +than we did two years ago.” Her unflinching gaze met Philip’s,--met +it, passed it by, and penetrated to his inner self that lay hidden +behind the lazily drooping eyes and the sensitive disillusioned mouth. +He looked older, and, if wisdom implies a shattering of youthful +ideals, wiser as well. His appearance was by no means unhappy, but his +contentment showed too much of resignation, and Mary would have been +more pleased to detect a gleam of divine discontent, kindling ambition +into action. The pleasant and affectionate smile with which he turned +toward his wife had in it the hint of almost pitying tenderness with +which a grown person regards a child. + +“Well, Edith, what can we say about Mary that she won’t consider +fulsome flattery?” he asked. “You are much cleverer than I. Put my +feelings into words.” + +The girl turned her face--not towards the object of this discussion, +but to her husband, as though to read his thoughts; then she slipped +her hand through Mary’s arm and said, “You look just the way the real +Mary Elton was always meant to look,--not sad but serious, not scoffing +at life, but amused by it. You look like an embodiment of strength +and sympathy, such as it rests weary eyes to look upon. And besides, +Europe--or something--has put a funny little look of sweetness into +your face that didn’t use to”--She was interrupted by Mary’s suddenly +winding her feather boa around her mouth. “Keep still!” she commanded, +with her old-time vigor. “I won’t be insulted. _Sweet_, indeed! Edith, +you look thoroughly sour and bitter. You are a peculiarly ugly and +disagreeable looking woman. Philip looks meek and henpecked, and as +for poor old Uncle Charles,”--pulling her beaming uncle under the +electric light,--“he has grown ten years younger since losing his +business manager, and being allowed to shift for himself. Come and +show me the house,” she went on, leading the way to the parlor with +Edith trotting at her heels like a happy dog. “I haven’t seen your +wedding presents yet. Oh, there’s the lamp I gave you, and a very +decent looking one it is, too. Lamps can be so perfectly terrible when +they really make an effort to be ornamental that I try to be guided by +their purely utilitarian functions in selecting them. Oh, and there’s +the portrait! How I have wanted to see it! I assure you its praises +have echoed through Europe?” She paused in front of a picture that +would have attracted the attention of any human creature, no matter +how ignorant, no matter how wise. It did not need the signature of the +greatest living portrait painter to proclaim it as one of the modern +masterpieces of the world. + +It was Edith’s self--or selves, to be strictly accurate. She was +standing with suddenly arrested movement, as though she had started to +step out of the frame, a living woman, and then had quickly decided to +remain a painted mystery. Firelight played on the rainbow-tinted satins +which draped the exquisite figure, and a gleam from a hidden light +brightened the gold-streaked hair. The background was a softly blended +tapestry, and the general color scheme justified the name of “The Opal” +left on it from a recent exhibition. But the woman’s face! In that +lay the miracle of the painter’s genius, for never surely was such a +marvelous blending of qualities,--such a symphony of harmonies in which +discords had their place. + +Mary sucked in her breath with the “Oh!” of complete satisfaction. +“He will be an old master a few hundred years hence,” she said, +“and Edith will be the Mona Lisa of future generations. You have +lived sufficiently,” she went on, addressing the portrait’s original, +half-banteringly; “you may as well go upstairs and die this minute. +Your destiny is completed. To have inspired such a work as that means +genius in the subject as well as in the painter.” + +“It has been too funny to hear different people’s comments on it,” +Edith said. “When it was first exhibited I put on three veils so as +not to be recognized; and then I had the greatest fun listening to the +criticisms of friends and strangers. I heard one lady say, ‘_There_ is +a person capable of any crime!’ Another said, ‘She should have been +painted as a Madonna. I have never seen such goodness in any human +countenance.’ A man whom I did not know said, ‘There is the only face +I have ever seen which expresses Browning’s line, “There’s a woman +like a dew-drop, she’s so purer than the purest.”’ And a horrid man +whom I _do_ know, said,--excuse my repeating such a remark,--‘What an +extraordinary likeness of Mrs. Morley! She looks like a nun turned +demi-mondaine!’” + +“What do you think of it, Philip,” asked Mary, while Mr. Elton was +dryly commenting, “I consider it the portrait of a most intelligent +woman.” + +Philip looked from the portrait to Mary, with his quiet smile. +“When you ask me that, it is like asking what I think of Edith,” he +explained. “It has all her moods and all her phases. It shows what she +may be, no less than what she has been. It is endlessly suggestive and +fascinating.” + +“I was almost afraid to be painted by such a mind-reader,” Edith +confessed, “but I needn’t have been alarmed. If one has no mind it +can’t be read; and it seems to me he has painted nothing. Every one +reads something different into it, but the variations are in them, not +in me. That is where the painter’s skill comes in. As I look at it +myself, it is a mirror’s likeness of a dead face; yet every one else +speaks of its marvelous vitality.” + +“It is well named,” Mary said softly. “Such changing living beauty +belongs only to the opal.” + +“And to Edith Morley,” put in Mr. Elton, with a courtly bow. + +Dinner was announced, and Edith insisted that the survey of her +possessions must be postponed or the soup would grow cold. During the +first part of the meal Mary did most of the talking. “What is the use +of being a Ulysses,” she protested, “if one can’t recite one’s Odyssey +to bored Penelopes? I can see you all gaping internally, but you’ve +got to listen to me for a while, and then I’ll give you a chance.” +She regaled them with anecdotes of American human nature as revealed +on foreign soil, and seemed her old merry self; but while her tongue +wagged fast and gayly, her brain was working in opposition to her +words. “There’s an immense change in him below the surface,” she said +to herself, and the sense of it caused a sudden contraction of the brow +which her laughing listeners did not comprehend. “Now _you_ talk,” she +said abruptly. “What’s become of the Reverend Sylvester Rogers? How did +Milly Lambert’s marriage turn out? Where is Marion Meridith? And what +happened to Jack Hudson?” + +“Let’s see,” pondered Edith. “Mr. Rogers had a call to Kansas +City--also incidentally to marry an heiress. Milly Lambert succeeded in +getting a divorce from her wretched husband, though she knew exactly +what he was when she married him; Marion Meridith is just the same nice +girl that she always was,--too good for any of the men who want to +marry her; and Jack Hudson,--well, they say he and his wife want to be +separated, but they can’t seem to convince the lawyers that there’s any +occasion for it.” + +“What do you think of divorce?” questioned Mr. Elton of Edith. It +was the kind of direct inquiry she never liked, for no suggestion of +the questioner’s opinion was evident, and his face had about as much +expression as a brick house in a block. Edith glanced tentatively at +her husband and Mary, but they offered her no assistance, so she said +lightly, “What do I think of divorce? Why, I never think of it. I don’t +have to, you see.” + +Mary brought her fist down on the table with one of her unregenerate +gestures. “It is one of the greatest crimes of the day,” she +exclaimed, “the attitude of Public Opinion on Divorce! I