Chapter IX: Part III: I (2)

“But no one else to whom I could talk, frankly and openly, as I always did with you. Don’t change that, because”--she hesitated--“because, Davy, you can help me to see clearer in many ways, and--and I shall always be to you the one person to whom you can tell anything. Davy, memories, the real memories, I think, are the things to hold on to in this world.”

Her words went through me like a knife, so near were they to my own fate. It was all that I could do to fight back the telltale moodiness I felt rising in my face, for I knew her eyes were on me.

“I really need to talk to you, Davy,” she said, when I did not answer, and there was such a plaintive note in her voice that, to cover my unease, I held out my hand and said with an appearance of bluffness:

“All right: the old alliance is renewed.”

“Absolute honesty?”

“So help me.”

“Then--you were disappointed when you saw me again?”

“Yes.”

“You thought I had become superficial, vacillating?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I am,” she said, to my surprise. “I didn’t know it. You gave me a shock, but you made me realize it. You still think so?”

“My dear Anne,” I said carefully. “How can you be otherwise? Everything is against you. What in life is real to you, except pleasure? You’ve been shown nothing else in life--granted it isn’t your fault. You have been cheated out of something bigger. Other women will never notice it; thank heaven, you do. Now, to explain what I felt on coming back out of the other world. Before, I don’t suppose it ever would have occurred to me. I took the American man’s point of view--from the best of motives, I grant you--our attitude of chivalry towards you. But, over there, something else has come to us, a bigger conception of you, an ideal of service. That is the difference in point of view.”

“But what am I to do?” she said, shrinking under the directness of the opinion she had invited.

“Heavens, you’re making me talk like a confounded, self-righteous prig,” I exclaimed, with a sudden realization, “and God knows I’m far from that.”

“No, no! Say what you mean. You, you do not quite trust my sincerity, do you?”

“Not quite.”

“Why?”

“Because, well, because I think you are inclined to dramatize your moods,” I said lightly. “I think you are colored by the wish to please whomever you happen to be with. We all are. But I wonder if to-night, when the guests, the dreadful guests who bore you so, return, you will find time so heavy on your hands?”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t _laugh_ at me!” she cried, flaring up with more show of feeling than I had seen.

“Forgive me. I won’t do that again,” I said contritely. “Do you really care what I think?”

“You know I do.”

Her answer left me awkwardly floundering, until suddenly she burst out:

“All you say is true: I do change, I do drift; what I feel is true one moment will be different the next. But, Davy, I realize it! Do you think I want to go on this way? I do what I do because I am restless, just--just to do something. You think I am superficial: I am, horribly so. You think I crave pleasure--excitement: I do. You think I like to play with emotions: I do. All that’s true, and I know it.”

“I wonder if you know what harm you do?” I said, not quite convinced.

“What do you mean?”

“Anne, I sometimes think good women do more harm in this world than bad. They, poor devils, do so little harm: they are so obvious. A moment’s madness, and we throw ourselves violently back from them. To leave them is to forget them. But you--you others--the pain you inflict is given unconsciously.”

“It doesn’t last,” she said.

“How do you know? Tell me one thing, Anne, because it has always interested me. You didn’t need to tell me there had been many men in your life: have you ever felt any responsibility toward them? I mean this: have you ever stopped to question your right to attract them, to awaken their love, even when you knew there was no interest on your part?”

“Why, no, of course not.”

“Probably not; such things are unconscious--an instinct. And of a dozen men who come to love you, eight or ten forget quickly. But some don’t, do they?”

“No, that’s true.”

“That’s what I mean by the harm good women do, unconsciously. You would not give pain willingly, I am sure, and yet I doubt if even you realize the sorrow that has come from you. You may say it’s all in the game. It is: but I go back to what I said--that often a girl like yourself, like Molly, with everything to charm and attract, leaves wounds behind that it takes years to heal. That’s the strange thing about it; a friendship that is precious in the life of both, inevitably, by some hidden spark of impulse, a sudden need of the soul, is transformed into love on the part of one. Then, what happens? Not only is the friendship taken out of the lives of both, but to one that first joy of human contact becomes emptiness and bitterness. It is not only of you I am thinking, but of my own sister. When I saw Molly again, so radiant, so lovely in her unconscious youth, so eager for life to begin, I could not help thinking that wherever she went, so lightly and so joyfully, she would leave behind her many bruises and aches. Then, a few real men will come to love her profoundly, and without hope, and know the daily, hourly slavery to a hopeless longing.”

“It is of yourself you are talking now, Davy?”

I stopped, thunderstruck. In my earnestness I had quite forgotten how much my own personal feelings must have given warmth to my statement.

“Of course, I did not expect that in all this time you wouldn’t have fallen in love,” she said. She stood, looking down. “It’s a queer world.” The next moment she had started up the ravine, swinging from rock to rock, with a challenge to me to follow. I hurried after her, vexed at my own indiscreet revelations and seriously alarmed at her reckless flight.

“Be careful. You’ll slip and turn your ankle. Anne, you’re crazy!”

“Nonsense, never slip!”

She darted up, heedless of my cautions, and when finally I reached the top, quite out of breath, she was watching me with a malicious smile from her seat in the little observatory.

