Chapter THIRTEEN: I

Angelica was surprised at getting a letter the next morning, for she never got letters. The writing was necessarily unfamiliar, as there was none that would not have been. She opened it.

"Angelica, beloved girl!" it began. "I can’t do it!"

"Why, my Gawd!" she whispered. "It’s from _him_!"

I can’t give you up! I tried--God knows I did, but I can’t! I can’t
think of consequences, of honour, of anything but this heavenly
madness that is destroying me. Even if I lose my soul, even if it
brings ruin and misery upon you whom I worship, I must have you,
Angelica! Oh, come back to me! Come back to me! The farce is over.
I have played my rôle of prudent, honourable man of the world. Here
I am now, without reserve, without the smallest shred of worldly
wisdom, without conscience, without civilization; nothing, my
Angelica, but a man!

Nothing but your lover,
VINCENT.

She was wild with joy. She set to work with terrific energy, the letter crushed inside her blouse. She insisted upon finishing the ironing which Mrs. Kennedy had tried to do for a tenant before she became ill. She stood over the ironing-board singing in her rather husky voice.

Nothing but a misunderstanding, after all! He did love her, he had only tried to do what was right. She felt a profound pity for him, her poor poet, who had done his very best to protect her, until love overwhelmed him.

"You _bet_ I’ll go back to him!" she said to herself.

Her mother was alarmed. She saw--who could help it?--the exaltation of her child, and she wished to know the cause. Poor woman! She feared joy with all her soul.

"Who was that other man you went out with last night, Angie?" she asked.

"Oh! The brother of the other feller."

Her mother reflected.

"You seem to like him better," she said at last.

"Yes, I do."

"Is he nice?"

"Yes, he is."

"But you’re not----?"

"I don’t know, mommer!" she answered, laughing.

"Deary! I wish you’d _tell_ me!"

"There’s nothing to tell."

"But, my deary, don’t be foolish. Don’t be hasty! Try to find out if he’s--a good man, before you let yourself think about him. _Is_ he a good man, Angie?"

"He’s a good-looking one, anyway," Angelica answered flippantly. "Now, mommer dear, please don’t worry about _me_. I’m not a fool!"

"But you’re young, Angie, and you’re very hasty. I do worry about you. You never tell me anything. You won’t listen to me."

Angelica, with that letter next her heart, was patient.

"I do listen to you, mommer. Now, do you want a glass of milk?"

She was patient, because she was indifferent, because for the first time in her life she didn’t care about her mother, didn’t care what Mrs. Kennedy thought or how she felt. She wanted, in fact, to get away from her, to be quite free and not bothered by questions.

"Shall I go back to him now?" she thought. "This instant? Just like I am?"

But that, though splendid, wouldn’t do, and couldn’t be arranged; so she sat down to write him a letter. It took her no more than a minute to finish it, for this was all that she wrote:

I will come back to you. I love you, too.

Your
ANGELICA.

The telephone rang--that hateful telephone in the dark outer hall, under the stairs. This was one of the "modern conveniences" of the apartment-house, and it was her mother’s duty to attend it, and by screaming, by ringing the down-stairs bells, or, when they were broken, by toiling up the stairs, to apprise the tenant whom it summoned. They both hated the thing. When it rang, they would sigh, "Oh, that telephone!" and go wearily to serve it.

It was a surprise and a great relief to hear Eddie’s voice on the telephone, for Angelica had been half afraid that the etiquette prevailing among rich people would prevent any further communication. She wasn’t even sure as to whether or not she was expected to go back to Buena Vista. But Eddie wasn’t that sort. His voice was just as it had always been--official, but quite kindly.

"Hello!" he said. "How’s your mother?"

"Much better."

"That’s good! Then have you any idea when you’ll come back to us, Angelica?"

"In a week. Next Saturday, the doctor says."

