Chapter VIII: Part 8

"Only a snaffle-rein! Why I would never think of riding that rascal myself without a curb. Hayward," he called to the footman, who was passing, "what kind of carelessness is this?--your sending the Prince to Mr. Scott with only a snaffle-rein? You know very well that brute cannot be controlled without a curb. I'm surprised at you. Such a lack of sense as that is almost criminal. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Don't repeat that performance--see to it you don't!"

As Helen was standing in a yard of her father, Hayward heard this stinging rebuke in unalloyed surprise, but as she made no demur, he saluted when the President was done, and said only:

"Yes, sir; it shall not occur again, sir."

When her father had spoken so sharply to the footman Helen had turned to Mr. Scott, expecting him to exonerate Hayward; but Caroline Whitney's look of genuine sympathy when Mr. Phillips spoke of that brute's being uncontrollable without the curb bribed the bedraggled young man to silence. Helen saw Caroline's glance, and caught the reason for Bobby's lack of candour, but she was disgusted with him.

She was uncomfortable because of the injustice her silence had done, for she was of an eminently fair mind: and she told her father the whole truth of the affair at the first opportunity....

She could not see how Hayward bore himself so composedly under the undeserved rebuke. If he would abase himself thus, would barter his self-respect, would lick the hand that smote him, in order that he might obtain his commission--if he would sell his manhood for it--for anything--he would be contemptible in her sight.... Again the question came: Why was he a footman? She could not remember that he had ever answered it. Oh, yes,--the idea had but just recurred to her--she would read _Ruy Blas_.

So, on a long summer's afternoon she read _Ruy Blas_--read the tale of the love of a flunkey for his Queen: and while, when the idea finally dawned upon her, and she first clearly understood the significance of it all, she was-- But let us not detail that.

* * * * *

Helen and Hayward Graham were married on a day in late October.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

The chronicler of these events is aware that to the readers of this history the bare statement of the fact that Helen and her footman were wed comes as a shock. Nevertheless, it was a plain and straightforward path by which a careless and pitiless Fate had blindly brought Helen to her husband. A girl, treading by chance such a way as has been followed since the world was young by the feet of maidens of high degree who have loved below their station,--among the accidents and incidents of her romance she had come, unwitting, to an open door, an ill-placed door not designed for her passage, a "door of hope for the negro race" which her idolized father had thought to fashion and set wide: and she had passed it through--in reverse.

A secret marriage was not characteristic of Helen's ideas. She was betrayed into that by her warm impulsiveness. She had had a beautiful programme arranged for the fates to follow in. With a heart full of love and of dreams, and with faith in a future that would order itself at her bidding, she had planned the whole course of events that should lead up to a resplendent army wedding after Hayward had won his commission. She never doubted for a moment that all her roseate imaginings would come to pass, and railed upon him that he had not her faith: for Hayward was a doubter. The sheer altitude of his good fortune made him fearful and distrustful.

For the twentieth time she told off to him on her finger-tips the order in which his fortune should ascend.

--"And then, when you are an officer--and famous--you will marry--me."

"But that may never be," the man had answered. "Suppose the Senate should refuse to confirm my nomination? By your condition I should lose the commission and--infinitely more--you. If your love and faith are supreme you will marry me whether I win or lose."

"You shall not doubt my love or faith," Helen exclaimed impetuously. "I will marry you now, and as the President's son-in-law you can the more surely succeed. The Senators would not offer a personal affront to--"

"But I must bring this honour to you, not you to me," Hayward interrupted; "and, besides that, while I willingly, gladly, here and now, surrender all hope of this commission for ever and for ever if only you will marry me now, it is only fair to you for me to remind you that your father would never appoint his own son-in-law to a lieutenancy in the army."

"Oh, bother!" Helen protested. "I have my heart set on being a soldier's wife. Of course Papa couldn't give a commission to one of his family--what was I thinking about.... Well, there's nothing to do but wait, I suppose."

"And it may be an endless wait if the commission is to come first," Hayward reiterated. "It was an awful temptation to silence a moment ago when you said you'd marry me now, but I could not trick you into it, knowing how much you desire that commission."

Helen's mind worked rapidly for half a minute.

"But I _will_ marry you--and _now_!" she cried. The girl's romantic spirit was aroused and her spontaneous, unsophisticated feminine ideal of love was in the ascendant. "I will _prove_ my love and faith. I will marry you now, and you may claim me when you have won your laurels. Let the Senate refuse you a commission if they dare!"

"And would you be willing to trust me to keep that secret?" Hayward asked. "I almost would be afraid to trust myself--I would want to yell it from the housetops! Married to you and not tell it! Why, it would just tell itself to any open-eyed man who looked at me."

"No, no," Helen answered. "I'm willing to trust you. It's a hardship that cannot be avoided, and we must make the best of it."