believe some +of the churches are trying to do what they can to frown upon it, +but till some fixed law is made which applies in every State in the +Union, people will get divorced almost as fast as they get married. +The trouble is, each couple fancies its own case unique, and women +particularly seem to be incapable of giving up their own selfish +happiness for the good of humanity or the community.” + +“I don’t suppose you’d ever marry a divorced man, Mary,” Edith +suggested, and the others all laughed at her characteristically +feminine way of turning an abstract argument into a personal question. + +“I don’t suppose I should,” Mary replied bluntly. “Nor do I suppose +I’d marry a man who was not divorced,--nor do I think I shall ever be +the cause of divorce in others. The opinion of an old maid like me is +utterly worthless, of course, and I suppose ‘sour grapes’ would be the +motive attributed to me by any one who knew my views. It is the pretty +and foolish young married women who ought to be converted. I’m ashamed +of Milly Lambert.” + +The intolerant Mary was speaking, but Edith brought back the new +incarnation by introducing the subject of Sydney Eaton’s interest in +politics. This gave Mary the chance to find out whether Philip still +continued to identify himself with the Municipal Improvement Society +and the Civic Club, and the various other reforming bodies in which he +had formerly been an active member. Her evident interest in the subject +loosened Philip’s tongue, and he began to talk as well as to listen. +This was just what Mary had wanted,--to find out whether the new +Philip had what was best in the old, and skillfully she cast her line, +the hook hidden in good conversational bait. + +Mr. Elton unconsciously assisted, by judicious flourishes of the +landing net, in the form of questions demanding answers, and +statements requiring contradiction. Mary’s smile was that of the +successful fisherman when Philip laid down his knife and fork and +began to talk. His subject interested him, and Mary’s questions and +arguments stimulated him. He threw back his head, and indifference and +acquiescence shook off him like drops of water. His eyes lighted with +the old fire of enthusiasm, and his voice vibrated with earnestness. A +flush of almost triumphant success was reflected in Mary’s face. Edith +may have lulled Philip’s spirit to sleep, but she had not killed it. +As for Edith herself, she regarded her husband’s transformation with +undisguised pleasure. “Now I see what you’ve been wanting these last +two years, Philip!” she exclaimed, smiling joyously from him to her +friend. “It’s just been Mary! It’s good to see you like your old self. +Perhaps if I could only learn to quarrel and argue with you it would +goad you into going into politics, as your friends want you to. What +you need is a little opposition.” + +“He’ll get enough of that if he goes into politics with his present +ideas of reform,” Mr. Elton chuckled. But Philip did not seem to +heed the comments that were flying round his head. He looked at Mary +and talked on, his mind quickened by her interested questions, his +intelligence freed by finding its fellow. Edith leaned back in her +chair and gave the satisfied sigh of a surfeited child. There was not +the smallest tinge of jealousy or of envy in the delight she took in +the pleasure of Philip and Mary in being together again. Her nature +was light but not petty, and small thoughts were as alien to her as big +ones. + +When dinner was over, Edith took possession of her friend and carried +her off to the other room, calling back, “Now please smoke very long +cigars, and pretend you have a great deal to say to each other. Mary +and I are going to have a heart to heart talk, and we don’t wish to be +disturbed by mere men.” + +As Edith stood in the firelight, Mary felt the rush of irresistible +admiration that her presence always excited. In all the galleries of +Europe, Mary’s eyes had rested on no more beautiful picture than this +wonderful woman, dressed in soft shades of varying yellows that seemed +to match their golden gleams with her sunshiny hair. Her engagement +ring--Philip’s opal--flashed its sympathetic response to every hue of +her gown and every variation of light, while a necklace of the same +stones--his wedding gift--flashed fire, like a setting of colored +lights encircling her exquisite head. + +“Now let’s talk, just the way we used to,” she said, settling herself +in a corner of the big sofa, “which means that I will lay bare a few +hearts and brains and things, and you will dissect them.” + +“Well, produce your material,” Mary commanded; “the surgeon’s knife is +ready.” + +“I’ve got a splendid name for you!” Edith broke in. “It just came to me +this minute. You’re the Critic on the Heart! You do so love to analyze +emotions and criticise impulses.” + +Mary rewarded her friend’s bestowal of the title by flinging a sofa +cushion at her, which Edith instantly tucked away behind her shoulders, +saying, “My back thanks you,” and leaned forward, looking like a +lovely daffodil in a calyx of green pillows. + +“_You_ have no heart for me to criticise,” Mary said rather scornfully, +“and my own is a fossil. I am not a geologist, so I don’t understand +it. Produce another.” + +“Philip’s!” Edith replied so promptly that Mary started. + +“Thanks. I’d rather not,” she said shortly. “I know nothing of it, and +a man’s wife would surely not wish to discuss him in any private or +personal way, even with his best friend--and hers.” + +“Now, Mary, you know it’s perfectly ridiculous to talk that way to +me,” Edith expostulated. “My marriage is your doing. You can’t dismiss +it that way with a grandiloquent generality. You’ve got to take the +consequences of your own acts.” + +“And what are the consequences?” Mary forced herself to ask in a light +tone which she felt would not fit the relentlessly frank attitude of +the young wife. + +“Unhappiness on his side, indifference on mine,” was the laconic +answer, that drew from Mary a sharp cry of “_Don’t_, Edith! Don’t say +such a thing--in such a way. What are you made of!” + +“Sugar and spice and all that’s nice,” the girl sang gayly. “You +always knew that was all I was made of, but you thought the power of +my husband’s love would convert sugar and spice into heart and soul. +I regret to say the strength of Philip’s love was not sufficient to +perform that miracle,” she added, with an unusual touch of bitterness. +But she instantly laughed it away. “I knew you’d see that Philip had +found me out,” she said. “But he’s wonderfully good to me, he never +shows that he is disappointed,--but--you know I _have_ intuition, Mary, +if I haven’t anything else,--and I knew that he had ceased loving me +before we had been married a year. Of course that means that I am +adrift again,” and she sighed resignedly. + +Rage surged in Mary’s breast, rage against herself and Edith, and a +rush of suffocating pity for Philip. But her anger, as usual, had to +stand aside for admiration and amazement at Edith’s next words. + +“It was so fine in Philip,” the girl said slowly, her rich voice +vibrating with feeling, “it was so much nobler of him to cease loving +me when he found I was--nothing. Most men would have kept on caring for +me. I was always good to him, always sympathetic and affectionate; I +did everything he wanted me to, and, as you see,” she added naïvely, +“I have not lost my looks nor grown stupid. How many men would feel a +lack in such a wife? I have been the envy of débutantes and matrons, +the admired and adored of men, yet Philip has proved his fineness by +ceasing to love me. His nature is high enough to demand its equal.” + +“You are making him out as much of a prig as Tennyson’s King Arthur,” +Mary expostulated, but Edith’s childlike laugh interrupted her. “Oh, +no! Philip has far too much humor and sense to wave his hands over me, +saying, ‘Lo, I forgive thee, even as eternal God forgives.’ Under such +provocation I should feel tempted to elope with the nearest Launcelot. +No, the good part of Philip is that no one but you and I knows that he +is a bitterly disappointed man. _I_ know it because I myself am his +disappointment, and you know it because”-- + +“Oh, I _don’t_ know it!” Mary hastily interposed. “I’m sure he seems +quite happy. You have too much intuition. You exaggerate. You may not +be just what Philip thought you, but who is what any one thinks them? +Besides, if he craves something different, you are surely adaptable +enough to give what he wants.” + +“No, Mary,” Edith said sadly, “I cannot give leadership, advice, +stimulus, incentive. I can give only responsive qualities, as you know. +And there is danger ahead, Mary, danger for me as well as for him.” +Restlessly she rose from her cushioned corner and walked up and down. +“Do you still care for me, Mary?” she demanded earnestly. “I mean +enough to make a fight for me? Can you exert a strong enough influence +to overthrow a determined will pulling against yours?” + +Mary did not trust herself to meet the appealing and appalling +clearness of the eyes waiting to disarm her. She was disgusted with +the girl’s egotism, angry with the weakness that had disillusioned +Philip. She cared too much for the man to feel pity for the woman. “I +am afraid I am beginning to lose patience with a clear-sightedness as +unavailing as yours,” she said, rather coldly. “If you and Philip are +unhappy, I am more so, for I have an added sense of responsibility for +your disappointment. I confess I do not feel like entering a tug of +war for the prize of your soul. Where everything seems to the onlooker +to be peaceful and serene, such strenuousness strikes me as being +inappropriate.” + +Edith drew back a little, as if her friend’s sarcasm had hit her +lightly in the face. + +“I have been dreadfully selfish,” she acquiesced with Mary’s thought. +“I am going to try never to talk to you about myself again. I think you +will make it easy for me to keep that resolution.” + +Instantly Mary’s impulsive heart smote her. “Edith, forgive me!” she +cried. “I spoke thoughtlessly.” + +Edith was by her side at once, radiant and fascinating. “Forgive you? +My dear old Mary, that word must never pass between us. I’ll try to be +more what you would wish,--but I want to say one thing.” Her fingers +twined together nervously. “I think--if I had had--a child--everything +might have been different.” + +“I have so hoped that you would,” Mary murmured, with the half-abashed +embarrassment shown by the unmarried when referring to the subject that +is outside of their personal experience or prospects. + +“I feel that I shall never have children,” Edith said quietly, “and I +am sorry for Philip as well as myself. He must turn to his work and I +to”-- + +“Mr. Grant Lorimer,” said the maid’s voice at the door. Mary started +as if the little white-capped servant had fired a pistol at her. But +Edith was halfway across the room, shaking hands with Mary’s old enemy +and crying out, “You have spoiled everything, Grant! Miss Elton and I +were having the first talk we’ve had for two years, and I hadn’t got +round to telling her that you are in Boston again. See how surprised +she looks!” + +Mary tried to assume a cordiality she did not feel. “How do you do, Mr. +Lorimer? Yes, I am surprised to find any one drifting back to Boston +who does not belong here.” + +If there were a dash of venom in her words he did not swallow it. He +made a profound bow as he seated himself beside her. “I feel that I +do in a measure belong here,” he said quietly. “Mrs. Morley always +gives me a sense of being at home, and perhaps an old friend like +myself brings with him a little different feeling of old times than +comes with new acquaintances, no matter how congenial.” Their foils +crossed in their opening greetings, as never failed to happen when +these combatants met. Edith rushed in to separate them. “I’m going to +treat you like the old friend you are, Grant,” she struck in, “and send +you into the dining-room to have a cigar and some coffee with Philip +and Mr. Elton. Then Mary and I can finish our feminine confidences and +you will have all the charm of novelty when you return with the others +fifteen minutes later. I know Philip wants to talk to you about stocks, +and I hate the sound of the word. Run along like a good boy.” Her voice +had the affectionate cadence of a mother giving wheedling advice to +her child. Mary’s suspicious brain wondered what was Edith’s motive in +thus summarily dismissing her friend. Was it merely that the electric +sparks of discord were disagreeable to one who loved harmony? was it +because Edith wished to speak to him alone, and could do it better +when her husband was in the room to absorb Mary’s attention? or was it +because she did not wish Mary to find out from her Southern admirer +how constant had been their companionship of late? In another minute +Mary was blaming herself for attributing false motives, for as Grant +Lorimer left the room in obsequious obedience to his queen’s command +Edith threw her arms around Mary, exclaiming, “I couldn’t have any one +come between us this first night. I want to be with you alone. Talk +to me, dear. Tell me all about you, what you’ve thought and felt and +experienced these two years. I’m sick of myself. I want to get close, +close in touch with you to-night. You always help me so much;” and +Edith cuddled up to her austere and angular friend like a tired child. +Mary never forgave herself for her next words. She gave a little hard +laugh and said, “I’ll talk to you as much as you please about what I +have seen, heard, and done, but I have happily outgrown the days of +immodest exposure of heart and mind and spirit. If you are catering +to what you think I want to talk about, you are making a mistake. I +don’t wish to talk about either myself or yourself. Let’s compromise on +Italy.” + +A queer, quiet smile crept into the corners of Edith’s lips, and she +gave a little shrug, her frivolous submission to Fate. “Kismet. So be +it,” she said lightly, drawing her hand out of Mary’s arm but still +smiling with perfect amiability. “Italy is the subject of all others to +be discussed by friends who have been separated two years. I hope you +enjoyed Giorgione’s ‘Concert’ as much as I did, and felt like slapping +the insipid faces of Carlo Dolce’s Madonnas!” + +When the men came in a little later, the girls were discussing the +relative merits of Perugino and Lippo Lippi with the passionate +interest frequently reserved for post-prandial confidences concerning +the advantages of rival schools of underwear. + +Mr. Elton and Grant Lorimer took instant possession of their hostess, +who was laughingly accused by Lorimer of “showing off” about Italian +art. + +“What a wonderful memory Edith has!” Mary exclaimed to Philip, as +he drew a chair up to the corner of her sofa. “It doesn’t seem fair +for one person to have so much. All the fairies were present at her +christening.” + +“Yes, she is wonderfully endowed,” Philip acquiesced. “A good memory +knows what to forget as well as what to remember,” he added, and +suddenly Mary’s mind flew back to their last interview alone together, +when she had poured out the story of her love for him. She flushed +scarlet at the thought, and an intolerable sense of embarrassment and +shame flooded her. They talked of impersonal things, and no outsider +would have been conscious of effort or strain; but while Mary was +talking she was telling herself that their intercourse could never be +natural or agreeable. Their past yawned between them,--a past too vital +to be bridged with the commonplace,--while they chatted of friends, and +things that had happened to people in whom they were both interested. +Mary found herself watching Philip’s face with all her old affection +and belief, but with an added ache of sorrow, not for herself but for +him. “If he had only been happy I could have borne my own unhappiness,” +she groaned inwardly, “but he is a disappointed man. He was once +something, he could have been anything, and now he will be nothing.” +Involuntarily she turned towards the cause of his failure. Edith, with +her customary skill, was mixing oil and water in the persons of her +two guests. Mary remarked on it to Philip, and then, adding abruptly, +“A little vinegar has a wonderfully ameliorating effect on two alien +liquids; I am going to supply it,” impulsively, almost to the point of +rudeness, she quitted her seat and joined the group at the other side +of the room. Edith instantly beckoned to Philip to come and sit by her +side. + +“This is a great deal cosier,” she said comfortably. “There are too +few of us to divide into groups. Mary is a wise woman to encourage us +to hang together, isn’t she, Philip?” She smiled up at her husband’s +rather baffled face with her winning air of confidence, but his +answering smile touched his mouth alone, leaving his eyes unresponding. +Mary instantly began firing questions at Lorimer, which he, bewildered, +answered with the brevity of surprise. + +“Are you to be long in Boston?” + +“Why, really I don’t know. My plans are quite uncertain.” + +“Have you been here much during the last two years?” + +“No. At least only recently. My business demands occasional visits to +other cities.” + +“Where did you spend last summer?” + +“At Northeast Harbor.” + +“Oh, how pleasant for you to be near the Morleys!” + +“Yes, indeed, delightful.” And so it went. + +Finally Mary rose to her feet, weighted down by a confused sense of +failure, misunderstanding, and disappointment. “Come, Uncle Charles, +you must take me home,” she said. “I’m not as young as you, and half +past ten is the middle of my night. I haven’t my land legs or my +land brain yet, and I feel a little watery at both extremities,” she +explained to Edith. + +“You must look in to-morrow or the next day and see that all goes well +in my absence,” Philip said, as he unfolded Mary’s wrap. “I have to run +on to New York for a few days on business, and Edith will think it a +good exchange if you will take my place.” + +“Oh, why don’t you take her with you!” Mary cried impulsively. He +turned towards his wife, saying, “Well, Edith, what do you say,--will +you come with me?” + +“Why, of course, if you want me,” she replied instantly. + +“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he said. “Good-night, Mary. It is +like old times to have you back again. We’ve missed you tremendously. +Good-night, Mr. Elton. I congratulate you on your return to slavery.” + +Grant Lorimer stood beside the handsome couple, bowing with scrupulous +politeness. He looked mysteriously dark and enigmatic in the half +light. Mary turned as she went down the steps, fascinated by the +picture that Edith made, as she stood between the two men, gleaming +like a tongue of flame in her shimmering yellows. Somehow at that +moment her radiant beauty stamped itself on Mary’s consciousness more +forcibly than ever before. “Good-night, Mary,” called Edith for the +last time. “Philip isn’t going to take me to New York. I know him! +Don’t desert me. Remember I shall be all alone. I shall depend on you. +Don’t forget me.” Her voice vibrated with a tone of earnestness out +of keeping with her words, but her pretty inconsequent little laugh +trilled out. Mary saw Philip still standing by the open door, as Grant +Lorimer turned towards Edith with one of his compelling glances and +followed her into the parlor. Then a sudden gust of wind slammed the +door, and the vision went out like the picture on a magic lantern +slide. + +Mary spent the next few hours between the nightmares of waking and +sleeping. As usual, she alternately blamed and justified herself for +her repellent attitude towards Edith’s confidences and confessions. “If +I am a critic on the heart, there is no heart for which I feel greater +scorn than my own,” she told herself bitterly. “I don’t know that it’s +any better to have a bad heart than none at all. I am blaming Edith for +what she can’t help; she was made by her parents and I by myself.” She +tossed restlessly on her pillows, jerking impatiently at the blankets. +“It’s only the sight of Philip and the thought of him that make me so +unjustly angry with poor Edith. If she had married a man whom I could +regard simply as her husband, my sympathies would be hers along with +my affection and my grudging admiration; but she has taken the will +power out of Philip Morley,--she is making him into a mere drifting +will-less creature like herself, and I _can’t_ forgive her when I care +so much for him. Oh, how absurd,--how _wrong_ it is for me to love +him as I do!” Warm tears fell on her pillow, and she turned it over +angrily. She tried to look at facts without blinking, and she saw the +shadow of something unavoidable darkening the radiance of Edith. “It’s +that wretched cad of a Dr. Fell,” she told herself. “He has too much +influence over her. I must exert mine in opposition.” Then she drifted +into unrestful sleep, clenching her fist at the powers of darkness, +vowing that she should save Edith yet, and murmuring “I was ever a +fighter,” as her imaginings changed to dreams. + +The next day Mary was busied with her unpacking till late afternoon, +when she took a breathing space and went to see Edith. The maid told +her she had gone out ten minutes before, and that Mr. Morley had gone +to New York that morning. Mary left a message of regret which she +genuinely felt, and then made a long détour to get home, that she might +fill her lungs with fresh air before again attacking the problem of +sorting and distributing her spoils of travel. + +When she got back she was disappointed to hear that Edith had been to +see her, and had waited half an hour in vain for her return. “I wish I +had thought to leave word for her to come to dinner to-night. It must +be lonely for her with Philip away,” Mary reproved herself, and several +times in the course of the evening she exclaimed irrelevantly to her +uncle, “I wish Edith were here!” The next morning Mary made amends to +her own conscience by going early to the Morleys to try and persuade +Edith to come back with her to spend the day. The maid recognized the +visitor of the afternoon before and asked her to step in. “Mrs. Morley +left a letter for you,” she explained. “Mr. Morley sent for her to join +him in New York last night, and Mr. Lorimer saw her off on the midnight +train. He told me about it while she was packing up her things.” + +Mary’s legs shook under her and she felt herself grow pale and cold. +What did it mean? Was Philip ill? Was Grant Lorimer?