"Good! I’ll call for you next Saturday afternoon, when I leave the office. And I say, Angelica, don’t you want Courtland to bring you some of the things you left at our place?"

"I _would_ like a few of them," she answered, gratefully.

And the busy, harassed Eddie, sitting in his office, with impatient men waiting to see him, with his stenographer pen in hand beside him, with a telegraph-boy behind him who required a reply, in the midst of the rattle of typewriters, the ringing of telephone-bells, the clicking of the ticker, hoarse, excited voices, all this frenzied life which he had caused to exist and directed and sustained--he took time to write down at Angelica’s dictation a list of things she had left behind her in his house.

It touched him, that list, it was so obviously the list of a poor person--things that he, or any one he knew, would have bought duplicates of without a second thought; things one would hardly bother to pack. He got them together himself when he reached home that evening--a tooth-brush, a cake of perfumed soap, a half-empty box of cheap writing-paper, hairpins, a nail-brush.

Courtland brought them that evening, much against his will. Who was she to have her wretched little belongings sent down to her in a motor-car? He was obliged to assert himself, to proclaim his independence and his superiority. He stood outside the door with his finger on the bell so that it rang in one long, maddening clamour, and he kicked at the door. He made an outrageous noise.

Angelica came flying down the hall in a fury, and flung open the door.

"What do you mean?" she cried. "Where do you think you are, anyway?"

Courtland stared at her for a minute. Then, making an imaginary lorgnette of his thumb and forefinger, he peered through it, bending forward from the waist in a preposterous and unseemly attitude.

"Aeoh!" he exclaimed, in a simpering voice. "I beg your pawdon, I’m suah! I forgot myself, really, don’tcher know! If you will kindly permit me to enter this mansion, I will deliver to you this package of jools sent by the dook!"

"Give it to me and shut your mouth," said Angelica.

"What’s all this?" called Mrs. Kennedy from her bed. "Who is it, Angie?"

"Only the chauffeur. He brought some of my things," her daughter answered in a contemptuous tone.

There was something about her child’s words and tone that jarred upon Mrs. Kennedy. She came out of the bedroom in her new flannel wrapper, and addressed Courtland with ceremonious politeness.

"I’m sure we’re very much obliged to you," she said. "Won’t you step in? Maybe you’d take a cup of tea, and rest a few minutes?"

"Rest!" said Angelica. "He never does anything else!"

Courtland ignored her.

"I don’t care if I do," he said to Mrs. Kennedy, and followed her into the kitchen, where he sat down heavily on the step-ladder chair. "I’m as tired as a dawg," he said, with his invariable air of grievance. "It’s enough to make you sick--driving that woman all over the country. No more consideration, she’s got, than a--than a dawg!"

"Well," said Mrs. Kennedy, "I suppose that’s what you’re paid for."

"I know it!" he agreed, plaintively. "That’s all right; but then what does she want to be telling me I’m too good to be a chauffeur for? She says there’s lots of fellows in college hasn’t got my brains. And this golf! There she’s got me the bag of clubs that cost Gawd knows what, and she just started showing me the way to use them. She said I was doing fine, and then, all of a sudden, she dropped it, and never said another word about it. I waited. After a while I began putting the bag of clubs in the car, to remind her. No, not a word! So I says to her to-day, ‘What about this here golf?’ And she says, with that grin of hers, ‘Oh, I hawdly think it’s worth while going on. I’m afraid it was a mistake’--and tells me I can sell the clubs!"

"What of it?" inquired Mrs. Kennedy. "They’re no good to you. I can’t see any sense in your learning to play golf. I can’t see what you have to complain of."

"Oh, it’s the way them rich people pick you up and then drop you that makes me sick! Who is _she_, anyway? An old----”

"You shouldn’t say that!" said Mrs. Kennedy, severely.

She was well enough used to bad language not to be shocked, but she was displeased.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Angelica, "after all she’s done for you."