* * * * *

"And now," Helen had given her husband a last laughing admonition, "since we must be clandestine against our wills, let's be romantic to the last most fiercely orthodox degree. No love-lit glances or conscious looks. You be a perfect footman with that indifferent and superior and high-and-mighty air while you can, for when your bondage actually begins you will never swagger again; and I will be so haughty as almost to spurn your very presence. We must make no foolish attempts at conversation, and when we write must deliver our letters personally into the hand, not trusting even the mails with our secret. And then, when you become an officer we will give the dear people the surprise of their lives. My! won't it be fun to see them! And it may be that when the time comes we will not tell them that we are already married, but will have another ceremony, a brilliant army affair such as I have set my heart on. Wouldn't that be gorgeous!"

"I hardly would have acquaintances enough among the officers to provide my share of the attendants," Hayward answered.

"Oh, yes, you would. You would make then fast enough," the girl replied. "An American army officer has the entree everywhere--I've heard papa say so a score of times--and, besides, Mr. Humility, I suppose that my friends among the officers would be numerous enough to fill all vacancies."

Hayward saw clearly wherein his wife's forecasts were faulty; but it profited nothing to take issue with her enthusiasms and he gladly joined in them. She was his wife--that could not be changed; and he felt that with that a fact accomplished he reasonably might work for, and hope for, and expect, anything. He returned to his work in the city, therefore, overflowing with happiness and pride. It was not surprising that as a White House footman he was more than ever the subject of notice and comment, for never one carried a perfect physique with such an air. If his confident swing and tread had been the expression of personal vanity, it had been insufferable; but love is not insolent nor its struttings offensive.

Hayward was on good terms with the world. For the first time he accepted the overbearing manner of superiority of white men with complacency and even with amusement. His time was coming--he could wait. He went so far as almost to invite affronts from several negroes of more or less prominence, who had aforetime rebuffed his advances, in order, as it were, to keep their offences in pickle so that their chagrin might be more keen when the day of his elevation should come. He was at particular pains to keep Henry Porter's opposition going, and smiled when he thought how thoroughly he would pay him off in his own coin.

For a few weeks he put himself with buoyant determination to the regular study of his text-books, which he had theretofore read with more or less intermittent interest, and began to lay out plans for the political campaign which would be necessary to bring about the issuing and confirmation of his commission. He arranged with a personal friend, a lawyer in New Hampshire, for the transmission of all correspondence and papers relating to the matter in the name of John H. Graham through this lawyer's hands,--thus to conceal from the President even after the request for the appointment had been made the fact that his footman was the applicant.

The thinking out and arranging of these details and the first rush of his attack upon his military studies engrossed him for a month or more in every moment he was off duty. So closely did he hold himself that Lily Porter reproved him gently for his remissness several times before he made his first call upon her. He was really working very hard--in his leisure hours. He had completely reversed the order of work and diversion. To the one-time monotony of his daily tasks he was now held by the fascination of chance moments of speech--most often conventional, occasionally personal, always delightful--with the radiant young woman his wife, upon whom even to look in silence was enough to send his blood a-leap. Every day from the very first he took time from his work of preparation to write to her.... The habit grew. At first briefly, though always with fervent protestations, and, as the days and weeks ran on, more and more at length and with livening heat did he put his heart-beats in his letters.... The habit grew too fast. By the time that Congress met and the currents of the great capital were in full swing, the forces of Hayward's love had eaten into his ambition's boundaries and the time that he gave to thoughts of Helen, and in seeking variant and worthy phrases in which to indite his passion, more than equalled that in which he worked to earn those things which by her decree should precede possession of her.... It was hard not to stop and think of her. He wrote:

"You disturb me in my work. You ride ruthlessly through the plans of battle and campaign my textbooks show, and make sixes and sevens of them. At sight of you the heaviest lines of battle dissolve into thin air and into mist the fastest fortress falls. At the coming thought of you brigades and armies melt away, and your face stands out a radiant evangel of peace, the very thought even of wars and turbulences dispelling.... What am I to do? I cannot chain myself to study the science of strife when this heavenly vision is calling me--and it is ever calling--to love and love only.... I am fully persuaded there is only one thing worth thinking on in all the earth--and that is you."

* * * * *

His wife's letters were all that mortal man could desire, but only the more distracting for all that. They were always short, but grew in warmth as the sense of freedom grew upon the writer. Hayward devoured them with increasing hunger, and with the ever-recurring, never varying signature, "Your wife," spark upon spark of impatience was enkindled with his love. Finally he must of very necessity have some vent for his restlessness. He sought diversion in the society of Lily Porter. In fact he could with difficulty avoid her: she too had set her heart on an army wedding.

Hayward had only the very kindliest of purposes toward Lily. He had continued his correspondence with her during the summer. For the sake of his plans unfolded to her in their last meeting before his going away he could not break abruptly away from her--though the task of remaining on friendly terms and yet not proceeding with the suit so nearly openly avowed was a serious tax upon his resources and ingenuity. In his apprehension "the fury of a woman scorned" loomed fearful and threatening. The object of his apprehensions, on the other hand, while she felt rather than saw the subtle change in him, was yet flattered by his unaccustomed submissiveness to her caprices and experienced delightful thrills of expectancy as she waited for a trembling confession to crown his new-found humility.