“Come up here and take a peep at the view. A fine soldier, to be out-distanced by a woman!”

“That’s hardly fair,” I said, laughing and relieved to pass from the dangerous seriousness of a moment ago. “Give me a few more weeks.”

Instantly she was contrite.

“How thoughtless of me. Forgive me!”

“Very little to forgive. By George, that’s fine.” The valley lay below us, blanketed with a sheen of snow that in great spaces lifted occasionally for a glimpse of green; black-blue shadows in the far hills, and faint, transparent reds in the bared branches against the sky; the whole tremulously still, a winter cameo cut in frozen silences.

“Do you want to go back?” she said at last.

“I shall answer you as I answered your father; honestly, no.”

“But then, why? Surely, after what you’ve been through, in your condition, and it would be so easy to arrange--”

“Exactly; but you, as my friend--would you want me to stay?”

She did not answer.

“Would you?”

“It is not your war.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“It _is_ the point,” she said, in sudden rebellion. “No, I don’t want you to go back. It’s absurd, unnecessary, quixotic!”

Poor Anne. She little knew what harm she had done by that one little outburst. I remembered Bernoline, and, when next I looked at Anne, I saw only a child.

“And when we get into it? What then, young lady?” I said, laughing. “Are you going to arrange everything to suit yourself?”

“Davy, if you knew how you hurt me when you take that tone,” she said, shrinking back. “I am not a child.”

“Then, Anne, you must face life as it comes to you. We can’t make it as we want it, but our kind, of all the world, should never dodge a responsibility.”

“I always show you my worst side,” she said, shaking her head, and presently, leading the way down the ravine again, but this time more deliberately, she began to chatter lightly of old memories without an approach to intimacy, until the moment came for my departure.

“David, have you still such a bad opinion of me?” she said, seeking the answer in my eyes.

“I never have had.”

“Funny: I am not at all myself with you. It’s because I’m so used to looking up to you, I suppose.”

“Because I am such an old bear, you mean.”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean. I’m very much of a woman now--more than you can ever imagine--and quite capable of determining my life for myself. And I know what I want. And, David--don’t make one mistake.”

“What?”

“I’m not in love with you.”

Before I could recover myself, she had skipped up the steps. And so ended this strange interview. Not being myself in love with her, I could estimate more deliberately the value of her last words, and yet, knowing in my own experience all the wound to her pride that the fear of my divining her true motives would bring, I think her last defiance brought me into closer sympathy with my old playmate.

* * * * *

When I reached home, Ben and Letty were there,--come for the Christmas holidays.

“David!”

As I was hurrying through the hall, she called me to her, where she was warming herself by the fireplace.

“You here?” I said, feigning surprise.

“B’rrr! You are cordial as an open door. They said you were at the Brinsmades’.”

“Yes.”

“_Monsieur fait des conquêtes?_”

I shrugged my shoulders and disdained a reply, which always irritated her.

“So you are in love--again, David?” she said, with her provoking smile.

“Does this amuse you?”

“You forget that I remember the signs.”

At this I stared at her in such futile anger that she laughed to herself, well content.

“But I quite approve! An excellent match for you!”

Then she deliberately dropped her muff, and as I stooped to pick it up, she leaned over and pinched my ear.

“Have you forgotten that, _mon ami_?”

The muff was scented with the perfume I knew. I came up angry and baffled.

“My dear Davy, if you are not going to pay me some attention, you may as well go right to your brother and tell all. The situation is evident.”

I left her in a vindictive, smoldering rage,--in one of those moods of violence into which she had thrown me a hundred times, out of her malicious pleasure. Does she love me or hate me? Which is the explanation? As for myself, the anger she awakened frightened me, for before I was confident of my utter indifference. Is it possible that by some baneful trick of habit there can remain a vestige of the old tyranny over my senses? It is unthinkable! If only I could go to Ben! But no, that is impossible! And for a week, while we three are under the same roof, this hideous comedy must go on!

* * * * *

As I go back over my interview with Anne, I am somewhat puzzled. Why was I so brutally direct? I should like to feel that it was an honest effort to repel her: yet I wonder if I am as honest as all that and if underneath is not the intuitive knowledge that just such an attitude is what would draw her closer to me? How difficult it is to know our real motives!

* * * * *

This morning, in my mail, a note.

David:

Don’t take what I say too literally. Of course, I would never do
anything to keep you from going back,--don’t think I am that weak,
sentimental type of woman. But I might rebel at your going,--and
that is very different, so long as you keep it to yourself,--which
I didn’t. If you don’t think me quite hopeless, come in to-night
for dinner.

ANNE

I went, if for nothing but to escape from the situation here. Mr. Brinsmade was there, and we had a long talk on our prospects of getting into the war, which he feels is certain. Anne sat by, listening, but studiously avoided any opportunity for a tête-à-tête.

I am less sure of my attitude towards her. Last night, with the mental eagerness which Brinsmade always wakes in me, there, by the great fireplace, watching her camped by her father’s knee--young, ardent, desirable--a doubt came into my mind, I again saw my life as it might be and, frankly, I was tempted. Fortunately, Mr. Brinsmade had the tact not to broach the subject again. After all, decisions are futile now. In a few short weeks I shall be returning to France and there, perhaps, will be the decision to all my perplexities. To-night, when I suddenly stop at that realization, I am inclined to break out into laughter. The irony of my plaguing myself with questions now!

