Chapter FOURTEEN: I

The parlour now rejoiced in a new and pretty little "set," put in there only the week before in order to receive the visits of Eddie. On one of the chairs sat Mrs. Kennedy, dressed in silk, her hair skilfully fluffed by her daughter, her hands manicured, her feet in soft new boots. She was well aware that she had never looked so common, so perfectly the janitress and scrubwoman. Her strained, haggard face, her faded eyes, her blunted and withered hands belied her fine attire. They could have belonged only to a woman who had worked brutally and hopelessly. She was years younger than Mrs. Russell, but she might have passed for her mother.

Her patient hands were folded in her silken lap; she had nothing to do, and very little to think about. The blasphemous triumph was accomplished; she was about to see Sin crowned and rewarded, Innocence betrayed and abandoned--in other words, Angelica married to Eddie. She was disgusted with life, thoroughly disappointed with her God. She took no pleasure in these preparations, or in any of the comforts and enjoyments before her. Nothing sustained her but a vague sort of hope that her just God would retrieve Himself by stopping this wedding in some way--with thunderbolts, or the flaming swords of archangels. And she was well aware that one couldn’t really count upon anything of that sort.

Out in the kitchen she could hear the servant--she, the charwoman, servant of servants, sitting in the parlour while another woman drudged for her! In half an hour an automobile was coming to take them to the church, and then they were going off to Buena Vista, going to leave all this poverty and humiliation behind forever. She had been given to understand that she wasn’t to _live_ with her child, only to visit until a suitable home could be found for her. She was to have an apartment and a servant all of her own; she was to furnish the place as she wished, and she was to be provided with a new wardrobe.

"And start a new life," Angelica told her.

"I’ll need to!" said Mrs. Kennedy. "This one is about done."

And although a great deal of this was paid for by Angie herself, out of the money she had saved, her mother had never expressed gratitude. She didn’t feel any. She had never at any moment of her life been so utterly dissatisfied.

She glanced at the new clock.

"Angie!" she called. "What are you doing?"

"Dressing!" called back a gay, a too gay voice.

"He’ll be here in half an hour."

"I’ll be ready!"

II

She was standing before the mirror in the bedroom, adjusting her hat, very delicately touching her hair under its net, tilting her head from side to side, frowning thoughtfully, trying to foresee the effect she would produce upon Sillon and Devery, Mrs. Russell and Polly, who would be in the church. She pictured herself and Eddie walking up the aisle--Eddie still in uniform, tall, severe, impressive, and beside him his beautiful young bride. She was wearing a plain dark brown broadcloth suit, a big black hat, and a magnificent set of silver fox furs Eddie had given her. She looked like a princess. They couldn’t, any of them, find a flaw in her--in her appearance or in her bearing. None of those born ladies could approach her. She looked what she was determined actually to be, the equal of any one of them. There was a position ready for her, and she was competent to fill it.

Eddie had been so delighted with the change in her. She hadn’t seen much of him since his return at the end of the war, but all his hours with her had been a perpetual service of praise. He had hurried to her his first free minute; he had wanted to give her anything, everything--extravagantly and ridiculously. He had been tactful and kindly with the rather contemptuous Mrs. Kennedy. He had been to see Devery and Sillon, and had won their hearts. He had been quite perfect.

And all these thoughts were merely flitting across her mind like birds flying above a frozen pond. Under the ice were horrors beyond naming. She did her utmost to ignore them, to think of those things as dead and buried and forever gone from her world; but she could not.

All that night she had been dreaming of her drowned lover, floating, horribly, in the sea; and with him, directly beside him, her baby--_their_ baby--its little body extended like his, its tiny white face upturned. And she and Eddie sat on the deck of a ship, she facing these two corpses which came smoothly along behind them, and she was using all her wit, all her charm, to keep Eddie from turning his head and seeing them.

The dream haunted her and mingled with her wretched thoughts. For now that she was within a stone’s throw of her goal, now that the cup was in her hand, to be raised to her lips, she was filled with a desperate impatience, a terrible fever of haste and fear. Her hands were burning, her knees weak and trembling.

"Oh, just this one more hour!" she murmured. "If only, only, _only_ nothing will happen!"

