Chapter III: Part 3

The emancipated husband had no particular place to go, and his present nocturnal pilgrimage was undertaken purely in the interest of wifely discipline. He dropped into his club, but found it dull; and perhaps the thought of Kitty's sad little face tugged remorsefully at his heartstrings, for he went home early.

The lights were low in the drawing-room, she always left them so for him. "Must have gone to bed about nine," he mused. He went up-stairs, expecting to hear her say: "Is that you, dear?" But no sound of any sort greeted him. The house was as silent as a tomb. After a few minutes, it became evident that she was not at home, and he sat down with a book to await her arrival.

It seemed strange, someway, without her,--perhaps because her gown hung from the back of a chair. It was a soft pretty thing of pinky-yellow--he mentally decided that must be the colour--trimmed with creamy lace and black velvet ribbon. It was a very pretty gown--a most adorable gown.

It was half-past eleven, when Kitty came home humming the chorus of a popular song. She started in apparent surprise when she saw him. "Oh, it's you, is it?" she said indifferently.

"Certainly it's me," he responded irritably. "Whom did you expect to see here?"

Kitty laughed pleasantly, and drew off her gloves. Her tailor-made gown fitted her to perfection, it was his favorite colour, too, and her collar and cuffs were irreproachable.

"Where have you been, Kitty?" he asked in a different tone.

"Oh, just out," she responded with a yawn. "Where have you been?"

"Humph," responded Mr. Carson.

The following evening, she appeared at dinner in the same severe gown. She was very pleasant and chatted on topics of current interest quite as if he were a casual acquaintance. She watched him with evident uneasiness afterward, and he was certain that he detected a faint shade of relief on her face when he commenced hunting for his hat.

Before ten he came home, and as he half suspected, Kitty was out. His irritation grew until he was afraid to trust himself to speak, so he pretended to be asleep, when she came home.

The cloud on the matrimonial horizon grew larger. Outwardly Kitty was kind and considerate, and her vigilant care for his comfort was in no way lessened. His things were kept in order and something he particularly liked was always on the table, but the old confidence was gone and in its place was something that he hesitated to analyse.

She went out every night, now. More than once she had left him with a laconic "Bye-bye," and he had spent a miserable evening before an unsympathetic fire. He learned to detest the severely correct gowns that she always wore now.

"I say, Kit," he said as he rose from the table, "don't you want to go to the theatre to-night?"

"Can't," she returned shortly, "much obliged for the 'bid' though."

George Carson's hair rose "like quills upon the fretful porcupine." He had a horror of slang from feminine lips, and he had been drawn to Kitty in the first place, because she never used it. "Bid!" Oh, Heavens!

He paid no attention to her cheerful farewell when she left him. He poked the fire morosely, smoked without enjoying it, and at last cast about for something to read. One of the Journals for women, written and edited by men, lay on the table, and he grasped it as the proverbial drowning man is wont to clutch the proverbial straw.

He consulted the pages of the oracle anxiously, and he learned that it was not wise to marry a man who had served a term in the penitentiary, that it was harmless enough for either man or woman to kiss a lady cousin, but that a man cousin must be kept at a fixed and rigid distance--that it was wrong for cousins to marry, and that it was not only immoral, but very dangerous to bleach or dye the hair.

No rule of conduct was specified for the man whose wife went out nights, and he wandered aimlessly into the street. The light and cheer of the club house seemed inopportune, like mirth at a funeral, and he retired into a distant corner to think. His intimates hailed him joyously, but were met with marked coldness. One of them, more daring than the rest, laid a sympathetic hand upon his shoulder.

"What's the matter, old man?"

"Oh, the deuce," growled George, "can't you let a fellow alone?"

He was glad that he got home before Kitty did, for he could pretend to be asleep when she came in. He knew it would be only a pretence, and until midnight he listened for her latch-key in the door. It was long after twelve, when a carriage stopped at the door, and then he heard a manly voice say: "Good night, Mrs. Carson."

"Good night, Johnnie," she returned, "and thank you for a pleasant evening."

"Johnnie!" Who in creation was "Johnnie?"

But there was no time to wonder, for Kitty's foot was on the stair, and in a frame of mind not usually favourable to repose, he simulated sleep.

There was a beautiful bracelet at her plate the following evening.

"Oh, how sweet!" she said, with evident pleasure in her eyes.

"Aren't you going to put it on?" he asked, when she laid it aside.

"Oh, yes," she answered brightly, "only I can't wear it with this gown. Bracelets don't go well with linen cuffs."

She didn't even take it from the table after dinner, as he noted with a pang. Almost immediately she came in with her hat on and stood leisurely drawing on her gloves.

"You're not going out again to-night, are you Kitty?" he asked.

"See here, George," she returned, "we might just as well understand this thing, first as last. There's no use in you speaking to me in that tone, just because I choose to go out in the evening. When I married you, I didn't intend to be tied to your apron string--I suppose, I should say, suspender, and I don't intend to be. I consider myself as free as I was before I was married, and I am perfectly willing to accord the same freedom to you. When you go out I never ask you where you have been, or what time you came home, and I'd be glad to have you equally considerate of me. See?"

Without other farewell, she slammed the outer door. He was petrified with astonishment. Were such words ever before addressed by a tyrannical wife to a devoted husband? In the midst of his trouble, the door-bell rang. Friends of his and of Kitty's had come to call.