"Lily," her father had said to her on a morning after one of Hayward's scattered visits, "I tol' you once to drop that feller and I hoped you'd done it. Understan' I don' want any footman comin' here. We ain't in that class. You ought to have mo' respec' for yourse'f. What you want with a servant hangin' roun' you when you can take your pick of the professional men in town, I can't see."

"Don't worry about me, papa," the girl sang as she danced over to the piano, "I'll wed a military-tary man."

"Well, thank Heaven you ain't got no idee of marryin' that Hayward. I'll make it wuth while for you to marry a professional or a military man either one, but none of my money for a footman, I tell you now."

"No footman for me either, papa. I'll not marry a footman, I promise you. I tell you I'm thinking of a military man."

"Not that Ohio major who was here with the troops at the inauguration? I'd forgot all about him," her father questioned.

"He's not the only soldier in sight, but don't you think he would do in a pinch?" Lily had forgotten about him too, till her father mentioned him.

"I'd better look into that and see what sort of a feller he is," said the father jokingly, greatly relieved in mind.

"Maybe you had," the daughter replied insinuatingly.

Lily had as many aristocratic notions as her father. More, in fact. Her promise was sincerely given. It was only when Hayward had told her of his purpose and prospect of becoming an officer that he had broken through her reserve. While she had always liked him she had never had any idea of marrying a footman. But an officer in the army!--she would have capitulated on that evening she heard his story but for her father's timely appearance. The idea had grown upon her since, and she loved to reflect upon it and plan for the outcome; though she had had time to collect her thoughts and decide not to precipitate or render a final decision till the commission was in the footman's name. She really had to hold herself firmly in hand to manage it so, for she loved the young fellow with a whole-hearted fervour, and of his love for her she was blissfully assured.

The girl was developing quite an interest in military matters. In one of their not unusual discussions of Hayward's career it was arranged that at his first convenient opportunity he should accompany her out to Fort Myer to see a parade. Hayward went for her on his first half holiday--rather, he went with her, for she drove him out in her own stanhope. As they were turning a corner they were halted for a moment in a knot of vehicles. Lily was driving and Hayward was talking to her with so much interest in her and in what he was saying to her that he was oblivious to the things about them.... He was accustomed to sit quiet and indifferent while another driver solved the problems of the streets.... The first thing that diverted his attention from the girl beside him was the small red-white-and-blue White House cockades on the headstalls of a pair of horses just drawing ahead of Lily's cob. He glanced quickly across to the carriage--and met the full gaze of his wife's eyes. She was sitting on the front seat of the landau facing to the rear, and her eyes were upon him for a half minute at very close range. Helen looked away several times in her effort to be unconscious of his presence. But she could not be perfectly oblivious or withhold her glances altogether. She had heard the very speech--the very gallant speech--Hayward was making.

Lily looked about to find the cause of collapse in her escort's talk, and saw the man's peculiar look at Helen, whom she knew by sight. She accounted for his confusion at once, but the blush that came to the young Miss Phillips' cheek and her evident self-consciousness were so unaccountable as to be puzzling. She searched Hayward's face keenly for an explanation of his young mistress's behaviour--and he did not bear the scrutiny with entire nonchalance. Lily felt insulted in a way.

"I hope she will know us next time she sees us," she said snappishly.

No answer from Hayward; though he felt like a traitor for letting the implied criticism go unchallenged.

"You must hurry and get your commission. It seems to disturb the fine lady to see her footman enjoy the privileges of a gentleman. No doubt she thinks it impertinent for a servant to deal in gallant speeches at all, especially such a beautiful sentiment as she must have heard you speaking."

Lily had hit the mark in the centre--but of course she did not know it. That finely turned sentiment which he had thrown out with such impromptu grace and rhetorical finish was taken word for word from his last letter to his wife, and he had puzzled his brain for an hour in the choosing and setting of the dozen words in which it sparkled. There was nothing particularly personal in that dozen words, but how was Helen to know but that they had been strung upon the same thread in the man's conversation with his unknown companion as they were in the letter lying at that moment upon her own bosom.

Hayward did not enjoy the afternoon with Lily. He had hoped Helen had not heard what he was saying, but Lily's statement of opinion that she had heard seemed to put the matter beyond doubt. He came home quite disturbed in mind. He debated to himself whether to write to Helen or wait for her answer to his last letter. He decided not to plead till he was accused.

With the next morning came--no letter. Night--no letter. Another morning--no letter. He wrote:

"Why do you not write to me--and why is your face so cold?"

The answer came: "Who is that woman? She is not your sister--for your sister would not look at you like that--no, nor would you look at your sister like that--nor would you say such a speech to your sister. Who is she? And what right has such a woman, what right has any woman to hear what your letters have said to me? That sentiment is mine--you gave it to me. It is mine, _mine_--do you understand?--and you take it and fritter it away on that--who is she? Keep away from her."

