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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c654216 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65556 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65556) diff --git a/old/65556-0.txt b/old/65556-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 202de4d..0000000 --- a/old/65556-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7029 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hare and Tortoise, by Pierre Coalfleet - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Hare and Tortoise - -Author: Pierre Coalfleet - -Release Date: June 7, 2021 [eBook #65556] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Alex White & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team - at https://www.pgdpcanada.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARE AND TORTOISE *** - - - - - - [Cover Illustration] - - - - - =H A R E A N D= - =T O R T O I S E= - - - - =By= - =PIERRE COALFLEET= - =_Author of “Solo_”= - - - - - - - - - =McCLELLAND & STEWART= - =PUBLISHERS TORONTO= - - - - - Copyright 1925 by - THE FORUM PUBLISHING COMPANY - Copyright 1925 by - DUFFIELD & COMPANY - - _Printed in U. S. A._ - - - - - =To= - - =R. M.= - - - - - HARE AND TORTOISE - - - - - HARE and TORTOISE - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -KEBLE EVELEY’S voice, rising and falling in graceful patterns, had -lulled his wife’s mind into a tranquil remoteness. She had got more from -the sinuosity of the sentences he was reading than from the thesis they -upheld. Walter Pater had so little to tell her that she needed to know. -This vaguely chagrined her, for Keble thought highly of Pater; Pater and -he had something in common, something impeccable and elusive, -something— - -She checked her musings in alarm at the menacing word “affected.” - -Was it affectation on Keble’s part? Or was there perhaps a winnowed -level of civilization thousands of miles east of these uncouth hills and -beyond the sea where precious phrases like Pater’s and correct manners -like Keble’s were matter of course? In any such _milieu_ what sort of -figure could _she_ hope to cut? - -No doubt a pitiful one. And her thoughts drifted wistfully but -resignedly down the stream of consciousness. - -It was not the first time she had failed to keep stroke with Keble in -the literary excursions he conducted on cool evenings before a log fire -that had been burning since their marriage in the autumn, six months -before. Only a few evenings past he had read a poem by Robert Browning, -who was to Louise merely a name that had fallen from the lips of her -English teacher at Normal School. She had felt herself rather pleasantly -scratched and pommeled by the lines as Keble had read them, but they had -failed to make continuous sense. And next morning, when she had gone to -the book-shelves to read and ponder in private, she hadn’t even been -able to identify the incoherent poem among the host of others in the red -volume. - -Once, too, when he had been playing the piano she had been humiliatingly -inept. For an hour she had been happy to lie back and listen to -harmonies which, though they had signified no more to her than a -monologue in a foreign tongue, had moved her to the verge of tears. Then -he had played something he called a prelude, a pallidly gay composition -utterly unlike many others called preludes, and on finishing it had -turned to ascertain its effect upon her. She hadn’t been listening -carefully, for it had set an old tune running in her head. “It’s pretty, -dear,” she had commented. “It reminds me of something Nana used to hum.” - -Her remark was inspired, for the suave prelude in question was no more -than a modern elaboration of a folk-theme that was a common heritage of -the composer and Nana. But the association between a French-Canadian -servant-girl and the winner of a recent _prix de Rome_ had been too -remote even for her musically discerning young husband, who had got up -from the piano with a hint of forbearance in his manner. That had cut -her to the quick, for it had implied maladdress on her part, and -gradually, through an intuitive process that hurt, she had gained an -inkling of the incongruity of her comparison. She had wished to state -the incongruity and turn it off with a touch of satire aimed at her -headlong self, but chagrin had held her mute. It was one of those -occasions where an attempted explanation would only underline the -regrettable fact that an explanation had been needed. Her ideas, she -felt, would always be ill-assorted; her comments, however good _per se_, -irrelevant. Her mind was a basket tumbling over with wild flowers; it -must be annoying for Keble to find pollen on his nose from a dandelion -in the basket after he had leaned forward at the invitation of a violet. - -Rising from her couch she crossed the room on tiptoe and sat on the arm -of Keble’s chair, leaning her head on his back as he continued to read. - -“After that sharp, brief winter, the sun was already at work, softening -leaf and bud, as you might feel by a faint sweetness in the air,” read -Keble. - -The faint sweet airs of a Western Canadian spring,—the first after a -sharp _long_ winter,—were at the black open window, stirring the -curtains, cooling her cheek; and Keble was with Marius the Epicurean in -Rome, seven thousand miles and many centuries away. - -“. . . Marius climbed the long flights of steps to be introduced to the -emperor Aurelius. Attired in the newest mode, his legs wound in dainty -_fasciae_ of white leather, with the heavy. . . .” - -Louise placed her hands across the page and leaned forward over Keble’s -shoulder to kiss the cheek half-turned in polite interrogation. “Are -_fasciae_ puttees, darling?” she inquired. Not that she really cared. -Indeed she was dismayed when he began to explain, and yawned. Penitently -she sank to an attitude of attention upon a stool at his feet. Keble got -up for his pipe, placing the book on a large rough table beside neat -piles of books and reviews. - -Louise remained on her footstool looking after him; then, as he turned -to come back, transferred her gaze to her hands, got up, biting her lip, -and crossed the room for her needlework. - -Keble’s influence during the last year had been chastening. Her own -ideas were vivid, but impetuous; they often scampered to the edge of -abysses—and plunged in. At times she abruptly stopped, lost in -wonderment at her husband’s easy, measured stride. Keble, like Marius, -mounted flights of thought in dainty _fasciae_,—never in plain -puttees,—and always step by step. She dashed up, pell-mell, and -sometimes beat him; but often fell sprawling at the emperor’s feet. -Whereupon Keble would help her up, brush her, and pet her a little, only -to resume the gait that she admired but despaired of acquiring. Beyond -her despair there was an ache, for she had come to believe that, as Lord -Chesterfield put it, “Those lesser talents, of an engaging, insinuating -manner, or easy good breeding, a gentle behavior and address, are of -infinitely more advantage than they are generally thought to be.” Even -in Alberta. - -She herself had written pages and pages of prose, and had filled an old -copy-book with incoherent little poems of which Keble knew nothing. They -sang of winds sweeping through canyons and across sage plains, of snowy -forests and frozen rivers; they uttered vague lament, unrest, -exultation. Through them surged yearnings and confessions that abashed -her. She kept them as mementoes of youthful rebellion, shut them up in a -corner of the old box that had conveyed her meagre marriage equipment -hither from her father’s tiny house in the Valley, and then watched -Keble’s eyes and lips, listened to his spun-silver sentences in the hope -of acquiring clues to—she scarcely knew what. - -Keble had come to the second lighting of a thoughtful pipe before the -silence was broken. He looked for some moments in her direction before -saying, “What sort of tea-cozy thing are you making now, dear?” - -Tea-cozy thing! It was a bureau scarf,—a beautiful, beautiful one! For -the birthday of Aunt Denise Mornay-Mareuil in Quebec. And Louise -sacrilegiously crossed herself. - -“So beautiful,” he agreed, “that Aunt Denise will take it straight to -her chapel and lay it across the altar where she says her prayers. You -know your father’s theory that despite oneself one plays into the hands -of the priests. How are you going to get around that, little heretic?” - -“By writing to Aunt Denise that it’s for her bureau! _My_ conscience -will be clear. Besides, I’m making it to give her pleasure, and if it -pleases her to put it on the altar where she prays for that old scamp, -then why not? She loved him, and that’s enough for her,—the poor dear -cross old funny!” - -“Would an atheist altar cloth intercept Aunt Denise’s Roman prayers? -Perhaps turn them into curses?” - -Louise ignored this and bit off a piece of silk. “Besides, I’m not such -a _limited_ heretic as Papa. I’m a comprehensive heretic.” - -“What kind of thing is that, for goodness’ sake?” - -“It’s a kind of thing that pays more attention to people’s gists than to -whether they cross their _i’s_ and dot their _t’s_. It’s a kind of thing -that’s going out to the pantry and get you something to eat before bed -time, even though it knows it’s bad for you.” - - 2 - -From a recalcitrant little garden in front of the log house, Louise -could follow the figure of her husband on a buckskin colored pony which -matched his blond hair. He was skirting the edge of the lake toward the -trail that led up through pines and aspens to the ridge where their -“Castle” would ultimately be built. Keble had still three months of his -novitiate as rancher to fulfil before his father’s conservative doubts -would be appeased and the money forthcoming from London for the project -of transforming the mountain lake and plains into something worthy the -name of “estate”: a comfortable house, a farm, a stock range, and a game -preserve. He was boyishly in earnest about it all. - -When Keble had disappeared into the trail, Louise’s eyes came back along -the pebbly strip of shore, past the green slope that led through -thinning groups of tall cottonwood trees to the superintendent’s cabin -and the barns, resting finally upon the legend over her front door: -_Sans Souci_. She remembered how gaily she had painted the board and -tacked it up. Had the blows of her hammer been challenges to Fate? - -She sighed and bent over the young flower beds. At an altitude of five -thousand feet everything grew so unwillingly; yet everything that -survived seemed so nervously vital! She dreaded Keble’s grandiose -projects; or rather, the nonchalance with which he could conceive them -intimidated her. There was something jolly about things as they had -been: the cottage and the horses and dogs, the two servants, the -rattling car, and the canoe. She thought, indulgently, of the awe in -which she had originally held even this degree of luxury. - -Her ditch was now fairly free of pebbles, and she placed the dahlia -bulbs in line. As she worked, the thin mountain sunshine crept up on -her, warming, fusing, gilding her thoughts. Spring could do so much to -set one’s little world aright. In the winter when the mountains were -white and purple and the emerald water had frozen black, when supplies -from the Valley were held up for days at a time, one was not so -susceptible to the notion of a universal benevolence as one could be on -a morning like this, with its turquoise sky, its fluffy clouds that -seemed to grow on the tops of the fir trees like cotton, and its rich -silence, only intensified by the scream of a conceited crane flying from -the distant river to the rock in the lake where he made a daily -“grub-call” at the expense of Keble’s trout. - -There was one other alien sound: the noise of a motor, a battered car -from the Valley that brought mail on Tuesdays and Fridays. But this was -Monday. The driver was talking to one of the hands; and a young -stranger, quite obviously a “dude” and English, was looking about the -place with a sort of eager, friendly curiosity. Then Mr. Brown appeared, -and after a short consultation took the stranger in the direction of a -road that led around by another route to the ridge. - -An hour later, from her bedroom window she saw Keble approaching the -cottage, his arm about the shoulders of the visitor. They might have -been two boys dawdling home from school: boys with a dozen trifles which -they had saved up for each other, to exchange with intimate lunges and -gesticulations. She had never seen Keble thus demonstrative. Indeed, she -had never seen him before in the company of a friend. She ran downstairs -two steps at a time. - -“Oh, Louise, here’s Windrom out of a blue sky,—you know: Walter Windrom -who was at Marlborough with me.” - -Keble had become suddenly casual again and shut off some current within -him in the manner that always baffled her. She knew Walter Windrom from -Keble’s tales of school life in England, and she had a quite special -corner in her heart for the shy young man who had been his friend. She -envied him for having been so close to Keble at a time when she was -ignorant of his very existence. Walter could remember how Keble had -looked and talked and worn his caps at that age, whereas she could only -imagine. She remembered that Keble had marched off to war instead of -going up to Oxford with his chum, as they had planned, and that Windrom -had recently been given a diplomatic post in Washington. The image of -Keble in a Lieutenant’s uniform awakened another memory: Keble had once -told her that he and Windrom had played at warfare with their history -master, and with her usual impetuosity she got part of this picture into -her first remark to the new man: “You used to play tin soldiers -together!” - -“And Keble always won the battles, even if he had to violate the Hague -conventions to do it!” Walter’s tone was indulgent. - -“Oh!” exclaimed Louise. “But he would break them so morally! Even the -Hague would be fooled.” - -“The history of England in a nutshell,” agreed Walter. “We played -battles like Waterloo, and I had to be Napoleon to his Wellington.” - -“But you didn’t mind really, old man, you know you didn’t.” - -“Not a bit! The foundation on which true friendship rests is that one of -the parties enjoys to beat, and the other rather enjoys being beaten.” - -“Walter has turned philosopher and poet and says clever things that you -needn’t believe at all.” - -“Oh, but I do believe him,” said Louise quickly, alarmed at the extent -to which she _did_. To cover it she held out her hands with an exuberant -cordiality and drew them into the house. - -The luncheon table was drawn near windows framed by yellow curtains -which Louise had herself hemmed. Through them, beyond the young green -plants in the window-boxes, beyond the broken trees that Keble called -the Castor and Pollux group, from their resemblance to the pillars in -the Roman Forum, the two mountains that bounded the end of the lake -could be seen coming together in an enormous jagged V, one overlapping -the other in a thickly wooded canyon. - -“And to think that all this marvel belongs to you, to do with as you see -fit!” exclaimed Windrom. “It’s as though God had let you put the -finishing touches on a monument He left in the rough.” - -“We’re full of godlike projects,” said Keble. “This afternoon I’ll find -a mount for you and take you over the place.” - -“Let it be a gentle one,” Windrom pleaded. “Horses scare me,—to say -nothing of making me sore.” - -“Sundown won’t,” Louise quickly reassured him, then turned to her -husband. “Let him ride Sundown, Keble . . . He’s mine,” she explained. -“The only thing left in the rough by God that I’ve had the honor of -improving, apart from myself! Like lightning if you’re in a hurry, but -wonderfully sympathetic. I’ll give you some lumps of sugar. For sugar -he’ll do anything. He’s the only horse in Alberta that knows the taste -of it. But don’t let Keble see you pamper him, for he’s getting to be -very Canadian and very Western and calls it dudish and demoralizing and -scolds you for it.” - -She paused, a little abashed by the length to which her harmless desire -to help along the talk had taken her, and smiled half apologetically, -half trustfully as her husband resumed inquiries about the incredible -number of unheard-of people they knew in common: people who thought -nothing of wandering from London to Cairo, from New York to Peking: -rich, charming, clever, initiated people,—people who would always know -what to do and say, she was sure of it. - - 3 - -If it was the natural fate of a tenderfoot that Sundown should have been -lame from a rope-burn that afternoon and that his understudy should be a -horse that had not been ridden since the previous summer, it was -carelessness on the part of Keble Eveley that allowed the visitor to -climb the perpendicular trail to the ridge in a loosely cinched saddle. -In any case, when Windrom, in trying to avoid scraping a left kneecap on -one pine tree, caught his right stirrup in the half fallen dead branch -of another, the horse, reflecting the nervousness of his rider, began to -rear in a manner that endangered his foothold on the steep slope, and -almost before Keble knew that something was amiss behind him, a sudden -forward motion of the horse, accompanied by a slipping motion of the -saddle, threw his friend against a vicious rock which marked a bend in -the trail. - -Keble turned and dismounted anxiously when Windrom failed to rise. The -body lay against the rock, the left arm doubled under it. Keble lifted -his victim upon his own horse and after great difficulty brought him to -the cottage, where an astonishingly calm Louise vetoed most of his -suggestions, installed the patient as comfortably as possible in bed, -and commanded her husband to get in communication with the Valley. - -Despite the halting telephonic system, the twenty miles of bad road, the -prevalence of spring ailments throughout the Valley requiring the -virtual ubiquitousness of the little French doctor, it was not many -hours before he arrived to relieve their flagging spirits. For his -son-in-law’s naïve wonderment at Louise’s efficiency, Dr. Bruneau had -only an indulgent smile. “But why shouldn’t she know what to do?” he -exclaimed. “Is her father not a doctor, and was her mother not a nurse?” - -When the broken ribs had been set, Louise remained in the sick-room, and -the two men were smoking before the fire downstairs. The situation had -put the doctor in a reminiscential humor. His daughter grown up and -married, in the rôle of nurse, set in train memories of the epidemic -that had swept through the Valley when Louise was nine years old. Her -mother had insisted on helping, had gone out night and day nursing and -administering. - -“And I was so busy tending the others that she went almost before I knew -she was ill. . . . Until that day, Death had been only my professional -enemy. . . . It was an excellent woman, very _pratique_. Louis is -_pratique_, too, but _au fond_ romantic. That she holds from me. I’m not -_pratique_. I don’t collect my bills. But out here, at least, the -priests don’t get what I should have, as they did in Quebec. Down there -they take from the poor people whatever there is, and nothing is left to -pay the bills of a heretic _médecin_. The priests thought that was fair, -since the _médecin_ gave them nothing for their embroideries and their -holy smells! - -“Here at least one is not molested,—if one were permitted to enjoy -one’s freedom! All my life I have wanted to sit by my fire and read, one -after the other, every book discouraged by Rome. . . . But always when I -get out my pipe and take down Renan or Voltaire there is a call: little -Johnny has a fit, come quick; _Madame Chose_ is having a baby,—_Cré -Mâtin: Madame_ who has had already twelve! If the baby lives they thank -God; if he dies they blame me. And that’s life. . . . - -“All one can do in this low world, my son, is work, without asking why. -We are like clocks that Nature has wound up to keep time for her, and -it’s enough that Nature knows what we are registering. The people who -are always trying to read the hour on their own dials keep damn poor -time. Witness my excellent sister. Denise burns expensive candles for -her _drôle_ of a husband, that _rusé_ Mareuil who marched his socialists -up the hill to give him a fine showing, then, unlike the King of France, -stayed on the hill and let them march down by themselves when they had -served his ambition, and got himself assassinated for his treachery. And -his devout widow, after fumbling her beads in the parlor, goes into the -pantry to count the gingersnaps for fear the hired girl has taken some -home to her family. Denise is too spiritual to be a good human clock, -and too full of wheels to be of any use to eternity. It’s a funny world, -_va!_” - -When Dr. Bruneau had gone, Keble reflected that it was indeed a funny -world. Not the least ludicrous feature of it being that he, the product -of many generations of almost automatic gentility, should have happened -to make himself the son-in-law of a garrulous, fantastic, kind-hearted, -plebeianly shrewd, Bohemian country physician, who, more like his sister -than he knew, was too spiritual to be successful in his profession, and -too close to the earth to be a valid sage,—a man of the people, of the -soil from which Louise had come forth as the fine flower. - -He recalled with a faint smile the pretexts he used to devise for -dropping into the doctor’s little house on his long ski-journeys to the -Valley: a fancied ailment, the desire to borrow a book or offer a gift -of whisky from a recently-arrived supply. He recalled his reluctant -leave-takings and the very black, mocking eyes, tantalizing lips, and -jaunty curls of the girl who accompanied him to the door. He recalled -the shock of his sense of fitness on realizing during the spring the -significance of his visits; his abrupt pilgrimage to the family fold in -England to repair his perspective; the desolating sense of absence; the -sudden cablegram; and her proud, challenging reply. It had been brought -to him just before dinner, and he could yet feel the thrill that had -passed through him as he entered the dining-room formulating his -revolutionary announcement. - -He recalled with a little twinge the scared expression that had come -over his mother’s face, the hurt and supercilious protest voiced by his -sister, the strained congratulations offered by Girlie Windrom, Walter’s -sister, who had been visiting them, and the ominous silence from the -paternal end of the table. A few days later his father had seen him off -to Southampton, with the final comment: “Till the soil by all means, my -boy. I can understand a farmer. We’ve all farmed. But we’ve never gone -so far afield for our wives.” - -Then, with a more sympathetic impulse his father had said, “Your mother -and I had rather set our hearts on Girlie Windrom for you. One of these -days you will have to assume responsibilities as head of the family, -whether it bores you or not, and it is not wholly reassuring to know -that our name will be handed on to nephews of a French-Canadian -traitor.” Keble had reflected that Louise could scarcely be held to -account for her aunt’s marriage to a man who had brilliantly satirized -some of his father’s most pompous Imperialistic speeches, but he had -seen that nothing would be gained by pointing this out. - -He could almost wish he had had a brother who might have satisfied the -family by marrying Girlie, understudying his father in the ranks of the -diehards, and going through all the other motions appropriate to the -heir of a statesman, a landlord, and a viscount. - - 4 - -Walter was at first embarrassed by having his chum’s wife assume all the -duties of a nurse, but gradually under her deft regime the two men, and -later Mrs. Windrom, who had set out from Washington on receiving news of -the accident, took Louise’s ministrations as matter of course. Louise -saved her pride by announcing that she was a born Martha, but privately -resolved that, for the future, her Mary personality should not so easily -be caught napping. - -Except for strangers who at rare intervals had strayed thither on -hunting trips, Mrs. Windrom was the first woman of Keble’s world who had -entered their house. After her first maternal anxiety had been allayed -and she had been assured that Dr. Bruneau had not mis-set her son’s -bones, Mrs. Windrom made a point of being pleasant to the young woman -who was filling the place she had always expected her own daughter to -occupy. Unfortunately, Louise _felt_ that Mrs. Windrom made a point of -it. Being a woman of restricted imagination, Mrs. Windrom was at a loss -for ways and means to be friendly with a girl who had scarcely heard of -the routines and the people comprising her stock-in-trade. There was not -much to say beyond “good mornings” and “my dears,” and the very lack of -an extensive common ground made it necessary for Mrs. Windrom to fill -the gap with superfluous politenesses. She never failed to commend -Louise’s tea and cakes, her pretty linen patterns, and her bouquets of -wild flowers, but for the quick intuition, the embarrassed private -cogitation, and the tortuous readjustments of manner by means of which -Louise achieved absence of friction, Mrs. Windrom had necessarily only a -limited appreciation. - -Once or twice Louise, whose patience was particularly tried by Mrs. -Windrom’s incomprehensible habit of remaining in her bedroom until -eleven, experienced a sensation of deep, angry rebellion, for which she -ended by chiding herself and went on grimly fulfilling her -self-appointed tasks sustained by an undercurrent of pride that would -not have been lost on Keble had he not been caught back into the past -for the moment, to rebreathe the faded but sweet odors of the hawthorne -hedges and the red-leather clubs he had abandoned nearly three years -ago. - -Walter, towards the end of his recovery, more than once sensed the -loneliness of Louise’s position. Being conscientious as well as shy, he -was at some pains to conjure up discreet words in which to couch his -feeling. Meanwhile his glances and gentle acknowledgments gave her the -stimulus she needed to carry her through. - -On the day set for their departure, Walter made a meticulous avowal of -gratitude which reached a chord in her nature that had never been made -to vibrate. “Sometimes, at least once in the course of a woman’s married -life,” he said, “I imagine there is some service, perhaps trifling, -perhaps important, that only a man other than her husband can render. If -such an occasion ever arises for you, I shall be there, eager to perform -it. I think I can be impersonal and friendly at the same time. It’s my -only real talent. Moreover, I’m older than Keble, in imagination if not -in years, and am more acutely conscious of certain shades of things that -concern him than he can be.” - -The unspoken corollary was that Walter was also more acutely conscious -than Keble of certain shades of herself, and in that moment a ray of -light penetrated to an obscure recess of Louise’s mind, a recess that -had refused to admit certain unlovely truths and heterodoxies,—a recess -that had declined, for instance, to put credence in the change of heart -of so many women in books and plays: Nora Helmer, Mélisande, Guinevere; -and for the first time in her life she understood how there could be a -psychology of infidelity. For the first time she understood that one -might have to be unfaithful in the letter to remain faithful in the -spirit. Just as one might have to break a twenty-dollar bill to obtain a -twenty dollars’ worth. It was a strangely sweet, strangely unhappy -moment, but only a moment, for almost immediately she was recalled to a -consciousness of hand-bags, cloaks, veils, and small, nameless duties of -eyes and hands and lips. Then Mrs. Windrom kissed her good-bye, with an -emphasized friendliness that only set her mind at work wondering what it -was that Mrs. Windrom had left unsaid or undone that she should feel -obliged to emphasize the kiss. Louise could find no words to define the -gap that lay between them; but she was sure that Mrs. Windrom defined it -to a T, and had stated it to a T in letters to Girlie, who would restate -it to Alice Eveley and the Tulk-Leamingtons! - -As the car mounted the hill beyond Mr. Brown’s cottage, Keble turned to -her, with the absent-minded intention of thanking her, following the cue -of the others, for everything she had done. The visit of his friends -breaking into their long days had been for him an exciting distraction, -and he could be only cloudily conscious of the strain it had put upon -her, whose life had been socially humble and barren. His face still bore -traces of the mask which people of his world apparently always wore. He -found Louise pale, with brows slightly drawn together, the mouth with -its arched lips relaxed, as of one suffering a slight with no feeling of -rancor. - -One instinct, to take her in his arms and reassure her by sheer contact, -was held in abatement by another, an instinct to stop and reason out the -elements that had produced the momentary hiatus. This procrastination on -his part had an almost tragic significance for the impulsive girl. She -lowered her eyes, pressed her teeth against her lip, straightened her -arms, and walked into the house. If he had followed more quickly on her -steps she would have succumbed to a passionate desire to be petted. As -it was, he reached her side only after she had had time to put on her -pride. - -There was still a chance, had he been emotionally nimble enough to say -something humorous about the visit, something gently satiric about Mrs. -Windrom’s exaggerated fear of missing connections with the stage from -the Valley to Witney, something natural and relaxed and sympathetic,—if -only her old nickname, “Weedgie,”—to reinstate her in the position to -which, as his most intimate, she felt entitled. - -A great deal, she felt, depended on what his tone would be. She held -herself taut, dreading an echo of the hollow courtesies that had filled -her rooms for days with such forbidding graciousness. - -Keble had a congenital aversion to demonstrations. Tenderness might coax -him far, but it would never induce him to “slop over.” As he went to the -table for his pipe, his eyes encountered an alien object which he lifted -thankfully, for it served as a cue. - -“Hello, Mrs. Windrom left her _pince-nez_ behind . . . I’ll have them -put into the mail for Sweet to take out this afternoon. Hadn’t you -better write a note to go with them, my dear?” - -She turned and faced him. In her eyes he saw something smoldering, -something whose presence he had on two or three occasions half -suspected: a dark, living subtlety that he could attribute only to her -Frenchness. Her nostrils were slightly dilated, her lips quietly -composed. She walked very close, looked directly into his eyes, and with -a little sidelong shrug that brought her shoulder nearly to her chin, -whipped out the words, “If I weren’t so damn polite I’d smash them!” - -The slam of the door, a few seconds later, drove her exclamation at him -with a force that, after the first thrill, left him vexed and -bewildered. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -LOUISE had wondered why Katie Salter had not appeared to do the weekly -washing. In the light of a report brought by the mail carrier the reason -was now too frightfully clear. Katie’s son, a boy of twelve, had -accidentally killed himself while examining an old shot-gun. - -Keble was sitting at his table filling in a cheque. Louise had been -silently watching him. “I’ll give this to Sweet to take to Katie on his -way back to the Valley,” he said. “It will cover expenses and more.” - -“Give it to me instead, dear. I’ll take it when I go this afternoon.” - -“Oh! Then what about our trip to the Dam with the Browns?” - -“I’m afraid I’ll have to be excused. I must do what I can for Katie. She -has nobody.” - -“She has the neighbors. Mrs. what’s her name, Dixon, is taking care of -her. Besides, all the women for miles around flock together for an -occasion of that sort. It will be rather ghastly.” - -“Especially for Katie. That’s why I have to go.” - -“Oh, Lord! if you feel you must. I’ll come with you.” - -She rose from her chair and picked up the cheque he had left on the edge -of the table. She had thought it all out within a few seconds, and in -none of the pictures she had conjured up could she find a place for her -husband. The fastidiousness which persisted through all his efforts to -be “plain folks” could not be reconciled with the stark details of the -tragedy ten miles down the road. - -“No, Keble dear,” she replied with a firmness she knew he wouldn’t -resist. More than once she had secretly wished he would resist her -firmness, for every yielding on his part seemed to increase her habit of -being firm, and that was a habit that bade fair to petrify the amiable -little gaieties and pliancies of her nature. “You know you’ve been -anxious about the Dam. It won’t do to put off the trip again. Katie will -understand your absence, and she will feel comforted to have at least -one dude present. You know I’m considered a dude, too, since my -marriage. Nowadays my old friends address me as stiffly as we used to -address the schoolma’am. . . . It’s strange what trifles determine the -manners of this world.” - -“Was our marriage such a trifle?” - -Louise came out of her reflective mood and smiled, then said, as if just -discovering it, “Why, yes, when you think of all the big things there -are.” - -“What about Billy’s death? Is that a big thing?” - -“A big thing to Katie, just as our being together is a big thing to us.” - -“What a horrid way of putting it!” - -“. . . Marriage _is_ being together, though.” - -He let that pass and returned to his point. “A big thing to Katie, but -negligible in the light of something else, I suppose you mean?” - -“Exactly.” - -“In the light of what, for example?” - -“I don’t quite know, dear. I’ll tell you when I’ve had time to -philosophize it out.” - -She kissed him and went out to the saddle shed. - -Sundown knew his mistress’s moods and decided on an easy trot for the -first few miles of the route, which lay through groves of pine and -yellowing cottonwood. Eventually the road emerged into a broad stretch -of dust-green sage perforated with gopher holes, and Louise set a -diagonal course toward the stony river bed which had to be forded. A -flock of snow-white pelicans sailed lazily overhead, following the -stream toward favorite fishing pools. A high line of mountains, pale -green, violet, and buff, merged into the hazy sky. The heat was -oppressive and ominous. - -For an hour not one human being crossed her path. The only sign of -habitation had been the villainous dog and three or four horses of a not -too prosperous homestead owned by one of Keble’s horse wranglers. All -along the road she had been preoccupied by the tone of her parting talk -with Keble, vaguely chagrined that her husband seemed to deprecate her -identifying herself too closely with the life of the natives. Strangely -enough he sought to identify himself with them, while, presumably, -expecting her to identify herself with the class from which he had -sprung, as though, gradually, she would have portentous new duties to -undertake. - -She couldn’t help dreading the prospect. Not that she shrank from -duties,—on the contrary; it was the menacing gentility of it all that -subdued her. When Keble had first come to them, disgusted with the old -order, he had persuaded her that the younger generation,—his English -generation,—had learned an epoch-making lesson, that it had earned its -right to ignore tradition and to build the future according to its own -iconoclastic logic. He had determined to create his own life, rather -than passively accept the life that had been awaiting him over there -since birth. She had thrilled with pride at having been chosen partner -in such a daring scheme. Only to find that, in insidious ways, perhaps -unconsciously, Keble was buttressing himself with the paraphernalia of -the old order which he professed to repudiate. She could love Keble -without gloating over his blue prints and his catalogues of prize -cattle, his nineteenth century poets, and his eighteenth century -courtliness. The natives might gape at her luxurious bathroom fixtures -and other marvels that were beginning to arrive in packing-cases at the -Witney railway station. She had almost no possessive instinct, and -certainly no ambition to be mistress of the finest estate in the -province. Her most clearly defined ambition was to be useful,—useful to -herself, and thereby, in some vague but effective way, to her -generation. Her father, for all his obscurity, was to her notion more -useful than Keble. Wherever Keble went he drove a fair bargain: took -something and gave something in return. Wherever the little physician -went he left healing, courage, cheerfulness, and in return took, from -some source close to the heart of life, the energy and will to give -more. - -She dismounted to open the gate of the Dixon yard and led Sundown past a -meagre field of wheat, past straggling beds of onions and potatoes, -towards a small unpainted house which struck her as the neglected wife -of the big, scrupulously cared-for barn. Two harnessed farm wagons were -standing before it, and a dirty touring car. A group of men were -lounging near the woodshed chewing tobacco with a Sunday manner, and -some small boys, bare-legged, were playing a discreet, enforcedly -subdued game of tag. Two saddled horses were hitched to the fence, to -which she led Sundown. - -One of the Dixon children had run indoors to announce her advent, and as -she stepped into the kitchen she was met by a woman dressed in black -cotton and motioned into the adjoining room,—a combination of parlor -and bedroom,—where two or three other women were sewing together strips -of white cheese-cloth. All eyes turned to her. - -The walls were covered with newspaper, designed to prevent draughts. -There was a rust-stained print of Queen Victoria and a fashion plate ten -years out of date. At the two tiny windows blossomless geranium stalks -planted in tomato tins made a forlorn pattern. The centre of the room -was occupied by a rough box in which lay a powder-scarred little form -clad in a coquettish “sailor suit” of cheese-cloth. - -Louise drew near and looked wonderingly at the yellowish-white, -purple-flecked face and hideously exposed teeth of the boy who had a few -days since run errands for her, and who had planned to grow up and -“drive the mail.” - -The women expected her to weep, and in anticipation began to sniffle. - -“At what time is the burial?” she asked, dry-eyed. - -“As soon as we can git this here covering made. We’ve had to do -everything pretty quick. We can’t keep him long.” - -Louise shuddered and was turning away when she remembered the flowers in -her hand,—dahlias and inappropriate, but the only flowers to be had, -the only flowers on the scene,—and placed them in the coffin, with an -odd little pat, as if to reassure Billy. Then she threaded a needle and -set to work with the others. - -When all the strips were sewn together and gathered, they were nailed to -the boards and to the cover of the coffin. Perspiration rolled from the -forehead of Mr. Dixon, and his embarrassment at having to make so much -noise caused him from time to time to spit on the floor. - -The sound of hammering stirred Katie’s drugged imagination, and overhead -thin wails began to arise. With the continued pounding the lamentations -increased in volume, and presently the sound of moving chairs could be -heard, followed by indistinct consolations and footsteps on the -uncarpeted stairs. The door burst open, and Katie lurched in, her face -twisted and swollen behind a crooked veil. Clawing away the man with the -hammer, she threw herself across the box. A long strand of greyish-red -hair escaped from under a dusty hat and brushed against the redder hair -of the boy. - -It was some time before Katie could be drawn away. Finally, with a -renewed burst of sobbing she let herself be led by Louise into a corner -of the kitchen. Mixed with her sobs were incoherent statements. “It was -for his health,” Katie was trying to tell Louise, “I brought him up -here. And I was workin’ so hard, only for his schoolin’.” - -Louise kept peering anxiously out of doors. Black clouds had gathered, -and a treacherous little breeze had begun to stir the discarded pieces -of cheese-cloth which she could see on the floor through the open door. -A tree in the yard rustled, as if sighing in relief at a change from the -accumulated heat of days. - -After long delays the time arrived for the fastening down of the lid. To -everyone’s surprise, and thanks largely to Louise’s tact, Katie allowed -the moment to pass as if in a stupor. The coffin was placed in one of -the farm wagons, and a soiled quilt thrown over it. The outer box was -lifted upon the second wain, and served as a seat for the men and boys -in the gathering. Katie and the women were installed in the dirty motor, -which was to lead the way. And Louise, unstrapping her rain-cape, -mounted Sundown and galloped ahead to open the gate. - -As the clumsy procession filed past her, the clouds broke, and a deluge -of hailstones beat against them, followed by sheets of water into which -it was difficult to force the horses. It persisted during the whole -journey toward the mound which was recognized as a graveyard, although -no one but Rosie Dixon and an unknown tramp had ever been interred -there. - -On the approach of the bedraggled _cortège_ two men in shirtsleeves and -overalls, grasping shovels, came from under the shelter of a dripping -tree to indicate the halting place. Louise dismounted at once and led -Katie to a seat on some planks that rested near the grave. Mrs. Dixon, a -glass of spirits of ammonia in her hand, pointed out Rosie’s resting -place and for a moment transposed the object of her sorrow. - -The grave proved too narrow for the outer box, and there was another -long wait on the wet planks while the grave-diggers shoveled and took -measurements, with muttered advice and expletives. The rain had abated. -A mongrel who had followed them ran from one to another, and yelped when -some one attempted to chasten him. - -At length the box splashed into place, scraping shrilly against -projecting pebbles, and the assembly drew near to assist or watch the -lowering of the white cheese-cloth box. Katie was reviving for another -paroxysm. - -With a shock Louise discovered that they were preparing to put the cover -in place without a sign of a religious ceremony. - -“Is there no one here to take charge of the service?” she inquired. - -The man with the shovel replied for the others. “You see, Mrs. Eveley, -Mr. Boots is away from the Valley. We couldn’t get a parson from Witney. -We thought perhaps somebody would offer to say a prayer like.” - -To herself she was saying that not even her father could let poor Billy -be buried so casually. - -“Let me take charge,” she offered, with only the vaguest notion of what -she was going to do. - -Mrs. Dixon took her place beside Katie, and Louise proceeded to the head -of the grave, making on her breast the sign her mother had secretly -taught her. - -“My dear friends,” she commenced. “We poor human beings have so little -use for our souls that we turn them over to pastors and priests for safe -keeping, till some emergency such as the present. In French there is a -proverb which says: it is better to deal with God direct than with his -saints. If we had acquired the habit of doing so, we shouldn’t feel -embarrassed when God is not officially represented. With our souls in -our own keeping, we could not be so cruelly surprised. - -“As a matter of fact, priests and parsons know no more than we do about -life and death. Truth lies deep within ourself, and the most that any -ambassador of heaven can do is to direct our gaze inward. Although we -know nothing, we have been born with an instinctive belief that the -value of life cannot be measured merely in terms of the number of years -one remains a living person. We can’t help feeling that every individual -life contributes to an unknown total of Life. Our human misfortune is -that we see individuals too big and Life itself too small. We forget we -are like bees, whose glory is that each contributes, namelessly, a -modicum to the hive and to the honey that gives point to their -existence. We do wrong to attach tragic importance to the death of even -our nearest friend, for their dying is a phase of their existence in the -larger sense, just as sleeping is a phase of our twenty-four hour -existence. - -“The real tragedy is that we build up our lives upon something which is -by its nature impermanent. The wisest of us are too prone to live for -the sake of a person, and if that person suddenly ceases to exist the -ground is swept from under us. To find a new footing is difficult, but -possible, and it may even be good for us to be obliged to reach out in a -new direction and live for something more permanent than ourselves. - -“We are too easily discouraged by pain. We should learn from nature that -pain is merely a symptom of growth. Trees could not be luxuriant in -spring if in winter they hadn’t experienced privation. What we have -derived from life has been at the expense of others’ privations and -death; if we are unwilling to be deprived in our turn, we are stupidly -selfish. - -“Instinct tells us that, in a voice that can be heard above the voice of -grief. It also tells us to be courageous and neighborly. In that spirit -we can say that Katie’s loss is our opportunity. It affords us an -occasion to prove our human solidarity by giving her a hand over the -barren stretch and helping her to a new conception of life. - -“In that spirit let us put a seal on the last reminder of the soul which -has passed into the keeping of forces that direct us all, and let us do -so with a profound reverence for all the elements in nature which are a -mystery to us. Some of us have grown up without an orthodox faith. But -we can all be humble enough to bow our heads in acknowledgement of the -great wisdom which has created us mortal and immortal.” - -Stepping back to make way for the men, Louise, on some incongruous urge, -again made the sign of the cross with which she had superstitiously -preluded her address. From the faces around her she knew she had spoken -with an impersonal concentration as puzzling to them as it had been to -herself. - -One of the grave-diggers suddenly said “Amen,” and Mrs. Dixon, in -tremulous tones, added, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” - -The ceremony over, and Katie installed in the home of a neighbor until -she should feel able to remove with her belongings to a cabin on the -Eveley ranch, Louise rode away in the twilight towards the Valley, to -spend a night with her father. - -The air had a tang in it that suggested October rather than August, and -the storm had deposited a sprinkling of white on the summits of the -mountains. Not a sign remained of the landscape which only a few hours -earlier had been drooping under a sultry heat. Her knuckles ached with -cold as Sundown trotted on toward the town which was beginning to -sparkle far away in the gloom. - - 2 - -When Louise and her father were alone they dropped into French which -gave them a sense of intimacy and of isolation which they liked. The -little doctor was greatly pleased on his arrival from a trying case that -night to find her in possession of the library. Her first question, -issuing from some depth of revery, was even more unaccountable than her -presence. - -“_Bon soir, Papa_,” she greeted him. “Can you tell me exactly how much -money I have in the bank, including what Uncle Mornay-Mareuil left me?” - -Dr. Bruneau opened his eyes, made a bewildered grimace, went to a desk -in the corner, and rummaged for a bank-book. “Including interest to -date,” he gravely replied, “eleven thousand, two hundred and -thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents.” - -He came to his own chair opposite her, picking up the pipe which she had -filled for him. “What’s in that black little head?” - -“Many things. More, really, than I know,—or, at least, than I knew.” - -“Nothing wrong?” - -“. . . I even wonder if there is anything right.” - -He was at once reassured. “You’ve been with Katie Salter. How is she?” - -“She’s bearing it. Papa, _penses-tu_, I delivered the funeral oration.” - -“_B’en vrai, tu en as!_ . . . What did you say?” - -“I talked over their heads, and a little over my own, as though I were -under a spell. I thought I was going to say something religious; but it -was scarcely that. It was rather like what the cook scrapes together -when people turn up for dinner unexpectedly,—philosophical pot-luck. -Everybody seemed puzzled, but I wasn’t just inventing words, as I used -to do when addressing my paper dolls. The words seemed to make sense in -spite of me. . . . And I had a strange feeling, afterwards, of having -grown up all at once. I don’t think I’ll ever feel sheer girlish again. -And the worst of that is, I don’t quite know how a woman is supposed to -feel and conduct herself. It’s very perplexing. . . . Papa, what do you -believe comes after this life, or what doesn’t?” - -“Precisely that,—that nothing does.” - -“I told them that we were infinitesimal parts of some mighty human -machinery, and although life was the most valuable thing we knew of -there was something beyond our comprehension a million times more -valuable; that even though we as individuals perished, our energies -didn’t.” - -The doctor was chuckling. “I hope they’ll take your word for it! . . . -We may be immortal for all I know. But if we are, I see no reason why -cats and chickens should not be. In the dissecting room they’re very -much like men.” - -“They are; they must be! Though not as individuals. The death of a man -or the death of a cat simply scatters so many units of vitality in other -directions! _Tiens!_ when our dam broke, up at the canyon, all the -electric lights went out. That was the death of our little lighting -plant. But the water power that generated our current is still there, -immortal, even if the water _is_ rushing off in a direction that doesn’t -happen to light our lamps, a direction that makes Keble grieve and Mr. -Brown swear. . . . That’s a rock on which Keble and I have often split. -I think he sincerely believes he’s going to a sort of High Church -heaven, intact except for his clothes and his prayer-book. I wish I -could believe something as naïve as that.” - -“_Pas vrai!_ You are too fond of free speculation, like your poor -Papa. . . . And now, those dollars in the bank?” - -“Oh, I was just wondering. . . . Besides, you never can tell, I might -decide to run off some day and improve my education.” - -Her father shot a look of inquiry across the table, but her face was -impassive. “You’re not exactly ignorant; and certainly not stupid.” - -She laughed. “_Ah ça!_ . . . Will you please get me a cheque book the -next time you call at the bank?” - -The next morning Louise passed in helping Nana dust and straighten the -accumulation of books and knick-knacks in the house. She relieved the -old servant by preparing luncheon herself, and the doctor arrived from -the little brown shingled hospital opposite the cement and plaster bank -to rejoin her, bringing with him a new cheque book, which she carelessly -thrust into the pocket of her riding breeches. - -“What a sensible Papa you are, not to warn me against extravagance!” - -“I’ve never doubted you, my child. It’s not likely I shall commence now. -You might have gone far if you hadn’t decided to marry; I always -maintained that. As it is, you made a match that no other girl in the -Valley could have done,—though I for one never guaranteed it would be -successful.” - -“_Hein ça!_” she mocked, absent-mindedly. “I’ve made an omelette that no -other girl in the Valley could have done, and it’s too successful for -words. Keble is upset for days if he catches me in my own kitchen.” - -She divided the omelette into three parts, one for Nana, who, more than -any other person in the Valley, was awed by the fact that Weedgie -Bruneau had turned into the Honorable Mrs. Eveley. - - 3 - -During several days Louise’s thoughtful, suddenly grown-up mood -persisted, but it was destined to be violently detracked by the chance -reading of a poem which had been marked in blue pencil and cut out, -apparently, from the page of a magazine. It was lying on Keble’s table, -among other papers. It was unsigned, and the title was _Constancy_. With -a sense of wonderment that grew into fear she read: - - _You cry I’ve not been true,_ - _Why should I be?_ - _For, being true to you,_ - _Who are but one part of an infinite me,_ - _Should I not slight the rest?_ - - _Rather are you false to me and nature_ - _In seeking to prolong the span_ - _Of impulses born mortal;_ - _In prisoning memories_ - _Impalpable as the fluttering of wings._ - - _If I’d been false,_ - _I have but mounted higher_ - _Toward a spacious summit,_ - _Bourne of all soaring vows._ - _The buds we gathered in the vale have perished._ - _Branches that offered roofs of shimmering green motley,_ - _Their summer service rendered,_ - _Divested themselves,_ - _Framing rude necessary heights._ - - _Yet you sit plaintive there while I aspire,_ - _Intent upon a goal you will not see._ - _Must I descend to you?_ - _Or shall I venture still?—My staff_ - _An accusation of inconstancy._ - - -What did it mean? Why was it marked? Who had written it? Why was it -lying on Keble’s desk? She stood cold and still, her gaze returning -again and again to the paper in her hand. - -Unable to answer the questions, she sat down and made an ink copy of the -brutal lines. When the last word was written she replaced the original -on the table and took the copy to her bedroom, reading it, unconsciously -memorizing it, making room in her philosophy for its egoistic claim, and -finally locking it in the box that sheltered her youthful manuscripts. - -Although she did not refer to the enigmatic poem, she knew that to its -discovery could be traced a breach that began to make itself felt, a -breach which she knew Keble associated in some vague way with the -funeral of little Billy Salter. Keble, for his part, had made no mention -of the poem, and day after day those accusatory blue marks continued to -peer through the unanswered correspondence that rested on his table. -Although she argued the lines out of countenance, though she watched for -Keble’s polite mask to fall and reveal some emotion that would disprove -her interpretation of them, they ate into her heart. - -The poem might have been a hint from Providence. She _was_ an impediment -to Keble’s progress, a poor creature unable to comprehend the hereditary -urges that bore him along in a direction that seemed to her futile. How -often must he have been legitimately impatient of her deficiencies! How -often must he have starved for the internationally flavored chit-chat -with which a wife like Girlie Windrom would have entertained him! With -what a bitter sigh must he have read his thought thus expressed by an -unknown poet! That would account for the marking and the clipping. She -promised herself to profit by the hint, if hint it were. - -As the breach widened, Keble maintained the deferential attitude he had -always assumed in the course of their hitherto negligible -misunderstandings. Technically he was always in the right. Her -acquaintance with people of his class had been large enough to teach her -that good breeding implied the maintenance of a certain tone, that in -divergences of view between well and dubiously bred people, the moral -advantage seemed always to lie with the former. It was a trick she had -yet to learn. - -There was a sort of finality in the nature of this breach that made it -unlike any other in their relationship. This was a conclusion she -admitted after days of desperate clinging to the illusion that nothing -was amiss. Meanwhile Keble waited; and she sank deeper into silence. - -In the midst of her self-analysis a letter arrived for Keble from the -friend of the early spring. Walter Windrom had spent the intervening -months in England, but was returning to his post in Washington. - -The renewal of this link with the outer world had a stimulating effect -upon Louise. It suggested a plan which ran through her veins like a -tonic. - -That night, through a blur of tears, she wrote the following letter, -while her husband lay uneasily asleep. - - “Hillside, September 16. - - “Dear Walter: Before leaving the ranch you offered to do - something for me. You may if you will. I’ve been miserable for - months at the thought of what a very back-woods creature I am. I - can never be what I would like to be; therefore I’ve decided to - be what I _can_ be, so _hard_ that I shall be even with Fate. I - can’t go away, but I can afford a tutor with my very own money. - So will you please immediately pick out the most suitable girl - you can find. Above all things she mustn’t be a teacher, or - anything professional; she must simply be somebody nice, and too - well-bred for words! I’ll learn _by ear_; I never could learn - any other way. - - “I will pay all expenses and whatever salary you suggest. And - I’d rather it be a big salary for a paragon than economize on a - second-best. She could come here as a former friend of mine, for - Keble must know nothing about my conspiracy. Do you think that - is too much like not playing the game? After all, it’s only that - I wish to play the game better,—I mean his sort of game. Not - that I especially like it; but I’ve let myself in for it. - - “Would you do that, Walter, please, without making fun of me? - Address me in care of Dr. Achille Bruneau.” - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -IN Keble’s new car, purchased with a recent birthday cheque from the -family, Louise was driving swiftly over the lumpy road that wound its -way down the hill, beside the river, across sage plains, around fields -of alfalfa, toward the distant Valley. There was an autumn crispness in -the air, and the rising sun made the world bigger and bigger every -minute. She rejoiced in the freshness of the earth; and the fun of -goading a powerful motor over deserted, treacherous roads made her -chuckle. Most of all, she was excited by the element of adventure in the -journey. She welcomed most things in life that savored of adventure. -What mattered chiefly to her was that she should go forward. And this -morning’s exploit was a leap. If she were ever to get out of her present -_impasse_ it would be thanks to the unknown woman she was hastening to -meet. - -As she swung into the long main street, passing the post office and the -drug-store, the bank, the hotel, and the hospital, scattering greetings -among stragglers, she was conscious of the wide-eyed interest in her -smart blue car. The inhabitants made capital of their intimacy with her. -In the old days she was “Doc. Bruneau’s girl;” nowadays she was, in -addition, the wife of a “rich dude” and a liberal buyer of groceries and -hardware. - -“As though that made me any different!” she reflected, and drew the car -up before the doctor’s white-washed garden fence, sending a bright hallo -to an old schoolmate, Minnie Hopper, whom she had once passionately -cherished for their similar taste in hair-ribbons and peppermint sticks, -and who was now Mrs. Otis Swigger, wife of Oat, the proprietor of “The -Canada House” and the adjoining “shaving parlor and billiard saloon.” -For Minnie marriage was nine-tenths of life. She was the mother of two -chalky babies; she had an “imitation mahogany bedroom set”; and her -ambition was to live in Witney, beyond the mountain pass, where there -was a “moving picture palace” and a railway station. - -Even Keble,—Louise pursued the thought as the gate clicked behind -her,—seemed to think marriage nine-tenths of life. For _her!_ - -She was burning with curiosity. - -A tall, lithe, solid young woman was standing before a heaped -bookcase,—a fair-skinned, clear-eyed woman of thirty-two or three, with -a broad forehead over which a soft, shining, flat mass of reddish-brown -hair was drawn. She wore a rough silk shirt with a brown knitted cravat; -a fawn colored skirt, severely simple but so cunningly cut that it -assumed new lines with the slightest motion of her body; brown stockings -and stout brown golf shoes of an indefinable smartness. - -Louise had never seen a woman so all-of-a-piece, and of a piece so rare. -As a rule, in encountering new personalities, she was first of all -sensitive to signs of intelligence, or its lack. She could not have said -whether this person were excessively clever or excessively the reverse. -It was the woman’s composure that baffled her. The wide-set grey eyes -and the relaxed but firm lips gave no clue. She swiftly guessed that in -this woman’s calculations there was a scale of values that virtually -ignored cleverness, as such; that cleverness was to her merely a chance -intensity that co-existed with other more important qualities in -accordance with which she made her classifications, if she bothered to -_make_ classifications; and something suggested that for this woman -classifying processes were automatic. What her mechanical standards of -judgment were, there was no gauging: degrees of gentility, perhaps. That -was what Louise would have to learn. - -The lips, without parting, formed themselves into a reassuring smile, -which had the contrary effect of making Louise acutely conscious of a -necessity to be correct, of marshaling all the qualities in herself that -had aroused approbation in the most discriminating people she had known. - -The stranger replaced a book she had been inspecting and took a step in -Louise’s direction. Louise shook herself, as if chidingly, and let her -natural directness dispel the momentary awkwardness. She went forward -quickly with outstretched hand. - -“You are Miss Cread, of course. I am Mrs. Eveley. I’m so sorry to have -kept you waiting overnight here.” - -“Your father has been more than hospitable. He delighted me last night -with his quaint ideas.” - -“Oh dear,—about priests and things?” Louise was inclined to deprecate -her father’s penchant for assailing the church in whatever hearing. - -Miss Cread laughed. “Partly. I dote on this little house, and all _its_ -things.” - -“Papa suggests that after he dies I transport it to a quai on the left -bank of the Seine in Paris and knock out the front wall. He says it -would make a perfect book stall. . . . Papa once won a scholarship to -study medicine in Paris. It rather spoiled him for a life in these -wilds. I do hope you won’t die of boredom with us. I’ve never been to -Paris. Indeed I’ve never been farther than Winnipeg, and that seemed -thousands of miles. Of course you’ve been abroad.” - -“A great deal.” - -“You’re not a bit American.” Louise was thinking of camping parties that -sometimes penetrated the Valley in cars decorated with banners bearing -the device “Idaho” or “Montana.” She had motioned her new friend to a -chair and was leaning forward opposite her. “Do you know,” she suddenly -confided, “I’m terribly afraid of you.” - -“Good gracious, why?” - -“You’ll laugh, but never mind. It’s because you’re so -distinguished-looking.” - -Miss Cread reflected. “A distinctive appearance doesn’t necessarily make -one dangerous. It is I, on the contrary, who should be afraid.” - -“I’m sure nothing could frighten you!” - -“Oh, yes. Responsibility. You see, this is my first post. I’m quite -inexperienced. I do hope Mr. Windrom made that clear.” - -“Oh, experience! Why, you’re simply swimming in it,—in the kind that -matters to me at this moment. I mean your life, your surroundings, all -the things that decided Mr. Windrom in his selection of you as a -companion, have done something for you, have made you the person -who—bowled me over when I entered this room. My husband is brimming -over with the same,—oh, call it genuineness. Like sterling silver -spoons. I don’t know whether I’m sterling or not, but I do know I need -polishing. . . . It may be entirely a matter of birth. Papa and I -haven’t a crumb of birth, so far as I know,—though I have a musty old -aunt who swears we have. She endows convents, and her idea of a grand -pedigree would be to have descended from a line of saints, I -imagine. . . . For my part I have no pretensions whatever, not one, any -more than poor Papa. He thinks it rather a pity to be born at all, -though he’s forever helping people _get_ born. . . . I was rash enough -to dive into marriage without holding my breath, and got a mouthful of -water. Sometimes I feel that my husband wishes I could be a little more -sedate, a little more,—oh, you know, Miss Cread, what I called -distinguished-looking, though I could feel that you disapproved of the -phrase. One of the very things you must do is to teach me what I ought -to say instead of distinguished-looking. That’s what Minnie Hopper would -have said, and at least I’m not a Minnie Hopper.” - -“You’re like nobody I’ve ever seen or heard of!” This was fairly -ejaculated, and it gave Louise courage to continue, breathlessly, as -before. - -“It is for my husband’s sake that I’m trying this experiment. At least I -think it’s for his sake: we never quite know when we’re being selfish, -do we? He will soon be a rather important person, for here. He’s getting -more and more things to look after: I can hardly turn nowadays without -running into some new thing that sort of belongs to us. We shall have -guests from England later on, and I can’t have them dying of -mortification on my threshold. . . . When I married I was blind in love, -and somehow took it for granted that I’d pick up all the hints I should -need. But I haven’t. . . . Am I talking nonsense?” - -“Not at all. Please go on.” - -“If you have any pride you can’t ask your husband to instruct you in -subjects you should know more about than he,—don’t you agree? I’m sure -I know more about baking bread than any of the Eveleys back to Adam, but -I don’t know a tenth as much about when to shake hands and when not to, -and that’s much more important than I ever dreamed. - -“It may be silly, but I’ve made up my mind to be the sort of person my -husband won’t feel he ought to make excuses for. Not that he ever would, -of course! I’ve never admitted a word of all this to a soul. I hope you -understand, and I hope you don’t think such trifles trivial!” - -“My dear! . . . . Aren’t you a little morbid about yourself? I know -women of the world who are uncouth compared with you. . . . As for -creating an impression, you are rather formidable already! There are -little tricks of pronunciation I can show you, and I shall be delighted -to tell you all the stupid things I know about shaking hands and the -like. . . . I’m already on your side; I was afraid I mightn’t be. One -can never depend on a man’s version, you know, even as discerning a man -as Mr. Windrom; and a woman usually takes the man’s part in a domestic -situation.” - -Louise had a sudden twinge. - -“There is only one thing that worries me now.” - -Miss Cread waited, with questioning eyebrows. - -“How _am_ I going to pass you off? I’ve told my husband I knew you when -you taught at Harristown! I went to Normal School there for a year, you -know. He’ll see with half an eye that you’re no school teacher. What are -we to invent? I can’t fib for a cent.” - -“Well. . . . Shall we invent that my family lost its money and I had to -work for my living? And that things are better now, but my family have -all perished, and I’ve come here for a change. That statement doesn’t do -serious violence to my conscience.” - -“There’s a little two-room log cabin you can have to retire to whenever -you get bored with us. . . . And of course we’ll have to call each other -by our first names. You don’t mind, do you?” - -Miss Cread smiled sympathetically. - -“She’s nice,” decided Louise, in relief, then said, “I’ll go out and -help Nana now. After lunch, _en route la bonne troupe_!” - -This phrase, more than anything Louise had said, afforded Miss Cread the -clue to their relationship. Louise had reverted into French with a -little flourish which seemed to say, “At least I have one advantage over -you: I am bi-lingual.” Miss Cread saw that it was characteristic of -Louise to underestimate her virtues and fail to recognize her faults, -and for her, who had spoken French in Paris before Louise was born, -Louise’s accent was unlovely, as only the Canadian variety can be. She -would let her pupil make the discovery for herself. Miss Cread was -pleased to find that her mission was going to be a subtle one. - -“I shall be fearfully nervous for a few days, until we get into swing,” -said Louise at the table. - -“Then my first task is to restore your composure.” - -“Your second will be to keep it restored. . . . I’m growing less and -less afraid of you. Wouldn’t it be funny if I should get so used to you -I answered you back, like in school?” - -“There’s no telling where it will stop. You’re a venturesome woman.” - -Louise laughed merrily. “Don’t you love adventure?” It was an -announcement rather than an inquiry. - - 2 - -Late in the afternoon they reached the fields where the men were cutting -the scanty crops. Keble on his buckskin mare was in consultation with -the superintendent, and on hearing the honk of the car wheeled about, -came toward the road, and dismounted. - -“Miriam dear, this is my husband. His name is Keble, and he’s frightened -to death that you’ll notice, though not call attention to, the muddy -spot on the breeches that Mona cleaned this very morning. Keble, this is -Miriam Cread, who is coming to stop with us as long as I can force her -to stay.” - -Keble took a firm white hand in his. The stranger’s smile, the confident -poise of her head, the simple little hat whose slant somehow suggested -Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix, amazed him. It was as though Louise -had brought home a Sargent portrait and said she had bought it at the -Witney emporium. - -“What I can’t forgive you for, my dear,” he said blandly enough, “is -that you should have kept me so long in ignorance of such a charming -friend’s existence.” He turned to the guest. “I’ve heard all about Pearl -and Amy and Minnie, but next to nothing about you. Don’t you think -that’s perverse? My wife is sort of human _feuilleton_: something new -every day.” - -He was surprised to hear himself using a term which would certainly have -conveyed nothing to Pearl or Amy or Minnie, but he knew the allusion had -registered. - -“I suppose that’s the first duty of a wife,” Miriam laughed. “Besides, -Louise Bruneau is nothing if not original. All her friends recognize -that.” She patted Louise ever so gently on the shoulder. - -The modulation of the voice, the grace of the little pat, the composure, -the finely-cut nostrils, the slant of the hat! - -They chatted, then Louise started the engine, and in a moment the car -was zig-zagging up the long hill that lay between them and the lake. - -Louise was conquering an unreasonable pang. To herself she was -explaining the freemasonry that existed among people of Keble’s and Miss -Cread’s world; there was some sort of telepathic pass word, she knew not -what. It was going to be the Windrom atmosphere all over again: -permeated by exotic verbal trifles. But that was what she had bargained -for; the stakes were worth the temporary disadvantage. Walter needn’t, -of course, have sent quite such a perfect specimen. - -What “stakes”? Well, surely there were objects to live for that -outweighed the significance of petty jealousies, petty possessions, the -rights of one person in another. She brought the car around to a point -from which the lake spread out under them in all the glory of deep -emerald water and distant walls of sun-bronzed rock. The cottages and -farm buildings grouped themselves beneath, and along the pebbly shore a -rich league of grey-black and dark green pine forest linked the -buildings and the mountains. Two frantic sheep dogs came barking to meet -them. - -An exclamation of delight escaped from the travel-weary guest. - -“I’m glad you like it,” remarked Louise, relenting. - -“It’s superb,” Miriam replied. Again she gave Louise’s shoulder a -discreet pat, as the latter began the winding descent. “You very lucky -woman!” she commented. - - 3 - -Riding, fishing, and hunting for the winter’s supply of game enlivened -the autumn months, and when the snow arrived, drifting through the -canyons, obliterating all traces of roads and fences, there were -snow-shoe and ski-journeys, skating on a swept portion of the lake, and -dances before the great fireplace. Self-consciously at first, but soon -without being aware of it, Louise reflected the sheen of her companion, -and acquired objective glimpses of herself. There had been long -discussions in which tastes and opinions had been sifted, and Louise’s -speech and cast of thought subtly supervised. Throughout the program -Keble made quiet entrances and exits, dimly realizing what was taking -place, grateful for, yet a little distrustful of the gradual -transformation. It was as though, in an atmosphere of peace, unknown -forces were being secretly mobilized. There was a charm for him in the -nightly fireside readings and conversations. When he was present they -were likely to develop into a monologue of daring theories invented and -sustained by Louise,—a Louise who had begun to take some of her girlish -extravagances in earnest. In the end Keble found himself, along with -Miriam Cread, bringing to bear against Louise’s radicalism the stock -counter arguments of his class. - -This was disconcerting, for he had been in the habit of regarding -himself as an innovator, with his back to the past and his gaze fixed -upon the future; and although it was pleasant to find himself so often -in accord with a highly civilized and attractive young woman just -appreciably his senior, it was a set-back to his illusion of having -graduated from the prejudices and short-sightedness of conventional -society. For the sum total of his mental bouts with Louise was that she -serenely but quite decisively relegated him to the ranks of the safe and -sane. And “safe and sane” as she voiced the phrase meant something less -commendable than “safe and sane” as he voiced it. For Keble “safe and -sane” was of all vehicles the one which would carry him and his goods -most adequately to his mortal destination. He had always assumed that -Louise had faith in the vehicle. Now he seemed to see her sitting on the -tail-board, swinging her legs like a naughty child, ready to leap off at -the approach of any conveyance that gave promise of more speed and -excitement. - -During his later school-days, Keble, by virtue of an ability to -discriminate, had arrived at a point of self-realization that rendered -his conformity to custom a bore to him but failed to provide him with -the logical alternative. For this he had consulted, and responded to, -the more refined manifestations of individualism in contemporary -literature and art, to the extent of falling under the illusion that he -himself was a thoroughgoing individualist. A victim of a period of -social transition, he, like so many other young men of his generation, -made the mistake of assuming that his doubts and objections were the -effect of a creative urge within himself, whereas he had merely acquired -a decent wardrobe of modern notions which distinguished him from his -elders and, to his own eyes, disguised the inalterably conservative -nature of his principles. Hence the almost irreconcilable combination: -an instinctive abstemiousness and an Epicurean relish. - -Whenever Louise, after some brilliant skirmish with the outriders of -orthodoxy, came galloping into camp with the news that a direct route -lay open to the citadel of personal freedom and personal morality, Keble -found himself throwing up his cap in a sympathetic glee, but then he -fell to wondering whether the gaining of the citadel were worth the -trampling down of fields, the possible breaking of church windows, the -discomfort to neutral bystanders. - -At such moments he suspected that he was in the wrong camp; that he had -been led there through his admiration for daring spirits rather than a -desire for the victory they coveted. It alarmed him to discover that the -topsy-turvy fancies that had endeared Louise to him were not merely -playful. It alarmed him to discover that she was ready to put her most -daring theories into practise, ready to regard her own thoughts and -emotions as so many elements in a laboratory in which she was free to -experiment, in scientific earnest, at the risk of explosions and bad -odors, all for the sake of arriving at truths that would be of -questionable value. Certainly, to Keble’s mind, the potential results, -should the experiments be never so successful, were not worth the -incidental damage,—not where one’s wife was concerned. For him “safe -and sane” meant the avoidance of risk. For Louise he suspected that -“safe and sane” smacked of unwillingness to take the personal risks -inevitable in any conquest of truth. That brought him to the -consideration of “truth,” and he saw that for him truth was something -more tangible, and much nearer home, than it was for his wife. And he -was in the lamentable situation of feeling that she was right, yet being -constitutionally unable, or unwilling, or afraid, to go in her -direction. - -Miriam caught something of the true proportions in the situation, and it -was her policy to remain negative in so far as possible, pressing gently -on either side of the scales, as the balance seemed to require. She had -a conscientious desire to help the other two attain a comfortable _modus -vivendi_, but as the winter progressed it became increasingly evident to -her that her efforts might end by having a contrary effect. Reluctantly -she saw herself saddled with the rôle of referee. Furthermore, it seemed -as though the mere presence of a referee implied, even incited, combat. -Their evenings often ended on a tone of dissension, Louise soaring on -the wings of some new radical conclusion; Keble anxiously counseling -moderation; and Miriam, by right and left sallies, endeavoring, not -always with success, to bring the disputants to a level of good-humored -give and take. - -On two or three occasions she had been tempted to withdraw entirely, -feeling that as long as a third person were present to hear, the -diverging views of husband and wife would inevitably continue to be -expressed. But on reflection she realized that her withdrawal could in -no sense reconcile their divergences. From Louise she had derived the -doctrine that views must, and will, out, and that to conceal or -counterfeit them is foolish and dishonest. As Miriam saw it, these two -had come to the end of the first flush of excited interest in each -other. Their ship had put to sea, the flags had been furled, the sails -bent. They had reached the moment when it was necessary to set a course. -And they might be considered fortunate in having a fair-minded third -person at hand to see them safely beyond the first reefs. It hadn’t -occurred to Miriam that she might be a reef. - -With Louise nothing remained on the surface; the massage that polished -her manners polished her thoughts, and with increasing facility in the -technique of carrying herself came an increasing desire to carry herself -some_where_. As a girl she had too easily outdistanced her companions. -Until Miriam Cread’s advent there had been no woman with whom to -compete, and her intelligence had in consequence slumbered. Keble had -transformed her from a girl into a woman; but Miriam made her realize -the wide range of possibilities comprised under Womanhood, and had put -her on her mettle to define her own particular character as a woman. Now -her personality was fully awake, and her daily routine was characterized -by an insatiable mental activity, during which she proceeded to a -footing on many subjects about which she had never given herself the -trouble to think. She had read more books than most girls, and had dined -on weighty volumes in her father’s library for the sake of their sweets; -but under the pressure of her new intellectual intensity she found that, -without knowing it, she had been nourished on their soups and roasts. -The unrelated impressions that she had long been capturing from books -and thrusting carelessly upon mental shelves now formed a fairly -respectable stock-in-trade. Every new book, every new discussion, every -new incident furnished fuel to the motor that drove her forward. - -But there was one moment, during the Christmas festivities, when the -boldness of her recent thoughts, the inhibitive tightness of her new -garments of correctitude, the fatigue of standing guard over herself, -became intolerably irksome, when she looked away from Keble and Miriam -and the Browns towards her tubby, bald-headed, serene little father, -twinkling and smoking his beloved pipe before the fire: a moment when -she longed to be the capricious, dreamy girl who had curled up at his -feet during the winter evenings of her first acquaintance with the -English boy from Hillside. - -If Keble had divined that mood, if he could have stepped in and caught -her out of it with an expert caress, if he had read the thought that was -then in her mind,—namely that no amount of cleverness could suppress -the yearning that her conjugal experience had so far failed to -gratify,—if his eyes had penetrated her and not the flames, where -presumably they envisaged the air castles he would soon be translating -into stone and cement, then the yards of the matrimonial ship might have -swung about, the sails have taken the breeze, and the blind helmsman -have directed a course into a sharply defined future. At that moment -Louise might have been converted, by a sufficiently subtle lover, into a -passionate partner in the most prosaic of schemes. All she needed was to -be coaxed and driven gently, to a point not far off. It was too personal -to be explained; and if he couldn’t see it, then she must do what she -could on her own initiative, at her expense and his. - -The dreamy girl faded out of her eyes, and a self-contained, positive -young woman rose from her seat with an easy directness, crossed the room -to switch on the lights, and said, “Keble, I’ve just decided how I shall -dispose of my Christmas present.” For the benefit of the Browns she -explained, “I had a colossal cheque in my stocking from a father-in-law -who doesn’t know what a spendthrift I am.” - -“What will you do with it?” asked her husband. - -“Something very nice. You’re sure to object.” - -“Is that what makes it nice: my objecting?” - -“That makes it more exciting.” - -“Then let me object hard, dear.” - -Louise withstood the laughter that greeted Keble’s score. “Do it -immediately,” she advised, “and have it over with; then I’ll say what it -is.” - -“Why not spare us a scene?” suggested Miriam. “We know what a brute he -is.” - -“You’re concerned in it,” Louise replied. “I hope you won’t object, for -that would be fatal.” - -This gave Keble his opportunity for revenge against Miriam’s “brute.” -“Mayn’t we take Miriam’s compliance for granted? We know what a diplomat -she is.” - -Louise was now seated on the opposite side of the table, facing them. -“Do you object, Papa?” - -“On principle, yes, because it’s sure to be something rash. As a matter -of fact, no, because you’re the only sensible rash person there is.” - -Louise was delighted. “It’s Papa’s stubborn belief in my common sense, -more than anything else, that gives me the courage of my enlightened -rashness,” she proclaimed. - -At this Keble turned with a smile to Miriam. “Now I see what you meant -by brute. It’s because I won’t always acknowledge the enlightenment of -rashness.” - -Miriam colored a little, to her great annoyance. “Really, you mustn’t -seek meanings in my random words.” - -“Oh, then it wasn’t meant literally?” - -“There aren’t any literal brutes left; only figurative ones. Must I do -penance for a levity I admit to have been uncalled for?” - -“I’ll let you off,—with the warning that I shall watch your remarks -more closely in future.” - -“Then I can only defend myself by becoming the objectionable thing you -called _me_!” - -“Diplomat! Is that objectionable?” - -“Rather. It implies the existence of things to be connived at. Once -you’ve admitted diplomat you’ve admitted stakes, and rivalry.” - -Mrs. Brown was on what she called tender hooks. Her husband was -waggishly of the opinion that the cheque would end by being spent on -wagon loads of sugar for Sundown, that pampered circus beast. - -“Has everybody finished objecting?” - -Everybody had. - -“Well, then, Miriam and I are going on a jaunt,—to New York and then -South where it’s warm.” - -“It’s a sort of holiday from me, I gather?” said Keble when the others -had done exclaiming. - -Miriam’s eyes turned in warning towards the speaker, whose lips broke -into a smile, in relish of the “brute” which, diplomatically, was merely -flashed across the room. This little passage arrested Louise, who had -been for the twentieth time reminded, by Keble’s detachment, of the -inexplicable poem. - -“Or yours from me,” she replied. “What’s sauce for the gander—” - -Keble judged the moment opportune for bringing forth his best Port, and -while the three men took a new lease of life, the women chatted -excitedly about resorts and itineraries. - -Louise’s announcement had been especially welcome to Miriam. It promised -an escape from umpiring,—from neutral-mindedness. Her cheeks burned a -little. - -The doctor was drifting back, along with Keble’s superintendent, into -the rigorous pioneer days of the Valley, the days before the branch line -had been built into Witney, contrasting the primitive arrangements of -that era with the recent encroachments of civilization. The logical -development in the talk would be some reference to Keble’s ambitious -designs, which the spring would see well under way. Miriam glanced up to -see how he would receive the cue, which usually roused him to -enthusiasm. He allowed it to pass, and she was intrigued to see on his -face a look of boyish, wistful abstraction, and loneliness. - -He felt her eyes on him, and turned as she looked away. She knew he -disliked to be surprised in a self-revelatory mood, and she had time to -notice his features assume their usual impersonal cast. That she -regretted; the wistfulness had been ingenuous and touching. At times she -felt that he deliberately submerged his most likable traits. That was a -great pity, because it gave Louise new incentives to go off on her -independent courses. Miriam felt that his self-consciousness had begun -by hurting Louise, driving her to protect herself against a coldness she -couldn’t understand. The unfortunate result was that Louise had rather -more than protected herself: had gradually attained a self-sufficiency -that took Keble’s coldness for granted, even inducing it. That was a -moral advantage which Miriam’s femininity resented, though nothing could -have drawn the admission from her. - -She was glad when Louise, by a new manoeuvre in the talk, gave her an -excuse to go into the next room. For there were times when nothing -sheathed the sharp edges of life so satisfactorily as a half hour at the -piano. - - 4 - -Only when she had waved Keble farewell from the back of the train at -Witney did Louise allow herself to dwell on the significance of the step -she had taken. Keble’s generous acquiescence in her plan merely -underlined the little question that kept irritating her conscience. For -all her skill she hadn’t known how to assure Keble that she wasn’t -turning her back on him; for all her love she couldn’t have admitted to -him that she was setting out for a sanatorium, to undergo treatment for -social ignorances in the hope of returning to him more fit than ever. -With the train now bolting east, she had the nervous dread of a -prospective patient. - -Yet as province after province rolled by, and the dreary prairie began -to be broken first by lakes and woods, then by larger and larger -communities, graduating her approach into civilization, her natural -optimism asserted itself in a typically vehement reaction. Now that -there was no turning back, the obvious thing to do was to wring every -possibility out of the experience to which she was committed. Nothing -should be too superficial for her attention. To Miriam’s relief her -despondency gave place to a feverish activity of observation. She began -to notice her fellow-travelers and to tick them off mercilessly, one by -one, with all their worths and blemishes. - -“Let’s leave no stone unturned, Miriam,” she said, imperatively, as they -neared their first halting place. “I won’t go home till I’ve done and -seen and had one of everything. Then for the next eighty years I shall -be able to out-small-talk the most outrageous dude that ever dares cross -my threshold.” - -She kept rein on the excitement caused in her by the hotels, shops, -museums, and theatres of Toronto and Montreal, for from Miriam’s -lukewarmness she divined that they were at best but carbon copies of the -hotels, shops, museums, and theatres of New York. So she contented -herself with watching the movements of her companion, marveling at -Miriam’s easy way with porters and chambermaids, her ability to arrive -on the right platform ten minutes before the right train departed, to -secure the most pleasant rooms at the least exorbitant rate and order -the most judicious dinners, all without fuss or worry. Having learned -that traveling was one of the major modern arts, she added it to the -list of subjects in which she was enrolled as student. By the time they -had reached Fifth Avenue and put up at a hostelry that was still -imposing, though it had been half forgotten in the mania for newer and -gayer establishments, Louise was imperturbable. - -During the next few days the experience that made the deepest impression -on her was the religious earnestness with which one was expected to -cultivate one’s exterior. On a memorable, but modest visit to Winnipeg -with her father,—who was attending a medical conference,—she had “gone -in and bought” whatever she had been in need of. Never had she dreamt -that so much art and science could be brought to bear on the merely -getting of oneself groomed. But after a few seances in the neighborhood -of Fifty-Seventh Street, Louise threw herself into this strange new cult -with characteristic fervor. This was partly due to the fact that Madame -Adèle, the dressmaker, and Monsieur Jules, the hairdresser, had -accomplished what good portrait painters often accomplish, and thrown -into relief properties of body and soul of which she had never been -aware. - -At the end of a fortnight she had mastered many rites, and when the last -frocks, hats, gloves, and slippers had arrived, and she had adapted her -steps and gestures and rhythms to the unbelievable new picture she made, -Miriam, for the first time since their association, expressed herself as -satisfied. - -“I’ve been waiting to see you dressed,” she announced as they sat in the -tea-room of a fashionable hotel. “It’s the final test. And you -pass—_magna cum laude_. Opposite you I feel dull and not at all what -you would once have called distinguished-looking.” - -“Don’t be absurd, Miriam,” returned her pupil in an even tone, with a -purified articulation that would have made Minnie Hopper stare. “I may -cost eight hundred dollars more than you at the moment, but I look -_new_, and you know it. Whereas you will always look _good_, without -looking new, no matter if you’re straight out of a bandbox. If I’ve made -any progress at all, the proof of it is that I recognize the truth of -what I’ve just said. . . . Not only that, but you can console yourself -with the knowledge that if you sit opposite me till Doomsday you’ll -never utter a syllable that couldn’t be printed in a book of etiquette. -Whereas I,—well, the mere fact that they’ve pulled out my lopsided -eyebrow doesn’t mean that before the sun sets I shan’t do and say some -inadvertent _bêtise_ that will proclaim the pit from which I was digged -and make you say to yourself, ‘Why does she?’