"Where's Kit?" asked Mrs. Clay, after they had chatted a moment.

"She's gone out a minute--yes--no--that is--I don't know," returned George incoherently.

Mr. Clay's ready tact came to the rescue and he picked up a program which lay on the table, half hidden by a magazine.

"Tannhauser," he said cheerfully, "with Gadski as Elizabeth! So you went Tuesday night? We wanted to go, but there were no seats left. How early did you get yours?"

"I--ah--yes--Gadski as Elizabeth--that is--rather early. Yes, she was very fine," said George miserably. The stunning revelation had come to him that on Tuesday night--the evening in which he had heard the carriage and the voices, Kitty had been to the opera with another man! And it seemed to fairly paralyse his powers of speech. After a little while the guests politely departed, wondering what in the world was the matter with the Carsons.

"Is he crazy?" asked Mrs. Clay.

"Looks like it," answered her husband concisely.

Carson went up-stairs and searched the closet until he found the pinky-yellow gown with the black velvet bows. He sat down with the pretty fluffy thing in his hands. A delicate odour of violets clung to it--Kitty always had violets around her--and the scent seemed like a haunting memory of a happy past, when he had a wife who wore soft womanly things--who loved to have him kiss her, and never went out nights.

With a sudden rush of tenderness he held the little gown close, but it yielded him no caress in return, and he flung it bitterly aside, feeling as he did so, that he sat among the ashes of a desolate and forsaken home.

He grew white and worn in the days that followed. He knew dimly what a grave might mean, since he felt the hurt of a living loss.

He wandered through the lonely rooms evening after evening. The sight of her dainty fluffy things made him suffer keenly, and a tiny jewelled slipper he found on the floor almost unmanned him.

He no longer went to the club, but sat at home among Kitty's things while she went out as usual. One evening, after saying "good-bye" she caught her gown on a rocker, and turned back to free herself.

He was sitting before the fire, his elbow resting on his knee, and his chin in the palm of his hand. It was a saddened face that Kitty saw, with all the joy and youth gone out of it. The flickering light made the lines of pain very distinct, and her heart smote her at the realisation of what she had done. Quickly she ran up-stairs and took off her tailor-made costume. When she came down, he was sitting as she had left him, unhearing, unseeing and unheeding.

As she came toward him, he looked up. At the first sight of her in the pinky-yellow gown, he rubbed his eyes as if he had seen wrongly. She came nearer to him, smiling, her hands outstretched, and he sprang to his feet. "Kitty," he cried, "are you going to stay at home to-night?"

"To-night, and always, dear, if you want me," she replied.

"Want you--Oh, my little wife!" he said brokenly, and gathered her into his arms.

They had a long talk after that, and Kitty explained that she had been spending her evenings with Helen Everett, who was writing a book, and reading it to her, chapter by chapter as it was finished.

"Who is Johnnie?" demanded George abruptly.

"Helen's brother. He's only a boy, but he's a very nice one, and he takes us to all sorts of lovely places."

After a moment she continued wistfully: "Helen's awfully clever--books, colleges, degrees, and everything."

"And you have only me," said George, laughing, and drawing her closer.

"You're enough, if I can only keep you," she returned mischievously.

His face grew very grave. "I have been a thoughtless brute, sweetheart. Forgive me," he said kissing her fondly. "And know all men by these presents, I hereby confer upon you the degree of Mistress of Arts."

A Rosary of Tears

A Rosary of Tears

The orchestra had paused, either through simple human pity, or, as seemed more likely, to rest. Even a good orchestra must have time for physical and mental refreshment, and the guests at the St. James would gladly have accorded eternity to this one, had the management been kindly disposed and permitted it.

A faint breath of the tropical night stirred the foliage in the palm-room, where there was light and laughter and the crystalline tinkle of glasses. The predatory lady from Memphis, clad resplendently in white lace, and paste jewels, moved restlessly about the room. Her blue eyes were cat-like in their quick intense scrutiny. They said, at the St. James, that nothing under the roof escaped her knowledge.

Designedly she passed the two who sat at a glass-covered table in a secluded corner, affecting not to notice them. When the rustle of her garments and the clatter of her high heels died away, the man spoke.

"She must have spilled the peroxide," he said with a grating laugh. Her hair was indeed more brilliant than usual.

The woman laughed too--a little hysterical laugh which sounded more like a sob. She took her watch from the silver bag that hung at her belt, opened it, and laid it before them.

"An hour more," she answered irrelevantly. "Like Cinderella, I must go at twelve."

"Are you afraid your auto will turn into a pumpkin drawn by white rats and your chauffeur into--let's see, who was Cinderella's footman?"

She shook her head. "I used to know, but it was long ago when I was a child."

"You're only a child now," he returned quickly.

"No, I'm a woman, and I must meet whatever comes to me as a brave woman should." She fixed her clear eyes on his and spoke steadily. "I mustn't be a coward, I mustn't refuse to do anything just because it is hard. I've got to be true to my best self, and you've got to help me."

The war correspondent's face whitened for an instant, then the colour surged back in waves. "Come out on the balcony," he whispered, "it's insufferable in here."