And yet it is torture: this memory of a few days’ utter happiness, of one afternoon’s clear belief in the future! I try to escape from it, but there is no escape, least of all in the direction of Anne. That is not fair to her or what might come. I sit long hours in Aunt Janie’s parlor, pulling at my pipe before the fire and staring into the coals. Of all the family she understands me best, and I talk or remain silent, according to my mood. Yet when I look at her, and realize the shadow of a life to which she has been dedicated--everything denied, repressed, throttled--I spring up in revolt and go tramping over the countryside;--that life is beyond my strength!

VII

Christmas and the holidays have passed and certain incidents stand out vividly. My own personal perplexities have somehow receded into the healing background. Our sorrows destroy us or themselves, some one has said. There is a protecting instinct, perhaps, in the soul as well as in the body. The healing fluids of the eye isolate the intruding cinder, the membranes of the body wrap around the splinter which penetrates the flesh; so, insensibly, memory drops its curtains over our grief, until the pain is lessened, and in fainter perception, we can bear to look upon it. To the first poignant wrench of my longing for Bernoline has come a sort of healing incredulity. Is it a mood or an achieved attitude? Have I definitely risen to a new philosophy of acceptance, or will the old malaria of loneliness and emptiness return when I am most sure of equanimity? These are things I do not know.

I know only this: that of late I have been able to get out of myself, to return to an objective point of view towards life: that the old desire to play my part is new again; that I am not aloof but vibrantly a part of my day and my nation, thrilled with the sudden rising anger at temporizing that is sweeping the country,--a great, mounting, climactic storm of wrath. The hour is coming, I know, when America will show to the world and to itself the majesty of its indignant pride.

* * * * *

Christmas night has always been open cheer with us and, with me home, the house was crowded with friends from the countryside and the village. They came in sleighs and cutters, with jingling bells, wrapped in voluminous scarfs, stamping in the great hallway, eager for the good cheer of a gathering which took them back to the rollicking days of Merrie England. Threescore, at least, and for every man, woman and child some present on the old tree. For we at Littledale have a custom that I don’t remember seeing elsewhere.

In the back of the house, between the two wings, is a stone-flagged court, and in the midst of it a splendid cedar. It was Rossie’s idea as a child to convert it into the Christmas symbol. So, promptly at ten, being well-fed from the buffet of roast pig, fatted ducks, great crisp turkeys, mountainous dishes of vegetables, pies and cakes to stagger the imaginations of the youngest eyes, every one bustles into coats and wraps and crowds out into the court. There, the green tree is ablaze with lanterns and tinsel wreaths, with a magnificent Santa Claus to distribute the presents, with appropriate hits at the idiosyncrasies of each recipient. The fiddles strike up from the dining room. We join hands and go circling round the tree, singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” until every one is exhausted from laughter and panting for breath, while the dogs go barking, in and out, frantic with the spirit of good cheer.

This year, on account of my father’s health, we were in some doubt. But the Governor, like the fine old trump that he is, insisted that nothing be changed and watched the celebration from an upper window. The rest of the night was given up to square dances with old man Carpenter calling out the figures from the midst of the village fiddles. I wondered, watching the Governor, if he would see another such Christmas, or, for that matter, how many would dance so light-heartedly again. The accent of the evening was absolute democracy,--every one privileged to dance with every one else,--without introductions, and much scrambling under the mistletoe.

Jenny, my first flame, was there,--a buxom matron, with three ravenous youngsters. And once the hazards of a quadrille brought us all together, Jenny, Ben, Letty, Anne, and myself. In one figure, Ben and I being opposite each other, Letty was at my side and Jenny at his. I looked up at him and wondered if he remembered the day, twelve years ago, when he saved me from utterly throwing away my life. And the irony of it all,--that I should have been away and powerless, when I should have stood in his stead. Letty’s behavior throughout the evening was outrageous, and Ben’s face grew blacker and blacker. She flirted openly with several young friends of Molly’s and deliberately with me, whenever she could bring it before the notice of Anne. Of course, knowing her of old, I realized that we were but the pretexts; that her real object was to torture Ben himself. And this alarmed me, for I saw already the progression towards tragedy.

“Letty, let me warn you again,” I said to her, as we were dancing. She had come to me herself, out of pure malice, and to refuse would have been an open affront.

“Go on, Davy _mio_,” she said, under her breath.

“When Ben’s hands close about your little throat--they won’t let go,” I said savagely, “and I don’t know that they ought to.”

“David, I am bored--so bored!”

“I am not joking.”

“Anything for excitement,” she said, with her slow smile. “La petite Anne is _éprise_. Be quite attentive, Davy. You’ll land her. Now you are angry, but it seems so natural to have you angry at me!”

“Since when have you danced in public?” I said, unwilling to show her my disgust and my rage. “And why now?”

“It isn’t fair to the man, do you think?” she said softly.

I stopped abruptly. What devil had made her say this I don’t know: but she was right. I have danced with hundreds of women, and never been conscious of what I held in my arms,--until that dance with Letty.