"The woman is a very good friend of mine," Hayward wrote in reply, "_and nothing more_. The words you overheard were spoken to her, I swear to you, in no such connection as they were written in my letter to you. If I had thought that you would so value them and consider them your very own I never would have 'frittered them away' on any person, believe me. Do be forgiving and remember that men are not so finely wrought as women. Only a woman--only you, the most finely wrought of women--ever would have conceived such a nicety of conduct for a lover. There are good reasons why I cannot keep away from the young lady as you request. I wish I could, since you desire it. She is Miss Lily Porter, and a most estimable young woman. I am indebted to her for very much that goes to make life bearable. She is a great musician and has filled with pleasure for me many an hour that otherwise would have been monotonous and dead. Please do not decree that I shall not hear her sing. To listen to her is such a cooling, refreshing oasis in the dry-hot barrenness of a workaday life; and I declare to you my love for you grows warmer if possible in hearing the ballads that she sings, and to the lullabies she hums so beautifully I dream alone of you. Believe me when I swear that nothing can affect the perfect singleness of my devotion,--and let your face shine upon me. It was so cold yesterday that a most horrible dream came to me last night: they were hunting us with bloodhounds to take you away from me! Just think, I have not so much as touched your hand since the preacher so hurriedly made us one--only your eyes have been mine, and now you withdraw them from me! Oh my queen, smile upon me!"

*CHAPTER XXV*

Helen's reply to Hayward's pleading letter was for the most part reassuring and he felt that the incident of the drive with Lily Porter was closed: but the pains of love were only beginning to be upon him.

Helen's letters grew briefer and briefer. There was no lack of affection shown in them, but the expression was not so elaborate as at first. She was in the rush of preparation for her debut, and less and less was she free to write. Occasionally, as if in specific answer to his prayer and to atone for her shortcomings, she smiled upon him with such warmth that his heart-hunger was appeased. Only for a space, however, did that satisfy. The desire came back with redoubled fury the instant the intoxication was off.

Like any other sufferer from intoxicants he had his periods of depression. In such moments he felt that his marriage was a mockery, that Helen was not his, would never be his, could never be his. Long odds were against his getting his commission--even if the President signed it the Senate would never confirm it. The fight would be too long, and the issue hopeless--he could not win--his colour was too great a handicap--curse it! A negro,--yes, a negro--and white men so insufferably unjust to a negro--curse them all!--curse the whole white-faced race!--save only her--she was his--yes, she _was_ his--his by love and law--they could not take her from him, and he would have her yet despite the whine of all the purblind, race-proud Senators who might oppose his confirmation--curse them all! curse them all!!

Such moods were happily intermittent. Again he was himself--a man among men--already a winner--the crowned king of Helen's heart--the President's son-in-law. Away with doubt! To whom so much had come with ease everything would come with effort. Confidence uplifted him.

* * * * *

Helen's debut was an event of note. No need for her to be the President's daughter to make it so. Her sensational beauty needed not the stamp of official rank to give it currency, nor the sparkle of her manner and speech any studied purpose to give them vogue. Dominion came to her by divine right of beauty and wit and ingenuous girlish honesty.

In the stately East Room, dressed but not over-dressed for that occasion in palms and ferns and flowers, beside her mother for two hours she stood, the fairest, loveliest flower that ever graced that historic hall, and received the new world which came to take her to itself. Gowned in simplicity and maiden white--with the flush of unaffected joy in her cheeks and the sparkle of genuine youth in her gray eyes--with the splash of October sunsets in her dark hair--with a skin white and clear as purity, but shot through with the evanescent glows and tints of health--with neck, shoulders and arms rising from her gown like a half-opened lily from its calyx--lissome and graceful indeed as a lily-stem--virginal freshness in mind, manner and person: she was a May-day morning.

"My dear," said Senator Ruffin as he bowed low over her hand, "may an old man who admired your grandmother in her youth presume to express the extravagant wish that you may be as happy as you are beautiful!"

"And may a young man," said Senator Rutledge, close following Mr. Ruffin, "who has the orthodox faith that _perfect_ happiness is found only in heaven, express the hope that the full consummation of Senator Ruffin's wishes for you may be long delayed?"

"And may you both live to repent of trying to turn a young girl's head," Helen replied, making them a curtsey.

"Once on a time I warned you against the day when such speeches would be made to you," said Rutledge, "and you have grown even more astonishingly into the danger than the eye of prophecy could perceive. I warn you again. Senator Ruffin spoke only the words of soberness, as befits his age and station, but wait you till ardent youth tells you what it thinks--and you will have to hold your head on straight with your hands: and--which dances may I have?"

"You unblushing bribe-giver!" said Helen. "But you are just in time. I've only one left if I've counted them right,--the very last. Why did you come so late? The very last man. Listen, the clocks are striking eleven."

"Just couldn't get here sooner. But I'll wait for that last dance if it's a month."

The receiving-party was broken up and proceeded to the refreshment room, afterward to go to the ballroom, where were gathered those younger people who were bidden to both reception and dance.

"Remember," said Evans to Helen as they left the East Room, "I shall worry along with existence till the last number on the card. See if you can't run in an extra for my long-suffering benefit. By the way, where is your sister?"