She followed him through the French window. Their two chairs were in their own particular corner still, placed as they had been every night for a week. He arranged the rose and green velvet cushion at her back precisely as she liked it, and drew his own chair near hers--just close enough not to touch.

A white-coated waiter whisked out of sight tactfully. He was needed within where the lady from Memphis had cornered a hardware drummer from Pittsburg and was coyly inquiring whether or not champagne was intoxicating.

"A week ago to-night," said the war correspondent abruptly. "I believe now that the world was made in seven days. Mine has been made and shattered into atoms in an equal space of time."

"Don't say that! There's good in it--there's got to be good in it somewhere! We'll have to find it together, past all the pain."

The late moon rose slowly above the grove of palms beyond them; the Southern night breathed orange blossoms and roses. A tiny ray of blue light shot from the solitaire on the third finger of her left hand. It was the only ring she wore.

"I can't believe it's true," he said, somewhat roughly. "If you cared as you say you do, you'd"--he choked on the word, and stopped abruptly, but his eyes made his meaning clear.

They were unusual eyes--for a man. So she had thought a week ago, when she went down the corridor to her room at midnight, humming gaily to herself a little fragment of a love song. They were big and brown and boyish, with laughter lurking in their depths--they met her own clearly and honestly, always, and in their look there had never been that which makes a woman ashamed. Yes, they were unusual eyes--for a man.

"Honour is an elastic word," she replied. "For most women, it means only one thing. A woman may lie and steal and nag and break up homes, and steam open other people's letters, and betray her friends, and yet, if she is chaste, she is called honourable. I made up my mind early in life, that I'd make my own personal honour include not only that, but the things men are judged by, too. If a man broke his solemn pledge, you'd call him a coward and a cur. So," she concluded with a pitiful pride, "I'll not break mine."

Her voice was uneven and he felt, rather than saw, the suffering plainly written on her face. "Tell me," he began gently, "of him. What does he look like? What sort of man is he?"

"I came away in such a rush that I forgot his picture, else I'd show it to you. I would have sent back for it, only I didn't want my people to think I was silly, and besides, there is no need, I could remember how he looked, and every tone of his voice until a week ago to-night."

"Is he tall?" The war correspondent himself was a trifle over six feet.

"No, not very,--only a little taller than I."

"Smooth-shaven?"

"Yes."

"Dark?"

"Very."

"What does he do?"

"Business in a stuffy office, from nine to six. He spends his evenings with me."

"Every evening?"

"Yes, and all day Sunday. There are just two things in his life--the office and me."

"Go on," he reminded her, after a pause.

"It's simple, and, in a way, commonplace. We met, and he cared--terribly--from the first. I didn't, because it was difficult for me to trust any man. I told him so, and he said he'd make me trust him. He did, but it took him a long time. It's pathetically easy for a woman to love a man she can trust. And so I wear his ring and have for two years. When I go back, we're to be married."

"Do you call it honourable to marry one man while you love another?"

"He's been everything in the world to me," she continued, ignoring the thrust. "I've never had a doubt nor a difficulty of any kind, since I've known him, that he hasn't helped me through. Every thought that came into my mind, I have felt perfectly free to tell him. We've never quarrelled. On my side, the feeling has been of long slow growth, but there are no hard words lying between us. It's all been sweet until now. He's clean-minded and clean-hearted and true-souled. If he has ever lied to me, I've never found it out. He has been absolutely and unswervingly loyal in thought, word, and deed, and as for jealousy--why, I don't believe he knows what the word means.

"You know there are two kinds of love. One is an infinite peace that illumines all your life, so surely and so certainly that it's not to be taken away. It's like daily bread to you. The other is like wine--swift and terrible and full of fatal fascination. The one has come to me from him--the other from you."

"Honey!" It was the shrill, high, bird-like voice of the lady from Memphis swiftly rounding the corner of the balcony. "Is this your watch? I've found it on the table and I've been looking all over for you!"

"Thank you." Miss Ward took the trinket coldly and never turned her head. The man, having small respect for the lady from Memphis, never rose from his chair.

After a little hesitation she retreated, pausing in the background, among the palms, to shake a warning finger with assumed coquetry.

"Naughty," she shrilled. "You mustn't flirt! If you do, I'll write to your honey and tell him what you are doing. You see if I don't. And then he'll come and catch you at it, and where will you be then?" With a mirthless cackle, she vanished into the palm-room, where there was light and the tinkle of glasses and the bubbling of champagne.

"Half-past eleven," said Miss Ward dully. "Thirty minutes more."

The war correspondent caught his breath as if he had been suddenly hurt. "One little hour," he answered, his voice low and tense with suppressed feeling. "Only one little hour to last us for all eternity, and we're wasting it like this. I love you, I love you, I love you! I love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my will. I love you so much that heaven would be hell without you, and hell itself would be heaven if you were there. I love you with a love that will not die, when I do. I love you, do you understand? God knows I love you!"

She turned her face towards him thrilled to the depths of her soul. "And I," she breathed, caught in the whirlwind of his emotion, "love you--in just that way!"

His hands closed quickly over hers. "Then," he pleaded, "come. There are no barriers between us--they are nothing but cobwebs. Sweep them aside with one stroke of magnificent daring and come. We'll be married in the morning and sail for New York immediately, then go abroad for a year. Two telegrams will set you free, and explain everything! Come," he whispered, "only come! Youth and love, and the wide world before us! We'll be together till death divides us! Come--promise me you'll come!"