“Thank you; I must see to something,” I said, leaving her abruptly, and making a pretext of examining the tree, I went out into the cold air, past the lanterned courtyard, and down the crunching way to the old wooden bridge by the duck pond.

* * * * *

What a hideous situation, and how my whole being revolted at the part I was forced to play! It is at such moments that the old instinct of superstition that lies dormant in each of us comes insistently back. I know that in my old worldly wisdom I have scoffed at Sunday-school morality and have seen as many sinners succeed as fail. Yet at such moments when fate overtakes me I go back to my childhood terror of pulpit thunderings and feel the avenging justice of the Old Testament at my back. It is no use repeating to myself that other men have done much worse than I have done and, the memory dropping away from them, become pillars of respectability. I feel the ominous pursuit of consequences and hear the bitter cry of conscience,--“_The wages of sin is death_.” Perhaps there are moments so personal in our lives that all morality returns into one individual experience, and right and wrong are momentarily but our superstitious estimate of cause and effect as it suddenly grips us.

Even as, in the bitter nausea of enforced hypocrisy, I stood there in the darkness, a prey to my remorse, I heard a step and knew that my brother was seeking me out.

“Is that you, Ben?”

“I saw you leave.”

Then he had been watching us. The tone of his voice warned me. Again, I should have to lie.

“Couldn’t stand it; had to break away.”

“Why?”

It was black as pitch--thank heaven for that--but I felt as though through the obscurity his hot eyes were watching the tortured agitation on my face.

“It’s not in my mood,” I said rapidly. “Should think you’d understand. My God--with the Governor there--the thought of going back in a few weeks--of all that is coming to us--this dancing and merry-making before--”

“David, are you _lying_ to me?”

His hand closed over my wrist, and the phrase died on my lips.

“Ben!”

“For God’s sake, tell me the truth! What was there between you and Letty?”

What would I not have given to have bared my conscience to him; but it was not my life alone that was at stake. There was the good name of the family. For a moment, I felt lost in a sickly weakness, and hideous possibilities seemed to strike at me out of the darkness. Then I recovered myself. I began to act. I acted as I had never done before in my life. I caught him by the shoulders and shook him.

“Ben, don’t be a damn fool!”

“Is that your answer?”

“Answer? How can I answer a crazy man? Do you think if there had been, I should ever have come back here? Do you?” In my emotion my hands cut into his shoulders and, driven on by the force of circumstances, I said fiercely, “No, I don’t approve of your marriage. You are not happy. I knew you wouldn’t be. Women like Letty never become real wives. Not that she will do anything she oughtn’t to do--she is too cold-blooded--she loves her little self more than she can ever love anybody else--but the breath of her life is flattery and adoration. God knows, I never wanted to tell you this--but you’ve forced it out of me.”

“You’re telling me nothing new.”

“In heaven’s name, why did you do it, Ben?”

He started back at some thought suggested by this outburst of mine.

“You know something about her, then--over there in Paris?”

I caught myself. Every word, I felt, was dangerous, and anything I might say a trap.

“Ben, do you realize we are discussing your wife?” I said slowly. “Do you realize how impossible this conversation is?”

“Damn it! You’re beating around the bush. You’re my brother, and I have a right to know.”

“Letty is no different from the women of her set, here or over there; no better, no worse. You have chosen to take one of them for your wife. If you ask me has there ever been any public scandal attached to her name, I can say at once, no--absolutely not.”

“You’re telling me the truth?”

“I am.”

“Thank God, at least for that!”

“As for the rest, I repeat, I don’t believe Letty has any heart to give to you or to any one else. That may be cold comfort, but I believe it.”

“If only I believed it!”

“You can. She is a child playing with toys. She must have her toys, to play with and to break. Just at present, because she sees she can torture you, she is amusing herself, just as a child would with a woolly lamb--twisting its legs. Whether she flirts with me or with a dozen men, she’s not thinking of us; it’s you.”

“Don’t--”

“Ben, there’s only one thing to do: grin and bear it, or--”

“Well?”

“Separate and divorce,” I said, and no sooner had I said it than hope flared up in me,--the one hope of ending a ghastly situation.

“It’s not so simple.”

“Do you care--still?”

He stood at my side without an answer.

“Ben, remember one thing.”

“The family--oh, yes--I hope to God I can remember it,” he broke out. “Davy, sometimes I see so red that--that--”

“Stop talking like a fool,” I said angrily. “You’ve chosen to do what you’ve done. You didn’t marry to make a home or with the hope of having children, did you? You married Letty, as half the men we know marry--just in a blind instinct for possession. Now, whatever happens, however you work it out, you’re not going to do anything to disgrace the family. Keep that in mind, Ben.”

“I wish to God I could go back with you and get into it.”

“Why not?”

“If I don’t--I don’t know what’ll happen,” he said, very low. “Davy, it’s all very well for you to stand here and say what you say. You’ve got a cold head. Do you think a man in my position is normal? Do you think that he knows what he is doing half the time? I tell you, Davy, I’m afraid--afraid.”

My mind was made up on that instant.

“Ben, you know I’d do anything in the world for you, don’t you? Will you trust me to make the decision for you?”

“Yes,” he said, after a moment.