. . . . One comfort is that -most of these expensive people here are even more plebeian, at least in -their souls, than I am, and you’re almost the only person in the world -whom I can’t fool. . . . Fancy not having you there to be genteel to, -and to shock,—especially to shock! At any moment I may deliberately say -something vulgar, dear. The temptation often comes over me in hot -waves.” - -“The ‘deliberately’ redeems you. Most people are vulgar without knowing -it; they would bite off their tongues if they knew. . . . As for -inadvertence, you’ve made only one _faux pas_ in days.” - -“Oh, dear! What?” - -“Yesterday, at that awful house.” - -“Mrs. Pardy’s? Why, darling, you took me there yourself, as a treat.” - -“Yes, but it was Elsa Pardy we went to leave cards for. Elsa was one of -the nicest girls in Washington when I knew her there. I would never have -looked her up in that casual way if I had foreseen such a fulsome -sister-in-law.” - -Louise laughed at the recollection, snuggling into the thought that Mrs. -Pardy could not be laid at _her_ door. Then came the thought of her -alleged remissness. “I hope I didn’t out-_faux_ Mrs. P. . . . I wonder -how Keble would like me to call him Mr. E.” - -“No wonder Elsa doesn’t stay there.” - -“But, Miriam, my _faux pas!_ I won’t be done out of my daily -correction.” - -Miriam smiled indulgently. “It was the merest trifle. Indeed if Mrs. -Pardy had made it, it would have done her credit. For that matter she -did, effusively, and if we hadn’t been such fastidious folk we should -have lauded her for it. And I do!” - -“Miriam . . . before I throw a bun at you!” - -“Well, my dear, you invited the woman to pay you a visit.” - -“Jolly kind of me, too. Is _that_ all?” - -“Heavens, it’s enough!” - -“I was merely returning a hospitality,—the hospitality of your -friends.” - -“Don’t tease.” - -“After all, what less could I do when she practically gave us her house -and her chauffeur and her marble staircase and diamond bracelets and -ancestral lemon groves in California.” - -“None of which we wanted, you see. Nor asked for a thing! Nor accepted a -thing except under compulsion. The mere fact that one strays into a -house that looks like a glorified Turkish bath and has it, as you say, -_given_ to one, doesn’t put one under the slightest obligation. We -merely sat on the edge of her golden chairs, regretted Elsa’s absence, -heard about Mr. P.’s kidneys and sundry organs, and drank a cup of tea.” - -“And ate a cream puff. Don’t slight that delicious, cordial, luxurious, -fattening, vulgar cream puff. I ate two and longed for a third. That -made it a grub-call, and I had to invite her back. I’ll never outgrow -that primitive custom. Besides, I took care to say, if she was ever in -my part of the world. That made it pretty safe.” - -“Ah, that’s just what made it an error. Not only because it was -gratuitous, but because Mrs. Pardy is the sort of woman who would -charter a private train to be in your part of the world in order, -accidentally, to drop in on a young woman who makes the sort of -impression you make,—for you do, you know. Especially when she finds -out,—and be sure she’ll investigate,—who the Eveleys are.” - -“Well, darling, let her come. She didn’t bother me a bit. It would be -rough on Keble, I suppose.” - -“Rough and warm,” said Miriam a little testily. “She had the effect on -me of heavy flannels in midsummer.” - -Louise gleefully pounced on her opportunity. “_Fi donc!_ Miriam Cread -conjuring up such incorrect things as flannels,—and it isn’t anywhere -near Doomsday!” - -“It’s near dressing time. And we must pack a little before dinner. After -the theatre we’ll be too tired.” - -“How shall we explain our sudden departure to Mrs. Pardy? Before she -sends out invitations to all her friends to ‘meet’ us!” - -“We can have the measles. Or you’re moving to Alaska.” - -“And if ever she and Mr. P. are in the Arctic Circle. . . . Measles -wouldn’t do the trick. She would come right in and nurse us. And give us -her doctor and her florist. Frankly, dear, I rather like Mrs. Pardy; -she’s so hearty. I thought that was going to rhyme but it didn’t.” - -“Come along. We’re going to walk home, for exercise.” - -“In these heels? . . . Is fifty cents enough to leave the waiter?” - -“Enough, good gracious! Leave the brute a quarter.” - -They made their way through a thronged corridor towards the street, and -Miriam felt a proprietary pride in her companion, whose present -restraint was as instinctively in keeping with her tailored costume, -unostentatious fur, and defiant little hat, as her old flamboyance had -been with her khaki breeches and willow switch. - -“Since I’ve begun to spend money,” Louise reflected, “I’ve been more and -more oppressed by the unfairness of my having access to so much,—though -of course it’s nothing compared to what one sees flung about in this -bedlam. But all these exaggerated refinements, and people taking -notice,—while it excites me, I don’t honestly care for it. There’s -something as uncomfortable about it as there would be about ‘boughten’ -teeth. Sartorial hysteria; the rash known as civilization; I keep saying -phrases like that to myself. . . . After about the fifth time I think -I’d bite that beauty woman. I like my face too well to have it rubbed -out once a week!” - -They turned into Fifth Avenue and joined the hordes let loose at this -transition hour of the day. Against the grey buildings women were as -bright as flowers, fulfilling, as Miriam reflected, the decorative -function that trees fulfil on European boulevards. - -“I had a cheque from Keble to-day,” Louise continued. “As if we hadn’t -heaps already! It came in a charming letter. Keble in his letters is -much more human than he is in the flesh. If I stayed away long enough I -might forget that and fall romantically in love with him all over again. -Which would be tragic. . . . He says he’s happy, poor lamb, to know that -I’m beginning to take an interest in life! But I wish he’d be candid and -say he’s miserable. Then I’d know what to do. When he so obstinately -pretends to be happy and isn’t, I’m lost. Miriam, look at that -creature!” - -It was a bizarrely clad woman, so thoroughly made over in every detail -of appearance that there was scarcely a square inch of her original -pattern left: a weird, costly fabrication that attracted the attention -of everybody within range of vision or smell. - -“Do you know who it is?” asked Miriam, amused at the startled look in -her companion’s eyes. - -“No, do you? She looks Japanese.” - -“Merely East Side. It’s Myra Pelter, the actress we’re to see to-night -in ‘Three Blind Mice’.” - -Louise yielded to a temptation to turn and stare. “Now there you are, -Miriam: the _reductio ad absurdum_ of hectic shopping and beautifying. -Isn’t it enough to drive one into a nunnery! I’m glad we’re on our way -to the seashore, where there are at least ‘such quantities of sand’ and -sky and water.” - -Miriam smiled doubtfully, a little wearily. “There will be quantities of -transparent stockings and French perfumes, too, my dear.” - -“Well, I like frivolities, as such,—but only as such, mind you. From -now on I ignore them the minute they try to be anything more. I think -I’m going in for human souls. I’m already tired of looking at people as -Adèle looks at them, or as if they were books in a shop window. I’m -going to open a few and see what they’re all about. . . . The worst of -it is, you can’t look at the last chapter of people and see how they -end. You can only read them, as you can only read yourself, in -maddeningly short instalments. They’re always on the brink of new doings -when you come to a ‘to be continued’. And I’ve reached a point where I -must have gists and summaries, must see what things are leading to, -what’s being driven at in this infuriating universe,—this multi-verse.” - -They had by this time reached their rooms, and Miriam was making a -preliminary sorting of objects to be packed. “Don’t you think,” she -ventured, “that you are inclined to be a little headlong as a -philosopher?” - -Louise was deftly choosing the articles of her toilette for the evening. -“Oh, no doubt of it! But I’m too deep in my sea now to care. I simply -swim on and on, after a shoal of notions.” - -“And splash a little,” commented Miriam, with an abstracted air that -saved the remark from being censorious. She was wondering whether she -had been over-scrupulous in refusing the gown that Adèle had privately -offered her by way of commission. And a little resentful that Adèle -should dare offer it to _her_. Miriam was old enough to remember a day -when such transactions were considered off-color, and it bothered her -that she should be so old-fashioned as to be unable to accept the place -assigned her in the callous new order, as some of her former friends, -with the greatest complacence, seemed to have done. Suddenly, bereft of -credit in a society to which she had once felt herself a necessary -adjunct, catching occasional glimpses of faces that recalled school-days -to her, and Newport and Paris, faces now hard, bright and mercenary, -Miriam felt abandoned. - -Her thoughts strayed westward and hovered. In Alberta she had been an -exile; but not so acutely alone as here. - - 5 - -The remaining weeks of their holiday accomplished even more towards -Louise’s worldly initiation, for she found herself dining and dancing -and matching opinions in private palaces among an anomalous assortment -of men and women. Before proceeding to Florida they paused in -Washington, where friends of Miriam and Walter Windrom whirled them into -the routine of that unique conglomeration of the provincial and the -sophisticated. Left alone among them, Louise might for a while have been -awed by pompous ladies whose husbands were senators from western states, -and unimpressed by young men whose shoulders bore no trace of the -burdens laid upon them by foreign governments. But Miriam’s polite -negativity towards the conspicuously grand, and her full and ready -response to some of the unassuming furnished Louise with useful cues, -and when Walter was of the party she was even more secure, for he had a -faculty of accepting everything at its face value, while privately -adding to or subtracting from the offering, with a twinkle in his eye, -or a twinkle in his speech. - -Walter’s good-natured technique, Louise reflected, was more nearly akin -to her own temperament than were Miriam’s precisely graduated coolness -and cordialities. Certain importunate people Miriam simply ignored, as -though declining to give them a seat in her coach. Walter, while he was -equally exclusive, got over the necessity of inviting them into his -coach by stepping out and walking a short distance with them. This -method seemed to Louise not only more humane, but also braver than -Miriam’s, and certainly no less dignified. It was gentlemanly, too; and -she objected, as only a woman can object, to feminine tactics. - -At Palm Beach they were greeted by a free, open, careless life that -suited Louise’s mood better than anything their excursion had afforded -her. She had decided that there was no hurry about “going in for human -souls” and consequently spent many hours in roaming through deep-chaired -hotel lounges, marble and wicker sun parlors, porches, pergolas, and -terraces; and in strolling along the hot sands or across lawns shaded by -flowering trees and edged with lotus pools. She also swam, played -tennis, and chatted _ad libitum_ with strangers. - -On her return to Canada, under the escort of Keble, who had accepted her -invitation to come and fetch them, she was brimming over with ideas for -the embellishment of their projected home. Yet, though she knew Keble -was eager to have her offer suggestions, she deliberately held them -back. By declining to participate in it she would lessen its hold on -her. It should be his castle, not hers. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -AS the days were told off one by one in anticipation of the arrival of -Trenholme Dare, the young architect and landscape gardener of Montreal, -with his army of workmen, Louise became more conspicuously reticent, -more conspicuously addicted to her books on socialism and metaphysics, -her chats with the wives of luckless ranchers, her Quixotic jaunts -north, south, east, and west in search of lonely school-teachers to be -befriended, sick cattle to be disinfected, odd lots of provisions to be -acquired from hard-up settlers. On the very day that a site was to be -chosen for the foundation of her private greenhouse, she fled from -Hillside and rode sixteen miles over the muddy roads of early spring for -a mere ice-cream soda; yet when she had heard of the recurrence of -little Annie Brown’s chronic earache, she had foregone a dance at the -Valley to sit up all night and heat linseed oil, smooth pillows, and -sing old French ditties. - -She realized the extent of her hostility to Keble’s plans one day when a -particular adverb escaped from her subconsciousness apropos of her -husband’s look of boyish pleasure and surprise, a sort of diffident -radiance in his face, as he glanced through a budget of documents which -changed his status from that of a dependent young rancher on probation -into an independent estate-holder. He seemed odiously contented, she -thought, then checked herself. “Odiously” was the adverb, and in fear -and wonder she rode down towards the range to reflect, to read herself a -long, abundantly illustrated sermon on heartlessness, and, if possible, -reduce herself to a state of remorse and penitence. - -In this attempt she failed signally, and indeed went so far over into -the opposite scale as to say with a passionate flick of the reins which -made Sundown leap, “Then if we must, we must, that’s all, and I’ll be -Nero. The sooner Rome burns the better. _Vas-y donc, bonjour!_” - -The spring rains had set in, and water coursed down the usual channels -with a volume and roar that attracted one’s attention to brooklets which -in other seasons flowed by unnoticed. Water lurked in every depression, -as though the earth were some vast sponge, red and brown and green. Near -the river, the road was washed away. In some places rude bridges that -had served the previous summer were now rendered ridiculous through a -capricious change in the course of the stream. The bi-weekly mail wagon -had left deep ruts now filled with water the color of cocoa. The -mountains were still topped with thick white snow and reminded her of -frosted cakes. There was a heavy, rich fragrance and vigor in the air. -When a hare darted across the trail into the miniature forest of sage -bushes, she, in spirit, darted with him, in a glee. As she cut herself a -switch from a bush of willows she welcomed the drops of water that -showered over her face and ran up her sleeve, as though, like some -intelligent plant, she knew that the drops would make her grow. Even the -mud that spattered her boots and stirrup straps she cheerfully accepted -as seasonable. And she rode on at haphazard, as carelessly, yet with as -much vigorous assurance as had been manifested by the hare. Like the -hare she had no idea whither she was bound. Like the hare she was -swiftly, gracefully making for the unknown destination. Temperamentally -she was hare-like; that would make Keble a tortoise; and according to -the fable he would win the race; that thought would bear -investigation,—but not for the moment. For the moment she chose to -intoxicate herself with the conviction that nothing in the world -mattered. The ills that most people complained of,—ills like little -Annie’s earaches and her own increasing estrangement from her -husband,—merely lent life an additional savor, and she could conceive -of acquiring a taste for chagrin, as one acquired a taste for bitters; -if not a taste, then at least an insensibility. Her whole philosophy -amounted to a conviction of the necessity of behaving as though the odds -weren’t there. - -There was only one thing that could have brought her atonement with the -spring world nearer to perfection, and that would have been to have -Keble riding at her side. Not the correct Keble who studied blue prints -and catalogues, who read prose that sounded like poetry and poems that -sounded like prose, but some idealized Keble who, with the same eyes, -hair, hands, strength, honesty, and “nice back-of-his-neck,” could do -what the actual Keble could not do: keep ahead of her, command her, -surprise, shock, and seduce her, snatch her off her feet and whirl her -through space with a momentum that prevented thought,—the Keble, in -short, who failed to exist but whom she loved against hope. Love was a -mystery to which she had gladly abandoned herself, but which, while -appearing to receive her with open arms, had remained as inscrutable at -close range as it had been from a distance. When the arms folded about -her she felt imprisoned and blinded; when she drew back for perspective -the arms fell, or, what was still more disheartening, methodically -turned to some unallied, if useful employment, leaving her restlessly -expectant and vaguely resentful. The consequence of which was that her -great supply of affection, like the cascades pouring down from the -hills, spread over undefined areas, capriciously turned into new -channels, leaving, here and there, little bridges of a former season -spanning empty river beds. That very morning at breakfast Keble had said -to her, “Good morning, dear, did you sleep well?” That phrase was a -useless old bridge over a flat stretch of pebbles. To Miriam he had -said, “I’ve had a reply from the cement people; would you like to type -some more tiresome letters to-day?” And that was a new bridge over God -knew what. - -She forgot that she had just been glorying in the conviction that -nothing in the world mattered. Once she had said to her father that she -sometimes wondered if anything were right. She blushed at a sudden -humiliating guess as to what might make _everything_ right. Humiliating -because,—for all her fine theorizing,—it might be, after all, more -physio- than psyhcho-logical. - - 2 - -Keble’s corner of creation had become a chaos of felled trees, -excavations, foundations, ditches, scaffoldings, cement-mixers, tripods, -lead pipe, packing-cases, tents, and Irish masons. Four years before, on -returning to London from a journey around the world, he had heard his -father say that a young man who had “anything in him” couldn’t help -desiring to exert himself even to the point of great sacrifice in the -attainment of whatever most interested him. That remark had discouraged -Keble, for he could imagine nothing for which he could have an -overwhelming desire to sacrifice himself: least of all British politics, -which was the breath in his father’s nostrils. - -The remark had sent him roaming again, not to see more of the world but -to think. And, thanks to a hunting accident which confined him several -weeks to a log cabin in the wilds of Alberta, he had not only thought, -but found the thing for which he desired to exert himself to the point -of sacrifice. At the moment when the lure of a new country was driving -from his memory the vapid gaieties of West End night clubs, he met a -girl who seemed to be the human counterpart of all the mystery and -spaciousness in nature which had cast a spell upon him. The acres which -his father had acquired many years before for the mere fun of owning -something in Canada were a jumble of forest primeval, clear waters, -prairies, untamed animals. Louise was a jumble equally enticing. And the -passion to reclaim the one became inextricably allied with a passion to -reclaim the other. It mattered no more to him that his rivals in the -latter case were cowboys than that, in the former, his opponents were -inexperience and a sceptical family. In both cases he saw possibilities -that others hadn’t seen. - -His forests and fields, being without a purpose of their own, yielded -docilely to his axes and ploughshares and grouped themselves into the -picture he had conceived of them. But his wife, after the first months -of submission, had begun to sprout and spread with a capricious and -bewildering luxuriance. - -For some time he felt the change, but not until the arrival of Trenholme -Dare did his feeling become statable. Not that there was any technical -lack of affection or good will or loyalty; there was simply a great lack -of common effort. The original trust and enthusiasm had vanished, and -since no one was to blame, he was beginning to be anxious about its -return. At times he suspected that he ought, in some fashion, to assert -himself. But, fundamentally humble, as well as proud, he could do -nothing more than watch Louise’s progress in a sort of despairing -approbation, and go on cultivating his own garden. - -What changes had taken place in himself, with increasing seriousness of -purpose, he could not have said. The changes in Louise were -multitudinous, in the sense that a tree in spring is more multitudinous -than the same tree in winter. She had acquired foliage and blossoms. He -trembled to see what the fruit would be. Once he had been priggish -enough to wonder whether he could be contented with a wife brought up in -such primitive simplicity; his priggishness received a final snub in -Palm Beach, where instead of the impetuous creature whose cultivation he -had once bumptiously promised himself to take in hand, he was met by a -woman who had herself so completely in hand that she set the tone for -everybody within range. Vaguely he suspected that the transformation was -the result of a process undertaken with the intention of pleasing him. -But to have claimed this would have seemed to him presumptuous. He now -found in her a cautiousness, politeness, and undemonstrativeness that, -to his dismay, he recognized as an echo of his own; and, their positions -reversed, he had some conception of the hurt he must have inflicted on -her. Whereupon he longed for her old headlong assaults and -gamineries,—longed for them for their warmth and for their value as -examples to learn by. - -The only encouraging factor in the situation was Louise’s honesty. In -that respect at least there was no change. He was convinced that she had -told him only one lie in her life, and that was a pathetic fib for which -he was more than ready to answer to Saint Peter, since it was a -by-product of the process of self-improvement Louise had undertaken, as -he suspected, to do him honor. Being the first lie, it was overdone: for -Miriam Cread was, of all the women he could think of, perhaps the least -like a Harristown schoolmistress. He had never challenged the story, and -it had never been officially contradicted. Neither Louise nor Miriam -knew that one day, in looking through a bundle of old illustrated -weeklies, his eye had been arrested by the photograph of a group of -people in the paddock at Ascot, prominent among whom was “Rear Admiral -Cread of Washington, D. C. and his daughter,” chatting with a dowdy old -princess of the blood royal at the very moment,—as Keble took the -trouble to calculate,—when Weedgie Bruneau was alleged to have been -improving her acquaintance with Miriam in a remote normal school in the -Canadian northwest. - -How Miriam had got to Hillside, what she had come for, and why she -stopped on, were questions whose answers were of no importance. -Important was the fact that Miriam’s presence had had the effect of an -electrolized rod plunged into the chemical solution of his marriage. As -a result of which Louise and he had separated into copper and NO_{3}. In -short he had relapsed into a rather flat solution, and she had come out -a very bright metal. - -Miriam was not a source of anxiety to him. Whatever machine she had -dropped from, she had played fair. At times she was a positive boon: -sweet, serene, solid. “I wish you could see her, my son,” he had once -written to Walter Windrom. “Even your flawless Myra Pelter’s nose, if -not put out of joint, would have to be furtively looked at in the -mirror, just once, to see that it was still straight.” - -But the _man_ from the machine. - -He was entirely self-made, and, as Keble was the first to admit, a -tremendously good job. Miriam’s comment was that, though his thumbs were -too thin-waisted for a Hercules and his shoulders too broad for an -Apollo, he was undoubtedly of divine descent. Louise, on first seeing -him, had shrugged her shoulders and said, under her breath, the one -word: “Cocksure.” - -Keble’s impression of Dare was recorded in his latest letter to Windrom, -with whom, as a relief from his recent solitary self-catechism, he had -resumed a more intensive correspondence. “He takes possession of you,” -wrote Keble, “Chiefly, I think, with his voice, which is more palpable -than most men’s handshakes: one of those voices that contain chords as -well as single tones, that sink and spread, then draw together into the -sound of hammer on steel, and scatter into a laugh which is like a -shower of sparks. If I were a sculptor I would model him in bronze -fifteen feet high and label him the twentieth century, if not the -twenty-first. If I owned a monopoly of the world’s industry I would make -him general manager. If I were the sovereign people I would cheerfully -and in a sort of helpless awe make him dictator, all the while deploring -and failing to understand his views. He would simply thunder forth -policies in a voice full of chromatic thirds, and with frantic, nervous -huzzahs I would bear him shoulder-high to the throne.” - -Dare struck Keble as a philosopher who through excess of physical energy -had turned to mechanical science. Or perhaps a born engineer whose -talent for organizing matter had a sort of spiritual echo. At one moment -he would make his facts support his philosophical speculations; at the -next his philosophy, like a gigantic aeroplane, would mount into the sky -with tons of fact stowed away in neat compartments. The result was that -Keble didn’t know whether to marvel at the load Dare could mount with, -or be alarmed at the whirling away into space of so much solid matter. - -“Contact with this chap,” wrote Keble, “has taught me this, that to me -who,—it must alas be admitted,—am merely on the brink of understanding -my epoch, individuality has seemed almost an end in itself, as though -the object of life were achieved when the flower blossomed. (I remember -romantic nights during my furloughs in Paris when I paid mute tribute to -long-haired, be-sandalled creatures who were, to my excessively English -eyes, ‘being individual’). But egos are _passé_; mass ego, it seems (or -egi) have come in. For Dare the blossoming, even the fructifying, are -incidental. His interest (at least in the reflective lulls after dinner, -for during the daytime he’s the most practical of men) extends to the -cosmic activity which is (in some manner I have yet to comprehend) -rendered possible by the virtually automatic living and procreating and -dying of millions upon millions of violets and pine trees and rabbits -and ladies and gentlemen and glaciers and republics and solar systems. -He assaults the subject with these stimulating volleys of odds and ends. - -“Now imagine, Walter, for only you can, the effect of all this on my -wife. It’s turning into ‘a case unprecedented’, and before long I may, -like Bunthorne, have to be ‘contented with a tulip or li-lie’. Louise -long ago talked me into a cocked hat. Miriam, through the mysterious -licence she had been endowed with, kept up a semblance of intellectual -alto to Louise’s dizzy soprano. But now, oh dear me _now_, Miriam and I -aren’t even in tempo with her, much less in key. My household,—I still -claim it as mine through force of habit, which is always imperative with -me,—has become a china shop for the taurean and matadorean antics of -two of the most ruthlessly agile products of the age. - -“Louise is for the moment (and you can only define her momentarily) an -interpreting link between Dare (twenty-first century) and me -(nineteenth). Her original association with me awakened her -consciousness to a delicate scale of weights and measures in matters of -taste and opinion. When she had acquired my acuteness of perception she -discovered that she was naturally endowed with Alpine talents that made -my hilltop look like a mound. From her easy victories over Miriam and me -she concluded that there were endless enterprises awaiting her. When she -was alone she began to feel herself operating on a higher gear, making -for herself new speed records. Now that I look back, I know that my -cautiousness, in more than one crisis, gave her ample excuse for going -her own gait. I have it from her lips that she has kept her love -(whatever we mean by that enormously capacious word) for me brightly -burning, as I, in all the welter, have done. Her religious nature, for -want of a cult, has always centered round an exquisite instinct which I -suspect to be a sort of sublimated eroticism: something that I suppose -no man ever understands,—or would some other man? That’s the devilish -puzzle of it. Yet almost without being aware of it she seems to have -kindled new fires before an altar so much more important and -all-embodying than her feeling for me or mere anybody else that the -light of her little lamp of constancy is like the light of a star in the -blaze of noon. - -“What one does in a case like that is more than I know. All I am sure of -at this moment is you, my son, a lighthouse that flashes at dependable -intervals through my fogs. Do you, for one, stay a little in the rear of -the procession if every one else gets out of sight. I don’t deserve it -of you; I merely exact it,—again through force of habit: the same habit -that, in our school holidays suffered me to play with _your_ yacht on -the Kensington round pond after I had wrecked my own.” - - 3 - -Miriam, who had watched Louise as one watches an acrobat,—with -excitement and dread,—felt herself in a sense frustrated by Louise’s -continued apathy. If it had been punctuated by new verbal heresies, new -feats of talk with Trenholme Dare, now the dominating figure at -Hillside, Miriam, like Keble, would at least have been able to account -for it even had she failed to sympathize. But Louise’s indifference -seemed to have spread even to the realm of ideas, and there had been -very few acrobatic displays of late. Possibly Louise was in love; but if -so, it would have been much more like her to say so, flatly. - -The effect of this on Miriam was to make her more sharply conscious of -the anomaly of her rôle. More than once she had argued that her mission -was at an end, but in each instance Louise had induced her to remain. -Having yielded at first with a faint sense of guilt, Miriam had come -through custom to accept her position with all its ambiguities. As -Keble’s activities increased, she had stepped into the breach and -relieved him of many daily transactions, delighted at being able to -offer a definite service for the cheque which was left on her dressing -table every month. Keble ended by turning over to her his ledgers and -most of his correspondence. - -But her feeling of guilt recurred at moments when the house seemed to be -an armed camp, with Keble and herself deep in their estimates; and -Louise inciting Dare to phantastic metaphysical speculation. At such -moments her mind persisted in criticizing Louise. It was not exactly -that she lacked confidence in her, for Louise was in her own fashion -surefooted and loyal. But Miriam was a little appalled at the extensity -of the ground Louise could be surefooted on, the sweeping nature of her -conception of loyalty. Louise, scorner of the ground, was all for -steering in a direct line to her goal and ignoring the conventional -railway routes whose zigzags were conditioned by topographical -exigencies not pertinent to fliers. Her loyalty would not fail Keble, -for she could cherish him in the spirit without subscribing to him in -the letter. Louise’s loyalty might be expressed in idioms which were not -to be found in Keble’s moral vocabulary. Just as there were some eternal -truths which could be expressed more adequately in French than in -English, so, conceivably, there might be vital experiences which Louise -could obtain more adequately through the agency of some man other than -Keble; certainly she would not acknowledge any law that attempted to -prevent her doing so, had she a mind to it. - -There were times when Miriam felt herself to be an interpreter; more -than once in tête-à-têtes with Keble she had found herself de-coding -some succinct remark of Louise’s to explain away a worried line in his -forehead, and it was on those occasions that she had felt especially -guilty,—not because she ran the risk of giving an unfair -interpretation, but because it was conceivable that, had she not been -there to decipher, Louise would have taken more pains to employ a -language Keble could understand. - -This qualm she could dispel by reminding herself that at the time of her -advent Louise and Keble had been drifting apart through very lack of an -interpreter. Then it was Keble’s language which had been too precious -for his wife, and Louise herself had taken energetic steps to increase -her vocabulary to meet the demand. Would Keble take steps to learn her -new words? At least there was evidence that he suffered at not being -able to speak them. But after all Keble was a man, and no man should be -expected to grope in the irrational mazes of a woman’s psychology. It -was a woman’s duty to make herself intelligible to the man who loved -her; Miriam was tenaciously sure of this. Yet Louise nowadays made no -effort to share her ideas with Keble; she merely challenged him to soar -with her, and when he, thinking of Icarus, held back, she went flying -off with Dare, who certainly made no effort to bear any one aloft, but -whose powerful rushing ascensions either filled you with a desire to fly -or bowled you over. - -Dare, for all his impetuosity, was, like Louise, prodigiously -conscientious; but like her he was more concerned with the sense of a -word than with its orthography. He was too certain of the organic and -creative nature of experience to live according to any formula. You felt -unwontedly safe with him, just as you did with Louise, but safe from -dangers that only he had made you see, dangers on a remote horizon. As -you ambled along, with nothing more ominous than a cloud of dust or a -shower of rain to disturb your pedestrian serenity, Louise and Dare -would swoop down, armed to the teeth, gleefully to assure you that -nothing fatal would happen, that accidents to limb held no terrors for -moral crusaders worthy the name; then, leaving you to stand there in -bewilderment, they would swoop off again to catch up with unknown -squadrons beyond the rim of vision, whence, for the first time, a -muffled sound of bombing came to your ears. And your knees would begin -to tremble, not on their account,—oh dear no, _they_ could take care of -themselves,—but on your own. Suddenly your pedestrian course seemed -drab to you,—long, weary, prosaic; but you lacked wings, weapons, zeal, -and endurance. - -Louise was a Spartan both morally and physically. She could ignore -transgressions of the social code as easily as she could ignore bodily -discomforts. Recently Miriam had seen an example of each. When Pearl -Beatty, the schoolteacher, had been made the topic of scandalous gossip -which echoed through the Valley, Louise in defiance of her husband and -the public had fetched Pearl to the ranch for a week-end, and said to -her in effect, “Pearl dear, I’ll see that you don’t lose your job, -provided you don’t lose your head. If it’s a _man_ you want, wait till -you find the right one, then bring him here and I’ll protect you both. -But if it’s a lot of men you want you can’t go on teaching school in our -Valley; it’s too complicated. The only way to play that game with -pleasure and profit,—and I doubt whether you’re really vicious -enough,—is to save your money, go to a big city, buy some good clothes, -and sit in the lobby of the leading commercial hotel until fate’s finger -points.” As a result of this manoeuvre some of Pearl’s thoughtless -exuberance rushed into a channel of devotion to Louise, who seized the -occasion to build up in the girl a sense of her own value and then -bullied the Valley into respecting it. - -As for physical courage, only a few days previously Louise, uttering an -occasional “Oh damn!” to relieve her agony, had stoically probed with a -needle deep under her thumb-nail to release a gathering that had formed -as a result of rust poisoning, while Miriam stood by in horror. - -Far deeper than her dread of anything Louise might do was a dread -engendered by lack of confidence in herself. Within herself there was -some gathering of emotion for which, unlike Louise, she hadn’t the -courage to probe. As she had told Louise at their first meeting, -responsibility could frighten her; and she now shrank before the -responsibility of her inclinations. The most she dared admit to herself -was that she was growing too fond of the life around her. In her first -youth she had fancied herself a real person in a pleasantly artificial -setting, mildly enamoured of glittering symbols of life; in this faraway -corner, renovated by solitude, physical exertion, and obligatory -self-analysis, she saw herself as an artificial person in a pleasantly -real setting, enamoured of life itself. She had come to teach, and had -remained to learn. In the old days a horse had been a sleek toy upon -which one cantered in Rock Creek Park or Rotten Row or the Monte Pinchio -gardens until a motor came and fetched one home to lunch. A dog had been -a sort of living muff. Camping expeditions had been an elaborate means -of relaxing overwrought nerves. Nowadays a horse was a friend who -uncomplainingly bore one great distances, who discovered the right path -when one was lost. A dog was a companion who escorted one through -fearsome trails, who retrieved the grouse one hit, and kept watch by -night at the cabin door. Camping expeditions were a serious means to -some explorative end; one slept on the hard ground under a raincoat -simply because there was nothing else to sleep on, and eagerly looked -forward to doing it again. Men and women whom one would once have sent -down to the kitchen for a cup of tea were now one’s convives. And far -from losing caste on this level, one acquired a useful perspective of -society and a new conception of one’s identity. Association with a girl -like Pearl Beatty, for instance, not only opened one’s eyes at last to -some blunt facts about one’s own nature, but also furnished the clue to -scandals concerning which one had been stupidly supercilious in the days -when life consisted in the automatic fulfilment of projects announced -beforehand on pieces of cardboard. - -Yet for the first time in a dozen years she was not sure of herself. So -far she had been loyal in thought as well as deed, but the present -inventory of herself revealed claims for which she had also little -rebellious gusts of loyalty. Louise herself counted for something in -this development, since however much one might deprecate Louise’s bold -convictions, one couldn’t deny that they were often ingratiating. “It’s -more honorable to hoist your own sail and sail straight on a reef than -it is to be towed forever!” When Louise tossed off remarks of that sort -one was tempted to lengths of experiment that one would once have -drastically disapproved. Louise’s philosophy might end by producing -inedible fruits, but meanwhile there was no denying the charm of the -blossoms she flaunted under one’s windows and virtually defied one not -to smell. - -As long as Louise was plying at verbal thunder and lightning, Miriam’s -confidence in herself underwent to qualms. For at such times, she, in -comparison with Louise, personified all that was discreet. But when -Louise’s effervescences died down, when the last waterspout of her -exultant proclamations had collapsed on a lake of apathy too deep and -dark to be penetrated, Miriam felt the wavelets radiating to the shore -at her feet, gently communicating a more daring rhythm to her own -desires. - -The first definite effect of these reflections was Miriam’s decision to -leave. Otherwise she would be forced to come to an understanding with -herself and run the risk of discovering that she was ready to—steal. - -It was late in September. Dare’s army of workmen were fighting against -time to complete the exteriors of the new house and outbuildings before -winter. Miriam drew rein as her horse reached the top of the hill from -which she had obtained her first glimpse of the lake more than a year -ago. The sun was not yet up, but the world was expecting it. The lake -which only yesterday had been an emerald was now a long, flat pearl -encircled in a narrow, faintly amethystine mist which like a scarf of -gauze broke the perpendicular lines of the farthermost shore. In it were -mirrored the colossal rocks forming the jagged V of the canyon, and -threadbare clouds of pale rose and jade, lemon and amber. The oily brown -log cottages silhouetted near the outlet had the pictorial value of -black against the living pearl of the water, and Louise’s flower beds -were banked with something mauve dulled by dew. Frost-bitten, orange-red -geraniums in wooden urns raised high on crooked tree-stumps made hectic -blurs on each side of the main cottage. Farther off, and higher than the -tops of the pine trees which rose above the pervasive lavender mist, -were clusters of yellow and crimson foliage and slender tree trunks that -stood out like strokes of Chinese white. Higher yet were stretches of -rusty gorse which finally straggled off to bare patches of buff-hued -turf ending in the rock walls of Hardscrapple, whose irregular peaks, -four thousand feet above, were faintly edged with silver light. - -At the end of the pine ridge to the right of the lake, surmounting a -broad meadow, standing out from the wooded slope of the mountain, and -bringing the whole landscape to a focus, was the Castle with its severe -lines, its broad balconies and high windows. One terrace dominated the -lake, while another looked over the top of the pine ridge towards the -distant valley where the river twisted its way for thirty miles through -a grey-green sage plain broken by occasional dark islands of pine and -bounded on the farther side by patchy brown and green risings -culminating in a lumpy horizon. - -Everything visible for fifty miles had been stained bright with the hues -of the changing season, only to be softened by the clinging mist, which -seemed to hush as well as to veil. - -From three kitchens,—Louise’s, Mrs. Brown’s, and the workmen’s -encampment,—white ribbons of smoke rose straight up as though to -reinforce the pale, exhausted clouds. Grendel, Miriam’s retriever, was -standing in the wet grass, one paw held up and tail motionless as though -awaiting confirmation of a hint of jack-rabbits. An acrid odour gave -body to the air: an odour whose ingredients included the damp earth, the -bark of the firs, the bunches of rust-colored berries, the leather of -the saddle, and the warm vitality of the horse. Once there was a sound -of whinnying from the slopes beneath, and once a distant sound of -splashing,—Keble or Dare at his morning plunge in the lake. - -How splendid to be a man, with a man’s vigorous instincts! Even the -pipes they smoked at night were condonable, when you thought of the -strong teeth that clenched their stems, the strong fingers that twisted -the stems out during the cleaning process, and the earnestness that went -into the filling and lighting, the contented bodily collapse, as of -giants refreshed, that followed the first puff. - -Splendid to be a man, certainly. But how much more wonderful to be at -the disposal of some clean, earnest, boyish creature who would be -comfortingly gigantic when one felt helpless, enticingly indolent when -one felt strong. As for being a victim to a capacity for tenderness -which one had no right to indulge,—that was simply unfair. - -The sound of loose planks disturbed by running feet came up to her on -the motionless air. It was Keble, in sandals and dressing gown, -returning from the boat-slip to the cottage. She leaned forward and -patted her horse. - -Near the foot of the winding road she drew rein again. Grendel had -dashed ahead to play practical jokes on a colony of hens. Joe was -chopping wood. Mona was moving tins in the dairy. Annie Brown was at the -pump, getting water on her “pinny”. Some one was whistling. Grendel -barked at the top of his lungs and came bounding back through the grass. -The sun was beginning to turn the mountain peaks into brass and bronze. -The flat pallid clouds were trailing away. A flush of blue crept over -the sky. - -Miriam’s throat ached with the kind of happiness that is transformed at -birth into pain. She remembered the remark she had made to Louise on -first descending this road: “You very lucky woman!” - -Half an hour later, at the breakfast table, she was struck by the pallor -of Louise’s cheeks, which normally glowed. Louise was chatting with a -show of good spirits that failed to hoodwink her. She broke open an egg -with a slight feeling of vexation, for it was nerve-racking to be faced -daily with a human puzzle. She was more than willing to be sorry for -Louise, but one couldn’t quite be sorry until one knew why. - -A moment later their eyes met. Louise gave her a characteristically -friendly smile, and suddenly Miriam guessed. She was assailed by a -nameless envy, a nameless resentment, sincere compassion, then, by a -strange relief that left her almost comically weak. - -When breakfast was finished and the men were out of the room she went to -Louise, grasped her by the shoulders, looked into her eyes with kindly -inquiry, then, having been assured, said, “My dear, why didn’t you tell -me? Or rather, how could I have failed to see!” - -To Miriam’s amazement Louise bit her lips and trembled,—Louise, the -Spartan! Miriam kissed her cold cheek and gave her arm an affectionate -pat. She felt awkward. “What’s there to be afraid of?” she scoffed. “You -of all people!” - -“It’s not fear,” Louise quietly contradicted. “It’s disgust.” - -“How does Keble take it?” - -“He is as blind as you were. And I haven’t been able to bring myself to -telling him. That explains better than anything my state of mind. He -will be so odiously glad.” - -Miriam was shocked. - -“Yes, odiously,” Louise petulantly repeated. “I know it’s abominable of -me to talk like this. But he will be so suffocatingly good and kind -. . . Oh Miriam!” - -She burst into tears and let Miriam’s arms receive her. “I loathe -hysterical women,” she sobbed, then turned to Miriam with appealing -eyes. “You will stay won’t you?” - -Miriam hesitated. The decision she had come to on her solitary ride -broke down as other similar decisions had done. - -“Why, yes, dear,—yes, of course I’ll see you through it,” she replied, -and allowed Louise’s grateful caress to silence a little exulting voice -within her. - - 4 - -A singular, poignant peace brooded over Hillside through the long months -of Miriam’s second winter at the ranch. While the outer world stood -transfixed with cold, its lakes and streams frozen and its heart stifled -under the snow, the people indoors went about their tasks and diversions -with an orderliness that recalled old times to Louise and Keble and -tended to persuade Miriam that her doubts about herself had been -exaggerated. - -To break the monotony of correspondence, books, cards, and skiing trips -there had been countless boxes to unpack in the unfinished house on the -hill: boxes of furnishings and ornaments, music to try over and books to -catalogue. To give unity to the winter, there was the dramatic suspense -of waiting for the human miracle. The attitude of Louise combined -tolerance of Keble’s solicitude with amusement at Miriam’s -half-embarrassed excitement. For the rest she accepted with common sense -a situation which she privately regarded as an insult on the part of -fate. - -The apathy which Miriam had noted so uneasily in the early autumn had -not disappeared, although it had lost its trance-like fixity, in the -place of which had come a more regular attention to daily tasks, a quiet -competence. Miriam’s admiration for Louise had steadily grown, despite -her distrust of Louise’s intellectual “climbing” and her -half-acknowledged envy of Louise’s power to enslave Keble, to give Dare -Rolands for his Olivers, and to bind maids and cooks, farm hands and -horse wranglers, neighbors and creditors together in a fanatical -vassalage. On none of her slaves did Louise make arbitrary demands. If -she exhorted or scolded them, it was always apropos of their success or -failure in being true to themselves. If Miriam’s admiration ever -wavered, it was on occasions when Louise, carried away by her own -_élan_, cut capers merely to show what capers she could cut,—like an -obstreperous child shouting, “Watch me jump down three steps at a time.” - -But recently Louise had not been cutting capers, and as she sat before a -fire that gave the lie to the incredible temperature that reigned beyond -the storm doors, calmly stitching garments for an infant whose advent -was distasteful to her, Miriam regarded her with the protective -affection she might have felt for a sister ten years her junior. - -“I can’t make you out,” she said. “In your place I would be obnoxiously -proud of myself.” - -“When I was first married I wanted him. Then as time went on I hoped -there wouldn’t be any him at all. Saw to it, in fact. I’ve been -negligent.” - -“Why _him_?” Miriam inquired. - -“Because it’s my duty to produce a member of the ancient and honorable -House of Lords. His forebears expect it. As for me, I’d rather have a -monkey.” - -Grimness had replaced the old zest and elasticity, and Miriam noted with -surprise that this single fact completely altered the personality of the -household. If the present mood proved permanent, she reflected, the -Castle, for all their pains, would have the character of a house to let. - -Dare had left in the late autumn and would return in the spring, perhaps -remaining for the house-warming which was to be the occasion of a visit -by members of Keble’s family. At the time of Dare’s departure Miriam had -watched Louise with intense curiosity. She had longed to know the nature -of the rôle played by Louise’s heart in her relation with Dare,—a -relation which both so freely acknowledged to be exhilarating. During -one of their final evenings Louise had said to Dare, “When you leave -Hillside I shall climb to the top of Hardscrapple, chant a hymn to the -sun, and dive head first into the canyon, for there won’t be anything to -live for, except Keble and Miriam, and they’re only the land I’m a fish -on, whereas you’re the water I’ll be a fish out of!” - -To which Dare had instantly retorted, “Indeed I’m not the water you’re a -fish in. I’m the whale you’re a swordfish attacking, and I shall be glad -to get back east where there’s nothing I can’t either swallow or -out-swim.” - -Miriam had been exasperated at not being able to read between the -bantering lines. For there must be a situation, she reasoned; two such -abounding persons, no matter how adroit, could never have got so far -into each others’ minds without having got some distance into each -other’s blood. - -But the situation, whatever it was, was not divulged, and Miriam was -denied whatever solace her own unruly heart might have derived from the -knowledge that Keble’s wife’s heart was also unruly. - -Whether Louise’s sense of duty had a share in it or not, a “him” was -duly produced and ecstatically made at home. Even his mother ended by -admitting that he was “not a bad little beast.” She had vetoed Keble’s -plan to import a nurse from England, and had trained Katie Salter for -the post. As motherhood had once been Katie’s passionate avocation, -Louise could think of no better way to translate into deeds the spirit -of her outlandish funeral sermon on neighborliness than to promote Katie -from the wash-house to the nursery. - -Keble and Miriam came in from an hour’s skating one afternoon late in -December to find Louise at the tea-table submitting to Katie’s proud -account of the prodigy’s gain in weight. She was mildly amused to learn -that the tender hair on the back of babies’ heads was worn off by their -immoderate addiction to pillows. - -Keble leaned over the perambulator, not daring to put his finger into -the trap of his son’s microscopic hand lest its coldness have some dire -effect. He had an infatuated apprehension of damage to his child, having -so recently learned the terrific physical cost of life. His tenderness -for the infant had a strange effect on Louise. It made her wish that she -were the baby. Tears gathered in her eyes as she watched him, still -aglow from his exercise and fairly hanging on Katie’s statistics. - -She began to pour tea as Miriam threw aside her furs and drew up a -chair. Miriam had hoped, in common with Keble and Katie Salter, that -Louise’s indifference would disappear as if by magic when the baby came -within range of the census. She was forced to admit, however, that -Louise was not appreciably more partial to her son than to Elvira Brown -or Dicky Swigger. - -“Could you desert him long enough to drink a cup of tea?” Louise -inquired after a decent interval. She liked the solemn manner in which -Keble talked to the future member of the House of Lords. Like Gladstone -addressing the Queen, Keble addressed the baby as though it were a -public meeting. “You must make due allowance for the incurable -knick-knackery of woman kind,” he was saying, as he smoothed out a lace -border in which two tiny fingers had become entangled and against -which,—or something equally unjust,—a lusty voice was beginning to -protest. - -“He’s not as polite as you are, if he does take after you,” Louise -commented when Keble had praised the toasted cheese cakes. - -Keble judged this a fair criticism, and Miriam was of the opinion that a -polite baby would be an unendurable monstrosity. “I like him best of -all,” she said, “when he kicks and twists and screams ‘fit to bust his -pram’, as Katie says. Although I’m also quite keen about him when he’s -dining. Yes, thanks, and another cheese cake . . . And his way of always -getting ready to sneeze and then _not_, that’s endearing. And his dreams -about food.” - -“You wouldn’t find them half as endearing if you had to wake up in the -middle of the night and replenish him.” - -“Oh I say, Weedgie! Must you always speak of him as though he were a -gas-tank, or a bank account!” - -“Pass me your cup. After skating you also want a lot of replenishing, -like your greedy heir. Now let’s for goodness’ sake talk about something -else,—the New Year’s dance for instance.” - -Keble was always ready nowadays to talk on any subject in which Louise -showed signs of interest. The recognized household term for it was -“trying to be the water Louise is a fish in.” - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -IN England there were several thousand acres which Keble would one day -automatically take over. In Canada, creating his own estate, he could -enjoy a satisfaction known only to the remotest of his ancestors. And as -his wilderness became productive he acquired, atavistically, the -attitude of a squire towards the people whose livelihood depended on -him. He housed them comfortably; he listened to their claims and -quarrels; he hired, discharged, and promoted with conscientious -deliberation; and every so often he wrote letters to the provincial -parliament about the state of the roads. - -“Now it’s time to amuse them,” Louise had suggested. “People don’t -remember that you have installed expensive lighting plants for their -benefit, but they never forget a lively party.” - -Thus was sown the seed of the New Year’s dance which was to be held in -the hall and reception rooms of the empty new house. Invitations were -issued to every soul at Hillside, and a poster tacked to the bulletin -board of the Valley post office announced that anybody who cared to make -the journey would be welcome. - -Preparations for this evening revived Louise’s spirits as nothing had -done in months. No detail was left to chance. Keble, held responsible -for the music, endeavored for days to whip up the sluggish dance rhythms -of the Valley bandmaster. “I’ve done everything but stand on my head and -beat time with my feet,” he reported in desperation, “and they still -play the fox-trots as though they were dirges. Fortunately the Valley -knows no better.” - -Miriam superintended the decorating of the rooms, aided by the “hands”, -who, like Birnam Wood, advanced across the white meadow obliterated -under a mass of evergreens. - -Only one contretemps occurred. A few days after Christmas Mrs. Boots, -the minister’s wife, accompanied by Mrs. Sweet, wife of the mail -carrier, made her way to the Castle and warned Louise that her dance -would conflict with the “watch-night service” at the Valley church. - -New Year’s fell on a Saturday, and to postpone the ball one night would -involve dancing into the early hours of the Day of Rest. Keble had made -arrangements to leave on Saturday for the east, on a short business trip -to London. To hold the entertainment over until Monday would therefore -be out of the question. - -Louise had a characteristic inspiration. “Why not turn the library into -a chapel!” she exclaimed, kindling at the prospect of an extra dramatic -item on her program, “And pause at midnight for spiritual refreshments! -I’ll make everybody file in and kneel, Mr. Boots can say a prayer, and -we’ll all sing a little hymn—perfect!” - -“And then go on dancing!” cried Mrs. Boots, in horror. - -Mrs. Sweet reflected the horror on her friend’s face. Then her -disapproving glances traveled to a corner of the hall where some noisy -girls were making paper chains and lanterns under the direction of Pearl -Beatty. - -Louise saw that she had given pain to the minister’s wife. “Forgive me,” -she said impulsively. “I’m such a heathen! But if I were a Christian I’m -sure it wouldn’t disturb my conscience to dance and pray alternately; -indeed each would gain by the contrast. What’s the point of a religion -that has to be kept in a cage?” - -Mrs. Boots could have found answers if she had been given time to catch -her breath, but before she had a word ready Louise was shaking her -cordially by the hand and consigning her to a maid who was to take the -ladies to the cottage and comfort them with tea and a sight of the baby -before the mail sleigh returned to the Valley. - -Whatever the concourse of the faithful at the watch-night service, there -was never an instant’s doubt as to the triumph of the forces of evil. -From the moment when Keble and the wife of the Mayor of Witney, followed -by Louise and the Mayor, stepped out at the head of a “grand march” -until daybreak on the first of January when a winded band played a -doleful version of “God Save the King”, the festivities went forward -with irresistible momentum. Keble made a speech, and then with true -British fortitude danced with every female guest. Miriam, acting on -orders, solicited dances from bashful cowboys, and once, in the grip of -an honest lad who seemed to have mistaken her for a pump, she caught the -eyes of Keble, in the grip of the new laundress, who was bolting towards -a wall with him. And they hadn’t dared to burst out laughing. - -Louise darted in and out, setting everything on fire, making the dour -laugh and the obstreperous subside, launching witty sallies and personal -broadsides, robbing Pearl of her plethora of partners and leading them -captive to the feet of girls who, after living for days on the exciting -prospect, were now sitting against the wall with their poor red hands in -their laps, enjoying it, vicariously. - -For Louise the evening would have been perfect but for one disturbing -remark which she overheard in the supper room. Minnie Swigger, whose -brand new “Kelly green” satin had lost something of its splendor when -contrasted with the simple black velvet in which Louise was sheathed, -had watched Miriam pass by in company with Pearl Beatty and Jack -Wallace, the proprietor of the Valley livery stable, and had vouchsafed -her criticism in an ungrateful voice which carried to Louise’s ears: -“She’s supposed to be his secretary. Either Weedgie is blind, or she -holds Miss Cread over his head as an excuse for her own little game. -Nobody but her could get away with it.” - -Louise wheeled about and walked up to Minnie. “Get away with what?” she -inquired evenly. - -Minnie was too startled to reply for a moment, then with the defiance -born of a bad conscience she said, “I don’t care if you did hear me. It -certainly looks funny, and that’s not my fault. And Pearl Beatty there, -as big as life! When you make a fuss over her decent fellows like Jack -Wallace get the idea she’s all right.” - -“Isn’t she?” - -“If you call _that_ all right!” - -“Being all right is minding your own business. You’re a nice little -thing, Minnie, but you _don’t_. Not always. Don’t try to mind mine; it’s -far too much for you.” - -What the natives thought was in itself a matter of indifference, but if -“things,” as Minnie alleged, did “look funny”, it was just conceivable -that the natives, for all their ignorance, saw the situation at Hillside -in a clearer perspective than any of the actors. Keble’s departure was, -therefore, in a sense opportune. - - 2 - -Although it meant twenty-four hours without sleep, Louise and Miriam -next morning insisted on accompanying Keble as far as the Valley. The -four took breakfast, along with Dr. Bruneau, at the Canada House as -Miriam’s guests. They were weary, a little feverish, and inclined to be -silent. Keble alone chatted with a volubility that betrayed his -nervousness, his regret at the separation, and his excitement at the -prospect of revisiting the home he had long ago abandoned. Louise was -pale, and kept hiding in the depths of her fur coat. Miriam and the -doctor sustained Keble’s talk, but could not relax the tension. The -stage was due in fifteen minutes. - -Suddenly Louise jumped up from the table, which was being cleared by an -ill-kempt waitress with whom Keble had danced a few hours previously. “I -nearly forgot . . . the snapshots of Baby for his grandmother. They’re -still at the drug-store. I’ll run over and get them.” - -“Let me go, dear,” Keble had risen. - -“We’ll go together,” Louise proposed, and Miriam noted an eager light in -his eyes. - -On the snowy road he tucked his glove under Louise’s arm, and they -picked their way across in silence to the drug-store. - -When she had obtained the photographs and thrust them into an inner -pocket of his coat, they returned more slowly towards the hotel. - -“It will seem very strange,” he said, “without you and the monkey. I -can’t tell you how disappointed I am at your refusing to come home with -me.” - -“A change from us will do you good . . . You’re to give my love and the -monkey’s to everybody, and tell them I’m looking forward very much to -their visit.” - -Keble stopped in the middle of the deserted street, to face her with -appealing eyes, and rested a hand on her arm. “Weedgie, that’s all so -pathetically trite, for you! Tell me, _sans facons_, why wouldn’t you -come, and why wouldn’t you let me take the snapshots of you as well as -the monkey?” - -She was a little timid. This was the Louise with whom he had originally -fallen love, and whom he remembered even through her noisiest -performances. “Because I’m perverse. I want your people, if they are -going to make my acquaintance at all, to get their first impression of -me in my own setting.” She couldn’t confess that she would have been -gratified if his people had been a few degrees more pressing in their -invitations to her. “If they like me in spite of it, or even if they -don’t, I shall feel at least square with myself. But if they were to -find me passable in _their_ setting, then come out here and pooh-pooh -the Valley, I should be—oh, hurt and angry.” - -Keble shook her gently. “Rubbish!” - -“Mrs. Windrom thought me crude,” she said, entirely without rancor. In -her heart she thought Mrs. Windrom crude. - -“Walter didn’t,” Keble retorted. “And Walter’s little finger is worth -more than his mother’s eternal soul.” - -“Walter is a man, dear. Mrs. Boots doesn’t like me, and her soul is -worth thousands of little fingers,—or toes, rather.” She was stroking -his coon-skin coat. - -“Toes, rather? . . . Oh, I see—Boots, toes.” - -Without warning he caught her in his arms and kissed her. “You -preposterous person!” he laughed, a little abashed by his flare of -passion. - -They returned silently to the hotel porch, where they were joined by -Miriam and the doctor. The stage had arrived and they were discussing -the state of the mountain road. Keble climbed into the sleigh. - -When everyone had said good-bye, and the horses had been set into -motion, Keble turned to Miriam with a parting admonition regarding -business letters, then added, “Keep an eye on Louise, now that she’s -come to life again. And do give the monkey an occasional piece of -sugar.” - -The last injunction was a facetious allusion to a remark made some weeks -previously by Mr. Brown, who had declared that Keble was spoiling the -baby as much as his wife spoiled her circus horse. - -When the stage had disappeared, Louise turned to Miriam with an air of -being lost. “Isn’t it strange,” she said, “to think of going back alone! -I never realized before how completely it’s Keble that makes the ranch -go round. I feel like _la délaissée_,—you know the girl in the ditty: -_qui pleure nuit et jour_.” - -“Good gracious, Louise, don’t tell me you’re turning sentimental on top -of everything.” - -“It would only be _re_-turning. I’ve always been sentimental under the -surface. At least I used to be with my dolls. And for some reason I’ve -felt like a little girl this morning.” - -A cloud passed over Miriam’s sky. Lack of sleep and the dissipation of -the last week would sufficiently account for it. Faint lines indicated -the inner boundaries of her cheeks, and her eyes had lost their -agate-like clarity. - -“You look like a tired little girl,” she said sadly. “I feel all of -eighty.” - - - - - PART TWO - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -IT was the second anniversary of the death of Billy Salter. A summer -breeze played over the hillock which was surmounted by two small -tombstones. The branches of the trees which had sheltered the -grave-diggers from hail on the day of the funeral were now tossing in a -frantic effort to extend their shade to the rows of asters with which -Katie and Louise had bounded the two graves. - -“Seems less lonesome for Billy, don’t it, Mrs. Eveley, when Rosie has a -flower bed too,” Katie had commented. Rosie Dixon had died before Billy -was born, but her span of life had been as limited as his own, which had -the effect of making them seem contemporaries. - -As Katie had expressed it, “If both were living to-day Rosie would be -twenty-nine and Billy fourteen, just going into long pants; but really -they’re only the same age—both twelve, poor babies!” - -Louise recalled the remark this August afternoon as she and Trenholme -Dare tied their horses to neighboring trees and ascended towards the -deserted graves. “I couldn’t help feeling that Katie had stumbled on an -interesting idea,” she said. - -“She had,” Dare agreed. “If Katie was a savant she might have developed -it into an epoch-making theory of time.” - -“How far ahead would that have got her?” - -“Not an inch. Metaphysicians are higher in the air, and their altitude -gives them a more panoramic view, but they are traveling towards -eternity at exactly the same speed as Katie and not a whit faster. The -value of intricate theories is that they are reducible to homely, -concrete observations like Katie’s. Conversely the beauty of Katie’s -homely discovery is that it can be elevated into a formula and -re-applied, even canonized, along with Newton’s apple and adventures of -other scientific saints. It’s like art: the glory of music is that it is -made up of vulgar sounds, and the saving grace of vulgar sounds is that -they can all get to a musical heaven.” - -Louise was sitting on the grass, gazing down towards grey plains which -merged into the distant brown hills, which in turn merged into a sky -whose blue gave an impression of actual depth. It was not a canopy -to-day but an ocean of air, or rather,—since it was bodiless and -unglazed,—an ocean’s ghost, with small clouds, like the ghosts of -icebergs, drifting across its waveless surface. - -The breeze which tossed the branches and stirred Sundown’s mane came to -sport with her own hair. Her hat lay at her feet, and with an arm limply -outstretched she wielded a switch, flicking the dusty toes of her riding -boots. - -“By all that,” she said, “you imply that philosophizing doesn’t get one -anywhere. Yet you philosophize as never was, and you seem to be getting -ahead like a comet.” - -“Philosophy isn’t the propeller, it’s the log that records the progress -and adventures of the mind at sea. If by philosophizing you mean the -mental gymnastics which toughen thought for subsequent _applied_ -mentality, I dare say philosophy can be said to get one ahead; but it -doesn’t make one wiser in any real sense. The savant knows more than -Katie Salter about the nature of the ingredients of life, but that -doesn’t make him a better _liver_ than Katie. No doubt the man who can -enunciate a theory of relativity is more commendable to God than the -woman who can only prevent your son from eating angle-worms, for God’s -evolution depends on intelligence, and _Herr Doktor_ Einstein is more -intelligent than Katie Salter, _unbedingt_. But God is strangely -ungrateful; he treats them both alike, giving us all impartially the -status of drops in the salty ocean of eternity. What we call our life is -merely the instant when we are phosphorescent; the savant may be more -luminously phosphorescent than you and me, but before he can say Jack -Robinson he has relapsed into the ocean and new drops of salty water -have formed, comprising left-over particles of dead hims and yous and -mes, forming a new identity which is tossed up into birth to be luminous -for a moment and say Jack Robinson and then disintegrate in favor of -still further combinations of remnants . . . The folly of regarding -Socrates as sublime and me as ridiculous is that we are one and the same -entity, just as those asters are merely a continuation of the first -aster seed, which was merely the continuation of a continuation.” - -Louise recalled the discussion she had had with her father on the day of -Billy’s funeral, when they had agreed to grant cats equal rights with -Billy in the matter of immortality. “Would you go so far as to say that -Socrates and Sundown were parts of the same entity?” she inquired. - -“Even further. I should include the fly that his tail can’t quite reach, -the worms under his feet, and the leaves over his head. It’s all in the -ocean . . . Stones and mud aren’t as self-assertive as radium, but who -is to say that they have no phosphorescent potentialities? If you eat a -speck of mud on your celery, doesn’t it, or something chemical in it, -become a part of you and take a more distinguished place in the realm of -things vital?” - -“Then how to account for the fact that we can talk, Sundown can only -neigh, and stones can’t even sigh,—even if they _are_ full of sermons.” - -“By the fact that stones are figuratively phosphorescent in an extremely -negligible degree, that Sundown is phosphorescent in an infinitely -greater degree, and that you and I are so surcharged with -phosphorescence that we simply burst into hissing flames of -intelligence. Or, if you prefer, we’re not so tightly packed as stones; -our atoms are more free to roam and collide and become interesting. -Human intelligence, with all its concomitants of reasoning and speech, -is a sort of transformation which is analogous to the remarkable things -that happen in a laboratory when certain combinations are subjected to -intense pressures and temperatures. Degrees of vitality are like the -gradations of electrical force: sluggish magnetic fields, live wires, -dynamos, power stations. Everything has some vital status, just as -everything has some electrical status.” - -“But you make everything seem so impersonal and arbitrary. Don’t you -believe that human beings can voluntarily increase or decrease their -voltage and usefulness? If I determine to live up to my best instincts, -can’t I do so on my own initiative, without having been anticipated by -Fate?” - -“I think of it the other way round. Your strongest instincts, good or -bad, will live up to you. They will determine your acts. The decision to -live up to them begs the question, for it is they that prompted the -decision, making up your so-called mind for you. You only said the words -of your excellent decision after the excellent decision had surged and -pulsated and battled and muscled its way through your system to the tip -of your tongue. Taking a decision is like taking a train: in reality the -train takes you.” - -“According to that theory there’s nothing to stop the whole world from -going to pot, morally speaking. What if bad instincts obtain a majority -in the house?” - -“Ah, but thanks be to God they won’t! Nature hasn’t gone to pot -physically, for all the efforts of plague and dyspepsia. She won’t go to -pot morally, either, though we may always need prisons, or their future -equivalents. Nature is, in the long run, economical; she balances her -books; and morality, like health, is merely a question of thrift.” - -“And religion? What is it?” - -“Oh,—for a slouchy metaphor, call it the sparks struck off by moral -friction.” - -“That’s deep water.” - -“Moral: accept the concrete and don’t try to formulate the abstract. -Katie would never have expected an apple to fall into the sky just -because she had never heard of Isaac Newton. And when she feels that -Rosie Dixon and Billy, despite arguments to the contrary, are the same -age, she has got just as far as the hypothetical metaphysician who would -turn her experience into a revolutionary theory of objective and -subjective time,—except that Katie won’t get a Nobel prize. If she -lives to be three score and ten, snug in her three dimensions, and never -hears time defined as qualitative multiplicity, she will fulfil a -sublime destiny; she will with unerring instinct and awe-inspiring -virtuosity obey complex laws which are none the less urgent for being -unformulated in her narrow skull. And when she dies, her soul, like John -Brown’s, will, though in fearfully divisible, microscopic, and -unrecognizable particles, go ‘marching on’.” - -“Thank goodness Katie is miles down the road by this time where she -can’t hear what a hash she is going to be!” - -“Yes, that after all marks the difference between people like Katie who -are close to the earth, and those who do get up in a metaphysical -balloon. Katie comforts herself with promises of a red plush heaven full -of harps, where she at the age of seventy-three will repair in a white -robe to rejoin her Billy, still twelve; whereas the savants who see the -world as an ant-heap are not appalled at the thought of personal -obliteration, I for one think it’s rather a lark to be a sort of -caricature on a school blackboard for three score and ten years then -turn into a thin cloud of chalk dust when higher forces rub you off; -it’s fun to speculate on the future of the particles of chalk in the -cloud.” - -Louise confessed that she could not gloat over the prospect, but let it -be understood that, for the sake of feeling herself floating in the air -amongst a distinguished metaphysical crew, including Dare, she -cheerfully accepted the principle. Then something made her lean forward -and gaze towards a distant bend in the road. - -“Look! That’s them!” - -“What’s who?” Dare asked, and added, “grammar be blowed!” - -Three touring cars, an unprecedented sight, were winding their way up -from the direction of the Valley. - -“Keble’s telegram said this evening,” Louise explained, with a blank -look at her companion, followed by a glance at her wrist watch. “And -it’s not three o’clock yet. Thank heaven Miriam is at home to give them -tea.” - -“Them” referred to the English travelers, whose visit had been postponed -in order that it might be embraced in a western tour which Lord Eveley -and his assistants in the Colonial Office were scheduled to make on -Imperial business. Keble had left the ranch a few days before to meet -them in Calgary and guide them hither. All through the spring and summer -he had been bringing his building work to completion, and Dare had been -on hand several weeks now, partly in the rôle of contractor, partly in -the rôle of friend. He had remained for the celebrations before -proceeding to Japan, where he was to make notes and sketches for a -commission in California. - -“What a pity you won’t be on hand to receive them,” Dare sympathized. - -Louise flicked her switch rebelliously. “If they say evening, they can’t -expect me to know they mean afternoon. There’s no reconciling that -discrepancy whether you call time qualitative multiplicity or plain -duration. And they’ll just have to wait.” She smiled maliciously. “I -hope they’ll look blank at each other and say, ‘Just as I thought’.” - -“Why? So you can fool them all by being excessively correct?” - -She was delighted. “How did you guess?” - -“The clue to you is always the same. You’re a born actress.” - -To herself she was thinking. “Even the most enlightened men fail to -understand that some women are capable of being the quintessence of -themselves when they’re most outrageously play-acting.” And she was not -at all sorry that Dare should fall into one of the traps laid for his -sex,—there were so many he didn’t fall into! - -“I adore acting. And love being caught at it. And always go on till I -_am_.” This suggested a new thought to her. “That’s why Keble and I are -so often a hundred miles apart. I’m acting, and he doesn’t know whether -I’m acting myself or some other character, and that irritates me and I -act all the harder, and it turns into farce or tragedy, and he still -fails to catch me, and I’m too far gone in my rôle to stop, but yearn to -be caught——” - -“And spanked?” - -“You and Miriam spank me sometimes. Then Keble _sees_, and laughs. But -so distressingly late.” - -“Hadn’t we better be starting?” - -The procession had passed the Dixon ranch and was vanishing towards -Hillside. - -“In a minute,” she replied, without stirring. “We don’t have to have -seen them, you know.” Then with an abrupt change of mood she surprised -him by saying, “I dread it, Dare. It’s worse than going up for -examinations.” - -“You’ll probably find them delightful.” - -“You’re not their wild and woolly daughter-in-law.” - -He shifted his position on the grass and sat facing her, with curious, -intent eyes. There was something subduing in his regard, as in his -strength and grace. “I wonder what I am, really. I wish I knew,—my -degree of being accepted as your friend, I mean.” - -She was pleasantly conscious of the urgent need to evade the intentness -of his eyes, but temporized by mocking. “Don’t try to formulate the -abstract. Those are your words, and if you don’t follow your own advice -you’ll be in the predicament Katie would be in if she tried to go up in -a balloon.” - -The forthcoming meeting had unnerved her more than she cared to admit. -An attack of stage-fright had made her say “in a minute” when he had -suggested returning. To that was added a twinge of vertigo, as though -she felt herself standing on a precipice from which force of -circumstances would make her presently retreat, but which for that very -reason had an indefinable lure. The eyes and hands and arms and thighs -of her companion were challenging her. Meanwhile, in her -subconsciousness, the talk of “in-laws” had set in motion a tune from -_The Mikado_, and as she flicked her boots she sang a paraphrase: - - “They married their son,— - They had only got one,— - To their daughter-in-law elect.” - -The ruse by no means succeeded in suppressing the rebellious desire to -look over the precipice. “I wonder if they did right,” she said. - -Dare looked away, and she breathed more freely, hoping yet fearing that -he would immediately resume his disturbing, overpowering intentness. -“Sometimes,” he said, “I resent it; at other times I’m thankful.” - -As he was still looking away she ventured an emotional step nearer. “Do -you mind explaining that cryptic remark?” - -“It’s very simple. If their son hadn’t married you, I undoubtedly would -have. And it would have been a gigantic blunder.” - -“How do you know you would have?” - -“I’m damned if we could have avoided it.” - -“In other words, those strong instincts you were talking about,—good or -bad,—would have taken that _funeste_ direction,—the direction of -bringing us smack up against each other for better or worse.” - -“For a while it would have been heaven on earth. Then hell.” - -“Why?” - -He still avoided her eyes. “Because strong things must clash. Because -you and I don’t permanently need each other; we’re too self-reliant.” - -His unwillingness to look at her roused a demon. “I wonder if you -believe that.” - -“Must one always say all one believes?” - -She ignored the question and he continued. “Marriage, to be successful, -must be entered into by one leading person and one following person. We -were each born to lead. We could never play on the same team, but as -captains of opposing teams we can be profoundly chummy . . . If the -other element had been allowed in, the chumminess in the crucible would -have flared up into a white flame, but the contents of the crucible -would have been reduced to ashes.” - -“Like the Kilkenny cats,” she assented, absent-mindedly. - -She was now stubbornly determined to regain possession of that dangerous -glance. “Isn’t it grotesque,” she went on, “that contemptible, -weak-souled people repeatedly disregard scruples that give pause to the -strong?” - -Dare held his breath, and his profile showed that he was pressing his -teeth against his lip. They had never steered so near the reefs in all -their skilfully navigated acquaintanceship. Louise pulled weakly at the -grass. - -Frankness had been their support up to the present, and each was -privately acknowledging that they could no longer depend on it. - -Silence. Louise felt that she ought to do something to divert his -emotions into more familiar channels. “I wish I were a man,” she said, -and the effort of uttering words made her conscious of the dryness of -her throat. She also had a freakishness of breath to contend with. - -Dare collected himself, sat up, with his back partly turned to her, so -that his eyes looked over the plain. The breeze had gone down and the -afternoon light seemed to be an intrinsic property of the objects it -gilded rather than an emanation from the sun. - -“What would you do if you were?” he asked. - -“The incomparably splendid things you do,” she promptly replied. - -“I’ve come pretty near doing some incomparably asinine things.” - -“But you’ve stopped short. I would have, too, of course. Besides,” she -hesitated, then decided on one final plunge of frankness, “in a world -full of people who don’t do splendid things, you could almost have -pleaded justification in not stopping short, I imagine,—if not actual -provocation.” - -She saw his fingers open, then close. For once in her life, just once, -she longed to see those strangely intent eyes fixed on her, wanted them -to come closer and closer until her own eyes must close, yet she sat -weak, watching the back of his head, then his fingers. For the second -time in her life,—the first was during Walter Windrom’s visit,—she saw -deep into the psychology of infidelity: this time more specifically. -Indeed with a crudeness that made her blush. - -Suddenly he wheeled about. The look was there. She gave a strange little -cry, raised her hands slightly from the ground, and in a flash found -herself imprisoned by his arms, and mouth. - -A few moments later he was on his feet, facing the valley again, his -arms folded. - -He walked to the trees and saddled the ponies. But as Louise made no -move he returned and stood looking down at her. “There’s still time to -escape,” he warned her. - -She was again pulling at the grass. “There’s only one way to escape from -oneself . . . And that is not to acknowledge the danger.” - -“Even when mad things happen?” - -“Mad things are no more disgraceful than the mad desires that -precipitate them. If you admit the desires——” - -“Yes, but—good God!” It ended in an explosive sigh at the futility of -any reasoning faculty one might bring to bear on a problem that had its -source somewhere so far beneath reason’s reach. - -He sat down again, at her feet, and their eyes met in a long, steady -regard. - -“Do you suppose it has been—just _that_, really, all this time?” he -finally asked. - -“Not _only_ that . . . Partly.” - -He held out his hand and she placed hers in it, without hesitation. It -was irrevocable. During the remainder of the afternoon time and scruples -were burnt up in the white flame. - - 2 - -They rode side by side down the steep slope of the mound. The horses -were eager to return, and once in the road their riders let them canter. -Louise was ahead and as she came abreast of the Dixon ranch she reined -in and waited. Her cheeks were still flushed, her eyes restless. She -smiled with a blend of humor and frustration which Dare mistook for -regret. In his face she saw a reply to her own countenance, a reply -which took the form of a little plea for pardon, a plea grotesquely -beside the point,—as if _she_ hadn’t manoeuvred the lapse from grace! -Her frustration was physiological, the eternal waiting for an ecstasy -which Keble and Dare could command at will, but which Fate still -withheld from her. It was unfair and it was discouraging. - -Dare drew up at her side. He was more handsome, more authoritative than -ever, also more tender and humble than she would ever have guessed him -capable of being. Yet also a little annoying. Men could be so -insultingly sure of themselves. Here was a man who by all the signs -ought to have been _the_ man. She had assumed as much and behaved -accordingly. But instead of bringing about the miracle, the duet for the -sake of which she had been willing to risk Keble’s dignity, he had -merely achieved the old solo, with her as instrument. “Why can’t they -understand? Why don’t they learn?” her outraged desires were crying in -protest. She tried to read them a moral lecture, but that was of no -avail. She was, after all, an animal, and it was folly to pretend that -she was not. - -Dare smiled tentatively, inquiringly, waiting for her to speak. - -She looked down at Sundown’s ears. “I suppose that is what I would have -done, if I had been a man. Just once.” - -He shook his head. “The ‘just once’ would have been like diving into a -sea in which you would have to sink or swim. I hope you don’t mean just -once literally, for that would be as good as letting me drown.” - -She was too proud to explain, and she would not raise false hopes. “We -must forget that it happened,” she finally announced. - -He was bewildered. “You mean, you _can_ forget!” - -She made no reply. - -“It was you who said that the fulfilment is no more disgraceful than the -desire.” - -At that moment she hated him for his masculine obtuseness. - -She gave Sundown’s head a jerk. “I’m glad you’re going to Japan,” she -said, and dug her heels into the horse’s sides. A moment later she was -lost to view in a cloud of dust. - -Like some parched and hungry wanderer who had dreamt of orchards, only -to wake up under a bruising hail of apples and pears that startled him -into forgetfulness of his thirst, Dare gasped. “Already!” It was an -ominously precipitate reminder of his theory that they were each -leaders, that neither would be content to subordinate his individuality -to the other’s. - -His mind bit and gnawed at the baffling knot in a tangle which a few -moments since seemed to have yielded for good and all. As a psychologist -he was somewhat too clever, and was capable of overlooking a factor that -might have leapt to the mind of a kitchen-maid. - -He took a trail that served as a short-cut to the ridge, and caught up -with Louise on the new road that branched off towards the Castle. She -turned in her saddle, and patted Sundown’s flank. “Slowpoke!” she flung -back at him, teasingly, but already relentingly. Men were such helpless, -clumsy, cruel, selfish, amiable babies. - -“Been thinking,” Dare explained. - -“To any purpose?” - -“To excellent but piteously sad purpose. I’ve been breaking to my -unhappy ego the meaning of your parting shot.” - -“What did it mean?” - -“That I’m defeated.” - -“In a way, I’m sorrier than you are.” - -“For God’s sake, why?” - -She smiled with a trace of bitter humor, earnestly. “Well, _some one_ -ought to be able to subdue me. God, I need it!” Angry tears came to her -eyes, and she thrust her foot petulantly into the stirrup. Riding alone, -she had just been marveling at the narrowness of the margin by which she -had avoided the disruption of her present life. But for a grotesque -trifle, she might have been riding at this very moment _away_ from -Hillside, forever, with Dare at her side. “That’s where I score,” he -reflected, lugubriously. “For at least now I taste the desolate joy of -capitulation to a stronger opponent. While we were opponents I wished to -keep a few points ahead. The fact that I no longer wish to do so, but -ask nothing better than to be trampled on till I can’t bear it another -minute,—well, what do you make of that?” - -“You’re off your game,” she evaded. “Buck up!” - -They rode on in silence until they came within sight of the broad meadow -at the edge of the pine ridge. - -“Louise!” - -“What!” - -“Do I have to go to Japan?” - -“More than ever.” - - 3 - -When they dismounted and walked towards the house the sun was already -far enough below the mountains to give Hardscrapple the appearance of a -dark cardboard silhouette against the rose and green of the sky. Around -their feet grew patches of scarlet flowers with flannel petals and -brittle stocks. The lake below, seen through a clump of black pines, was -grey and glazed. The Hillside crane, on his evening grub-call, flew over -their heads towards his favorite island. As they watched his landing -Louise noticed two white crescent-shaped objects on the dark floor of -the lake near the stream which came down in steps from the canyon. It -was as though some giant seated on an overhanging ledge had been paring -his nails. - -“They’re on the water already!” she cried. - -“Fishing. Quite true to type,” Dare commented. “The minute rich old men -get away from home they have an uncontrollable desire to kill.” - -Louise sighed at the prospect of unforeseen vagaries in her guests. -“Will they be grumpy if they don’t catch anything?” - -“Probably,—and reminiscent.” - -“I’m glad the flowers came out so well,” Louise remarked irrelevantly, -with an affectionate backward glance at the garden as they reached the -terrace. “With all due respect to your genius, I like my own roses -better than all this.” - -“This” was indicated by a sweeping gesture which took in the Castle, the -commodious outbuildings, and a pattern of roadways and clearings. - -She was arrested by the sound of voices from the other terrace. A tall -woman whom she immediately recognized appeared at the corner, leading a -younger woman towards the parapet. With the air of a licensed guide she -was pointing across the lake towards the “Sans Souci” cottages now -tenanted by the Browns, and volubly describing points of interest. - -“Over there, to the right of those three tall trees. Keble calls them -Castor and Pollux.” - -Half turning towards her companion, as though Girlie’s eyes could not be -trusted to find any spot pointed out to her, Mrs. Windrom caught sight -of the advancing pair. - -“Ha!” she cried, and turned her daughter round by the shoulders. “There -you precious two are at last!” - -Louise hurried forward, with kisses. Girlie seemed as slow to bring her -faculties to a correct focus on Louise as she had been in respect of the -trees. She was a lithe, willowy girl with soft, colorless hair, a smile -faintly reminiscent of Walter, and limp white fingers that spread across -the bosom of a straight, dark-blue garment of incredible spotlessness, -considering the dusty motor journey from Witney. “Being less clever than -her brother,” Louise was reflecting, “she has tried to get even by -taking up outdoor things, which really don’t go with her type.” - -“I was so sorry that Walter couldn’t join you in the east,” she said, -addressing Mrs. Windrom. “But he has promised us a long visit next -year.” - -Girlie was getting a clearer focus. “He did nothing but rave about the -ranch after he and Mother were here,” she contributed. “Now I see why. -It’s like a private Lugano.” - -Louise doubted it, but linked her arm in Girlie’s. “The only way we -could keep him here, however, was to give him a horse that broke his -ribs. I hope you’ll have better luck.” - -“Walter never could ride anything but a hobby,—poetry, or first -editions. Nor play anything more energetic than croquet. As a partner at -golf he’s as helpful as a lame wrist.” - -“But a darling for all that,” Louise defended. - -“Oh, rather!” exclaimed Girlie, with an emphasis that seemed to add, -“That goes without saying,—certainly without _your_ saying it.” - -They proceeded towards wide window-doors and entered the drawing-room, -where Miriam and the other two women had risen on hearing the hubbub. -Louise went straight to the elder woman. “I’m Louise,” she announced. -“Full of apologies.” - -Her mother-in-law kissed her and presented Alice. “We arrived before we -expected. Keble got a special locomotive to bring us through the pass, -and couldn’t let you know because the telegraph office was closed.” - -“It always is, in an emergency. And when it’s open, the wires are down. -We just guess back and forth. Please don’t mind my get-up. You all look -so fresh and frilly. Out here we dress like soldiers, in order to be in -keeping with our slouchy telegraph service and other modern -inconveniences.” - -“I’m sure you look very comfortable,” said Lady Eveley with a maternal -smile. She was bird-like, with an abundance of white hair and a -coquettish little moiré band around her neck to conceal its ruins. When -she smiled, her good will seemed to be reiterated by a series of -wrinkles that extended as far as her forehead. - -“Oh, I’m anything _but!