In thought she surrendered for an instant, then broke away from him, shuddering. "Don't," she gasped. "Don't make it so hard for me to do what is right. I won't be dishonourable, I won't be disloyal, I won't be untrue. Happiness that comes from wrong doing is always brief, but, oh, dear lad, I love you with a love nobody ever had before, or ever will have again. I'm not taking anything away from anybody else to give to you, so it isn't dishonourable--it can't be. Tell me it isn't!" she cried. "Oh, tell me."

"It isn't," he assured her. "You couldn't be dishonourable if you tried. You're the bravest, finest woman I've ever known."

From within came the notes of a violin muted. The piano, mercifully softened, followed the melody with the full rich accompaniment which even miserable playing can never wholly spoil.

"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me;
I count them o'er, every one apart--
My rosary! My rosary!"

"The pearls mean tears," she whispered brokenly. "Our rosary is made of tears!"

The lady from Memphis clattered past them on the balcony, singing the words apparently to herself, but really with an eye to dramatic--and impertinent--effect.

* * * * *

For a week they had been together, the gayest of the gay crowd. That day all plans had mysteriously fallen through. Miss Ward's chaperon had been called home by a telegram. A letter had caused another unexpected departure, a forgotten engagement loomed up before another, a sick headache laid low a fourth, and only they two were left--the "tattered remnant of the old guard," she laughingly said that morning when they met in the palm-room after breakfast, as usual, to discuss the program of the day.

"Then," he retorted, "the old guard will make the best of it!"

So they had spent the day together in public places, mindful of the proprieties. A long talk in the afternoon, full of intimate and searching details, had paved the way for the dazzling revelation made by an accidental touching of hands. In an instant, the world was changed.

"Suppose," she said, "that you had been obliged to go away this afternoon, before everything was fully acknowledged between us? Oh, don't you see what we have? We've got one whole day--a little laughter, and a great deal of love and pain, crystallised by parting and denial, into something sweet to keep in our hearts for always. Nothing can take to-day away from us--it's ours beyond the reach of estrangement or change. To-night we'll shut the door upon it and steal away, as from a casket enshrining the dead."

"Not dead," he flashed bitterly, "but buried alive!"

"Oh, memories that bless and burn,
Oh, barren gain and bitter loss,
I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn
To kiss the cross, sweetheart! To kiss the cross."

The last echo died away, the violin rattled into its case, the piano was closed. The musicians went home, and there was a general movement toward the doors. A far clock chimed twelve and she rose wearily from her chair. "Good night," she faltered, her hand fluttering toward his; "I cannot say good-bye, but we must never see each other again."

How it happened they never knew, but he took her into his arms, unresisting, and kissed her fully, passionately, upon the lips.

All the joy and pain of the world seemed crowded into the instant they stood there, locked in each other's arms. Then the high, bird-like voice of the lady from Memphis broke on their ears in a grating staccato.

"She was out here, when I saw her last, flirting dreadfully with the war correspondent. I guess she didn't know you were coming on that late train."

Eagerly, happily, the Other Man rushed out on the balcony, crying boyishly, "Mabel! Are you here?"

The words died on his lips. The man who held her in his arms kissed her again, slowly, hungrily; then reluctantly released her. She steadied herself against the railing of the balcony. In the moonlight her face was ghastly. The scent of the orange blossoms seemed overpowering her with deadly fragrance.

"Didn't I tell you?" asked the lady from Memphis gleefully. From the open window she was enjoying the situation to the full.

The Other Man was bewildered.

"Mabel," he said enquiringly, "I don't quite understand. Didn't you get my wire?"

The war correspondent stepped forward. He had faced the guns of the enemy before and was not afraid now. A single commanding glance, mingled with scorn, sent the lady from Memphis scurrying back into the palm-room.

"I know who you are," he said to the Other Man, "and I owe you an explanation. I love Miss Ward and I have been trying all day to induce her to break her engagement with you and marry me instead."

The Other Man laughed. He went to the balcony rail, where the girl stood, half fainting, and put his arm around her. "I don't doubt it," he said. "Isn't she the finest, sweetest, truest woman the Lord ever made? Any man who doesn't love her is a chump. You and I will be good friends--we have a great deal in common."

He offered his hand but the war correspondent bowed and swerved aside. "Good night," he said thickly. "I have played and lost. I lay down my hand." He went through the window hastily, leaving the two alone.

"Mabel, dear Mabel!" said the Other Man softly. "You've been through something that is almost too much for you. Sit down and rest--you're tired!"

The words, calm and tender, brought back to her tortured soul a hint of the old peace. In a pitiless flash of insight she saw before her two women, either of which she might become. One was serene and content, deeply and faithfully loved, sheltered from everything love could shield her from, watched, taken care of in all the countless little ways that mean so much. The other was to know Life to its uttermost, all its rage, jealousy and despair, to be shaken in body and soul by fierce elemental passions, to face eclipsing miseries alone, and drain the cup to the lees. The difference was precisely that between a pleasure craft, anchored in a sunny harbour, and the toiling ship that breasts the tempestuous seas.

She sat down and suffered him to take her hand. He stroked her wrist silently, in the old comforting way he had when she was nervous or tired. His face was troubled--hers was working piteously. The lights had died down in the palm-room and the last of the revellers went away. The house detective paced through the long rooms twice and made a careful survey of the balcony.