“You are coming back with me.” I hesitated, and then added: “For I’m afraid, too.”

So, it is agreed that we go off to France together, though nothing is to be said of it for the present. That is three weeks ahead; much can happen before then. Will he hold to his determination? Will he find the strength to wrench himself free of the slavery of the senses,--for that is all there is to it? I don’t know. I can only wait, fearful of the issue. I can only hope and pray.

* * * * *

Letty, I knew, would have noticed our absence and be watching for our return, and though I didn’t see her when we came into the hall, I was certain that somewhere in the crowd her sharp, unquiet eyes were on us. Late in the evening she came to me as I had expected.

“_Eh bien, Davy mio_, you are amusing yourself?”

“And you?”

“I am curious,” she said, looking at me intently.

I raised my hand to my throat significantly and the look in my eyes must have frightened her, for she attempted no more persiflage but moved away, rather still and serious for the rest of the evening. Perhaps, at the bottom of her feline soul, there is a touch of genuine fear and--a desire to live.

* * * * *

I thought the evening would never end. Anne reproached me for my gloominess and went off early, hurt, I know, at my seeming indifference. I do not love her, I am sure of that; and yet I cannot bear to see a certain wounded look in her eyes!

VIII

To-day, a strange conversation with Molly,--strange, for all at once I seemed to know the human being with whom I had lived all these years. Until now, I had thought of her only as a lovely child, something soft and gentle, a laugh that was good to hear, a smiling face, content, as you enjoy a graceful animal, a bit of sunshine and the fragrance of the violet beds. Now, to my astonishment, I perceive a woman; a directness of vision; a delicate perception of standards and a firmness of purpose.

She came in late from a skating party over at the Brinsmades’, where I had purposely not gone, and, at the first glance of her telltale countenance, I knew that something had happened. In the hall she caught my hand.

“Come upstairs with me, Davy, just a minute.”

“Up it is, young lady.”

Much intrigued and a little apprehensive, I followed her into the blue sitting room and closed the door. The next moment she was in my arms, weeping out her heart on my shoulder.

“Oh, Davy, Davy, I had to come to some one!”

“But, good heavens, what’s wrong?” I was thinking of Letty and wondering.

“I am so miserably unhappy!”

“Then talk it out with me. It’ll do you good.”

“Oh, Davy, some one wants to marry me!”

I started to burst out laughing at this and suddenly checked myself. I held her from me, her shoulders in my hands, and said, with a swift jealousy:

“You child! What right have you to be thinking of such things!”

“What things, Davy?”

“Falling in love, and marriage.”

“But I’m not in love--and that’s just the awful part of it! It’s of him I’m thinking. It’s so terrible to think that a man has fallen in love with you, that he cares as much as all that--when you know you can’t--you never will. I--I feel as though I had committed a crime!”

I took her into my arms again and I think I never loved her, my little sister, as I did at that moment. If this were American womanhood, I felt a sudden thrill of pride!

“Perhaps, it is not so serious--”

“It is, it is,” she protested, hiding her face against my shoulder. “If you had seen his face! I was so sorry for him, Davy. It’s terrible that he should come to care like that! Oh, don’t laugh at me--there’s no one else to go to but you--and do try to understand!”

“I couldn’t laugh at you, bless your honest little heart, and I think I understand,” I said, wondering a little if she knew her true feelings. “Is this the first time any man has proposed--”

“Yes, and I saw it coming, and I dreaded it so, and when I couldn’t prevent it I was so frightened. He was so terribly in earnest, and his face went so white. I--I couldn’t say a thing,--I just burst into tears and ran away. Oh, David, I feel so guilty. I can’t bear that any one should be so unhappy as that--just over me!”

“This is what life means, little sister,” I said, drawing her down beside me on the old chintz sofa. “These are the things no one can protect us from. And now, tell me, are you quite sure of your own feelings?”

She raised her eyes, her eyes clear as Bernoline’s, to me and in that moment I felt the spiritual kinship of true womanhood that lies underneath all social divisions.

“It will be a long time before I shall fall in love. I am only a girl now, Davy. I want to be a woman first, to have read and thought much. For I want to be fit to be at the head of my home and for the lives that may come to me.”

“Do you really feel that way, Molly dear?”

“Can any one feel differently about such things?”

I bent over her hand and caught it to my lips.

“That is the only right way--the natural way to think.”

“Oh, David, I do want to talk to you so much! You see, I never can, with mother: you know how it is. There’s only you, Davy. I don’t love Ted. I’m sure I never will love him, but it seems so terrible that I should lose the other--the real friendship--and yet I suppose that’s not possible--”

“Not quite fair to him.”

“No, and Ted is the only one to think about, isn’t he?”

“Ted?”

“Ted Seaver.”

“Oh, yes, the tall one, with dark hair,” I said, seeing confusedly one of the many who had passed through the house. “Why, he’s only a boy. What right had he--”

“That’s just it; but, of course, he’s not such a boy: he’s twenty-three, and he couldn’t help saying what he did. And I did respect him for the way he did it. Only--only such things are way off--”

“I should hope so.”

“It would have to be some one--some one very much of a man--whom I could look up to--some one much stronger than I am--who has been really tested and come through.” Again she looked at me and, suddenly laying her hand over mine, said: “Some one like you, Davy.”