She looked past the moment, to the haven of happy years beyond, as a man sailing a perilous channel might look ahead to the wide and quiet sea beyond.

"Something will happen!" she told herself. "At the last minute some one will tell him--scream it out in the church--stop the wedding. Oh, God! Just help me now! Let me get safely married to Eddie, and I’ll try my best to be good!"

She was conscious of being a little too pallid, too worn, and she rubbed on her smooth cheeks a little rouge. It looked horrible, and she wiped it off frantically.

"No! It must be my eyes that look so queer. I wonder if Eddie’ll notice, and think I look queer! It might make him suspicious."

She forced herself to smile.

"Of course I’m nervous," she said. "Every one is. It’s nothing--nothing at all!"

She suppressed a scream when the door-bell rang. She listened, behind her half-closed door, until she heard Eddie’s voice talking quite in his usual tone to her mother. No one called her. Nothing had happened.

She stood still, in a sort of daze, getting no further forward in her dressing, until her mother entered the room.

"He’s going to take me down and put me in the auto," said Mrs. Kennedy. "Then he’s coming back after you. You’d better hurry. It’s late, and I don’t see any use for you to be keeping all those people waiting. That’s not a very good way to begin."

"All right!" said her daughter hurriedly. "Go on, mother!"

She set to work in haste to add the finishing touches to her dress, fastening the little bar pin with diamonds given her by Mrs. Russell, drawing on her white kid gloves.

She heard him coming. She heard him stop at the kitchen door, and tell the woman working in the kitchen that she might go. Then he came and knocked at her door.

"Ready, Angelica?" he called out.

She gave one glance in the mirror; then she opened the door with a forced, polite smile. There stood the poor soldier who wished to give her all he had--poor, ardent Eddie, longing so to take her back to his beloved home, and give it into her keeping. He stood in the doorway of her little room, looking at her, and he too was smiling--a smile as strained, as artificial as her own.

"Angelica!" he said softly.

He had grown quite pallid, as he did when deeply moved, and his hands clenched and unclenched nervously. His face, his expression, had changed. He was struggling his utmost to look, and to be, tender and respectful; but his heart was beating with an emotion neither tender nor respectful. He wiped his damp forehead, and came a step nearer, always smiling, but with eyes strangely brilliant and fixed.

"No!" said Angelica sharply. She knew how he felt--she knew too well how he felt. It sickened and shamed her.

"My darling girl!" said Eddie. "_My_ Angelica!"

"Don’t!" she said. "_Don’t_ say that! I’m not!"

"But you will be, very soon! I----”

"We ought to go, Eddie. It’s late!"

"Then kiss me, just once!"

She shook her head with a ghastly affectation of coquetry.

"No," she said. "You’ll have to wait!"

"Just as you like, Angelica," said the poor fellow. "You know, don’t you, dear girl, that my chief wish in life is to make you happy? I wouldn’t for----”

"Then do come on, or I’ll think you don’t want to marry me at all!"

He turned instantly, and she followed him--just to the door of her room; but no farther. He looked back.

"Aren’t you ready?" he asked.

"Eddie!" she cried in a high, dreadful voice. "Eddie! _I can’t do it!_"

"Can’t do what?" he asked, startled.

"I can’t do it! I can’t marry you! Not unless I tell you!"

He stared at her for an instant, his quick and clear mind at work upon this.

"What is there to tell me?" he asked. "Let’s have it!" He was alert and suspicious now. "Come on! Let’s have it!" he repeated.

"Eddie!" she began, but a great horror at her own folly assailed her.

She felt impelled toward this abyss, while she struggled madly to turn aside, aghast at the destruction before her. Perhaps even now it wasn’t too late; perhaps she could disarm the suspicion that she had aroused, could stop, and not tell him any more.

Thank God, it wasn’t too late! She _hadn’t_ told him. She felt like a person cutting his own throat--the knife had only pricked--he is still alive, and in a mad exultation of thankfulness.

She smiled.

"I--I got engaged to another fellow," she said; "but it’s all over now."

"When? Who was it?"

"Last year."

"Who was it, I say?"

"He was--a--a factory superintendent," said Angelica. "But it’s all over now. I’m awfully, awfully sorry, Eddie."