"Darling," said the Other Man, "you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to--you know that; but wouldn't it make you feel better? You've always told me things, and I'm the best friend you've got. Surely you're not afraid now?"

His voice failed at the end, and the girl drew a quick shuddering breath but she did not answer.

"He was kissing you, wasn't he?" asked the Other Man, "when I came?"

"Yes," she said dully, "he was kissing me, but it was for good-bye. He told me he loved me, and I had told him I loved him. I've known him only a week. He never so much as touched my hand until to-day, but it was only my own personal honour that kept me from marrying him to-morrow, as he begged me to do. I've told you the worst now. Believe what you like--do what you will."

The Other Man sighed. His mouth was boyish and for the moment unsteady, but his eyes sought hers as honestly and clearly as the war correspondent's, who had unusual eyes--for a man.

"I think I understand," he said brokenly. "I don't blame any man for loving you, dear--I'm prepared for that--and we've been separated so long, and the moonlight and the palms and the roses and all, and you were used to being loved--I think that's why. You were lonesome, wer'n't you, sweetheart? Didn't you want me?"

Infinite love and infinite pain surged together in her heart, blending into unspeakable tenderness. "Yes, I wanted you," she whispered--"I always want you. I'm--I'm a bit upset just now, but I haven't taken anything away from you to give to anybody else. It's only an undiscovered country--a big one, that he found to-day. I haven't been intentionally dishonourable. I fought but it was no use--he simply swept me off my feet. Forgive me if you can!"

"Hush! There'll never be any need of that word between you and me. I've forgiven you long ago, for everything you've ever done or ever can do. It's an unlimited fund to draw upon--that and my love. You know," he went on in another tone, "that if it were for your happiness, I could give you up, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. You'd never be as happy with anybody you'd only known a week, as you would with me, because I've loved you for years. You have my whole heart, Mabel,--there's never been another woman with even a hint of a claim. I know all your little moods and tenses and you don't have to explain things to me. I know you can't ride backward and you don't like to walk when you have high-heeled shoes on, and a thousand other things that are infinitely dear just because they are you. I was thinking of them all the way down here, and loving them--every one."

"I don't deserve it," she answered, and then broke into a wild sobbing.

The Other Man moved his chair closer and drew her head to his shoulder. "There," he said, slipping a handkerchief into the hand that covered her eyes; "cry if you want to. You're tired--my little girl is tired."

He held her so until the storm had spent itself. He kept his face against her hair, soft and silky, and fragrant with orris--forgetting himself utterly in his loving pity for her. At last she moved away from him. Her tear-stained face in the moonlight, filled him with tenderness so great that his love was pain.

"It's late," she said, "it must be after one o'clock. I must go up-stairs." She started toward the open window, but still he held her back gently. "Dear," he said softly, "we've been away from each other four weeks and three days, and I've come two thousand miles to see you. You haven't kissed me yet. Don't you want to? You don't need to if you'd rather not, but if you could----"

His voice vibrated with passionate appeal. She lifted her white face to his and kissed him mechanically. "To-morrow," she breathed, "I'll be more like myself; I'll try to make up for to-night, but if you love me, let me go now!"

He went with her to the elevator, and watched until she was lifted out of his sight, smiling at her until the last--the old loving smile. He went out to the balcony again, and sat down with his arms thrown over the back of the chair that had so recently held her. His brow was wrinkled with deep thought, but his boyish mouth still smiled.

Presently there was a step behind him and he turned--to look into the face of the war correspondent who spoke first.

"I've come back," he said, "to shake hands with you, if you don't mind."

The Other Man's hand met his, more than half-way.

"And," continued the war correspondent, "I want to apologise. I've been all kinds of a brute, but what I said was the truth. I love her as no man ever before loved a woman. That's my only excuse."

"You're not to blame for loving her," returned the Other Man generously; "nobody is. And as for her loving you, that's all right too. She's got a lot of temperament and she's used to being loved, and you're not a bad sort, you know--not at all." And he concluded fondly, "my little girl was lonesome without me."

The war correspondent went away quietly. In the moonlight he could see the boyish face of the Other Man, radiant with an all-believing, all-forgiving love.

"Yes," said the Other Man again, after an interval, and not realising that he was alone, "that was it. My little girl was lonesome without me."

The Roses and the Song

The Roses and the Song

There had been a lover's quarrel and she had given him back his ring. He thrust it into his pocket and said, unconcernedly, that there were other girls who would be glad to wear it.

Her face flushed, whether in anger or pain he did not know, but she made no reply. And he left her exulting in the thought that the old love was dead.

As the days went by, he began to miss her. First, when his chum died in a far-off country, with no friend near. He remembered with a pang how sweetly comforting she had always been, never asking questions, but soothing his irritation and trouble with her gentle womanly sympathy.

He knew just what she would do if he could tell her that Tom was dead. She would put her soft cheek against his own rough one, and say: "I am so sorry dear. I'm not much, I know, but you've got me, and nothing, not even death can change that."

"Not even death"--yes, it was quite true. Death changes nothing.--It is only life that separates utterly.