_ First of all I’m dusty, and second of all I’m -parched.” - -“There’ll be a fresh pot in a minute, dear,” said Miriam. “Do sit here.” - -Mrs. Windrom was asking Dare to confirm her statement that the pillars -were Corinthian, which he could not honestly do, and by a monstrous -geographical leap their discussion wandered to a region beyond Girlie’s -focus. “Mother talks architecture as glibly as Baedeker, but she’s -really as ignorant about it as I am,” she assured Dare. “I’ve been -dragged to Italy goodness knows how many times, but the only thing I’m -sure of is the leaning tower of Pisa.” - -Louise presented Dare to Lady Eveley and felt that she was being studied -by Keble’s sister. She went to sit beside Alice near tea, which Miriam -had resuscitated. She gave Miriam’s hand a grateful pat, then turning to -her sister-in-law, expressed the hope that she had found her right room. -“After living so long in a log cabin I assume that everybody will get -lost in this warehouse. Keble is so methodical he refers to right wing -and left wing, like a drill-sergeant. The only way I can remember which -room is which is by the color of the carpet or what you can see from the -windows.” - -Alice was laughing, her amusement being divided between Louise’s -mock-seriousness and the reckless velocity of speech which left no gaps -for replies. She was a dry, alert, lean woman of nearly forty, who -should never have been named Alice. She had none of Keble’s grace, but -something of his openness and discernment. Alice would make as good a -judge as Keble, Louise reflected, but a less merciful jury. As to dress, -she gave Louise the impression of having ordered too much material, and -the white dots in her foulard frock merely emphasized her angles. Her -hair had once been blond like Keble’s, but was now frosted, and arranged -in a fashion that reminded Louise of the magazine covers of her -girlhood. - -When there was a hiatus Alice assured her that they had all been safely -distributed and had spent an hour running back and forth comparing -quarters. “My room has a pale blue and primrose carpet, and I should -think about forty miles of entirely satisfactory view! And gladioli on -the table. How did you know, or did you, that gladioli are my favorite -flowers,—and how did they ever get here?” - -Louise accepted a cup of tea and motioned Dare to a seat nearby. Lady -Eveley joined them and Miriam went out to stroll with the Windroms. - -“I knew you liked them,” Louise replied, “because you once mentioned it -in a letter to Keble; and they grew in the greenhouse, for whose -perfections Mr. Dare is to be thanked. Don’t you think he has done us -rather well?” - -The two women agreed in chorus. Then Alice added, “Father couldn’t -believe his eyes. He remembered the lake from a hunting trip years and -years ago. But when he saw what you and Mr. Dare and Keble have made of -it,—my dear, he almost wants it back!” - -“My husband said you had made the house look like a natural part of the -landscape, Mr. Dare,” Lady Eveley leaned towards him with her timidly -maternal, confidential, richly reiterated little smile. Louise concluded -that her individuality, at its most positive, was never more than an -echo of some other person’s individuality, usually her husband’s. - -“Most houses are so irrelevant to their surroundings,” Alice interposed. -“Our place in Sussex for instance. Of course it has been there since the -beginning of time, and that excuses it, but it’s fearsome to look at, -and would be in any landscape. I wish Mr. Dare would wave his wand over -it.” - -“Alice thinks Keblestone too antiquated,” explained Lady Eveley. “But -her father and I are deeply attached to it, and she and Keble were both -born there. I do hope you will come and stay with us there next summer, -with the baby.” - -“That priceless baby!” Alice exclaimed. “He pulled the most excruciating -faces for us. Then I gave him a beautiful rubber elephant and he flung -it square at his nurse’s eyes,—nearly blinded the poor soul. Where did -you find that nurse, Louise? She’s devotion personified.” - -“He took to his grandfather at once. Sat on his knee and watched him as -though he had never seen anything so curious!” - -“Baby is very rude,” Louise apologized. - -“Brutally candid,” Alice agreed. “If an elephant offends him he throws -it at his nurse, and if a new grandfather is substituted, he solemnly -stares him out of countenance.” - -“We shall spoil him, my dear,” said the monkey’s little grandmother. -“We’re so proud of him.” - -Louise replaced her cup on the table, got up from her chair, and -implanted a playful but wholehearted kiss on the old lady’s forehead. -“I’m dying to see the grandfather who was too big to be flung in Katie’s -eyes,” she announced. “Shall we walk down to the lakeside and meet the -boats? There’s an easy path.” - -She led the way, with Lady Eveley. Two or three times as they descended -the winding path the older woman patted Louise’s arm and smiled, apropos -of nothing, reassuringly. In the end Louise laughed and said, trying to -keep her frankness within gentle bounds, “You know, I’m quite floored by -your friendliness. I’ve been racking my brains to think how I could put -you at your ease, and now I find that everybody’s aim is to put me at -mine. I wish you were going to stay longer. Four days is nothing.” - -“We should love to, my dear, but you see the men have so many speeches -to make, and they must be back on a certain date. It has been very -exciting. All along the way there were deputations to meet the train. -The mayors came and their wives—too amusing! And brought such pretty -flowers. Alice doesn’t object to the cameras at all, though she says her -nose is the only thing that comes out. Alice resents her nose. She says -she wouldn’t mind its size if she didn’t keep _seeing_ it, poor dear -. . . And banquets without end. I don’t see how they find so many -different things to say. My husband just stands up there——” - -“And the words come to him,” interposed Louise “_I_ know.” - -“Isn’t it remarkable? When I can scarcely find enough words to fill up a -letter! I’m terrified when they ask me to speak at the women’s clubs. -Canadian women are so intelligent. And so tireless. Mrs. Windrom is much -better at that kind of thing.” - -“Mrs. Windrom is very clever.” - -“Oh, _very!_ She always remembers names. I don’t, and Alice nudges my -elbow. She is such a good daughter. Never forgets.” - -“Alice seems very alert.” - -“Oh, _very!_” Lady Eveley had a soft little voice and a careful way of -setting down her words, as though they might break. “Very! She takes -after her father. Keble does too, though Keble likes quite a lot of -things I like. Perhaps the baby will take after me. Though I really -don’t see why any one should!” - -Louise had an affectionate smile for this gentle grievance against -creation, and slipped her arm about the black satin waist. “Of course -Baby will take after you, dear,” she promised. “I’ll make him if he -doesn’t naturally. He takes after me when he throws elephants around, -but he takes after his father when he opens his big blue eyes and grins -a trustful, gummy grin. He’s going to be quite like Keble when he -acquires teeth and manners. Katie says so, and she’s the authority on -Baby . . . Perhaps you’ll let me take after you a little, too. But I’m -an awful hoyden.” - -“You’re so clever, aren’t you!” exclaimed Lady Eveley. “We knew it, of -course, from Keble.” - -Louise was serious. “The worst of that,” she mused, “is that clever -people always have a naughty side. And I’m naughty.” - -“But if we were perfect our husbands would find us dull in the long run, -don’t you think?” - -“There’s that, of course,” Louise agreed. How completely every one took -it for granted that there would be a long run! - -They had reached the new boat-slip, and were joined by Mrs. Windrom, -Girlie, and Miriam. Dare and Alice followed, and the talk became -topographical, Mrs. Windrom finding still more objects for Girlie to -look at. Louise felt that Mrs. Windrom was even explaining the landmarks -to her. - -Girlie’s attention, however, kept straying to the boats, which were -hugging the shaded shores and advancing at a leisurely rate. In the -first boat was an object on which Girlie’s eyes could always focus -themselves with an effortless nicety. This object was her fiancé, Ernest -Tulk-Leamington, an oldish young man, who was Lord Eveley’s secretary -and a rising member of the Conservative Party. The first to step out of -the boat, he was followed by Mr. Windrom and a freckled, orange-haired -youth who proved to be Mr. Cutty. - -“Any fish?” cried Mrs. Windrom. Her husband showed signs of becoming -prolix, while Mr. Cutty, behind his back, stole his thunder by -surreptitiously holding up a forked stick on which two apologetic trout -were suspended. - -When the necessary ceremonies were effected, Mr. Windrom declared that -you could never be sure, in untried waters, what flies the fish would -rise to. He went on the principle of using a Royal Coach when in doubt, -but he had tried Royal Coach for an hour without getting a strike, and -had ended by putting out a spinner, by means of which he had caught—— - -He turned. “Those two.” But he saw that the irreverent Mr. Cutty had -already displayed the catch, and he was a little vexed at the -anticlimax, as well as at the showing, which was undoubtedly poor, -viewed against a dark mass of water and mountain, with a half dozen -animated ladies as spectators. Dare had sought Louise’s eyes, and they -smiled at the fulfilment of her fears. - -The second boat was nearing the slip and Louise had a moment in which to -study her father-in-law. It was a reassuring, yet a trying moment, for -she became unnerved and felt suddenly isolated. For two pins she would -have cried. There was no definable reason for the emotion, unless it was -due to her double reaction from the graveyard episode and the -friendliness of her mother-in-law. They were all strangers, even Keble. -In some ways Keble was more of a stranger than Dare,—less an -acquaintance of her most hidden self. Her loneliness was associated, -too, in some vague way with the easy, manly intimacy of the two figures -in the boat, who were links in the chain of her own existence yet so -detached from it. Keble was undeniably an integral part of her identity, -yet as he sat at the oars he seemed to be some attractive young -traveling companion she was destined never to know. - -Lord Eveley, a lean, hale figure in tweeds, a fine old edition of his -son, was reeling in his line, and speaking in a voice which carried -perfectly across the still water. Keble made replies between the slow -strokes of his oars. The yellow had faded from the light, and with its -disappearance the dark shades of the trees took on a richer tone, and -the water turned from glass to velvet. The grey of the pine needles -changed to deep, blackish green, the narrow strip of shallow water was -emerald merging into milky blue, and the pebbles at the bottom were like -ripe and green olives. - -There was a lull in the chatter, and only the faint lapping noise of the -oars broke the stillness. A wave of loneliness had engulfed Louise, -despite the warm little arm that was still resting on hers. By some -considerateness which only Keble seemed to possess, his eyes turned -first of all to her. True, they immediately traveled away towards the -others and his remarks were general, but the first glance had been hers -and it had been accompanied by a quick smile,—a smile which seemed to -condone some lapse of hers; she was too immersed in her present rôle to -recall what the lapse had been. At any rate it was a most timely proof -of Keble’s reliability, and it rescued her. She smiled shyly as Keble -directed his father towards her. - -By one of those mass instincts that sense drama, every one had turned to -watch. Being in the centre of the stage, she forgot her diffidence. - -“Weedgie, here is a father-in-law for you. He’s an indifferent angler, -but a passable sort of pater . . . Father, this is Louise.” - -“Is it really! Upon my soul!” He bestowed a paternal kiss. - -“You seem so surprised!” Louise laughed. “Did you think I was a boy?” - -“By Jove, you know, you might have fooled me if it had been a shade -darker. But if you had, I should have been uncommonly disappointed. -Keble, I take it, makes you disguise yourself in boys’ clothes to -protect you from irresponsible lassos?” - -“Oh dear no, he hates my breeches. Besides, I can protect myself quite -extraordinarily well. The fact is, I’m at a disadvantage in these.” She -was pulling sidewise at “them”. “For when you’re got up as a man you’re -always giving yourself away: your hairpins fall out or you blush. -Whereas in feminine attire you can beat a man at his own game without -his even suspecting you’re using man-to-man tactics. That’s fun.” - -“Yes. I suppose it would be,” agreed Lord Eveley. “Eve did it without -much of either, they say.” - -“They say such shocking things, don’t they! . . . Didn’t you catch _any_ -fish?” - -“Only three. Your better half caught seven,—cheeky young blighter! One -beauty.” - -Mr. Windrom needed to know what they had been caught with. - -“Royal Coach,” said Keble. “It’s the best all round fly.” - -Mr. Windrom was incredulous and pettish. “You must have ’em trained to -follow your boat.” - -“Better luck next time, Mr. Windrom,” Louise ventured. “Keble shall go -in your boat, then they’ll have to bite. Meanwhile please show him how -to make drinkable cocktails. He needs a lesson.” - -She looked at her watch, then smiled at the circle of faces. “It’s just -exactly ‘evening’, so we can consider that the party has arrived. Dinner -is in an hour. Nobody need change unless he wishes. I’m going to turn -back into a woman for dinner, just to prove to my father-in-law what an -awful failure I am as a boy. Meanwhile I’ll race anybody up the hill.” - -“I’m on,” said Mr. Cutty. - -“Me too,” said Dare. - -“Any handicap for skirts?” inquired Alice. - -“Ten yards,” Louise promptly replied. “Measure off ten yards, Keble. -Anybody else?” - -“Come, Girlie,” said Mrs. Windrom. “Any handicap for old age, Louise?” - -“Fifteen yards for any one over thirty-five. Come on Mr. Leamington. -Beat Mr. Dare. He wins everything I go in for . . . Grandfather, you be -starter,—you’re to say one, two, three, go. Miriam dear, you can’t be -in it, for you have to show Grandmother the easy path up. I showed her -down, but one of the many delicious things she told me on the way was -that she forgets things and has to have her elbow nudged.” Louise shot a -bright glance at Lady Eveley. - -“Keble, when you’ve marked off the fifteen, sprint on up the hill and -mark a line on the gravel so we won’t go plunging on the bricks and kill -ourselves . . . Oh!” - -She stopped, and every one, toeing the line, looked around. Her nervous -high spirits were infectious. Even Girlie was excited. Lord Eveley was -holding up his hand in sporting earnest. His wife, under Miriam’s wing, -beamed. - -“I’m trying to think what the prizes will be. Wouldn’t be a race without -prizes. Any suggestions, Mr. Cutty?” - -“Might have forfeits for the first prize, and first go at the billiard -table for another.” - -“Bright head-work, Mr. Cutty. Prizes as follows: the winner must choose -between making a speech at dinner or telling a ghost story before -bedtime. The loser gets his choice between first go at the billiard -table, first choice of horses to-morrow, or ordering his favorite dish -for breakfast,—can’t say fairer than that. But if anybody _tries_ to -lose, God help him! . . . All set, Grandfather!” - -The servants who were arranging the dinner-table thought the party had -gone mad when it came reeling up the slippery grass hill in a hilarious, -panting pell-mell led at first by Mrs. Windrom, who fell back in favor -of Alice Eveley, who in turn was superseded by others. Towards the end -Dare and Mr. Cutty, closely followed by Louise, were leading, then Dare -stumbled and Mr. Cutty toppled into Keble’s arms, the winner. Louise was -weak with laughter at the sight of Mr. Windrom brandishing his fishing -rod and shouting instructions over his shoulder to his faltering -helpmeet. Girlie, her skirts held high, was abreast of Mr. -Tulk-Leamington, whose gallantry interfered with his progress. Alice was -far down the line but doing as well as possible under the disadvantages -of high heels and foulard folds. In the end they all reached the line -but Mrs. Windrom, who had collapsed on the turf, facing a noisily -breathing throng. - -“I’ll have that big trout for breakfast, Louise,” she gasped. “The one -Keble caught. And no one can say I didn’t _try_ to win!” - - 4 - -At breakfast Louise counted votes for a picnic by the river. “Those who -don’t fish,” she suggested, “can sit under the willows and pretend there -aren’t any mosquitoes, or play duck on the rock with Mr. Cutty and me.” - -They had all come down in comically smart riding clothes. Miriam, with -her tanned skin and well-worn khaki, looked like a native in contrast to -Girlie in her grey-green whipcord. Girlie, whose horsemanship had been -loudly heralded, was eager to try out a Mexican saddle. - -Mr. Tulk-Leamington stroked his prematurely bald head. “What will you do -if your pony bucks?” he asked. - -Girlie languidly buttered her toast. “Ernest,” she chided, “you’re -always stirring up mares’ nests.” - -“Dear me!” cried Alice. “Do they buck?” - -“In wild west novels they do,” said Girlie’s fiancé. “What will you do, -Miss Eveley, if yours does?” - -“I shall hang on and scream for Louise.” - -Louise turned the tables on Ernest. “And you?” she inquired. - -Mr. Cutty forestalled him. “He will soar into the firmament. You’ll find -him on some remote tree-top. Can’t you picture a distraught owl trying -to hatch out Ernest’s head!” - -“Mercy!” Lady Eveley exclaimed, in meek distress. “They don’t really try -to throw you, do they, Louise?” - -This caused an uproar. Louise reached across the table to squeeze her -hand. “Of course not, dear. They only try to throw teases like Mr. -Tulk-Leamington and devils incarnate like Mr. Cutty. Sundown is a lamb; -you’ll like him so well that you’ll be sorry when you arrive at the -picnic. Besides I’ll ride beside you all the way.” - -“Sundown wouldn’t throw a fly,” Mr. Cutty broke in. “Mrs. Eveley has to -flick ’em off with her riding crop.” - -Groans drowned this sally and Mr. Cutty nearly lost a spoonful of egg as -a result of a lunge directed at him by the prospective owlet. - -Through the babel, Keble and the older men, having exhausted the -immediate possibilities of prize cattle, were discussing the -half-completed golf course, oblivious to frivolous issues. Only once did -Mr. Windrom seek to intrude, having overheard something about “throwing -a fly,” and this sent the younger generation off into a new gale of -unhallowed mirth. - -Late in the afternoon the picnickers returned in various states of -dampness and soreness, but exuding a contentment for which Louise’s -vigilance was largely responsible. Dare and Mr. Cutty rowed to a -secluded cove to swim; Ernest went to edit his official memoranda; Mrs. -Windrom retired to sleep; Lady Eveley racked her head for words to fill -up a letter; the old men resorted to billiards; and Girlie challenged -Miriam at tennis. - -Louise held court in the kitchen, where she had gone to make some -special pastries and to wheedle, scold, encourage, bully, sting, and -jolly the augmented staff into supreme efforts. She swore that the -future of the Empire hinged on the frothiness of the mousse. The cream -was not to be whipped a minute before eight; the grapes were not to be -dried, but brought in straight from the ice-box in a cold perspiration, -and Gertie was for heaven’s sake not to bump into Griggs on her way to -the side table, as she had the night before. - -When her batter was consigned to the oven she ran out to the greenhouse -for flowers, and saw Keble and his sister stretched in deck chairs near -the tennis court. She waved her shears and speculated as to the subject -of their chat. - -The subject, as she might have guessed, was herself. - -“Why didn’t you give us an inkling?” Alice was saying. “Here you’ve been -married nearly three years, and you’ve kept this spark of the divine -fire all to yourself.” - -Keble smiled with a mixture of affection and faint bitterness. “I didn’t -exactly _keep_ her, old girl. There’s no reason why you and Mother -shouldn’t have got yourself ignited before this.” - -Alice considered. “But we did ask her to come to us.” - -“There are ways and ways of asking. Do you suppose she can’t feel the -difference?” - -Again Alice reflected. “You mean, I suppose, that if you had married -Girlie, for instance, we would have commanded her presence, on pain of -dragging her out of her lair.” - -“I’m glad you see it.” - -“Well, dear, wasn’t it just a bit your fault?” - -“No doubt.” - -“I mean, how were we to know what an original creature you had found out -here? It isn’t reasonable; there can’t be another. We had nothing to go -on but your laconic sketch,—‘wild flowers’, I remember, was your most -enthusiastic description. But there are wild flowers and wild flowers, -you know,—just as there are ‘ways and ways of asking’. There were gaps -and contradictions in your accounts, and the burden of proof rested on -you. We didn’t desire to place you in a false position. Even Claudia -Windrom reported that Louise’s tastes were very western. I might have -known that she was prejudiced, and we certainly ought to have given you -more credit for perspicuity. But men are so blind . . . Then we were -thrown off by Louise’s temperamental trip to Florida. You wrote a -forlorn sort of letter saying that she had gone off on a holiday, and it -was just after we had invited you both to come to the Riviera with us. -That seemed strange.” - -“What did you think I had married, for God’s sake,—an Indian squaw?” - -“Don’t be horrid! . . . We weren’t at all sure you hadn’t married a hand -grenade.” - -Keble laughed. “I’m not at all certain that I haven’t.” - -Alice watched him curiously, then abandoned the flicker of curiosity and -proceeded to give Louise her due. “It’s not so much her -brilliance,—though that’s remarkable,—but her tact! My dear, she could -run a political campaign single-handed. I’ve never seen the Windroms so -beautifully managed in my life. You know _we_ can’t manage them; at our -house one of the trio is always falling out of the picture. But Louise! -the instant she sees an elbow or a leg or a Windromian prejudice -sticking out she flips it back in, or widens the frame to include it, -and nobody the worse. Her way of setting people to rights and making -them feel it is they who are setting everybody else to rights is -_impayable_ . . . And the best you could say for her was wild flowers!” - -“Since Mrs. Windrom was first here a good deal of water has flowed under -the bridges.” - -“I’ll wager it has. Louise wouldn’t be found camping by a stagnant -pool.” - -Again she watched her brother curiously. He was gazing into the -distance, at nothing. - -“Sometimes I feel stagnant beside Louise,” he admitted, put off his -guard by the unwonted charm of a sisterly chat. - -Alice patted his shoulder, with a gesture tender but angular. “Father is -purring with pleasure at the way you’ve stuck to your guns, sonny, -although, naturally, he wouldn’t say so for all the king’s horses and -all the king’s men. In the beginning he used to shake his head in -scepticism and sorrow. Now he never lets a dinner guest get away from -the house without dragging in you and your colonizing enterprise. -Mother, of course, has always doted and still does; but she would have, -if you’d gone in for knife-grinding. She would never conceive the -possibility of any one doubting you. I frankly did,—not you, but your -schemes.” - -“There’s plenty to be done yet,” Keble said. “It will take twenty years. -Sometimes the future looks as steep to me as Hardscrapple.” - -“It won’t look so steep when you’ve got your second wind. I’m full of -rosy hopes for you. What’s more, I’m jolly comfortable here. I thought I -was going to hate it. I’ve been well fed and waited on. I’ve been amused -and sauced by a witty child who isn’t in the least awed by my accursed -standoffishness. I think the most remarkable thing about Louise is that -she is kind, through and through, without _having_ to be; she could -always get her own way without bothering to be kind . . . I’ve also -discovered the thrills of being aunt to the most entrancingly ridiculous -and succulent infant I’ve ever beheld. Most of all I’ve seen Father and -Mother exchanging furtive glances of pride. What more could any old maid -ask for.” - -Miriam and Girlie joined them. “It’s too warm for tennis,” Girlie -complained. “We’re debating whether to go for a swim.” - -Alice thought it an excellent idea, provided she was not included. - -“But these mountain lakes are icy!” Girlie shivered at the thought. - -“Not if you dive in, instead of wading,” said Miriam. “Louise taught me -that.” - -“I’m too tall. I might stick fast. Besides one looks so distressed in -borrowed bathing clothes.” - -“And the only secluded cove is pre-empted!” Keble sympathized. - -“Oh, without a costume I’d be afraid of sinking. It would seem just like -a bath, and one goes straight to the bottom of the bath-tub.” - -The bathing project having died of inanition, Miriam and Girlie went -indoors. - -“I’m trying to think where I’ve seen her before,” Alice said, following -Miriam with her eyes. “I keep associating her in my mind with white -sails, and strawberries. . . . Louise has known her a long while?” - -“For years.” - -“Delightful woman! So sensible. How lucky that she is able to help you -with your accounts. You never could add.” - -“Rather. I don’t know how we could get on without her.” - -“Is she stopping long?” - -“Well, we can’t put her in a pumpkin shell, like Peter, and keep her -forever.” - -“She must feel rather cut off from her own people, out here. Where is -her home?” - -“She used to live in Washington. She has seen what are known as better -days.” - -“One guesses that . . . For heaven’s sake, Keble, who is she? You know -I’m only beating about the bush.” - -“She never speaks of her family. Most of it’s dead.” - -“Cread—Cread.” Alice was lying in wait for an image that kept eluding -her, when suddenly she captured it. “Cowes! Of course. Before the war, -at the Graybridge place . . . You remember Aurelie Graybridge,—she was -Aurelie Streeter of New York. It was a garden party, after a race, and -Admiral Cread was there with the American Ambassador. How stupid of me -to have forgotten! I must remind her.” - -Keble was uneasy. “I don’t think I would, Alice, unless she does first. -She’s uncommonly reticent about herself. She came out here for a -complete change, you see.” - -“No, I don’t see,” said Alice, impatiently. “That’s just the point. But -I’ll hold my tongue . . . I wonder why she hasn’t married.” It always -seemed odd to Alice that other women didn’t marry. “Some man like Dare. -I suppose he’s young for her,—yet not enough to matter.” - -“I’ve thought of that,” Keble reflected. “Discussed it with Louise once. -But they don’t seem to be attracted . . . Dare is a splendid chap. -There’s no resisting him when he gets going. He has given us all a -healthy fillip.” - -“You _have_ been lucky in your companions, you and Louise!” Alice -commented. - -“Rather! Oh, hello, here’s the car with the people from the Valley. -We’re going to show you some natives to-night.” - -“Who is the funny little man in front?” - -“That is the best-informed and most highly esteemed ‘character’ within a -radius of sixty miles,—and incidentally my father-in-law.” - -“The ominous lady in black looks like the Empress Eugénie come back to -mourn her own loss!” - -Keble was puzzled. “I haven’t the faintest notion who she is,—good -Lord! unless it’s Madame Mornay-Mareuil, whom we’ve been expecting off -and on for weeks!” - -They had risen from their chairs. “Go and meet them,” said Alice. “I -shall lie down a while before dressing.” - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -AFTER a hurried knock Louise burst into Miriam’s room. Miriam was seated -before the mirror brushing her reddish-brown hair. “Who do you suppose -has turned up to the feast?” cried Louise, reaching for a chair and -impatiently rescuing the filmy pink draperies of her frock from the -handle of a drawer. “Aunt Denise, straight from Quebec! After all these -months of dilly-dallying she stalks in when we’re having a reunion of -the men her husband spent half his editorial and political career in -insulting!” - -“Why didn’t she telegraph?” - -“Too stingy,—heaven forgive me for saying it,—and too old-fashioned. -She arrived with Papa and the Bootses and Pearl and Amy Sweet. They were -stuffed into the car like flowers in a vase, her trunk lashed on behind. -Papa tried to telephone, but Aunt Denise said if her own niece couldn’t -take her in without being warned, she wouldn’t come at all. That’s her -spirit. What am I to do?” - -“Have you explained the situation to her?” - -“Does one try to explain red to a bull?” - -“Then tip the others off. We’ll have to engage her on safe subjects.” - -“If you _would_ Miriam. In French,—for she hates English. She behaves -as though French were the official language of Canada. . . I’ve been -waiting for something to go wrong, and now it will. ‘Claudia dear’ was -difficult enough. There’s no keeping that woman off a scent.” - -“What scent?” - -Louise was vexed at her slip. “Oh, scents in general. Yours in -particular is most refreshing. Is that the Coty?” - -Without waiting for an answer she plunged on. “Now I’ll have to -rearrange the seating. If I put Aunt Denise near Grandfather she may -scalp him. His triumphant progress across the continent must have rubbed -her the wrong way . . . I’ll have enough on my hands without that. If -Papa drinks one glass too many he’ll tease Aunt Denise about the Pope. -And the Bootses are fanatical teetotallers, and I wouldn’t put it past -them to dash the glass from old Papa Windrom’s lips!” - -“Make me the spare woman,” Miriam offered. “That will leave me free to -shush Pearl and prompt Mrs. Brown. I’ll watch you for cues.” - -Louise gave herself a final glance in the cheval glass, pulled Miriam’s -skirt straight, and left a grateful kiss on her forehead to dispel any -questioning trend that might have lingered as a consequence of the -inadvertent “scent”. Then she made her way downstairs to readjust the -place cards which Dare had decorated with appropriate caricatures. - -This done she stepped out on the terrace. Dare was there, leaning -against the parapet. He offered her a cigarette and lit it in silence. - -“There’s a dreadful ordeal ahead of you,” said Louise, sending a little -cloud of smoke skyward. - -“I’m getting used to ordeals,” he replied. - -“This is a new kind. You have to take the pastor’s wife in to dinner.” - -“I shall ask her to rescue my soul from the devil.” - -“She will be glad of the occasion.” - -In his eyes there was a shadow of the glance that had proved -epoch-making the day before. “On second thoughts,” he added, “I shall do -no such thing. The devil is welcome to it.” He looked away, and Louise -for once could find nothing to say. “Except,” Dare finally resumed, -“that he won’t have it at any price. Neither will God. That leaves me on -my own.” - -“Isn’t that——” Louise began, in a low voice, then was conscious of a -step. Turning, she saw Mrs. Windrom, in purple satin, advancing from the -front terrace, pinning to her corsage a pink rose which drew attention -to the utterly unflowerlike character of her face. The last rays of the -setting sun fell full upon the lenses of the pince-nez which Louise was -once “too damn polite” to smash. - -“What have you two got your heads together about?” she inquired with an -archness that suited her as little as the rose. - -“A plot,” Louise replied, holding out a hand to Mrs. Windrom, and noting -with a little pang the half cynical smile which Dare allowed himself on -seeing the ease of her transition. As if good acting were necessarily a -sin of insincerity! - -“We’re terrifically mixed to-night, and owing to the unforeseen arrival -of my aunt I’ve had to throw everybody up in a blanket and pair them as -they came down. I’ve done what your clever son calls playing fast and -loose with the social alphabet: natives paired with dudes, atheists with -Methodist ministers, teetotallers with bibbers, socialists with -diehards. And all my tried and true friends have a duty to -perform,—namely to keep the talk on safe ground. Poor Aunt Denise, you -know, is the widow of that old man who was fined a dollar for libeling -the king.” - -During the last few weeks Mrs. Windrom had acquired a smattering of -Canadian political history. Louise felt her stiffen. - -“Aunt Denise has always lived under a cloud of illusions. First of all -in convents, then with her husband whom she transformed from a village -lawyer into a national _enfant terrible_. She wouldn’t believe a word -against him, and I think it showed rather a fine spirit. We all idolize -our husbands in some degree, though some of us take more pains not to -show it.” Louise let this remark sink in, and felt Mrs. Windrom’s -shining lenses turn towards Dare, whose gaze was negligently resting on -the opposite shore of the lake. “Consequently, if Aunt Denise should let -her illusions get the better of her tact, I do hope you two will help -change the subject.” - -Mrs. Windrom enjoyed conspiracies. “You may count on me, my dear,” she -replied. “Now I must run up and see if my husband has lost his collar -buttons as usual.” - -Mrs. Windrom looked at the clock on the drawing-room mantle, crossed to -a window to watch the retreating figures of Louise and Dare, then went -towards the great square hall with its rough rafters and balcony, its -shining floor, fur rugs and trophies of Keble’s marksmanship. For no -ulterior reason, but simply because she could not resist an open door, -she peeked into the dining-room, then walked upstairs. - -She had timed her visit to a nicety. Her husband’s tie was being made -into a lopsided bow. - -“Sore?” he asked, when she had straightened it. - -“A little. But I’m used to western saddles. Madame Mornay-Mareuil has -suddenly turned up. Louise is in a panic. For heaven’s sake don’t talk -politics. I can’t see why you leave the cuff buttons till _after_ you’ve -got your shirt on. It’s so simple to put them in beforehand.” - -“Simple, old girl; I just forget, that’s all.” - -“What I can’t make out . . . now I’ve bent my nail! . . . is Louise’s -treatment of Keble.” - -“What treatment?” - -“I mean she ignores him.” - -“Have you seen my other pump?” - -“Do stand still. In favor of the handsome architect.” - -“Steady on, Claudia dear. You’ve already dug up one scandal here. Isn’t -that enough?” - -“Scandal?” - -“Didn’t you tell me the good-looking secretary was making eyes at -Keble?” - -Mrs. Windrom was indignant. “Most certainly not!” - -“Well, those may not be the words you used. But the idea never came into -my head all on its own.” - -This was highly plausible. Tremendous ideas regarding revenues and -tariffs found their way unaided into Mr. Windrom’s head, but not ideas -having to do with illicit _oeillades_. - -“If you deliberately choose to distort my words!” said Mrs. Windrom. - -“I don’t choose to distort anything; I was only looking—Here I am like -‘my son John’ and it’s going on for eight.” - -Mrs. Windrom tranquilly fished a pump from under a discarded garment -which had been allowed to fall to the floor. - -“Have you your handkerchief?” - -Mr. Windrom nodded and followed his wife out to the balcony, which -overlooked the hall. He was rubbing his hands together in anticipation -of a cocktail when his wife seized his arm. - -A tall, elderly woman in a trailing gown of rusty black crossed the -balcony with a slow stride and descended the stairs. She had large black -eyes, a high nose, and tightly drawn white hair streaked with black. - -“Lady Macbeth!” whispered Mr. Windrom, tapping his wife’s arm and making -a face like some sixty-year-old schoolboy. “Mum’s the word, eh? _De -mortuis_——” - -Mrs. Windrom was nettled. “What I can’t make out,” she said, “is how a -squat little doctor could have a sister like that!” - -“You’re always running on to things you can’t make out Claudia. It’s -scarcely for want of trying.” - -“I have to keep my eyes open for two, for you never see anything, and -Girlie’s blind to things she should see. If she’d had a little of -Louise’s vim four years ago——” - -Mr. Windrom came to a halt and made a queer grimace. - -“What’s the matter?” - -“I forgot my handkerchief.” - -“Really, Charles! If I reminded you once I reminded you a dozen times.” - -Mr. Windrom sneezed, loud and long, and turned back towards his room. -“Come now, Claudie,” he protested, “make it six.” - - 2 - -Miriam, on the heels of the Windroms, paused to look over the railing of -the balcony. All her coaching had been leading up to this event, and -there was Louise acquitting herself with a virtuosity that effaced -Miriam from this setting as completely as Fate had effaced her from her -own. - -The grey-blue twilight which came through open doors and windows dimmed -the orange of the lamps. An incredibly regal personage dominated the -assembly, and above a discreet hum Miriam heard a penetrating, -dark-toned voice saying, “_Vous allez me pardonner, ma chère Louise, -d’être descendue un peu en retard. J’ai du défaire une malle. Voilà six -jours que je voyage sans changer de robe. Vous jugerez si je suis -contente d’être installée—et dans quel petit palais! Maintenant vous -allez me présenter ces dames._” - -Slim and brown, nimble and compact, Louise brought her guests in turn to -Madame Mornay-Mareuil. Miriam was annoyed that Louise should have failed -to recognize in her trying aunt a grande dame of unchallenged authority. -With instinctive deference, the company had grouped itself about her, -and Miriam smiled with a trace of vindictive satisfaction, for she had -been as quick as Louise to resent the unconscious patronage in Girlie -Windrom’s way of beginning a remark with, “Of course, out _here_——” - -She went to Dare, who was standing aloof, near a window. “Have you -kissed the queen’s hand?” she inquired. - -“Not yet . . . The little doctor seems to have put one over on the -Eveleys!” Dare’s lips went down with a cynical humor which Miriam noted -as new. There was also something new in his eyes. “I for one,” he said, -“am glad.” - -“Why?” - -“Simply in the name of poetic justice. It’s time Mrs. Eveley got a bit -of her own back,—and Boadicea there will get it for her with a -vengeance.” - -Miriam gave him a smiling nod and went to obey Louise’s summons. - -Dismayed by the astonished hush which had fallen over the hall when Aunt -Denise had appeared on the staircase and come slowly towards her, Louise -had quickly appreciated the dramatic value of the intrusion, and when -she had manoeuvred every one safely to the table she acknowledged that -the preliminary touch of solemnity had given her dinner party a tone -which, instead of diminishing, would incalculably augment the triumph -she had, for months now, determined that it should be. She had known -Aunt Denise only as a formidable quantity in her background, an aunt she -had seen during a single summer, after her mother’s death, but with whom -she had corresponded in a sentimental desire to maintain contact with -the only relative she could claim, except for some half mythical cousins -in Dublin. That her letters to Aunt Denise and her gifts of needlework -had been seeds sown on fertile ground was now abundantly manifest; for -Aunt Denise had assumed a protective kinship and had made that -mysterious kind of “impression” of which she herself, for all her -success, would never learn the secret. - -Of the whole company only Girlie, with her defective focusing apparatus, -had failed to pay immediate homage. In a pretty white dress, she had -perfunctorily acknowledged Aunt Denise’s graciousness and begun to turn -away, when the old lady transfixed her with relentless black eyes. “I -suppose it is the fashion to walk with a bend nowadays,” Aunt Denise had -said. “It doesn’t give the lungs a chance.” - -Girlie had blushed and straightened, but Aunt Denise had withdrawn her -eyes and turned them more charitably on little Mrs. Brown. - -A stock soup had been simmering on the back of the stove for two weeks. -By the time she had tasted it, and found it perfect, Louise’s spirits -were at their highest voltage, and her eyes flashed down the table till -they encountered Miriam’s, which gave back a signal of felicitation. -Miriam, between Dare and Jack Wallace, was beating time to an argument -sustained by Lord Eveley and Pearl Beatty against Mr. Windrom and Amy -Sweet, the latter lending her aid in the form of giggles, for which -three sips of wine,—the first in her life, and drunk in open contempt -of the pledge Mrs. Boots had once persuaded her to sign,—were -responsible. - -Aunt Denise was getting acquainted with Keble, treating him with a -respect that struck Louise as being inherently French. She wondered -whether French women had a somewhat more professional attitude towards -males than women of other races. Keble looked happy, but his French was -buckling under the strain, and Aunt Denise did him the honor of -continuing the conversation in English, an important concession. - -Of all the scraps of talk Louise could overhear, the scrap which most -gratified her,—and she wondered why it should,—was a homely exchange -in which her father and Lady Eveley were engrossed. “It’s the pure -mountain air,” Dr. Bruneau was explaining. “He couldn’t have a better -climate to commence life in.” - -“That’s what my husband was saying. You know, when Keble was ten months -old we took him to Switzerland——” - -“Isn’t it, Mrs. Eveley?” broke in a voice at Louise’s right. - -“Isn’t what, Mr. Boots? Mr. Cutty was pounding with his fork and I -didn’t hear.” - -“Had to pound,” Mr. Cutty defended himself, “to drown Ernest. He’s -telling Mrs. Brown I stole plums from her garden.” - -“Well, didn’t you?” - -“But justice is justice, and the point is, so did Ernest,—and his were -riper!” - -Louise leaned towards Mrs. Brown, “Do spray arsenic on the rest of the -plums dear, and abolish Mr. Cutty. Wasn’t what what, Mr. Boots?” - -Mrs. Windrom forestalled him. “Mr. Boots tells me that the settlers are -all turning socialists because farming doesn’t pay. Do you mean to say -you make no effort to combat such a state of affairs?” - -“I dare say we ought to take more interest in politics.” - -Mrs. Boots, who was beyond Mr. Cutty, left Dare long enough to -interpose, “Why not persuade Mr. Eveley to be a candidate in the coming -elections?” - -Dare had seized his reprieve to whisper to Miriam, “Does all this, -to-night, make you feel fearfully alone?” - -Miriam looked up as though he had startled into flight some bird of -ill-omen, but made no reply. - -Dare leaned a little closer. “I fancy we’re lonely for rather similar -reasons.” - -Miriam hesitated. “First of all I’m not sure what you mean. Second, if -you mean what I dare say you do,—aren’t you rather bold?” - -“Oh yes,” he replied. “Very likely.” - -He returned to his glass, then added, “Your acknowledgment that I was -bold satisfies me of the accuracy of my guess. As we were in the same -boat I couldn’t resist the temptation of bidding for a crumb of -commiseration. It would have been reciprocal. So my boldness wasn’t more -rude than it was humane.” - -“You’re excused,” said Miriam, “under the First Offenders Act.” - -Girlie Windrom, in a commendable spirit, took an opportunity to express -the hope that Madame Mornay-Mareuil, her vis-à-vis, had not found the -long train journey too fatiguing. - -Madame recounted her impressions of the trip and found that Lord Eveley -was in agreement with her regarding the exorbitant prices charged in -western hotels. Accustomed as he was to express his opinions in public -platform style, he soon had Keble’s half of the table as audience, while -Louise gathered in loose threads of talk at her end. The back of her -dinner was now broken and she was standing with one foot triumphantly -resting on its prostrate form. When the ices arrived she couldn’t resist -announcing that the accompanying cakes had been made by herself. The -exclamations were silenced by Aunt Denise who lifted her voice to -complain of Louise’s cheer. - -“Your table groans with luxuries, my child. You have forgotten the -lessons in thrift I taught you when you were a girl.” - -For the first time the little doctor turned from Lady Eveley. “I am to -blame for that,” he said. “You see, sister, after you had left us, Nana -and Louise tried to make me eat wooden cakes made without eggs, -according to your instructions. I can’t digest wood, so I extracted from -Louise’s curly head, one by one, all the notions you had put into it, -and we lived extravagantly ever after,—it’s a sinful world, _va_.” - -To soften for his sister the laughter that greeted his defense of -Louise, Dr. Bruneau added, “With you it was different, since those who -have rich spiritual lives don’t need rich food. Louise and I, poor -heathens, had nothing to indulge but our appetites.” - -“You are free to do so,” returned Aunt Denise, in no wise discomfited. -“My lessons were only the principles of economy and sacrifice our mother -had taught me, the principles which, if you remember, _mon frère_, made -it possible for you and me to have an education.” - -The company seemed relieved to find that royalty could, on occasion, be -“answered back”, and Lord Eveley’s hearty laugh at the mischievous but -not unkind sally had been followed by a scrutinizing glance which hinted -that the statesman had found a mind worth exploring. - -By the time the fruit had appeared, duly perspiring, Louise had only two -worries left. First, the quiescence of the Windroms smote her -conscience: she felt that she had been gratuitous in warning Mrs. -Windrom, while leaving Aunt Denise a license to talk which Aunt Denise -had been well-bred enough not to abuse. Second, she was not entirely -easy in her mind regarding Dare’s silence. He had done his duty by the -pastor’s wife, yet there was some boding unhappiness in his manner. -Before the house was opened Dare had always set the key. Under the old -conditions he would have taken the whole company into his hands and -played with them. And while his moodiness was, in one sense, a deeply -stirring tribute, at the same time there was in it something which made -her feel remorseful, and afraid,—not for herself. It was as though her -conscience were pointing out to her the consequences of extravagance in -her moral kitchen. In the intellectual cakes she had baked for herself -and Dare there had perhaps been too many emotional ingredients. They -were rich and many had been eaten. Dare was conceivably experiencing -this evening the ill effects. - -In the midst of her reflections Lord Eveley surprised her by rising and -delivering a little speech which was at the same time a dedication of -the house and a tribute to its mistress. Anything in the nature of -orthodox ceremony intimidated her. There were toasts,—and Miriam had -never told her what one was supposed to do in such a contingency. -Moreover she hadn’t meant to drink her last glass of wine, and rather -dazedly wished she hadn’t. - -After dinner the company divided for bridge and dancing, and Louise -seized a moment to lay a sympathetic hand on Dare’s coat-sleeve. - -“Are you so bored?” she whispered. - -“It’s not your fault,” he replied, and the unsmiling negligence of his -manner bore witness to the ease with which he and Louise could fit into -each other’s mood. - -“It won’t last much longer,” she said. “It” referred to the house party, -but Dare chose to misinterpret. - -“No,” he replied, “I’m going to Japan.” - -Her eyes fell. When she raised them again she noticed, with a chill, -that Mrs. Windrom, from the opposite corner, had been watching their -tête-à-tête with hawklike vigilance. - -“Come and dance,” she said, drawing him toward the hall. - -There another little shock was in store for her. Alice Eveley, flushed -and flattered after a dance with Jack Wallace, was proceeding across the -room, when suddenly she stopped short and chose a new direction. - -On looking towards Alice’s abandoned goal to see what had caused her to -change her mind, Louise observed that Keble and Miriam were absorbed in -an unsmiling tête-à-tête of the kind that had made Mrs. Windrom feign a -sudden interest in Mrs. Brown’s cameo brooch. - -She raised her arms for her partner’s embrace, and was swept into the -dance. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -THREE days later Louise stood on the terrace watching the departure of -her guests. As the last car disappeared into the pines she thought of -the day when Walter and his mother drove away from the cottage which she -had named “Sans Souci.” On that day she had tensely waited for some -sympathetic sign from Keble, and he had withheld it. Now she knew that -the balance was changed, that Keble was waiting for a sign from her. Yet -all she could say was, “Thank God, that’s over!” - -Recently she had had no time to project her thoughts into the future. -Until this family reunion was safely thrust into the past she had -schooled herself to be patient, as she had done under the constraint of -approaching motherhood. Both events she had regarded as primary clauses -in her matrimonial pact, and the reward she had promised herself for -executing them was complete moral freedom. She would admit nothing more -binding in the pact, for she had made a point of benefiting as little as -possible from it. If Keble had provided her with a home, she had managed -it skilfully for him. If he had placed his bank account at her disposal, -she had gone disproportionately deep into her own. An element unforeseen -in the pact was that either party to it might, in the process of -carrying out its clauses, develop personal resources for which the other -could have little use but which, on sheer grounds of human economy, -ought not to be allowed to remain unmined. - -Keble had warned her that grappling with ideas might end in one of the -ideas knocking her on the head. Which was nonsense. The danger lay not -in grappling with ideas but in trying to dodge them, in letting them -lurk in your neighborhood ready to take you unawares. If you went at -them with all your might they were soon overpowered. - -Yet going at them brought you face to face with other ideas lurking -farther along the path, and before you knew it you were in a field where -no one,—at times not even Dare—was able or cared to follow. And at the -prospect of forging on alone your imagination staggered a little; an -unwelcome emotion,—unwelcome because more fundamental than you had been -willing to admit,—surged up and insisted that nothing in life was worth -striving for that carried you out of the warmth of the old community of -affection. For, whatever might be achieved through adventuring in wider -fields, a catering to new minds would be entailed, an occasional leaning -upon new arms, homage from new eyes and hearts. That was inevitable, -since human beings were of necessity social. And the overwhelming pity -of it was that you would always be conscious that the neatest mind in -the world, though not the broadest, the most comfortable arms, though -not the most expert, the most candid blue eyes, though not the most -compelling, were those of the man from whom your adventurousness had -drawn you away. The thought of entirely outgrowing them gave you a -chill. When you had penetrated further into the forest of life’s -possibilities you couldn’t go on indefinitely playing hide and seek -among the trees with that old companion. He would stop at the edge of -the forest, and you must make your way through it, alone. - -As Louise sat on the terrace, a little weary after the continuous -tension, recalling the appealing droop of Keble’s lips as he had turned -away from her a few minutes before, she was obliged to face the fact -that some chord within her had responded to the appeal, despite her -stern censorship. She was obliged to admit that even when her path -became definitely distinct from Keble’s, when she should finally throw -all the weight of her personality into a passion worthy of her emotional -possibilities, or that failing, into some project so vital that she -would become oblivious to the trifles that filled so much of Keble’s and -Miriam’s attention, she would not be able to extinguish the fragrance of -the flower of sentiment that Keble had been the first to coax into -blossom. Her feeling toward any new friend who might tread her path -would exhale the odor of the phial of affection labelled “Keble”, though -that phial lay on a neglected shelf. - -Even in the recklessness that had overtaken her beside Billy’s grave, -there had been some purring _obligato_, a running commentary to the -effect that her wanton experiment was in Keble’s name, that all the -thrills in the universe were reducible to the quieter terms of mere -charm, that all the charming things in life were reducible to “Keble”, -and it was inherent in the nature of charm that it could not be captured -and possessed, except in symbols, or by proxy. One could be so -profoundly loyal to one’s personal conception of life,—a conception -which exacted unflinching courage at the approach of new ideas and high -venturesomeness in tracking down concealed ideas,—that one could accept -clues from a stranger even though the accepting might involve a breach -of what the world called constancy. Incidentally, the fact that her -first breach, whatever it may have meant to Dare, was an erotic fiasco -as far as she was concerned, had by no means discountenanced further -experimentation. Life should pay her what it owed her, even if she had -to pay heavy costs in collecting her due. - -On making the shocking discovery that marriage was no solution of her -destiny, she had vigorously bestirred herself, only to make the even -more shocking discovery that she was shedding her husband as a -caterpillar sheds its cocoon. Now, poised for flight, she could cherish -a tender sentiment for the cocoon but could scarcely fold her wings and -crawl back into it. - -She recalled the cruel little poem, still unaccounted for, which had -thrown open a door in her mind. - - _For, being true to you,_ - _Who are but one part of an infinite me,_ - _Should I not slight the rest?_ - -Those lines had come at her with a reproachful directness. In them, or -rather in the blue pencil which marked off the poem on its printed page, -she had read Keble’s impatience with her limitations. Her reason had -seen in the lines a justification against which her heart rebelled. From -that moment she had been disciplining her heart. So effectively indeed, -that now,—were it not for that appealing little droop and for the -sentimental fragrance which still clung to her,—she might have flung -the poem at him and cried, “_Voilà la monnaie de ta pièce_. I’ve learned -my lesson in bitter thoroughness. Now it is I who point to ‘rude -necessary heights’ intent upon a goal _you_ are unable to see.” - -The nature of the goal was not clear even to herself, nor could she -exactly define the help that Dare had given her in mounting towards it. -Certainly the upward journey had been easier since he had first -appeared, and certainly her climbing prowess had seemed more notable in -moments when she and Dare on some high ledge of thought had laughingly -looked down at Keble and Miriam exchanging mystified glances, in which -admiration for the agility of the two on the ledge was blended with -misgivings as to the risks they ran. - -Although she was lured upward by the hope of wider views, there were -times when she scrambled and leaped for the mere joy of climbing. There -were other times when she was intoxicated by a sense of the vastness of -causes to be advocated and the usefulness of deeds to be done. She had -visions of jumping up on platforms and haranguing masses of people till -they, too, were drunk with the wine of their own potentialities. She had -only the sketchiest notion of what she or they were to accomplish. The -nearest she came to a definite program was the vision of a new -self-conscious world blossoming forth into unheard-of activity, giving -birth to new institutions and burying the old. Any cause would be hers -provided it were intelligent, energetic, and comprehensive. In the joy -of being awake she needed to rouse the world from its lethargy, make it -cast away its crutches. In her consciousness of rich personal resources -she needed to make everybody else dig up the treasures latent within -themselves. Most of all, she desired that the world should “get on”, -that its denizens should abandon their moral motorcars and leap into -moral aeroplanes until something still more progressive could be -devised. - -Despite the vagueness of her goal there was no lack of impetus in her -pursuit of it, and every day, on a blind instinct which she had learned -to revere, she did deeds in point, deeds which, when done, proved to be -landmarks, in a perfect row, on her route towards the unknown -destination. This encouraged her to believe that the future would help -her by showing a tendency to create itself. - -The visit of Keble’s family had proved a negative hint as to the nature -of her goal, for clearly her direction was not to be one that led into a -bog of kind, complacent social superiorishness. Whatever errors she -might make she would not end by being gently futile, like her -mother-in-law; she would not turn into a wet blanket like Girlie, nor a -noisy, nosy Christmas-cracker like Mrs. Windrom. Alice Eveley had been -the most satisfactory woman of the four, yet Louise particularly hoped -she would not land in Alice’s bog; for Alice, while intelligent, had -turned none of her intelligence to account; while bright, she shed only -a reflected light; while frank, she could politely dissemble when -downrightness would have been more humane; and while sympathetic, she -held to conventions which had it in them to insist upon mercilessness. -Alice was, one could sincerely admit, a jolly good sort, but only -because she had not opposed favoring circumstances of birth, wealth, and -privilege. Girlie was a less jolly good sort because she had avoided -even the gentle propelling force of favoring circumstances and loitered -in back eddies,—she had been “dragged” to Italy, for instance, and had -brought back no definite impression save that of a campanile which had -made recollection easy for her by leaning! Alice at least floated down -the middle of the stream. But neither had struck out for herself, and -Louise’s complete approval was reserved for people who swam. In that -respect the men of the party had had more to commend them. - -But even the men moved in a hopelessly restricted current. One could -point out so many useful directions in which they wouldn’t dream of -venturing. That was where Dare had shown to advantage. Even though Dare -had kept his tongue in his cheek, his real superiority had been manifest -to Louise. Compared to Mr. Windrom, a renowned old Tory, Dare was a -comet shooting past a fixed star. Mr. Windrom had undoubtedly swum, but -only in the direction of the political current in which his fathers had -immersed him. Dare, like herself, had swum against the current. Like -herself and her father and Aunt Denise and misguided Uncle -Mornay-Mareuil, Dare had emerged from obscurity and poverty. She and -Dare had swum to such good purpose that they had attained the smoothly -running stream that bore on its bosom the most highly privileged members -of civilization. And while momentarily resting, they had caught each -other’s eyes long enough to exchange, with a sort of astonished grunt, -“Is _this_ all!” Was it to be expected that they should stop swimming -just because every one else was contented with civilization’s meandering -flow? To have done so would have been to degrade the valor that had gone -into their efforts thus far. - -Yet the mere fact that they had reciprocated a glance of intelligence -had been pounced upon by one of the privileged members as evidence of -treasonous dissatisfaction with the meandering current, and Mrs. -Windrom’s last words to her, pronounced in a voice which every one was -meant to hear, were, “Do say good-bye to Mr. Dare for me. I’m sorry he’s -not well; but I know what a devoted nurse you will be.” - -Of course Alice and Lady Eveley and Miriam and all the others _might_ -have good enough memories to associate Mrs. Windrom’s remark with -Walter’s accident, but the chances were that they would not, and that -left in their minds an equivocal association between her devotion as -nurse and the particular case of Dare’s indisposition. Louise was aware -that Mrs. Windrom meant her remark to convey this hint, and while she -didn’t care a tinker’s dam for Mrs. Windrom’s approval, she did object -to underhandedness. - -Walter had swum, and although he might not have the prowess of herself -and Dare, still he had shown enough independence of the complacent -stream to qualify in the class which included Dare, herself, and,—by a -narrow margin,—Keble and Miriam. For Miriam had not merely floated. If -she had not made as good progress as Walter or Keble, she was none the -less to be commended for the distances she had covered, for Miriam was -handicapped in having no family or money to lean back on in moments of -fatigue and discouragement. - -Alice had lost some of her standing with Louise by saying to Miriam -before departing, “I hope we shall see something of each other in the -future, Miss Cread. I take it that you will be returning east this -autumn.” - -It was natural enough for Alice to “take it” that Miriam would be -returning. But, in the light of that trifling episode during the dance, -Louise felt that Alice’s express assumption of Miriam’s departure was -almost a hint; and having learned to read Miriam’s countenance, she was -almost sure that Miriam had felt the remark to be, if not a hint, at -least a warning. And that Louise resented; for the fact that Alice had -not been born athletic enough to strike out for herself gave her no -right to curb the athleticism of others. And if it was a warning, and if -Alice justified it to herself on the score of sisterly protection, then -how did Alice justify her many sisterly neglects? Louise felt that if -she had been in Alice’s place when Keble, sick of the war, had first -struck out into the wilds, no power on earth could have prevented her -from following at his heels to fry bacon over his camp fires. If she had -had a brother she would have guarded and bullied and slaved for him with -the single object of making him what Minnie Hopper as a little girl -would have called “the champeen king of the circus.” - -Whether Miriam’s continued sojourn was in the best interests of all -concerned was another matter. Obviously Miriam, despite her protests, -desired to stay. But that was none of Alice Eveley’s business. It was a -matter for Miriam alone to decide, and she should not be hampered in her -decision. In a sense it was Keble’s business too. Certainly not his -wife’s, though long before Keble’s sister had appeared on the scene, -Louise had sometimes arrested herself, as Alice had done, and chosen a -different course in order not to break in on some apparent community of -interest between her husband and Miriam Cread. - -A perambulator appeared at the corner of the terrace, propelled by a -stolid nursemaid. The monkey, rosy and fat, was making lunges at a white -hillock in his coverings which he would have been surprised to know was -his own foot. On seeing his mother he abandoned the hillock to give her -a perky inspection. His bonnet had slid down over one eye, and the tip -of his tongue protruded at the opposite corner of his mouth. - -Louise broke into a laugh. “Katie! Make that child put in his tongue or -else straighten his hat. He looks such an awful rake with both askew.” - -Katie missed the fine point of the monkey’s resemblance to a garden -implement, but, as Dare had recognized, Katie was as immortal in her -ignorance as philosophers are in their erudition. She straightened the -monkey’s headgear, this adjustment being less fraught with complications -than an attempt to reinstate his tongue. - -“His granpa and gramma come into the nursery before breakfast,” Katie -proudly announced. “They said it was to give me a present, which they -done,—but it was really to see the monkey again.” - -Louise had risen and gone over to shake the white hillock, an operation -which revived the monkey’s interest in that phenomenon. - -“Any one would think he was _their_ baby!” she said sharply. - - 2 - -As she was turning to go into the house she met Miriam, whose face was -anxious. “Oh, there you are,” Miriam began. “I wish you would go up to -Dare. They can’t make him drink the things you left for him. Now he’s -arguing with Aunt Denise, who says he’s in a fever. He says he’s not, -and he’s saying it with feverish intensity.” - -Louise gave a start. “Miriam! Papa had two cases of smallpox a few weeks -ago. Those Grays, you know,—down the river.” - -“Wasn’t it one of the Gray girls that Dare rescued the day we went to -Deer Spring? She had climbed a tree and couldn’t get down.” - -They hurried upstairs. “You wait here,” Louise ordered, leaving Miriam -at the door of the bedroom. - -“Thank God it’s you,” said a half delirious voice, as she appeared, and -Dare sank back into bed. - -Louise made a rapid diagnosis, then turned to Aunt Denise. “I think it’s -smallpox,” she whispered. “Will you fumigate the nursery? You’ll find -everything in the medicine chest. I’ll have him moved to one of the -cabins. _Je sais ce qu’il faut faire._” - -There was no timorousness in Aunt Denise. A competent, strong woman -herself, she took competence and strength and a stern sense of duty for -granted in any member of her family. - -When she had gone Louise went to the door to report to Miriam. “Get -somebody to take a few blankets over to your old cabin. Then find Mr. -Brown and have him send up some sort of stretcher. Mrs. Brown will help -you straighten the cabin and build a fire to air it. Then telephone -Papa.” - -“What are you going to do?” Miriam ventured. - -“Nurse. There’s no one else. Besides he wouldn’t obey a stranger. You -won’t mind keeping an eye on the house, will you? Don’t let Aunt Denise -be too thrifty. Above all, keep Keble from fretting. He rears like a -horse when he’s frightened.” - -“But can you keep from catching it?” - -“I can do anything I make up my mind to. Now hurry, dear.” - -Miriam was seriously alarmed, yet Louise’s confidence was tonic. -Moreover this development gave her an elasticity of motion of which she -was a little ashamed. - -When Keble returned for luncheon he found the table set on the terrace -and a strong odor of disinfectants issuing from the house. Miriam -explained, and although Keble was familiar with his wife’s rapidity of -organization, he was bewildered to find that she was installed in a -cabin across the lake, and that his first visit to her was already -scheduled. He was to accompany Miriam in the launch at three. Louise -would talk to them from the boat-slip, where they would leave supplies. - -“That’s all very well,” he agreed. “But what about Louise?” - -“Nurses always protect themselves,” Miriam reassured him. “And Louise -would be the last woman to make a blunder.” - -It was harder than she had foreseen to keep Keble from panic, for every -reassuring remark seemed merely to arouse new images of disaster. He was -sorry for Dare but considered it clumsy of him to have collected Thelma -Gray’s germs. - -“You would have done the same,” Miriam reminded him. - -“But I wouldn’t have gone prowling bareheaded all over the northwest -after a warm evening of dancing,” he said with a sharper accent. - -Miriam had been sleepless after the dinner party, and at dawn from her -window had seen Dare, dishevelled, cross the meadow through the wet -grass and let himself into the house. It came to her as a shock that -Keble had witnessed this incident, of which no mention had been made. -Had Keble, too, spent a sleepless night? Had that any bearing on his -habit, more conspicuous of late, of nervously whistling, and leaving his -seat to wander about the house? Miriam was a little unstrung and was -grateful for the presence of Aunt Denise, whose rigidity held the -household together, even if it occasionally stood in the way of a free -and easy routine. - -Miriam and Keble were at pains to conceal from each other their -consternation at the situation created by Louise’s prompt retirement -into quarantine. Aunt Denise, the most straight-laced person at -Hillside, was probably the only person in the neighborhood who took -Louise’s step as matter of course. Keble was proud of his wife’s medical -talent; it emphasized her womanliness, and it was the essentially -feminine qualities in Louise which he had unflaggingly admired. Yet he -was tormented by the thought of her self-imposed duties, and if he had -had to choose a patient for her he would probably have chosen anyone -rather than Dare. He was also angry at her unconditional veto on a -trained nurse from Harristown. - -To Louise the fitness of her conduct was a matter of so little -consequence that it did not enter her head. In the beginning she saw -that she would have a trying case on her hands. Although her presence -had a soothing effect on Dare, his unfamiliarity with illness made him a -difficult patient, and Louise had to adopt drastic methods, a cross -between bullying and ridiculing him into obedience. Her greatest -difficulty came in changing his wrappings, an operation which had to be -performed with the least possible variation in temperature. Dare -obstructed the task by struggling to free himself, and by trying to -prevent her from bathing him with her lotions. - -In one access of delirium he sat up, glared at her with unrecognized -fury, and shouted, “Get to hell out of this room, before I break in your -skull!” - -Whereupon she walked straight to the bed, pinned his shoulders to the -pillow, and retorted, “Don’t you say another word till I tell you to; if -you order me out I may go, and if I do there’ll be no one to give you a -drink. Now lie still.” - -She held his eyes until she saw a return of lucidity. He collapsed, and -said feebly, “Have I been bad? I can’t have you overhearing me if I -ramble.” - -She had overheard many illuminating scraps of confession. “Listen, Mr. -Dare dear,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “If you’re going to get -well soon, you must be perfectly quiet. The rambling doesn’t matter, but -try to fix it in your mind that you mustn’t be rough. You’re so terribly -strong!” - -“What’s the use of getting well?” he moaned. - -A few moments later his good intentions were consumed in the heat of new -hallucinations. “Is that Claudia?” he shouted. “Oh God, it must be a -thousand in the shade.” - -Sometimes he hummed a few bars of a lively melody, in appallingly -unmusical tones. With a remorse that closed her ears to the -grotesqueness of the performance Louise recognized the tune of their -dance. - -In a few days the ranch settled down to the new order. Miriam and Keble -made daily visits to the boat-slip, the doctor came as often as he could -arrange the long trip, sometimes remaining overnight, and Mrs. Brown, -her mind on the nights when Mrs. Eveley had sat and held Annie’s hand, -cooked tempting dishes and brought them to the window. She also took -turns at sitting outside Dare’s window while Louise lay down in the tiny -sitting room of the cabin. Twice during the doctor’s visits Louise had -gone for a short gallop, but gave up the practise on learning that Dare -had asked for her during her absence. - -At the Castle Aunt Denise ruled with a sway that awed the servants but -failed to produce the industry that Louise could inspire with a much -laxer code. Keble and Miriam, after faint attempts to restore an -unanalyzable comfort that had departed with Louise, fell into step -behind Aunt Denise and were always relieved when the time came to go out -of doors or repair to the library on business. During the first days -Keble had been haunted by a fear that illness would break out in the -house. Once in the middle of the night when he had been awakened by the -sound of crying he ran to the nursery, half expecting to find the monkey -speckled like a trout. Katie, with a trace of asperity, persuaded him -that Baby was only suffering from wind, and this seemed plausible, for -at the height of their wrangle the monkey relapsed into an angelic -slumber, broken only by a motion of lips that implied health of the -serenest and greediest description. - -Miriam found a deep, wistful contentment in trying to keep Keble’s mind -occupied. In the evenings Aunt Denise played patience and retired -punctually at ten. Miriam usually remained another half hour at the -piano, then Keble went alone to read in the library with his pipe and a -decanter. He grew more taciturn than she had ever seen him, and this -mood she dreaded, for it stirred the rebellious ego within her which had -grown during the past months to unmanageable proportions. - -_En revanche_ Keble had moments when a new side of him came to light, an -amiable, tender side which Miriam had long felt he took too great pains -to suppress. After mornings and afternoons during which each had been -employed in personal work or diversion, after evenings of music or cards -or reading, there was an indescribable charm for her in the recurrence -of Keble’s boyish moods, when his man’s mask was laid aside. It might be -the recounting of some lark at school; it might be an experience in the -trenches or in a corner of Greece or China during his bashful tour of -the world; it might even be an admission of incurable dudishness in the -face of some recent native provocation. Whatever it was, it was the -essential Keble, the Keble whom Miriam might have met in a London -drawing-room. His wife induced playful moods in him, but rarely did the -playfulness Louise provoked keep within the bounds of veiled, correct -irony. For his wife’s delectation Keble rendered his playfulness ever so -slightly frisky, exaggerating the caricature of himself; whereas for -her, Miriam liked to persuade herself, he projected a more ironically -shaded sketch of himself which amused without being distorted. - -“It’s such a blessing to have you here, Miriam,” he confessed one -evening. “I should have gone quite dotty alone with Aunt Denise; Louise -and Dare would have come back and found me with a rosary around my neck, -gibbering the names of saints. I believe you were sent to us by some -kind providence of God to be a universal stop-gap in our strange ménage. -I wonder you bear up under the strain.” - -She was tempted to say, “I was sent to you not by God but by Walter -Windrom,” but she couldn’t. Nor could she smile, for his timid candor -gave her a pretext for reading into his remark some depth of feeling for -which the tyrant within her clamored. But she succeeded in replying, “Oh -I bear up wonderfully,—so well, in fact, that if everything were to run -flawlessly I think I should be selfish enough to pray for another gap, -that I might stop it!” - -The tyrant had forced the words into her mouth, but her anxiety was -dispelled by his manner of taking them. He passed his hand over his hair -and said, whimsically, sadly, “Well, I don’t see any immediate prospect -of gaplessness . . . I suppose most ménages are the same, if you were to -explore into them. They muddle along, sometimes on an even keel, more -often pitching about in cross currents. And I suppose one half of the -ménage always feels that the other half is at fault, and there’s no way -of judging between them, because no two people are born with the same -mental apparatus.” - -Disconcerted at the length he had gone, with a characteristic desire to -efface the self-revelatory words, he came abruptly out of the mood by -adding, “Is it apparatuses, or apparati? I see I’ve been talking -nonsense again,—good-night.” - -Miriam wished that he had not seen fit to go back on his -semi-confession, but she could not deny herself the comfort his -soliloquy had given her, and for some days it served as a sop to her -tyrant. - -She had moments of futile compunction as she saw Louise growing haggard. -Twice a day Miriam appeared at the boat-slip, but quite often Louise had -seized those moments for a short nap, and there was nothing to do but -leave the packets and messages on the jetty and return, or go for a walk -with Grendel. She found in herself a dearth of inspiration when it was a -question of making the day less tedious for her friend. Louise with her -resourcefulness would have thought out endless ways of diverting her, -had she been Dare’s nurse. Miriam had pleaded to be allowed to assist. -It was not only that she wished to spare Louise; she envied her the -opportunity as well as the skill that called into play such magnificent -services. Her own life seemed barren in contrast. Although ten years her -junior, Louise had been at the very heart of life, had loved, been -loved, suffered, given birth, and grown strong through exercise. Miriam -envied her the gruelling experience she was going through. She blushed -to think how incompetent she herself would be in Louise’s place, and how -prudish; but incompetence and prudishness could be outgrown, and she -longed to outgrow them. - -She resented the fact that Keble seemed not to notice the degree of -strain on Louise, the dark rings under her eyes, the drawn mouth. Louise -was partly responsible for his failure to see, for whenever he called at -the slip she forced herself to be bright and facetious. But any woman -would have seen through Louise’s brightness, and Keble as a man far less -obtuse than most, ought to have seen through it, ought not to have wrung -their hearts by his casual manner of calling out, in a recent leave -taking, “Don’t overdo it, Weedgie; we mustn’t have _you_ breaking down.” - -A night finally came when the little doctor announced that the crisis -was passed, that the patient would recover. Only then did he admit that -he had almost despaired. Had it not been for Louise’s vigilance, Dare -would not have survived a week, for he was one of those giants who often -succumb under the first onslaught of a complication of ailments. - -“Louise has been splendid,” Keble acknowledged. “It’s lucky for Dare -that they were such good chums.” - -The doctor turned on him with a suddenness that surprised Miriam no less -than Keble. “You don’t understand Louise,” he said. “She would take as -much pains to cure a wounded dog as she would to cure the -Governor-General. She would do as much for the stable boy as she would -do for you; under certain circumstances, more. For she gives her -strength to the helpless. Dare was helpless, body and soul. If you had -watched him tossing and heard him moaning your eyes would have opened to -many things. He was not only physically lost, he was lost in spirit. An -ordinary nurse would have tended his body. Louise has tended his spirit. -By a thousand suggestions she has restored his faith in himself, created -him. For you that spells nothing but the service of a clever woman for a -friend. What do you know about service? What do you know about -friendship? What do you know about the sick man? What do you know about -life? What do you know about Louise? Precious little, my boy!” - -The doctor disappeared in a state of exaltation, leaving Keble -bewildered. “There’s a blind spot in me somewhere, Miriam,” he said. -“Can you put your finger on it?” - -“I’m afraid we’re both blind,” she said feebly. “At least we haven’t -their elemental clairvoyance. The doctor is doubtless right in his -flamboyant way, and we are right in our pitiful way. We can only try, I -suppose, to be right at a higher pitch.” - -“By Jove,” Keble suddenly exclaimed, with a retrospective fear, “it was -a closer shave than we had any idea of. I wonder if Louise realized.” - -Miriam smiled bitterly. “You may be quite sure, my dear Keble, that she -did. If you have been spared a great load of pain, you may take my word -for it that it’s Louise you have to thank.” - -Keble was pale. In his eyes was the look which Miriam had seen on -another occasion, just before the birth of his son. “Then I do wish,” he -quietly said, “that my friends would do me the kindness to point out -some of my most inexcusable limitations, instead of letting me walk -through life in a fool’s paradise.” - -Miriam was ready to retort that even such a wish reflected the _amour -propre_ that determined most of his acts, but she had been touched by -the emotion in his eyes and voice,—an emotion which only one woman -could inspire. “I think we’re all trying desperately to learn the ABC’s -of life,” she said. - -She was unnerved by the self-abasement that had stolen into his -expression. For the first time in her life she went close to him and -took his hand in hers. “Don’t mind if I’ve spoken like a preacher,” she -pleaded in a voice which she could control just long enough to finish -her counsel. “The sermon is directed at my own heart even more than -yours.” - -He returned the pressure of her hands absent-mindedly, and she sought -refuge in her room. - -Keble was restless and turned towards the library through force of -habit. A book was lying face down on the arm of his chair, but after -reading several sentences without hearing what they were saying, he got -up and poured himself a glass of whisky. - -He would have gone to the piano, but Miriam’s superior musicianship had -given him a distaste for his own performances. He wandered through the -drawing-room to the dimly-lit hall, and found himself before the -gramaphone. Every one had gone to bed, but if he closed the shutters of -the box the sound would not be loud enough to disturb the household. At -haphazard he chose a record from a new supply. - -A song of Purcell’s. He threw himself into a deep chair. The opening -bars of the accompaniment were gentle and tranquilizing, with naïve -cadenza. A naïve seventeenth century melody, which was taken up by a -pretty voice: high, clear, pure. - -_Those words!