--Tremblingly she +opened the envelope. Between the closely written pages another note +fell out addressed simply “To Philip.” Mary’s mind stopped thinking, +her heart seemed to cease beating. Automatically she turned the +enclosed envelope face down on her knee, and said to the maid in a +voice which was not her own, “Very well. You needn’t wait. I will read +Mrs. Morley’s letter here.” It ran as follows:-- + + DEAR MARY,--I am writing this while Grant Lorimer is waiting for me + to go away with him. This is not a letter of justification but of + explanation. I _can’t help it_, Mary, believe me, _I can’t help_ + what I am doing. It had to be. It isn’t that I love him. Don’t + think I am just vulgarly bad. It is simply that he loves me more + than Philip, more than you, I am afraid, and that he has strength + to make me do what he wants. Don’t fancy that I do not think of + Philip,--of the disgrace--the humiliation--the bitter grief and + shame I am bringing him. But I cannot act otherwise. Perhaps if you + came in at this moment and defied the man downstairs and carried me + off with you, the battle would be won, for you know your influence + over me is hardly less hypnotic than his. Don’t ever blame + yourself, dear old Mary, for not having understood a little better + what I was going through. It is part of the tragedy that you could + not believe in such--weakness--as mine. Help Philip to understand + that I have never been anything but a puppet,--an irresponsible toy + with tangled strings pulled by many hands. I must write a few words + to Philip, and you must try to make him understand that there are + some events in life that are _inevitable_. I am not carried away by + passion,--I am not unhappy with Philip. I shall not be happy with + the other man. I am simply doing what I must do. Believe that, if + you can, and be good to Philip always, Mary, for my sake,--it is my + last request. I know that you will love me in spite of all I have + done and been, just as I shall always love you because you are your + own fine free self. And sometime, perhaps, I shall come back, and + then I know you will take me in. + + EDITH. + +Mechanically Mary folded up the letter. Her strained eyes looked like +those of a person in a trance. There was no look of comprehension +in her face. She laid Philip’s note on the table, propping it up +frivolously against a little match safe in the form of a red imp. Then +she walked to the window and looked out at the passers-by. “How badly +that woman’s skirt hangs!” she inwardly commented with the only part +of her mind that was not dead. After a few moments she shivered and +glanced at Edith’s letter, which her frozen fingers grasped. “I must go +before the maid returns,” she muttered vaguely, feeling as if a body +she had murdered lay by her side and would be discovered. She turned +towards the door. “Philip must not be told like that!” she exclaimed +angrily as she caught sight of the letter she had arranged for him, and +she crumpled it into her pocket, with trembling hands. Edith’s portrait +smiled at her with bewitching candor. “There’s a woman like a dew-drop, +she’s so purer than the purest,” Mary murmured. Then a muffled cry of +acute comprehension broke from her tightened throat. “Edith, forgive +me!” she cried wildly. “Oh, my God, how shall I tell Philip!” She bent +her abashed head, that she might not meet the generous smile of her +sinning friend, and when she crept home, hugging her terrible secret to +her heart, she looked like a guilty soul fleeing from justice. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW + + +Three years had passed since Boston society was shaken to its depths by +hearing of the elopement of one of its adored and admired favorites. +Most people were left frankly baffled by the shock, and could offer +neither excuse nor explanation. Mrs. Philip Morley was universally +loved, and her husband was universally liked and respected, yet this +inexplicable thing had happened,--and society slowly got on its feet +again, dazed by the blow it had received, rubbed its bewildered eyes, +and continued to love the wife and like the husband. Of course there +were the inevitable few who “always suspected something queer about the +girl.” Miss Milton expressed surprise only that Mrs. Morley had not +disgraced herself and her poor husband sooner. “I have often noticed,” +she proclaimed solemnly, “that girls who have not been brought up in +Boston are very apt to do something queer sooner or later. That young +woman had too good manners. She was unlike Boston people. I always knew +she’d drag the Morley name in the mud.” The only people who did not +discuss and wonder and exclaim were the two most interested,--Philip +Morley and Mary Elton. After the long interview in which he was told +the truth, Edith’s name was never mentioned between them. Philip had +understood his wife, and did not need Mary’s assurances that Edith had +not an evil trait in her nature. “Don’t I know that?” he had said, +his tense face drawn with suffering. “The poor child was not like a +human being, for all her lovable human qualities. She was like some +wonderful and mysterious force of nature,--electricity, or the rushing +torrent,--waiting for the hand of man to control and make the best use +of it. Perhaps it was my fault that I did not know how to handle such a +strange and subtle element.” + +“It was her parents’ fault that they made her what she was!” Mary +cried, with an angry sob accentuating her scorn. “I am sure that she +started life a human child like the rest of us, only with more goodness +and sweetness and beauty than is the lot of most,--and what did that +Southern father and Catholic mother do to her, but divest her of her +individuality, tear out her soul and make her over again, a mechanical +doll to obey the strongest will! She is not responsible for her acts. +I can only thank Fortune, that having been deprived of the possibility +of doing and thinking for herself, the power of suffering keenly and +feeling deeply was taken from her also.” + +“Oh, what will be her end!” Philip had groaned, covering his eyes from +the mental picture they had conjured out of his imagination. + +“I suppose--for her sake--you will divorce her,” Mary said, with +evident disgust. “That hound will think he is showing Southern +chivalry by marrying her. From my point of view it doesn’t matter one +iota whether she is divorced or not,--whether she is his wife or his +mistress. It is all the same. She doesn’t want to be either.” + +Philip pushed back his chair abruptly. “If you ever hear anything from +Edith, or about her, please let me know, Mary. My life is broken in +two, but that is not so bad as the feeling that I unconsciously broke +hers. I did not understand--I loved her so tremendously at first,--and +then, slowly, it came to me that there was nothing to love--nothing +to hate.” His voice dropped. “It--it was terrible! Poor, radiant, +beautiful Edith! My poor ill-omened opal! What a life,--Heavens, what a +life!--and perhaps my fault.” + +Mary stood beside him, calm and white. “No, Philip, mine. I brought you +together. I encouraged your marriage; and, worse than all, I refused +to give help and sympathy when it would have saved her life. I have +been wicked and stupid, and I deserve to suffer as I _shall_ suffer. +Oh, I shall, never fear.” Her mouth quavered, but she bit her lips into +subjection again. “I had more power over Edith than any other living +creature; and I was selfish and blind and did not use it for her good. +I shall be remorseful all my life; but some day she will come back,--it +will be to me that she will come,--and then you’ll see whether I’ll +help her!” There was courage in her voice, but hopelessness in her eyes. + +Philip had gone his way, and taken up his ruined life and tried +to piece it together again. He faced the world, in silence but in +strength, and the dignity of his life and the strenuousness of his +work silenced alike whispers of gossip and whines of pity. He saw few +people outside of his business, his politics, his family, and his one +perfectly understanding friend. From her he received the old incentive +to being and doing which he had thought was lost to him forever, and +their friendship was too true and close to be heedful of the censures +of Mrs. Grundy,--whose home is in Boston, though she sometimes goes +away to pay visits. + +Mary, meanwhile, was taking a sardonic satisfaction in what she called +“fulfilling her destiny.” She became absorbed in charities and immersed +in good works; clubs, classes, and committees took most of her time; +and in