He began to miss the afternoon walks, the lingering in book store and art galleries, and the quiet evenings at home over the blazing fire, when he sat with his arm around her and told her how he had spent the time since they last met. Every thought was in some way of her, and the emptiness of his heart without her seemed strange in connection with the fact that the old love was dead.

He saw by a morning paper that there was to be a concert for the benefit of some charitable institution, and on the program, printed beneath the announcement, was her name. He smiled grimly. How often he had gone with her when she sang in public! He remembered every little detail of every evening. He always waited behind the scenes, because she said she could sing better when he was near her. And whatever the critics might say, she was sure of his praise.

It was on the way home from one of these affairs that he had first told her that he loved her. Through the rose-leaf rain that fell from her hair and bosom at his touch he had kissed her for the first time, and the thrill of her sweet lips was with him still. How short the ride had been that night and why was the coachman in such an unreasonable hurry to get home?

He made up his mind that he would not go to the concert that night, but somehow, he bought a ticket and was there before the doors opened. So he went out to walk around a little. People who went to concerts early were his especial detestation.

In a florist's window he saw some unusually beautiful roses. He had always sent her roses before, to match her gown, and it seemed queer not to buy them for her now.

Perhaps he really ought to send her some to show her that he cherished no resentment. Anyone could send her flowers over the footlights. The other men that she knew would undoubtedly remember her, and he didn't want to seem unfriendly.

So he went in. "Four dozen La France roses," he said, and the clerk speedily made the selection. He took a card out of his pocket, and chewed the end of his pencil meditatively.

It was strange that he should have selected that particular kind, he thought. That other night, after he had gone home, he had found a solitary pink petal clinging to his scarf-pin. He remembered with a flush of tenderness that it had come from one of the roses--his roses--on her breast. He had kissed it passionately and hidden it in a book--a little book which she had given him.

With memory came heartache, his empty life and her wounded love. The words shaped themselves under his pencil:

"You know what the roses mean. Will you wear one when you sing the second time? Forgive me and love me again--my sweetheart."

He tied the card himself into the centre of the bunch, so it was half hidden by the flowers. He gave them to the usher with a queer tremolo note in his voice. "After her first number, understand?"

There was a piano solo, and then she appeared. What she sang he did not know, but her deep contralto, holding heaven in its tones, he both knew and understood. She did not sing as well as usual. Her voice lacked warmth and sincerity and her intonation was faulty. The applause was loud but not spontaneous although many of her friends were there. His were the only flowers she received.

When she came out the second time, he looked at her anxiously, but there was never a sign of a rose. He sank down in his chair with a sigh and covered his face with his hand.

This time she sang as only _she_ could sing. Oh, that glorious contralto! Suggestions of twilight and dawn, of suffering and joy, of love and its renunciation.

There was no mistaking her success and the great house rang with plaudits from basement to roof. He, only, was silent; praying in mute agony for a sign.

She willingly responded to the encore and a hush fell upon the audience with the first notes of Tosti's "Good-Bye."

"_Falling leaf, and fading tree._"

Oh, why should she sing that? He writhed as if in bodily pain, but the beautiful voice went on and on.

"_Good-bye, summer, good-bye, good-bye!_"

How cruel she seemed! Stately, imperious, yet womanly, she held her listeners spellbound, but every word cut into his heart like a knife.

"_All the to-morrows shall be as to-day._"

The tears came and his lips grew white. Then some way into the cruel magnificence of her voice came a hint of pity as she sang:

"_Good-bye to hope, good-bye, good-bye!_"

There was a hush, then she began again:

"_What are we waiting for, Oh, my heart?
Kiss me straight on the brows, and part!_"

All the love in her soul surged into her song; the joy of happy love; the agony of despairing love; the pleading cry of doubting love; the dull suffering of hopeless love; and then her whole strength was merged into a passionate prayer for the lost love, as she sang the last words:

"_Good-bye forever, good-bye forever!
Good-bye, good-bye, good--bye--!_"

She bowed her acknowledgments again and again, and when the clamour was over, he hastened into the little room behind the stage where she was putting on her wraps. She was alone but her carriage was waiting.

As he entered, she started in surprise, then held out her hand.

"Dear," he said, "if this is the end, won't you let me kiss you _once_ for the sake of our old happiness? We were so much to each other--you and I. Even if you wouldn't wear the rose, won't you let me hold you just a minute as I used to do?"

"Wear the rose," she repeated, "what do you mean?"

"Didn't you see my card?"

"No," she answered, "I couldn't look at them--they are--La--France--you know--and----"

She reached out trembling fingers and found the card. She read the tender message twice--the little message which meant so much, then looked up into his face.

"If I could," she whispered, "I'd pin them all on."

Someway she slipped into her rightful place again, and very little was said as they rolled home. But when he lit the gas in his own room he saw something queer in the mirror, and found, clinging to his scarf-pin, the petal of a La France rose.

A Laggard in Love

A Laggard in Love

"My dear," said Edith judiciously, "I think you're doing wrong."

Marian dabbed her eyes with a very wet handkerchief and said nothing. Edith adjusted the folds of her morning gown and assumed a more comfortable position on the couch.

"They all have to be managed," she went on, "and you'll find that Mr. Thomas Drayton is no exception. I'll venture that when he makes his visits, which are like those of angels, 'few and far between' you tell him how lonesome you've been without him, and how you've thought of him every minute since the last time, and perhaps even cry a little bit! Am I right?"