_ He leaned forward, and listened more intently. - -“I attempt from love’s sickness to fly—in vain—for I am myself my own -fever—for I am myself my own fever and pain.” - -As though a ghost had stolen into the dark room, Keble started slowly -from his chair. His eyes riveted on the machine, he paused, then -abruptly reached forward to stop it, inadvertently causing the needle to -slide across the disk with a sound that might have been the shriek of a -dying man. - -For a long while he stood holding the disk. Only when he became -conscious of the startled beating of his heart did he throw off the -spell. - -He was staring at the record in his hands—the ghost. He dreaded the -noise that would be made if he were to drop it on the floor,—even if he -were to lay it down carefully and snap it with his heel. - -He got up swiftly, unbolted the door, and walked out in the cold air to -the end of the terrace, past the stone parapet, down the grassy slope to -a point overhanging the shore of the lake. Far, far away, through the -blackness, were tiny points of light, marking the location of the -Browns’ cottage. His eyes sought a gleam farther along the shore, but -there was nothing in all that blackness to indicate Miriam’s old cabin. - -They were there, perhaps asleep, perhaps wearily wakeful, with only -their souls left to fight for them against some vague, sinister enemy. -Perhaps she was watching over him as he slept; preparing his draughts; -stirring the fire with a little shiver. Perhaps she, too, had been -approached by spectres. Perhaps she was ill, despairing, afraid. Tears -came into his eyes. - -He could feel the disk pressing against his fingers, and the tiny hard -rills through which the needle had traced its uncanny message. - -“What do you know of the sick man!” Above the mysterious silence of the -night a phantom voice, thin, clear, dainty, was singing the answer into -his understanding: “I attempt from love’s sickness to fly, in vain; for -I am myself my own fever and pain.” It could so airily sing, as though -it were a toy song and a toy sentiment, words which were as irrelevantly -indicative as flowers nodding over a grave. - -Many years ago he and Walter had played a game called “scaling”. You -chose round, flat pieces of slate and sent them whirling through the -air. - -He scaled, and waited for the splashing sound far out on the water. - -Poor little record, it had meant well enough. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -KEBLE had received a petition signed by Conservatives throughout the -county inviting him to present himself as candidate for the provincial -elections. He had foreseen this, but hesitated to accept the nomination. -In the first place he was barely thirty; in the second place success at -the polls would mean protracted absences from the ranch; in the third -place he was not sure that Louise would approve. He remembered her -saying, apropos of her Uncle Alfred Mornay-Mareuil, “If he had only been -able to control his ambition! Politics is as demoralizing as gambling.” -And Keble quite often took Louise’s remarks at their literal value. - -When it came time to select a candidate for the elections, the scattered -Conservatives of the district, knowing that the only hope of making a -showing against their entrenched opponents was to induce Keble Eveley, -with his important holdings and the prestige of his name, to stand for -them, had encountered opposition from the supporters of the mayor of -Witney, who in several consecutive elections had suffered defeat at the -hands of the Liberal candidate, but who had learned to look forward to -his periodical worsting as an agreeable break in the monotony of his -days. The repeated success of the Liberal representative had resulted in -over-confidence on the part of that gentleman. He had been weaned from -his county, had invested his savings in the capital, and returned home -only to collect rents or sell at a substantial profit stock which he had -acquired at bargain prices. A feeling was abroad, among Liberals and -Progressives, as well as Conservatives, that the electors were being -“used for a good thing.” - -The Conservative leaders knew Keble through business dealings or -hearsay. Some of them had joined in a deputation to receive Lord Eveley -and Mr. Windrom at Witney. They all saw the wisdom of putting up a -vigorous, intelligent, and earnest young man, and the supporters of the -veteran Conservative candidate, in the hope of a change of luck, ended -by yielding to the suggestion. The official invitation was brought to -Hillside by Pat Goard, the campaign manager, and his henchman, the -editor of the “Witney Weekly News”. - -It was on a mild October afternoon. Keble received the delegates in the -library, heard their arguments, and asked for an hour to consider. Aunt -Denise had bowed with frigid graciousness and withdrawn. Keble asked -Miriam to show the visitors over the grounds, then ran down the path to -the jetty, jumped into the launch, and motored across the lake, which -to-day was an expanse of bright blue rippled by the most gentle of -breezes. The slender white trees on the lower shore with their scanty -remnants of pale yellow foliage, the bare branches of other hardwoods, -and the deep rust of the underbrush were the only tangible proofs of the -season. Everything else was gold and sapphire. - -As he neared the boat-slip Keble saw that Louise had set up a deck chair -in a sunny patch before the cabin, and had installed Dare in it. It was -his first glimpse of Dare in several weeks and he was shocked at the -wasted face that appeared above the rugs. For the first time he had some -inkling of what the other man had been through, and a wave of compassion -and affection surged through him. - -Louise was sitting at Dare’s side, and they were talking quietly, -intimately. Although there was almost a life and death contrast between -the two, Keble was no longer blind to the fact that his wife had worn -herself to a dangerous margin, and while he could approve of her act, in -the sense in which Aunt Denise approved of it, he could not, like Aunt -Denise, look on unmoved. Something in the languor of the scene, -something in the intimacy which seemed to unite the two, aroused a -throbbing ache within him. Like Miriam he had felt futile in the face of -this struggle, and now he almost envied Dare the suffering that had -opened to him a secret garden. He paid blind tribute to whatever force -in Dare,—a force transcending mere personality,—awakened in Louise a -spirit that he had never been able to evoke. “I blunder and obtain -forgiveness,” he reflected, “while Dare is right, and pays terrific -penalties.” - -Louise came to the end of the jetty to meet him, and they talked about -Dare’s first day outside the improvised hospital. - -“Only for an hour,” she said. “Then he has to go back. But it marks the -beginning of a new era.” - -Keble would not let himself speculate on the nature of the new era. “And -you can soon rest,” he said. “Be very careful now. This is the most -dangerous time of all for you.” - -She waved away the fear. “Who are those men on the terrace?” - -Keble explained their mission. “I’d like you to decide for me.” - -She remembered an occasion when Keble had wished her to decide upon -decorations for the Castle, and she had hurt him by her indifference. - -As she sat thinking, her arms resting limply in her lap, Keble noted -with a pang the absence of her old elasticity. She looked older, and -tired. He had an impulse to get out of the boat and take her in his -arms. He reflected that a man like Dare, in his place, would have -scouted her precautions. But there was the baby to think of, -and,—cautious men were cautious. - -“I’m hesitating,” Louise finally said, “only because I’m timid about -deciding for you. But I don’t mind saying that if you accepted and were -successful the monkey and his grandfathers and I would be highly -gratified.” - -Tears came to Keble’s eyes,—an indiscretion which he lost no time in -correcting. “Right-oh! . . . Tell Dare how glad we are to know he’s on -the mend, and find out if there’s anything he’d especially like. The -people in Vancouver wrote that his ticket to Japan will be valid for a -reservation on any later boat . . . Good-bye dear. Miriam and I will -call again after dinner.” - -“Bring a volume of Swinburne if you think of it. We’ve been trying to -recall some lines.” - -He promised, and she laughed to see him make a methodical note of it. - -“Good luck!” she called out, as he started the engine. - -“Thanks, old girl. Awfully decent of you to think I may have a chance.” - -“It’s in your blood!” - -“It’s a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal constituency,” he deprecated. “And what -isn’t Liberal leans towards the Progressive.” - -“I’d despise a victory I hadn’t had to fight for!” - -“I believe you would,” he laughed, as though her militancy were one of -her amusing caprices. - -Miriam’s unwieldy charges were drinking whisky and soda on the terrace, -in preference to tea in the drawing-room. - -“How’s the patient?” she inquired. - -“Able to sit up and take a little Swinburne,” Keble reported with a -truculence that wasn’t meant to be as unkind as it sounded. - -“Consulted the missus, have you?” inquired a business-like campaign -manager. - -“I have. The answer is in the affirmative.” - -Keble received a thump on the back that made him vividly conscious of -the sort of thing he had now let himself in for. Could he thump, he -wondered. The first attempt was not too great a success, but one would -undoubtedly improve with practise. - -“Now let’s get down to tacks,” said Mr. Goard, when further drinks had -been consumed in honor of the event. - -The delegates required a message to take back to party headquarters, and -Keble dictated an outline of his political credo, the logic of which was -warmed and colored in conformity with the ejaculated amendments of Pat -Goard. - -“Will that do the trick?” Keble finally asked. - -“That’ll do for a start,” Mr. Goard replied, and Miriam went to -transcribe her notes at the typewriter. - -“Our best to the missus,” said the manager half an hour later as he got -into the car that had brought him to Hillside. “You couldn’t have a -better platform than _her_.” Mr. Goard went on to express the opinion -that it would be the “best fight ever put up”, but added that “those -birds took a lot of beating”. - -Keble promised to fight his hardest, and had a final word for the -newspaper man. “Be sure to emphasize that it’s a straight program of -common sense,—without flummery or mud-slinging or rosy promises that -can’t be fulfilled.” - -The editor acquiesced, but privately reserved the prerogative of serving -up Keble’s phrases at a temperature and with garnishings adapted to the -Witney palate. He had seen elections won by lungs and knuckles. - -“Well,” Keble laughed on returning to Miriam’s side. “That’s done it! Do -you remember the play, ‘What Every Woman Knows’? You’ll have to be -Maggie Wylie and edit my speeches.” - -Miriam’s tyrant exulted, but her honesty compelled her to say, “I doubt -whether your supporters will appreciate my genius; it runs to neatness -of copy and pluperfective subjunctives. Maggie Wylie put damns into her -husband’s speeches, and Louise is the only person who can find the -Witney and Valley equivalents. Is there any occasion she can’t rise to, -for that matter?” This last remark was a trifle bitter. - -In Keble’s mind was an image of Louise sitting beside her patient, -quoting Swinburne. “We’ll submit our efforts to her,” he agreed. “We’ll -pack Louise into an imaginary hall on the boat-slip, and I’ll stand up -on an imaginary platform and rant. Louise will be the proletariat and -boo, clap, or heckle. Then we shall know where we stand.” - -“We are babes in the wood, you and I,” Miriam observed, with a familiar -sense of incompetence. - -For days they collected statistics, held consultations with visiting -politicians and office-seekers, wrote and answered letters, made rough -drafts of speeches which were in turn delivered before the “vast -audience of one” on the boat-slip. More than once Keble and Miriam, -seated in the launch, glanced at each other in dismay as Louise tore -their sentences limb from limb. - -“It’s beautiful _comme_ argument,” she once commented, “only it lacks -drama. Remember, darling, you have to sway them, not convince them. Once -you get inside the Assembly you may be as cool as a cucumber and as -logical as Euclid, but if you wish the natives to _get_ you there, you -have to tickle and sting them! That argument about neglected roads needs -to be played up stronger. Picture the perils of taking your best girl -for a Sunday drive from Witney to the Valley, with the horse getting -mired and the off wheel starting an avalanche down the side of the -Witney canyon and your best girl rolling down the hill to kingdom come; -then suddenly turn serious and describe what decent roads would do for -everybody, including yourself. Don’t be afraid to make the farmers see -that you yourself have something to gain. Show them how the reforms you -advocate would stimulate your trade as well as theirs and increase the -value of your property.” - -After this comment a detailed overhauling of the address in question was -commenced, with Keble dictating and Louise, insinuating metaphors in the -local vernacular. Dare from his deck chair in the distance watched or -dozed until the boat had departed. - -“How is the campaign progressing?” he asked after one prolonged -consultation. - -“Splendidly. Keble and Miriam are up to their neck in statistics. They -go to Witney to-morrow for a preliminary duster . . . Papa says we’ll be -out of quarantine before election day.” - -Dare watched her silently for some time. “Why do you always bracket -their names? You seem to do it deliberately, as though it were a -difficult phrase which you were bent on mastering.” - -“It may be.” - -“You can confess to me, you know. We’ve proved at least that.” - -She patted his hand. - -“May I guess out loud?” he asked. - -She nodded. - -He paused to choose his words. “You feel that Keble and Miriam have -grown to depend on each other in some way analogous to the way in which -you and I depended on each other.” - -She did not deny it. - -“With us, our relation flared up one day into a white flame which for -you seemed merely to cast a light over your past and future, but which -for me burnt into me till I—began to rave.” - -Again she stroked his hand. Lines of fatigue showed in her face, and her -eyes were fixed on the ground. - -“For the sake of the good we had brought each other, you felt that when -I,—the weaker of the two as it turned out,—collapsed, you owed it to -me and to yourself to patch my life together again. You felt that we had -gone into an expedition together, an intellectual expedition, and that -one of us had succumbed to an emotional peril. Like a good comrade you -stood by. When you had wrestled with the Angel of Death you made sure -that the Angel of Life should have a fair field. When I was strong -enough to realize what had made life too great a burden, you began -tenderly, wisely, patiently to make me see that, even without the -fulfilment of the greatest boon I had ever craved, life still held -possibilities. You dug up all my old sayings, pieced together my damaged -philosophy which had seemed sufficient in the days before the white -flame burned my cocksure ideas to a crisp, and you made a more beautiful -garment of it than I had ever succeeded in fashioning. You showed me how -I could keep the fragrance of the flower without crushing the flower -itself. You read me passages, God save the mark, from _La Nouvelle -Héloise_ which a few years ago I would have dismissed with a snort, but -in which you made me believe. You read me one of your early poems which -bore to your present wisdom the relation of a chrysalis to a winged -faith and you ended by persuading me that my collapse merely marked the -transition of my old chrysalis of a philosophy into something winged and -courageous like yours,—a transition that cannot be accomplished without -pain. . . . The patience, the love even, that you expended on me ended -by making me see, as you intended it should, that this crisis, my -overthrowing of my angel of selfishness, was a greater blessing than any -blessing which could have grown out of a surrender on our part to the -urge we both felt,—for you did feel it, too, I think . . . You led me -back to my own path by quoting the lines: - - _In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,_ - _To sleep for a season and hear no word_ - _Of true love’s truth or of light love’s art,_ - _Only the song of a secret bird._ - -Your faith in me,—a generous faith that wasn’t afraid of caresses,—was -a faith in life, in human decency. And now you are extending it, on some -generous impulse, to another quarter. I think I’m guessing right?” - -Louise showed no wish to interrupt him, and he ventured on. “In the -companionship of Keble and Miriam you see something which suggests an -analogy with our relation. We had adventurousness to offer each other; -they have inhibitions to share. You feel that interference on your part -would deprive them of a right you have claimed yourself: their right to -work out some problem of their own; just as interference in our case -would have denied us a privilege of deep understanding and sacrifice.” - -He paused for a moment. “That’s my guess. Now may I offer a suggestion, -for what it’s worth?” - -“Go on.” - -“You have one terrible weakness. In mending another’s life you are -infallible. You are less sure when it comes to taking care of your own. -The thought that you might be prompted by selfish motives would be -enough to make you refrain from interference. But have you the right to -stand by and see two lives drifting on a course that might entail your -own destruction? If you had been able to put yourself irrevocably into -my keeping, that would have been one thing. But you weren’t quite. At -the same time you came far enough in my direction to jeopardize your old -security. If you were to become lost, now, on no man’s land, I should -never forgive myself for letting myself be persuaded by you . . . I’ve -put an extreme case because I know you’re not afraid of facing any -conceivable contingencies.” - -“There’s more in it than that,” she finally replied, and her voice -announced a maturity born of suffering. “Because it’s a relationship for -which I am responsible. If I were to get lost on no man’s land, which -isn’t at all likely, it would be a direct result of my objection to -trenches, and no one but myself could be made to pay the penalty of my -recklessness. I brought Miriam here for my own reasons, and kept her -here. Keble and I were traveling independently; for I couldn’t resist -dashing off his pathway whenever the mood seized me. The more liberties -I took, the more obvious it became that Miriam and Keble had a similar -gait. They were always _there_, together. I was glad for Keble’s sake, -and certainly, since I felt free to scamper about in any direction I -chose, I couldn’t deny him the right to the companionship of any one who -could keep in step with him. People _have_ to have companions. - -“I have even been glad for Miriam’s sake. Miriam gave me more than I -asked of her. At times I must have got on her nerves. What had she by -way of compensation? By way of penalty she had a gradual alienation from -her old life. I could no more think of destroying her new sources of -interest than I could think of destroying the new sources of interest to -which she brought me the clue. The fact that Keble may have become the -central figure of Miriam’s new interests is an accident over which I -have no control, just as the fact that you became a vital force in my -new enthusiasms was an accident over which Keble had no control, over -which no one but myself had any control, and not even until I had -learned its full significance. Life is an uncharted ocean full of such -reefs; only fools try to sail through them; wise people sail _around_ -them. If I’ve learned anything in the last two years I’ve learned that -freedom, like everything worth having, costs heavily; every great -happiness is bought at the price of a great unhappiness. That’s only -fair. And I _won’t be niggardly_ . . . When Keble and Miriam learn the -full significance of their problem, as I have already done, they will -find their own solution. Human liberty means that, if it means anything -. . . - -“You and I fought out our issue and came to our conclusion, which -happened to be that our ways lie apart. You have the song of your secret -bird. I have something equivalent,—though it doesn’t exactly sing! If -one has played the game according to one’s own rules, and not -cheated,—not enough to count,—then that in itself puts a sort of -backbone into one’s life . . . At times a lot of horrid little devils -come tripping up through me, tempting me to be cheap and jealous, to -interfere, to kick and scratch,—oh Mr. Dare dear, why do you let me say -all these rubbishy things? I talk like a book of sermons to convince -myself, but the real me is terribly wordless and weak and silly and bad -and preposterous——” - -She broke down, and Dare drew her head to his side, stroking her hair -and patting courage into her shoulders. - - 2 - -Once Dare was safely on the high road towards recovery his progress was -rapid. Before long he was able to walk into the maze of trails which led -away from the end of the lake, and the day at length came when Dr. -Bruneau lifted the ban. - -Clad in fresh garments, Louise and Dare made a bonfire of the clothing -and bedding and books from the cabin. “There go all the outlived parts -of us,” Dare commented as the flames leaped up into the frosty blue-grey -morning air. “We’ll be phoenixes. . . . I shall never be able to express -my gratitude to you; a man has nothing to say to the person who has -saved his life, any more than he has to say to the forces that -originally gave life to him. He can only accept, marvel, venerate, and -use!” - -When the fire was low enough to be abandoned with safety, they turned -towards the lake, sharing a sense of freedom and poignant exultation -that could only find expression in a deep sigh. “There’s no sign of the -boat,” Louise said. “Let’s walk. We can take it slowly, and it’s a -glorious morning for walking.” - -It was; but Louise couldn’t deny that it would have been pleasant to -have been sought out, this particular morning, to have been called for -and escorted back to the Castle. She would have warmed to some -manifestation of extra thoughtfulness on the morning when all Hillside -knew that she and Dare were to be released from their imprisonment. -Besides, she was tired. - -When, hand in hand, they reached the familiar short-cut across the -meadow and saw the house standing out in cold sunlight from the base of -Hardscrapple, Louise felt more keenly than ever before what a beautiful -home she had possessed. The broad terraces and frost-nipped hedges, the -withered flower stocks, the pretty hangings behind polished plate-glass, -the bedroom balcony with its tubs of privet, the smoke ascending from -the chimneys, the perambulator standing outside the door of the -sun-parlor, the road bending away towards the dairy and barns,—it all -held associations for her sweeter than she would have admitted, and her -sense of joy in possession was flavored with a sense of the -precariousness of possession. She recalled one of her introspective -phrases, that “it was inherent in the nature of charm that it couldn’t -be captured or possessed,—except in symbols or by proxy”. How terrible -it would be to find oneself in possession of symbols from which the -charm had departed! - -A woman in black appeared at the door and came out on the terrace. -Louise turned suddenly to Dare with a whimsical smile. “If you have only -one funny, cross old lady in the world to represent your stock of -sisters and cousins and aunts, and who really ought to have been a -Mother Superior, you’re obliged to love her, aren’t you?” - -Dare judged that you were. - -“And if you love Aunt Denise, it’s perfectly obvious you can’t dote on -people like Mrs. Windrom and Ernest Tulk-Leamington and lots of others. -Don’t you agree?” - -“I’ll agree fast enough, but I can only take your word that it’s -obvious.” - -“She really is pure gold under all that black,—but she’s so far under.” - -Aunt Denise waited with outstretched hands. “You are both very welcome!” -she cried, and turned to congratulate Dare. “_Toi, mon enfant_,” she -continued, with her arm about Louise’s shoulders, and using the familiar -pronoun for the first time since her arrival, “_Tu as bien fait. Tu es -vraiment la fille de ton père, et de ta pauvre mère. Du Ciel elle t’a -envoyé du courage._” - -Louise went indoors and her eyes feasted on the colorful tapestries, the -shiny spaces, the blazing logs, the flowers, the vases and rugs and -odors, the blue and gold vistas through high window-doors. As she -entered the library Keble and Miriam looked up from a broad table -littered with papers. - -Keble came running to greet her. “Why, my dear, we weren’t looking for -you so early! We planned to take the launch and fetch you.” - -“Couldn’t wait.” She went to kiss Miriam. “It’s quite all right, dear. -There’s not a germ left. We’ve exterminated the species. How is the -campaign?” - -“We’re in the throes of final preparations,” said Keble. “To-night is -the big meeting in the Valley. The telephone has already been humming. -Yesterday our enemies cut the wires; that shows that they dread us.” - -“I’ll run off and let you work,” said Louise, “till lunch.” - -“It’s to be a gala lunch,” Miriam warned. “Don’t give a single order. -They’re all jubilant at your return,—so are we, dear.” - -“Have they been starving you?” - -“Do we look starved?” - -Louise surveyed them. “No, you look jolly fit. I believe you have got -along quite comfortably without me; I rather hate you for it.” - -Keble kissed her. “Go see the monkey,” he suggested. “We’ll be out as -soon as we get through this. Explain to Dare.” - -As Louise closed the library door she combated a desire to cry, then -went out not to see the monkey, but a friendly band of slaves that -happened to include Katie Salter, _ergo_ the monkey. - -Lunch proved festive. Keble was excited; Miriam played big sister; and -Aunt Denise reigned with clemency. Dare was still far below par, and his -smile was wan; but he was sufficiently his old self to enter the spirit -of the occasion. - -Talk turned to politics. “You’ll come to-night, of course?” Keble -invited Louise. “Your father has offered to put us up. We leave for -Witney to-morrow morning. If you’re too tired to go on you can stay at -your father’s till the tumult and the shouting die.” - -“What about my patient?” - -Dare answered for the patient’s welfare. “In the absence of his hosts, -he will install himself at their table, take second helpings of -everything, then pray for the speedy advent of the next meal, oblivious -to the political destinies of the Dominion.” - -“Glad to see your appetite back,” said Keble. “Does a man good to see -you so greedy.” - -After a stroll with Keble, Dare came back to the sun-parlor, where he -found Louise checking items in a mail order. He took up a magazine and -lay in the hammock. - -“I’m ordering some winter provisions,” she informed him. - -“You haven’t let much grass grow under your feet.” - -“The grass has become knee-deep since I’ve been away.” - -Miriam came to the doorway, but hesitated a moment on hearing this last -remark, which alluded to goodness knew what. “We’re to be ready at -four,” she said. “Keble wonders if you could put tea ahead a half hour.” - -Louise got up, giving Dare’s hammock a little shake. “Tea at four -instead of four thirty, do you hear, Mr. Dare dear? Are you thrilled?” - -“Couldn’t make it three thirty, could you?” - -Louise had caught Miriam’s arm and was towing her into the hall. “Don’t -look so glum,” she commanded. “Let’s find Gertie and tell her tea at -four, then pack our bags.” - -“What will you wear?” Miriam asked, surveying Louise’s khaki and -wondering what Louise had meant by “glum”. - -“What I have on,” replied Louise. - -“What! Riding breeches on the platform?” - -“Pooh, everybody in the Valley knows my legs by heart! Besides, an -election eve mass meeting isn’t like a speech from the Throne.” - -Miriam was wondering whether she should ask for an explanation of -“glum”, but remained silent as Louise “told Gertie tea at four”, then -led the way upstairs. In Louise’s room, however, the chatter irritated -her, and again Louise intrigued her by saying, “For heaven’s sake, -Miriam, what’s up?” - -“Nothing that I know of.” - -“Something is.” - -“Well if it’s anything,” Miriam temporized, “it’s so little that it’s -practically nothing. Besides it’s none of my business.” - -“All the more, then.” - -“The more what?” - -“Necessary to spit it out, darling. Excuse my vulgarity. It’s only my -real nature coming out in the joy of getting away from that shack. If -not your business, probably mine. Fire away.” - -“You’ll think me Mrs. Grundyish.” - -“Anything to do with the patient?” - -“Thanks for helping me. With Mr. Dare _dear_, so to speak.” - -“Oh!” - -“It’s only that,—well, now you’ve brought him through, shall you need -to be as attentive to him?” - -“Conspicuously attentive?” - -“It amounts to that.” - -“People been saying catty things?” - -“People always do.” - -“You and I don’t let ‘people’ dictate our actions.” - -Miriam stopped to ask herself how much territory Louise’s “you and I” -might be meant to cover. “No,” she assented, “yet there’s something to -be said for not giving people unnecessary topics for gossip, especially -now that the Eveleys are on exhibition. It would be a pity if your -generosity were to be misinterpreted.” - -Louise snapped the cover of her bag and sat on a chair facing Miriam. -Her face had become serious. “Miriam, dear, are you sure you know why -you are so agitated about my attentions to Dare?” - -Miriam bit her lip. Had Louise guessed that her appeal was in the nature -of a final effort to make Louise intervene between herself and the -tyrant which had been inciting her to snatch at any fact or appearance -favoring the disloyal cause? “Whatever the cause of my agitation, as you -call it, I hope you won’t dismiss my caution as mere meddlesomeness.” - -Louise got up and came to place her hands over Miriam’s knees, with an -impulsive yet earnest directness. “Our lives are fearfully unstable, -dear. We’re constantly raising little edifices in ourselves which we -think are solid; then along comes some trickle of feeling and washes the -edifice away, leaving only a heap of sand. The problem is to find -materials within us more reliable than sand, impervious to chance -streams of feeling, with which we can reinforce our edifices, so that -they will see us through a lifetime . . . Only after a series of -washouts do we recognize the necessity of using a durable mortar, and it -takes still longer to discover what materials in us are durable and how -to mix them. We’ve only experience to go by. I don’t think I’m -over-conceited in saying that I’ve learned my lesson; and I don’t think -I’m claiming too much for Dare when I say that he has learned his. In -any case we’re answerable only to ourselves, and I don’t see why any one -need worry.” - -Miriam’s agitation was now undisguised, though its cause was not called -into question. Only her impatience restrained her from weeping. “I don’t -understand you,” she finally said. “You have outlandish moods which make -you do outlandish things, then you offer outlandish explanations in the -form of universal laws . . . How are ordinary mortals to be helped by -your offhand statement that the solution of personal complications is to -find some durable material to cement everything together? That’s begging -the question. If you have the durable materials within you, they should -protect you from washouts; on the other hand, if you suddenly find -yourself in a mess and discover simultaneously that you’re nothing but -sand and water, what are you going to do? You can’t borrow concrete from -your neighbors.” - -“Yes you can. That’s what churches and philosophy and art and schools -are for. The other name for concrete is Wisdom. There’s heaps of it in -the world; one has only to help oneself.” - -“Again you’re begging the question. That wisdom abounds doesn’t imply -that everybody is wise enough to prefer it to folly.” - -Louise got up and walked back to her dressing table. “But there, as Dare -once reminded me, is where nature steps in. If people are hopelessly -weak-willed, they have to be cared for and put up with; it’s not their -fault. But nature’s average is quite high on the side of strength. Human -beings are on the whole wise, just as they are on the whole healthy. And -each human being who feels himself weak in spirit can take a spiritual -tonic or go in for spiritual gymnastics, and if he doesn’t get better, -why I suppose he just becomes a spiritual corpse . . . We’re getting -almost morbidly serious about nothing on earth. I haven’t the vaguest -idea what started us,—oh yes, your objection to my Mr. Dare dear. Let’s -go and see if tea’s at four yet.” - -“Louise!” Miriam cried, in a half-choked voice. “What a treasure you -are.” - -“Don’t be prosy,” said Louise, brushing Miriam’s forehead with her lips. -“That fawn thing of yours wears like iron, doesn’t it. I’m in rags. If -Keble gets in we’ll make him stand us a trip to New York for some duds.” - -Miriam was grateful for the delicacy which had led Louise to terminate -her homily with a flippant flourish, thus giving Miriam an opportunity -to withdraw intact from the compromising currents into which she had -nervously forced the interview. But the tyrant felt cheated, and only -subsided at the tea-table when Keble drew Miriam into a final -consultation and Louise challenged Dare to a toast-eating competition. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -BEFORE Louise had been an hour in the Valley she saw that the election -was not going to be the “walk-over” that Pat Goard was predicting, -despite the solid support which Keble was receiving at the hands of all -the commercial interests. Although she could be contemptuously -disregardful of public opinion, she seldom made the mistake of -misreading it to her advantage, and as she moved about among groups of -idlers in Main Street she intuitively discovered that there was a -formidable undercurrent of opposition to her husband. - -It came to her with a shock that part of the opposition was directed at -herself. She knew there were people in the Valley who thought of her as -a “menace”. There were women who resented what they regarded as her -superior airs, her new way of talking, her habit of dashing into town in -an expensive motor. She found that her frivolous treatment of the -far-off Watch-Night service had not been forgotten, had even been -exhumed by people who had boisterously profited by Keble’s hospitality -on the night in question. She discovered that sarcastic equivocations -were being circulated regarding her “sick man” and Keble’s “secretary”. -Further than that, capital was being made of the fact that Keble had -brought laborers from the east to work on his land. This was a -particularly malicious weapon, since Keble had advertised months in -advance for local workmen, and of the few who had offered their -services, he had engaged all who qualified for the work in hand. - -She made a rapid computation of her enemies, then a rapid computation of -her friends. Luckily she had invited Mr. and Mrs. Boots to her house -during the visit of her English guests. That had greatly strengthened -the Eveley prestige among the faithful. Mrs. Boots recalled that she was -the first to tell the Eveleys that they should go in for politics. Even -the tongue of the mail carrier’s wife had wagged less carelessly since -Louise had invited Amy Sweet to dinner with a lord. Pearl Beatty, who -had recently become Mrs. Jack Wallace, was a tower of strength for -Keble’s cause, for while the women of the Valley whispered about her, -Pearl’s respectability was now unchallengeable and most of her -detractors owed money to Jack for ploughs and harness bought on credit. -Moreover, Pearl, as a university graduate, could make the untutored -respect her opinion, and she was phenomenally successful on the stump. - -The opposing party had, early in the campaign, strengthened their cause -by dropping the man who had represented and neglected them for so many -years, and chosen as their candidate the much more redoubtable Otis -Swigger, proprietor of the Canada House, a director of the Witney bank, -and the holder of many mortgages. Oat was a good “cusser”; he always had -a chew of tobacco for any one amiable enough to listen to his anecdotes; -he was generally conceded to be an enlightened citizen; and he was a -typical product of his district. Moreover, he was popular enough to -enlist the support of many Progressives, who had decided not to put up a -candidate of their own. - -For Louise, whose erratic ways of arriving at conclusions in no sense -invalidated the accuracy of the conclusions arrived at, the factor which -made Oat Swigger a dangerous opponent was that she had, for her own -reasons, decided not to invite him and Minnie to what the Valley -referred to as her “high-toned house-warming”. In the drug-store Minnie -had tried to pass her without speaking, her chalky chin very high in the -air. Louise had grasped Minnie’s shoulder, with a smile on her lips but -a glint in her eye, and said, “You’re getting near-sighted Minnie. How -are you?” - -“Oh, I’m all right, Smarty!” Minnie had retorted, and broken away. -“Never better in my life!” she flung back. - -“For God’s sake touch wood!” Louise had screamed after her, with a wink -for the man behind the counter. “You’re going to vote for us, I hope,” -she said to him. - -“Sure thing!” he agreed. - -It was with these discoveries bubbling in her mind that she sought out -Keble to present a hasty report before the “monster meeting” in the -Valley town hall. - -Keble and Miriam seemed to have taken stock of most of the points she -had observed, but they had thought of nothing as good as the satirical -counters which leaped to her tongue, and in the short interval before -the meeting, Keble jotted down hints. - -Of the three, Louise was the only one who was seized with misgivings -when Pat Goard came to say that the hall was full and it was time to go -on the platform. She held Keble back for a moment. “Do let me speak -too,” she pleaded. - -Keble laughed and she saw a glance pass between him and Miriam which -seemed to say, “That incurable theatricality cropping out again!” - -“I’m afraid there’s no room on the program,” he said. - -“As if that made any difference!” she retorted. “It wouldn’t take me -five minutes to say my piece.” - -“An extempore address might spoil everything,” he remonstrated. “I’m -using your suggestions; they will be the plums in my pudding.” - -She gave it up, but only because the glance between Miriam and Keble had -abashed her. Perhaps it was mere play-acting, she rebelliously -reflected, but it would be first-rate play-acting, and she had meant -every word she had said weeks ago when she had warned Keble that drama -must be infused into politics if he wished to carry the mass. - -She sat on the platform in her khaki riding suit and was startled by the -volume of applause which greeted Keble when it came time for his speech. -She was also cut by the hissing and booing which seemed to be -concentrated in the back of the hall, where she recognized a number of -hoodlums, probably paid. - -She was also startled by the effectiveness of Keble’s speech. It sounded -honest, and she thrilled to a note of authority in his voice and a -strength in his manner for which she had not given him credit. Miriam -seemed not at all surprised,—but Miriam had heard him speak in public -before. - -The audience was attentive, at times vociferously friendly. There were -occasional interruptions and aggressive questions, which Keble found no -difficulty in answering. At the end there was some cheering, and as the -meeting broke up scores of men and a few women came to shake hands with -Keble. - -Louise greeted friends and used every acquaintanceship in the interest -of propaganda, but secretly she was panic-stricken. She had seen the -Valley in all its moods, and she knew that this evening’s hearty good -will had not been fired with the enthusiasm that won Valley elections. -She was afraid to meet Keble’s eyes, and was glad that in his flush of -triumph at the cheers and individual assurances, he failed to see her -doubt. - -They reached the doctor’s house late in the evening, and went straight -to bed in order to be fresh for the strenuous day at Witney. Louise did -not sleep. She was haunted by the sight of earnest, slightly puzzled, -friendly and unfriendly faces, and by the sound of jeers. Her brain -revolved a dozen schemes, and before she fell asleep she had drawn up a -private plan of campaign. - -After breakfast she went to the bank and cashed a cheque. Then she made -a round of the garages and stables and hired every available conveyance. -While Keble was talking with groups of men in the town, she was using -every minute, unknown to him, to collect influential members of the -community and make them promise to travel to Witney for the final rally -that evening. The cars and wagons were to leave an hour after her -husband’s departure. Nothing was to be said to him about the scheme, for -she was reserving it as a surprise. Her conscience told her it was what -Keble would spurn as “flummery”. Well, it was a flummery world. - -After dinner at the Majestic Hotel in Witney, followed by anteroom -interviews, Keble and his band of supporters, to the blare of trumpets -which made Miriam conceal a smile, proceeded to the Arena, a wooden -edifice with a false front rising proudly above the highest telephone -poles. Flags, posters, slogans, confetti, and peanut shells abounded. -There were argumentative groups outside the doors, while within, every -available seat was taken and already there was talk of an overflow -meeting. Louise had had the satisfaction of seeing her phenomenal -procession of cars, wagons, and beribboned citizens from the Valley -swarm into the town, headed by the Valley band. It had taken all her -skill to prevent Keble from discovering the ruse. Later on he would find -out and be furious. For the moment she didn’t care what he thought. -Besides, it wasn’t bribery to offer people a lift over a distance of -thirty-five miles to listen to a speech. She wasn’t bribing them to -vote; they could vote for or against, as their feelings should dictate -after she had got through with them. Moreover, even if it was trickery, -she had used her own money,—not Keble’s. She smiled at the reflection -that Walter’s predictions were coming true; how it would have amused him -to see her being, with a vengeance, “one decent member of society”! - -The applause on Keble’s appearance was not deafening. After all, Witney -was less well acquainted with Keble than the Valley, even though it had -pleasant recollections of the compliments uttered by his father from the -back platform of a governmental railway carriage. Keble’s address was -similar to former addresses, though throughout this final day he had -brought together concise counter arguments to new attacks, and had -prepared a damaging criticism of his opponent’s latest rosy promises. He -was more than cordially received, but again Louise felt the absence of -enthusiasm which represents the margin of a majority. - -When he had resumed his seat, Mr. Goard, in accordance with a secret -plan, called on Mrs. Eveley, to the amazement of Miriam and Keble, and -to the wonderment of the big audience, who had had three serious -speeches to digest and who sensed in the new move a piquant diversion. - -“Last night,” Louise began, “I asked my husband to let me speak at the -Valley mass meeting, and he objected. So, ladies and gentlemen, -to-night, I didn’t ask his permission at all. I asked Mr. Goard’s, and -as you all know, Pat Goard could never resist a lady.” - -Already she had changed the mind of a score of men who had been on the -point of leaving the hall. - -“I wouldn’t give my husband away by telling you he refused, unless it -illustrated a point I wish to make. The point is that no matter how hard -a man objects,—and the better they are the more they do object,—his -wife always takes her own way in the end. Not only that, ladies and -gentlemen, but the wife adds much more color to her husband’s public -policies than the public realizes. You’ve heard the proverb about the -hand that rocks the cradle. I don’t for a second claim that the average -wife is capable of thinking out a political platform; certainly I -couldn’t; but she is like the irritating fly that goads the horse into a -direction that he didn’t at all know he was going to take. What it all -boils down to is this: when you elect Keble Eveley at the polls -to-morrow, you’ll elect me too. And if you were by any mischance to -elect Oat Swigger, you’d be electing Minnie Swigger. Minnie Swigger is a -jolly good girl, one of my oldest friends. But the point is, ladies and -gentlemen, I can lick Minnie!” - -Shouts of laughter interrupted her. Miriam and Keble had ceased being -shocked. However much they might deprecate her sops to the groundlings, -they were hypnotized by her control of the mass which had a few minutes -earlier been heterogeneous and capricious. Her direct personal allusions -had dispelled a hampering ceremoniousness that had prevailed all -evening. - -“Once when we were girls together at the Valley school,” Louise -continued, seeing that her audience appreciated the reference to Mrs. -Swigger. “I _did_ lick her. I had more hair for her to pull, and she -made the most of it. But I had a champion’s uppercut. Now gentlemen, -when you go to the polls to-morrow, don’t back the wrong girl.” - -She took a step nearer the row of lamps and held them by a change of -mood. “A little while ago somebody said that Keble Eveley was a dude. If -he were, his wife would be a dude too; and though I’ve come up against a -lot of rough characters in my time, nobody has yet been mean enough to -call me a dude to my face; things said behind your back don’t count. So -now, man to man, is there anybody here who has the nerve to call us -dudes? If there is let him say it now, or forever hold his peace.” - -There was a silence, then a shuffling sound directed attention to a -corner, whence a facetious voice called out, “His father’s a sure enough -dude, ain’t he?” - -Louise darted a glance to see who had spoken, paused a moment, smiled, -and took the audience into her confidence. “It’s Matt Hardy,” she -announced. “Matt’s a clever boy (Matt was fifty and weighed fifteen -stone), but like many clever people he overshoots the mark. Matt says -Keble Eveley’s father is a dude; and his obvious implication is that we -are therefore dudes. For the sake of argument, let’s admit that Lord -Eveley is a dude——” - -“A damn fine dude at that,” interposed a friendly voice. - -“A damn fine dude,” echoed Louise. “We’ll admit that.” She wheeled -around with dramatic suddenness, facing Matt’s corner. “Now Matt Hardy’s -father used to live in Utah. The obvious implication is that Matt is a -Mormon with six concealed wives.” - -There was a howl of enjoyment while the discomfited Matthew tried to -maintain a good-humored front against the nudges with which his -neighbours plagued him. The success of the sally lay in the fact that -every one knew Matt for a bachelor who paid his taxes and enjoyed an -immaculate reputation. - -Louise’s spirits rose as she leaned forward over the lights and focused -attention again by a gesture of her arms. - -“It doesn’t in the least matter whether we’re dudes or not,” she said. -“You’re going to elect us anyway. Bye and bye I’ll tell you why. My -husband told you some of the reasons, but there are a lot of others he -hadn’t time to touch on. Never mind that now. Before I get to the -reasons I must sweep the ground clear of objections. That’s the quickest -way. I’ve disposed of one. Are there any other objections to us as your -representatives in the Legislative Assembly? Any more objections, Matt?” - -Matt was still smarting. He had been harboring a desire for revenge. But -his wits stood still under provocation. - -“Matt’s cartridges are used up,” she announced, turning away. - -“No they’re not,” he shouted, with a sudden inspiration. “You’re -French.” - -His voice was drowned by a chorus of jeers. Louise motioned for silence, -then smiled imperturbably. “That’s what Minnie Swigger said, ladies and -gentlemen. That’s what we fought about. And Minnie was half right. But -only half. She overlooked the fact that _me mother was Irish_!” - -The success of this was almost too great. It threatened to rob the -session of its seriousness. After the first delight had simmered down, -individuals were suddenly seized with a recollection of the wink and the -brogue and burst into renewed guffaws or slapped their legs with -resounding thwacks. - -Louise saw the necessity of counteracting this levity, and for several -minutes talked straight at the issue, pointing out the practical changes -that had come about as a result of her husband’s efforts to civilize and -develop his district, and the far-reaching improvements that he, of all -people, was in a position to effectuate. She heard herself enunciating -facts and generalizations which had never occurred to her before. Once -again, as in the case of Billy Salter’s funeral, she found herself -thinking in public more rapidly and concisely than she had ever thought -in private. And under the surface of it all was a wonderment that she -should be so passionately supporting Keble in a plan that had been -distasteful to her. - -Only once she relieved the tenseness by another flash of humor, when, -referring to the candidature of Otis Swigger, she said that while Oat’s -barber shop in the Valley had always been recognized as a public forum, -Oat would be at a distinct disadvantage in Parliament, because he -couldn’t lather the faces of the other members, consequently no one -would be obliged to listen to him. - -She brought her address to a climax with the instinct of an orator, just -when the whole audience had settled down comfortably for more. - -She paused a moment, exulting in the silence, then, changing from an -earnest to a girlish manner, she dropped her arms and said quietly, -“Well, ladies and gentlemen, you still have twelve hours to think over -the truth of all I’ve said. Are you going to vote for us?” - -The answer was in an affirmative that shook the rafters of the Arena and -made Miriam turn pale. The air was charged with an enthusiasm which for -Louise, as she sank back exhausted, spelt Majority. Keble was forced to -acknowledge the prolonged acclamation, and Pat Goard quickly followed up -the advantage with a few words of dismissal. - -Excitement and lack of sleep, following on her long ordeal, had -overtaxed Louise. She felt weak and a little frightened as she walked -towards a side door in a deserted back room of the building, followed by -Keble, who came running to overtake. - -“I know it was cheap,” she quickly forestalled him, “but I couldn’t help -it.” He seemed to have been subdued by the pandemonium she had let -loose, as though suddenly aware that he had been satisfied with too -little until she gave a demonstration of what pitch enthusiasm could and -must be raised to. “It’s my love of acting,” she added. “I hope you -weren’t annoyed.” - -Keble was in the grip of a retrospective panic. “Why am I always finding -things out so late!” he cried, with a profound appeal in his voice. “I’m -always walking near a precipice in the fog. Why can’t I see the things -you see?” - -Her fatigue made her a little hysterical. “Why do you keep your eyes -shut?” she retorted. - -A cloud of feeling that had been growing heavier for weeks burst and -deluged Keble with the sense of what his wife meant to him. He saw what -a jabber all social intercourse might become should she withhold her -interpretative affection from him or expend it elsewhere. He had long -been restive under her continued use of the weapon of polite negativity -with which he had originally defended himself against her impulsiveness. -Now he longed to recapture the sources of the old impulsiveness, to -defend them as his rarest possession, and his longing was redoubled by a -fear that it was too late. - -“Why——” he commenced, but his voice broke and he reached out his arms. -It was dark. She was dazed, and seemed to ward him off. - -“Then what made you do it?” he finally contrived to say. “You’ve saved -the day, if it can be saved. Not that it really matters. Why? Why? Why -not have let me blunder along to defeat, like the silly ass I am?” - -“No woman likes to see her husband beaten,” she replied, in tired, -tearful tones, “by a barber!” she added. - -“Louise!” he implored, in a welter of hopes, fears, and longings that -made him for once brutally incautious. He caught her into his arms, then -marvelled at the limpness of her body. He turned her face to the dim -light, and saw that she had fainted. - - 2 - -Not until Dare had been driven to Witney, there to entrain for the -coast, did Louise give in to the weariness with which she had been -contending for many days prior to Keble’s election. Only her -determination to spare Dare the knowledge that she had overtaxed her -strength for him kept her from yielding sooner. On the day of his -departure she retired to her bedroom, drew the blinds, got into bed, and -gave an order that nobody should be admitted. They might interpret her -retirement as grief at Dare’s departure if they chose; for the moment -she didn’t care a tinker’s dam what any one thought. - -Aunt Denise discouraged Keble’s immediate attempt to telephone for Dr. -Bruneau. “She doesn’t need medicine,” she said, “but rest. Leave her to -me; I understand her temperament.” - -Once more Keble and Miriam could only pool their helplessness. - -“We had better leave matters in her hands,” Miriam decided. “The -Bruneaus seem to be infallible in cases of illness.” - -Keble was only half reassured. “Usually when Louise has a headache that -would drive any ordinary person mad, she goes out and climbs -Hardscrapple. I have a good mind to telephone in spite of Aunt Denise.” - -“If you do,” said Miriam, “Louise will be furious, and that will only -make matters worse. It’s merely exhaustion. Even I have seen it coming.” - -“I wish to God I’d fetched a nurse from Harristown when Dare was ill.” - -“Louise wouldn’t have given up her patient if you had imported a dozen.” - -Keble was vexed and bitterly unhappy. “What are you going to do with a -woman like that!” he cried. “I don’t mind her having her own way; but -damn it all, I object to her doing things that half kill her. That’s -stupid.” - -One of the most difficult lessons Miriam had learnt in her long -discipleship under Louise was how and when to be generous. She saw an -opportunity and breathed more freely. “I think it’s cruel of you to call -her sacrifice stupid. If she breaks down it is not that she has -undertaken too much; but that other people undertake so little. When -Louise resolved to nurse Dare she did it because there was, as she said -to me, no one else. But during that period she was putting the best -brain-work into our campaign. The minute she was free she went to the -Valley, worked like a horse, and turned the tide single-handed because, -as she might have put it, there was nobody else. She thinks and acts for -us all. It isn’t our fault if we are not alert enough to live up to her -standard, but the least we can do when she becomes a victim to our -sluggishness is to refrain from blaming her.” - -“Well, Miriam, I give it up! I don’t understand Louise; I don’t -understand Aunt Denise; I don’t even understand you. You women have one -set of things to say for publication, and then disclose amendments which -alter the color of the published reports. Each new disclosure rings -true, yet they don’t piece together into anything recognizable. I no -sooner get my sails set than the breeze shifts. . . . There’s only one -thing left for me to do, and that is to go on as I began, just crawling -along like a tortoise, colliding into everything sooner or later. By the -time I’m eighty I may have learned something and got somewhere. If not -I’ll just stumble into my grave, and on my tombstone they can write, -‘Poor devil, he meant well’.” - -Miriam had been laughing at the funny aspect of his misery, but her -smile became grim. “That isn’t a bad epitaph. I wish I could be sure -that I’ll be entitled to one as good.” - -Keble glanced at her curiously. “You’re morbid, Miriam. I don’t wonder, -with the monotony of our life here.” - -“No,” she corrected, despite the tyrant. “The life here has done more -than anything to cure me of morbidness. Although, to tell the truth, I -wasn’t conscious of the morbid streak in me until after I’d been here -for a while.” To herself Miriam explained the matter with the help of a -photographic metaphor: Keble’s personality had been a solution which -brought out an alluring but reprehensible image on the negative of her -heart; Louise’s character had been a solution which had gradually -brought out a series of surrounding images which threw the reprehensible -image into the right proportion, subordinating it to the background -without in any way dimming it. Miriam was now forced to admit that one -overture on Keble’s part, one token of a tyrant within him that -reciprocated the desire of her tyrant, would have sufficed to overthrow -all her scruples. - -“I don’t see what you mean,” said Keble. - -Miriam thought for a moment. “You deserve an explanation. I can’t -explain it all; it’s too personal.” She had almost said too humiliating. -“But I’ll make a partial confession. Louise imported me here long ago as -a sort of tutor, at her expense. You weren’t to know; but it can’t do -any harm to give the game away now. While I was supposed to be tutoring -her, I was really learning. By watching Louise I’ve learned the beauty -of unselfishness, trite as that may sound. I can’t be unselfish on -Louise’s scale, for I can’t be anything on her scale, good, bad, or -indifferent. But like you I can mean well, and since I’ve known Louise I -can mean _better_. - -“You sometimes speak of Louise’s play-acting. When your people were here -we once said that she was having a lovely time showing off. I know -better now. I’m convinced that she was trying, in her own way, to -reflect distinction on you, just as I’m convinced that when she -jerrymandered the proletariat she was going it in the face of bodily -discomfort and your disapproval simply because she couldn’t bear the -thought of your being disappointed. I don’t think either of us has given -Louise enough credit for disinterestedness, chiefly because she doesn’t -give herself credit for it. She prates so much about her individual -rights, that we assume her incapable of sacrificing them. At times we’ve -mistaken her pride for indifference. Do look back and see if that isn’t -so. I’m inclined to think that even her present illness is merely the -nervous strain consequent upon some splendid reticence.” - -Miriam paused, unable to confess that the reticence had to do with -herself, as she suspected it had. She saw that she had permission to go -on. - -“Then her interest in Dare. That, you and I have avoided referring to, -and I think we were a little hypocritical. But the core of the secret is -connected with Dare, and I can’t do Louise the injustice of not telling -you. It was unpardonable of me to listen, but I did. I was in the -sun-parlor, in the hammock, dozing, and she and Dare came and sat by the -fire in the hall. The door was open.” - -“When was this?” - -“Only yesterday. They were talking about the elections. ‘When I saw all -those idiots wavering between Oat Swigger and Keble,’ she said, -‘something snapped. From that moment I had only one determination: to -make them feel the worth of all the things Keble stood for in the -universe’ . . . The conversation swung around to the monkey. She told -Dare, as she had long ago told me, that before the monkey arrived she -hoped he would be a boy, not for her sake, but to gratify his -grandfathers. Then when he did turn out a boy, she was amazed to find -herself thankful for your sake. The grandfathers were forgotten, but she -was indifferent. Then after the elections she was for the first time -conscious of cherishing the monkey for her own sake. That feeling grew -until she suddenly resented your rights in him. Then yesterday she took -it into her head to bathe the monkey, and had an insane delusion that -she could wash off his heredity,—scrubbed like a charwoman till the -poor darling howled. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘I was sorry, and by the time I -had got on all his shirts I felt that I had put his heredities on again, -and was glad and kissed him and he flapped his arms and squealed. Then I -cried, because, deep down, I was terrified that perhaps Keble might some -day, if he hasn’t already, resent _my_ contribution to the monkey’.” - -Miriam waited. “I couldn’t resist passing on that monologue to you, for -it seems the most complete answer to many criss-cross questions, and -Louise might never have brought herself to let you see. It would be -impudent of me to say all this had we not formed a habit out here of -being so criss-crossly communicative, and if you hadn’t tacitly given me -a big sister’s licence. Anyway, there it is, for what it’s worth. At -least I mean well.” - -Keble was too strangely moved to trust his voice, and walked out of the -house to ride over the rain-soaked roads. - -That was the most bitter moment that Miriam had ever experienced. She -had come to know that Keble had no emotion to spare for her; but that he -should fail to see into her heart, or, seeing, refuse her the barest -little sign of understanding and compassion,—it was really not quite -fair. - -She had letters to write. She had decided to leave, but apart from that -her plans were uncertain. Her most positive aim was to avoid living with -her old-fashioned aunt in Philadelphia. Grimly she looked forward to a -process of gradual self-effacement. In two or three years she would -probably not receive invitations to the bigger houses. Then there would -be some hot little flat in Washington, on the Georgetown side, with -occasional engagements to give lessons in something,—at best a post as -social secretary to the wife of some new Cabinet Member full of her -importance. Something dependent, and dingy. Each year would add its -quota to an accumulation of dust on the shelves of her heart. And with a -sigh she would take down from a shelf and from time to time reread this -pathetic romance in the wilderness. From time to time she would receive -impulsive invitations from Louise, and would invent excuses for -declining. Perhaps, some years hence, when she could view the episode -with some degree of impersonality and humor, she would write a long -letter of confession to Louise. In advance she was sure of absolution. -That was her only comfort. - -Dare had guessed her secret, and she had been too hypocritical to take -him into her confidence. Now that he was gone she regretted that she had -not been flexible enough to enter into the spirit of his overture. By -evading, she had not only screened her own soul, but denied -commiseration to him. In future she would try to be more alert to such -cues. She wondered whether inflexibility might not have had a good deal -to do with the barrenness of her life. She even wondered whether at -thirty-five one would be ridiculous in vowing to become flexible,—would -that be savoring too strongly of the old maids in farces? - -From her window, as she was patting her hair into place before going -down to tea, she caught sight of Keble’s tall, clean figure dismounting -at the edge of the meadow. Katie was passing along the road with the -perambulator, and Keble went out of his way to greet the monkey. His -high boots were splashed with mud. His belted raincoat emphasized the -litheness of his body. The face that bent over the carriage glowed from -sharp riding against the damp air. The monkey was trying to pull off the -peak of his father’s cap, and Keble was pretending to be an ogre. Katie -looked on indulgently. - -“Even Katie,” thought Miriam, “puts more into life than I do.” A few -months before, Miriam would have thought, “gets more out of it.” - -The mail had been delayed by the state of the roads. Miriam found a -letter from London. When tea was poured she read as follows: - -“My dear Miss Cread: I don’t know whether you are still at Hillside or -whether you will be at all interested in the suggestion I am about to -make, but I am writing on the off chance. My old friend Aurelie -Graybridge is leaving soon on a visit to America. Yesterday, during a -chat with her, I happened to mention your name. She recalled having met -you some years ago, and inquired minutely after you. She has been -looking for a companion to help her keep the run of her committees, and -so forth. For several years a cousin was with her, but her cousin -married and that leaves her with no one. I suggested that you might be -induced to go to her, and she asked me to sound you. - -“You would divide your time between England and the continent. The -duties would be light, chiefly correspondence. A good deal of spare -time; travelling and all expenses provided, and a decent allowance. - -“Aurelie plans to sail next week. I’m enclosing her address. Please -write her if the idea appeals to you. I hope it may, for that will mean -that I shall be likely to see you from time to time. You may of course -have much more interesting plans, in which case don’t mind this -gratuitous scrawl.” - -It was signed by Alice Eveley. Miriam restored the letter to its -envelope, and was thankful that Keble and Aunt Denise were too occupied -to notice her face. - -Her anger was redoubled by the realization that the offer was too good -to be turned down. She knew she would end by despatching an amiably -worded letter to Mrs. Graybridge, then write Keble’s sister a note -thanking her for her kind thoughtfulness. - -“The cat! Oh, the cat!” she was saying under her breath. - - 3 - -In the third week of December Keble returned to Hillside after his first -session in the Provincial Assembly. He had been loth to leave his wife -at the ranch, but she had been too weak to accompany him and was still -somewhat less energetic than she had formerly been. Keble found her on a -divan in her own sitting room, with the monkey propped up beside her. - -“It’s just as you said it would be,” he remarked. “Having to waste -precious weeks in that dull hole makes the ranch so unbelievably -wonderful a place to come back to!” - -When the first questions had been answered, Louise held up a prettily -bound little volume from which she had been reading. “Look! A Christmas -present already,—from Walter Windrom. A collection of his own verse.” - -Keble admired it, then Louise, in a tone which she succeeded in making -casual, said, indicating one of the pages, “That’s a strange sort of -poem, the one called ‘Constancy’. Whatever made Walter write a thing -like that?” - -Keble read the poem. “I’ve seen it before. It’s quite an old one. Girlie -clipped it from some review or other and sent it to me.” - -“What does it mean?” Louise insisted. - -“How should I know?” he laughed. “Girlie had a theory about it. Walter -was smitten with an American actress for a while,—what was her name? -Myra something: Myra Pelter. She treated him rather shabbily. Took his -present, then threw him down for somebody else, I believe, after they’d -been rather thicker, as a matter of fact, than Girlie quite knew. Walter -is romantic, you know, for all his careful cynicism; he’s always singing -the praises of bad lots, and that makes Girlie wild, naturally. Girlie -said the poem was Walter’s attempt to justify this Myra person’s uppish -treatment of him, an attempt to make her out a lady with duties to -art,—all that sort of blether. It’s Girlie’s prosaic imagination: she -can never read a book or a poem without trying to fit it, word for word, -into the author’s private life. I had quite forgotten its existence.” - -It was difficult for Louise to conceal her relief after years of pent-up -unhappiness caused by her over-subjective interpretation of the poem’s -mission. “How could a man as clever as Walter ever take Myra Pelter and -her art seriously. Miriam and I went to see her once. She’s only a -Japanese doll!” - -“Dolls are an important institution. They have turned wiser heads than -Walter’s.” - -Louise looked again at the historical lines. “I hate it,” she mildly -remarked. - -“Tell Walter so—not me!” - -“Oh no,” she sighed. “The poor little lines meant well enough.” - -While her remark did not make sense to him, it seemed an echo of -something he had once said to himself; it brought a dim recollection of -pain. - -“But I _would_ tell him at a pinch,” she continued. “I’m no doll that -says only the ugly things for which you press a button in its back!” - -“Ungainly sentence, that!” - -He remembered now. It was the ghostly little gramaphone record, that had -brought him a message about Dare. - -“It’s an ungainly subject,” she retorted, absent-mindedly. - -“Change it then. There’s always the monkey.” - -“Yes, there’s him. Aren’t you glad?” - -“Rather! . . . I don’t suppose anything could be done about his legs. -They’re as curved as hoops. If he ever tries to make a goal he’ll have -to stand facing the side-lines and kick sideways like a crab.” - -Louise buried her nose in the monkey’s fragrant dress and shook him into -laughter. She was languidly wondering where her own goal was, whether it -was still ahead or whether, as Walter had so discouragingly predicted, -she would find it at her starting post. She was happy; but she suspected -that she was happy only for the moment. The complacence with which Keble -had accepted their revival of interest in each other was already -stirring a little singing restlessness of nerves within her. He so had -the air of having won the race. Perhaps he had, and perhaps he always -would. But she was none the less hare-like, for all that! She looked -into the monkey’s eyes. “Tell your daddy,” she said, “the important -thing is to _make_ the goal,—whether you do it sideways or frontways or -whatever old ways!” - - THE END - - - - - TRANSCRIBER NOTES - -Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple -spellings occur, majority use has been employed. - -Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors -occur. - - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARE AND TORTOISE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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margin-right: 1em; } - div.blockquote { margin-top:.5em; margin-bottom:.5em; } - .pindent {margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0em;} - .literal-container { margin-top:.5em; margin-bottom:.5em } - div.lgc { margin-top:.5em; margin-bottom:.5em } - .dropcap { font-size: 280%; margin:-0.1em 0.0em 0 0; } - </style> - </head> - <body> - -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hare and Tortoise, by Pierre Coalfleet</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Hare and Tortoise</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Pierre Coalfleet</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 7, 2021 [eBook #65556]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Alex White & the online Project Gutenberg team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARE AND TORTOISE ***</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0000' style='width:350px;height:auto;'/> -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';bold;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:2.5em;font-weight:bold;'><span class='gesp'>HARE AND</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:2.5em;font-weight:bold;'><span class='gesp'>TORTOISE</span></p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='font-weight:bold;'>By</p> -<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.2em;font-size:1.2em;font-weight:bold;'>PIERRE COALFLEET</p> -<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;font-weight:bold;'><span class='it'>Author of “Solo</span>”</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='font-weight:bold;'>McCLELLAND & STEWART</p> -<p class='line0' style='margin-top:.5em;font-size:.8em;font-weight:bold;'>PUBLISHERS TORONTO</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-bottom:10em;'> <!-- rend=';fs:.8em;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'>Copyright 1925 by</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'>THE FORUM PUBLISHING COMPANY</p> -<hr class='tbk100'/> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'>Copyright 1925 by</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'>DUFFIELD & COMPANY</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;'><span class='it'>Printed in U. S. A.</span></p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-bottom:15em;'> <!-- rend=';bold;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-weight:bold;'>To</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='font-weight:bold;'>R. M.</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:25em;font-weight:bold;'>HARE AND TORTOISE</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:2em;font-weight:bold;'>HARE and TORTOISE</p> - -<div><h1 class='nobreak'>CHAPTER I</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>K</span>EBLE EVELEY’S voice, rising and falling -in graceful patterns, had lulled his wife’s -mind into a tranquil remoteness. She had -got more from the sinuosity of the sentences he was -reading than from the thesis they upheld. Walter -Pater had so little to tell her that she needed to know. -This vaguely chagrined her, for Keble thought highly -of Pater; Pater and he had something in common, -something impeccable and elusive, something—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She checked her musings in alarm at the menacing -word “affected.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Was it affectation on Keble’s part? Or was there -perhaps a winnowed level of civilization thousands -of miles east of these uncouth hills and beyond the -sea where precious phrases like Pater’s and correct -manners like Keble’s were matter of course? In any -such <span class='it'>milieu</span> what sort of figure could <span class='it'>she</span> hope to -cut?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No doubt a pitiful one. And her thoughts drifted -wistfully but resignedly down the stream of consciousness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was not the first time she had failed to keep -stroke with Keble in the literary excursions he conducted -on cool evenings before a log fire that had -been burning since their marriage in the autumn, six -months before. Only a few evenings past he had -read a poem by Robert Browning, who was to Louise -merely a name that had fallen from the lips of her -English teacher at Normal School. She had felt herself -rather pleasantly scratched and pommeled by the -lines as Keble had read them, but they had failed to -make continuous sense. And next morning, when -she had gone to the book-shelves to read and ponder -in private, she hadn’t even been able to identify the -incoherent poem among the host of others in the red -volume.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once, too, when he had been playing the piano she -had been humiliatingly inept. For an hour she had -been happy to lie back and listen to harmonies which, -though they had signified no more to her than a -monologue in a foreign tongue, had moved her to the -verge of tears. Then he had played something he -called a prelude, a pallidly gay composition utterly -unlike many others called preludes, and on finishing -it had turned to ascertain its effect upon her. She -hadn’t been listening carefully, for it had set an old -tune running in her head. “It’s pretty, dear,” she -had commented. “It reminds me of something Nana -used to hum.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her remark was inspired, for the suave prelude in -question was no more than a modern elaboration of -a folk-theme that was a common heritage of the composer -and Nana. But the association between a -French-Canadian servant-girl and the winner of a -recent <span class='it'>prix de Rome</span> had been too remote even for -her musically discerning young husband, who had -got up from the piano with a hint of forbearance in -his manner. That had cut her to the quick, for it -had implied maladdress on her part, and gradually, -through an intuitive process that hurt, she had gained -an inkling of the incongruity of her comparison. -She had wished to state the incongruity and turn it -off with a touch of satire aimed at her headlong -self, but chagrin had held her mute. It was one of -those occasions where an attempted explanation -would only underline the regrettable fact that an explanation -had been needed. Her ideas, she felt, -would always be ill-assorted; her comments, however -good <span class='it'>per se</span>, irrelevant. Her mind was a basket -tumbling over with wild flowers; it must be annoying -for Keble to find pollen on his nose from a dandelion -in the basket after he had leaned forward at the invitation -of a violet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rising from her couch she crossed the room on -tiptoe and sat on the arm of Keble’s chair, leaning -her head on his back as he continued to read.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“After that sharp, brief winter, the sun was already -at work, softening leaf and bud, as you might -feel by a faint sweetness in the air,” read Keble.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The faint sweet airs of a Western Canadian -spring,—the first after a sharp <span class='it'>long</span> winter,—were -at the black open window, stirring the curtains, cooling -her cheek; and Keble was with Marius the Epicurean -in Rome, seven thousand miles and many -centuries away.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“. . . Marius climbed the long flights of steps to -be introduced to the emperor Aurelius. Attired in -the newest mode, his legs wound in dainty <span class='it'>fasciae</span> -of white leather, with the heavy. . . .”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise placed her hands across the page and leaned -forward over Keble’s shoulder to kiss the cheek half-turned -in polite interrogation. “Are <span class='it'>fasciae</span> puttees, -darling?” she inquired. Not that she really cared. -Indeed she was dismayed when he began to explain, -and yawned. Penitently she sank to an attitude of -attention upon a stool at his feet. Keble got up for -his pipe, placing the book on a large rough table -beside neat piles of books and reviews.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise remained on her footstool looking after -him; then, as he turned to come back, transferred -her gaze to her hands, got up, biting her lip, and -crossed the room for her needlework.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble’s influence during the last year had been -chastening. Her own ideas were vivid, but impetuous; -they often scampered to the edge of -abysses—and plunged in. At times she abruptly -stopped, lost in wonderment at her husband’s easy, -measured stride. Keble, like Marius, mounted flights -of thought in dainty <span class='it'>fasciae</span>,—never in plain puttees,—and -always step by step. She dashed up, pell-mell, -and sometimes beat him; but often fell sprawling at -the emperor’s feet. Whereupon Keble would help -her up, brush her, and pet her a little, only to resume -the gait that she admired but despaired of acquiring. -Beyond her despair there was an ache, for she had -come to believe that, as Lord Chesterfield put it, -“Those lesser talents, of an engaging, insinuating -manner, or easy good breeding, a gentle behavior -and address, are of infinitely more advantage than -they are generally thought to be.” Even in Alberta.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She herself had written pages and pages of prose, -and had filled an old copy-book with incoherent little -poems of which Keble knew nothing. They sang of -winds sweeping through canyons and across sage -plains, of snowy forests and frozen rivers; they uttered -vague lament, unrest, exultation. Through -them surged yearnings and confessions that abashed -her. She kept them as mementoes of youthful rebellion, -shut them up in a corner of the old box that -had conveyed her meagre marriage equipment hither -from her father’s tiny house in the Valley, and then -watched Keble’s eyes and lips, listened to his spun-silver -sentences in the hope of acquiring clues to—she -scarcely knew what.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble had come to the second lighting of a -thoughtful pipe before the silence was broken. He -looked for some moments in her direction before -saying, “What sort of tea-cozy thing are you making -now, dear?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tea-cozy thing! It was a bureau scarf,—a beautiful, -beautiful one! For the birthday of Aunt -Denise Mornay-Mareuil in Quebec. And Louise -sacrilegiously crossed herself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So beautiful,” he agreed, “that Aunt Denise will -take it straight to her chapel and lay it across the -altar where she says her prayers. You know your -father’s theory that despite oneself one plays into the -hands of the priests. How are you going to get -around that, little heretic?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By writing to Aunt Denise that it’s for her -bureau! <span class='it'>My</span> conscience will be clear. Besides, I’m -making it to give her pleasure, and if it pleases her -to put it on the altar where she prays for that old -scamp, then why not? She loved him, and that’s -enough for her,—the poor dear cross old funny!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would an atheist altar cloth intercept Aunt -Denise’s Roman prayers? Perhaps turn them into -curses?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise ignored this and bit off a piece of silk. -“Besides, I’m not such a <span class='it'>limited</span> heretic as Papa. -I’m a comprehensive heretic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What kind of thing is that, for goodness’ sake?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a kind of thing that pays more attention to -people’s gists than to whether they cross their <span class='it'>i’s</span> and -dot their <span class='it'>t’s</span>. It’s a kind of thing that’s going out to -the pantry and get you something to eat before bed -time, even though it knows it’s bad for you.”</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>From a recalcitrant little garden in front of the -log house, Louise could follow the figure of her husband -on a buckskin colored pony which matched his -blond hair. He was skirting the edge of the lake -toward the trail that led up through pines and aspens -to the ridge where their “Castle” would ultimately be -built. Keble had still three months of his novitiate -as rancher to fulfil before his father’s conservative -doubts would be appeased and the money forthcoming -from London for the project of transforming -the mountain lake and plains into something worthy -the name of “estate”: a comfortable house, a farm, -a stock range, and a game preserve. He was boyishly -in earnest about it all.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Keble had disappeared into the trail, -Louise’s eyes came back along the pebbly strip of -shore, past the green slope that led through thinning -groups of tall cottonwood trees to the superintendent’s -cabin and the barns, resting finally upon the -legend over her front door: <span class='it'>Sans Souci</span>. She remembered -how gaily she had painted the board and -tacked it up. Had the blows of her hammer been -challenges to Fate?