becoming the chief manager of a vacation house for over-worked +shop-girls, Mary declared she had attained her apotheosis. + +She had heard once of Edith from a Boston friend who proved her right +to be popularly considered a Bohemian by living in Charles Street, +whence all but she had fled. This dauntless soul had gone to Italy soon +after Edith’s disappearance, and had one day found herself in a small +shop in Florence trying to make the man understand that she wished +to buy a pair of smoked glasses, when who should come in but Edith +Morley. “For a moment,” she wrote, “I stopped thinking, and in that +moment I rushed up to the dear creature and kissed her, just from pure +nervousness! She didn’t seem a bit surprised, nor a bit disconcerted. +She was the perfect lady she always was,--and, if anything, prettier +than ever. She asked with absolute naturalness about every one in +Boston,--you particularly,--and might have been traveling with Cook for +a chaperone, if it hadn’t been for one thing. She didn’t ask me to call +on her, and when she walked out of the shop with her goddess step, that +worm of a Lorimer crawled out of a crack in the pavement and joined +her.” + +A condensed version of this meeting was sent by Mary to Philip; but, +true to the vows in their first interview, Edith’s name was not spoken +between them. + +So the first three years of Edith’s absence passed. One afternoon in +January, Mary was sitting alone by the library fire. When her face was +in repose it showed lines of grief and hopelessness sad to see in a +woman of thirty. The mask of cheerfulness and courage with which she +faced and deceived the unthinking portion of her world, was laid aside +when she looked boldly into the past and future, as she was doing now. +A blazing fire images sad pictures, even though its snaps and crackles +are cheerful, and its warmth and light comforting. Mary’s meditations +were interrupted by the entrance of Philip Morley, cold and brisk from +a quick walk. + +“You’re just the excuse I wanted for a cup of tea,” she said, as she +rang the bell. “I am feeling frightfully guilty over my failure to be +at a committee meeting this afternoon, and I really hadn’t the face to +reward myself with refreshments; but the case is different now. You +look half frozen, and politeness demands that I share your tea.” He +settled himself the other side of the fire, and waited silently till +the tea was made and the servant had gone. Then he said abruptly,-- + +“Why do you go in for so many charities, Mary? Do they really interest +you, or do you drug yourself with activities merely to kill thought? +You used to laugh so at the strenuousness of charity workers, yet here +you are one yourself.” + +“Well, I laugh at myself,” Mary exclaimed bitterly. “Between ourselves, +most of my good works bore me to death; but unfortunately I have a +pretty good head for organizing,--so having failed in everything else, +I naturally wish to do something I can succeed in.” + +“In what have you failed, Mary?” + +“In the greatest vocation there is in life,--in friendship.” Her +face--with its disguise still thrown aside--retained its look of +hopeless tragedy, and her straight brows almost met. + +“You must not say that!” Philip cried. “It is morbid and untrue. If it +had not been for you I should have sunk to earth under my burdens, but +I scorned to be a coward where a woman could show me such an example of +courage.” + +“Don’t, Philip,--don’t, don’t!” Mary cried weakly. “I don’t deserve +it. You make me feel dreadfully.” + +But Philip had risen, and stood in front of her, decided and relentless. + +“Mary, five years ago you made me listen to you without interruption. +Now you must do the same for me. The time has come when I have got to +speak.” + +She looked up at him, dreading and beseeching, but his expression of +determination conquered hers of appeal. + +“Mary, five years ago you told me something that has affected my whole +life and my whole character more than you can know, more than I myself +realized at first. I would to Heaven you could tell me the same thing +now, since I was blind fool enough then not to be able to say to you +what I cannot help saying now.” + +She put out her hands in dumb protest, but he paid no heed. + +“Mary, I love you with all my heart and all my strength, and you +must and shall learn to say over again to me now what you were brave +enough to tell me once before. I have loved you, consciously and +completely, for nearly three years, but I could not speak before. I +know now that I have loved you always, but without realizing it. You +are my second self,--no, my first self, my better self. Whatever I +have done, whatever I may become, is _yours_, _yours_ utterly. I have +no thoughts that are not due to you, no wishes, no ambitions that are +not yours. When I was almost crushed to earth, and seemed to have +lost the power not only to do, but to feel, it was your strength, the +power of your principle that gave me a new start. Oh, Mary! The joy of +finding a rudder when I was adrift! The satisfaction of being steered +by conviction, instead of blown by every wind! It is to you I owe +everything.” + +Mary looked up at him with trembling lips, the light of happiness +transfiguring her face into the semblance of real beauty. + +“Are you speaking the truth?” she whispered. “You are not saying this +because of--of what I told you five years ago?” + +The childlike appeal in her face made him kneel by her side and put a +protecting arm around the self-reliant back that had never yet bent +under its burdens. + +“Mary, my dearest,” he whispered gently, “my whole life shall prove +that we were made for one another from the beginning. Perhaps we shall +realize it all the more for the suffering we have shared in the past. +We shall begin our lives over again side by side, happy and rich in +accomplishment, if you can give me back a little of the love I give to +you.” + +Mary closed her eyes for a second, as if to nerve herself for her +reply. Then she rose, and clasped her hands behind her. “Philip, I +should like to make you realize, if it won’t make you unhappy in the +future, how my love for you has simply saved my life. It has been my +absorbing passion, my dream, yet my one reality. I haven’t dared to +think you cared for me--in the same way I have cared for you. It is +incredible. I’m so ugly, you know,” and she laughed as she had done +five years before. Then she looked at him with the motherly protection +he loved. “You _dear_ boy,” she went on, “you dear blessed old Philip! +You’ve given me enough happiness now to last me the rest of my life. +It’s like an inexhaustible deposit in a bank,--the sense of your love. +I shall keep drawing cheques on it,--and then perhaps some morning I’ll +hear that I’ve overdrawn my account, and that I’m bankrupt.” + +“There’ll always be plenty more, dear,” Philip said tenderly. “My +heart is wholly yours, and I never realized before what a large heart I +had!” + +“Oh, but _I_ knew!” Mary exclaimed, laughing happily. Then she grew +suddenly serious. “Philip, I’ve got to hurt you--I’ve got to seem +Quixotic and unreasonable, but after a while you’ll understand and +forgive, and perhaps even thank me.” She looked at him squarely but +gently. “I have loved you since I knew what it meant to love any one, +and I shall keep on loving you till my teeth drop out and my hair turns +gray. I do believe, now for the first time--that you care for me, and +the thought makes me inexpressibly happy, but I can _never_, _never_ +marry you.” + +Long experience had taught Philip not to exclaim at Mary’s vehement +statements, so he said quietly, “I thought you were above conventional +scruples. Besides, a legal divorce makes re-marriage with the--the one +who has not broken any vows, entirely lawful