Marian nodded. "If it wasn't for that hateful Perkins girl, I wouldn't care so much. She's neither bright nor pretty, and I'm sure I don't see what Tom sees in her. I think it's more her fault than his."

"The Perkins girl is entirely blameless, Miss Reynolds, though she certainly is unpleasant. It is Tom's fault."

The afflicted Miss Reynolds wiped her eyes again. "Perhaps it's mine. If I were quite what I ought to be, Tom wouldn't seek other society, I'm sure."

Mrs. Bently sat up straight. "Marian Reynolds," she demanded, "have you ever said anything like that to Tom?"

"Something like that," Marian admitted. "What should I have done?"

"Thrown a book at him," responded Mrs. Bently energetically. Then she leaned back among the pillows, and twisted the corners of her handkerchief.

"Don't be horrid, Edith, but tell me what to do," pleaded Marian.

Mrs. Bently looked straight out of the window. "I've been married nearly ten years," she said meditatively, "and I point with pardonable pride to my husband. There hasn't been any of the 'other woman business' since the first days of our engagement. He never forgets the little words of endearment, he brings me flowers, and books, and he's quite as polite to me as he is to other women."

"I know," replied Marian. "I've seen him break away from a crowd in the middle of a sentence to put your rubbers on for you."

"All that," resumed Edith, "is the result of careful training. And what Tom needs is heroic treatment. If you will promise to do exactly as I say, you will have his entire devotion inside of a month."

"I promise," responded Marian hopefully.

"First, then, take off your engagement ring."

Marian's pretty brown head drooped lower and lower, and a brighter diamond fell into her lap. She felt again the passionate tenderness in his voice when he told her how much he loved her, and she remembered how he had kissed each finger-tip separately, then the diamond, just because it was hers.

She looked at her friend with eyes full of tears. "Edith, I can't."

"Take it off."

Marian obeyed, very slowly, then threw herself at the side of the couch sobbing. "Edith, Edith," she cried, "don't be so cross to me! I am so dreadfully unhappy!"

"Marian, dearest, I'm not cross, but I want you to be a sensible girl. The happiness of your whole life is at stake, and I want you to be brave--it is now or never with Mr. Thomas Drayton. If you let him torture you now for his own amusement, he will do it all his life!"

"I'll try, Edith, but you don't know how it hurts."

"Yes, I do know, dear; I've been through it myself. Now listen. First, no more tears or reproaches. Secondly, don't allude to his absence, nor to the Perkins girl. Thirdly, you must find some one else at once."

"That's as bad as what he is doing, isn't it?"

"_Similia similibus curantur_," laughed Edith. "Joe's friend, Jackson, is coming to the city for a month or so, and he'll do nicely. He's awfully handsome, and a perfectly outrageous flirt. He always singles out one girl, however, and devotes himself to her, so we won't have any trouble on that score. People who don't know Jackson, think that he's in deadly earnest, but I don't believe he ever had a serious thought in his life."

"I think I have seen him," said Marian. "Wasn't he at the Charity Ball with you and Mr. Bently last year?"

"Yes, he was there, but only for a few minutes. Now, let's see--to-day is Thursday. Have you seen Tom this week?"

Marian hesitated. "N-no, that is, not since Sunday. But I think he will come this afternoon."

"Very well, my dear, you have an engagement for the rest of the day with me. Run home and put on your prettiest gown. We'll go to the Art Gallery and call on Mrs. Kean later. We both owe her a call, and I'll look for you at two."

Promptly at two o'clock Marian appeared with all traces of tears smoothed away. "You'll do," said Edith. "I believe you're a thoroughbred after all."

At the Art Gallery they met what Mrs. Bently termed "the insufferable Perkins" clad in four different colours and looking for all the world like a poster. She was extremely pleasant, and insisted upon showing them a picture which was "one of Mr. Drayton's favourites."

Miss Reynolds adjusted her lorgnette critically. "Yes, I think this is about the only picture in this exhibit which Tom and I both like. I'm so glad that you approve of our taste, Miss Perkins," and Marian smiled sweetly.

Edith squeezed her arm rapturously as they moved away. "I'm proud of you. Those pictures were hung only day before yesterday. Why, there's Joe."

Mr. Bently greeted them cordially. "Jackson came this morning, Edith, and I have asked him to dine with us Monday evening."

"That will be charming. Marian is coming to visit us over Sunday and I think they will like each other."

"I hope so," was Mr. Bently's rejoinder. "It's really good of you to come, Miss Reynolds, for I very seldom see you, and Jackson is a capital fellow."

"Come, Marian," said Edith, "you know we were going to make a call."

"Always going somewhere, aren't you, sweetheart?" and Mr. Bently smiled lovingly at his pretty wife.

"Never far away from you, dear," she answered and waved her hand to him as the crowd swept them apart.

"You're going to stay all night with me, you know," Edith said. "We'll stop at your house on our way back, and leave word with your mother--incidentally we can learn if any one has called."

It was almost dark when they reached Marian's home, and Edith waited in the hall, while she went in search of her mother. As she came down-stairs, Mrs. Bently held up a small white card, triumphantly. Marian's face flushed as she saw the name.

"_Mr. Thomas E. Drayton._"

"It's all right," said her friend, "just wait and see."