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She sighed and bent over the young flower beds. -At an altitude of five thousand feet everything grew -so unwillingly; yet everything that survived seemed -so nervously vital! She dreaded Keble’s grandiose -projects; or rather, the nonchalance with which he -could conceive them intimidated her. There was -something jolly about things as they had been: the -cottage and the horses and dogs, the two servants, -the rattling car, and the canoe. She thought, indulgently, -of the awe in which she had originally held -even this degree of luxury.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her ditch was now fairly free of pebbles, and she -placed the dahlia bulbs in line. As she worked, the -thin mountain sunshine crept up on her, warming, -fusing, gilding her thoughts. Spring could do so -much to set one’s little world aright. In the winter -when the mountains were white and purple and the -emerald water had frozen black, when supplies from -the Valley were held up for days at a time, one was -not so susceptible to the notion of a universal benevolence -as one could be on a morning like this, with its -turquoise sky, its fluffy clouds that seemed to grow -on the tops of the fir trees like cotton, and its rich -silence, only intensified by the scream of a conceited -crane flying from the distant river to the rock in the -lake where he made a daily “grub-call” at the expense -of Keble’s trout.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was one other alien sound: the noise of a -motor, a battered car from the Valley that brought -mail on Tuesdays and Fridays. But this was Monday. -The driver was talking to one of the hands; -and a young stranger, quite obviously a “dude” and -English, was looking about the place with a sort of -eager, friendly curiosity. Then Mr. Brown appeared, -and after a short consultation took the -stranger in the direction of a road that led around -by another route to the ridge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An hour later, from her bedroom window she saw -Keble approaching the cottage, his arm about the -shoulders of the visitor. They might have been two -boys dawdling home from school: boys with a dozen -trifles which they had saved up for each other, to -exchange with intimate lunges and gesticulations. -She had never seen Keble thus demonstrative. Indeed, -she had never seen him before in the company -of a friend. She ran downstairs two steps at a time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, Louise, here’s Windrom out of a blue sky,—you -know: Walter Windrom who was at Marlborough -with me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble had become suddenly casual again and shut -off some current within him in the manner that always -baffled her. She knew Walter Windrom from -Keble’s tales of school life in England, and she had -a quite special corner in her heart for the shy young -man who had been his friend. She envied him for -having been so close to Keble at a time when she -was ignorant of his very existence. Walter could -remember how Keble had looked and talked and -worn his caps at that age, whereas she could only -imagine. She remembered that Keble had marched -off to war instead of going up to Oxford with his -chum, as they had planned, and that Windrom had -recently been given a diplomatic post in Washington. -The image of Keble in a Lieutenant’s uniform -awakened another memory: Keble had once told her -that he and Windrom had played at warfare with -their history master, and with her usual impetuosity -she got part of this picture into her first remark to -the new man: “You used to play tin soldiers together!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And Keble always won the battles, even if he had -to violate the Hague conventions to do it!” Walter’s -tone was indulgent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh!” exclaimed Louise. “But he would break -them so morally! Even the Hague would be fooled.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The history of England in a nutshell,” agreed -Walter. “We played battles like Waterloo, and I -had to be Napoleon to his Wellington.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you didn’t mind really, old man, you know -you didn’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not a bit! The foundation on which true friendship -rests is that one of the parties enjoys to beat, -and the other rather enjoys being beaten.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Walter has turned philosopher and poet and says -clever things that you needn’t believe at all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, but I do believe him,” said Louise quickly, -alarmed at the extent to which she <span class='it'>did</span>. To cover it -she held out her hands with an exuberant cordiality -and drew them into the house.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The luncheon table was drawn near windows -framed by yellow curtains which Louise had herself -hemmed. Through them, beyond the young green -plants in the window-boxes, beyond the broken trees -that Keble called the Castor and Pollux group, from -their resemblance to the pillars in the Roman Forum, -the two mountains that bounded the end of the lake -could be seen coming together in an enormous jagged -V, one overlapping the other in a thickly wooded -canyon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And to think that all this marvel belongs to you, -to do with as you see fit!” exclaimed Windrom. -“It’s as though God had let you put the finishing -touches on a monument He left in the rough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re full of godlike projects,” said Keble. -“This afternoon I’ll find a mount for you and take -you over the place.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let it be a gentle one,” Windrom pleaded. -“Horses scare me,—to say nothing of making me -sore.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sundown won’t,” Louise quickly reassured him, -then turned to her husband. “Let him ride Sundown, -Keble . . . He’s mine,” she explained. “The -only thing left in the rough by God that I’ve had the -honor of improving, apart from myself! Like -lightning if you’re in a hurry, but wonderfully sympathetic. -I’ll give you some lumps of sugar. For -sugar he’ll do anything. He’s the only horse in Alberta -that knows the taste of it. But don’t let Keble -see you pamper him, for he’s getting to be very Canadian -and very Western and calls it dudish and demoralizing -and scolds you for it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She paused, a little abashed by the length to which -her harmless desire to help along the talk had taken -her, and smiled half apologetically, half trustfully as -her husband resumed inquiries about the incredible -number of unheard-of people they knew in common: -people who thought nothing of wandering from -London to Cairo, from New York to Peking: rich, -charming, clever, initiated people,—people who -would always know what to do and say, she was sure -of it.</p> - -<h3>3</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>If it was the natural fate of a tenderfoot that -Sundown should have been lame from a rope-burn -that afternoon and that his understudy should be a -horse that had not been ridden since the previous -summer, it was carelessness on the part of Keble -Eveley that allowed the visitor to climb the perpendicular -trail to the ridge in a loosely cinched saddle. -In any case, when Windrom, in trying to avoid -scraping a left kneecap on one pine tree, caught his -right stirrup in the half fallen dead branch of another, -the horse, reflecting the nervousness of his -rider, began to rear in a manner that endangered his -foothold on the steep slope, and almost before Keble -knew that something was amiss behind him, a sudden -forward motion of the horse, accompanied by a -slipping motion of the saddle, threw his friend -against a vicious rock which marked a bend in the -trail.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble turned and dismounted anxiously when -Windrom failed to rise. The body lay against the -rock, the left arm doubled under it. Keble lifted -his victim upon his own horse and after great difficulty -brought him to the cottage, where an astonishingly -calm Louise vetoed most of his suggestions, installed -the patient as comfortably as possible in bed, -and commanded her husband to get in communication -with the Valley.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Despite the halting telephonic system, the twenty -miles of bad road, the prevalence of spring ailments -throughout the Valley requiring the virtual ubiquitousness -of the little French doctor, it was not many -hours before he arrived to relieve their flagging -spirits. For his son-in-law’s naïve wonderment at -Louise’s efficiency, Dr. Bruneau had only an indulgent -smile. “But why shouldn’t she know what to -do?” he exclaimed. “Is her father not a doctor, and -was her mother not a nurse?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the broken ribs had been set, Louise remained -in the sick-room, and the two men were -smoking before the fire downstairs. The situation -had put the doctor in a reminiscential humor. His -daughter grown up and married, in the rôle of nurse, -set in train memories of the epidemic that had swept -through the Valley when Louise was nine years old. -Her mother had insisted on helping, had gone out -night and day nursing and administering.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And I was so busy tending the others that she -went almost before I knew she was ill. . . . Until -that day, Death had been only my professional -enemy. . . . It was an excellent woman, very <span class='it'>pratique</span>. -Louis is <span class='it'>pratique</span>, too, but <span class='it'>au fond</span> romantic. -That she holds from me. I’m not <span class='it'>pratique</span>. I don’t -collect my bills. But out here, at least, the priests -don’t get what I should have, as they did in Quebec. -Down there they take from the poor people whatever -there is, and nothing is left to pay the bills of a -heretic <span class='it'>médecin</span>. The priests thought that was fair, -since the <span class='it'>médecin</span> gave them nothing for their embroideries -and their holy smells!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here at least one is not molested,—if one were -permitted to enjoy one’s freedom! All my life I -have wanted to sit by my fire and read, one after the -other, every book discouraged by Rome. . . . But -always when I get out my pipe and take down Renan -or Voltaire there is a call: little Johnny has a fit, -come quick; <span class='it'>Madame Chose</span> is having a baby,—<span class='it'>Cré -Mâtin: Madame</span> who has had already twelve! If -the baby lives they thank God; if he dies they blame -me. And that’s life. . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All one can do in this low world, my son, is work, -without asking why. We are like clocks that Nature -has wound up to keep time for her, and it’s enough -that Nature knows what we are registering. The -people who are always trying to read the hour on -their own dials keep damn poor time. Witness my -excellent sister. Denise burns expensive candles for -her <span class='it'>drôle</span> of a husband, that <span class='it'>rusé</span> Mareuil who -marched his socialists up the hill to give him a fine -showing, then, unlike the King of France, stayed -on the hill and let them march down by themselves -when they had served his ambition, and got himself -assassinated for his treachery. And his devout -widow, after fumbling her beads in the parlor, goes -into the pantry to count the gingersnaps for fear the -hired girl has taken some home to her family. -Denise is too spiritual to be a good human clock, -and too full of wheels to be of any use to eternity. -It’s a funny world, <span class='it'>va!</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Dr. Bruneau had gone, Keble reflected that -it was indeed a funny world. Not the least ludicrous -feature of it being that he, the product of many generations -of almost automatic gentility, should have -happened to make himself the son-in-law of a garrulous, -fantastic, kind-hearted, plebeianly shrewd, -Bohemian country physician, who, more like his sister -than he knew, was too spiritual to be successful -in his profession, and too close to the earth to be a -valid sage,—a man of the people, of the soil from -which Louise had come forth as the fine flower.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He recalled with a faint smile the pretexts he used -to devise for dropping into the doctor’s little house -on his long ski-journeys to the Valley: a fancied ailment, -the desire to borrow a book or offer a gift of -whisky from a recently-arrived supply. He recalled -his reluctant leave-takings and the very black, mocking -eyes, tantalizing lips, and jaunty curls of the girl -who accompanied him to the door. He recalled the -shock of his sense of fitness on realizing during the -spring the significance of his visits; his abrupt pilgrimage -to the family fold in England to repair his -perspective; the desolating sense of absence; the sudden -cablegram; and her proud, challenging reply. It -had been brought to him just before dinner, and he -could yet feel the thrill that had passed through him -as he entered the dining-room formulating his revolutionary -announcement.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He recalled with a little twinge the scared expression -that had come over his mother’s face, the hurt -and supercilious protest voiced by his sister, the -strained congratulations offered by Girlie Windrom, -Walter’s sister, who had been visiting them, and the -ominous silence from the paternal end of the table. -A few days later his father had seen him off to -Southampton, with the final comment: “Till the soil -by all means, my boy. I can understand a farmer. -We’ve all farmed. But we’ve never gone so far afield -for our wives.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, with a more sympathetic impulse his father -had said, “Your mother and I had rather set our -hearts on Girlie Windrom for you. One of these -days you will have to assume responsibilities as head -of the family, whether it bores you or not, and it is -not wholly reassuring to know that our name will be -handed on to nephews of a French-Canadian traitor.” -Keble had reflected that Louise could scarcely be held -to account for her aunt’s marriage to a man who had -brilliantly satirized some of his father’s most pompous -Imperialistic speeches, but he had seen that -nothing would be gained by pointing this out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He could almost wish he had had a brother who -might have satisfied the family by marrying Girlie, -understudying his father in the ranks of the diehards, -and going through all the other motions appropriate -to the heir of a statesman, a landlord, and -a viscount.</p> - -<h3>4</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Walter was at first embarrassed by having his -chum’s wife assume all the duties of a nurse, but -gradually under her deft regime the two men, and -later Mrs. Windrom, who had set out from Washington -on receiving news of the accident, took -Louise’s ministrations as matter of course. Louise -saved her pride by announcing that she was a born -Martha, but privately resolved that, for the future, -her Mary personality should not so easily be caught -napping.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Except for strangers who at rare intervals had -strayed thither on hunting trips, Mrs. Windrom was -the first woman of Keble’s world who had entered -their house. After her first maternal anxiety had -been allayed and she had been assured that Dr. -Bruneau had not mis-set her son’s bones, Mrs. Windrom -made a point of being pleasant to the young -woman who was filling the place she had always expected -her own daughter to occupy. Unfortunately, -Louise <span class='it'>felt</span> that Mrs. Windrom made a point of it. -Being a woman of restricted imagination, Mrs. -Windrom was at a loss for ways and means to be -friendly with a girl who had scarcely heard of the -routines and the people comprising her stock-in-trade. -There was not much to say beyond “good mornings” -and “my dears,” and the very lack of an -extensive common ground made it necessary for -Mrs. Windrom to fill the gap with superfluous politenesses. -She never failed to commend Louise’s tea -and cakes, her pretty linen patterns, and her bouquets -of wild flowers, but for the quick intuition, the embarrassed -private cogitation, and the tortuous readjustments -of manner by means of which Louise -achieved absence of friction, Mrs. Windrom had -necessarily only a limited appreciation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once or twice Louise, whose patience was particularly -tried by Mrs. Windrom’s incomprehensible -habit of remaining in her bedroom until eleven, experienced -a sensation of deep, angry rebellion, for -which she ended by chiding herself and went on -grimly fulfilling her self-appointed tasks sustained -by an undercurrent of pride that would not have been -lost on Keble had he not been caught back into the -past for the moment, to rebreathe the faded but sweet -odors of the hawthorne hedges and the red-leather -clubs he had abandoned nearly three years ago.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Walter, towards the end of his recovery, more -than once sensed the loneliness of Louise’s position. -Being conscientious as well as shy, he was at some -pains to conjure up discreet words in which to couch -his feeling. Meanwhile his glances and gentle acknowledgments -gave her the stimulus she needed to -carry her through.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the day set for their departure, Walter made -a meticulous avowal of gratitude which reached a -chord in her nature that had never been made to vibrate. -“Sometimes, at least once in the course of a -woman’s married life,” he said, “I imagine there is -some service, perhaps trifling, perhaps important, -that only a man other than her husband can render. -If such an occasion ever arises for you, I shall be -there, eager to perform it. I think I can be impersonal -and friendly at the same time. It’s my only -real talent. Moreover, I’m older than Keble, in imagination -if not in years, and am more acutely conscious -of certain shades of things that concern him -than he can be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The unspoken corollary was that Walter was also -more acutely conscious than Keble of certain shades -of herself, and in that moment a ray of light penetrated -to an obscure recess of Louise’s mind, a recess -that had refused to admit certain unlovely truths and -heterodoxies,—a recess that had declined, for instance, -to put credence in the change of heart of so -many women in books and plays: Nora Helmer, -Mélisande, Guinevere; and for the first time in her -life she understood how there could be a psychology -of infidelity. For the first time she understood that -one might have to be unfaithful in the letter to remain -faithful in the spirit. Just as one might have to -break a twenty-dollar bill to obtain a twenty dollars’ -worth. It was a strangely sweet, strangely unhappy -moment, but only a moment, for almost immediately -she was recalled to a consciousness of hand-bags, -cloaks, veils, and small, nameless duties of eyes and -hands and lips. Then Mrs. Windrom kissed her -good-bye, with an emphasized friendliness that only -set her mind at work wondering what it was that -Mrs. Windrom had left unsaid or undone that she -should feel obliged to emphasize the kiss. Louise -could find no words to define the gap that lay between -them; but she was sure that Mrs. Windrom -defined it to a T, and had stated it to a T in letters -to Girlie, who would restate it to Alice Eveley and -the Tulk-Leamingtons!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As the car mounted the hill beyond Mr. Brown’s -cottage, Keble turned to her, with the absent-minded -intention of thanking her, following the cue of the -others, for everything she had done. The visit of -his friends breaking into their long days had been -for him an exciting distraction, and he could be only -cloudily conscious of the strain it had put upon her, -whose life had been socially humble and barren. His -face still bore traces of the mask which people of his -world apparently always wore. He found Louise -pale, with brows slightly drawn together, the mouth -with its arched lips relaxed, as of one suffering a -slight with no feeling of rancor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One instinct, to take her in his arms and reassure -her by sheer contact, was held in abatement by another, -an instinct to stop and reason out the elements -that had produced the momentary hiatus. This procrastination -on his part had an almost tragic significance -for the impulsive girl. She lowered her eyes, -pressed her teeth against her lip, straightened her -arms, and walked into the house. If he had followed -more quickly on her steps she would have succumbed -to a passionate desire to be petted. As it was, he -reached her side only after she had had time to put -on her pride.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was still a chance, had he been emotionally -nimble enough to say something humorous about the -visit, something gently satiric about Mrs. Windrom’s -exaggerated fear of missing connections with the -stage from the Valley to Witney, something natural -and relaxed and sympathetic,—if only her old nickname, -“Weedgie,”—to reinstate her in the position -to which, as his most intimate, she felt entitled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A great deal, she felt, depended on what his tone -would be. She held herself taut, dreading an echo -of the hollow courtesies that had filled her rooms for -days with such forbidding graciousness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble had a congenital aversion to demonstrations. -Tenderness might coax him far, but it would never -induce him to “slop over.” As he went to the table -for his pipe, his eyes encountered an alien object -which he lifted thankfully, for it served as a cue.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hello, Mrs. Windrom left her <span class='it'>pince-nez</span> behind -. . . I’ll have them put into the mail for Sweet to -take out this afternoon. Hadn’t you better write a -note to go with them, my dear?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She turned and faced him. In her eyes he saw -something smoldering, something whose presence he -had on two or three occasions half suspected: a dark, -living subtlety that he could attribute only to her -Frenchness. Her nostrils were slightly dilated, her -lips quietly composed. She walked very close, looked -directly into his eyes, and with a little sidelong shrug -that brought her shoulder nearly to her chin, whipped -out the words, “If I weren’t so damn polite I’d smash -them!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The slam of the door, a few seconds later, drove -her exclamation at him with a force that, after the -first thrill, left him vexed and bewildered.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER II</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>L</span>OUISE had wondered why Katie Salter had -not appeared to do the weekly washing. In the -light of a report brought by the mail carrier -the reason was now too frightfully clear. Katie’s -son, a boy of twelve, had accidentally killed himself -while examining an old shot-gun.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was sitting at his table filling in a cheque. -Louise had been silently watching him. “I’ll give -this to Sweet to take to Katie on his way back to the -Valley,” he said. “It will cover expenses and more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Give it to me instead, dear. I’ll take it when I -go this afternoon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh! Then what about our trip to the Dam with -the Browns?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid I’ll have to be excused. I must do -what I can for Katie. She has nobody.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She has the neighbors. Mrs. what’s her name, -Dixon, is taking care of her. Besides, all the women -for miles around flock together for an occasion of -that sort. It will be rather ghastly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Especially for Katie. That’s why I have to go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, Lord! if you feel you must. I’ll come with -you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She rose from her chair and picked up the cheque -he had left on the edge of the table. She had thought -it all out within a few seconds, and in none of the -pictures she had conjured up could she find a place -for her husband. The fastidiousness which persisted -through all his efforts to be “plain folks” could -not be reconciled with the stark details of the tragedy -ten miles down the road.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, Keble dear,” she replied with a firmness she -knew he wouldn’t resist. More than once she had -secretly wished he would resist her firmness, for -every yielding on his part seemed to increase her -habit of being firm, and that was a habit that bade -fair to petrify the amiable little gaieties and pliancies -of her nature. “You know you’ve been anxious -about the Dam. It won’t do to put off the trip -again. Katie will understand your absence, and she -will feel comforted to have at least one dude present. -You know I’m considered a dude, too, since -my marriage. Nowadays my old friends address -me as stiffly as we used to address the schoolma’am. -. . . It’s strange what trifles determine the manners -of this world.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Was our marriage such a trifle?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise came out of her reflective mood and -smiled, then said, as if just discovering it, “Why, -yes, when you think of all the big things there are.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What about Billy’s death? Is that a big thing?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A big thing to Katie, just as our being together -is a big thing to us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a horrid way of putting it!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“. . . Marriage <span class='it'>is</span> being together, though.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He let that pass and returned to his point. “A -big thing to Katie, but negligible in the light of something -else, I suppose you mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Exactly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the light of what, for example?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t quite know, dear. I’ll tell you when I’ve -had time to philosophize it out.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She kissed him and went out to the saddle shed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sundown knew his mistress’s moods and decided -on an easy trot for the first few miles of the route, -which lay through groves of pine and yellowing cottonwood. -Eventually the road emerged into a broad -stretch of dust-green sage perforated with gopher -holes, and Louise set a diagonal course toward the -stony river bed which had to be forded. A flock of -snow-white pelicans sailed lazily overhead, following -the stream toward favorite fishing pools. A high -line of mountains, pale green, violet, and buff, -merged into the hazy sky. The heat was oppressive -and ominous.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For an hour not one human being crossed her path. -The only sign of habitation had been the villainous -dog and three or four horses of a not too prosperous -homestead owned by one of Keble’s horse wranglers. -All along the road she had been preoccupied by the -tone of her parting talk with Keble, vaguely chagrined -that her husband seemed to deprecate her -identifying herself too closely with the life of the -natives. Strangely enough he sought to identify -himself with them, while, presumably, expecting her -to identify herself with the class from which he had -sprung, as though, gradually, she would have portentous -new duties to undertake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She couldn’t help dreading the prospect. Not that -she shrank from duties,—on the contrary; it was -the menacing gentility of it all that subdued her. -When Keble had first come to them, disgusted with -the old order, he had persuaded her that the younger -generation,—his English generation,—had learned -an epoch-making lesson, that it had earned its right -to ignore tradition and to build the future according -to its own iconoclastic logic. He had determined to -create his own life, rather than passively accept the -life that had been awaiting him over there since -birth. She had thrilled with pride at having been -chosen partner in such a daring scheme. Only to find -that, in insidious ways, perhaps unconsciously, Keble -was buttressing himself with the paraphernalia of the -old order which he professed to repudiate. She could -love Keble without gloating over his blue prints and -his catalogues of prize cattle, his nineteenth century -poets, and his eighteenth century courtliness. The -natives might gape at her luxurious bathroom fixtures -and other marvels that were beginning to arrive -in packing-cases at the Witney railway station. -She had almost no possessive instinct, and certainly -no ambition to be mistress of the finest estate in the -province. Her most clearly defined ambition was to -be useful,—useful to herself, and thereby, in some -vague but effective way, to her generation. Her -father, for all his obscurity, was to her notion more -useful than Keble. Wherever Keble went he drove -a fair bargain: took something and gave something -in return. Wherever the little physician went he left -healing, courage, cheerfulness, and in return took, -from some source close to the heart of life, the -energy and will to give more.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She dismounted to open the gate of the Dixon yard -and led Sundown past a meagre field of wheat, past -straggling beds of onions and potatoes, towards a -small unpainted house which struck her as the neglected -wife of the big, scrupulously cared-for barn. -Two harnessed farm wagons were standing before it, -and a dirty touring car. A group of men were -lounging near the woodshed chewing tobacco with a -Sunday manner, and some small boys, bare-legged, -were playing a discreet, enforcedly subdued game of -tag. Two saddled horses were hitched to the fence, -to which she led Sundown.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One of the Dixon children had run indoors to announce -her advent, and as she stepped into the kitchen -she was met by a woman dressed in black cotton and -motioned into the adjoining room,—a combination -of parlor and bedroom,—where two or three other -women were sewing together strips of white cheese-cloth. -All eyes turned to her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The walls were covered with newspaper, designed -to prevent draughts. There was a rust-stained -print of Queen Victoria and a fashion plate ten years -out of date. At the two tiny windows blossomless -geranium stalks planted in tomato tins made a forlorn -pattern. The centre of the room was occupied -by a rough box in which lay a powder-scarred little -form clad in a coquettish “sailor suit” of cheese-cloth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise drew near and looked wonderingly at the -yellowish-white, purple-flecked face and hideously -exposed teeth of the boy who had a few days since -run errands for her, and who had planned to grow -up and “drive the mail.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The women expected her to weep, and in anticipation -began to sniffle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At what time is the burial?” she asked, dry-eyed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As soon as we can git this here covering made. -We’ve had to do everything pretty quick. We can’t -keep him long.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise shuddered and was turning away when she -remembered the flowers in her hand,—dahlias and -inappropriate, but the only flowers to be had, the only -flowers on the scene,—and placed them in the coffin, -with an odd little pat, as if to reassure Billy. Then -she threaded a needle and set to work with the others.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When all the strips were sewn together and gathered, -they were nailed to the boards and to the cover -of the coffin. Perspiration rolled from the forehead -of Mr. Dixon, and his embarrassment at having to -make so much noise caused him from time to time -to spit on the floor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sound of hammering stirred Katie’s drugged -imagination, and overhead thin wails began to arise. -With the continued pounding the lamentations increased -in volume, and presently the sound of moving -chairs could be heard, followed by indistinct consolations -and footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs. -The door burst open, and Katie lurched in, her face -twisted and swollen behind a crooked veil. Clawing -away the man with the hammer, she threw herself -across the box. A long strand of greyish-red hair -escaped from under a dusty hat and brushed against -the redder hair of the boy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was some time before Katie could be drawn -away. Finally, with a renewed burst of sobbing -she let herself be led by Louise into a corner of the -kitchen. Mixed with her sobs were incoherent statements. -“It was for his health,” Katie was trying to -tell Louise, “I brought him up here. And I was -workin’ so hard, only for his schoolin’.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise kept peering anxiously out of doors. -Black clouds had gathered, and a treacherous little -breeze had begun to stir the discarded pieces of -cheese-cloth which she could see on the floor through -the open door. A tree in the yard rustled, as if sighing -in relief at a change from the accumulated heat -of days.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After long delays the time arrived for the fastening -down of the lid. To everyone’s surprise, and -thanks largely to Louise’s tact, Katie allowed the -moment to pass as if in a stupor. The coffin was -placed in one of the farm wagons, and a soiled quilt -thrown over it. The outer box was lifted upon the -second wain, and served as a seat for the men and -boys in the gathering. Katie and the women were -installed in the dirty motor, which was to lead the -way. And Louise, unstrapping her rain-cape, -mounted Sundown and galloped ahead to open the -gate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As the clumsy procession filed past her, the clouds -broke, and a deluge of hailstones beat against them, -followed by sheets of water into which it was difficult -to force the horses. It persisted during the -whole journey toward the mound which was recognized -as a graveyard, although no one but Rosie -Dixon and an unknown tramp had ever been interred -there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the approach of the bedraggled <span class='it'>cortège</span> two -men in shirtsleeves and overalls, grasping shovels, -came from under the shelter of a dripping tree to indicate -the halting place. Louise dismounted at once -and led Katie to a seat on some planks that rested -near the grave. Mrs. Dixon, a glass of spirits of -ammonia in her hand, pointed out Rosie’s resting -place and for a moment transposed the object of her -sorrow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The grave proved too narrow for the outer box, -and there was another long wait on the wet planks -while the grave-diggers shoveled and took measurements, -with muttered advice and expletives. The -rain had abated. A mongrel who had followed them -ran from one to another, and yelped when some one -attempted to chasten him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At length the box splashed into place, scraping -shrilly against projecting pebbles, and the assembly -drew near to assist or watch the lowering of the -white cheese-cloth box. Katie was reviving for another -paroxysm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With a shock Louise discovered that they were -preparing to put the cover in place without a sign of -a religious ceremony.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is there no one here to take charge of the service?” -she inquired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The man with the shovel replied for the others. -“You see, Mrs. Eveley, Mr. Boots is away from the -Valley. We couldn’t get a parson from Witney. -We thought perhaps somebody would offer to say a -prayer like.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To herself she was saying that not even her father -could let poor Billy be buried so casually.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let me take charge,” she offered, with only the -vaguest notion of what she was going to do.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Dixon took her place beside Katie, and -Louise proceeded to the head of the grave, making -on her breast the sign her mother had secretly taught -her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear friends,” she commenced. “We poor -human beings have so little use for our souls that we -turn them over to pastors and priests for safe keeping, -till some emergency such as the present. In -French there is a proverb which says: it is better to -deal with God direct than with his saints. If we had -acquired the habit of doing so, we shouldn’t feel -embarrassed when God is not officially represented. -With our souls in our own keeping, we could not be -so cruelly surprised.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As a matter of fact, priests and parsons know no -more than we do about life and death. Truth lies -deep within ourself, and the most that any ambassador -of heaven can do is to direct our gaze inward. -Although we know nothing, we have been born with -an instinctive belief that the value of life cannot be -measured merely in terms of the number of years one -remains a living person. We can’t help feeling that -every individual life contributes to an unknown total -of Life. Our human misfortune is that we see individuals -too big and Life itself too small. We forget -we are like bees, whose glory is that each contributes, -namelessly, a modicum to the hive and to -the honey that gives point to their existence. We do -wrong to attach tragic importance to the death of -even our nearest friend, for their dying is a phase of -their existence in the larger sense, just as sleeping is -a phase of our twenty-four hour existence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The real tragedy is that we build up our lives -upon something which is by its nature impermanent. -The wisest of us are too prone to live for the sake -of a person, and if that person suddenly ceases to -exist the ground is swept from under us. To find a -new footing is difficult, but possible, and it may even -be good for us to be obliged to reach out in a new -direction and live for something more permanent -than ourselves.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We are too easily discouraged by pain. We -should learn from nature that pain is merely a symptom -of growth. Trees could not be luxuriant in -spring if in winter they hadn’t experienced privation. -What we have derived from life has been at -the expense of others’ privations and death; if we -are unwilling to be deprived in our turn, we are -stupidly selfish.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Instinct tells us that, in a voice that can be heard -above the voice of grief. It also tells us to be courageous -and neighborly. In that spirit we can say -that Katie’s loss is our opportunity. It affords us an -occasion to prove our human solidarity by giving her -a hand over the barren stretch and helping her to a -new conception of life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In that spirit let us put a seal on the last reminder -of the soul which has passed into the keeping -of forces that direct us all, and let us do so with a -profound reverence for all the elements in nature -which are a mystery to us. Some of us have grown -up without an orthodox faith. But we can all be -humble enough to bow our heads in acknowledgement -of the great wisdom which has created us mortal -and immortal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Stepping back to make way for the men, Louise, -on some incongruous urge, again made the sign of -the cross with which she had superstitiously preluded -her address. From the faces around her she -knew she had spoken with an impersonal concentration -as puzzling to them as it had been to herself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One of the grave-diggers suddenly said “Amen,” -and Mrs. Dixon, in tremulous tones, added, “The -Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The ceremony over, and Katie installed in the -home of a neighbor until she should feel able to remove -with her belongings to a cabin on the Eveley -ranch, Louise rode away in the twilight towards the -Valley, to spend a night with her father.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The air had a tang in it that suggested October -rather than August, and the storm had deposited a -sprinkling of white on the summits of the mountains. -Not a sign remained of the landscape which -only a few hours earlier had been drooping under a -sultry heat. Her knuckles ached with cold as Sundown -trotted on toward the town which was beginning -to sparkle far away in the gloom.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>When Louise and her father were alone they -dropped into French which gave them a sense of intimacy -and of isolation which they liked. The little -doctor was greatly pleased on his arrival from a trying -case that night to find her in possession of the -library. Her first question, issuing from some depth -of revery, was even more unaccountable than her -presence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Bon soir, Papa</span>,” she greeted him. “Can you tell -me exactly how much money I have in the bank, including -what Uncle Mornay-Mareuil left me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dr. Bruneau opened his eyes, made a bewildered -grimace, went to a desk in the corner, and rummaged -for a bank-book. “Including interest to date,” he -gravely replied, “eleven thousand, two hundred and -thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He came to his own chair opposite her, picking up -the pipe which she had filled for him. “What’s in -that black little head?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Many things. More, really, than I know,—or, at -least, than I knew.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing wrong?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“. . . I even wonder if there is anything right.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was at once reassured. “You’ve been with -Katie Salter. How is she?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s bearing it. Papa, <span class='it'>penses-tu</span>, I delivered the -funeral oration.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>B’en vrai, tu en as!</span> . . . What did you say?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I talked over their heads, and a little over my -own, as though I were under a spell. I thought I -was going to say something religious; but it was -scarcely that. It was rather like what the cook -scrapes together when people turn up for dinner unexpectedly,—philosophical -pot-luck. Everybody -seemed puzzled, but I wasn’t just inventing words, -as I used to do when addressing my paper dolls. -The words seemed to make sense in spite of me. -. . . And I had a strange feeling, afterwards, of -having grown up all at once. I don’t think I’ll ever -feel sheer girlish again. And the worst of that is, -I don’t quite know how a woman is supposed to feel -and conduct herself. It’s very perplexing. . . . -Papa, what do you believe comes after this life, or -what doesn’t?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Precisely that,—that nothing does.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I told them that we were infinitesimal parts of -some mighty human machinery, and although life -was the most valuable thing we knew of there was -something beyond our comprehension a million times -more valuable; that even though we as individuals -perished, our energies didn’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The doctor was chuckling. “I hope they’ll take -your word for it! . . . We may be immortal for all -I know. But if we are, I see no reason why cats and -chickens should not be. In the dissecting room -they’re very much like men.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They are; they must be! Though not as individuals. -The death of a man or the death of a cat -simply scatters so many units of vitality in other directions! -<span class='it'>Tiens!</span> when our dam broke, up at the -canyon, all the electric lights went out. That was -the death of our little lighting plant. But the water -power that generated our current is still there, immortal, -even if the water <span class='it'>is</span> rushing off in a direction -that doesn’t happen to light our lamps, a direction -that makes Keble grieve and Mr. Brown swear. . . . -That’s a rock on which Keble and I have often split. -I think he sincerely believes he’s going to a sort of -High Church heaven, intact except for his clothes -and his prayer-book. I wish I could believe something -as naïve as that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Pas vrai!</span> You are too fond of free speculation, -like your poor Papa. . . . And now, those dollars -in the bank?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, I was just wondering. . . . Besides, you -never can tell, I might decide to run off some day -and improve my education.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her father shot a look of inquiry across the table, -but her face was impassive. “You’re not exactly -ignorant; and certainly not stupid.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She laughed. “<span class='it'>Ah ça!</span> . . . Will you please get -me a cheque book the next time you call at the bank?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The next morning Louise passed in helping Nana -dust and straighten the accumulation of books and -knick-knacks in the house. She relieved the old -servant by preparing luncheon herself, and the doctor -arrived from the little brown shingled hospital opposite -the cement and plaster bank to rejoin her, -bringing with him a new cheque book, which she -carelessly thrust into the pocket of her riding -breeches.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a sensible Papa you are, not to warn me -against extravagance!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve never doubted you, my child. It’s not likely -I shall commence now. You might have gone far if -you hadn’t decided to marry; I always maintained -that. As it is, you made a match that no other girl -in the Valley could have done,—though I for one -never guaranteed it would be successful.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“<span class='it'>Hein ça!</span>” she mocked, absent-mindedly. “I’ve -made an omelette that no other girl in the Valley -could have done, and it’s too successful for words. -Keble is upset for days if he catches me in my own -kitchen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She divided the omelette into three parts, one for -Nana, who, more than any other person in the Valley, -was awed by the fact that Weedgie Bruneau had -turned into the Honorable Mrs. Eveley.</p> - -<h3>3</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>During several days Louise’s thoughtful, suddenly -grown-up mood persisted, but it was destined to -be violently detracked by the chance reading of a -poem which had been marked in blue pencil and cut -out, apparently, from the page of a magazine. It -was lying on Keble’s table, among other papers. It -was unsigned, and the title was <span class='it'>Constancy</span>. With a -sense of wonderment that grew into fear she read:</p> - -<div class='dramastart'><!----></div> - -<p class='dramaline-cont'><span class='it'>You cry I’ve not been true,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Why should I be?</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>For, being true to you,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Who are but one part of an infinite me,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Should I not slight the rest?</span></p> - -<p class='dramaline-cont'><span class='it'>Rather are you false to me and nature</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>In seeking to prolong the span</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Of impulses born mortal;</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>In prisoning memories</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Impalpable as the fluttering of wings.</span></p> - -<p class='dramaline-cont'><span class='it'>If I’d been false,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>I have but mounted higher</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Toward a spacious summit,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Bourne of all soaring vows.</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>The buds we gathered in the vale have perished.</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Branches that offered roofs of shimmering green motley,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Their summer service rendered,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Divested themselves,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Framing rude necessary heights.</span></p> - -<p class='dramaline-cont'><span class='it'>Yet you sit plaintive there while I aspire,</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Intent upon a goal you will not see.</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Must I descend to you?</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>Or shall I venture still?—My staff</span></p> -<p class='dramaline'><span class='it'>An accusation of inconstancy.</span></p> - -<p class='line'> </p> - -<p class='pindent'>What did it mean? Why was it marked? Who -had written it? Why was it lying on Keble’s desk? -She stood cold and still, her gaze returning again and -again to the paper in her hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Unable to answer the questions, she sat down and -made an ink copy of the brutal lines. When the -last word was written she replaced the original on -the table and took the copy to her bedroom, reading -it, unconsciously memorizing it, making room in her -philosophy for its egoistic claim, and finally locking -it in the box that sheltered her youthful manuscripts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Although she did not refer to the enigmatic poem, -she knew that to its discovery could be traced a -breach that began to make itself felt, a breach which -she knew Keble associated in some vague way with -the funeral of little Billy Salter. Keble, for his -part, had made no mention of the poem, and day -after day those accusatory blue marks continued to -peer through the unanswered correspondence that -rested on his table. Although she argued the lines -out of countenance, though she watched for Keble’s -polite mask to fall and reveal some emotion that -would disprove her interpretation of them, they ate -into her heart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The poem might have been a hint from Providence. -She <span class='it'>was</span> an impediment to Keble’s progress, -a poor creature unable to comprehend the hereditary -urges that bore him along in a direction that seemed -to her futile. How often must he have been legitimately -impatient of her deficiencies! How often -must he have starved for the internationally flavored -chit-chat with which a wife like Girlie Windrom -would have entertained him! With what a bitter -sigh must he have read his thought thus expressed -by an unknown poet! That would account for the -marking and the clipping. She promised herself to -profit by the hint, if hint it were.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As the breach widened, Keble maintained the deferential -attitude he had always assumed in the course -of their hitherto negligible misunderstandings. -Technically he was always in the right. Her acquaintance -with people of his class had been large -enough to teach her that good breeding implied the -maintenance of a certain tone, that in divergences of -view between well and dubiously bred people, the -moral advantage seemed always to lie with the -former. It was a trick she had yet to learn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a sort of finality in the nature of this -breach that made it unlike any other in their relationship. -This was a conclusion she admitted after days -of desperate clinging to the illusion that nothing was -amiss. Meanwhile Keble waited; and she sank -deeper into silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the midst of her self-analysis a letter arrived -for Keble from the friend of the early spring. -Walter Windrom had spent the intervening months -in England, but was returning to his post in Washington.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The renewal of this link with the outer world had -a stimulating effect upon Louise. It suggested a -plan which ran through her veins like a tonic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That night, through a blur of tears, she wrote the -following letter, while her husband lay uneasily -asleep.</p> - -<div class='blockquote100percent'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:right;margin-right:1em;'>“Hillside, September 16.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dear Walter: Before leaving the ranch you -offered to do something for me. You may if you -will. I’ve been miserable for months at the thought -of what a very back-woods creature I am. I can -never be what I would like to be; therefore I’ve decided -to be what I <span class='it'>can</span> be, so <span class='it'>hard</span> that I shall be even -with Fate. I can’t go away, but I can afford a tutor -with my very own money. So will you please immediately -pick out the most suitable girl you can -find. Above all things she mustn’t be a teacher, or -anything professional; she must simply be somebody -nice, and too well-bred for words! I’ll learn <span class='it'>by ear</span>; -I never could learn any other way.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will pay all expenses and whatever salary you -suggest. And I’d rather it be a big salary for a -paragon than economize on a second-best. She -could come here as a former friend of mine, for -Keble must know nothing about my conspiracy. Do -you think that is too much like not playing the game? -After all, it’s only that I wish to play the game better,—I -mean his sort of game. Not that I especially -like it; but I’ve let myself in for it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would you do that, Walter, please, without making -fun of me? Address me in care of Dr. Achille -Bruneau.”</p> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER III</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>I</span>N Keble’s new car, purchased with a recent birthday -cheque from the family, Louise was driving -swiftly over the lumpy road that wound its way -down the hill, beside the river, across sage plains, -around fields of alfalfa, toward the distant Valley. -There was an autumn crispness in the air, and the -rising sun made the world bigger and bigger every -minute. She rejoiced in the freshness of the earth; -and the fun of goading a powerful motor over deserted, -treacherous roads made her chuckle. Most of -all, she was excited by the element of adventure in -the journey. She welcomed most things in life that -savored of adventure. What mattered chiefly to her -was that she should go forward. And this morning’s -exploit was a leap. If she were ever to get out of -her present <span class='it'>impasse</span> it would be thanks to the unknown -woman she was hastening to meet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As she swung into the long main street, passing -the post office and the drug-store, the bank, the hotel, -and the hospital, scattering greetings among stragglers, -she was conscious of the wide-eyed interest in -her smart blue car. The inhabitants made capital of -their intimacy with her. In the old days she was -“Doc. Bruneau’s girl;” nowadays she was, in addition, -the wife of a “rich dude” and a liberal buyer of -groceries and hardware.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As though that made me any different!” she reflected, -and drew the car up before the doctor’s white-washed -garden fence, sending a bright hallo to an -old schoolmate, Minnie Hopper, whom she had once -passionately cherished for their similar taste in hair-ribbons -and peppermint sticks, and who was now -Mrs. Otis Swigger, wife of Oat, the proprietor of -“The Canada House” and the adjoining “shaving -parlor and billiard saloon.” For Minnie marriage -was nine-tenths of life. She was the mother of two -chalky babies; she had an “imitation mahogany bedroom -set”; and her ambition was to live in Witney, -beyond the mountain pass, where there was a “moving -picture palace” and a railway station.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Even Keble,—Louise pursued the thought as the -gate clicked behind her,—seemed to think marriage -nine-tenths of life. For <span class='it'>her!</span></p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was burning with curiosity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A tall, lithe, solid young woman was standing before -a heaped bookcase,—a fair-skinned, clear-eyed -woman of thirty-two or three, with a broad forehead -over which a soft, shining, flat mass of reddish-brown -hair was drawn. She wore a rough silk shirt -with a brown knitted cravat; a fawn colored skirt, -severely simple but so cunningly cut that it assumed -new lines with the slightest motion of her body; -brown stockings and stout brown golf shoes of an -indefinable smartness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise had never seen a woman so all-of-a-piece, -and of a piece so rare. As a rule, in encountering -new personalities, she was first of all sensitive to -signs of intelligence, or its lack. She could not have -said whether this person were excessively clever or -excessively the reverse. It was the woman’s composure -that baffled her. The wide-set grey eyes and -the relaxed but firm lips gave no clue. She swiftly -guessed that in this woman’s calculations there was a -scale of values that virtually ignored cleverness, as -such; that cleverness was to her merely a chance intensity -that co-existed with other more important -qualities in accordance with which she made her -classifications, if she bothered to <span class='it'>make</span> classifications; -and something suggested that for this woman classifying -processes were automatic. What her mechanical -standards of judgment were, there was no gauging: -degrees of gentility, perhaps. That was what -Louise would have to learn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The lips, without parting, formed themselves into -a reassuring smile, which had the contrary effect of -making Louise acutely conscious of a necessity to be -correct, of marshaling all the qualities in herself -that had aroused approbation in the most discriminating -people she had known.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The stranger replaced a book she had been inspecting -and took a step in Louise’s direction. Louise -shook herself, as if chidingly, and let her natural directness -dispel the momentary awkwardness. She -went forward quickly with outstretched hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are Miss Cread, of course. I am Mrs. -Eveley. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting overnight -here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your father has been more than hospitable. He -delighted me last night with his quaint ideas.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh dear,—about priests and things?” Louise -was inclined to deprecate her father’s penchant for -assailing the church in whatever hearing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miss Cread laughed. “Partly. I dote on this -little house, and all <span class='it'>its</span> things.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Papa suggests that after he dies I transport it to -a quai on the left bank of the Seine in Paris and -knock out the front wall. He says it would make a -perfect book stall. . . . Papa once won a scholarship -to study medicine in Paris. It rather spoiled him for -a life in these wilds. I do hope you won’t die of -boredom with us. I’ve never been to Paris. Indeed -I’ve never been farther than Winnipeg, and that -seemed thousands of miles. Of course you’ve been -abroad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A great deal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not a bit American.” Louise was thinking -of camping parties that sometimes penetrated the -Valley in cars decorated with banners bearing the -device “Idaho” or “Montana.” She had motioned -her new friend to a chair and was leaning forward -opposite her. “Do you know,” she suddenly confided, -“I’m terribly afraid of you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good gracious, why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll laugh, but never mind. It’s because you’re -so distinguished-looking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miss Cread reflected. “A distinctive appearance -doesn’t necessarily make one dangerous. It is I, on -the contrary, who should be afraid.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sure nothing could frighten you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes. Responsibility. You see, this is my -first post. I’m quite inexperienced. I do hope Mr. -Windrom made that clear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, experience! Why, you’re simply swimming -in it,—in the kind that matters to me at this moment. -I mean your life, your surroundings, all the things -that decided Mr. Windrom in his selection of you as -a companion, have done something for you, have -made you the person who—bowled me over when I -entered this room. My husband is brimming over -with the same,—oh, call it genuineness. Like sterling -silver spoons. I don’t know whether I’m sterling -or not, but I do know I need polishing. . . . It -may be entirely a matter of birth. Papa and I -haven’t a crumb of birth, so far as I know,—though -I have a musty old aunt who swears we have. She -endows convents, and her idea of a grand pedigree -would be to have descended from a line of saints, I -imagine. . . . For my part I have no pretensions -whatever, not one, any more than poor Papa. He -thinks it rather a pity to be born at all, though he’s -forever helping people <span class='it'>get</span> born. . . . I was rash -enough to dive into marriage without holding my -breath, and got a mouthful of water. Sometimes I -feel that my husband wishes I could be a little more -sedate, a little more,—oh, you know, Miss Cread, -what I called distinguished-looking, though I could -feel that you disapproved of the phrase. One of the -very things you must do is to teach me what I ought -to say instead of distinguished-looking. That’s what -Minnie Hopper would have said, and at least I’m -not a Minnie Hopper.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re like nobody I’ve ever seen or heard of!” -This was fairly ejaculated, and it gave Louise courage -to continue, breathlessly, as before.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is for my husband’s sake that I’m trying this -experiment. At least I think it’s for his sake: we -never quite know when we’re being selfish, do we? -He will soon be a rather important person, for here. -He’s getting more and more things to look after: I -can hardly turn nowadays without running into some -new thing that sort of belongs to us. We shall have -guests from England later on, and I can’t have them -dying of mortification on my threshold. . . . When -I married I was blind in love, and somehow took it -for granted that I’d pick up all the hints I should -need. But I haven’t. . . . Am I talking nonsense?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not at all. Please go on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you have any pride you can’t ask your husband -to instruct you in subjects you should know -more about than he,—don’t you agree? I’m sure I -know more about baking bread than any of the Eveleys -back to Adam, but I don’t know a tenth as much -about when to shake hands and when not to, and -that’s much more important than I ever dreamed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It may be silly, but I’ve made up my mind to be -the sort of person my husband won’t feel he ought -to make excuses for. Not that he ever would, of -course! I’ve never admitted a word of all this to a -soul. I hope you understand, and I hope you don’t -think such trifles trivial!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear! . . . . Aren’t you a little morbid -about yourself? I know women of the world who -are uncouth compared with you. . . . As for creating -an impression, you are rather formidable already! -There are little tricks of pronunciation I -can show you, and I shall be delighted to tell you -all the stupid things I know about shaking hands and -the like. . . . I’m already on your side; I was afraid -I mightn’t be. One can never depend on a man’s version, -you know, even as discerning a man as Mr. -Windrom; and a woman usually takes the man’s -part in a domestic situation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise had a sudden twinge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There is only one thing that worries me now.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miss Cread waited, with questioning eyebrows.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How <span class='it'>am</span> I going to pass you off? I’ve told my -husband I knew you when you taught at Harristown! -I went to Normal School there for a year, you know. -He’ll see with half an eye that you’re no school -teacher. What are we to invent? I can’t fib for a -cent.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well. . . . Shall we invent that my family lost -its money and I had to work for my living? And -that things are better now, but my family have all -perished, and I’ve come here for a change. That -statement doesn’t do serious violence to my conscience.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s a little two-room log cabin you can have -to retire to whenever you get bored with us. . . . -And of course we’ll have to call each other by our -first names. You don’t mind, do you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miss Cread smiled sympathetically.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She’s nice,” decided Louise, in relief, then said, -“I’ll go out and help Nana now. After lunch, <span class='it'>en -route la bonne troupe</span>!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This phrase, more than anything Louise had said, -afforded Miss Cread the clue to their relationship. -Louise had reverted into French with a little flourish -which seemed to say, “At least I have one advantage -over you: I am bi-lingual.” Miss Cread saw that it -was characteristic of Louise to underestimate her -virtues and fail to recognize her faults, and for her, -who had spoken French in Paris before Louise was -born, Louise’s accent was unlovely, as only the Canadian -variety can be. She would let her pupil make -the discovery for herself. Miss Cread was pleased -to find that her mission was going to be a subtle one.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall be fearfully nervous for a few days, until -we get into swing,” said Louise at the table.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then my first task is to restore your composure.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your second will be to keep it restored. . . . I’m -growing less and less afraid of you. Wouldn’t it be -funny if I should get so used to you I answered you -back, like in school?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s no telling where it will stop. You’re a -venturesome woman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise laughed merrily. “Don’t you love adventure?” -It was an announcement rather than an inquiry.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Late in the afternoon they reached the fields where -the men were cutting the scanty crops. Keble on his -buckskin mare was in consultation with the superintendent, -and on hearing the honk of the car wheeled -about, came toward the road, and dismounted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Miriam dear, this is my husband. His name is -Keble, and he’s frightened to death that you’ll notice, -though not call attention to, the muddy spot on -the breeches that Mona cleaned this very morning. -Keble, this is Miriam Cread, who is coming to stop -with us as long as I can force her to stay.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble took a firm white hand in his. The stranger’s -smile, the confident poise of her head, the simple -little hat whose slant somehow suggested Bond -Street or the Rue de la Paix, amazed him. It was as -though Louise had brought home a Sargent portrait -and said she had bought it at the Witney emporium.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What I can’t forgive you for, my dear,” he said -blandly enough, “is that you should have kept me so -long in ignorance of such a charming friend’s existence.” -He turned to the guest. “I’ve heard all -about Pearl and Amy and Minnie, but next to nothing -about you. Don’t you think that’s perverse? -My wife is sort of human <span class='it'>feuilleton</span>: something new -every day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was surprised to hear himself using a term -which would certainly have conveyed nothing to -Pearl or Amy or Minnie, but he knew the allusion -had registered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suppose that’s the first duty of a wife,” Miriam -laughed. “Besides, Louise Bruneau is nothing if not -original. All her friends recognize that.” She -patted Louise ever so gently on the shoulder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The modulation of the voice, the grace of the -little pat, the composure, the finely-cut nostrils, the -slant of the hat!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They chatted, then Louise started the engine, and -in a moment the car was zig-zagging up the long -hill that lay between them and the lake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was conquering an unreasonable pang. To -herself she was explaining the freemasonry that existed -among people of Keble’s and Miss Cread’s -world; there was some sort of telepathic pass word, -she knew not what. It was going to be the Windrom -atmosphere all over again: permeated by exotic verbal -trifles. But that was what she had bargained -for; the stakes were worth the temporary disadvantage. -Walter needn’t, of course, have sent quite such -a perfect specimen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What “stakes”? Well, surely there were objects -to live for that outweighed the significance of petty -jealousies, petty possessions, the rights of one person -in another. She brought the car around to a point -from which the lake spread out under them in all -the glory of deep emerald water and distant walls of -sun-bronzed rock. The cottages and farm buildings -grouped themselves beneath, and along the pebbly -shore a rich league of grey-black and dark green -pine forest linked the buildings and the mountains. -Two frantic sheep dogs came barking to meet them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>An exclamation of delight escaped from the travel-weary -guest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad you like it,” remarked Louise, relenting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s superb,” Miriam replied. Again she gave -Louise’s shoulder a discreet pat, as the latter began -the winding descent. “You very lucky woman!” she -commented.</p> - -<h3>3</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Riding, fishing, and hunting for the winter’s supply -of game enlivened the autumn months, and when -the snow arrived, drifting through the canyons, obliterating -all traces of roads and fences, there were -snow-shoe and ski-journeys, skating on a swept portion -of the lake, and dances before the great fireplace. -Self-consciously at first, but soon without being -aware of it, Louise reflected the sheen of her -companion, and acquired objective glimpses of herself. -There had been long discussions in which tastes -and opinions had been sifted, and Louise’s speech -and cast of thought subtly supervised. Throughout -the program Keble made quiet entrances and exits, -dimly realizing what was taking place, grateful for, -yet a little distrustful of the gradual transformation. -It was as though, in an atmosphere of peace, unknown -forces were being secretly mobilized. There -was a charm for him in the nightly fireside readings -and conversations. When he was present they were -likely to develop into a monologue of daring theories -invented and sustained by Louise,—a Louise who -had begun to take some of her girlish extravagances -in earnest. In the end Keble found himself, along -with Miriam Cread, bringing to bear against Louise’s -radicalism the stock counter arguments of his class.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This was disconcerting, for he had been in the -habit of regarding himself as an innovator, with his -back to the past and his gaze fixed upon the future; -and although it was pleasant to find himself so often -in accord with a highly civilized and attractive young -woman just appreciably his senior, it was a set-back -to his illusion of having graduated from the prejudices -and short-sightedness of conventional society. -For the sum total of his mental bouts with Louise -was that she serenely but quite decisively relegated -him to the ranks of the safe and sane. And “safe -and sane” as she voiced the phrase meant something -less commendable than “safe and sane” as he voiced -it. For Keble “safe and sane” was of all vehicles -the one which would carry him and his goods most -adequately to his mortal destination. He had always -assumed that Louise had faith in the vehicle. Now -he seemed to see her sitting on the tail-board, swinging -her legs like a naughty child, ready to leap off at -the approach of any conveyance that gave promise of -more speed and excitement.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>During his later school-days, Keble, by virtue of -an ability to discriminate, had arrived at a point of -self-realization that rendered his conformity to custom -a bore to him but failed to provide him with -the logical alternative. For this he had consulted, -and responded to, the more refined manifestations of -individualism in contemporary literature and art, to -the extent of falling under the illusion that he himself -was a thoroughgoing individualist. A victim of -a period of social transition, he, like so many other -young men of his generation, made the mistake of -assuming that his doubts and objections were the -effect of a creative urge within himself, whereas he -had merely acquired a decent wardrobe of modern -notions which distinguished him from his elders and, -to his own eyes, disguised the inalterably conservative -nature of his principles. Hence the almost irreconcilable -combination: an instinctive abstemiousness -and an Epicurean relish.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whenever Louise, after some brilliant skirmish -with the outriders of orthodoxy, came galloping into -camp with the news that a direct route lay open to -the citadel of personal freedom and personal morality, -Keble found himself throwing up his cap in a -sympathetic glee, but then he fell to wondering -whether the gaining of the citadel were worth the -trampling down of fields, the possible breaking of -church windows, the discomfort to neutral bystanders.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At such moments he suspected that he was in the -wrong camp; that he had been led there through his -admiration for daring spirits rather than a desire for -the victory they coveted. It alarmed him to discover -that the topsy-turvy fancies that had endeared Louise -to him were not merely playful. It alarmed him to -discover that she was ready to put her most daring -theories into practise, ready to regard her own -thoughts and emotions as so many elements in a -laboratory in which she was free to experiment, in -scientific earnest, at the risk of explosions and bad -odors, all for the sake of arriving at truths that -would be of questionable value. Certainly, to Keble’s -mind, the potential results, should the experiments be -never so successful, were not worth the incidental -damage,—not where one’s wife was concerned. For -him “safe and sane” meant the avoidance of risk. -For Louise he suspected that “safe and sane” -smacked of unwillingness to take the personal risks -inevitable in any conquest of truth. That brought -him to the consideration of “truth,” and he saw that -for him truth was something more tangible, and -much nearer home, than it was for his wife. And -he was in the lamentable situation of feeling that she -was right, yet being constitutionally unable, or unwilling, -or afraid, to go in her direction.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam caught something of the true proportions -in the situation, and it was her policy to remain negative -in so far as possible, pressing gently on either -side of the scales, as the balance seemed to require. -She had a conscientious desire to help the other two -attain a comfortable <span class='it'>modus vivendi</span>, but as the winter -progressed it became increasingly evident to her -that her efforts might end by having a contrary effect. -Reluctantly she saw herself saddled with the -rôle of referee. Furthermore, it seemed as though -the mere presence of a referee implied, even incited, -combat. Their evenings often ended on a tone of -dissension, Louise soaring on the wings of some new -radical conclusion; Keble anxiously counseling moderation; -and Miriam, by right and left sallies, endeavoring, -not always with success, to bring the -disputants to a level of good-humored give and take.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On two or three occasions she had been tempted -to withdraw entirely, feeling that as long as a third -person were present to hear, the diverging views of -husband and wife would inevitably continue to be -expressed. But on reflection she realized that her -withdrawal could in no sense reconcile their divergences. -From Louise she had derived the doctrine -that views must, and will, out, and that to conceal or -counterfeit them is foolish and dishonest. As -Miriam saw it, these two had come to the end of the -first flush of excited interest in each other. Their -ship had put to sea, the flags had been furled, the -sails bent. They had reached the moment when it -was necessary to set a course. And they might be -considered fortunate in having a fair-minded third -person at hand to see them safely beyond the first -reefs. It hadn’t occurred to Miriam that she might -be a reef.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With Louise nothing remained on the surface; the -massage that polished her manners polished her -thoughts, and with increasing facility in the technique -of carrying herself came an increasing desire -to carry herself some<span class='it'>where</span>. As a girl she had too -easily outdistanced her companions. Until Miriam -Cread’s advent there had been no woman with whom -to compete, and her intelligence had in consequence -slumbered. Keble had transformed her from a girl -into a woman; but Miriam made her realize the wide -range of possibilities comprised under Womanhood, -and had put her on her mettle to define her own particular -character as a woman. Now her personality -was fully awake, and her daily routine was characterized -by an insatiable mental activity, during which -she proceeded to a footing on many subjects about -which she had never given herself the trouble to -think. She had read more books than most girls, -and had dined on weighty volumes in her father’s -library for the sake of their sweets; but under the -pressure of her new intellectual intensity she found -that, without knowing it, she had been nourished on -their soups and roasts. The unrelated impressions -that she had long been capturing from books and -thrusting carelessly upon mental shelves now formed -a fairly respectable stock-in-trade. Every new book, -every new discussion, every new incident furnished -fuel to the motor that drove her forward.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But there was one moment, during the Christmas -festivities, when the boldness of her recent thoughts, -the inhibitive tightness of her new garments of correctitude, -the fatigue of standing guard over herself, -became intolerably irksome, when she looked -away from Keble and Miriam and the Browns towards -her tubby, bald-headed, serene little father, -twinkling and smoking his beloved pipe before the -fire: a moment when she longed to be the capricious, -dreamy girl who had curled up at his feet during the -winter evenings of her first acquaintance with the -English boy from Hillside.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>If Keble had divined that mood, if he could have -stepped in and caught her out of it with an expert -caress, if he had read the thought that was then in -her mind,—namely that no amount of cleverness -could suppress the yearning that her conjugal experience -had so far failed to gratify,—if his eyes had -penetrated her and not the flames, where presumably -they envisaged the air castles he would soon be translating -into stone and cement, then the yards of the -matrimonial ship might have swung about, the sails -have taken the breeze, and the blind helmsman have -directed a course into a sharply defined future. At -that moment Louise might have been converted, by -a sufficiently subtle lover, into a passionate partner -in the most prosaic of schemes. All she needed was -to be coaxed and driven gently, to a point not far -off. It was too personal to be explained; and if he -couldn’t see it, then she must do what she could on -her own initiative, at her expense and his.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dreamy girl faded out of her eyes, and a self-contained, -positive young woman rose from her seat -with an easy directness, crossed the room to switch -on the lights, and said, “Keble, I’ve just decided how -I shall dispose of my Christmas present.” For the -benefit of the Browns she explained, “I had a colossal -cheque in my stocking from a father-in-law who -doesn’t know what a spendthrift I am.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What will you do with it?” asked her husband.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Something very nice. You’re sure to object.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is that what makes it nice: my objecting?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That makes it more exciting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then let me object hard, dear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise withstood the laughter that greeted Keble’s -score. “Do it immediately,” she advised, “and have -it over with; then I’ll say what it is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why not spare us a scene?” suggested Miriam. -“We know what a brute he is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re concerned in it,” Louise replied. “I hope -you won’t object, for that would be fatal.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This gave Keble his opportunity for revenge -against Miriam’s “brute.” “Mayn’t we take -Miriam’s compliance for granted? We know what -a diplomat she is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was now seated on the opposite side of the -table, facing them. “Do you object, Papa?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“On principle, yes, because it’s sure to be something -rash. As a matter of fact, no, because you’re -the only sensible rash person there is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was delighted. “It’s Papa’s stubborn belief -in my common sense, more than anything else, -that gives me the courage of my enlightened rashness,” -she proclaimed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At this Keble turned with a smile to Miriam. -“Now I see what you meant by brute. It’s because -I won’t always acknowledge the enlightenment of -rashness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam colored a little, to her great annoyance. -“Really, you mustn’t seek meanings in my random -words.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, then it wasn’t meant literally?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There aren’t any literal brutes left; only figurative -ones. Must I do penance for a levity I admit -to have been uncalled for?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll let you off,—with the warning that I shall -watch your remarks more closely in future.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then I can only defend myself by becoming the -objectionable thing you called <span class='it'>me</span>!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Diplomat! Is that objectionable?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rather. It implies the existence of things to be -connived at. Once you’ve admitted diplomat you’ve -admitted stakes, and rivalry.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Brown was on what she called tender hooks. -Her husband was waggishly of the opinion that the -cheque would end by being spent on wagon loads of -sugar for Sundown, that pampered circus beast.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Has everybody finished objecting?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Everybody had.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, then, Miriam and I are going on a jaunt,—to -New York and then South where it’s warm.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a sort of holiday from me, I gather?” said -Keble when the others had done exclaiming.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam’s eyes turned in warning towards the -speaker, whose lips broke into a smile, in relish of -the “brute” which, diplomatically, was merely flashed -across the room. This little passage arrested Louise, -who had been for the twentieth time reminded, by -Keble’s detachment, of the inexplicable poem.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Or yours from me,” she replied. “What’s -sauce for the gander—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble judged the moment opportune for bringing -forth his best Port, and while the three men took a -new lease of life, the women chatted excitedly about -resorts and itineraries.