and proper.” + +“Oh, I am not afraid of doing anything unlawful!” Mary cried, “and +certainly I should be doing quite the conventional and usual thing in +marrying a divorcé who is above reproach morally. I am not posing as a +model for others. I am not laying down laws for society. I merely say +that you are asking me to do something from which my whole moral nature +shrinks as an act of selfishness and disloyalty, although the impulsive +natural _me_ longs to jump into your arms and remain there always, +without fear or reproach.” + +“Then follow your impulse, Mary,” he begged passionately. “Your heart +is leading you right this time, your conscience has become morbid and +diseased. There is not a living soul who could blame you for taking and +giving the happiness we have both so nearly missed. Prove yourself a +woman, dearest, not a thinking machine. Love is a matter of feeling, +not of cold analysis. Forget that you are a Bostonian, and for once +follow your inclinations, which are true and right.” He held out his +arms, but Mary only shook her head dumbly, and her dry lips formed the +words “I can’t.” + +“Ah, you don’t really know what love is!” Philip cried cruelly, +striding over to the fireplace and turning his back on Mary’s quivering +look of appeal. + +“Oh, yes I do. Love is the fulfilling of the law, Philip,” she almost +whispered. “St. Paul was not a Bostonian, he was a man of the world +and he knew what he was talking about. Oh, don’t you suppose I realize +that any definition of love sounds sententious and unfeeling!” she +interrupted herself stormily. “But by _law_ I don’t mean anything +legal. I merely mean that the only love worth giving is the fulfilling +of one’s own law of life, and if I married you I should be false to +myself and treacherous to Edith. Try to understand me, Philip. Don’t +make things harder than they _must_ be.” + +She sank wearily into a chair, and obedient to her mood, he took his +old place on the other side of the fire. + +“If things were different, Philip, I would rather be your wife than +anything else in the world,” she continued. “So far as we two are +concerned, I should be glad to live with you on any terms, legal or +illegal,--but you see the pity of it is there never _are_ only two +persons concerned. If I married you, I should be doing just what I +blame others for doing,--regarding my case as exceptional and making +excuses for what should not be excused. If I married you, I should +not blame any of the working girls I try to help and influence, for +doing what would be the equivalent of such an act in their own class. +My deed would give the lie to my words. It seems to me that mistakes +should be as punishable as sins, and we ought to be just as unable +to escape from their consequences. You committed the great error of +marrying Edith Dudley. I made the greater one of encouraging you, and +we must both pay the price of that error.” + +“We have paid it,” he broke in vehemently. “We have paid it with +bitterness and sorrow. It is unjust for the consequences of a mistake +to be everlasting.” + +“Philip, the consequences of a mistake _would_ be everlasting if I +married you. I could not look at Edith’s picture, I could not even +in imagination meet her loving smile and think, ‘She will come home +some day and turn to me for help, and I shall be in her home, married +to her husband, and shall have to close her own door in her face.’ +When friends should turn to me with raised eyebrows and with the +unspoken comment, ‘I thought you did not believe in divorced people +marrying again,’ I _could_ not be untruthful enough to say, ‘but my +case is different. This is a moral marriage.’ Dear Philip, it is harder +than you know to say all this--caring for you as I do. I feel like a +drunkard delivering a temperance lecture. I long so to be completely +yours, yet I know so well we should neither of us be happy in so +selfish a union.” + +“Mary, you are wrong,--your ideas are twisted; trust your heart, and +your judgment will follow.” + +“No. You are wrong, dear,” and she shook her head sadly. “You cannot +escape from your marriage with Edith. It is part of your life, and by +ignoring it you cannot forget it. I am bound by every tie of loyalty +and remorse to remain true to her. I must be ready when she comes back.” + +“But who knows that she will ever come back?” Philip burst out. “Her +husband is with her. You are sacrificing your life to a fanatical +delusion. And even if you can stand this dreadful dead life you are +leading, what will become of me?” + +Mary smiled and stretched out her hand to him. “You used to admire my +clear-sightedness and to think I could see into the future as well as +interpret the present. Let me be Cassandra for a minute.” She tightened +her grasp on his, and met his gaze with a courageous smile. + +“I see you at first rebellious, then submissive, and finally triumphing +with me in the sense that we care enough for each other to sacrifice +our selfish selves to the highest truth in each other. You will care +enough for me to be strong and vigorous in action. The conviction +that you are doing what is right will be a living help and support, +and you will make me prouder than ever of loving you,--proudest of +all in being loved by you.” Her voice lowered. “I see our poor Edith +drifting,--drifting,--tired of life,--her husband tiring of her, till +some day she becomes conscious of my thoughts and wishes pulling and +tugging her towards me; and then she will come back to me, and I +shall try to make up to her for her ruined life, and I shall then at +last feel worthy to be loved by you. As for me myself”--Mary suddenly +dropped her head in her hands and burst into the uncontrolled sobs of +a child. “Here I am talking like a dried-up old prig, when my heart is +just bursting, and I can’t silence the voice inside that cries out for +the right to love and be loved! Oh, my dearest,--it has been so many, +many years!” + +Philip’s arms were around her, and she clung to him with the +desperation of one who feels the waves closing over her. “This is the +last time,--the _only_ time,” she whispered. “To-morrow we shall play +our parts as usual. We shall face the footlights, and we shall forget +that we have been behind the scenes. And perhaps, after we are dead, +we may be able to wash off the paint and powder,” she added, trying to +smile underneath her tears. + +“Is this really your final answer?” Philip asked, his eyes and saddened +lips giving eloquence to his few words. + +“It must be, dear. You will come to see that it is the only end. It +could have been different, but it is too late. ‘It once might have +been, once only.’” + +Philip’s arms dropped to his side with a gesture of finality, as he +said quietly, “I believe in you so absolutely that I may come to +believe that you are right in this as in all else. If that time ever +arrives, I will come back and take what strength and comfort I can from +your friendship, and you may trust me never again to open the chapter +you are now closing. If I do not return, it will be because I am too +weak to trust myself,” and he turned away. + +“You must learn to have the courage of my convictions,” Mary said, +with a trembling smile, “for I am a coward, though confident,--and you +are brave, though unconvinced.” She held out her hand. “Au revoir. You +will return, my friend. I hope it too much not to believe it.” He left +the room, not trusting himself to speak again. She kept her control +till she heard the front door close. Then she clenched her teeth with +angry grief. “If I am doomed to act a part all my life, it shall be a +melodramatic part for once!” + +She took from her desk a photograph of Edith, and gazed passionately at +the passionless face. The girl’s thoughtful eyes were shaded by a large +white hat; a