The look of clear faith as her face lit up somehow searched into my heart and left me humble and regretful. I looked down at her white hand against my dark one, and Jessica’s words came into my mind,

“So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

“I’m glad you came to me, Molly,” I said, “and I value your confidence very deeply. Suppose we snuggle up before the fire and talk lots of things out!”

“Oh, if you only would!”

I touched a match to the tinder, wheeled her into position and sat down beside her. She leaned forward, her hands clasped over her knees, her look sunk in the climbing flame.

“It’s such a pity!”

“What, Molly?”

“It is such a sad thing to think, David, that it can’t just remain a friendship. I am thinking of the friend I have lost. There are many girls who are terribly excited about men--falling in love with them. I’m not that way. I only wish--because in the end it’s you who lose--isn’t it?”

“How long have you known him?”

“Ted? Almost a year.”

She looked, and saw the lingering question in my eye.

“Oh, David, you don’t understand me at all!”

“Yes, yes, I do, but sometimes--”

“If I cared for him, do you think I’d tell any one--even you?”

This brought me up sharp. I laughed, quite amazed, and not at all sure that I liked it.

“That’s a rather queer way of putting it.”

“Don’t tease me, David. You understand.”

“I suppose that means, young lady,” I said, thinking of something I had been impelled to write a few days ago, “that when the time comes, you’ll go whisking out of this house on the arm of some stranger, without even saying ‘by your leave’.”

“If you mean shall I decide for myself--of course, David!”

“And even a big brother’s advice--”

“No, David; not even you. How can any one else know? And then, think of the responsibility of deciding such a thing! If I really cared, I should believe in him, no matter what any one would tell me.”

“Molly,” I said, a bit surprised though to find myself playing the part of Wisdom, “I am not much worried about you. You will make no mistake. There’s an honest, direct way you have of facing life that I think I can trust. Only, I want you to value yourself very high, and I’m afraid sometimes that just because you are so straightforward and unselfish you may not realize what you are worth.”

“That’s very dear of you,” she said pensively. “Of course, I won’t pretend to you that I don’t--well, that I don’t sometimes look ahead and wonder. Of course, I do. And I have a very high ideal.”

“It is so easy to make mistakes. It’s when you want to love, my dear little sister, that it is easy to believe you do love. Such awful mistakes can be made.”

“Now you are thinking of Ben,” she said irrelevantly.

“No, no, I was thinking of myself,” I said hastily, for Letty was a subject I could not discuss with her. “Do you know, if I hadn’t been prevented--I would--well, I don’t want to say I would have--I might have thrown away my whole life on a mad suicidal marriage?”

“I know,” she said, nodding her head.

“You know? What do you mean?” I said, startled.

“Don’t be angry, David. I guessed. It was Jenny Barnett, wasn’t it?”

I laughed, to cover my confusion and my amazement,--a not very successful laugh.

“Yes, it was Jenny; and that’s why I say be very sure, just at first.”

“But, David, I am not like you. You have always been so impulsive, so intense.”

“I impulsive?” I cried, forgetting how the conversation had switched. And I was genuinely amazed, for frankly, it had never occurred to me to look at myself as such. Though I am not sure but what she is right, but how she learned to see me so clearly is beyond me.

“Yes, you are! I never know what you’re going to do; whereas I--I am really quite sensible and matter-of-fact. Why haven’t _you_ married, David? You ought to.”

“I thought, young lady, we were here to discuss your affairs,” I said warily.

“Please, David, let me talk to you,” she said, raising her eyes to mine. “I love you very much, more than any one else in the world. And we ought to be very close to each other, real confidants.”

“Now, what’s coming?” I thought to myself, but, putting on a brave front, I answered, “Fire away, then.”

“I feel you are unhappy. I feel it so strongly.”

“I am neither happy nor unhappy,” I said, being on my guard. “All I am thinking about now is going back and doing my duty, because it is quite immaterial, so long as the war lasts, what I plan to do.”

“I am thinking of Anne.”

“Now, we have it! Young lady, there is such a thing as imagining you see too much.”

“Don’t you think, David,” she said, not paying the slightest attention to me, “that it would be kinder, more honest, if you told her--”

“Told her what?”

“That you love some one else.”

I jumped at this, in great wrath.

“Extraordinary! Child, where did you imagine--”

“Don’t be angry, David. You needn’t tell me if you don’t want to--but I know. I’ve seen it in your face too often, these days. Only, I think it’s hard on Anne.”

I decided on another course.

“My dear Molly, Anne isn’t in the slightest doubt as to my feelings towards her. I wish I did love her, sometimes. I don’t. And if I did, I shouldn’t tell her so--just as I was going off to war.”

“Why not?”

“Because a man has no right to take a woman’s heart when it may mean an empty life for the rest of her existence.”

“But why, David? If you men are willing to give your lives, why should we women not have our part of sorrow?”

“Each as he feels: that’s my point of view,” I said. Yet, as I look at it now, I wonder why I said it, for no such compunction had arrested my impulse toward Bernoline. “However, that’s all academic and don’t get it into your romantic little head that I’m not telling you the truth about Anne. Furthermore, she understands.”