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise’s announcement had been especially welcome -to Miriam. It promised an escape from umpiring,—from -neutral-mindedness. Her cheeks -burned a little.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The doctor was drifting back, along with Keble’s -superintendent, into the rigorous pioneer days of the -Valley, the days before the branch line had been built -into Witney, contrasting the primitive arrangements -of that era with the recent encroachments of civilization. -The logical development in the talk would be -some reference to Keble’s ambitious designs, which -the spring would see well under way. Miriam -glanced up to see how he would receive the cue, which -usually roused him to enthusiasm. He allowed it -to pass, and she was intrigued to see on his face a -look of boyish, wistful abstraction, and loneliness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He felt her eyes on him, and turned as she looked -away. She knew he disliked to be surprised in a self-revelatory -mood, and she had time to notice his features -assume their usual impersonal cast. That she -regretted; the wistfulness had been ingenuous and -touching. At times she felt that he deliberately submerged -his most likable traits. That was a great -pity, because it gave Louise new incentives to go off -on her independent courses. Miriam felt that his -self-consciousness had begun by hurting Louise, -driving her to protect herself against a coldness she -couldn’t understand. The unfortunate result was -that Louise had rather more than protected herself: -had gradually attained a self-sufficiency that took -Keble’s coldness for granted, even inducing it. -That was a moral advantage which Miriam’s femininity -resented, though nothing could have drawn the -admission from her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was glad when Louise, by a new manoeuvre -in the talk, gave her an excuse to go into the next -room. For there were times when nothing sheathed -the sharp edges of life so satisfactorily as a half hour -at the piano.</p> - -<h3>4</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Only when she had waved Keble farewell from -the back of the train at Witney did Louise allow herself -to dwell on the significance of the step she had -taken. Keble’s generous acquiescence in her plan -merely underlined the little question that kept irritating -her conscience. For all her skill she hadn’t -known how to assure Keble that she wasn’t turning -her back on him; for all her love she couldn’t have -admitted to him that she was setting out for a sanatorium, -to undergo treatment for social ignorances -in the hope of returning to him more fit than ever. -With the train now bolting east, she had the nervous -dread of a prospective patient.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet as province after province rolled by, and the -dreary prairie began to be broken first by lakes and -woods, then by larger and larger communities, graduating -her approach into civilization, her natural optimism -asserted itself in a typically vehement -reaction. Now that there was no turning back, the -obvious thing to do was to wring every possibility -out of the experience to which she was committed. -Nothing should be too superficial for her attention. -To Miriam’s relief her despondency gave place to a -feverish activity of observation. She began to notice -her fellow-travelers and to tick them off mercilessly, -one by one, with all their worths and -blemishes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let’s leave no stone unturned, Miriam,” she said, -imperatively, as they neared their first halting place. -“I won’t go home till I’ve done and seen and had one -of everything. Then for the next eighty years I -shall be able to out-small-talk the most outrageous -dude that ever dares cross my threshold.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She kept rein on the excitement caused in her by -the hotels, shops, museums, and theatres of Toronto -and Montreal, for from Miriam’s lukewarmness she -divined that they were at best but carbon copies of -the hotels, shops, museums, and theatres of New -York. So she contented herself with watching the -movements of her companion, marveling at Miriam’s -easy way with porters and chambermaids, her ability -to arrive on the right platform ten minutes before -the right train departed, to secure the most pleasant -rooms at the least exorbitant rate and order the most -judicious dinners, all without fuss or worry. Having -learned that traveling was one of the major -modern arts, she added it to the list of subjects in -which she was enrolled as student. By the time they -had reached Fifth Avenue and put up at a hostelry -that was still imposing, though it had been half forgotten -in the mania for newer and gayer establishments, -Louise was imperturbable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>During the next few days the experience that -made the deepest impression on her was the religious -earnestness with which one was expected to cultivate -one’s exterior. On a memorable, but modest -visit to Winnipeg with her father,—who was attending -a medical conference,—she had “gone in and -bought” whatever she had been in need of. Never -had she dreamt that so much art and science could -be brought to bear on the merely getting of oneself -groomed. But after a few seances in the neighborhood -of Fifty-Seventh Street, Louise threw herself -into this strange new cult with characteristic fervor. -This was partly due to the fact that Madame Adèle, -the dressmaker, and Monsieur Jules, the hairdresser, -had accomplished what good portrait painters often -accomplish, and thrown into relief properties of body -and soul of which she had never been aware.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the end of a fortnight she had mastered many -rites, and when the last frocks, hats, gloves, and -slippers had arrived, and she had adapted her steps -and gestures and rhythms to the unbelievable new -picture she made, Miriam, for the first time since -their association, expressed herself as satisfied.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve been waiting to see you dressed,” she announced -as they sat in the tea-room of a fashionable -hotel. “It’s the final test. And you pass—<span class='it'>magna -cum laude</span>. Opposite you I feel dull and not at all -what you would once have called distinguished-looking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t be absurd, Miriam,” returned her pupil in -an even tone, with a purified articulation that would -have made Minnie Hopper stare. “I may cost eight -hundred dollars more than you at the moment, but -I look <span class='it'>new</span>, and you know it. Whereas you will always -look <span class='it'>good</span>, without looking new, no matter if -you’re straight out of a bandbox. If I’ve made any -progress at all, the proof of it is that I recognize the -truth of what I’ve just said. . . . Not only that, but -you can console yourself with the knowledge that if -you sit opposite me till Doomsday you’ll never utter -a syllable that couldn’t be printed in a book of etiquette. -Whereas I,—well, the mere fact that they’ve -pulled out my lopsided eyebrow doesn’t mean that -before the sun sets I shan’t do and say some inadvertent -<span class='it'>bêtise</span> that will proclaim the pit from which -I was digged and make you say to yourself, ‘Why -does she?’. . . . One comfort is that most of these -expensive people here are even more plebeian, at least -in their souls, than I am, and you’re almost the only -person in the world whom I can’t fool. . . . Fancy -not having you there to be genteel to, and to shock,—especially -to shock! At any moment I may deliberately -say something vulgar, dear. The temptation -often comes over me in hot waves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The ‘deliberately’ redeems you. Most people are -vulgar without knowing it; they would bite off their -tongues if they knew. . . . As for inadvertence, -you’ve made only one <span class='it'>faux pas</span> in days.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, dear! What?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yesterday, at that awful house.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mrs. Pardy’s? Why, darling, you took me there -yourself, as a treat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, but it was Elsa Pardy we went to leave cards -for. Elsa was one of the nicest girls in Washington -when I knew her there. I would never have looked -her up in that casual way if I had foreseen such a -fulsome sister-in-law.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise laughed at the recollection, snuggling into -the thought that Mrs. Pardy could not be laid at <span class='it'>her</span> -door. Then came the thought of her alleged remissness. -“I hope I didn’t out-<span class='it'>faux</span> Mrs. P. . . . I -wonder how Keble would like me to call him Mr. E.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No wonder Elsa doesn’t stay there.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, Miriam, my <span class='it'>faux pas!</span> I won’t be done out -of my daily correction.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam smiled indulgently. “It was the merest -trifle. Indeed if Mrs. Pardy had made it, it would -have done her credit. For that matter she did, effusively, -and if we hadn’t been such fastidious folk -we should have lauded her for it. And I do!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Miriam . . . before I throw a bun at you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, my dear, you invited the woman to pay -you a visit.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Jolly kind of me, too. Is <span class='it'>that</span> all?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Heavens, it’s enough!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was merely returning a hospitality,—the hospitality -of your friends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t tease.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“After all, what less could I do when she practically -gave us her house and her chauffeur and her -marble staircase and diamond bracelets and ancestral -lemon groves in California.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“None of which we wanted, you see. Nor asked -for a thing! Nor accepted a thing except under compulsion. -The mere fact that one strays into a house -that looks like a glorified Turkish bath and has it, as -you say, <span class='it'>given</span> to one, doesn’t put one under the -slightest obligation. We merely sat on the edge of -her golden chairs, regretted Elsa’s absence, heard -about Mr. P.’s kidneys and sundry organs, and drank -a cup of tea.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And ate a cream puff. Don’t slight that delicious, -cordial, luxurious, fattening, vulgar cream puff. -I ate two and longed for a third. That made it a -grub-call, and I had to invite her back. I’ll never -outgrow that primitive custom. Besides, I took care -to say, if she was ever in my part of the world. That -made it pretty safe.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, that’s just what made it an error. Not only -because it was gratuitous, but because Mrs. Pardy is -the sort of woman who would charter a private train -to be in your part of the world in order, accidentally, -to drop in on a young woman who makes the sort -of impression you make,—for you do, you know. -Especially when she finds out,—and be sure she’ll investigate,—who -the Eveleys are.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, darling, let her come. She didn’t bother -me a bit. It would be rough on Keble, I suppose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rough and warm,” said Miriam a little testily. -“She had the effect on me of heavy flannels in midsummer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise gleefully pounced on her opportunity. “<span class='it'>Fi -donc!</span> Miriam Cread conjuring up such incorrect -things as flannels,—and it isn’t anywhere near -Doomsday!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s near dressing time. And we must pack a -little before dinner. After the theatre we’ll be too -tired.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How shall we explain our sudden departure to -Mrs. Pardy? Before she sends out invitations to all -her friends to ‘meet’ us!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We can have the measles. Or you’re moving to -Alaska.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And if ever she and Mr. P. are in the Arctic -Circle. . . . Measles wouldn’t do the trick. She -would come right in and nurse us. And give us her -doctor and her florist. Frankly, dear, I rather like -Mrs. Pardy; she’s so hearty. I thought that was -going to rhyme but it didn’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come along. We’re going to walk home, for -exercise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In these heels? . . . Is fifty cents enough to -leave the waiter?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Enough, good gracious! Leave the brute a -quarter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They made their way through a thronged corridor -towards the street, and Miriam felt a proprietary -pride in her companion, whose present restraint was -as instinctively in keeping with her tailored costume, -unostentatious fur, and defiant little hat, as her old -flamboyance had been with her khaki breeches and -willow switch.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Since I’ve begun to spend money,” Louise reflected, -“I’ve been more and more oppressed by the -unfairness of my having access to so much,—though -of course it’s nothing compared to what one sees -flung about in this bedlam. But all these exaggerated -refinements, and people taking notice,—while it -excites me, I don’t honestly care for it. There’s -something as uncomfortable about it as there would -be about ‘boughten’ teeth. Sartorial hysteria; the -rash known as civilization; I keep saying phrases like -that to myself. . . . After about the fifth time I -think I’d bite that beauty woman. I like my face -too well to have it rubbed out once a week!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They turned into Fifth Avenue and joined the -hordes let loose at this transition hour of the day. -Against the grey buildings women were as bright as -flowers, fulfilling, as Miriam reflected, the decorative -function that trees fulfil on European boulevards.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I had a cheque from Keble to-day,” Louise continued. -“As if we hadn’t heaps already! It came -in a charming letter. Keble in his letters is much -more human than he is in the flesh. If I stayed -away long enough I might forget that and fall romantically -in love with him all over again. Which -would be tragic. . . . He says he’s happy, poor -lamb, to know that I’m beginning to take an interest -in life! But I wish he’d be candid and say he’s miserable. -Then I’d know what to do. When he so -obstinately pretends to be happy and isn’t, I’m lost. -Miriam, look at that creature!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was a bizarrely clad woman, so thoroughly made -over in every detail of appearance that there was -scarcely a square inch of her original pattern left: -a weird, costly fabrication that attracted the attention -of everybody within range of vision or smell.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you know who it is?” asked Miriam, amused -at the startled look in her companion’s eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, do you? She looks Japanese.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Merely East Side. It’s Myra Pelter, the actress -we’re to see to-night in ‘Three Blind Mice’.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise yielded to a temptation to turn and stare. -“Now there you are, Miriam: the <span class='it'>reductio ad absurdum</span> -of hectic shopping and beautifying. Isn’t it -enough to drive one into a nunnery! I’m glad we’re -on our way to the seashore, where there are at least -‘such quantities of sand’ and sky and water.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam smiled doubtfully, a little wearily. “There -will be quantities of transparent stockings and -French perfumes, too, my dear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I like frivolities, as such,—but only as -such, mind you. From now on I ignore them the -minute they try to be anything more. I think I’m -going in for human souls. I’m already tired of -looking at people as Adèle looks at them, or as if -they were books in a shop window. I’m going to -open a few and see what they’re all about. . . . The -worst of it is, you can’t look at the last chapter of -people and see how they end. You can only read -them, as you can only read yourself, in maddeningly -short instalments. They’re always on the brink of -new doings when you come to a ‘to be continued’. -And I’ve reached a point where I must have gists -and summaries, must see what things are leading to, -what’s being driven at in this infuriating universe,—this -multi-verse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They had by this time reached their rooms, and -Miriam was making a preliminary sorting of objects -to be packed. “Don’t you think,” she ventured, -“that you are inclined to be a little headlong -as a philosopher?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was deftly choosing the articles of her -toilette for the evening. “Oh, no doubt of it! But -I’m too deep in my sea now to care. I simply swim -on and on, after a shoal of notions.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And splash a little,” commented Miriam, with an -abstracted air that saved the remark from being censorious. -She was wondering whether she had been -over-scrupulous in refusing the gown that Adèle had -privately offered her by way of commission. And a -little resentful that Adèle should dare offer it to <span class='it'>her</span>. -Miriam was old enough to remember a day when -such transactions were considered off-color, and it -bothered her that she should be so old-fashioned as -to be unable to accept the place assigned her in the -callous new order, as some of her former friends, -with the greatest complacence, seemed to have done. -Suddenly, bereft of credit in a society to which she -had once felt herself a necessary adjunct, catching -occasional glimpses of faces that recalled school-days -to her, and Newport and Paris, faces now hard, -bright and mercenary, Miriam felt abandoned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her thoughts strayed westward and hovered. In -Alberta she had been an exile; but not so acutely -alone as here.</p> - -<h3>5</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>The remaining weeks of their holiday accomplished -even more towards Louise’s worldly initiation, -for she found herself dining and dancing and matching -opinions in private palaces among an anomalous -assortment of men and women. Before proceeding -to Florida they paused in Washington, where friends -of Miriam and Walter Windrom whirled them into -the routine of that unique conglomeration of the -provincial and the sophisticated. Left alone among -them, Louise might for a while have been awed by -pompous ladies whose husbands were senators from -western states, and unimpressed by young men whose -shoulders bore no trace of the burdens laid upon -them by foreign governments. But Miriam’s polite -negativity towards the conspicuously grand, and her -full and ready response to some of the unassuming -furnished Louise with useful cues, and when Walter -was of the party she was even more secure, for he -had a faculty of accepting everything at its face -value, while privately adding to or subtracting from -the offering, with a twinkle in his eye, or a twinkle -in his speech.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Walter’s good-natured technique, Louise reflected, -was more nearly akin to her own temperament than -were Miriam’s precisely graduated coolness and cordialities. -Certain importunate people Miriam simply -ignored, as though declining to give them a seat in -her coach. Walter, while he was equally exclusive, -got over the necessity of inviting them into his coach -by stepping out and walking a short distance with -them. This method seemed to Louise not only more -humane, but also braver than Miriam’s, and certainly -no less dignified. It was gentlemanly, too; -and she objected, as only a woman can object, to -feminine tactics.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At Palm Beach they were greeted by a free, open, -careless life that suited Louise’s mood better than -anything their excursion had afforded her. She had -decided that there was no hurry about “going in for -human souls” and consequently spent many hours in -roaming through deep-chaired hotel lounges, marble -and wicker sun parlors, porches, pergolas, and terraces; -and in strolling along the hot sands or across -lawns shaded by flowering trees and edged with -lotus pools. She also swam, played tennis, and chatted -<span class='it'>ad libitum</span> with strangers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On her return to Canada, under the escort of -Keble, who had accepted her invitation to come and -fetch them, she was brimming over with ideas for -the embellishment of their projected home. Yet, -though she knew Keble was eager to have her offer -suggestions, she deliberately held them back. By -declining to participate in it she would lessen its hold -on her. It should be his castle, not hers.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER IV</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>A</span>S the days were told off one by one in anticipation -of the arrival of Trenholme Dare, the -young architect and landscape gardener of -Montreal, with his army of workmen, Louise became -more conspicuously reticent, more conspicuously addicted -to her books on socialism and metaphysics, her -chats with the wives of luckless ranchers, her -Quixotic jaunts north, south, east, and west in search -of lonely school-teachers to be befriended, sick cattle -to be disinfected, odd lots of provisions to be acquired -from hard-up settlers. On the very day that -a site was to be chosen for the foundation of her -private greenhouse, she fled from Hillside and rode -sixteen miles over the muddy roads of early spring -for a mere ice-cream soda; yet when she had heard -of the recurrence of little Annie Brown’s chronic -earache, she had foregone a dance at the Valley to sit -up all night and heat linseed oil, smooth pillows, and -sing old French ditties.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She realized the extent of her hostility to Keble’s -plans one day when a particular adverb escaped from -her subconsciousness apropos of her husband’s look -of boyish pleasure and surprise, a sort of diffident -radiance in his face, as he glanced through a budget -of documents which changed his status from that of -a dependent young rancher on probation into an independent -estate-holder. He seemed odiously contented, -she thought, then checked herself. “Odiously” -was the adverb, and in fear and wonder she rode -down towards the range to reflect, to read herself a -long, abundantly illustrated sermon on heartlessness, -and, if possible, reduce herself to a state of remorse -and penitence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In this attempt she failed signally, and indeed -went so far over into the opposite scale as to say with -a passionate flick of the reins which made Sundown -leap, “Then if we must, we must, that’s all, and I’ll -be Nero. The sooner Rome burns the better. <span class='it'>Vas-y -donc, bonjour!</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The spring rains had set in, and water coursed -down the usual channels with a volume and roar that -attracted one’s attention to brooklets which in other -seasons flowed by unnoticed. Water lurked in every -depression, as though the earth were some vast -sponge, red and brown and green. Near the river, -the road was washed away. In some places rude -bridges that had served the previous summer were -now rendered ridiculous through a capricious change -in the course of the stream. The bi-weekly mail -wagon had left deep ruts now filled with water the -color of cocoa. The mountains were still topped -with thick white snow and reminded her of frosted -cakes. There was a heavy, rich fragrance and vigor -in the air. When a hare darted across the trail into -the miniature forest of sage bushes, she, in spirit, -darted with him, in a glee. As she cut herself a -switch from a bush of willows she welcomed the -drops of water that showered over her face and ran -up her sleeve, as though, like some intelligent plant, -she knew that the drops would make her grow. Even -the mud that spattered her boots and stirrup straps -she cheerfully accepted as seasonable. And she rode -on at haphazard, as carelessly, yet with as much vigorous -assurance as had been manifested by the hare. -Like the hare she had no idea whither she was bound. -Like the hare she was swiftly, gracefully making for -the unknown destination. Temperamentally she was -hare-like; that would make Keble a tortoise; and -according to the fable he would win the race; that -thought would bear investigation,—but not for the -moment. For the moment she chose to intoxicate -herself with the conviction that nothing in the world -mattered. The ills that most people complained of,—ills -like little Annie’s earaches and her own increasing -estrangement from her husband,—merely lent -life an additional savor, and she could conceive of -acquiring a taste for chagrin, as one acquired a taste -for bitters; if not a taste, then at least an insensibility. -Her whole philosophy amounted to a conviction -of the necessity of behaving as though the odds -weren’t there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was only one thing that could have brought -her atonement with the spring world nearer to perfection, -and that would have been to have Keble riding -at her side. Not the correct Keble who studied -blue prints and catalogues, who read prose that -sounded like poetry and poems that sounded like -prose, but some idealized Keble who, with the same -eyes, hair, hands, strength, honesty, and “nice back-of-his-neck,” -could do what the actual Keble could -not do: keep ahead of her, command her, surprise, -shock, and seduce her, snatch her off her feet and -whirl her through space with a momentum that prevented -thought,—the Keble, in short, who failed to -exist but whom she loved against hope. Love was -a mystery to which she had gladly abandoned herself, -but which, while appearing to receive her with -open arms, had remained as inscrutable at close -range as it had been from a distance. When the -arms folded about her she felt imprisoned and -blinded; when she drew back for perspective the -arms fell, or, what was still more disheartening, -methodically turned to some unallied, if useful employment, -leaving her restlessly expectant and vaguely -resentful. The consequence of which was that -her great supply of affection, like the cascades pouring -down from the hills, spread over undefined areas, -capriciously turned into new channels, leaving, here -and there, little bridges of a former season spanning -empty river beds. That very morning at breakfast -Keble had said to her, “Good morning, dear, did you -sleep well?” That phrase was a useless old bridge -over a flat stretch of pebbles. To Miriam he had -said, “I’ve had a reply from the cement people; would -you like to type some more tiresome letters to-day?” -And that was a new bridge over God knew what.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She forgot that she had just been glorying in the -conviction that nothing in the world mattered. Once -she had said to her father that she sometimes wondered -if anything were right. She blushed at a -sudden humiliating guess as to what might make -<span class='it'>everything</span> right. Humiliating because,—for all her -fine theorizing,—it might be, after all, more physio- than -psyhcho-logical.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble’s corner of creation had become a chaos of -felled trees, excavations, foundations, ditches, scaffoldings, -cement-mixers, tripods, lead pipe, packing-cases, -tents, and Irish masons. Four years before, -on returning to London from a journey around the -world, he had heard his father say that a young man -who had “anything in him” couldn’t help desiring to -exert himself even to the point of great sacrifice in -the attainment of whatever most interested him. -That remark had discouraged Keble, for he could -imagine nothing for which he could have an overwhelming -desire to sacrifice himself: least of all -British politics, which was the breath in his father’s -nostrils.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The remark had sent him roaming again, not to -see more of the world but to think. And, thanks to -a hunting accident which confined him several weeks -to a log cabin in the wilds of Alberta, he had not -only thought, but found the thing for which he desired -to exert himself to the point of sacrifice. At -the moment when the lure of a new country was driving -from his memory the vapid gaieties of West End -night clubs, he met a girl who seemed to be the human -counterpart of all the mystery and spaciousness -in nature which had cast a spell upon him. The acres -which his father had acquired many years before for -the mere fun of owning something in Canada were -a jumble of forest primeval, clear waters, prairies, -untamed animals. Louise was a jumble equally enticing. -And the passion to reclaim the one became -inextricably allied with a passion to reclaim the other. -It mattered no more to him that his rivals in the latter -case were cowboys than that, in the former, his -opponents were inexperience and a sceptical family. -In both cases he saw possibilities that others hadn’t -seen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His forests and fields, being without a purpose of -their own, yielded docilely to his axes and ploughshares -and grouped themselves into the picture he -had conceived of them. But his wife, after the first -months of submission, had begun to sprout and -spread with a capricious and bewildering luxuriance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For some time he felt the change, but not until the -arrival of Trenholme Dare did his feeling become -statable. Not that there was any technical lack of -affection or good will or loyalty; there was simply a -great lack of common effort. The original trust and -enthusiasm had vanished, and since no one was to -blame, he was beginning to be anxious about its return. -At times he suspected that he ought, in some -fashion, to assert himself. But, fundamentally -humble, as well as proud, he could do nothing more -than watch Louise’s progress in a sort of despairing -approbation, and go on cultivating his own garden.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What changes had taken place in himself, with increasing -seriousness of purpose, he could not have -said. The changes in Louise were multitudinous, in -the sense that a tree in spring is more multitudinous -than the same tree in winter. She had acquired foliage -and blossoms. He trembled to see what the fruit -would be. Once he had been priggish enough to -wonder whether he could be contented with a wife -brought up in such primitive simplicity; his priggishness -received a final snub in Palm Beach, where instead -of the impetuous creature whose cultivation he -had once bumptiously promised himself to take in -hand, he was met by a woman who had herself so -completely in hand that she set the tone for everybody -within range. Vaguely he suspected that the -transformation was the result of a process undertaken -with the intention of pleasing him. But to -have claimed this would have seemed to him presumptuous. -He now found in her a cautiousness, politeness, -and undemonstrativeness that, to his dismay, -he recognized as an echo of his own; and, their -positions reversed, he had some conception of the -hurt he must have inflicted on her. Whereupon he -longed for her old headlong assaults and gamineries,—longed -for them for their warmth and for their -value as examples to learn by.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The only encouraging factor in the situation was -Louise’s honesty. In that respect at least there was -no change. He was convinced that she had told him -only one lie in her life, and that was a pathetic fib -for which he was more than ready to answer to Saint -Peter, since it was a by-product of the process of -self-improvement Louise had undertaken, as he suspected, -to do him honor. Being the first lie, it was -overdone: for Miriam Cread was, of all the women -he could think of, perhaps the least like a Harristown -schoolmistress. He had never challenged the story, -and it had never been officially contradicted. Neither -Louise nor Miriam knew that one day, in looking -through a bundle of old illustrated weeklies, his eye -had been arrested by the photograph of a group of -people in the paddock at Ascot, prominent among -whom was “Rear Admiral Cread of Washington, -D. C. and his daughter,” chatting with a dowdy old -princess of the blood royal at the very moment,—as -Keble took the trouble to calculate,—when Weedgie -Bruneau was alleged to have been improving her acquaintance -with Miriam in a remote normal school -in the Canadian northwest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>How Miriam had got to Hillside, what she had -come for, and why she stopped on, were questions -whose answers were of no importance. Important -was the fact that Miriam’s presence had had the effect -of an electrolized rod plunged into the chemical -solution of his marriage. As a result of which -Louise and he had separated into copper and NO<sub>3</sub>. -In short he had relapsed into a rather flat solution, -and she had come out a very bright metal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam was not a source of anxiety to him. -Whatever machine she had dropped from, she had -played fair. At times she was a positive boon: -sweet, serene, solid. “I wish you could see her, my -son,” he had once written to Walter Windrom. -“Even your flawless Myra Pelter’s nose, if not put -out of joint, would have to be furtively looked at in -the mirror, just once, to see that it was still straight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the <span class='it'>man</span> from the machine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was entirely self-made, and, as Keble was the -first to admit, a tremendously good job. Miriam’s -comment was that, though his thumbs were too thin-waisted -for a Hercules and his shoulders too broad -for an Apollo, he was undoubtedly of divine descent. -Louise, on first seeing him, had shrugged her shoulders -and said, under her breath, the one word: -“Cocksure.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble’s impression of Dare was recorded in his -latest letter to Windrom, with whom, as a relief -from his recent solitary self-catechism, he had resumed -a more intensive correspondence. “He takes -possession of you,” wrote Keble, “Chiefly, I think, -with his voice, which is more palpable than most -men’s handshakes: one of those voices that contain -chords as well as single tones, that sink and spread, -then draw together into the sound of hammer on -steel, and scatter into a laugh which is like a shower -of sparks. If I were a sculptor I would model him -in bronze fifteen feet high and label him the twentieth -century, if not the twenty-first. If I owned a monopoly -of the world’s industry I would make him -general manager. If I were the sovereign people I -would cheerfully and in a sort of helpless awe make -him dictator, all the while deploring and failing to -understand his views. He would simply thunder -forth policies in a voice full of chromatic thirds, and -with frantic, nervous huzzahs I would bear him -shoulder-high to the throne.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare struck Keble as a philosopher who through -excess of physical energy had turned to mechanical -science. Or perhaps a born engineer whose talent -for organizing matter had a sort of spiritual echo. -At one moment he would make his facts support his -philosophical speculations; at the next his philosophy, -like a gigantic aeroplane, would mount into the sky -with tons of fact stowed away in neat compartments. -The result was that Keble didn’t know whether to -marvel at the load Dare could mount with, or be -alarmed at the whirling away into space of so much -solid matter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Contact with this chap,” wrote Keble, “has -taught me this, that to me who,—it must alas be admitted,—am -merely on the brink of understanding -my epoch, individuality has seemed almost an end in -itself, as though the object of life were achieved -when the flower blossomed. (I remember romantic -nights during my furloughs in Paris when I paid -mute tribute to long-haired, be-sandalled creatures -who were, to my excessively English eyes, ‘being individual’). -But egos are <span class='it'>passé</span>; mass ego, it seems -(or egi) have come in. For Dare the blossoming, -even the fructifying, are incidental. His interest (at -least in the reflective lulls after dinner, for during -the daytime he’s the most practical of men) extends -to the cosmic activity which is (in some manner I -have yet to comprehend) rendered possible by the -virtually automatic living and procreating and dying -of millions upon millions of violets and pine trees -and rabbits and ladies and gentlemen and glaciers -and republics and solar systems. He assaults the -subject with these stimulating volleys of odds and -ends.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now imagine, Walter, for only you can, the effect -of all this on my wife. It’s turning into ‘a case -unprecedented’, and before long I may, like Bunthorne, -have to be ‘contented with a tulip or li-lie’. -Louise long ago talked me into a cocked hat. -Miriam, through the mysterious licence she had been -endowed with, kept up a semblance of intellectual -alto to Louise’s dizzy soprano. But now, oh dear -me <span class='it'>now</span>, Miriam and I aren’t even in tempo with her, -much less in key. My household,—I still claim it as -mine through force of habit, which is always imperative -with me,—has become a china shop for the -taurean and matadorean antics of two of the most -ruthlessly agile products of the age.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Louise is for the moment (and you can only -define her momentarily) an interpreting link between -Dare (twenty-first century) and me (nineteenth). -Her original association with me awakened her consciousness -to a delicate scale of weights and measures -in matters of taste and opinion. When she -had acquired my acuteness of perception she discovered -that she was naturally endowed with Alpine -talents that made my hilltop look like a mound. -From her easy victories over Miriam and me she concluded -that there were endless enterprises awaiting -her. When she was alone she began to feel herself -operating on a higher gear, making for herself new -speed records. Now that I look back, I know that -my cautiousness, in more than one crisis, gave her -ample excuse for going her own gait. I have it from -her lips that she has kept her love (whatever we -mean by that enormously capacious word) for me -brightly burning, as I, in all the welter, have done. -Her religious nature, for want of a cult, has always -centered round an exquisite instinct which I suspect -to be a sort of sublimated eroticism: something that -I suppose no man ever understands,—or would some -other man? That’s the devilish puzzle of it. Yet -almost without being aware of it she seems to have -kindled new fires before an altar so much more important -and all-embodying than her feeling for me -or mere anybody else that the light of her little lamp -of constancy is like the light of a star in the blaze of -noon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What one does in a case like that is more than I -know. All I am sure of at this moment is you, my -son, a lighthouse that flashes at dependable intervals -through my fogs. Do you, for one, stay a little in -the rear of the procession if every one else gets out -of sight. I don’t deserve it of you; I merely exact -it,—again through force of habit: the same habit -that, in our school holidays suffered me to play with -<span class='it'>your</span> yacht on the Kensington round pond after I -had wrecked my own.”</p> - -<h3>3</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam, who had watched Louise as one watches -an acrobat,—with excitement and dread,—felt herself -in a sense frustrated by Louise’s continued -apathy. If it had been punctuated by new verbal -heresies, new feats of talk with Trenholme Dare, -now the dominating figure at Hillside, Miriam, like -Keble, would at least have been able to account for -it even had she failed to sympathize. But Louise’s -indifference seemed to have spread even to the realm -of ideas, and there had been very few acrobatic displays -of late. Possibly Louise was in love; but if -so, it would have been much more like her to say -so, flatly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The effect of this on Miriam was to make her -more sharply conscious of the anomaly of her rôle. -More than once she had argued that her mission was -at an end, but in each instance Louise had induced -her to remain. Having yielded at first with a faint -sense of guilt, Miriam had come through custom to -accept her position with all its ambiguities. As -Keble’s activities increased, she had stepped into the -breach and relieved him of many daily transactions, -delighted at being able to offer a definite service for -the cheque which was left on her dressing table every -month. Keble ended by turning over to her his -ledgers and most of his correspondence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But her feeling of guilt recurred at moments when -the house seemed to be an armed camp, with Keble -and herself deep in their estimates; and Louise inciting -Dare to phantastic metaphysical speculation. -At such moments her mind persisted in criticizing -Louise. It was not exactly that she lacked confidence -in her, for Louise was in her own fashion -surefooted and loyal. But Miriam was a little appalled -at the extensity of the ground Louise could be -surefooted on, the sweeping nature of her conception -of loyalty. Louise, scorner of the ground, was all -for steering in a direct line to her goal and ignoring -the conventional railway routes whose zigzags were -conditioned by topographical exigencies not pertinent -to fliers. Her loyalty would not fail Keble, for she -could cherish him in the spirit without subscribing -to him in the letter. Louise’s loyalty might be expressed -in idioms which were not to be found in -Keble’s moral vocabulary. Just as there were some -eternal truths which could be expressed more adequately -in French than in English, so, conceivably, -there might be vital experiences which Louise could -obtain more adequately through the agency of some -man other than Keble; certainly she would not acknowledge -any law that attempted to prevent her -doing so, had she a mind to it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There were times when Miriam felt herself to be -an interpreter; more than once in tête-à-têtes with -Keble she had found herself de-coding some succinct -remark of Louise’s to explain away a worried -line in his forehead, and it was on those occasions -that she had felt especially guilty,—not because she -ran the risk of giving an unfair interpretation, but -because it was conceivable that, had she not been -there to decipher, Louise would have taken more -pains to employ a language Keble could understand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This qualm she could dispel by reminding herself -that at the time of her advent Louise and Keble had -been drifting apart through very lack of an interpreter. -Then it was Keble’s language which had -been too precious for his wife, and Louise herself -had taken energetic steps to increase her vocabulary -to meet the demand. Would Keble take steps to -learn her new words? At least there was evidence -that he suffered at not being able to speak them. But -after all Keble was a man, and no man should be -expected to grope in the irrational mazes of a woman’s -psychology. It was a woman’s duty to make -herself intelligible to the man who loved her; Miriam -was tenaciously sure of this. Yet Louise nowadays -made no effort to share her ideas with Keble; she -merely challenged him to soar with her, and when -he, thinking of Icarus, held back, she went flying off -with Dare, who certainly made no effort to bear any -one aloft, but whose powerful rushing ascensions -either filled you with a desire to fly or bowled you -over.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare, for all his impetuosity, was, like Louise, -prodigiously conscientious; but like her he was -more concerned with the sense of a word than with -its orthography. He was too certain of the organic -and creative nature of experience to live according -to any formula. You felt unwontedly safe with -him, just as you did with Louise, but safe from -dangers that only he had made you see, dangers on -a remote horizon. As you ambled along, with nothing -more ominous than a cloud of dust or a shower -of rain to disturb your pedestrian serenity, Louise -and Dare would swoop down, armed to the teeth, -gleefully to assure you that nothing fatal would happen, -that accidents to limb held no terrors for moral -crusaders worthy the name; then, leaving you to -stand there in bewilderment, they would swoop off -again to catch up with unknown squadrons beyond -the rim of vision, whence, for the first time, a muffled -sound of bombing came to your ears. And your -knees would begin to tremble, not on their account,—oh -dear no, <span class='it'>they</span> could take care of themselves,—but -on your own. Suddenly your pedestrian course -seemed drab to you,—long, weary, prosaic; but you -lacked wings, weapons, zeal, and endurance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was a Spartan both morally and physically. -She could ignore transgressions of the social code -as easily as she could ignore bodily discomforts. -Recently Miriam had seen an example of each. -When Pearl Beatty, the schoolteacher, had been -made the topic of scandalous gossip which echoed -through the Valley, Louise in defiance of her husband -and the public had fetched Pearl to the ranch -for a week-end, and said to her in effect, “Pearl dear, -I’ll see that you don’t lose your job, provided you -don’t lose your head. If it’s a <span class='it'>man</span> you want, wait -till you find the right one, then bring him here and -I’ll protect you both. But if it’s a lot of men you -want you can’t go on teaching school in our Valley; -it’s too complicated. The only way to play that game -with pleasure and profit,—and I doubt whether -you’re really vicious enough,—is to save your money, -go to a big city, buy some good clothes, and sit in -the lobby of the leading commercial hotel until fate’s -finger points.” As a result of this manoeuvre some -of Pearl’s thoughtless exuberance rushed into a -channel of devotion to Louise, who seized the occasion -to build up in the girl a sense of her own value -and then bullied the Valley into respecting it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As for physical courage, only a few days previously -Louise, uttering an occasional “Oh damn!” to -relieve her agony, had stoically probed with a needle -deep under her thumb-nail to release a gathering that -had formed as a result of rust poisoning, while -Miriam stood by in horror.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Far deeper than her dread of anything Louise -might do was a dread engendered by lack of confidence -in herself. Within herself there was some -gathering of emotion for which, unlike Louise, she -hadn’t the courage to probe. As she had told -Louise at their first meeting, responsibility could -frighten her; and she now shrank before the responsibility -of her inclinations. The most she dared -admit to herself was that she was growing too fond -of the life around her. In her first youth she had -fancied herself a real person in a pleasantly artificial -setting, mildly enamoured of glittering symbols of -life; in this faraway corner, renovated by solitude, -physical exertion, and obligatory self-analysis, she -saw herself as an artificial person in a pleasantly -real setting, enamoured of life itself. She had come -to teach, and had remained to learn. In the old days -a horse had been a sleek toy upon which one cantered -in Rock Creek Park or Rotten Row or the Monte -Pinchio gardens until a motor came and fetched one -home to lunch. A dog had been a sort of living -muff. Camping expeditions had been an elaborate -means of relaxing overwrought nerves. Nowadays -a horse was a friend who uncomplainingly bore one -great distances, who discovered the right path when -one was lost. A dog was a companion who escorted -one through fearsome trails, who retrieved the -grouse one hit, and kept watch by night at the cabin -door. Camping expeditions were a serious means to -some explorative end; one slept on the hard ground -under a raincoat simply because there was nothing -else to sleep on, and eagerly looked forward to doing -it again. Men and women whom one would once -have sent down to the kitchen for a cup of tea were -now one’s convives. And far from losing caste on -this level, one acquired a useful perspective of society -and a new conception of one’s identity. Association -with a girl like Pearl Beatty, for instance, not only -opened one’s eyes at last to some blunt facts about -one’s own nature, but also furnished the clue to -scandals concerning which one had been stupidly -supercilious in the days when life consisted in the -automatic fulfilment of projects announced beforehand -on pieces of cardboard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet for the first time in a dozen years she was -not sure of herself. So far she had been loyal in -thought as well as deed, but the present inventory of -herself revealed claims for which she had also little -rebellious gusts of loyalty. Louise herself counted -for something in this development, since however -much one might deprecate Louise’s bold convictions, -one couldn’t deny that they were often ingratiating. -“It’s more honorable to hoist your own sail and -sail straight on a reef than it is to be towed forever!” -When Louise tossed off remarks of that -sort one was tempted to lengths of experiment that -one would once have drastically disapproved. -Louise’s philosophy might end by producing inedible -fruits, but meanwhile there was no denying the -charm of the blossoms she flaunted under one’s windows -and virtually defied one not to smell.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As long as Louise was plying at verbal thunder -and lightning, Miriam’s confidence in herself underwent -to qualms. For at such times, she, in comparison -with Louise, personified all that was discreet. -But when Louise’s effervescences died down, when -the last waterspout of her exultant proclamations had -collapsed on a lake of apathy too deep and dark to -be penetrated, Miriam felt the wavelets radiating to -the shore at her feet, gently communicating a more -daring rhythm to her own desires.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The first definite effect of these reflections was -Miriam’s decision to leave. Otherwise she would be -forced to come to an understanding with herself and -run the risk of discovering that she was ready to—steal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was late in September. Dare’s army of workmen -were fighting against time to complete the exteriors -of the new house and outbuildings before -winter. Miriam drew rein as her horse reached the -top of the hill from which she had obtained her first -glimpse of the lake more than a year ago. The sun -was not yet up, but the world was expecting it. The -lake which only yesterday had been an emerald was -now a long, flat pearl encircled in a narrow, faintly -amethystine mist which like a scarf of gauze broke -the perpendicular lines of the farthermost shore. In -it were mirrored the colossal rocks forming the -jagged V of the canyon, and threadbare clouds of -pale rose and jade, lemon and amber. The oily -brown log cottages silhouetted near the outlet had -the pictorial value of black against the living pearl -of the water, and Louise’s flower beds were banked -with something mauve dulled by dew. Frost-bitten, -orange-red geraniums in wooden urns raised high on -crooked tree-stumps made hectic blurs on each side -of the main cottage. Farther off, and higher than -the tops of the pine trees which rose above the pervasive -lavender mist, were clusters of yellow and -crimson foliage and slender tree trunks that stood -out like strokes of Chinese white. Higher yet were -stretches of rusty gorse which finally straggled off -to bare patches of buff-hued turf ending in the rock -walls of Hardscrapple, whose irregular peaks, four -thousand feet above, were faintly edged with silver -light.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the end of the pine ridge to the right of the -lake, surmounting a broad meadow, standing out -from the wooded slope of the mountain, and bringing -the whole landscape to a focus, was the Castle -with its severe lines, its broad balconies and high -windows. One terrace dominated the lake, while -another looked over the top of the pine ridge towards -the distant valley where the river twisted its -way for thirty miles through a grey-green sage plain -broken by occasional dark islands of pine and -bounded on the farther side by patchy brown and -green risings culminating in a lumpy horizon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Everything visible for fifty miles had been stained -bright with the hues of the changing season, only to -be softened by the clinging mist, which seemed to -hush as well as to veil.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>From three kitchens,—Louise’s, Mrs. Brown’s, -and the workmen’s encampment,—white ribbons of -smoke rose straight up as though to reinforce the -pale, exhausted clouds. Grendel, Miriam’s retriever, -was standing in the wet grass, one paw held up and -tail motionless as though awaiting confirmation of a -hint of jack-rabbits. An acrid odour gave body to -the air: an odour whose ingredients included the -damp earth, the bark of the firs, the bunches of rust-colored -berries, the leather of the saddle, and the -warm vitality of the horse. Once there was a sound -of whinnying from the slopes beneath, and once a -distant sound of splashing,—Keble or Dare at his -morning plunge in the lake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>How splendid to be a man, with a man’s vigorous -instincts! Even the pipes they smoked at night -were condonable, when you thought of the strong -teeth that clenched their stems, the strong fingers -that twisted the stems out during the cleaning process, -and the earnestness that went into the filling and -lighting, the contented bodily collapse, as of giants -refreshed, that followed the first puff.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Splendid to be a man, certainly. But how much -more wonderful to be at the disposal of some clean, -earnest, boyish creature who would be comfortingly -gigantic when one felt helpless, enticingly indolent -when one felt strong. As for being a victim to a -capacity for tenderness which one had no right to indulge,—that -was simply unfair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The sound of loose planks disturbed by running -feet came up to her on the motionless air. It was -Keble, in sandals and dressing gown, returning from -the boat-slip to the cottage. She leaned forward and -patted her horse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Near the foot of the winding road she drew rein -again. Grendel had dashed ahead to play practical -jokes on a colony of hens. Joe was chopping wood. -Mona was moving tins in the dairy. Annie Brown -was at the pump, getting water on her “pinny”. -Some one was whistling. Grendel barked at the top -of his lungs and came bounding back through the -grass. The sun was beginning to turn the mountain -peaks into brass and bronze. The flat pallid clouds -were trailing away. A flush of blue crept over the -sky.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam’s throat ached with the kind of happiness -that is transformed at birth into pain. She remembered -the remark she had made to Louise on first -descending this road: “You very lucky woman!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Half an hour later, at the breakfast table, she was -struck by the pallor of Louise’s cheeks, which normally -glowed. Louise was chatting with a show of -good spirits that failed to hoodwink her. She broke -open an egg with a slight feeling of vexation, for -it was nerve-racking to be faced daily with a human -puzzle. She was more than willing to be sorry for -Louise, but one couldn’t quite be sorry until one -knew why.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A moment later their eyes met. Louise gave her -a characteristically friendly smile, and suddenly -Miriam guessed. She was assailed by a nameless -envy, a nameless resentment, sincere compassion, -then, by a strange relief that left her almost comically -weak.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When breakfast was finished and the men were -out of the room she went to Louise, grasped her by -the shoulders, looked into her eyes with kindly inquiry, -then, having been assured, said, “My dear, -why didn’t you tell me? Or rather, how could I -have failed to see!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To Miriam’s amazement Louise bit her lips and -trembled,—Louise, the Spartan! Miriam kissed her -cold cheek and gave her arm an affectionate pat. -She felt awkward. “What’s there to be afraid of?” -she scoffed. “You of all people!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s not fear,” Louise quietly contradicted. “It’s -disgust.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How does Keble take it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He is as blind as you were. And I haven’t been -able to bring myself to telling him. That explains -better than anything my state of mind. He will be -so odiously glad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam was shocked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, odiously,” Louise petulantly repeated. “I -know it’s abominable of me to talk like this. But he -will be so suffocatingly good and kind . . . Oh -Miriam!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She burst into tears and let Miriam’s arms receive -her. “I loathe hysterical women,” she sobbed, -then turned to Miriam with appealing eyes. “You -will stay won’t you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam hesitated. The decision she had come to -on her solitary ride broke down as other similar decisions -had done.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, yes, dear,—yes, of course I’ll see you -through it,” she replied, and allowed Louise’s grateful -caress to silence a little exulting voice within -her.</p> - -<h3>4</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>A singular, poignant peace brooded over Hillside -through the long months of Miriam’s second winter -at the ranch. While the outer world stood transfixed -with cold, its lakes and streams frozen and its heart -stifled under the snow, the people indoors went about -their tasks and diversions with an orderliness that -recalled old times to Louise and Keble and tended to -persuade Miriam that her doubts about herself had -been exaggerated.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To break the monotony of correspondence, books, -cards, and skiing trips there had been countless -boxes to unpack in the unfinished house on the hill: -boxes of furnishings and ornaments, music to try -over and books to catalogue. To give unity to the -winter, there was the dramatic suspense of waiting -for the human miracle. The attitude of Louise combined -tolerance of Keble’s solicitude with amusement -at Miriam’s half-embarrassed excitement. For the -rest she accepted with common sense a situation -which she privately regarded as an insult on the part -of fate.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The apathy which Miriam had noted so uneasily -in the early autumn had not disappeared, although -it had lost its trance-like fixity, in the place of which -had come a more regular attention to daily tasks, a -quiet competence. Miriam’s admiration for Louise -had steadily grown, despite her distrust of Louise’s -intellectual “climbing” and her half-acknowledged -envy of Louise’s power to enslave Keble, to give -Dare Rolands for his Olivers, and to bind maids and -cooks, farm hands and horse wranglers, neighbors -and creditors together in a fanatical vassalage. On -none of her slaves did Louise make arbitrary demands. -If she exhorted or scolded them, it was always -apropos of their success or failure in being -true to themselves. If Miriam’s admiration ever -wavered, it was on occasions when Louise, carried -away by her own <span class='it'>élan</span>, cut capers merely to show -what capers she could cut,—like an obstreperous -child shouting, “Watch me jump down three steps -at a time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But recently Louise had not been cutting capers, -and as she sat before a fire that gave the lie to the -incredible temperature that reigned beyond the storm -doors, calmly stitching garments for an infant whose -advent was distasteful to her, Miriam regarded her -with the protective affection she might have felt for -a sister ten years her junior.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can’t make you out,” she said. “In your place -I would be obnoxiously proud of myself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When I was first married I wanted him. Then -as time went on I hoped there wouldn’t be any him -at all. Saw to it, in fact. I’ve been negligent.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why <span class='it'>him</span>?” Miriam inquired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Because it’s my duty to produce a member of the -ancient and honorable House of Lords. His forebears -expect it. As for me, I’d rather have a -monkey.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Grimness had replaced the old zest and elasticity, -and Miriam noted with surprise that this single fact -completely altered the personality of the household. -If the present mood proved permanent, she reflected, -the Castle, for all their pains, would have the character -of a house to let.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare had left in the late autumn and would return -in the spring, perhaps remaining for the house-warming -which was to be the occasion of a visit by -members of Keble’s family. At the time of Dare’s -departure Miriam had watched Louise with intense -curiosity. She had longed to know the nature of the -rôle played by Louise’s heart in her relation with -Dare,—a relation which both so freely acknowledged -to be exhilarating. During one of their final evenings -Louise had said to Dare, “When you leave Hillside -I shall climb to the top of Hardscrapple, chant a -hymn to the sun, and dive head first into the canyon, -for there won’t be anything to live for, except Keble -and Miriam, and they’re only the land I’m a fish on, -whereas you’re the water I’ll be a fish out of!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To which Dare had instantly retorted, “Indeed -I’m not the water you’re a fish in. I’m the whale -you’re a swordfish attacking, and I shall be glad to -get back east where there’s nothing I can’t either -swallow or out-swim.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam had been exasperated at not being able to -read between the bantering lines. For there must be -a situation, she reasoned; two such abounding persons, -no matter how adroit, could never have got so -far into each others’ minds without having got some -distance into each other’s blood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the situation, whatever it was, was not divulged, -and Miriam was denied whatever solace her -own unruly heart might have derived from the -knowledge that Keble’s wife’s heart was also unruly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whether Louise’s sense of duty had a share in it -or not, a “him” was duly produced and ecstatically -made at home. Even his mother ended by admitting -that he was “not a bad little beast.” She had vetoed -Keble’s plan to import a nurse from England, and -had trained Katie Salter for the post. As motherhood -had once been Katie’s passionate avocation, -Louise could think of no better way to translate into -deeds the spirit of her outlandish funeral sermon on -neighborliness than to promote Katie from the -wash-house to the nursery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble and Miriam came in from an hour’s skating -one afternoon late in December to find Louise at -the tea-table submitting to Katie’s proud account of -the prodigy’s gain in weight. She was mildly -amused to learn that the tender hair on the back of -babies’ heads was worn off by their immoderate addiction -to pillows.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble leaned over the perambulator, not daring to -put his finger into the trap of his son’s microscopic -hand lest its coldness have some dire effect. He had -an infatuated apprehension of damage to his child, -having so recently learned the terrific physical cost -of life. His tenderness for the infant had a strange -effect on Louise. It made her wish that she were -the baby. Tears gathered in her eyes as she watched -him, still aglow from his exercise and fairly hanging -on Katie’s statistics.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She began to pour tea as Miriam threw aside her -furs and drew up a chair. Miriam had hoped, in -common with Keble and Katie Salter, that Louise’s -indifference would disappear as if by magic when -the baby came within range of the census. She was -forced to admit, however, that Louise was not appreciably -more partial to her son than to Elvira -Brown or Dicky Swigger.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Could you desert him long enough to drink a -cup of tea?” Louise inquired after a decent interval. -She liked the solemn manner in which Keble talked -to the future member of the House of Lords. Like -Gladstone addressing the Queen, Keble addressed -the baby as though it were a public meeting. “You -must make due allowance for the incurable knick-knackery -of woman kind,” he was saying, as he -smoothed out a lace border in which two tiny fingers -had become entangled and against which,—or something -equally unjust,—a lusty voice was beginning -to protest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He’s not as polite as you are, if he does take -after you,” Louise commented when Keble had -praised the toasted cheese cakes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble judged this a fair criticism, and Miriam was -of the opinion that a polite baby would be an unendurable -monstrosity. “I like him best of all,” she -said, “when he kicks and twists and screams ‘fit to -bust his pram’, as Katie says. Although I’m also -quite keen about him when he’s dining. Yes, thanks, -and another cheese cake . . . And his way of always -getting ready to sneeze and then <span class='it'>not</span>, that’s endearing. -And his dreams about food.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You wouldn’t find them half as endearing if you -had to wake up in the middle of the night and replenish -him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh I say, Weedgie! Must you always speak of -him as though he were a gas-tank, or a bank account!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pass me your cup. After skating you also want -a lot of replenishing, like your greedy heir. Now -let’s for goodness’ sake talk about something else,—the -New Year’s dance for instance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was always ready nowadays to talk on any -subject in which Louise showed signs of interest. -The recognized household term for it was “trying -to be the water Louise is a fish in.”</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER V</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>I</span>N England there were several thousand acres -which Keble would one day automatically take -over. In Canada, creating his own estate, he -could enjoy a satisfaction known only to the remotest -of his ancestors. And as his wilderness became -productive he acquired, atavistically, the attitude -of a squire towards the people whose livelihood -depended on him. He housed them comfortably; -he listened to their claims and quarrels; he hired, discharged, -and promoted with conscientious deliberation; -and every so often he wrote letters to the -provincial parliament about the state of the roads.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now it’s time to amuse them,” Louise had suggested. -“People don’t remember that you have installed -expensive lighting plants for their benefit, but -they never forget a lively party.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus was sown the seed of the New Year’s dance -which was to be held in the hall and reception rooms -of the empty new house. Invitations were issued to -every soul at Hillside, and a poster tacked to the bulletin -board of the Valley post office announced that -anybody who cared to make the journey would be -welcome.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Preparations for this evening revived Louise’s -spirits as nothing had done in months. No detail -was left to chance. Keble, held responsible for the -music, endeavored for days to whip up the sluggish -dance rhythms of the Valley bandmaster. “I’ve done -everything but stand on my head and beat time with -my feet,” he reported in desperation, “and they still -play the fox-trots as though they were dirges. Fortunately -the Valley knows no better.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam superintended the decorating of the rooms, -aided by the “hands”, who, like Birnam Wood, advanced -across the white meadow obliterated under a -mass of evergreens.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Only one contretemps occurred. A few days after -Christmas Mrs. Boots, the minister’s wife, accompanied -by Mrs. Sweet, wife of the mail carrier, made -her way to the Castle and warned Louise that her -dance would conflict with the “watch-night service” -at the Valley church.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>New Year’s fell on a Saturday, and to postpone -the ball one night would involve dancing into the -early hours of the Day of Rest. Keble had made -arrangements to leave on Saturday for the east, on -a short business trip to London. To hold the entertainment -over until Monday would therefore be -out of the question.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise had a characteristic inspiration. “Why not -turn the library into a chapel!” she exclaimed, -kindling at the prospect of an extra dramatic item -on her program, “And pause at midnight for spiritual -refreshments! I’ll make everybody file in and -kneel, Mr. Boots can say a prayer, and we’ll all sing -a little hymn—perfect!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And then go on dancing!” cried Mrs. Boots, in -horror.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Sweet reflected the horror on her friend’s -face. Then her disapproving glances traveled to a -corner of the hall where some noisy girls were making -paper chains and lanterns under the direction of -Pearl Beatty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise saw that she had given pain to the minister’s -wife. “Forgive me,” she said impulsively. -“I’m such a heathen! But if I were a Christian I’m -sure it wouldn’t disturb my conscience to dance and -pray alternately; indeed each would gain by the contrast. -What’s the point of a religion that has to be -kept in a cage?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Boots could have found answers if she had -been given time to catch her breath, but before she -had a word ready Louise was shaking her cordially -by the hand and consigning her to a maid who was -to take the ladies to the cottage and comfort them -with tea and a sight of the baby before the mail sleigh -returned to the Valley.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whatever the concourse of the faithful at the -watch-night service, there was never an instant’s -doubt as to the triumph of the forces of evil. From -the moment when Keble and the wife of the Mayor -of Witney, followed by Louise and the Mayor, stepped -out at the head of a “grand march” until daybreak -on the first of January when a winded band -played a doleful version of “God Save the King”, -the festivities went forward with irresistible momentum. -Keble made a speech, and then with true -British fortitude danced with every female guest. -Miriam, acting on orders, solicited dances from bashful -cowboys, and once, in the grip of an honest lad -who seemed to have mistaken her for a pump, she -caught the eyes of Keble, in the grip of the new -laundress, who was bolting towards a wall with him. -And they hadn’t dared to burst out laughing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise darted in and out, setting everything on -fire, making the dour laugh and the obstreperous -subside, launching witty sallies and personal broadsides, -robbing Pearl of her plethora of partners and -leading them captive to the feet of girls who, after -living for days on the exciting prospect, were now -sitting against the wall with their poor red hands in -their laps, enjoying it, vicariously.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Louise the evening would have been perfect -but for one disturbing remark which she overheard -in the supper room. Minnie Swigger, whose brand -new “Kelly green” satin had lost something of its -splendor when contrasted with the simple black velvet -in which Louise was sheathed, had watched -Miriam pass by in company with Pearl Beatty and -Jack Wallace, the proprietor of the Valley livery -stable, and had vouchsafed her criticism in an ungrateful -voice which carried to Louise’s ears: -“She’s supposed to be his secretary. Either Weedgie -is blind, or she holds Miss Cread over his head as -an excuse for her own little game. Nobody but her -could get away with it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise wheeled about and walked up to Minnie. -“Get away with what?” she inquired evenly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Minnie was too startled to reply for a moment, -then with the defiance born of a bad conscience she -said, “I don’t care if you did hear me. It certainly -looks funny, and that’s not my fault. And Pearl -Beatty there, as big as life! When you make a fuss -over her decent fellows like Jack Wallace get the idea -she’s all right.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Isn’t she?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you call <span class='it'>that</span> all right!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Being all right is minding your own business. -You’re a nice little thing, Minnie, but you <span class='it'>don’t</span>. -Not always. Don’t try to mind mine; it’s far too -much for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>What the natives thought was in itself a matter of -indifference, but if “things,” as Minnie alleged, did -“look funny”, it was just conceivable that the natives, -for all their ignorance, saw the situation at -Hillside in a clearer perspective than any of the actors. -Keble’s departure was, therefore, in a sense -opportune.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Although it meant twenty-four hours without -sleep, Louise and Miriam next morning insisted on -accompanying Keble as far as the Valley. The four -took breakfast, along with Dr. Bruneau, at the Canada -House as Miriam’s guests. They were weary, -a little feverish, and inclined to be silent. Keble -alone chatted with a volubility that betrayed his -nervousness, his regret at the separation, and his excitement -at the prospect of revisiting the home he -had long ago abandoned. Louise was pale, and -kept hiding in the depths of her fur coat. Miriam -and the doctor sustained Keble’s talk, but could not -relax the tension. The stage was due in fifteen -minutes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly Louise jumped up from the table, which -was being cleared by an ill-kempt waitress with -whom Keble had danced a few hours previously. -“I nearly forgot . . . the snapshots of Baby for his -grandmother. They’re still at the drug-store. I’ll -run over and get them.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let me go, dear,” Keble had risen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’ll go together,” Louise proposed, and Miriam -noted an eager light in his eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On the snowy road he tucked his glove under -Louise’s arm, and they picked their way across in -silence to the drug-store.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When she had obtained the photographs and thrust -them into an inner pocket of his coat, they returned -more slowly towards the hotel.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It will seem very strange,” he said, “without you -and the monkey. I can’t tell you how disappointed -I am at your refusing to come home with me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A change from us will do you good . . . You’re -to give my love and the monkey’s to everybody, and -tell them I’m looking forward very much to their -visit.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble stopped in the middle of the deserted street, -to face her with appealing eyes, and rested a hand on -her arm. “Weedgie, that’s all so pathetically trite, -for you! Tell me, <span class='it'>sans facons</span>, why wouldn’t you -come, and why wouldn’t you let me take the snapshots -of you as well as the monkey?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was a little timid. This was the Louise with -whom he had originally fallen love, and whom he remembered -even through her noisiest performances. -“Because I’m perverse. I want your people, if they -are going to make my acquaintance at all, to get their -first impression of me in my own setting.” She -couldn’t confess that she would have been gratified -if his people had been a few degrees more pressing -in their invitations to her. “If they like me in spite -of it, or even if they don’t, I shall feel at least square -with myself. But if they were to find me passable -in <span class='it'>their</span> setting, then come out here and pooh-pooh -the Valley, I should be—oh, hurt and angry.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble shook her gently. “Rubbish!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mrs. Windrom thought me crude,” she said, entirely -without rancor. In her heart she thought -Mrs. Windrom crude.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Walter didn’t,” Keble retorted. “And Walter’s -little finger is worth more than his mother’s eternal -soul.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Walter is a man, dear. Mrs. Boots doesn’t like -me, and her soul is worth thousands of little fingers,—or -toes, rather.” She was stroking his coon-skin -coat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Toes, rather? . . . Oh, I see—Boots, toes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Without warning he caught her in his arms and -kissed her. “You preposterous person!” he laughed, -a little abashed by his flare of passion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They returned silently to the hotel porch, where -they were joined by Miriam and the doctor. The -stage had arrived and they were discussing the state -of the mountain road. Keble climbed into the sleigh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When everyone had said good-bye, and the horses -had been set into motion, Keble turned to Miriam -with a parting admonition regarding business letters, -then added, “Keep an eye on Louise, now that -she’s come to life again. And do give the monkey -an occasional piece of sugar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The last injunction was a facetious allusion to a -remark made some weeks previously by Mr. Brown, -who had declared that Keble was spoiling the baby -as much as his wife spoiled her circus horse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the stage had disappeared, Louise turned -to Miriam with an air of being lost. “Isn’t it -strange,” she said, “to think of going back alone! -I never realized before how completely it’s Keble -that makes the ranch go round. I feel like <span class='it'>la délaissée</span>,—you -know the girl in the ditty: <span class='it'>qui pleure -nuit et jour</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good gracious, Louise, don’t tell me you’re turning -sentimental on top of everything.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It would only be <span class='it'>re</span>-turning. I’ve always been -sentimental under the surface. At least I used to be -with my dolls. And for some reason I’ve felt like -a little girl this morning.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A cloud passed over Miriam’s sky. Lack of sleep -and the dissipation of the last week would sufficiently -account for it. Faint lines indicated the inner -boundaries of her cheeks, and her eyes had lost their -agate-like clarity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You look like a tired little girl,” she said sadly. -“I feel all of eighty.”</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>PART TWO</h1></div> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER I</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>I</span>T was the second anniversary of the death of -Billy Salter. A summer breeze played over the -hillock which was surmounted by two small -tombstones. The branches of the trees which had -sheltered the grave-diggers from hail on the day of -the funeral were now tossing in a frantic effort to -extend their shade to the rows of asters with which -Katie and Louise had bounded the two graves.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Seems less lonesome for Billy, don’t it, Mrs. -Eveley, when Rosie has a flower bed too,” Katie had -commented. Rosie Dixon had died before Billy was -born, but her span of life had been as limited as his -own, which had the effect of making them seem contemporaries.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As Katie had expressed it, “If both were living to-day -Rosie would be twenty-nine and Billy fourteen, -just going into long pants; but really they’re only -the same age—both twelve, poor babies!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise recalled the remark this August afternoon -as she and Trenholme Dare tied their horses to -neighboring trees and ascended towards the deserted -graves. “I couldn’t help feeling that Katie had -stumbled on an interesting idea,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She had,” Dare agreed. “If Katie was a savant -she might have developed it into an epoch-making -theory of time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How far ahead would that have got her?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not an inch. Metaphysicians are higher in the -air, and their altitude gives them a more panoramic -view, but they are traveling towards eternity at exactly -the same speed as Katie and not a whit faster. -The value of intricate theories is that they are reducible -to homely, concrete observations like Katie’s. -Conversely the beauty of Katie’s homely discovery -is that it can be elevated into a formula and re-applied, -even canonized, along with Newton’s apple and -adventures of other scientific saints. It’s like art: -the glory of music is that it is made up of vulgar -sounds, and the saving grace of vulgar sounds is -that they can all get to a musical heaven.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was sitting on the grass, gazing down towards -grey plains which merged into the distant -brown hills, which in turn merged into a sky whose -blue gave an impression of actual depth. It was not -a canopy to-day but an ocean of air, or rather,—since -it was bodiless and unglazed,—an ocean’s ghost, with -small clouds, like the ghosts of icebergs, drifting -across its waveless surface.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The breeze which tossed the branches and stirred -Sundown’s mane came to sport with her own hair. -Her hat lay at her feet, and with an arm limply outstretched -she wielded a switch, flicking the dusty toes -of her riding boots.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By all that,” she said, “you imply that philosophizing -doesn’t get one anywhere. Yet you philosophize -as never was, and you seem to be getting ahead -like a comet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Philosophy isn’t the propeller, it’s the log that -records the progress and adventures of the mind at -sea. If by philosophizing you mean the mental gymnastics -which toughen thought for subsequent <span class='it'>applied</span> -mentality, I dare say philosophy can be said -to get one ahead; but it doesn’t make one wiser in -any real sense. The savant knows more than Katie -Salter about the nature of the ingredients of life, but -that doesn’t make him a better <span class='it'>liver</span> than Katie. No -doubt the man who can enunciate a theory of relativity -is more commendable to God than the woman who -can only prevent your son from eating angle-worms, -for God’s evolution depends on intelligence, and <span class='it'>Herr -Doktor</span> Einstein is more intelligent than Katie Salter, -<span class='it'>unbedingt</span>. But God is strangely ungrateful; he -treats them both alike, giving us all impartially the -status of drops in the salty ocean of eternity. What -we call our life is merely the instant when we are -phosphorescent; the savant may be more luminously -phosphorescent than you and me, but before he can -say Jack Robinson he has relapsed into the ocean -and new drops of salty water have formed, comprising -left-over particles of dead hims and yous and -mes, forming a new identity which is tossed up into -birth to be luminous for a moment and say Jack Robinson -and then disintegrate in favor of still further -combinations of remnants . . . The folly of regarding -Socrates as sublime and me as ridiculous is that -we are one and the same entity, just as those asters -are merely a continuation of the first aster seed, -which was merely the continuation of a continuation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise recalled the discussion she had had with -her father on the day of Billy’s funeral, when they -had agreed to grant cats equal rights with Billy in -the matter of immortality. “Would you go so far -as to say that Socrates and Sundown were parts of -the same entity?” she inquired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even further. I should include the fly that his -tail can’t quite reach, the worms under his feet, and -the leaves over his head. It’s all in the ocean . . . -Stones and mud aren’t as self-assertive as radium, -but who is to say that they have no phosphorescent -potentialities? If you eat a speck of mud on your -celery, doesn’t it, or something chemical in it, become -a part of you and take a more distinguished -place in the realm of things vital?