"In bed and cried herself to sleep two hours ago. Poor thing, she wanted to come in and see me shine, but mamma said 'no,' and packed her off to bed on schedule time."

"Now look here," said Evans, "little Miss Katherine is a young lady of vast consequence--and it's a shame she should be treated so: but I think you knew very well I was inquiring for your older sister."

"Oh, Elise?" she laughed. "She had gone across the hall with Captain Howard just before you came in."

Rutledge did not thank her for the information, and Helen regarded him narrowly with amusement.

"Victoria Crosses are not to be resisted, Mr. Rutledge. Heroes always have right of way."

"Do you speak from theory or experience?" asked Rutledge.

"Both," said Helen, as for the first time that night she thought of her husband.

She thought of him quite a number of times before the evening was over. In her thinking there was no disloyalty to her love nor to her vows: but with all the glowing prospects for a round of gayety which the brilliance of this evening of her debut promised for her first season, she felt a vague regret that she was not approaching the pleasures of it in the fullest freedom. Some quite well-defined notions of what was due her estate as a wife threatened to put certain limitations and restraints upon her. She half wished that that ceremony had been deferred--only deferred--till the time when she would be ready to enter upon the duties of her wedded life, assume its responsibilities and be obedient to the restrictions which very properly pertain to it.

Her husband, also, was giving some thought to the questions which the situation presented, with the difference that he had not thought of anything else since the evening began. With nothing to do since eight o'clock, and free to go home, he had stopped to see Helen in her coming-out glory.

His livery was a passport; and he divided the time of the reception--rather unequally, to be sure--between scraps of conversation with coming and going coachmen he knew and long periods of gazing upon Helen's loveliness through a broad low window of the East Room. He had never seen her in the role or in the conventional evening dress of womanhood, and the vision enchanted him. Crowning the piquancy of youth and freshness and _elan_ in the girl, was the unstudied dignity and stateliness and graciousness of the woman; and the metamorphosis held him entranced.

He looked and looked and looked at her while every variant tremor of love and pride and impatience swept over his heart-strings. He saw the most notable men in America, men whose business was world-politics, bow in evident admiration before her beauty, and linger to barter persiflage for her smiles and airy speeches: and she was _his_ wife.

He saw her receive the magnificent Chief of Staff of the Army, resplendent in the uniform of his exalted rank: her, the wife of Sergeant Graham of "the 10th." And that towering figure with the stamp of "Briton" in every massive line? Yes, Hayward recognized him: the English member of the Canadian Fisheries Commission--a lawyer of international repute, a belted earl--bending a grand head low in obeisance to a footman's wife--to _his_ wife. The insolence of pride filled his heart for a minute. Then a twinge of doubt went through him: she would not be a _footman's_ wife: she had decreed _her_ husband must be an officer--oh, the bother and the worry of it--and the uncertainty! But she was his beyond escape, and if the worst came to--no, that would be disloyalty.... Look, who is that shaking hands with her now? Hal Lodge, by all that's Boston! Where did he come from, and what's he doing here? No matter, he's here. Look out, Hal, old boy, don't hold my wife's hand so long--nor gaze into her eyes so meaningly--I know your failing! My what a joke it would be if you fell in love with her!--it would be too funny. I owe it to old friendship to warn you, but I mustn't."

For the greater part of two hours Hayward watched the reception. He saw the last man presented.

"Yes, I know you, too," he thought. "You made that infernal speech in the Senate last year--said some good things for us, too, but on the whole it was damnable.... I'll excuse you from talking to my wife, you race-proud bigot! You needn't try any of your 'ardent Southerner' on her.... Keep off the grass. She belongs to me. She is mine--mine, curse you! and all your raving speeches can't take her away from me! ... Oh, well, talk on--yes, talk on to her. I wish to heaven _you would_ fall in love with her! That would be quite the most delicious dispensation of fate that could ever come to me--it would be too good, too good to hope for--to have you hopelessly in love with _my wife_! ... Oh, you beauty, how can any man resist you!"

On the other side of the house Rutledge afterward swung past the footman's window in several dances with Elise.

"Oh," growled Hayward at last, "it's my brother-in-law you aspire to be! Well, I don't approve of that either. I'm surprised that your High-Mightiness condescends to my humble father-in-law's family anyway--and how they can suffer you to set foot in the house after your deliverances I can't see--I'd jump at the chance to pitch you out."

* * * * *

An idea akin to the footman's had come that night to Elise. For other reasons she, too, wondered why she permitted Evans Rutledge to continue his friendly attentions to herself. She had half made several resolves to put an end to them. But--it is a fact noted by close observers that even the most womanly woman has some curiosity--that she is mildly attracted by a riddle--that she detests--that is, she thinks about--what she can't understand. In the case in point Miss Elise Phillips was the woman and Mr. Evans Rutledge was the riddle.