She shook her head.

“I’m inclined to shake you!” I said, vexed.

The next moment her arms closed about me.

“David, I can’t bear to see you unhappy; that’s all.”

As I look back on this conversation, I am the more amazed. Where did she get such uncanny insight into my thoughts? What had not her child’s eyes divined?--if they had ever been the eyes of a child! I suppose my irritation arose from the fact that she had come too close to my own misgivings. No, I am not quite sure that I have been honest with Anne, even when I assured myself that I was. Before I leave I shall see Anne again. To-night, I know what I shall say: but I am not sure what it will be at the time.

IX

_New York_

I am here with Ben at the hotel and at noon, day after to-morrow, we sail for France. To me, as to him, it is an escape from a hideous situation. All day I have tramped the streets, seeking in the crowds a glimpse of Bernoline. Twice I came to the steps of St. Rosa’s Convent,--tempted. If I had any doubt as to the lasting wound that is in my heart, I know now. To be in this city, where she walks hidden in the wilderness of human beings, where at every turn I look for her! There is nothing here for me--nothing! I want to get back to the other life--to be from morning to night a pawn in the fingers of fate--to have every decision made for me--to surrender my initiative--to accept what can’t be changed--to perform without question.

* * * * *

But to go back. The leave-taking was hard, the shadow was over it all. If I come back--and who knows?--one place will be empty. But first, Anne.

For days I had not seen her. Each consciously avoided the other. Yet a good deal of what Molly had said haunted me: I could not depart without some explanation. We left Sunday. Friday afternoon I called her up on the telephone, and asked if I might come over,--a strange conversation, full of long pauses and hesitations, where I could not see her face and could only wonder.

“I am going Sunday--you know?”

“Yes, I know.”

“And I really would like to see you before then.”

“But, David, I’m leaving in an hour.”

Curiously enough, this upset me more than I would have thought.

“Leaving? Where?” I asked stupidly.

There was a long silence.

“Anne!”

“Yes?”

“And to-morrow?”

“But I am leaving in an hour for a week end.”

“Oh, then I shan’t see you. I’m sorry.”

“You should have let me know before.”

“Yes, yes, of course. My fault. Well, I suppose it can’t be helped.”

No answer.

“When do you leave?”

“In an hour.”

“Then I’m afraid it’s good-by over the telephone.”

“You haven’t been very friendly, you know.”

“I know.”

Another silence.

“Will you write to me once in a while?”

“Do you want me to, David?”

“Please.”

“Very well--once in a while.”

Now this was not the turn I had wished to give to my parting, but some sudden feeling of the blankness of her eyes caused me to relent.

“So, it’s good-by, Anne, and--I’m sorry it’s to be like this.”

“It is not my fault.”

“No.”

“Then--good-by, and good luck--Davy.”

The last was almost inaudible. I put up the receiver and went to my room and puttered around nervously with my packing, not at all quiet in my mind and frankly missing something out of my day.

In the middle of the afternoon, all at once, I determined to fling on my things and go out for a tramp, to calm my irritation. I had hardly passed the postern when who should come whirling up the road in her cutter, bells jangling, snow clouds flying, but Anne, with her cheeks aflame.

“Jump in.”

I clambered to the seat by her side and we were off so precipitately that I caught at her arm to save myself a tumble. Away we went, skipping over the crinkling snow, the sharp wind whipping at our cheeks, long minutes without a word, until Littledale and the outskirts were left behind in a whirling maze. At Muncie’s Woods she drew in suddenly and under the green canopy of the evergreens we slowed to a walk.

“There was no house party,” she said, staring ahead.

“Of course not.”

“How did you know?”

“I knew.”

“What a spiteful, irrational, idiotic person you must think me.”

“No--very human.”

She shook her head, and I thought her lip trembled a little.

“It’s always so, and I can’t help it. I’m always doing the wrong thing with you.”

I did not answer this, for I was afraid to.

“It’s been a miserably unsatisfactory time,” she said, flicking the horses suddenly with her whip, so that they pranced about for quite a moment before she could control them. “I had looked forward so much to your coming, to going back to the old days, Davy. They were the best--and instead, we have only been fencing with each other. We never say what we mean. And I--I show you my very worst self--my worst! Everything I say to you, you misunderstand.”

“There you are wrong.”

“You do, you do! You are always ascribing to me motives that aren’t there, and so, David, there are two things I can’t bear from you, ridicule, and--pity!”

“Good heavens, nothing is further from my mind.”

“That’s not true,” she said obstinately. “David, why can’t we say the things we think to each other? Is there any reason?”

“It is sometimes rather hard, Anne, isn’t it?”

“There you go! But if we don’t--don’t you see that we lose all that was so wonderful, so rare, so genuine that we once had. And this is what is happening.” Still she had not looked at me. Her mood changed and she drew the lash of her whip over the steaming flank of a horse. When she spoke it was gravely and with determination, the voice of a woman. “David, I do not think any harm can come from being absolutely honest, and sometimes, for not being so, a whole destiny may be changed. David, whatever you think I am--I am not in love with you--”

“But I never--”

“I am not in love with you, but I can imagine--some day--if I did--if I was--well, marrying you.”