"I don’t want her to do nothing for me. I want her to let me alone. Listen here--you wouldn’t stand up for her if you knew the way she talks about you. I had the two of them out the other day, and they were fighting about you all the time. _She_ said you was no good, and she guessed you’d stole things off her; but Mrs. G., she says no, you’re all right. Then _she_ says you’d make trouble in the house, and Mrs. G. says, ‘Well, ain’t there enough trouble there anyway? What do we care if we get a little more? _I_ want her back,’ she says. ‘All right,’ says the old lady, ‘have her, if you want her, but don’t kick if you find your hus----’”

Angelica had grown scarlet.

"My Gawd, what a lot you talk!" she said. "You better be starting home."

He eyed her with resentment.

"I’ll go!" he said. "Don’t you worry!"

After Courtland had gone, Mrs. Kennedy attempted to reprove her daughter for her bad manners, but Angelica insisted autocratically that she must go to bed at once.

"You shouldn’t get up at all," she told her mother.

"The doctor said it wouldn’t hurt me--just around the flat."

"Not at night! You’d ought to know better. You ought to be asleep by this time. Now, listen here, mommer!" she added firmly, as she saw signs of rebellion. "If you don’t do what I say, I’m not going to stay and take care of you. The doctor said _rest_. Well, this isn’t rest. You got to go to bed this instant!"

So did she rid herself of the necessity for talking, for listening, for recognizing the external world. She was irritable at the very least disturbance; her joy had gone, and left a bitter impatience. Five days before she could go back to that enchanted house where Vincent lived, to be again under the same roof, sitting at the same table! Five days lost out of life, out of her best years!

She was a little surprised and rather pleased at her own lack of morality. She really didn’t care a bit, didn’t feel in the least shocked or distressed, at loving a married man; nor did she hesitate for an instant at the prospect of going off with him. She believed that was what he meant; very well, she was ready!

She would leave her poor little mother desolate, she would humiliate and affront the kindly Polly, she would leave Eddie overwhelmed by disgrace and grief, and still she didn’t care. She was deceiving her mother, deceiving Polly, shamefully deceiving Eddie, and she didn’t care. On the contrary, she was rather proud of it. She felt that such insolent wickedness had in it more than a little magnificence of the sort possessed by the magnificent women of the past.

Oh, the world was well lost for Vincent, her poet lover! She read his letter again and cried over it--she who had shed so few tears in her life.

II

But in spite of all her hardihood, her pride in her love, she couldn’t help feeling a great dread of Eddie. She didn’t like to face him. She had a silly idea that by merely looking at her he might know all that her heart contained; and although he so much admired magnificence, she had no delusion as to his admiring this!

She got ready on Saturday afternoon in a state of great nervousness that subdued even her eagerness to be with Vincent again. She hadn’t seen either of the brothers for the past five days; Eddie had telephoned every day, but there had been no word at all from Vincent.

That didn’t trouble her, however. She felt that she and Vincent understood each other absolutely, no matter how long or how far apart they were. Just as she thought of him, he thought of her, longed for her. Her only trouble was this dread; if only it were not Eddie who were taking her to him! It seemed to cast a shadow upon the boldness and beauty of their love to dupe a creature so blameless and so generous as Eddie.

He was late. It had grown dark, and the lamp in the parlour was lighted, and she and her mother sat in there, talking--a word now and then, and long, long silences. They had nothing to say to each other. Angelica’s heart had flown forward to meet her lover, while her mother’s brain struggled wearily with the problems of the minute, of the next week, of some one’s ironing, some one else’s scrubbing, of whether she were going to earn enough to keep herself from getting ill again. They were effectually separated now.

Came a brisk ring at the bell, and Mrs. Kennedy went to open the door.

"Come in, sir!" Angelica heard her say.

"Mrs. Kennedy?" replied Eddie’s voice. "I hope you’re better?"

"Thank you, sir, I’m quite well again. Won’t you step in?"