From the moment that Lola DeVale had told her that Rutledge had kissed _her_ believing her to be Elise the eldest Miss Phillips had had a growing desire to know why he should have done it. She was properly resentful that he had taken the liberty with her even by proxy--oh yes, she felt sometimes she could box his ears for his impudence.... But aside from all that, why had he kissed her? Lola had told her plainly long time ago that Mr. Rutledge had told her no less plainly that his self-respect would not permit him to confess his love again. Why then should he kiss her? ... Oh, of course, men kissed women, she knew, or at least had been led to believe, just for the downright fun of the thing: but Mr. Rutledge surely was not so common--and would not deal with _her_ on _that_ basis. No, she would not believe it of him.... If she had only been there, she thought, and had seen the way the thing was done, the answer doubtless would appear. The answer to the why was evidently locked up in the _how_. Only Lola knew the details of _how_. Elise had finally decided that she might as well know them also.

Lola was no match for her friend in subtlety. On her own initiative, as she supposed and at the peril of severing their friendship, she gave Elise the whole story. When she saw that the listening Elise was only mildly offended at the disclosure, she again rehearsed the episode for the purpose of colouring it with the eloquence in Mr. Rutledge's tendernesses.

"It's a pity I was just enough stunned to be unable to stop him. I heard every wasted word he spoke and was conscious of all his misplaced kisses."

"Oh, there was no harm done," Elise replied with a contemptuous sniff. "I guess you are not the first young woman upon whom he was thrown away kisses. The modern young man never neglects any opportunity."

"Hear experience speak!" said Lola.

"My experience is not so far advanced as yours, apparently," rejoined Elise; "but I'm not so uninviting that no young man has ever shown a willingness to kiss me. With all my inexperience I know what they would do if I chose to bump my head against the terrace steps."

"Don't be envious and scratchy, dear. Remember I gave you your property as soon as--" but she desisted as Elise angrily tossed up her head and drew her fingers across her lips in belated protest against the transplanted caress.

Elise was verily displeased with Mr. Rutledge, whom she saw at irregular intervals, neither too long nor too short--for the times and seasons of his meetings with her were entirely insignificant. She even went to the trouble of making a special resolve that she would not think of him; but it died and went to the place where all good resolutions go. Now, Captain Howard was her devoted attendant, as far as she would permit him to monopolize her time. Outsiders conceded him first place and probable success in his wooing, and Elise herself had come to feel a sort of possessory interest in him. He was at her beck and call, quietly but evidently elated when at her side, and unmistakably bored when passing time with some other young woman and awaiting Elise's summons. But Rutledge: he was not less elated than Howard when it was his fortune to have Elise's whole attention, and made no effort to conceal his love for her;--and yet he did not attempt by word or look or gesture to add a jot of confirmation to his one declaration of it, or even to remind Elise that he had made it. A score of times she had seen his love in his eyes--plainly, so plainly, when he talked to her: but he talked always about impersonal matters--in an abominably interesting way--and when she dismissed him seemed to become oblivious to her existence and very careless as to what time should elapse before he came to her again. Indeed he showed no apparent purpose to come--or to _stay away_, which was worse. If it would not give the lie to her indifference she would send him about his business for good and all.

Did he love her? Yes, she was convinced of it--without Lola's assurances. Then, why had he kissed her? Would he kiss a woman for the love of her and yet be unwilling to tell that love to her? Would his self-respect permit him to kiss her whom his self-respect would not permit him to marry because her father received negroes at his table? "Self-respect" would be making some peculiar distinctions in that case,--even if everything be conceded to a Southerner's ideas of "social equality." A girl to be kissed, but not to be courted!--Elise's face burned at the thought. No, she would not insult herself by believing Mr. Rutledge's love had lost its chivalry--that he could deal with her on any such Tim-and-Bridget basis--there must be some other explanation.... Sometimes she desired the explanation very heartily.

In their last waltz on the evening of Helen's debut, both these wrong-headed young folks had been alive to the sensations bordering on the delicious with which her heavenly mood, his unspoken love and the sensuous music had quickened their pulses. There was something, however, in the suddenness, in the completeness, with which he turned away from her which Elise resented, and which made her want to know who it was that must have been in his thoughts even while he was making that last gallant speech to her. As she turned to see, he was being welcomed by little Miss Margaret Preston, a one-year's blossom, with such a tell-tale flutter of shy admiration, that Elise chose to look that way again after a few moments. Then he was bent down above the little lady in that manner full of all gentleness and deference Elise knew so well, and was saying something to her,--as if nothing else in all the world was worth while,--which sent a rich, red blush to over-colour the blossom's white and pink.

"So you keep in practice of your arts at all hazards," thought Miss Phillips, "even at the expense of young things like that! ... I hope that some _woman_ will teach you your lesson yet!"--and she turned to Captain Howard with a bewildering smile, and did not look at Mr. Rutledge again that evening.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

All this time the footman-husband was doing sentry. With the passing of the receiving party into the supper-room he had changed position and mounted guard where he could look in on the dancing. A White House policeman who had had an eye on him all evening thought his conduct unusual and walked close by to give him a searching inspection. Afterward a secret-service man thought best to look him over carefully. None of these things moved him from his purpose, however; nor did the cold wind nor a thirty minutes' flurry of sleet unset his resolution. He watched his wife's every glide and turn in the dance till the violins sleepily sang of _Home, Sweet Home_.