soft feather boa fell back from her bare neck, on which +lay Philip’s opal necklace. Suddenly Mary tore the picture across and +flung it into the blaze. “You have ruined my life!” she ranted wildly, +and flung herself on the sofa prepared to weep her heart out. But the +doorbell rang, inopportunely enough, and by the time the maid came +upstairs her mistress was idly poking at a piece of charred paper in +the fireplace. + +“It’s a lady from the Associated Charities wants to know if she can +speak to you a minute about Mrs. O’Connell,” the maid said tentatively. + +Mary gave her hair a quick smoothing with her hand and shook herself +into shape like a dog. Then she faced the footlights once more. “Show +her up,” she said, rather wearily. + + + + +The Riverside Press +_Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co._ +_Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + + + + +[Illustration: TOUT BIEN OU RIEN] + + +_The following pages are devoted to notices of some recent successful +fiction published by Houghton, Mifflin & Company._ + + + + + The + AFFAIR AT THE INN + + By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + MARY FINDLATER + JANE FINDLATER + ALLAN McAULEY + + +“An international comedy unfolded with a charm that is undeniable and +irresistible. Each author’s account sparkles with conversations and +forms a unique narrative. + +“Mrs. Wiggin’s portrayal of the alternate words of the fun-loving but +sympathetic American girl is a strong bit of character writing which is +deeply human. + +“It is a story unique in its construction, amusing in its situations, +of easy and natural progression and sustaining one’s interest from page +to page.” + + _Boston Herald._ + +Illustrated in tint by MARTIN JUSTICE + + 12mo, $1.25 + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + REBECCA + of SUNNYBROOK FARM + + By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + + +“Of all the children of Mrs. Wiggin’s brain, the most laughable and the +most lovable is Rebecca.” + + _Life, N. Y._ + +“Rebecca creeps right into one’s affections and stays there.” + + _Philadelphia Item._ + +“A character that is irresistible in her quaint, humorous originality.” + + _Cleveland Leader._ + +“Rebecca is as refreshing as a draught of spring water.” + + _Los Angeles Times._ + +“Rebecca has come to stay with one for all time, and delight one +perpetually, like Marjorie Fleming.” + + _Literary World, Boston._ + +With decorative cover + + 12mo, $1.25 + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + THE REAPER + + By EDITH RICKERT + + +“So impressive are Miss Rickert’s accounts of the Shetland character, +so vivid her pictures of their alternating happy and sordid lives, so +faithful her study of the racial and personal influences that move +them, that we may accept _The Reaper_ as one of the notable books of +the season. It is something more than fiction--it gives a realistic, +poetic, imaginative view of a wonderful and curious people.” + + _Boston Transcript._ + +“A powerful story, fresh, vivid, and of unusual character and tone.” + + _Chicago Record-Herald._ + + Crown 8vo, $1.50 + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + BIDDY’S EPISODES + + By Mrs. A. D. T. WHITNEY + + +“It is full of life, full of fun, full of glisten, and distinctly up +to date. The character of the story is well expressed by the title; +it is a record of the sayings and doings of a very unconventional but +very original young woman as given by Joanna Gainsworth, who is not +only an old maid, but an old maid who glories in it. Then there is the +most interesting episode which can enter into a young woman’s life, her +courtship and marriage. The book is as bright as a dollar fresh from +the mint.” + + _Boston Transcript._ + +“The story is sweet-spirited, bright, wholesome, interesting.” + + _Chicago Record-Herald._ + + 12mo, $1.50. + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + The + PRIVATE TUTOR + + By GAMALIEL BRADFORD, Jr. + + +The love story of an Italian countess and a wealthy young American +“cub.” An amusing comedy. + +“It is a readable, pleasant story, sprinkled with criticism of art and +bright conversation, and bound to hold the interest of the reader.” + + _Chicago Eve. Post._ + +“It narrates directly, and with just enough philosophical reflection +to show the author’s personal touch and feeling, the experiences of a +party of Americans visiting and living in Rome.” + + _Boston Transcript._ + +“A book which has the distinction of intellectuality.” + + _St. Louis Globe-Democrat._ + + Crown 8vo, $1.50 + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + DAPHNE + An Autumn Pastoral + + By MARGARET SHERWOOD + + +“In _Daphne_ we have a most delightfully refreshing story. In addition +to a charming love-story of a young Italian for an American girl, Miss +Sherwood has given us some rare descriptions of Italian peasant scenes, +and some graphic pictures of Italian woods, mountains, and sunsets.” + + _Review of Reviews._ + +“The story of their love is simply and sweetly told, and with so +exquisite a feeling and so masterly a touch that the story takes place +in one’s mind beside the little classics that he loves.” + + _Indianapolis Sentinel._ + +Attractively bound + + 12mo, $1.00 + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + JOHN PERCYFIELD + + By C. HANFORD HENDERSON + + +“_John Percyfield_ is twisted of a double thread--delightful, wise, +sunshiny talks on the lines laid down by the Autocrat, and an +autobiographical love story. It is full of wisdom and of beauty, of +delicate delineation, and of inspiring sentiment.” + + _New York Times._ + +“Its merits will rank it among the few sterling books of the day.” + + _Boston Transcript._ + +“A book of rare charm and unusual character ... fresh and sweet in tone +and admirably written throughout.” + + _The Outlook, New York._ + + Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.50. + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + A + COUNTRY INTERLUDE + + By HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE + + +“The love story of a girl who learns through a summer in the country +that life offers more than mere material comforts; as represented by a +lover who can give social position and luxury of surroundings.... Miss +Hawthorne manages her material with skill, and writes with charm and +conviction of the beauties of nature.” + + _The Outlook, New York._ + +“_A Country Interlude_ is equal to any of the many stories put forth by +her famous grandfather’s prentice hand.” + + _Boston Transcript._ + +“A charming little volume filled to the brim with happiness.” + + _Chicago Evening Post._ + + With decorative cover. 12mo, $1.25. + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + + HEROES of the STORM + + By WILLIAM D. O’CONNOR + + +Wonderfully graphic accounts of the most famous rescues from shipwreck +by the crews of the U. S. Life-Saving Service. O’Connor was a master in +writing of the sea and its perils. + +“That his style was strong and smooth is shown by these descriptions of +wrecks which undoubtedly are correct in every detail. The unflagging +zeal and striking heroism of the life savers clearly is demonstrated, +and a new emphasis is given to the perils of life on the ocean wave.” + + _Boston Transcript._ + + With introduction by Superintendent S. I. KIMBALL 12mo, $1.50 + + HOUGHTON, [Illustration: BOSTON + MIFFLIN TOUT BIEN AND + & COMPANY OU RIEN] NEW YORK + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + + In the .txt version, surrounding characters have been used to indicate + _Italics_, and small caps have been rendered as ALL CAPS. + Contractions written as two words have been joined into one. + Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained. +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78640 *** |