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then how to account for the fact that we can -talk, Sundown can only neigh, and stones can’t even -sigh,—even if they <span class='it'>are</span> full of sermons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By the fact that stones are figuratively phosphorescent -in an extremely negligible degree, that Sundown -is phosphorescent in an infinitely greater degree, -and that you and I are so surcharged with phosphorescence -that we simply burst into hissing flames -of intelligence. Or, if you prefer, we’re not so tightly -packed as stones; our atoms are more free to roam -and collide and become interesting. Human intelligence, -with all its concomitants of reasoning and -speech, is a sort of transformation which is analogous -to the remarkable things that happen in a laboratory -when certain combinations are subjected to -intense pressures and temperatures. Degrees of -vitality are like the gradations of electrical force: -sluggish magnetic fields, live wires, dynamos, power -stations. Everything has some vital status, just as -everything has some electrical status.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you make everything seem so impersonal and -arbitrary. Don’t you believe that human beings can -voluntarily increase or decrease their voltage and -usefulness? If I determine to live up to my best instincts, -can’t I do so on my own initiative, without -having been anticipated by Fate?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think of it the other way round. Your strongest -instincts, good or bad, will live up to you. They -will determine your acts. The decision to live up to -them begs the question, for it is they that prompted -the decision, making up your so-called mind for you. -You only said the words of your excellent decision -after the excellent decision had surged and pulsated -and battled and muscled its way through your system -to the tip of your tongue. Taking a decision is like -taking a train: in reality the train takes you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“According to that theory there’s nothing to stop -the whole world from going to pot, morally speaking. -What if bad instincts obtain a majority in the -house?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, but thanks be to God they won’t! Nature -hasn’t gone to pot physically, for all the efforts of -plague and dyspepsia. She won’t go to pot morally, -either, though we may always need prisons, or their -future equivalents. Nature is, in the long run, economical; -she balances her books; and morality, like -health, is merely a question of thrift.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And religion? What is it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh,—for a slouchy metaphor, call it the sparks -struck off by moral friction.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s deep water.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Moral: accept the concrete and don’t try to -formulate the abstract. Katie would never have expected -an apple to fall into the sky just because she -had never heard of Isaac Newton. And when she -feels that Rosie Dixon and Billy, despite arguments -to the contrary, are the same age, she has got just as -far as the hypothetical metaphysician who would turn -her experience into a revolutionary theory of objective -and subjective time,—except that Katie won’t -get a Nobel prize. If she lives to be three score and -ten, snug in her three dimensions, and never hears -time defined as qualitative multiplicity, she will fulfil -a sublime destiny; she will with unerring instinct -and awe-inspiring virtuosity obey complex laws -which are none the less urgent for being unformulated -in her narrow skull. And when she dies, her -soul, like John Brown’s, will, though in fearfully divisible, -microscopic, and unrecognizable particles, go -‘marching on’.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thank goodness Katie is miles down the road by -this time where she can’t hear what a hash she is going -to be!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, that after all marks the difference between -people like Katie who are close to the earth, and -those who do get up in a metaphysical balloon. -Katie comforts herself with promises of a red plush -heaven full of harps, where she at the age of seventy-three -will repair in a white robe to rejoin her Billy, -still twelve; whereas the savants who see the world -as an ant-heap are not appalled at the thought of -personal obliteration, I for one think it’s rather a -lark to be a sort of caricature on a school blackboard -for three score and ten years then turn into a -thin cloud of chalk dust when higher forces rub you -off; it’s fun to speculate on the future of the particles -of chalk in the cloud.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise confessed that she could not gloat over -the prospect, but let it be understood that, for the -sake of feeling herself floating in the air amongst a -distinguished metaphysical crew, including Dare, she -cheerfully accepted the principle. Then something -made her lean forward and gaze towards a distant -bend in the road.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Look! That’s them!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s who?” Dare asked, and added, “grammar -be blowed!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Three touring cars, an unprecedented sight, were -winding their way up from the direction of the Valley.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Keble’s telegram said this evening,” Louise explained, -with a blank look at her companion, followed -by a glance at her wrist watch. “And it’s not three -o’clock yet. Thank heaven Miriam is at home to -give them tea.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Them” referred to the English travelers, whose -visit had been postponed in order that it might be -embraced in a western tour which Lord Eveley and -his assistants in the Colonial Office were scheduled -to make on Imperial business. Keble had left the -ranch a few days before to meet them in Calgary -and guide them hither. All through the spring and -summer he had been bringing his building work to -completion, and Dare had been on hand several -weeks now, partly in the rôle of contractor, partly -in the rôle of friend. He had remained for the -celebrations before proceeding to Japan, where he -was to make notes and sketches for a commission in -California.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What a pity you won’t be on hand to receive -them,” Dare sympathized.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise flicked her switch rebelliously. “If they -say evening, they can’t expect me to know they mean -afternoon. There’s no reconciling that discrepancy -whether you call time qualitative multiplicity or plain -duration. And they’ll just have to wait.” She -smiled maliciously. “I hope they’ll look blank at -each other and say, ‘Just as I thought’.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why? So you can fool them all by being excessively -correct?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was delighted. “How did you guess?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The clue to you is always the same. You’re a -born actress.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To herself she was thinking. “Even the most enlightened -men fail to understand that some women -are capable of being the quintessence of themselves -when they’re most outrageously play-acting.” And -she was not at all sorry that Dare should fall into -one of the traps laid for his sex,—there were so -many he didn’t fall into!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I adore acting. And love being caught at it. -And always go on till I <span class='it'>am</span>.” This suggested a new -thought to her. “That’s why Keble and I are so -often a hundred miles apart. I’m acting, and he -doesn’t know whether I’m acting myself or some -other character, and that irritates me and I act all -the harder, and it turns into farce or tragedy, and -he still fails to catch me, and I’m too far gone in my -rôle to stop, but yearn to be caught——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And spanked?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You and Miriam spank me sometimes. Then -Keble <span class='it'>sees</span>, and laughs. But so distressingly late.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hadn’t we better be starting?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The procession had passed the Dixon ranch and -was vanishing towards Hillside.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In a minute,” she replied, without stirring. “We -don’t have to have seen them, you know.” Then -with an abrupt change of mood she surprised him -by saying, “I dread it, Dare. It’s worse than going -up for examinations.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll probably find them delightful.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re not their wild and woolly daughter-in-law.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shifted his position on the grass and sat facing -her, with curious, intent eyes. There was something -subduing in his regard, as in his strength and -grace. “I wonder what I am, really. I wish I knew,—my -degree of being accepted as your friend, I -mean.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was pleasantly conscious of the urgent need to -evade the intentness of his eyes, but temporized by -mocking. “Don’t try to formulate the abstract. -Those are your words, and if you don’t follow your -own advice you’ll be in the predicament Katie would -be in if she tried to go up in a balloon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The forthcoming meeting had unnerved her more -than she cared to admit. An attack of stage-fright -had made her say “in a minute” when he had suggested -returning. To that was added a twinge of -vertigo, as though she felt herself standing on a -precipice from which force of circumstances would -make her presently retreat, but which for that very -reason had an indefinable lure. The eyes and hands -and arms and thighs of her companion were challenging -her. Meanwhile, in her subconsciousness, -the talk of “in-laws” had set in motion a tune from -<span class='it'>The Mikado</span>, and as she flicked her boots she sang -a paraphrase:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'>“They married their son,—</p> -<p class='line0'>They had only got one,—</p> -<p class='line0'>To their daughter-in-law elect.”</p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>The ruse by no means succeeded in suppressing -the rebellious desire to look over the precipice. “I -wonder if they did right,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare looked away, and she breathed more freely, -hoping yet fearing that he would immediately resume -his disturbing, overpowering intentness. “Sometimes,” -he said, “I resent it; at other times I’m -thankful.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he was still looking away she ventured an -emotional step nearer. “Do you mind explaining -that cryptic remark?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s very simple. If their son hadn’t married -you, I undoubtedly would have. And it would have -been a gigantic blunder.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How do you know you would have?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m damned if we could have avoided it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In other words, those strong instincts you were -talking about,—good or bad,—would have taken that -<span class='it'>funeste</span> direction,—the direction of bringing us -smack up against each other for better or worse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For a while it would have been heaven on earth. -Then hell.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He still avoided her eyes. “Because strong things -must clash. Because you and I don’t permanently -need each other; we’re too self-reliant.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His unwillingness to look at her roused a demon. -“I wonder if you believe that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Must one always say all one believes?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She ignored the question and he continued. “Marriage, -to be successful, must be entered into by one -leading person and one following person. We were -each born to lead. We could never play on the same -team, but as captains of opposing teams we can be -profoundly chummy . . . If the other element had -been allowed in, the chumminess in the crucible -would have flared up into a white flame, but the contents -of the crucible would have been reduced to -ashes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Like the Kilkenny cats,” she assented, absent-mindedly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was now stubbornly determined to regain -possession of that dangerous glance. “Isn’t it grotesque,” -she went on, “that contemptible, weak-souled -people repeatedly disregard scruples that give -pause to the strong?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare held his breath, and his profile showed that -he was pressing his teeth against his lip. They had -never steered so near the reefs in all their skilfully -navigated acquaintanceship. Louise pulled weakly -at the grass.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Frankness had been their support up to the present, -and each was privately acknowledging that they -could no longer depend on it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Silence. Louise felt that she ought to do something -to divert his emotions into more familiar channels. -“I wish I were a man,” she said, and the effort -of uttering words made her conscious of the dryness -of her throat. She also had a freakishness of breath -to contend with.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare collected himself, sat up, with his back partly -turned to her, so that his eyes looked over the -plain. The breeze had gone down and the afternoon -light seemed to be an intrinsic property of the objects -it gilded rather than an emanation from the -sun.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What would you do if you were?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The incomparably splendid things you do,” she -promptly replied.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve come pretty near doing some incomparably -asinine things.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But you’ve stopped short. I would have, too, of -course. Besides,” she hesitated, then decided on one -final plunge of frankness, “in a world full of people -who don’t do splendid things, you could almost have -pleaded justification in not stopping short, I imagine,—if -not actual provocation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She saw his fingers open, then close. For once in -her life, just once, she longed to see those strangely -intent eyes fixed on her, wanted them to come closer -and closer until her own eyes must close, yet she sat -weak, watching the back of his head, then his fingers. -For the second time in her life,—the first was during -Walter Windrom’s visit,—she saw deep into the -psychology of infidelity: this time more specifically. -Indeed with a crudeness that made her blush.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Suddenly he wheeled about. The look was there. -She gave a strange little cry, raised her hands slightly -from the ground, and in a flash found herself imprisoned -by his arms, and mouth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A few moments later he was on his feet, facing the -valley again, his arms folded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He walked to the trees and saddled the ponies. -But as Louise made no move he returned and stood -looking down at her. “There’s still time to escape,” -he warned her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was again pulling at the grass. “There’s only -one way to escape from oneself . . . And that is -not to acknowledge the danger.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even when mad things happen?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mad things are no more disgraceful than the mad -desires that precipitate them. If you admit the desires——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, but—good God!” It ended in an explosive -sigh at the futility of any reasoning faculty one -might bring to bear on a problem that had its source -somewhere so far beneath reason’s reach.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He sat down again, at her feet, and their eyes met -in a long, steady regard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you suppose it has been—just <span class='it'>that</span>, really, all -this time?” he finally asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not <span class='it'>only</span> that . . . Partly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He held out his hand and she placed hers in it, -without hesitation. It was irrevocable. During the -remainder of the afternoon time and scruples were -burnt up in the white flame.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>They rode side by side down the steep slope of the -mound. The horses were eager to return, and once -in the road their riders let them canter. Louise was -ahead and as she came abreast of the Dixon ranch -she reined in and waited. Her cheeks were still -flushed, her eyes restless. She smiled with a blend -of humor and frustration which Dare mistook for -regret. In his face she saw a reply to her own countenance, -a reply which took the form of a little plea -for pardon, a plea grotesquely beside the point,—as -if <span class='it'>she</span> hadn’t manoeuvred the lapse from grace! Her -frustration was physiological, the eternal waiting for -an ecstasy which Keble and Dare could command at -will, but which Fate still withheld from her. It was -unfair and it was discouraging.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare drew up at her side. He was more handsome, -more authoritative than ever, also more tender -and humble than she would ever have guessed him -capable of being. Yet also a little annoying. Men -could be so insultingly sure of themselves. Here -was a man who by all the signs ought to have been -<span class='it'>the</span> man. She had assumed as much and behaved accordingly. -But instead of bringing about the miracle, -the duet for the sake of which she had been -willing to risk Keble’s dignity, he had merely -achieved the old solo, with her as instrument. “Why -can’t they understand? Why don’t they learn?” her -outraged desires were crying in protest. She tried -to read them a moral lecture, but that was of no -avail. She was, after all, an animal, and it was -folly to pretend that she was not.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare smiled tentatively, inquiringly, waiting for -her to speak.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She looked down at Sundown’s ears. “I suppose -that is what I would have done, if I had been a man. -Just once.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shook his head. “The ‘just once’ would have -been like diving into a sea in which you would have -to sink or swim. I hope you don’t mean just once -literally, for that would be as good as letting me -drown.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was too proud to explain, and she would not -raise false hopes. “We must forget that it happened,” -she finally announced.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was bewildered. “You mean, you <span class='it'>can</span> forget!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She made no reply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It was you who said that the fulfilment is no -more disgraceful than the desire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At that moment she hated him for his masculine -obtuseness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She gave Sundown’s head a jerk. “I’m glad -you’re going to Japan,” she said, and dug her heels -into the horse’s sides. A moment later she was lost -to view in a cloud of dust.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Like some parched and hungry wanderer who had -dreamt of orchards, only to wake up under a bruising -hail of apples and pears that startled him into -forgetfulness of his thirst, Dare gasped. “Already!” -It was an ominously precipitate reminder of his -theory that they were each leaders, that neither would -be content to subordinate his individuality to the -other’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His mind bit and gnawed at the baffling knot in a -tangle which a few moments since seemed to have -yielded for good and all. As a psychologist he was -somewhat too clever, and was capable of overlooking -a factor that might have leapt to the mind of a -kitchen-maid.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He took a trail that served as a short-cut to the -ridge, and caught up with Louise on the new road -that branched off towards the Castle. She turned -in her saddle, and patted Sundown’s flank. “Slowpoke!” -she flung back at him, teasingly, but already -relentingly. Men were such helpless, clumsy, cruel, -selfish, amiable babies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Been thinking,” Dare explained.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To any purpose?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To excellent but piteously sad purpose. I’ve been -breaking to my unhappy ego the meaning of your -parting shot.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What did it mean?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That I’m defeated.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In a way, I’m sorrier than you are.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For God’s sake, why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She smiled with a trace of bitter humor, earnestly. -“Well, <span class='it'>some one</span> ought to be able to subdue -me. God, I need it!” Angry tears came to her eyes, -and she thrust her foot petulantly into the stirrup. -Riding alone, she had just been marveling at the -narrowness of the margin by which she had avoided -the disruption of her present life. But for a grotesque -trifle, she might have been riding at this very -moment <span class='it'>away</span> from Hillside, forever, with Dare at -her side. “That’s where I score,” he reflected, lugubriously. -“For at least now I taste the desolate -joy of capitulation to a stronger opponent. While -we were opponents I wished to keep a few points -ahead. The fact that I no longer wish to do so, but -ask nothing better than to be trampled on till I can’t -bear it another minute,—well, what do you make of -that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re off your game,” she evaded. “Buck up!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They rode on in silence until they came within -sight of the broad meadow at the edge of the pine -ridge.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Louise!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do I have to go to Japan?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“More than ever.”</p> - -<h3>3</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>When they dismounted and walked towards the -house the sun was already far enough below the -mountains to give Hardscrapple the appearance of a -dark cardboard silhouette against the rose and green -of the sky. Around their feet grew patches of -scarlet flowers with flannel petals and brittle stocks. -The lake below, seen through a clump of black pines, -was grey and glazed. The Hillside crane, on his -evening grub-call, flew over their heads towards his -favorite island. As they watched his landing -Louise noticed two white crescent-shaped objects on -the dark floor of the lake near the stream which -came down in steps from the canyon. It was as -though some giant seated on an overhanging ledge -had been paring his nails.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They’re on the water already!” she cried.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fishing. Quite true to type,” Dare commented. -“The minute rich old men get away from home they -have an uncontrollable desire to kill.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise sighed at the prospect of unforeseen vagaries -in her guests. “Will they be grumpy if they -don’t catch anything?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Probably,—and reminiscent.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad the flowers came out so well,” Louise -remarked irrelevantly, with an affectionate backward -glance at the garden as they reached the terrace. -“With all due respect to your genius, I like my own -roses better than all this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This” was indicated by a sweeping gesture which -took in the Castle, the commodious outbuildings, and -a pattern of roadways and clearings.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was arrested by the sound of voices from the -other terrace. A tall woman whom she immediately -recognized appeared at the corner, leading a younger -woman towards the parapet. With the air of a -licensed guide she was pointing across the lake towards -the “Sans Souci” cottages now tenanted by -the Browns, and volubly describing points of interest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Over there, to the right of those three tall trees. -Keble calls them Castor and Pollux.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Half turning towards her companion, as though -Girlie’s eyes could not be trusted to find any spot -pointed out to her, Mrs. Windrom caught sight of -the advancing pair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ha!” she cried, and turned her daughter round -by the shoulders. “There you precious two are at -last!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise hurried forward, with kisses. Girlie -seemed as slow to bring her faculties to a correct -focus on Louise as she had been in respect of the -trees. She was a lithe, willowy girl with soft, colorless -hair, a smile faintly reminiscent of Walter, and -limp white fingers that spread across the bosom of a -straight, dark-blue garment of incredible spotlessness, -considering the dusty motor journey from Witney. -“Being less clever than her brother,” Louise -was reflecting, “she has tried to get even by taking -up outdoor things, which really don’t go with her -type.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was so sorry that Walter couldn’t join you in -the east,” she said, addressing Mrs. Windrom. “But -he has promised us a long visit next year.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Girlie was getting a clearer focus. “He did nothing -but rave about the ranch after he and Mother -were here,” she contributed. “Now I see why. It’s -like a private Lugano.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise doubted it, but linked her arm in Girlie’s. -“The only way we could keep him here, however, was -to give him a horse that broke his ribs. I hope you’ll -have better luck.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Walter never could ride anything but a hobby,—poetry, -or first editions. Nor play anything more -energetic than croquet. As a partner at golf he’s as -helpful as a lame wrist.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But a darling for all that,” Louise defended.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, rather!” exclaimed Girlie, with an emphasis -that seemed to add, “That goes without saying,—certainly -without <span class='it'>your</span> saying it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They proceeded towards wide window-doors and -entered the drawing-room, where Miriam and the -other two women had risen on hearing the hubbub. -Louise went straight to the elder woman. “I’m -Louise,” she announced. “Full of apologies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her mother-in-law kissed her and presented Alice. -“We arrived before we expected. Keble got a special -locomotive to bring us through the pass, and couldn’t -let you know because the telegraph office was closed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It always is, in an emergency. And when it’s -open, the wires are down. We just guess back and -forth. Please don’t mind my get-up. You all look -so fresh and frilly. Out here we dress like soldiers, -in order to be in keeping with our slouchy telegraph -service and other modern inconveniences.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m sure you look very comfortable,” said Lady -Eveley with a maternal smile. She was bird-like, -with an abundance of white hair and a coquettish -little moiré band around her neck to conceal its ruins. -When she smiled, her good will seemed to be reiterated -by a series of wrinkles that extended as far as -her forehead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, I’m anything <span class='it'>but!</span> First of all I’m dusty, -and second of all I’m parched.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’ll be a fresh pot in a minute, dear,” said -Miriam. “Do sit here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Windrom was asking Dare to confirm her -statement that the pillars were Corinthian, which he -could not honestly do, and by a monstrous geographical -leap their discussion wandered to a region beyond -Girlie’s focus. “Mother talks architecture as glibly -as Baedeker, but she’s really as ignorant about it as -I am,” she assured Dare. “I’ve been dragged to -Italy goodness knows how many times, but the only -thing I’m sure of is the leaning tower of Pisa.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise presented Dare to Lady Eveley and felt -that she was being studied by Keble’s sister. She -went to sit beside Alice near tea, which Miriam had -resuscitated. She gave Miriam’s hand a grateful pat, -then turning to her sister-in-law, expressed the hope -that she had found her right room. “After living so -long in a log cabin I assume that everybody will get -lost in this warehouse. Keble is so methodical he -refers to right wing and left wing, like a drill-sergeant. -The only way I can remember which room -is which is by the color of the carpet or what you -can see from the windows.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Alice was laughing, her amusement being divided -between Louise’s mock-seriousness and the reckless -velocity of speech which left no gaps for replies. -She was a dry, alert, lean woman of nearly forty, -who should never have been named Alice. She had -none of Keble’s grace, but something of his openness -and discernment. Alice would make as good a judge -as Keble, Louise reflected, but a less merciful jury. -As to dress, she gave Louise the impression of having -ordered too much material, and the white dots -in her foulard frock merely emphasized her angles. -Her hair had once been blond like Keble’s, but was -now frosted, and arranged in a fashion that reminded -Louise of the magazine covers of her girlhood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When there was a hiatus Alice assured her that -they had all been safely distributed and had spent -an hour running back and forth comparing quarters. -“My room has a pale blue and primrose carpet, and -I should think about forty miles of entirely satisfactory -view! And gladioli on the table. How did you -know, or did you, that gladioli are my favorite -flowers,—and how did they ever get here?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise accepted a cup of tea and motioned Dare -to a seat nearby. Lady Eveley joined them and -Miriam went out to stroll with the Windroms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I knew you liked them,” Louise replied, “because -you once mentioned it in a letter to Keble; and they -grew in the greenhouse, for whose perfections Mr. -Dare is to be thanked. Don’t you think he has done -us rather well?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The two women agreed in chorus. Then Alice -added, “Father couldn’t believe his eyes. He remembered -the lake from a hunting trip years and years -ago. But when he saw what you and Mr. Dare and -Keble have made of it,—my dear, he almost wants -it back!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My husband said you had made the house look -like a natural part of the landscape, Mr. Dare,” Lady -Eveley leaned towards him with her timidly maternal, -confidential, richly reiterated little smile. Louise -concluded that her individuality, at its most positive, -was never more than an echo of some other person’s -individuality, usually her husband’s.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Most houses are so irrelevant to their surroundings,” -Alice interposed. “Our place in Sussex for -instance. Of course it has been there since the beginning -of time, and that excuses it, but it’s fearsome -to look at, and would be in any landscape. I -wish Mr. Dare would wave his wand over it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Alice thinks Keblestone too antiquated,” explained -Lady Eveley. “But her father and I are -deeply attached to it, and she and Keble were both -born there. I do hope you will come and stay with us -there next summer, with the baby.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That priceless baby!” Alice exclaimed. “He -pulled the most excruciating faces for us. Then I -gave him a beautiful rubber elephant and he flung it -square at his nurse’s eyes,—nearly blinded the poor -soul. Where did you find that nurse, Louise? She’s -devotion personified.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He took to his grandfather at once. Sat on his -knee and watched him as though he had never seen -anything so curious!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Baby is very rude,” Louise apologized.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Brutally candid,” Alice agreed. “If an elephant -offends him he throws it at his nurse, and if a new -grandfather is substituted, he solemnly stares him -out of countenance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We shall spoil him, my dear,” said the monkey’s -little grandmother. “We’re so proud of him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise replaced her cup on the table, got up from -her chair, and implanted a playful but wholehearted -kiss on the old lady’s forehead. “I’m dying to see -the grandfather who was too big to be flung in -Katie’s eyes,” she announced. “Shall we walk down -to the lakeside and meet the boats? There’s an easy -path.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She led the way, with Lady Eveley. Two or -three times as they descended the winding path the -older woman patted Louise’s arm and smiled, apropos -of nothing, reassuringly. In the end Louise -laughed and said, trying to keep her frankness within -gentle bounds, “You know, I’m quite floored by -your friendliness. I’ve been racking my brains to -think how I could put you at your ease, and now I -find that everybody’s aim is to put me at mine. I -wish you were going to stay longer. Four days is -nothing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We should love to, my dear, but you see the men -have so many speeches to make, and they must be -back on a certain date. It has been very exciting. -All along the way there were deputations to meet -the train. The mayors came and their wives—too -amusing! And brought such pretty flowers. Alice -doesn’t object to the cameras at all, though she says -her nose is the only thing that comes out. Alice resents -her nose. She says she wouldn’t mind its size -if she didn’t keep <span class='it'>seeing</span> it, poor dear . . . And banquets -without end. I don’t see how they find so -many different things to say. My husband just -stands up there——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And the words come to him,” interposed Louise -“<span class='it'>I</span> know.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Isn’t it remarkable? When I can scarcely find -enough words to fill up a letter! I’m terrified when -they ask me to speak at the women’s clubs. Canadian -women are so intelligent. And so tireless. Mrs. -Windrom is much better at that kind of thing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mrs. Windrom is very clever.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, <span class='it'>very!</span> She always remembers names. I -don’t, and Alice nudges my elbow. She is such a -good daughter. Never forgets.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Alice seems very alert.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, <span class='it'>very!</span>” Lady Eveley had a soft little voice -and a careful way of setting down her words, as -though they might break. “Very! She takes after -her father. Keble does too, though Keble likes quite -a lot of things I like. Perhaps the baby will take -after me. Though I really don’t see why any one -should!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise had an affectionate smile for this gentle -grievance against creation, and slipped her arm about -the black satin waist. “Of course Baby will take -after you, dear,” she promised. “I’ll make him if -he doesn’t naturally. He takes after me when he -throws elephants around, but he takes after his -father when he opens his big blue eyes and grins a -trustful, gummy grin. He’s going to be quite like -Keble when he acquires teeth and manners. Katie -says so, and she’s the authority on Baby . . . Perhaps -you’ll let me take after you a little, too. But -I’m an awful hoyden.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re so clever, aren’t you!” exclaimed Lady -Eveley. “We knew it, of course, from Keble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was serious. “The worst of that,” she -mused, “is that clever people always have a naughty -side. And I’m naughty.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But if we were perfect our husbands would find -us dull in the long run, don’t you think?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s that, of course,” Louise agreed. How -completely every one took it for granted that there -would be a long run!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They had reached the new boat-slip, and were -joined by Mrs. Windrom, Girlie, and Miriam. Dare -and Alice followed, and the talk became topographical, -Mrs. Windrom finding still more objects for -Girlie to look at. Louise felt that Mrs. Windrom -was even explaining the landmarks to her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Girlie’s attention, however, kept straying to the -boats, which were hugging the shaded shores and -advancing at a leisurely rate. In the first boat was -an object on which Girlie’s eyes could always focus -themselves with an effortless nicety. This object -was her fiancé, Ernest Tulk-Leamington, an oldish -young man, who was Lord Eveley’s secretary and a -rising member of the Conservative Party. The first -to step out of the boat, he was followed by Mr. -Windrom and a freckled, orange-haired youth who -proved to be Mr. Cutty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Any fish?” cried Mrs. Windrom. Her husband -showed signs of becoming prolix, while Mr. Cutty, -behind his back, stole his thunder by surreptitiously -holding up a forked stick on which two apologetic -trout were suspended.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the necessary ceremonies were effected, Mr. -Windrom declared that you could never be sure, in -untried waters, what flies the fish would rise to. He -went on the principle of using a Royal Coach when -in doubt, but he had tried Royal Coach for an hour -without getting a strike, and had ended by putting -out a spinner, by means of which he had caught——</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He turned. “Those two.” But he saw that the -irreverent Mr. Cutty had already displayed the catch, -and he was a little vexed at the anticlimax, as well as -at the showing, which was undoubtedly poor, viewed -against a dark mass of water and mountain, with a -half dozen animated ladies as spectators. Dare had -sought Louise’s eyes, and they smiled at the fulfilment -of her fears.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The second boat was nearing the slip and Louise -had a moment in which to study her father-in-law. -It was a reassuring, yet a trying moment, for she -became unnerved and felt suddenly isolated. For -two pins she would have cried. There was no definable -reason for the emotion, unless it was due to -her double reaction from the graveyard episode and -the friendliness of her mother-in-law. They were -all strangers, even Keble. In some ways Keble was -more of a stranger than Dare,—less an acquaintance -of her most hidden self. Her loneliness was associated, -too, in some vague way with the easy, manly -intimacy of the two figures in the boat, who were -links in the chain of her own existence yet so detached -from it. Keble was undeniably an integral -part of her identity, yet as he sat at the oars he -seemed to be some attractive young traveling companion -she was destined never to know.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lord Eveley, a lean, hale figure in tweeds, a fine -old edition of his son, was reeling in his line, and -speaking in a voice which carried perfectly across -the still water. Keble made replies between the slow -strokes of his oars. The yellow had faded from the -light, and with its disappearance the dark shades of -the trees took on a richer tone, and the water turned -from glass to velvet. The grey of the pine needles -changed to deep, blackish green, the narrow strip -of shallow water was emerald merging into milky -blue, and the pebbles at the bottom were like ripe and -green olives.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a lull in the chatter, and only the faint -lapping noise of the oars broke the stillness. A wave -of loneliness had engulfed Louise, despite the warm -little arm that was still resting on hers. By some -considerateness which only Keble seemed to possess, -his eyes turned first of all to her. True, they immediately -traveled away towards the others and his -remarks were general, but the first glance had been -hers and it had been accompanied by a quick smile,—a -smile which seemed to condone some lapse of -hers; she was too immersed in her present rôle to -recall what the lapse had been. At any rate it was -a most timely proof of Keble’s reliability, and it -rescued her. She smiled shyly as Keble directed his -father towards her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>By one of those mass instincts that sense drama, -every one had turned to watch. Being in the centre -of the stage, she forgot her diffidence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Weedgie, here is a father-in-law for you. He’s -an indifferent angler, but a passable sort of pater -. . . Father, this is Louise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is it really! Upon my soul!” He bestowed a -paternal kiss.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You seem so surprised!” Louise laughed. “Did -you think I was a boy?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By Jove, you know, you might have fooled me -if it had been a shade darker. But if you had, I -should have been uncommonly disappointed. Keble, -I take it, makes you disguise yourself in boys’ clothes -to protect you from irresponsible lassos?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh dear no, he hates my breeches. Besides, I -can protect myself quite extraordinarily well. The -fact is, I’m at a disadvantage in these.” She was -pulling sidewise at “them”. “For when you’re got -up as a man you’re always giving yourself away: -your hairpins fall out or you blush. Whereas in -feminine attire you can beat a man at his own game -without his even suspecting you’re using man-to-man -tactics. That’s fun.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes. I suppose it would be,” agreed Lord -Eveley. “Eve did it without much of either, they -say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They say such shocking things, don’t they! . . . -Didn’t you catch <span class='it'>any</span> fish?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Only three. Your better half caught seven,—cheeky -young blighter! One beauty.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Windrom needed to know what they had -been caught with.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Royal Coach,” said Keble. “It’s the best all -round fly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Windrom was incredulous and pettish. “You -must have ’em trained to follow your boat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Better luck next time, Mr. Windrom,” Louise -ventured. “Keble shall go in your boat, then they’ll -have to bite. Meanwhile please show him how to -make drinkable cocktails. He needs a lesson.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She looked at her watch, then smiled at the circle -of faces. “It’s just exactly ‘evening’, so we can consider -that the party has arrived. Dinner is in an -hour. Nobody need change unless he wishes. I’m -going to turn back into a woman for dinner, just to -prove to my father-in-law what an awful failure I -am as a boy. Meanwhile I’ll race anybody up the -hill.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m on,” said Mr. Cutty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Me too,” said Dare.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Any handicap for skirts?” inquired Alice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ten yards,” Louise promptly replied. “Measure -off ten yards, Keble. Anybody else?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come, Girlie,” said Mrs. Windrom. “Any -handicap for old age, Louise?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Fifteen yards for any one over thirty-five. Come -on Mr. Leamington. Beat Mr. Dare. He wins -everything I go in for . . . Grandfather, you be -starter,—you’re to say one, two, three, go. Miriam -dear, you can’t be in it, for you have to show Grandmother -the easy path up. I showed her down, but -one of the many delicious things she told me on the -way was that she forgets things and has to have her -elbow nudged.” Louise shot a bright glance at Lady -Eveley.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Keble, when you’ve marked off the fifteen, sprint -on up the hill and mark a line on the gravel so we -won’t go plunging on the bricks and kill ourselves -. . . Oh!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She stopped, and every one, toeing the line, looked -around. Her nervous high spirits were infectious. -Even Girlie was excited. Lord Eveley was holding -up his hand in sporting earnest. His wife, under -Miriam’s wing, beamed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m trying to think what the prizes will be. -Wouldn’t be a race without prizes. Any suggestions, -Mr. Cutty?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Might have forfeits for the first prize, and first -go at the billiard table for another.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bright head-work, Mr. Cutty. Prizes as follows: -the winner must choose between making a -speech at dinner or telling a ghost story before bedtime. -The loser gets his choice between first go at -the billiard table, first choice of horses to-morrow, -or ordering his favorite dish for breakfast,—can’t -say fairer than that. But if anybody <span class='it'>tries</span> to lose, -God help him! . . . All set, Grandfather!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The servants who were arranging the dinner-table -thought the party had gone mad when it came reeling -up the slippery grass hill in a hilarious, panting -pell-mell led at first by Mrs. Windrom, who fell back -in favor of Alice Eveley, who in turn was superseded -by others. Towards the end Dare and Mr. -Cutty, closely followed by Louise, were leading, then -Dare stumbled and Mr. Cutty toppled into Keble’s -arms, the winner. Louise was weak with laughter -at the sight of Mr. Windrom brandishing his fishing -rod and shouting instructions over his shoulder to -his faltering helpmeet. Girlie, her skirts held high, -was abreast of Mr. Tulk-Leamington, whose gallantry -interfered with his progress. Alice was far -down the line but doing as well as possible under the -disadvantages of high heels and foulard folds. In -the end they all reached the line but Mrs. Windrom, -who had collapsed on the turf, facing a noisily -breathing throng.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll have that big trout for breakfast, Louise,” -she gasped. “The one Keble caught. And no one -can say I didn’t <span class='it'>try</span> to win!”</p> - -<h3>4</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>At breakfast Louise counted votes for a picnic by -the river. “Those who don’t fish,” she suggested, -“can sit under the willows and pretend there aren’t -any mosquitoes, or play duck on the rock with Mr. -Cutty and me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They had all come down in comically smart riding -clothes. Miriam, with her tanned skin and well-worn -khaki, looked like a native in contrast to Girlie -in her grey-green whipcord. Girlie, whose horsemanship -had been loudly heralded, was eager to try out -a Mexican saddle.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Tulk-Leamington stroked his prematurely -bald head. “What will you do if your pony bucks?” -he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Girlie languidly buttered her toast. “Ernest,” -she chided, “you’re always stirring up mares’ -nests.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dear me!” cried Alice. “Do they buck?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In wild west novels they do,” said Girlie’s fiancé. -“What will you do, Miss Eveley, if yours does?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall hang on and scream for Louise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise turned the tables on Ernest. “And you?” -she inquired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Cutty forestalled him. “He will soar into the -firmament. You’ll find him on some remote tree-top. -Can’t you picture a distraught owl trying to -hatch out Ernest’s head!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Mercy!” Lady Eveley exclaimed, in meek distress. -“They don’t really try to throw you, do they, -Louise?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This caused an uproar. Louise reached across the -table to squeeze her hand. “Of course not, dear. -They only try to throw teases like Mr. Tulk-Leamington -and devils incarnate like Mr. Cutty. Sundown -is a lamb; you’ll like him so well that you’ll be -sorry when you arrive at the picnic. Besides I’ll -ride beside you all the way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sundown wouldn’t throw a fly,” Mr. Cutty -broke in. “Mrs. Eveley has to flick ’em off with her -riding crop.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Groans drowned this sally and Mr. Cutty nearly -lost a spoonful of egg as a result of a lunge directed -at him by the prospective owlet.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Through the babel, Keble and the older men, having -exhausted the immediate possibilities of prize -cattle, were discussing the half-completed golf -course, oblivious to frivolous issues. Only once did -Mr. Windrom seek to intrude, having overheard -something about “throwing a fly,” and this sent the -younger generation off into a new gale of unhallowed -mirth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Late in the afternoon the picnickers returned in -various states of dampness and soreness, but exuding -a contentment for which Louise’s vigilance was -largely responsible. Dare and Mr. Cutty rowed to -a secluded cove to swim; Ernest went to edit his -official memoranda; Mrs. Windrom retired to sleep; -Lady Eveley racked her head for words to fill up a -letter; the old men resorted to billiards; and Girlie -challenged Miriam at tennis.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise held court in the kitchen, where she had -gone to make some special pastries and to wheedle, -scold, encourage, bully, sting, and jolly the augmented -staff into supreme efforts. She swore that -the future of the Empire hinged on the frothiness of -the mousse. The cream was not to be whipped a -minute before eight; the grapes were not to be dried, -but brought in straight from the ice-box in a cold -perspiration, and Gertie was for heaven’s sake not -to bump into Griggs on her way to the side table, as -she had the night before.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When her batter was consigned to the oven she -ran out to the greenhouse for flowers, and saw Keble -and his sister stretched in deck chairs near the tennis -court. She waved her shears and speculated as to the -subject of their chat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The subject, as she might have guessed, was herself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why didn’t you give us an inkling?” Alice was -saying. “Here you’ve been married nearly three -years, and you’ve kept this spark of the divine fire -all to yourself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble smiled with a mixture of affection and faint -bitterness. “I didn’t exactly <span class='it'>keep</span> her, old girl. -There’s no reason why you and Mother shouldn’t -have got yourself ignited before this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Alice considered. “But we did ask her to come to -us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are ways and ways of asking. Do you -suppose she can’t feel the difference?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again Alice reflected. “You mean, I suppose, that -if you had married Girlie, for instance, we would -have commanded her presence, on pain of dragging -her out of her lair.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m glad you see it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, dear, wasn’t it just a bit your fault?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No doubt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I mean, how were we to know what an original -creature you had found out here? It isn’t reasonable; -there can’t be another. We had nothing to go -on but your laconic sketch,—‘wild flowers’, I remember, -was your most enthusiastic description. But -there are wild flowers and wild flowers, you know,—just -as there are ‘ways and ways of asking’. There -were gaps and contradictions in your accounts, and -the burden of proof rested on you. We didn’t desire -to place you in a false position. Even Claudia -Windrom reported that Louise’s tastes were very -western. I might have known that she was prejudiced, -and we certainly ought to have given you more -credit for perspicuity. But men are so blind . . . -Then we were thrown off by Louise’s temperamental -trip to Florida. You wrote a forlorn sort of letter -saying that she had gone off on a holiday, and it was -just after we had invited you both to come to the -Riviera with us. That seemed strange.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What did you think I had married, for God’s -sake,—an Indian squaw?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t be horrid! . . . We weren’t at all sure -you hadn’t married a hand grenade.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble laughed. “I’m not at all certain that I -haven’t.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Alice watched him curiously, then abandoned the -flicker of curiosity and proceeded to give Louise her -due. “It’s not so much her brilliance,—though that’s -remarkable,—but her tact! My dear, she could run -a political campaign single-handed. I’ve never seen -the Windroms so beautifully managed in my life. -You know <span class='it'>we</span> can’t manage them; at our house one -of the trio is always falling out of the picture. But -Louise! the instant she sees an elbow or a leg or a -Windromian prejudice sticking out she flips it back -in, or widens the frame to include it, and nobody the -worse. Her way of setting people to rights and -making them feel it is they who are setting everybody -else to rights is <span class='it'>impayable</span> . . . And the best you -could say for her was wild flowers!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Since Mrs. Windrom was first here a good deal -of water has flowed under the bridges.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll wager it has. Louise wouldn’t be found -camping by a stagnant pool.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again she watched her brother curiously. He was -gazing into the distance, at nothing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sometimes I feel stagnant beside Louise,” he -admitted, put off his guard by the unwonted charm -of a sisterly chat.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Alice patted his shoulder, with a gesture tender -but angular. “Father is purring with pleasure at -the way you’ve stuck to your guns, sonny, although, -naturally, he wouldn’t say so for all the king’s horses -and all the king’s men. In the beginning he used to -shake his head in scepticism and sorrow. Now he -never lets a dinner guest get away from the house -without dragging in you and your colonizing enterprise. -Mother, of course, has always doted and still -does; but she would have, if you’d gone in for knife-grinding. -She would never conceive the possibility -of any one doubting you. I frankly did,—not you, -but your schemes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s plenty to be done yet,” Keble said. “It -will take twenty years. Sometimes the future looks -as steep to me as Hardscrapple.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It won’t look so steep when you’ve got your second -wind. I’m full of rosy hopes for you. What’s -more, I’m jolly comfortable here. I thought I was -going to hate it. I’ve been well fed and waited on. -I’ve been amused and sauced by a witty child who -isn’t in the least awed by my accursed standoffishness. -I think the most remarkable thing about -Louise is that she is kind, through and through, -without <span class='it'>having</span> to be; she could always get her own -way without bothering to be kind . . . I’ve also discovered -the thrills of being aunt to the most entrancingly -ridiculous and succulent infant I’ve ever beheld. -Most of all I’ve seen Father and Mother exchanging -furtive glances of pride. What more could -any old maid ask for.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam and Girlie joined them. “It’s too warm -for tennis,” Girlie complained. “We’re debating -whether to go for a swim.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Alice thought it an excellent idea, provided she -was not included.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But these mountain lakes are icy!” Girlie shivered -at the thought.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not if you dive in, instead of wading,” said -Miriam. “Louise taught me that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m too tall. I might stick fast. Besides one -looks so distressed in borrowed bathing clothes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And the only secluded cove is pre-empted!” Keble -sympathized.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, without a costume I’d be afraid of sinking. -It would seem just like a bath, and one goes straight -to the bottom of the bath-tub.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The bathing project having died of inanition, -Miriam and Girlie went indoors.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m trying to think where I’ve seen her before,” -Alice said, following Miriam with her eyes. “I keep -associating her in my mind with white sails, and -strawberries. . . . Louise has known her a long -while?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Delightful woman! So sensible. How lucky that -she is able to help you with your accounts. You -never could add.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rather. I don’t know how we could get on -without her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is she stopping long?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, we can’t put her in a pumpkin shell, like -Peter, and keep her forever.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She must feel rather cut off from her own people, -out here. Where is her home?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She used to live in Washington. She has seen -what are known as better days.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One guesses that . . . For heaven’s sake, Keble, -who is she? You know I’m only beating about the -bush.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She never speaks of her family. Most of it’s -dead.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Cread—Cread.” Alice was lying in wait for an -image that kept eluding her, when suddenly she captured -it. “Cowes! Of course. Before the war, at -the Graybridge place . . . You remember Aurelie -Graybridge,—she was Aurelie Streeter of New -York. It was a garden party, after a race, and Admiral -Cread was there with the American Ambassador. -How stupid of me to have forgotten! I must -remind her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was uneasy. “I don’t think I would, Alice, -unless she does first. She’s uncommonly reticent -about herself. She came out here for a complete -change, you see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, I don’t see,” said Alice, impatiently. “That’s -just the point. But I’ll hold my tongue . . . I -wonder why she hasn’t married.” It always seemed -odd to Alice that other women didn’t marry. -“Some man like Dare. I suppose he’s young for -her,—yet not enough to matter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ve thought of that,” Keble reflected. “Discussed -it with Louise once. But they don’t seem to be -attracted . . . Dare is a splendid chap. There’s no -resisting him when he gets going. He has given us -all a healthy fillip.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You <span class='it'>have</span> been lucky in your companions, you -and Louise!” Alice commented.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rather! Oh, hello, here’s the car with the people -from the Valley. We’re going to show you some -natives to-night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who is the funny little man in front?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is the best-informed and most highly esteemed -‘character’ within a radius of sixty miles,—and -incidentally my father-in-law.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The ominous lady in black looks like the Empress -Eugénie come back to mourn her own loss!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was puzzled. “I haven’t the faintest notion -who she is,—good Lord! unless it’s Madame Mornay-Mareuil, -whom we’ve been expecting off and on -for weeks!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They had risen from their chairs. “Go and meet -them,” said Alice. “I shall lie down a while before -dressing.”</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER II</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>A</span>FTER a hurried knock Louise burst into -Miriam’s room. Miriam was seated before -the mirror brushing her reddish-brown hair. -“Who do you suppose has turned up to the feast?” -cried Louise, reaching for a chair and impatiently -rescuing the filmy pink draperies of her frock from -the handle of a drawer. “Aunt Denise, straight -from Quebec! After all these months of dilly-dallying -she stalks in when we’re having a reunion of -the men her husband spent half his editorial and -political career in insulting!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why didn’t she telegraph?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Too stingy,—heaven forgive me for saying it,—and -too old-fashioned. She arrived with Papa and -the Bootses and Pearl and Amy Sweet. They were -stuffed into the car like flowers in a vase, her trunk -lashed on behind. Papa tried to telephone, but Aunt -Denise said if her own niece couldn’t take her in -without being warned, she wouldn’t come at all. -That’s her spirit. What am I to do?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you explained the situation to her?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Does one try to explain red to a bull?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then tip the others off. We’ll have to engage -her on safe subjects.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you <span class='it'>would</span> Miriam. In French,—for she hates -English. She behaves as though French were the -official language of Canada. . . I’ve been waiting -for something to go wrong, and now it will. -‘Claudia dear’ was difficult enough. There’s no keeping -that woman off a scent.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What scent?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was vexed at her slip. “Oh, scents in general. -Yours in particular is most refreshing. Is -that the Coty?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Without waiting for an answer she plunged on. -“Now I’ll have to rearrange the seating. If I put -Aunt Denise near Grandfather she may scalp him. -His triumphant progress across the continent must -have rubbed her the wrong way . . . I’ll have -enough on my hands without that. If Papa drinks -one glass too many he’ll tease Aunt Denise about the -Pope. And the Bootses are fanatical teetotallers, -and I wouldn’t put it past them to dash the glass -from old Papa Windrom’s lips!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Make me the spare woman,” Miriam offered. -“That will leave me free to shush Pearl and prompt -Mrs. Brown. I’ll watch you for cues.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise gave herself a final glance in the cheval -glass, pulled Miriam’s skirt straight, and left a grateful -kiss on her forehead to dispel any questioning -trend that might have lingered as a consequence of -the inadvertent “scent”. Then she made her way -downstairs to readjust the place cards which Dare -had decorated with appropriate caricatures.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This done she stepped out on the terrace. Dare -was there, leaning against the parapet. He offered -her a cigarette and lit it in silence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s a dreadful ordeal ahead of you,” said -Louise, sending a little cloud of smoke skyward.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m getting used to ordeals,” he replied.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is a new kind. You have to take the pastor’s -wife in to dinner.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall ask her to rescue my soul from the devil.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She will be glad of the occasion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In his eyes there was a shadow of the glance that -had proved epoch-making the day before. “On second -thoughts,” he added, “I shall do no such thing. -The devil is welcome to it.” He looked away, and -Louise for once could find nothing to say. “Except,” -Dare finally resumed, “that he won’t have it -at any price. Neither will God. That leaves me on -my own.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Isn’t that——” Louise began, in a low voice, then -was conscious of a step. Turning, she saw Mrs. -Windrom, in purple satin, advancing from the front -terrace, pinning to her corsage a pink rose which -drew attention to the utterly unflowerlike character -of her face. The last rays of the setting sun fell -full upon the lenses of the pince-nez which Louise -was once “too damn polite” to smash.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What have you two got your heads together -about?” she inquired with an archness that suited -her as little as the rose.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A plot,” Louise replied, holding out a hand to -Mrs. Windrom, and noting with a little pang the -half cynical smile which Dare allowed himself on -seeing the ease of her transition. As if good acting -were necessarily a sin of insincerity!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re terrifically mixed to-night, and owing to -the unforeseen arrival of my aunt I’ve had to throw -everybody up in a blanket and pair them as they came -down. I’ve done what your clever son calls playing -fast and loose with the social alphabet: natives paired -with dudes, atheists with Methodist ministers, teetotallers -with bibbers, socialists with diehards. And -all my tried and true friends have a duty to perform,—namely -to keep the talk on safe ground. Poor -Aunt Denise, you know, is the widow of that old -man who was fined a dollar for libeling the king.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>During the last few weeks Mrs. Windrom had -acquired a smattering of Canadian political history. -Louise felt her stiffen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aunt Denise has always lived under a cloud of -illusions. First of all in convents, then with her -husband whom she transformed from a village lawyer -into a national <span class='it'>enfant terrible</span>. She wouldn’t believe -a word against him, and I think it showed -rather a fine spirit. We all idolize our husbands in -some degree, though some of us take more pains not -to show it.” Louise let this remark sink in, and felt -Mrs. Windrom’s shining lenses turn towards Dare, -whose gaze was negligently resting on the opposite -shore of the lake. “Consequently, if Aunt Denise -should let her illusions get the better of her tact, I -do hope you two will help change the subject.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Windrom enjoyed conspiracies. “You may -count on me, my dear,” she replied. “Now I must -run up and see if my husband has lost his collar buttons -as usual.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Windrom looked at the clock on the drawing-room -mantle, crossed to a window to watch the retreating -figures of Louise and Dare, then went towards -the great square hall with its rough rafters -and balcony, its shining floor, fur rugs and trophies -of Keble’s marksmanship. For no ulterior reason, -but simply because she could not resist an open door, -she peeked into the dining-room, then walked upstairs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had timed her visit to a nicety. Her husband’s -tie was being made into a lopsided bow.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sore?” he asked, when she had straightened it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A little. But I’m used to western saddles. Madame -Mornay-Mareuil has suddenly turned up. -Louise is in a panic. For heaven’s sake don’t talk -politics. I can’t see why you leave the cuff buttons -till <span class='it'>after</span> you’ve got your shirt on. It’s so simple to -put them in beforehand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Simple, old girl; I just forget, that’s all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What I can’t make out . . . now I’ve bent my -nail! . . . is Louise’s treatment of Keble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What treatment?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I mean she ignores him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you seen my other pump?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do stand still. In favor of the handsome architect.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Steady on, Claudia dear. You’ve already dug -up one scandal here. Isn’t that enough?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Scandal?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Didn’t you tell me the good-looking secretary -was making eyes at Keble?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Windrom was indignant. “Most certainly -not!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, those may not be the words you used. But -the idea never came into my head all on its own.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This was highly plausible. Tremendous ideas regarding -revenues and tariffs found their way unaided -into Mr. Windrom’s head, but not ideas having -to do with illicit <span class='it'>oeillades</span>.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you deliberately choose to distort my words!” -said Mrs. Windrom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t choose to distort anything; I was only -looking—Here I am like ‘my son John’ and it’s going -on for eight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Windrom tranquilly fished a pump from -under a discarded garment which had been allowed to -fall to the floor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have you your handkerchief?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Windrom nodded and followed his wife out -to the balcony, which overlooked the hall. He was -rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a cocktail -when his wife seized his arm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A tall, elderly woman in a trailing gown of rusty -black crossed the balcony with a slow stride and -descended the stairs. She had large black eyes, a -high nose, and tightly drawn white hair streaked with -black.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Lady Macbeth!” whispered Mr. Windrom, tapping -his wife’s arm and making a face like some -sixty-year-old schoolboy. “Mum’s the word, eh? -<span class='it'>De mortuis</span>——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Windrom was nettled. “What I can’t make -out,” she said, “is how a squat little doctor could -have a sister like that!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re always running on to things you can’t -make out Claudia. It’s scarcely for want of trying.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have to keep my eyes open for two, for you -never see anything, and Girlie’s blind to things she -should see. If she’d had a little of Louise’s vim four -years ago——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Windrom came to a halt and made a queer -grimace.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s the matter?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I forgot my handkerchief.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Really, Charles! If I reminded you once I reminded -you a dozen times.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mr. Windrom sneezed, loud and long, and turned -back towards his room. “Come now, Claudie,” he -protested, “make it six.”</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam, on the heels of the Windroms, paused to -look over the railing of the balcony. All her coaching -had been leading up to this event, and there was -Louise acquitting herself with a virtuosity that effaced -Miriam from this setting as completely as Fate -had effaced her from her own.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The grey-blue twilight which came through open -doors and windows dimmed the orange of the lamps. -An incredibly regal personage dominated the assembly, -and above a discreet hum Miriam heard a penetrating, -dark-toned voice saying, “<span class='it'>Vous allez me pardonner, -ma chère Louise, d’être descendue un peu en -retard. J’ai du défaire une malle. Voilà six jours -que je voyage sans changer de robe. Vous jugerez -si je suis contente d’être installée—et dans quel petit -palais! Maintenant vous allez me présenter ces -dames.</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Slim and brown, nimble and compact, Louise -brought her guests in turn to Madame Mornay-Mareuil. -Miriam was annoyed that Louise should -have failed to recognize in her trying aunt a grande -dame of unchallenged authority. With instinctive -deference, the company had grouped itself about her, -and Miriam smiled with a trace of vindictive satisfaction, -for she had been as quick as Louise to resent -the unconscious patronage in Girlie Windrom’s -way of beginning a remark with, “Of course, out -<span class='it'>here</span>——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She went to Dare, who was standing aloof, near -a window. “Have you kissed the queen’s hand?” -she inquired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet . . . The little doctor seems to have put -one over on the Eveleys!” Dare’s lips went down -with a cynical humor which Miriam noted as new. -There was also something new in his eyes. “I for -one,” he said, “am glad.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Simply in the name of poetic justice. It’s time -Mrs. Eveley got a bit of her own back,—and Boadicea -there will get it for her with a vengeance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam gave him a smiling nod and went to obey -Louise’s summons.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dismayed by the astonished hush which had fallen -over the hall when Aunt Denise had appeared on the -staircase and come slowly towards her, Louise had -quickly appreciated the dramatic value of the intrusion, -and when she had manoeuvred every one safely -to the table she acknowledged that the preliminary -touch of solemnity had given her dinner party a tone -which, instead of diminishing, would incalculably -augment the triumph she had, for months now, determined -that it should be. She had known Aunt -Denise only as a formidable quantity in her background, -an aunt she had seen during a single summer, -after her mother’s death, but with whom she -had corresponded in a sentimental desire to maintain -contact with the only relative she could claim, except -for some half mythical cousins in Dublin. That her -letters to Aunt Denise and her gifts of needlework -had been seeds sown on fertile ground was now -abundantly manifest; for Aunt Denise had assumed -a protective kinship and had made that mysterious -kind of “impression” of which she herself, for all -her success, would never learn the secret.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of the whole company only Girlie, with her defective -focusing apparatus, had failed to pay immediate -homage. In a pretty white dress, she had perfunctorily -acknowledged Aunt Denise’s graciousness -and begun to turn away, when the old lady -transfixed her with relentless black eyes. “I suppose -it is the fashion to walk with a bend nowadays,” -Aunt Denise had said. “It doesn’t give the lungs a -chance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Girlie had blushed and straightened, but Aunt Denise -had withdrawn her eyes and turned them more -charitably on little Mrs. Brown.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A stock soup had been simmering on the back of -the stove for two weeks. By the time she had tasted -it, and found it perfect, Louise’s spirits were at their -highest voltage, and her eyes flashed down the table -till they encountered Miriam’s, which gave back a -signal of felicitation. Miriam, between Dare and -Jack Wallace, was beating time to an argument sustained -by Lord Eveley and Pearl Beatty against Mr. -Windrom and Amy Sweet, the latter lending her aid -in the form of giggles, for which three sips of wine,—the -first in her life, and drunk in open contempt -of the pledge Mrs. Boots had once persuaded her to -sign,—were responsible.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Aunt Denise was getting acquainted with Keble, -treating him with a respect that struck Louise as -being inherently French. She wondered whether -French women had a somewhat more professional -attitude towards males than women of other races. -Keble looked happy, but his French was buckling -under the strain, and Aunt Denise did him the -honor of continuing the conversation in English, an -important concession.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of all the scraps of talk Louise could overhear, -the scrap which most gratified her,—and she wondered -why it should,—was a homely exchange in -which her father and Lady Eveley were engrossed. -“It’s the pure mountain air,” Dr. Bruneau was explaining. -“He couldn’t have a better climate to -commence life in.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s what my husband was saying. You -know, when Keble was ten months old we took him -to Switzerland——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Isn’t it, Mrs. Eveley?” broke in a voice at -Louise’s right.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Isn’t what, Mr. Boots? Mr. Cutty was pounding -with his fork and I didn’t hear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Had to pound,” Mr. Cutty defended himself, “to -drown Ernest. He’s telling Mrs. Brown I stole -plums from her garden.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, didn’t you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But justice is justice, and the point is, so did -Ernest,—and his were riper!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise leaned towards Mrs. Brown, “Do spray -arsenic on the rest of the plums dear, and abolish -Mr. Cutty. Wasn’t what what, Mr. Boots?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Windrom forestalled him. “Mr. Boots tells -me that the settlers are all turning socialists because -farming doesn’t pay. Do you mean to say you -make no effort to combat such a state of affairs?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I dare say we ought to take more interest in politics.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Mrs. Boots, who was beyond Mr. Cutty, left Dare -long enough to interpose, “Why not persuade Mr. -Eveley to be a candidate in the coming elections?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare had seized his reprieve to whisper to -Miriam, “Does all this, to-night, make you feel fearfully -alone?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam looked up as though he had startled into -flight some bird of ill-omen, but made no reply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare leaned a little closer. “I fancy we’re lonely -for rather similar reasons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam hesitated. “First of all I’m not sure what -you mean. Second, if you mean what I dare say you -do,—aren’t you rather bold?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh yes,” he replied. “Very likely.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He returned to his glass, then added, “Your acknowledgment -that I was bold satisfies me of the accuracy -of my guess. As we were in the same boat -I couldn’t resist the temptation of bidding for a -crumb of commiseration. It would have been reciprocal. -So my boldness wasn’t more rude than it -was humane.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’re excused,” said Miriam, “under the First -Offenders Act.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Girlie Windrom, in a commendable spirit, took an -opportunity to express the hope that Madame -Mornay-Mareuil, her vis-à-vis, had not found the long -train journey too fatiguing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Madame recounted her impressions of the trip -and found that Lord Eveley was in agreement with -her regarding the exorbitant prices charged in western -hotels. Accustomed as he was to express his -opinions in public platform style, he soon had Keble’s -half of the table as audience, while Louise gathered -in loose threads of talk at her end. The back of her -dinner was now broken and she was standing with -one foot triumphantly resting on its prostrate form. -When the ices arrived she couldn’t resist announcing -that the accompanying cakes had been made by herself. -The exclamations were silenced by Aunt Denise -who lifted her voice to complain of Louise’s -cheer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your table groans with luxuries, my child. You -have forgotten the lessons in thrift I taught you -when you were a girl.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the first time the little doctor turned from -Lady Eveley. “I am to blame for that,” he said. -“You see, sister, after you had left us, Nana and -Louise tried to make me eat wooden cakes made -without eggs, according to your instructions. I -can’t digest wood, so I extracted from Louise’s curly -head, one by one, all the notions you had put into it, -and we lived extravagantly ever after,—it’s a sinful -world, <span class='it'>va</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To soften for his sister the laughter that greeted -his defense of Louise, Dr. Bruneau added, “With -you it was different, since those who have rich spiritual -lives don’t need rich food. Louise and I, poor -heathens, had nothing to indulge but our appetites.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are free to do so,” returned Aunt Denise, in -no wise discomfited. “My lessons were only the -principles of economy and sacrifice our mother had -taught me, the principles which, if you remember, -<span class='it'>mon frère</span>, made it possible for you and me to have -an education.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The company seemed relieved to find that royalty -could, on occasion, be “answered back”, and Lord -Eveley’s hearty laugh at the mischievous but not unkind -sally had been followed by a scrutinizing glance -which hinted that the statesman had found a mind -worth exploring.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>By the time the fruit had appeared, duly perspiring, -Louise had only two worries left. First, the -quiescence of the Windroms smote her conscience: -she felt that she had been gratuitous in warning Mrs. -Windrom, while leaving Aunt Denise a license to -talk which Aunt Denise had been well-bred enough -not to abuse. Second, she was not entirely easy in -her mind regarding Dare’s silence. He had done his -duty by the pastor’s wife, yet there was some boding -unhappiness in his manner. Before the house was -opened Dare had always set the key. Under the old -conditions he would have taken the whole company -into his hands and played with them. And while his -moodiness was, in one sense, a deeply stirring tribute, -at the same time there was in it something which -made her feel remorseful, and afraid,—not for herself. -It was as though her conscience were pointing -out to her the consequences of extravagance in her -moral kitchen. In the intellectual cakes she had -baked for herself and Dare there had perhaps been -too many emotional ingredients. They were rich -and many had been eaten. Dare was conceivably experiencing -this evening the ill effects.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the midst of her reflections Lord Eveley surprised -her by rising and delivering a little speech -which was at the same time a dedication of the house -and a tribute to its mistress. Anything in the nature -of orthodox ceremony intimidated her. There were -toasts,—and Miriam had never told her what one -was supposed to do in such a contingency. Moreover -she hadn’t meant to drink her last glass of wine, -and rather dazedly wished she hadn’t.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After dinner the company divided for bridge and -dancing, and Louise seized a moment to lay a sympathetic -hand on Dare’s coat-sleeve.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Are you so bored?” she whispered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s not your fault,” he replied, and the unsmiling -negligence of his manner bore witness to the ease -with which he and Louise could fit into each other’s -mood.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It won’t last much longer,” she said. “It” referred -to the house party, but Dare chose to misinterpret.