The effect of his vigil on the dancing side was disturbing to Hayward. As Helen passed from the arms of one man to another he began to grow nervous. His positive resentment was aroused when she was whirled past the window in the embrace of a sprig of nobility attached to the Italian embassy. Her shivering husband's blood jumped. He had heard things about that chap!--oh, the profanation of his even touching the hand of Helen--thank Heaven the muse has stopped to catch its breath! Next it was Rutledge treading a measure with the debutante, and his anger burned again,--flaming no doubt it would have been had he known that the number was an extra devised by his wife in Rutledge's special favour. Anything was better than the Italian though!--some comfort in that.... And now comes Hal Lodge piloting her through the swirl. Careful, old man, don't hold her so close. She is quite able to carry a part of her own weight!

There can be no doubt it takes some culture--of a sort--for a man to be able to look with entire complacency upon his wife in another's arms, however fine a fellow or fast a friend that other is. There be those who have attained unto such culture: but Hayward had had few opportunities in that school--he was happily--in this case unhappily--ignorant of its refinements of learning. He knew, of course, as a matter of pure mentality, that it was a perfectly harmless pastime, but his heart would not subscribe to the knowledge. No, he thought, it was no use to try to deceive himself: he didn't like it and he didn't care to try to like it. She was his wife, and to have other men putting their arms about her even in the dance, when he himself did not have the privilege and would not have it until--oh, damn that commission!

* * * * *

The weeks following Helen's coming-out gave nothing to allay the tumult rising in her husband's heart. The duties of his service compelled him to look on many scenes from which he gladly would have turned his jealous eyes.

By the grim humour of fate was it, too, that his friend Hal Lodge should cause him the keenest heart-burnings. Hayward wrote to Helen all about their friendship and intimate association at Harvard, and in letter after letter purposely related many incidents of Hal's college loves and flirtations so that Helen might know him as he knew him. He was loyal to his friendship however, and gave also a faithful account of Hal's excellences. There was no stint in his praise, nor any attempt to belittle Lodge in his wife's esteem. In such glowing terms did he sing of his friend's many virtues that he did not have the courage to unsay a word of it when friendship was turned to gall.

Thanks to Hayward's three years in the army he held it not a violation of their friendship that Hal had never given him the slightest word or nod of recognition, though the footman knew his livery had not concealed his identity. However, they met one evening when Hayward was off duty and in citizen's dress. They were on the street, unattended, with no other person in a block of them.

"Hello, Hal!" Hayward cried with the old-time ring in his voice, meeting Lodge squarely in front and holding out his hand.

Lodge stopped and looked at him.

"It's Graham. Cut the stare, old chap. I'd have sworn you knew me all these weeks, but now I see you didn't. Have I changed so much?"

"Oh, I knew you," said Lodge impassively--and turned and left him.

Hayward stared after him in speechless amazement that fast passed into speechless wrath. A hot wave of blood dashed a tingle of fire against every inch of his cuticle.... In such moments men have done murder.... He stood perfectly still till the February breeze had cooled him off.... He was again at his normal temperature, but the brief conflagration had brought calamity--tragedy: it had burned out a part of his life. In the inventory of loss were comradeship and loyalty and faith and affection and friendliness and inspirations and memories--burned to ashes, or charred and blackened and wrecked. Tragedy? The elemental tragedy of all the eternities is in the death of a friendship.... Despite the praises he had sung, Hayward might have told Helen about it--if the iron had not gone so deep into his soul. Men will parade their lighter hurts and gabble of them for pastime or to entertain their neighbours, but death-wounds bring the silence with them.

* * * * *

Helen's letters babbled on with occasional references to Mr. Lodge, in whom from time to time she saw exemplified one and another of the graces which Hayward had described and which she in turn recounted to him, as she thought, for his delectation. After some months of this it is not to be doubted or wondered at that Hayward took time to despise Lodge very thoroughly and sincerely.

From the moment of his rebuff the footman felt that he was not in a position to show his resentment. He wrote to Helen that his friend did not know him and asked her to make no mention of him to Lodge even in the most casual, inferential or roundabout fashion. No need to warn Helen: she had been frightened out of her wits by an incident occurring early after their coming from Hill-Top, and the footman's name was never on her tongue save in connection with his duties as a servant.

* * * * *

As the winter wore on and melted into spring, less and less indeed was the thought of her husband upon Helen's mind. Not, let it be understood, that she loved him less than upon the day of their marriage; but the rush of events gave her little time to think of him. Her letters proved that she thought of him regularly and affectionately, but proved no less that she thought of him briefly--and yet more briefly as time passed.

To Hayward, by nothing diverted from his hungry thoughts of her, his wife's slow but palpable withdrawing from him and from his life was an increasing torment; and the daily sight of her, to which his duties held him, as she attracted and received and appropriated and enjoyed the homage and admiration of the men who crowded about her, among whom in high favour was Lodge, was little less than a maddening torture. She seemed to be escaping him, and his heart was wrung--with love--fear--jealousy--hate. In a nervous hurry of desperation he sent to his lawyer-politician friend in New Hampshire all the information and recommendations he had in hand that were to accompany his application for appointment to a lieutenancy, and wrote to him: "Stir around and get whatever else is necessary and fire them at Washington. Make all haste, as you value human life, for there is almost that dependent on this appointment. It is no little matter of military rank or of dollars and cents, but of life and--love."