Angelica greeted him with an uncertain smile; she didn’t know what his attitude would be. But he was certainly not vexed, or cold, or suspicious; he was simply excited, not himself.

"Well!" he said. "I’ve done it!"

"Done what?" she asked.

"I’ve enlisted."

"You’re going to the war?"

"Yes."

"But I thought you didn’t approve of it. You said it was beastly, and everything."

"Yes, I do think so; but----”

He hesitated, frowning. He didn’t know how to explain; didn’t, as a matter of fact, honestly wish to explain. His motive in going was purely selfish; he hoped in battle to make more of a man of himself, to glorify himself. It was the same impulse which sent him to historical books and to tremendous days of work--his earnest, priggish, sublime desire to perfect himself. He believed--like how many others!--that he would come back from the war a new man.

"I think I ought to go," he said, and was immediately ashamed of this self-righteous phrase.

Angelica, to tell the truth, was not much impressed by the war. It never stirred or moved her much at any time. She felt neither belligerent nor pacifist. She simply took it for granted. She was one of those peasant natures for whom it is quite impossible to feel either love or hate in the abstract. She could have hated with royal hatred a German who molested her, but she had no ill-will toward a German who invaded Belgium. And as for fine phrases about it, her rough and vigorous mind rejected them all. Ought to go? Why ought he to go? Just what did he expect to accomplish?

However, she didn’t say this, any more than she allowed the least hint of her great relief to show. That was the first thought that crossed her mind--how much better it would be if Eddie were away!

Mrs. Kennedy shook her head.

"It’s too bad!" she said. "Think of your poor mother!"

Eddie could find nothing to say to that.

"Suppose you should be killed?" Mrs. Kennedy went on, with a sort of severity, as if she were speaking to a person who persistently sat in a draft.

"It wouldn’t matter very much," said Eddie, with a faint smile. "Good night, Mrs. Kennedy! Be sure to take care of yourself!"

Angelica followed him out and climbed into the car beside him. Those last words of his had hurt her, had brought to her mind the thought of his loneliness, and memories of his kindnesses and of his little, oddly touching traits. She was pursued by a great remorse and a great regret.

"I’m _sorry_ you’re going!" she said, with a break in her voice.

"I know you are; but don’t be sentimental about it. I couldn’t stand that. Be cheerful!"

"I’m not sentimental," she said, forcing her voice to be steady. "Only--I think a lot of you. Every one’ll miss you."

"No!" replied Eddie. "No one will miss me, except perhaps you. No one else at all, Angelica."

They were spinning along dark country roads now, and he could not see her stealthy tears. She was thinking--wasn’t she perhaps a fool to let him go?

"Oh, I am sorry!" she said again. "I wish I could have----”

"I know!" he said. "You can’t help it. I--don’t blame you. I’m not lovable."

"You are!"

"No, I’m not. There’s nothing about me that a girl like you could fall in love with. I know that with women that’s the chief thing--love; but men are made of coarser stuff. Even if you didn’t love me, Angelica, I--I wish you would marry me. I’m not boasting, but I could do a great deal for you. If you could only hear how other men speak of me! I’m doing bigger things in business--all the time. I--I know I seem like a fool. Maybe I am, at home; but I’m not a fool in finance. I’ll be one of the richest men in the country some day, Angelica."

"I never thought you were a fool. Indeed, I think you’re wonderful. I think you’re--I’m sure you’ll do whatever you set out to do."

"But wouldn’t you like to help me? Things are so muddled and wasteful at home now. If I had a wife like you, Angelica, to manage there for me, while I’m away! I _need_ you so much!"

"Oh, deary!" she cried. "Please don’t! I’m so sorry, but I just can’t!"

He drove silently for a long time, until the lights of that home of his--named with such Eddie-like pomposity--came into view. Then he said, quite serenely and kindly:

"I’ll be your friend, anyway, Angelica--always!"