The next moment the whip had struck across the glistening back and we shot out into a gallop.

“Stop!” I cried out, but she only shook her head, bending lower to hide her face that was aflame with confusion.

“Stop!”

I caught the reins from her and brought our perilous rocking flight to a halt. Then I turned to her. Poor child, I knew what the suspense of that moment meant to her! I could almost feel her heart stand still; even then, thank heaven, I did not abuse the situation--at least, I think not--and heaven knows how easy it would have been!

“Anne, dear little friend, I think more of you at this minute than I ever have, for saying that.”

“Oh, Davy, I shall want to kill myself to-night for--”

“No, don’t say that. Now, I am going to be just as honest with you.”

I saw her hand steal up to her throat and hurried on to end the suspense.

“I feel just as you do. I am not in love with you, and yet I can imagine, just as you said, that if some day I married you a great happiness would come into my life. Would to God I could say more!”

She turned for the first time as I began to speak and her eyes went to mine. I had a strange premonition there in the green light of the forest, in the stillness of the carpeted woods, the stillness that was in her listening face, that beyond the inscrutable future, through what twisted tormented ways I know not, in some final calm, just for the strange incongruous daring of that moment, Anne and I would end as husband and wife. Premonition or illusion,--I write it down as I felt it.

“Will you really believe me?” she said, and her glance went down, “when I say that I should never, never have said even this if--if it were not that you are going back, and everything else seems so little beside that. Will you understand that I can be like this, that without being in love I can look into the future and see what may come? David, it’s--it’s so hard to say--”

“I don’t think so. Say just what you feel, and then I shall be just as honest.”

“You have always been different in my life, David. Other men have just been shells. You I’ve known, and you’ve known me. It isn’t that, oh, since we are talking this way, it’s this: I know my weaknesses, Davy--oh, so well--and I know what I’ll become if I marry a certain type of man. It’s what you bring out in me, the thing I want to be when I’m with you. Of course, it sounds terribly--I’m ashamed to say it. No, don’t look at me; but David, I can say this--when you come back--some day, when it’s all over--I shan’t have changed.”

“Shan’t have what?”

“Changed,” she said, in a whisper.

I felt my eyes blurred. What wouldn’t I have given to have been able at that moment, in perfect honesty, to have taken her into my arms for her sake--and for mine!

“Anne,” I said, “let me tell you this,--for you will want to know this when you look back to-night: never regret what you have done. We have come closer together this afternoon than ever before, and you have done it.”

“Do you mean it, Davy?” she said, looking up, her eyes shining so that it was hard to resist them.

“I do. From now on I shall always know the strength of a woman--a very real woman--that is in you. You have left a memory that I shall hold in great reverence. Between us now there will be always absolute honesty; and that is something to build on. Hold what we have, dear friend, and let us both have some faith in the future.”

“Thank you, David,” she said, with a touch of wistfulness. Then, “And now, tell me--”

“Are you sure you want to hear? It will hurt you.”

“I only know that you are unhappy. And, David, I think that is the reason, the real reason I have come to you.”

It was hard to begin, for I, too, shrunk from the pain I knew I would give her. Presently, she said, looking up at my clouded face:

“There was some one else--”

I nodded.

“Of course, I knew there was.”

“There is.”

“Oh.”

“But it is quite hopeless,” I added hastily.

“Quite hopeless?” she said, looking at me, and so strange are the ways of the heart, that, I believe, that was the only thought she seized upon.

“I only knew her for ten days. I shall never see her again. I have promised.”

“It hurts?”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry.” She laid her hand on my arm and looked away. “Is--is it because she’s married, David?”

Strange to say, the suggestion came to me like a flash of lightning in the darkness of my perplexity. Never once had such an explanation occurred to me. I thought it over and wondered.

“You needn’t answer.”

“I do not think so,” I said, without thinking how strange this must sound. “I don’t know--I hardly know anything about her. We are entirely apart in everything,--race, tradition, faith.”

“And if it were not hopeless, David?”

“Don’t ask me.”

We drove on in silence, each to his own thoughts. In the end it was Anne who spoke.

“Just one question: is--is she there--in France?”

“No. She is here. That I said is true. She is gone utterly out of my life. It was her decision. Why? I don’t even know. It was all very beautiful and very tragic. It is over--all except the forgetting.” I drew a long breath and turned to her. “That is going to be a hard fight, but it must be done. I wonder if I should have told you this.”

“Oh, yes, yes! You should have told me.”

“Of course. Anne--I want you to know this, too. With what we have been to each other--we are now--I should never ask anything of you unless I did love you with my whole heart. That is your right. This is a strange conversation, but I think you know me well enough to believe that!”

“Of course, David.”

She looked at me, and her eyes suddenly were filled with tears.

“I wish I could feel that you needed me a little.”

“Good God! But have I the right!”

Then, she did a thing I shall never forget,--that only comes to the intuition of the woman who loves. She drew off her glove and laid her bare hand in mine. And so, speaking little, we returned.

* * * * *

Is it possible, I wonder, that with one’s heart filled with the ache and anguish of a love that is denied any hope, the soul in its defensive instinct can look ahead and know what some future date may bring? For, to-day, I can say this with perfect honesty: I need to keep Anne in my life.