*CHAPTER XXVII*

In the months leading up to another summer Hayward was more and more racked with impatience and with a reckless vacillation between hope and pessimism. The one thing that made Helen's gayeties in Washington at all bearable to him was the promise of the coming summer days at Hill-Top when he would get at least an occasional chance of speaking to her and would be rid of the sight of the army of young fellows who were besieging her. There were heartsease and undisturbed love in the Hill-Top prospect, and his anticipations grew apace as the time for the migration came near.... The day was set, and arrived. The ex-trooper's kit was packed. He was ready, expectant.

He got Helen's letter about an hour before their train was to start. It told him good-bye. He looked at the word with dismay. After a time he read on. It had been decided she was not to go to Hill-Top with her mother and the little girls that morning--she did not know just when she would come--she was going to New York for a short visit to Alice Rhinelander, then she was going to Newport, after that to Bar Harbor--she had promised Daisy Sherrol a visit in the Catskills, and Madge Parker to join her house-party at Lake Placid, time not yet fixed--Alice was insisting that she come back to her for the Cup Races in September--besides these there were a number of other things under consideration--and taking it all together it was quite uncertain whether she would get home at all--she was so sorry that she wouldn't, but he must not begrudge her the pleasures of that season--when another came she would probably be an old married woman, steady and settled down--he would please look carefully after mamma and Katherine and May--and with her love she told him again good-bye.

Hayward went to Hill-Top and performed his service admirably as usual: but all the spring and snap were taken out of him. The days were monotonous in their lack of diverting occupation and he had much time to sit still and hold his hands--and think of his wife. But that would not do at all. He tried not to do so much of it. He wrote to his New Hampshire lawyer and had forwarded to him at Hill-Top all the papers relating to his commission, and filled out his spare time for several days in reviewing these momentous documents.

There was indeed a large and various collection of them. He and his friend had pulled many wires--political, personal, military and other. Beginning with a New Hampshire Senator and local politicians, up through army officers and men personally notable to the President of Harvard, from one or another he had drawn largely or moderately of the ammunition with which to wage his battle. Half of these did not know the use he intended to make of their commendations, but they were all sincerely given.

And he had made out a strong case. Such a forcible one in truth that, barring the handicap of his colour, he would win hands down. A man of his intelligence could not but know that it was a strong case, stronger indeed than he had dared to hope for. In the contemplation of it he was elated. The colouring of his outlook was roseate with promise. In that outlook he saw Helen _coming toward him_, not going away as she had been all these months. With his commission was she coming, and his commission was coming so fast, so fast.

He felt that his appeal was irresistible, and his spirit was on a high wave of assurance. So high, indeed, that he decided to omit the personal claim upon the President's gratitude. He had felt for some time that perhaps that would not be altogether fair.... He bundled up the papers along with his final suggestions and sent them back to his lawyer with orders to lick them into shape and forward them to the President without another minute's delay.

He wrote to Helen of the imminence of the crisis in their affairs, but of doubt or apprehension he did not speak. He told her of his decision not to appeal to her father's sense of personal obligation. He exulted in his approaching triumph as if he had already apprehended and went into rhapsodies about the double prize it would bring to him: the shoulder-straps and her: a gentleman's work in serving the flag, and a gentleman's supremest guerdon--her love openly confessed and without reserve.

Helen's answer was brief but warmly sympathetic. She applauded his purpose to win on merit alone. His decision only confirmed her estimate of him. Her faith in his winning was fixed. A tender line closed the missive, and a laughing postscript besought him not to believe the half he saw in the papers about her.

Ah, the postscript! It suggested a thing which Hayward had not thought of before. He began to read the society notes in the metropolitan dailies, with special reference to Newport and Bar Harbor gossip, and with more especial reference to Miss Helen Phillips' doings thereat. He bought one or another of the papers at the village every day, and studied them religiously. In the very first was the interesting item that Mr. Harry Lodge was spending a time at Newport. So was Helen, as Hayward knew, though that paper did not say so. But the next day's issue did: and he began to exercise his brain with a continuous problem of its own devising. The problem was to figure out in his imagination the details of Helen's daily life.

Some days the papers said nothing of her, and then there would be so much that her husband resented the intrusion upon the right of privacy which the correspondents so ruthlessly invaded,--but he welcomed the news of her. The President's daughter was a public personage, and the great newspapers did not hesitate to treat her as such. Her comings and goings, her graces and beauty, her dresses and dances, her thoughts and her tastes, her wit and her charm were never-ending sources of supply for the bright young men who were paid by the column for their "stuff." Hayward read every word of it--though a Harvard man ought to have had more sense: and Mr. Lodge began to figure more and more largely in "the conditions of the problem."