Chapter XXVIII: The Line of Cleavage

"Dearest Grace,

"We two are in trouble, and you are the unconscious cause of it. We have suddenly discovered that we have all grown up, and things can never be quite the same between us all as they have been. Jim is writing to you also, and you will get both our letters at the same time. We both love you, Gracie, with our whole hearts. If you can care enough for either of us it is for you to say which. For myself I cannot begin to tell you all you are to me. You are everything to me--everything. I cannot, dare not imagine life without you in it, Gracie. Can you care enough for me to make me the happiest man in all the world?

"Ever yours devotedly,

"John Denzil Carron."

"Gracie Dear,

"It is horrid to have to ask if you care for me more than you do for old Jack. But it has come to that, and we cannot help ourselves. I want you more than I ever wanted anything in all my life. You are more to me than life itself or anything it can ever give me. I know I am not half good enough for you, and I wish I had made more of myself now. But I do not think any one could ever care for you as I do.

"God bless you, dear, whatever you decide.

"Please excuse the writing, etc., and believe me,

"Yours ever,

"Jim,"

When Mrs. Jex brought in these two letters, as they lingered lazily over the tea-table, Grace laughed merrily.

"What are those boys up to now? It must be some unusually good joke to set old Jim writing letters."

But her brother's face lacked its usual quick response. He had been very thoughtful all day, sombre almost; and when Grace had chaffed him lightly as to his exertions of the previous night, instead of tackling her in kind, he had said quietly:

"Yes, you see, we old people don't take things so lightly as you youngsters."

"You are thinking of this war?"

"Yes--partly."

"And----?"

"Oh--lots of things."

"Margaret?"--with a twinkle.

"Oh, Margaret of course. I thought I had never seen her look more charming."

"She is always charming. Charlie, I wish----" and she hung fire lest in the mere touching she might damage.

"And what do you wish, child?"

"I wish you'd marry her. She's the sweetest thing that ever was."

"You have a most excellent taste, my child."

"It's in the family. Meg's taste is equally good"--with a meaning glance at him, but he was looking thoughtfully into his teacup.

"And you really think we shall be dragged into war, Charlie?"

"Mr. Harben seemed to think it certain."

"I don't think I like Mr. Harben very much. I caught sight of his face while you were all talking in the corner, and I thought he must have heard some good news."

"He was probably thinking at the moment only of his own particular aspect of the matter. War means business for contractors, you know."

"Sir George didn't look that way."

"He hasn't very much to do with the firm now, I believe. Besides, one would expect him to take wider views than Harben. He is a bigger man in every way."

Then Mrs. Jex came in with the letters, and Gracie wondered merrily what joke the boys were up to. But Eager, who had not failed to notice their unconcealed enthralment the night before, pursed his lips for a moment as though he doubted if the contents of those letters would prove altogether humorous.

"I thought they'd have been round, but I expect they've been in bed all day." And she ripped open Jim's letter, which happened to be uppermost, with an anticipatory smile.

Eager saw the smile fade, as the sunshine fails off the side of a hill on an April day, and give place to a look of perplexity and a slight knitting of the placid brow.

She picked up Jack's letter, and tore it open, and read it quickly. Then, with a catch in her breath and a startled look in her eyes, she jerked:

"Charlie--what do they mean? Are they in fun----"

"Shall I read them, dear?"

She threw the letters over to him, and sat, with parted lips and wondering--and rather scared--face, looking into the fire, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

"This is not fun, Grace dear," her brother said gravely at last. It had taken him a terrible long time to read those very short letters, but he read so much more in them than was actually written. "It is sober earnest, and a very grave matter."

"But I don't want---- Oh!--I wish they hadn't"--with passionate fervour. "Why can't they let things go on as they are? We have been so happy----"

"Yes. . . . But time works its changes. They are no longer boys----"

A wriggle of dissent from Grace.

"----Although they may seem so to us. And you are no longer a little girl----"

"Oh! I feel like a speck of dust, Charlie; and I don't, don't, don't want----"

"I know, dear; but it is too late. You may feel a little girl to-day. Last night you were an exquisitely beautiful woman--and this is the result."

Grace put her hands up to her face and began to cry softly. For there, in the dancing flames, she had seen in a flash what it all must mean--severances, heart-aches, trouble generally. And they had all been so happy.

Eager wisely let her have her cry out. When, at last, she mopped up her eyes, and sat looking pensively into the fire again, he said quietly:

"Let us face the matter, dear! They are dear, good lads, and they are doing you the greatest honour in their power. There being two of them, of course"--and it came home to him that here were he and Gracie up against the problem of Carne also--"makes things very trying, both for them and for you. You like them both, I know----"

"I've always liked them both, and I don't like either of them one bit better than the other."

"Is there any one else you like as well as either of them?"

"No, of course not. I've never cared for any one as I have for Jack and Jim--except you, of course. Oh! what am I to do, Charlie?"

"As far as I can see, there is only one thing to be done at present, and that is--wait."

"Can you make them wait? Oh, do! Some time, perhaps----"

"If this war comes, they will have to go into it. They may neither of them come back."

"Oh, Charlie! . . . That is too terrible to think of----"

"War is terrible without a doubt, dear. It cuts the knot of many a life."

"My poor boys! But how can I possibly tell them?"

"I think, perhaps, you had better leave it all to me, dear. I will just explain to each of them quietly how this has taken you by surprise, and that you feel towards the one just as you do towards the other, and that, for the time being, they must let matters rest there."

"Things will never be the same among us again."

"Not quite the same, perhaps; but there is no reason why your friendship should suffer."

"If they will see it that way----"

"They will have to see it that way. They ought, by rights, to have spoken to me first. And if they had I could have saved you all this. I must scold them well for that."

"The dear boys!"

And presently, since he could imagine from their letters the state of the boys' feelings, and such were better got on to reasonable lines as soon as possible, he set off in the chill twilight for Carne. And Gracie sat looking into the fire, her mind ranging freely in these new pastures--troubled not a little at this sudden break in the brotherly-sisterly ties which had hitherto bound them, with quick mental side-glances now and then at the strange new possibilities, and not entirely without a touch of that exaltation with which every girl learns that to one man she is the whole end and aim of life.

The trouble was that here were two men holding her in that supreme estimation, and that, so far, in her very heart of hearts, she found it impossible to say that she loved one better than the other. And at times the white brow knitted perplexedly at the absurdity of it, while the sweet, mobile mouth below twisted to keep from actual smiles as she thought of it all.

But, naturally, the first result of the whole matter was that her mind dwelt incessantly and penetratingly on her boyfriends who had suddenly become her lovers, and she regarded them from quite new points of view. And she knew that she was right, and that they never could be all quite the same to one another as they had been hitherto.

Long before Charles got back she was feeling quite aged and worn with overmuch thinking.