"You mean you--engaged yourself to this fellow while I was in France? After you’d promised to marry me?"

"I know it was--wrong; but I hope you’ll forgive me, Eddie!"

"Yes," he said, "I forgive you, Angelica; but oh, how _could_ you? I’m so disappointed in you! It was so dishonourable! It was--low."

"I know! I know! I know!" she cried, with an uncontrollable impatience. "But--forgive me and forget all about it. I’m so sorry. What more can I say?"

"Did he--did you let him--kiss you?"

"Yes!" she murmured.

"Angelica!"

"Oh, but I’m _sorry_!" she cried desperately.

Eddie stood looking at the floor for an instant; then, with fierce suddenness, he caught her by the arm and pulled her forward, so that he could look into her face.

"Look here!" he shouted. "How far did this thing go?"

"It was nothing!" she cried.

"You said he kissed you. You said you were engaged to him. Some coarse, common brute of a workman mauling you--I know those people--I know their love-making. God, Angelica! You make me _sick_! You’ve no fineness, no--decency!" he cried.

He searched her face with eyes that terrified her.

"I don’t believe you," he said suddenly.

"But, Eddie----” she stammered.

"I don’t believe you!" he said again. "You’re lying. This fellow was your lover!"

"Oh, don’t!" she cried.

"Answer me! Tell me the truth!"

"No! I did! I did tell you the truth. There was nothing--like that."

"Swear it! Say, ‘I swear to God I was absolutely faithful to you all the time you were away.’"

His eyes never left her face; but she repeated, firmly:

"I swear to God I was absolutely faithful to you all the time you were away."

He looked puzzled. He sat down heavily in a chair and covered his eyes with his hand.

"I’m sorry," he said. "I didn’t mean to be so rough. Only--it’s a terrible disappointment to me, Angelica. I never imagined such a thing. I almost wish you hadn’t told me. I keep seeing you and some hulking fellow in overalls----”

She was sobbing bitterly, standing before him like a forlorn and penitent child.

"Don’t cry!" he said more kindly. "Don’t cry, my dear. I’ll try to forget it. I’ll try!"

"Will it--not make any difference?" she sobbed.

"I’ll try not to let it. Only, Angelica--it was often so hard--over there--not to--so hard to be true to you--not even to think of any one else; and when I think of it, and how I hated myself, even for my thoughts--I feel like a _fool_. I don’t believe you’d have cared _what_ I did. You don’t feel as I do. You don’t value loyalty as I do."

She seized this opening.

"No!" she cried. "I shouldn’t have cared, one bit, whatever you did, if only we love each other now!"

"No, don’t! I don’t like to hear you say that. I want you to care, as I do. I want you to be fine and--high-minded."

"Eddie, I’m not. There’s no use pretending that I am."

"I don’t want you to pretend to be. I want you to try to be."

"I will!"

He was silent for a time.

"Now, then!" he said. "It won’t do to keep them all waiting any longer. Are you quite ready?"

"Do you mean for us to get married just the same?"

"Of course!" he said. "I couldn’t be such a prig. I’ve simply got to forget what you’ve told me, and thank Heaven that I’ve got you after all. You might have married the fellow!"

He was his own kind self again, but she could see that his great pride in her, his great joy, were gone.

"Come!" he said again. "We shall be very late."

But she prevented him from leaving. She caught him by the arm and stood before him, looking up into his face.

"Eddie!" she cried, with a gasp that seemed to tear her heart out. "I’ve _got_ to! I can’t deceive you. Oh, _God_! It’s so awful!"

He didn’t move or speak.

"Eddie," she said, "it _was_ that!"

"Ah, it was!" he said, in a tone of polite surprise.

"I had a baby."

A shudder ran through him, and he closed his eyes in mortal pain.

"You can’t ever know what I suffered! Oh, Eddie, Eddie, I’ve been punished enough for what I did! And the poor little baby----”

"Never mind!" he said, in a voice so low that she could hardly hear him. "Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to know." He undid her fingers from his arm. "I want to get away," he said. "Good-by!"

But she stopped him again.

"And the man was _Vincent_!" she screamed. "Now! Now! _Now_ you know!"