Friday morning, the servant who admitted Marian, said that Mr. Drayton had called the previous evening and left some flowers which Miss Reynolds would find in the library.

A great bunch of American Beauties stood on the table, and almost overpowered her with their fragrance.

"Dear, dear Tom! He _does_ love me," she thought. "I'll write him a note."

She sat down to her desk without removing her hat. "Perhaps I've been mistaken all along." The words shaped themselves under her pen: "My Dearest." Then she stopped and surveyed it critically. "Not in the present incarnation of Miss Reynolds." She tore the sheet straight across, and dropped it into the waste basket. Taking another, she wrote:

"MY DEAR TOM:

"The roses are beautiful. I am passionately fond of flowers--of roses especially, and I must thank you for the really great pleasure the 'Beauties' are giving me.

"Sincerely yours,
"MARIAN REYNOLDS."

Over his coffee the next morning Tom studied the little note. "I wonder what's the matter. 'My Dear Tom'! 'Marian Reynolds' and not a bit of love in it. It isn't the least bit like her. I must go and see her this afternoon. No, I'll be hanged if I will, she had no business to be out," and he chewed a toothpick savagely. "I'll ask her to go to the theatre."

After much cogitation, he evolved a note which struck him as being a marvel of diplomacy.

"MY DEAR MARIAN:

"I am glad the roses give you pleasure. Will you go to the theatre
with me on Monday evening?

"Yours in haste,
"TOM."

Marian's reply was equally concise:

"MY DEAR TOM:

"I am very sorry that I have an engagement for Monday evening and
cannot possibly break it. You know I enjoy the theatre above all
things, and I am sure I should have an especially pleasant evening
with you.

"Sincerely,
"MARIAN REYNOLDS."

Tom grew decidedly uncomfortable. What the mischief was the matter with the girl! One thing was certain, next time he called, it would be at her invitation. But the following afternoon found him again at the house.

"Miss Reynolds is out, sir," said the servant as he opened the door, in response to his ring.

"I know," he responded impatiently; "I want to return a book I borrowed the other day."

"Certainly, sir," and the servant ushered him into the library.

He put the book in its place, and his glance, travelling downward met the waste basket. Marian's distinctive penmanship stared him in the face. "My Dearest!"

Mr. Thomas Drayton was an honourable gentleman, but he wanted to examine that waste-paper basket. He rushed out of the library, lest he should yield to the temptation, and said to the servant in the hall: "Say nothing of my having been here to-day, Jones."

"Certainly not, sir."

"The book is a joke on Miss Reynolds," he said putting a silver half dollar in Jones's ready palm.

"All right, sir, I see." And Tom went out.

Before he reached the avenue, he was mentally kicking himself for explaining to a servant. He had of course noticed the roses on the table, and he was very sure they had not been in Marian's room.

Once she had told him, how she had slept with one of the roses next her heart, and a thorn had pricked the flesh, making a red spot on a white petal. She showed him the rose with its tiny blood stain. He had kissed the flower and put it in a little memorandum book with a gold clasp. And he had told Marian, over and over again, what a horrid rose it was--to hurt his sweetheart. He smiled grimly at his own previous foolishness, and felt sure that none of the American Beauties would rest next to Marian's heart that night.

Miss Reynolds and Mrs. Bently sat in the latter's boudoir. Edith nodded sagely over Tom's note, and Marian was curled up in a forlorn heap on the couch.

"How does he usually begin his notes to you?"

"'My Dearest Girl,' or 'Dear Sweetheart,'" answered Marian.

"H'm! Well, my dear, you may depend upon it, he is 'beginning to take notice.'"

Sunday, Tom spent morosely at his club, and was so disagreeable that his friends were very willing to give him a wide berth. Marian was neither cheerful nor happy, and wept copiously in private, fancying Tom worshipping at the shrine of Miss Perkins.

Monday evening she and Edith dressed together. Marian had a new gown of that peculiar shade of blue which seems to be especially made for brown eyes and hair, and looked, as her friend told her, "simply stunning."

"Joe has a box at the theatre to-night. Isn't he lovely?"

Marian assented, but inwardly hoped that Tom would not hear of her being there.

Mr. Sterling Jackson was a very pleasant fellow, with an inexhaustible fund of humour. He devoted himself to Marian and looked unutterable things whenever opportunity offered. Handsome, he certainly was, and she was secretly flattered by his evident adoration. Tom didn't matter quite so much now.

At the theatre Marian sat in the front of an upper box beside Mrs. Bently. The devoted Jackson leaned forward and talked to her in subdued tones. After the first act, Edith whispered to her:

"Don't look, nor turn pale, nor do anything rash, but Mr. Thomas Drayton is down in the parquet with Miss Matilda Perkins." Marian turned white and grasped the rail of the box. "Don't faint till I tell you. He hasn't taken his eyes off you since he first saw you, and I don't believe he has seen the stage at all. Perkins is simply green with rage, and I wish you could see her hat. It's a dream in pink and yellow--an equine dream."

Marian's colour returned, and conscious of looking her best, she flirted outrageously with the ever willing Jackson, though she confided to Edith at the end of the second act, that she was "perfectly wretched."

"Nobody suspects it," returned Mrs. Bently, "least of all Tom. He's chewing Perkins's fan, and she's trying to draw him out."