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” he replied, “I’m going to Japan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her eyes fell. When she raised them again she -noticed, with a chill, that Mrs. Windrom, from the -opposite corner, had been watching their tête-à-tête -with hawklike vigilance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come and dance,” she said, drawing him toward -the hall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There another little shock was in store for her. -Alice Eveley, flushed and flattered after a dance with -Jack Wallace, was proceeding across the room, when -suddenly she stopped short and chose a new direction.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On looking towards Alice’s abandoned goal to see -what had caused her to change her mind, Louise observed -that Keble and Miriam were absorbed in an -unsmiling tête-à-tête of the kind that had made Mrs. -Windrom feign a sudden interest in Mrs. Brown’s -cameo brooch.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She raised her arms for her partner’s embrace, and -was swept into the dance.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER III</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>T</span>HREE days later Louise stood on the terrace -watching the departure of her guests. As the -last car disappeared into the pines she thought -of the day when Walter and his mother drove away -from the cottage which she had named “Sans -Souci.” On that day she had tensely waited for -some sympathetic sign from Keble, and he had withheld -it. Now she knew that the balance was changed, -that Keble was waiting for a sign from her. Yet -all she could say was, “Thank God, that’s over!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Recently she had had no time to project her -thoughts into the future. Until this family reunion -was safely thrust into the past she had schooled herself -to be patient, as she had done under the constraint -of approaching motherhood. Both events she -had regarded as primary clauses in her matrimonial -pact, and the reward she had promised herself for -executing them was complete moral freedom. She -would admit nothing more binding in the pact, for -she had made a point of benefiting as little as possible -from it. If Keble had provided her with a -home, she had managed it skilfully for him. If he -had placed his bank account at her disposal, she had -gone disproportionately deep into her own. An element -unforeseen in the pact was that either party to -it might, in the process of carrying out its clauses, -develop personal resources for which the other could -have little use but which, on sheer grounds of human -economy, ought not to be allowed to remain unmined.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble had warned her that grappling with ideas -might end in one of the ideas knocking her on the -head. Which was nonsense. The danger lay not in -grappling with ideas but in trying to dodge them, in -letting them lurk in your neighborhood ready to take -you unawares. If you went at them with all your -might they were soon overpowered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet going at them brought you face to face with -other ideas lurking farther along the path, and before -you knew it you were in a field where no one,—at -times not even Dare—was able or cared to follow. -And at the prospect of forging on alone your -imagination staggered a little; an unwelcome emotion,—unwelcome -because more fundamental than -you had been willing to admit,—surged up and insisted -that nothing in life was worth striving for that -carried you out of the warmth of the old community -of affection. For, whatever might be achieved -through adventuring in wider fields, a catering to -new minds would be entailed, an occasional leaning -upon new arms, homage from new eyes and hearts. -That was inevitable, since human beings were of -necessity social. And the overwhelming pity of it -was that you would always be conscious that the -neatest mind in the world, though not the broadest, -the most comfortable arms, though not the most expert, -the most candid blue eyes, though not the most -compelling, were those of the man from whom your -adventurousness had drawn you away. The thought -of entirely outgrowing them gave you a chill. When -you had penetrated further into the forest of life’s -possibilities you couldn’t go on indefinitely playing -hide and seek among the trees with that old companion. -He would stop at the edge of the forest, -and you must make your way through it, alone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As Louise sat on the terrace, a little weary after -the continuous tension, recalling the appealing droop -of Keble’s lips as he had turned away from her a -few minutes before, she was obliged to face the fact -that some chord within her had responded to the appeal, -despite her stern censorship. She was obliged -to admit that even when her path became definitely -distinct from Keble’s, when she should finally throw -all the weight of her personality into a passion -worthy of her emotional possibilities, or that failing, -into some project so vital that she would become oblivious -to the trifles that filled so much of Keble’s and -Miriam’s attention, she would not be able to extinguish -the fragrance of the flower of sentiment -that Keble had been the first to coax into blossom. -Her feeling toward any new friend who might tread -her path would exhale the odor of the phial of affection -labelled “Keble”, though that phial lay on a -neglected shelf.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Even in the recklessness that had overtaken her -beside Billy’s grave, there had been some purring -<span class='it'>obligato</span>, a running commentary to the effect that her -wanton experiment was in Keble’s name, that all the -thrills in the universe were reducible to the quieter -terms of mere charm, that all the charming things in -life were reducible to “Keble”, and it was inherent -in the nature of charm that it could not be captured -and possessed, except in symbols, or by proxy. One -could be so profoundly loyal to one’s personal conception -of life,—a conception which exacted unflinching -courage at the approach of new ideas and high -venturesomeness in tracking down concealed ideas,—that -one could accept clues from a stranger even -though the accepting might involve a breach of what -the world called constancy. Incidentally, the fact -that her first breach, whatever it may have meant to -Dare, was an erotic fiasco as far as she was concerned, -had by no means discountenanced further experimentation. -Life should pay her what it owed -her, even if she had to pay heavy costs in collecting -her due.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>On making the shocking discovery that marriage -was no solution of her destiny, she had vigorously -bestirred herself, only to make the even more shocking -discovery that she was shedding her husband as -a caterpillar sheds its cocoon. Now, poised for -flight, she could cherish a tender sentiment for the -cocoon but could scarcely fold her wings and crawl -back into it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She recalled the cruel little poem, still unaccounted -for, which had thrown open a door in her mind.</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>For, being true to you,</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>Who are but one part of an infinite me,</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>Should I not slight the rest?</span></p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='pindent'>Those lines had come at her with a reproachful -directness. In them, or rather in the blue pencil -which marked off the poem on its printed page, she -had read Keble’s impatience with her limitations. -Her reason had seen in the lines a justification -against which her heart rebelled. From that moment -she had been disciplining her heart. So effectively -indeed, that now,—were it not for that -appealing little droop and for the sentimental fragrance -which still clung to her,—she might have -flung the poem at him and cried, “<span class='it'>Voilà la monnaie -de ta pièce</span>. I’ve learned my lesson in bitter thoroughness. -Now it is I who point to ‘rude necessary -heights’ intent upon a goal <span class='it'>you</span> are unable to see.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The nature of the goal was not clear even to herself, -nor could she exactly define the help that Dare -had given her in mounting towards it. Certainly the -upward journey had been easier since he had first -appeared, and certainly her climbing prowess had -seemed more notable in moments when she and Dare -on some high ledge of thought had laughingly looked -down at Keble and Miriam exchanging mystified -glances, in which admiration for the agility of the -two on the ledge was blended with misgivings as to -the risks they ran.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Although she was lured upward by the hope of -wider views, there were times when she scrambled -and leaped for the mere joy of climbing. There -were other times when she was intoxicated by a -sense of the vastness of causes to be advocated and -the usefulness of deeds to be done. She had visions -of jumping up on platforms and haranguing masses -of people till they, too, were drunk with the wine of -their own potentialities. She had only the sketchiest -notion of what she or they were to accomplish. The -nearest she came to a definite program was the -vision of a new self-conscious world blossoming -forth into unheard-of activity, giving birth to new -institutions and burying the old. Any cause would -be hers provided it were intelligent, energetic, and -comprehensive. In the joy of being awake she -needed to rouse the world from its lethargy, make it -cast away its crutches. In her consciousness of rich -personal resources she needed to make everybody else -dig up the treasures latent within themselves. Most -of all, she desired that the world should “get on”, -that its denizens should abandon their moral motorcars -and leap into moral aeroplanes until something -still more progressive could be devised.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Despite the vagueness of her goal there was no -lack of impetus in her pursuit of it, and every day, -on a blind instinct which she had learned to revere, -she did deeds in point, deeds which, when done, -proved to be landmarks, in a perfect row, on her -route towards the unknown destination. This encouraged -her to believe that the future would help -her by showing a tendency to create itself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The visit of Keble’s family had proved a negative -hint as to the nature of her goal, for clearly her direction -was not to be one that led into a bog of kind, -complacent social superiorishness. Whatever errors -she might make she would not end by being gently -futile, like her mother-in-law; she would not turn -into a wet blanket like Girlie, nor a noisy, nosy -Christmas-cracker like Mrs. Windrom. Alice Eveley -had been the most satisfactory woman of the four, -yet Louise particularly hoped she would not land in -Alice’s bog; for Alice, while intelligent, had turned -none of her intelligence to account; while bright, she -shed only a reflected light; while frank, she could -politely dissemble when downrightness would have -been more humane; and while sympathetic, she held -to conventions which had it in them to insist upon -mercilessness. Alice was, one could sincerely admit, -a jolly good sort, but only because she had not opposed -favoring circumstances of birth, wealth, and -privilege. Girlie was a less jolly good sort because -she had avoided even the gentle propelling force of -favoring circumstances and loitered in back eddies,—she -had been “dragged” to Italy, for instance, and -had brought back no definite impression save that of -a campanile which had made recollection easy for -her by leaning! Alice at least floated down the middle -of the stream. But neither had struck out for -herself, and Louise’s complete approval was reserved -for people who swam. In that respect the -men of the party had had more to commend them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But even the men moved in a hopelessly restricted -current. One could point out so many useful directions -in which they wouldn’t dream of venturing. -That was where Dare had shown to advantage. -Even though Dare had kept his tongue in his cheek, -his real superiority had been manifest to Louise. -Compared to Mr. Windrom, a renowned old Tory, -Dare was a comet shooting past a fixed star. Mr. -Windrom had undoubtedly swum, but only in the -direction of the political current in which his fathers -had immersed him. Dare, like herself, had swum -against the current. Like herself and her father and -Aunt Denise and misguided Uncle Mornay-Mareuil, -Dare had emerged from obscurity and poverty. She -and Dare had swum to such good purpose that they -had attained the smoothly running stream that bore -on its bosom the most highly privileged members of -civilization. And while momentarily resting, they -had caught each other’s eyes long enough to exchange, -with a sort of astonished grunt, “Is <span class='it'>this</span> -all!” Was it to be expected that they should stop -swimming just because every one else was contented -with civilization’s meandering flow? To have done -so would have been to degrade the valor that had -gone into their efforts thus far.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet the mere fact that they had reciprocated a -glance of intelligence had been pounced upon by one -of the privileged members as evidence of treasonous -dissatisfaction with the meandering current, and -Mrs. Windrom’s last words to her, pronounced in -a voice which every one was meant to hear, were, -“Do say good-bye to Mr. Dare for me. I’m sorry -he’s not well; but I know what a devoted nurse you -will be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of course Alice and Lady Eveley and Miriam and -all the others <span class='it'>might</span> have good enough memories to -associate Mrs. Windrom’s remark with Walter’s accident, -but the chances were that they would not, and -that left in their minds an equivocal association between -her devotion as nurse and the particular case -of Dare’s indisposition. Louise was aware that Mrs. -Windrom meant her remark to convey this hint, and -while she didn’t care a tinker’s dam for Mrs. Windrom’s -approval, she did object to underhandedness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Walter had swum, and although he might not -have the prowess of herself and Dare, still he had -shown enough independence of the complacent stream -to qualify in the class which included Dare, herself, -and,—by a narrow margin,—Keble and Miriam. -For Miriam had not merely floated. If she had not -made as good progress as Walter or Keble, she was -none the less to be commended for the distances she -had covered, for Miriam was handicapped in having -no family or money to lean back on in moments of -fatigue and discouragement.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Alice had lost some of her standing with Louise by -saying to Miriam before departing, “I hope we shall -see something of each other in the future, Miss -Cread. I take it that you will be returning east this -autumn.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was natural enough for Alice to “take it” that -Miriam would be returning. But, in the light of -that trifling episode during the dance, Louise felt -that Alice’s express assumption of Miriam’s departure -was almost a hint; and having learned to read -Miriam’s countenance, she was almost sure that -Miriam had felt the remark to be, if not a hint, at -least a warning. And that Louise resented; for the -fact that Alice had not been born athletic enough to -strike out for herself gave her no right to curb the -athleticism of others. And if it was a warning, and -if Alice justified it to herself on the score of sisterly -protection, then how did Alice justify her many -sisterly neglects? Louise felt that if she had been -in Alice’s place when Keble, sick of the war, had -first struck out into the wilds, no power on earth -could have prevented her from following at his heels -to fry bacon over his camp fires. If she had had a -brother she would have guarded and bullied and -slaved for him with the single object of making him -what Minnie Hopper as a little girl would have called -“the champeen king of the circus.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whether Miriam’s continued sojourn was in the -best interests of all concerned was another matter. -Obviously Miriam, despite her protests, desired to -stay. But that was none of Alice Eveley’s business. -It was a matter for Miriam alone to decide, and she -should not be hampered in her decision. In a sense -it was Keble’s business too. Certainly not his wife’s, -though long before Keble’s sister had appeared on -the scene, Louise had sometimes arrested herself, as -Alice had done, and chosen a different course in order -not to break in on some apparent community of interest -between her husband and Miriam Cread.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A perambulator appeared at the corner of the terrace, -propelled by a stolid nursemaid. The monkey, -rosy and fat, was making lunges at a white hillock -in his coverings which he would have been surprised -to know was his own foot. On seeing his mother -he abandoned the hillock to give her a perky inspection. -His bonnet had slid down over one eye, and -the tip of his tongue protruded at the opposite corner -of his mouth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise broke into a laugh. “Katie! Make that -child put in his tongue or else straighten his hat. -He looks such an awful rake with both askew.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Katie missed the fine point of the monkey’s resemblance -to a garden implement, but, as Dare had -recognized, Katie was as immortal in her ignorance -as philosophers are in their erudition. She straightened -the monkey’s headgear, this adjustment being -less fraught with complications than an attempt to -reinstate his tongue.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“His granpa and gramma come into the nursery -before breakfast,” Katie proudly announced. “They -said it was to give me a present, which they done,—but -it was really to see the monkey again.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise had risen and gone over to shake the white -hillock, an operation which revived the monkey’s interest -in that phenomenon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Any one would think he was <span class='it'>their</span> baby!” she -said sharply.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>As she was turning to go into the house she met -Miriam, whose face was anxious. “Oh, there you -are,” Miriam began. “I wish you would go up to -Dare. They can’t make him drink the things you -left for him. Now he’s arguing with Aunt Denise, -who says he’s in a fever. He says he’s not, and he’s -saying it with feverish intensity.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise gave a start. “Miriam! Papa had two -cases of smallpox a few weeks ago. Those Grays, -you know,—down the river.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Wasn’t it one of the Gray girls that Dare rescued -the day we went to Deer Spring? She had climbed -a tree and couldn’t get down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They hurried upstairs. “You wait here,” Louise -ordered, leaving Miriam at the door of the bedroom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thank God it’s you,” said a half delirious voice, -as she appeared, and Dare sank back into bed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise made a rapid diagnosis, then turned to -Aunt Denise. “I think it’s smallpox,” she whispered. -“Will you fumigate the nursery? You’ll find everything -in the medicine chest. I’ll have him moved to -one of the cabins. <span class='it'>Je sais ce qu’il faut faire.</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was no timorousness in Aunt Denise. A -competent, strong woman herself, she took competence -and strength and a stern sense of duty for -granted in any member of her family.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When she had gone Louise went to the door to -report to Miriam. “Get somebody to take a few -blankets over to your old cabin. Then find Mr. -Brown and have him send up some sort of stretcher. -Mrs. Brown will help you straighten the cabin and -build a fire to air it. Then telephone Papa.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What are you going to do?” Miriam ventured.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nurse. There’s no one else. Besides he -wouldn’t obey a stranger. You won’t mind keeping -an eye on the house, will you? Don’t let Aunt -Denise be too thrifty. Above all, keep Keble from -fretting. He rears like a horse when he’s frightened.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But can you keep from catching it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can do anything I make up my mind to. Now -hurry, dear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam was seriously alarmed, yet Louise’s confidence -was tonic. Moreover this development gave -her an elasticity of motion of which she was a little -ashamed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When Keble returned for luncheon he found the -table set on the terrace and a strong odor of disinfectants -issuing from the house. Miriam explained, -and although Keble was familiar with his wife’s -rapidity of organization, he was bewildered to find -that she was installed in a cabin across the lake, and -that his first visit to her was already scheduled. He -was to accompany Miriam in the launch at three. -Louise would talk to them from the boat-slip, where -they would leave supplies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’s all very well,” he agreed. “But what -about Louise?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nurses always protect themselves,” Miriam reassured -him. “And Louise would be the last woman -to make a blunder.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was harder than she had foreseen to keep Keble -from panic, for every reassuring remark seemed -merely to arouse new images of disaster. He was -sorry for Dare but considered it clumsy of him to -have collected Thelma Gray’s germs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You would have done the same,” Miriam reminded -him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I wouldn’t have gone prowling bareheaded -all over the northwest after a warm evening of dancing,” -he said with a sharper accent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam had been sleepless after the dinner party, -and at dawn from her window had seen Dare, dishevelled, -cross the meadow through the wet grass -and let himself into the house. It came to her as a -shock that Keble had witnessed this incident, of -which no mention had been made. Had Keble, too, -spent a sleepless night? Had that any bearing on his -habit, more conspicuous of late, of nervously whistling, -and leaving his seat to wander about the house? -Miriam was a little unstrung and was grateful for -the presence of Aunt Denise, whose rigidity held the -household together, even if it occasionally stood in -the way of a free and easy routine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam and Keble were at pains to conceal from -each other their consternation at the situation created -by Louise’s prompt retirement into quarantine. -Aunt Denise, the most straight-laced person at Hillside, -was probably the only person in the neighborhood -who took Louise’s step as matter of course. -Keble was proud of his wife’s medical talent; it emphasized -her womanliness, and it was the essentially -feminine qualities in Louise which he had unflaggingly -admired. Yet he was tormented by the thought -of her self-imposed duties, and if he had had to -choose a patient for her he would probably have -chosen anyone rather than Dare. He was also -angry at her unconditional veto on a trained nurse -from Harristown.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To Louise the fitness of her conduct was a matter -of so little consequence that it did not enter her -head. In the beginning she saw that she would have -a trying case on her hands. Although her presence -had a soothing effect on Dare, his unfamiliarity with -illness made him a difficult patient, and Louise had -to adopt drastic methods, a cross between bullying -and ridiculing him into obedience. Her greatest difficulty -came in changing his wrappings, an operation -which had to be performed with the least possible -variation in temperature. Dare obstructed the task -by struggling to free himself, and by trying to prevent -her from bathing him with her lotions.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In one access of delirium he sat up, glared at her -with unrecognized fury, and shouted, “Get to hell -out of this room, before I break in your skull!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Whereupon she walked straight to the bed, pinned -his shoulders to the pillow, and retorted, “Don’t you -say another word till I tell you to; if you order me -out I may go, and if I do there’ll be no one to give -you a drink. Now lie still.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She held his eyes until she saw a return of lucidity. -He collapsed, and said feebly, “Have I been -bad? I can’t have you overhearing me if I ramble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had overheard many illuminating scraps of -confession. “Listen, Mr. Dare dear,” she said, with -tears in her eyes. “If you’re going to get well soon, -you must be perfectly quiet. The rambling doesn’t -matter, but try to fix it in your mind that you mustn’t -be rough. You’re so terribly strong!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What’s the use of getting well?” he moaned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A few moments later his good intentions were -consumed in the heat of new hallucinations. “Is that -Claudia?” he shouted. “Oh God, it must be a thousand -in the shade.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sometimes he hummed a few bars of a lively -melody, in appallingly unmusical tones. With a remorse -that closed her ears to the grotesqueness of the -performance Louise recognized the tune of their -dance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In a few days the ranch settled down to the new -order. Miriam and Keble made daily visits to the -boat-slip, the doctor came as often as he could arrange -the long trip, sometimes remaining overnight, -and Mrs. Brown, her mind on the nights when Mrs. -Eveley had sat and held Annie’s hand, cooked tempting -dishes and brought them to the window. She -also took turns at sitting outside Dare’s window -while Louise lay down in the tiny sitting room of -the cabin. Twice during the doctor’s visits Louise -had gone for a short gallop, but gave up the practise -on learning that Dare had asked for her during her -absence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At the Castle Aunt Denise ruled with a sway that -awed the servants but failed to produce the industry -that Louise could inspire with a much laxer code. -Keble and Miriam, after faint attempts to restore an -unanalyzable comfort that had departed with Louise, -fell into step behind Aunt Denise and were always -relieved when the time came to go out of doors or -repair to the library on business. During the first -days Keble had been haunted by a fear that illness -would break out in the house. Once in the middle of -the night when he had been awakened by the sound -of crying he ran to the nursery, half expecting to -find the monkey speckled like a trout. Katie, with a -trace of asperity, persuaded him that Baby was only -suffering from wind, and this seemed plausible, for -at the height of their wrangle the monkey relapsed -into an angelic slumber, broken only by a motion of -lips that implied health of the serenest and greediest -description.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam found a deep, wistful contentment in trying -to keep Keble’s mind occupied. In the evenings -Aunt Denise played patience and retired punctually -at ten. Miriam usually remained another half hour -at the piano, then Keble went alone to read in the -library with his pipe and a decanter. He grew more -taciturn than she had ever seen him, and this mood -she dreaded, for it stirred the rebellious ego within -her which had grown during the past months to unmanageable -proportions.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>En revanche</span> Keble had moments when a new side -of him came to light, an amiable, tender side which -Miriam had long felt he took too great pains to suppress. -After mornings and afternoons during which -each had been employed in personal work or diversion, -after evenings of music or cards or reading, -there was an indescribable charm for her in the recurrence -of Keble’s boyish moods, when his man’s -mask was laid aside. It might be the recounting of -some lark at school; it might be an experience in the -trenches or in a corner of Greece or China during his -bashful tour of the world; it might even be an admission -of incurable dudishness in the face of some -recent native provocation. Whatever it was, it was -the essential Keble, the Keble whom Miriam might -have met in a London drawing-room. His wife induced -playful moods in him, but rarely did the playfulness -Louise provoked keep within the bounds of -veiled, correct irony. For his wife’s delectation -Keble rendered his playfulness ever so slightly -frisky, exaggerating the caricature of himself; -whereas for her, Miriam liked to persuade herself, -he projected a more ironically shaded sketch of himself -which amused without being distorted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s such a blessing to have you here, Miriam,” -he confessed one evening. “I should have gone quite -dotty alone with Aunt Denise; Louise and Dare -would have come back and found me with a rosary -around my neck, gibbering the names of saints. I -believe you were sent to us by some kind providence -of God to be a universal stop-gap in our strange -ménage. I wonder you bear up under the strain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was tempted to say, “I was sent to you not by -God but by Walter Windrom,” but she couldn’t. -Nor could she smile, for his timid candor gave her -a pretext for reading into his remark some depth of -feeling for which the tyrant within her clamored. -But she succeeded in replying, “Oh I bear up wonderfully,—so -well, in fact, that if everything were to -run flawlessly I think I should be selfish enough to -pray for another gap, that I might stop it!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The tyrant had forced the words into her mouth, -but her anxiety was dispelled by his manner of taking -them. He passed his hand over his hair and -said, whimsically, sadly, “Well, I don’t see any immediate -prospect of gaplessness . . . I suppose most -ménages are the same, if you were to explore into -them. They muddle along, sometimes on an even -keel, more often pitching about in cross currents. -And I suppose one half of the ménage always feels -that the other half is at fault, and there’s no way of -judging between them, because no two people are -born with the same mental apparatus.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Disconcerted at the length he had gone, with a -characteristic desire to efface the self-revelatory -words, he came abruptly out of the mood by adding, -“Is it apparatuses, or apparati? I see I’ve been talking -nonsense again,—good-night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam wished that he had not seen fit to go back -on his semi-confession, but she could not deny herself -the comfort his soliloquy had given her, and -for some days it served as a sop to her tyrant.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had moments of futile compunction as she -saw Louise growing haggard. Twice a day Miriam -appeared at the boat-slip, but quite often Louise had -seized those moments for a short nap, and there was -nothing to do but leave the packets and messages -on the jetty and return, or go for a walk with -Grendel. She found in herself a dearth of inspiration -when it was a question of making the day less -tedious for her friend. Louise with her resourcefulness -would have thought out endless ways of diverting -her, had she been Dare’s nurse. Miriam had -pleaded to be allowed to assist. It was not only that -she wished to spare Louise; she envied her the opportunity -as well as the skill that called into play such -magnificent services. Her own life seemed barren in -contrast. Although ten years her junior, Louise had -been at the very heart of life, had loved, been loved, -suffered, given birth, and grown strong through exercise. -Miriam envied her the gruelling experience -she was going through. She blushed to think how -incompetent she herself would be in Louise’s place, -and how prudish; but incompetence and prudishness -could be outgrown, and she longed to outgrow them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She resented the fact that Keble seemed not to -notice the degree of strain on Louise, the dark rings -under her eyes, the drawn mouth. Louise was partly -responsible for his failure to see, for whenever he -called at the slip she forced herself to be bright and -facetious. But any woman would have seen through -Louise’s brightness, and Keble as a man far less -obtuse than most, ought to have seen through it, -ought not to have wrung their hearts by his casual -manner of calling out, in a recent leave taking, -“Don’t overdo it, Weedgie; we mustn’t have <span class='it'>you</span> -breaking down.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A night finally came when the little doctor announced -that the crisis was passed, that the patient -would recover. Only then did he admit that he had -almost despaired. Had it not been for Louise’s vigilance, -Dare would not have survived a week, for he -was one of those giants who often succumb under -the first onslaught of a complication of ailments.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Louise has been splendid,” Keble acknowledged. -“It’s lucky for Dare that they were such good -chums.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The doctor turned on him with a suddenness that -surprised Miriam no less than Keble. “You don’t -understand Louise,” he said. “She would take as -much pains to cure a wounded dog as she would to -cure the Governor-General. She would do as much -for the stable boy as she would do for you; under -certain circumstances, more. For she gives her -strength to the helpless. Dare was helpless, body -and soul. If you had watched him tossing and heard -him moaning your eyes would have opened to many -things. He was not only physically lost, he was lost -in spirit. An ordinary nurse would have tended his -body. Louise has tended his spirit. By a thousand -suggestions she has restored his faith in himself, -created him. For you that spells nothing but the -service of a clever woman for a friend. What do -you know about service? What do you know about -friendship? What do you know about the sick -man? What do you know about life? What do -you know about Louise? Precious little, my boy!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The doctor disappeared in a state of exaltation, -leaving Keble bewildered. “There’s a blind spot in -me somewhere, Miriam,” he said. “Can you put -your finger on it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid we’re both blind,” she said feebly. -“At least we haven’t their elemental clairvoyance. -The doctor is doubtless right in his flamboyant way, -and we are right in our pitiful way. We can only -try, I suppose, to be right at a higher pitch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By Jove,” Keble suddenly exclaimed, with a -retrospective fear, “it was a closer shave than we -had any idea of. I wonder if Louise realized.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam smiled bitterly. “You may be quite sure, -my dear Keble, that she did. If you have been -spared a great load of pain, you may take my word -for it that it’s Louise you have to thank.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was pale. In his eyes was the look which -Miriam had seen on another occasion, just before -the birth of his son. “Then I do wish,” he quietly -said, “that my friends would do me the kindness to -point out some of my most inexcusable limitations, -instead of letting me walk through life in a fool’s -paradise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam was ready to retort that even such a wish -reflected the <span class='it'>amour propre</span> that determined most of -his acts, but she had been touched by the emotion in -his eyes and voice,—an emotion which only one -woman could inspire. “I think we’re all trying desperately -to learn the ABC’s of life,” she said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was unnerved by the self-abasement that had -stolen into his expression. For the first time in her -life she went close to him and took his hand in hers. -“Don’t mind if I’ve spoken like a preacher,” she -pleaded in a voice which she could control just long -enough to finish her counsel. “The sermon is directed -at my own heart even more than yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He returned the pressure of her hands absent-mindedly, -and she sought refuge in her room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was restless and turned towards the library -through force of habit. A book was lying face down -on the arm of his chair, but after reading several -sentences without hearing what they were saying, he -got up and poured himself a glass of whisky.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He would have gone to the piano, but Miriam’s -superior musicianship had given him a distaste for -his own performances. He wandered through the -drawing-room to the dimly-lit hall, and found himself -before the gramaphone. Every one had gone to -bed, but if he closed the shutters of the box the sound -would not be loud enough to disturb the household. -At haphazard he chose a record from a new supply.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A song of Purcell’s. He threw himself into a -deep chair. The opening bars of the accompaniment -were gentle and tranquilizing, with naïve cadenza. -A naïve seventeenth century melody, which was taken -up by a pretty voice: high, clear, pure.</p> - -<p class='pindent'><span class='it'>Those words!</span> He leaned forward, and listened -more intently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I attempt from love’s sickness to fly—in vain—for -I am myself my own fever—for I am myself my -own fever and pain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As though a ghost had stolen into the dark room, -Keble started slowly from his chair. His eyes -riveted on the machine, he paused, then abruptly -reached forward to stop it, inadvertently causing the -needle to slide across the disk with a sound that -might have been the shriek of a dying man.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For a long while he stood holding the disk. Only -when he became conscious of the startled beating of -his heart did he throw off the spell.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was staring at the record in his hands—the -ghost. He dreaded the noise that would be made if -he were to drop it on the floor,—even if he were to -lay it down carefully and snap it with his heel.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He got up swiftly, unbolted the door, and walked -out in the cold air to the end of the terrace, past the -stone parapet, down the grassy slope to a point overhanging -the shore of the lake. Far, far away, -through the blackness, were tiny points of light, -marking the location of the Browns’ cottage. His -eyes sought a gleam farther along the shore, but -there was nothing in all that blackness to indicate -Miriam’s old cabin.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They were there, perhaps asleep, perhaps wearily -wakeful, with only their souls left to fight for them -against some vague, sinister enemy. Perhaps she -was watching over him as he slept; preparing his -draughts; stirring the fire with a little shiver. Perhaps -she, too, had been approached by spectres. Perhaps -she was ill, despairing, afraid. Tears came into -his eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He could feel the disk pressing against his fingers, -and the tiny hard rills through which the needle had -traced its uncanny message.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What do you know of the sick man!” Above -the mysterious silence of the night a phantom voice, -thin, clear, dainty, was singing the answer into his -understanding: “I attempt from love’s sickness to -fly, in vain; for I am myself my own fever and -pain.” It could so airily sing, as though it were a -toy song and a toy sentiment, words which were as -irrelevantly indicative as flowers nodding over a -grave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Many years ago he and Walter had played a game -called “scaling”. You chose round, flat pieces of -slate and sent them whirling through the air.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He scaled, and waited for the splashing sound far -out on the water.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Poor little record, it had meant well enough.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER IV</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>K</span>EBLE had received a petition signed by Conservatives -throughout the county inviting him -to present himself as candidate for the provincial -elections. He had foreseen this, but hesitated to -accept the nomination. In the first place he was -barely thirty; in the second place success at the polls -would mean protracted absences from the ranch; in -the third place he was not sure that Louise would -approve. He remembered her saying, apropos of her -Uncle Alfred Mornay-Mareuil, “If he had only been -able to control his ambition! Politics is as demoralizing -as gambling.” And Keble quite often took -Louise’s remarks at their literal value.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When it came time to select a candidate for the -elections, the scattered Conservatives of the district, -knowing that the only hope of making a showing -against their entrenched opponents was to induce -Keble Eveley, with his important holdings and the -prestige of his name, to stand for them, had encountered -opposition from the supporters of the mayor of -Witney, who in several consecutive elections had -suffered defeat at the hands of the Liberal candidate, -but who had learned to look forward to his periodical -worsting as an agreeable break in the monotony -of his days. The repeated success of the Liberal -representative had resulted in over-confidence on the -part of that gentleman. He had been weaned from -his county, had invested his savings in the capital, -and returned home only to collect rents or sell at a -substantial profit stock which he had acquired at bargain -prices. A feeling was abroad, among Liberals -and Progressives, as well as Conservatives, that the -electors were being “used for a good thing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Conservative leaders knew Keble through -business dealings or hearsay. Some of them had -joined in a deputation to receive Lord Eveley and -Mr. Windrom at Witney. They all saw the wisdom -of putting up a vigorous, intelligent, and earnest -young man, and the supporters of the veteran Conservative -candidate, in the hope of a change of luck, -ended by yielding to the suggestion. The official invitation -was brought to Hillside by Pat Goard, the -campaign manager, and his henchman, the editor of -the “Witney Weekly News”.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was on a mild October afternoon. Keble received -the delegates in the library, heard their arguments, -and asked for an hour to consider. Aunt -Denise had bowed with frigid graciousness and withdrawn. -Keble asked Miriam to show the visitors -over the grounds, then ran down the path to the -jetty, jumped into the launch, and motored across the -lake, which to-day was an expanse of bright blue -rippled by the most gentle of breezes. The slender -white trees on the lower shore with their scanty remnants -of pale yellow foliage, the bare branches of -other hardwoods, and the deep rust of the underbrush -were the only tangible proofs of the season. -Everything else was gold and sapphire.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As he neared the boat-slip Keble saw that Louise -had set up a deck chair in a sunny patch before the -cabin, and had installed Dare in it. It was his first -glimpse of Dare in several weeks and he was shocked -at the wasted face that appeared above the rugs. -For the first time he had some inkling of what the -other man had been through, and a wave of compassion -and affection surged through him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise was sitting at Dare’s side, and they were -talking quietly, intimately. Although there was almost -a life and death contrast between the two, Keble -was no longer blind to the fact that his wife had -worn herself to a dangerous margin, and while he -could approve of her act, in the sense in which Aunt -Denise approved of it, he could not, like Aunt Denise, -look on unmoved. Something in the languor of -the scene, something in the intimacy which seemed to -unite the two, aroused a throbbing ache within him. -Like Miriam he had felt futile in the face of this -struggle, and now he almost envied Dare the suffering -that had opened to him a secret garden. He paid -blind tribute to whatever force in Dare,—a force -transcending mere personality,—awakened in Louise -a spirit that he had never been able to evoke. “I -blunder and obtain forgiveness,” he reflected, “while -Dare is right, and pays terrific penalties.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise came to the end of the jetty to meet him, -and they talked about Dare’s first day outside the -improvised hospital.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Only for an hour,” she said. “Then he has to -go back. But it marks the beginning of a new era.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble would not let himself speculate on the nature -of the new era. “And you can soon rest,” he -said. “Be very careful now. This is the most dangerous -time of all for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She waved away the fear. “Who are those men -on the terrace?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble explained their mission. “I’d like you to -decide for me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She remembered an occasion when Keble had -wished her to decide upon decorations for the Castle, -and she had hurt him by her indifference.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As she sat thinking, her arms resting limply in -her lap, Keble noted with a pang the absence of her -old elasticity. She looked older, and tired. He had -an impulse to get out of the boat and take her in -his arms. He reflected that a man like Dare, in his -place, would have scouted her precautions. But -there was the baby to think of, and,—cautious men -were cautious.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m hesitating,” Louise finally said, “only because -I’m timid about deciding for you. But I don’t mind -saying that if you accepted and were successful the -monkey and his grandfathers and I would be highly -gratified.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tears came to Keble’s eyes,—an indiscretion -which he lost no time in correcting. “Right-oh! -. . . Tell Dare how glad we are to know he’s on the -mend, and find out if there’s anything he’d especially -like. The people in Vancouver wrote that his -ticket to Japan will be valid for a reservation on any -later boat . . . Good-bye dear. Miriam and I will -call again after dinner.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Bring a volume of Swinburne if you think of it. -We’ve been trying to recall some lines.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He promised, and she laughed to see him make a -methodical note of it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Good luck!” she called out, as he started the engine.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thanks, old girl. Awfully decent of you to think -I may have a chance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s in your blood!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal constituency,” he -deprecated. “And what isn’t Liberal leans towards -the Progressive.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’d despise a victory I hadn’t had to fight for!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I believe you would,” he laughed, as though her -militancy were one of her amusing caprices.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam’s unwieldy charges were drinking whisky -and soda on the terrace, in preference to tea in the -drawing-room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How’s the patient?” she inquired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Able to sit up and take a little Swinburne,” Keble -reported with a truculence that wasn’t meant to be -as unkind as it sounded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Consulted the missus, have you?” inquired a -business-like campaign manager.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have. The answer is in the affirmative.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble received a thump on the back that made him -vividly conscious of the sort of thing he had now -let himself in for. Could he thump, he wondered. -The first attempt was not too great a success, but -one would undoubtedly improve with practise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now let’s get down to tacks,” said Mr. Goard, -when further drinks had been consumed in honor -of the event.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The delegates required a message to take back to -party headquarters, and Keble dictated an outline of -his political credo, the logic of which was warmed -and colored in conformity with the ejaculated -amendments of Pat Goard.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Will that do the trick?” Keble finally asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That’ll do for a start,” Mr. Goard replied, and -Miriam went to transcribe her notes at the typewriter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Our best to the missus,” said the manager half -an hour later as he got into the car that had brought -him to Hillside. “You couldn’t have a better platform -than <span class='it'>her</span>.” Mr. Goard went on to express the -opinion that it would be the “best fight ever put up”, -but added that “those birds took a lot of beating”.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble promised to fight his hardest, and had a -final word for the newspaper man. “Be sure to emphasize -that it’s a straight program of common -sense,—without flummery or mud-slinging or rosy -promises that can’t be fulfilled.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The editor acquiesced, but privately reserved the -prerogative of serving up Keble’s phrases at a temperature -and with garnishings adapted to the Witney -palate. He had seen elections won by lungs and -knuckles.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well,” Keble laughed on returning to Miriam’s -side. “That’s done it! Do you remember the play, -‘What Every Woman Knows’? You’ll have to be -Maggie Wylie and edit my speeches.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam’s tyrant exulted, but her honesty compelled -her to say, “I doubt whether your supporters -will appreciate my genius; it runs to neatness of -copy and pluperfective subjunctives. Maggie Wylie -put damns into her husband’s speeches, and Louise -is the only person who can find the Witney and -Valley equivalents. Is there any occasion she can’t -rise to, for that matter?” This last remark was a -trifle bitter.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In Keble’s mind was an image of Louise sitting -beside her patient, quoting Swinburne. “We’ll submit -our efforts to her,” he agreed. “We’ll pack -Louise into an imaginary hall on the boat-slip, and -I’ll stand up on an imaginary platform and rant. -Louise will be the proletariat and boo, clap, or heckle. -Then we shall know where we stand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We are babes in the wood, you and I,” Miriam -observed, with a familiar sense of incompetence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For days they collected statistics, held consultations -with visiting politicians and office-seekers, -wrote and answered letters, made rough drafts of -speeches which were in turn delivered before the -“vast audience of one” on the boat-slip. More than -once Keble and Miriam, seated in the launch, glanced -at each other in dismay as Louise tore their sentences -limb from limb.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s beautiful <span class='it'>comme</span> argument,” she once commented, -“only it lacks drama. Remember, darling, -you have to sway them, not convince them. Once -you get inside the Assembly you may be as cool as a -cucumber and as logical as Euclid, but if you wish -the natives to <span class='it'>get</span> you there, you have to tickle and -sting them! That argument about neglected roads -needs to be played up stronger. Picture the perils -of taking your best girl for a Sunday drive from -Witney to the Valley, with the horse getting mired -and the off wheel starting an avalanche down the side -of the Witney canyon and your best girl rolling down -the hill to kingdom come; then suddenly turn serious -and describe what decent roads would do for everybody, -including yourself. Don’t be afraid to make -the farmers see that you yourself have something to -gain. Show them how the reforms you advocate -would stimulate your trade as well as theirs and increase -the value of your property.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After this comment a detailed overhauling of the -address in question was commenced, with Keble dictating -and Louise, insinuating metaphors in the local -vernacular. Dare from his deck chair in the distance -watched or dozed until the boat had departed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How is the campaign progressing?” he asked -after one prolonged consultation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Splendidly. Keble and Miriam are up to their -neck in statistics. They go to Witney to-morrow for -a preliminary duster . . . Papa says we’ll be out of -quarantine before election day.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare watched her silently for some time. “Why -do you always bracket their names? You seem to do -it deliberately, as though it were a difficult phrase -which you were bent on mastering.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It may be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You can confess to me, you know. We’ve -proved at least that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She patted his hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“May I guess out loud?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She nodded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He paused to choose his words. “You feel that -Keble and Miriam have grown to depend on each -other in some way analogous to the way in which -you and I depended on each other.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She did not deny it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“With us, our relation flared up one day into a -white flame which for you seemed merely to cast a -light over your past and future, but which for me -burnt into me till I—began to rave.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again she stroked his hand. Lines of fatigue -showed in her face, and her eyes were fixed on the -ground.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For the sake of the good we had brought each -other, you felt that when I,—the weaker of the two -as it turned out,—collapsed, you owed it to me and -to yourself to patch my life together again. You -felt that we had gone into an expedition together, an -intellectual expedition, and that one of us had succumbed -to an emotional peril. Like a good comrade -you stood by. When you had wrestled with the -Angel of Death you made sure that the Angel of -Life should have a fair field. When I was strong -enough to realize what had made life too great a -burden, you began tenderly, wisely, patiently to make -me see that, even without the fulfilment of the greatest -boon I had ever craved, life still held possibilities. -You dug up all my old sayings, pieced together my -damaged philosophy which had seemed sufficient in -the days before the white flame burned my cocksure -ideas to a crisp, and you made a more beautiful garment -of it than I had ever succeeded in fashioning. -You showed me how I could keep the fragrance of -the flower without crushing the flower itself. You -read me passages, God save the mark, from <span class='it'>La -Nouvelle Héloise</span> which a few years ago I would -have dismissed with a snort, but in which you made -me believe. You read me one of your early poems -which bore to your present wisdom the relation of -a chrysalis to a winged faith and you ended by persuading -me that my collapse merely marked the transition -of my old chrysalis of a philosophy into -something winged and courageous like yours,—a -transition that cannot be accomplished without pain. -. . . The patience, the love even, that you expended -on me ended by making me see, as you intended it -should, that this crisis, my overthrowing of my angel -of selfishness, was a greater blessing than any blessing -which could have grown out of a surrender on -our part to the urge we both felt,—for you did feel -it, too, I think . . . You led me back to my own path -by quoting the lines:</p> - - - <div class='poetry-container' style=''> - <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<div class='stanza-outer'> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>To sleep for a season and hear no word</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>Of true love’s truth or of light love’s art,</span></p> -<p class='line0'><span class='it'>Only the song of a secret bird.</span></p> -</div> -</div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> - -<p class='noindent'>Your faith in me,—a generous faith that wasn’t -afraid of caresses,—was a faith in life, in human -decency. And now you are extending it, on some -generous impulse, to another quarter. I think I’m -guessing right?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise showed no wish to interrupt him, and he -ventured on. “In the companionship of Keble and -Miriam you see something which suggests an analogy -with our relation. We had adventurousness -to offer each other; they have inhibitions to share. -You feel that interference on your part would deprive -them of a right you have claimed yourself: -their right to work out some problem of their own; -just as interference in our case would have denied -us a privilege of deep understanding and sacrifice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He paused for a moment. “That’s my guess. -Now may I offer a suggestion, for what it’s worth?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Go on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You have one terrible weakness. In mending -another’s life you are infallible. You are less sure -when it comes to taking care of your own. The -thought that you might be prompted by selfish motives -would be enough to make you refrain from interference. -But have you the right to stand by and -see two lives drifting on a course that might entail -your own destruction? If you had been able to put -yourself irrevocably into my keeping, that would -have been one thing. But you weren’t quite. At the -same time you came far enough in my direction to -jeopardize your old security. If you were to become -lost, now, on no man’s land, I should never forgive -myself for letting myself be persuaded by you . . . -I’ve put an extreme case because I know you’re not -afraid of facing any conceivable contingencies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There’s more in it than that,” she finally replied, -and her voice announced a maturity born of suffering. -“Because it’s a relationship for which I am responsible. -If I were to get lost on no man’s land, -which isn’t at all likely, it would be a direct result of -my objection to trenches, and no one but myself -could be made to pay the penalty of my recklessness. -I brought Miriam here for my own reasons, and -kept her here. Keble and I were traveling independently; -for I couldn’t resist dashing off his pathway -whenever the mood seized me. The more liberties -I took, the more obvious it became that Miriam and -Keble had a similar gait. They were always <span class='it'>there</span>, -together. I was glad for Keble’s sake, and certainly, -since I felt free to scamper about in any direction I -chose, I couldn’t deny him the right to the companionship -of any one who could keep in step with him. -People <span class='it'>have</span> to have companions.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have even been glad for Miriam’s sake. Miriam -gave me more than I asked of her. At times I must -have got on her nerves. What had she by way of -compensation? By way of penalty she had a gradual -alienation from her old life. I could no more think -of destroying her new sources of interest than I -could think of destroying the new sources of interest -to which she brought me the clue. The fact that -Keble may have become the central figure of -Miriam’s new interests is an accident over which I -have no control, just as the fact that you became a -vital force in my new enthusiasms was an accident -over which Keble had no control, over which no one -but myself had any control, and not even until I -had learned its full significance. Life is an uncharted -ocean full of such reefs; only fools try to -sail through them; wise people sail <span class='it'>around</span> them. -If I’ve learned anything in the last two years I’ve -learned that freedom, like everything worth having, -costs heavily; every great happiness is bought at the -price of a great unhappiness. That’s only fair. And -I <span class='it'>won’t be niggardly</span> . . . When Keble and Miriam -learn the full significance of their problem, as I have -already done, they will find their own solution. Human -liberty means that, if it means anything . . .</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You and I fought out our issue and came to our -conclusion, which happened to be that our ways lie -apart. You have the song of your secret bird. I -have something equivalent,—though it doesn’t exactly -sing! If one has played the game according to -one’s own rules, and not cheated,—not enough to -count,—then that in itself puts a sort of backbone -into one’s life . . . At times a lot of horrid little -devils come tripping up through me, tempting me to -be cheap and jealous, to interfere, to kick and -scratch,—oh Mr. Dare dear, why do you let me say -all these rubbishy things? I talk like a book of sermons -to convince myself, but the real me is terribly -wordless and weak and silly and bad and preposterous——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She broke down, and Dare drew her head to his -side, stroking her hair and patting courage into her -shoulders.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Once Dare was safely on the high road towards -recovery his progress was rapid. Before long he -was able to walk into the maze of trails which led -away from the end of the lake, and the day at length -came when Dr. Bruneau lifted the ban.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Clad in fresh garments, Louise and Dare made a -bonfire of the clothing and bedding and books from -the cabin. “There go all the outlived parts of us,” -Dare commented as the flames leaped up into the -frosty blue-grey morning air. “We’ll be phoenixes. -. . . I shall never be able to express my gratitude to -you; a man has nothing to say to the person who -has saved his life, any more than he has to say to the -forces that originally gave life to him. He can only -accept, marvel, venerate, and use!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the fire was low enough to be abandoned -with safety, they turned towards the lake, sharing -a sense of freedom and poignant exultation that -could only find expression in a deep sigh. “There’s -no sign of the boat,” Louise said. “Let’s walk. We -can take it slowly, and it’s a glorious morning for -walking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was; but Louise couldn’t deny that it would have -been pleasant to have been sought out, this particular -morning, to have been called for and escorted -back to the Castle. She would have warmed to some -manifestation of extra thoughtfulness on the morning -when all Hillside knew that she and Dare were -to be released from their imprisonment. Besides, she -was tired.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When, hand in hand, they reached the familiar -short-cut across the meadow and saw the house -standing out in cold sunlight from the base of Hardscrapple, -Louise felt more keenly than ever before -what a beautiful home she had possessed. The -broad terraces and frost-nipped hedges, the withered -flower stocks, the pretty hangings behind polished -plate-glass, the bedroom balcony with its tubs of -privet, the smoke ascending from the chimneys, the -perambulator standing outside the door of the sun-parlor, -the road bending away towards the dairy -and barns,—it all held associations for her sweeter -than she would have admitted, and her sense of joy -in possession was flavored with a sense of the precariousness -of possession. She recalled one of her -introspective phrases, that “it was inherent in the nature -of charm that it couldn’t be captured or possessed,—except -in symbols or by proxy”. How -terrible it would be to find oneself in possession of -symbols from which the charm had departed!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A woman in black appeared at the door and came -out on the terrace. Louise turned suddenly to Dare -with a whimsical smile. “If you have only one -funny, cross old lady in the world to represent your -stock of sisters and cousins and aunts, and who really -ought to have been a Mother Superior, you’re -obliged to love her, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare judged that you were.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And if you love Aunt Denise, it’s perfectly obvious -you can’t dote on people like Mrs. Windrom -and Ernest Tulk-Leamington and lots of others. -Don’t you agree?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll agree fast enough, but I can only take your -word that it’s obvious.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She really is pure gold under all that black,—but -she’s so far under.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Aunt Denise waited with outstretched hands. -“You are both very welcome!” she cried, and turned -to congratulate Dare. “<span class='it'>Toi, mon enfant</span>,” she continued, -with her arm about Louise’s shoulders, and -using the familiar pronoun for the first time since -her arrival, “<span class='it'>Tu as bien fait. Tu es vraiment la -fille de ton père, et de ta pauvre mère. Du Ciel elle -t’a envoyé du courage.</span>”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise went indoors and her eyes feasted on the -colorful tapestries, the shiny spaces, the blazing -logs, the flowers, the vases and rugs and odors, the -blue and gold vistas through high window-doors. -As she entered the library Keble and Miriam looked -up from a broad table littered with papers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble came running to greet her. “Why, my dear, -we weren’t looking for you so early! We planned -to take the launch and fetch you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Couldn’t wait.” She went to kiss Miriam. “It’s -quite all right, dear. There’s not a germ left. We’ve -exterminated the species. How is the campaign?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We’re in the throes of final preparations,” said -Keble. “To-night is the big meeting in the Valley. -The telephone has already been humming. Yesterday -our enemies cut the wires; that shows that they -dread us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’ll run off and let you work,” said Louise, “till -lunch.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s to be a gala lunch,” Miriam warned. “Don’t -give a single order. They’re all jubilant at your -return,—so are we, dear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Have they been starving you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do we look starved?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise surveyed them. “No, you look jolly fit. -I believe you have got along quite comfortably without -me; I rather hate you for it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble kissed her. “Go see the monkey,” he suggested. -“We’ll be out as soon as we get through -this. Explain to Dare.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As Louise closed the library door she combated -a desire to cry, then went out not to see the monkey, -but a friendly band of slaves that happened to include -Katie Salter, <span class='it'>ergo</span> the monkey.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Lunch proved festive. Keble was excited; -Miriam played big sister; and Aunt Denise reigned -with clemency. Dare was still far below par, and -his smile was wan; but he was sufficiently his old -self to enter the spirit of the occasion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Talk turned to politics. “You’ll come to-night, of -course?” Keble invited Louise. “Your father has -offered to put us up. We leave for Witney to-morrow -morning. If you’re too tired to go on you can -stay at your father’s till the tumult and the shouting -die.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What about my patient?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare answered for the patient’s welfare. “In the -absence of his hosts, he will install himself at their -table, take second helpings of everything, then pray -for the speedy advent of the next meal, oblivious to -the political destinies of the Dominion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Glad to see your appetite back,” said Keble. -“Does a man good to see you so greedy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After a stroll with Keble, Dare came back to the -sun-parlor, where he found Louise checking items -in a mail order. He took up a magazine and lay -in the hammock.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m ordering some winter provisions,” she informed -him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You haven’t let much grass grow under your -feet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The grass has become knee-deep since I’ve been -away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam came to the doorway, but hesitated a moment -on hearing this last remark, which alluded to -goodness knew what. “We’re to be ready at four,” -she said. “Keble wonders if you could put tea ahead -a half hour.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise got up, giving Dare’s hammock a little -shake. “Tea at four instead of four thirty, do you -hear, Mr. Dare dear? Are you thrilled?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Couldn’t make it three thirty, could you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise had caught Miriam’s arm and was towing -her into the hall. “Don’t look so glum,” she commanded. -“Let’s find Gertie and tell her tea at four, -then pack our bags.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What will you wear?” Miriam asked, surveying -Louise’s khaki and wondering what Louise had -meant by “glum”.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What I have on,” replied Louise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What! Riding breeches on the platform?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Pooh, everybody in the Valley knows my legs by -heart! Besides, an election eve mass meeting isn’t -like a speech from the Throne.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam was wondering whether she should ask -for an explanation of “glum”, but remained silent -as Louise “told Gertie tea at four”, then led the way -upstairs. In Louise’s room, however, the chatter irritated -her, and again Louise intrigued her by saying, -“For heaven’s sake, Miriam, what’s up?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nothing that I know of.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Something is.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well if it’s anything,” Miriam temporized, “it’s -so little that it’s practically nothing. Besides it’s -none of my business.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All the more, then.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The more what?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Necessary to spit it out, darling. Excuse my vulgarity. -It’s only my real nature coming out in the -joy of getting away from that shack. If not your -business, probably mine. Fire away.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You’ll think me Mrs. Grundyish.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Anything to do with the patient?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thanks for helping me. With Mr. Dare <span class='it'>dear</span>, -so to speak.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s only that,—well, now you’ve brought him -through, shall you need to be as attentive to him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Conspicuously attentive?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It amounts to that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“People been saying catty things?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“People always do.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You and I don’t let ‘people’ dictate our actions.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam stopped to ask herself how much territory -Louise’s “you and I” might be meant to cover. -“No,” she assented, “yet there’s something to be said -for not giving people unnecessary topics for gossip, -especially now that the Eveleys are on exhibition. -It would be a pity if your generosity were to be misinterpreted.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise snapped the cover of her bag and sat on a -chair facing Miriam. Her face had become serious. -“Miriam, dear, are you sure you know why you are -so agitated about my attentions to Dare?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam bit her lip. Had Louise guessed that her -appeal was in the nature of a final effort to make -Louise intervene between herself and the tyrant -which had been inciting her to snatch at any fact or -appearance favoring the disloyal cause? “Whatever -the cause of my agitation, as you call it, I hope you -won’t dismiss my caution as mere meddlesomeness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise got up and came to place her hands over -Miriam’s knees, with an impulsive yet earnest directness. -“Our lives are fearfully unstable, dear. We’re -constantly raising little edifices in ourselves which -we think are solid; then along comes some trickle of -feeling and washes the edifice away, leaving only a -heap of sand. The problem is to find materials -within us more reliable than sand, impervious to -chance streams of feeling, with which we can reinforce -our edifices, so that they will see us through a -lifetime . . . Only after a series of washouts do we -recognize the necessity of using a durable mortar, -and it takes still longer to discover what materials -in us are durable and how to mix them. We’ve only -experience to go by. I don’t think I’m over-conceited -in saying that I’ve learned my lesson; and I don’t -think I’m claiming too much for Dare when I say -that he has learned his. In any case we’re answerable -only to ourselves, and I don’t see why any one -need worry.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam’s agitation was now undisguised, though -its cause was not called into question. Only her impatience -restrained her from weeping. “I don’t -understand you,” she finally said. “You have outlandish -moods which make you do outlandish things, -then you offer outlandish explanations in the form of -universal laws . . . How are ordinary mortals to be -helped by your offhand statement that the solution -of personal complications is to find some durable -material to cement everything together? That’s begging -the question. If you have the durable materials -within you, they should protect you from -washouts; on the other hand, if you suddenly find -yourself in a mess and discover simultaneously that -you’re nothing but sand and water, what are you -going to do? You can’t borrow concrete from your -neighbors.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes you can. That’s what churches and philosophy -and art and schools are for. The other name -for concrete is Wisdom. There’s heaps of it in the -world; one has only to help oneself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Again you’re begging the question. That wisdom -abounds doesn’t imply that everybody is wise enough -to prefer it to folly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise got up and walked back to her dressing -table. “But there, as Dare once reminded me, is -where nature steps in. If people are hopelessly -weak-willed, they have to be cared for and put up -with; it’s not their fault. But nature’s average is -quite high on the side of strength. Human beings -are on the whole wise, just as they are on the whole -healthy. And each human being who feels himself -weak in spirit can take a spiritual tonic or go in for -spiritual gymnastics, and if he doesn’t get better, why -I suppose he just becomes a spiritual corpse . . . -We’re getting almost morbidly serious about nothing -on earth. I haven’t the vaguest idea what started -us,—oh yes, your objection to my Mr. Dare -dear. Let’s go and see if tea’s at four yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Louise!” Miriam cried, in a half-choked voice. -“What a treasure you are.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Don’t be prosy,” said Louise, brushing Miriam’s -forehead with her lips. “That fawn thing of yours -wears like iron, doesn’t it. I’m in rags. If Keble -gets in we’ll make him stand us a trip to New York -for some duds.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam was grateful for the delicacy which had -led Louise to terminate her homily with a flippant -flourish, thus giving Miriam an opportunity to withdraw -intact from the compromising currents into -which she had nervously forced the interview. But -the tyrant felt cheated, and only subsided at the tea-table -when Keble drew Miriam into a final consultation -and Louise challenged Dare to a toast-eating -competition.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<div><h1>CHAPTER V</h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span class='dropcap'>B</span>EFORE Louise had been an hour in the Valley -she saw that the election was not going to be -the “walk-over” that Pat Goard was predicting, -despite the solid support which Keble was receiving -at the hands of all the commercial interests. Although -she could be contemptuously disregardful of -public opinion, she seldom made the mistake of misreading -it to her advantage, and as she moved about -among groups of idlers in Main Street she intuitively -discovered that there was a formidable undercurrent -of opposition to her husband.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It came to her with a shock that part of the opposition -was directed at herself. She knew there were -people in the Valley who thought of her as a “menace”. -There were women who resented what they -regarded as her superior airs, her new way of talking, -her habit of dashing into town in an expensive -motor. She found that her frivolous treatment of -the far-off Watch-Night service had not been forgotten, -had even been exhumed by people who had -boisterously profited by Keble’s hospitality on the -night in question. She discovered that sarcastic -equivocations were being circulated regarding her -“sick man” and Keble’s “secretary”. Further than -that, capital was being made of the fact that Keble -had brought laborers from the east to work on his -land. This was a particularly malicious weapon, -since Keble had advertised months in advance for -local workmen, and of the few who had offered their -services, he had engaged all who qualified for the -work in hand.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She made a rapid computation of her enemies, then -a rapid computation of her friends. Luckily she had -invited Mr. and Mrs. Boots to her house during the -visit of her English guests. That had greatly -strengthened the Eveley prestige among the faithful. -Mrs. Boots recalled that she was the first to tell the -Eveleys that they should go in for politics. Even -the tongue of the mail carrier’s wife had wagged less -carelessly since Louise had invited Amy Sweet to -dinner with a lord. Pearl Beatty, who had recently -become Mrs. Jack Wallace, was a tower of -strength for Keble’s cause, for while the women of -the Valley whispered about her, Pearl’s respectability -was now unchallengeable and most of her detractors -owed money to Jack for ploughs and harness -bought on credit. Moreover, Pearl, as a university -graduate, could make the untutored respect -her opinion, and she was phenomenally successful on -the stump.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The opposing party had, early in the campaign, -strengthened their cause by dropping the man who -had represented and neglected them for so many -years, and chosen as their candidate the much more -redoubtable Otis Swigger, proprietor of the Canada -House, a director of the Witney bank, and the holder -of many mortgages. Oat was a good “cusser”; he -always had a chew of tobacco for any one amiable -enough to listen to his anecdotes; he was generally -conceded to be an enlightened citizen; and he was a -typical product of his district. Moreover, he was -popular enough to enlist the support of many Progressives, -who had decided not to put up a candidate -of their own.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Louise, whose erratic ways of arriving at conclusions -in no sense invalidated the accuracy of the -conclusions arrived at, the factor which made Oat -Swigger a dangerous opponent was that she had, for -her own reasons, decided not to invite him and Minnie -to what the Valley referred to as her “high-toned -house-warming”. In the drug-store Minnie -had tried to pass her without speaking, her chalky -chin very high in the air. Louise had grasped Minnie’s -shoulder, with a smile on her lips but a glint -in her eye, and said, “You’re getting near-sighted -Minnie. How are you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, I’m all right, Smarty!” Minnie had retorted, -and broken away. “Never better in my life!” she -flung back.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For God’s sake touch wood!” Louise had -screamed after her, with a wink for the man behind -the counter. “You’re going to vote for us, I hope,” -she said to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sure thing!” he agreed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was with these discoveries bubbling in her mind -that she sought out Keble to present a hasty report -before the “monster meeting” in the Valley town -hall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble and Miriam seemed to have taken stock of -most of the points she had observed, but they had -thought of nothing as good as the satirical counters -which leaped to her tongue, and in the short interval -before the meeting, Keble jotted down hints.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of the three, Louise was the only one who was -seized with misgivings when Pat Goard came to say -that the hall was full and it was time to go on the -platform. She held Keble back for a moment. “Do -let me speak too,” she pleaded.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble laughed and she saw a glance pass between -him and Miriam which seemed to say, “That incurable -theatricality cropping out again!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I’m afraid there’s no room on the program,” -he said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“As if that made any difference!” she retorted. -“It wouldn’t take me five minutes to say my piece.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“An extempore address might spoil everything,” -he remonstrated. “I’m using your suggestions; they -will be the plums in my pudding.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She gave it up, but only because the glance between -Miriam and Keble had abashed her. Perhaps -it was mere play-acting, she rebelliously reflected, but -it would be first-rate play-acting, and she had meant -every word she had said weeks ago when she had -warned Keble that drama must be infused into politics -if he wished to carry the mass.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She sat on the platform in her khaki riding suit -and was startled by the volume of applause which -greeted Keble when it came time for his speech. -She was also cut by the hissing and booing which -seemed to be concentrated in the back of the hall, -where she recognized a number of hoodlums, probably -paid.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was also startled by the effectiveness of -Keble’s speech. It sounded honest, and she thrilled -to a note of authority in his voice and a strength -in his manner for which she had not given him -credit. Miriam seemed not at all surprised,—but -Miriam had heard him speak in public before.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The audience was attentive, at times vociferously -friendly. There were occasional interruptions and -aggressive questions, which Keble found no difficulty -in answering. At the end there was some -cheering, and as the meeting broke up scores of men -and a few women came to shake hands with Keble.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise greeted friends and used every acquaintanceship -in the interest of propaganda, but secretly -she was panic-stricken. She had seen the Valley in -all its moods, and she knew that this evening’s hearty -good will had not been fired with the enthusiasm that -won Valley elections. She was afraid to meet -Keble’s eyes, and was glad that in his flush of -triumph at the cheers and individual assurances, he -failed to see her doubt.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They reached the doctor’s house late in the evening, -and went straight to bed in order to be fresh for -the strenuous day at Witney. Louise did not sleep. -She was haunted by the sight of earnest, slightly -puzzled, friendly and unfriendly faces, and by the -sound of jeers. Her brain revolved a dozen schemes, -and before she fell asleep she had drawn up a private -plan of campaign.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After breakfast she went to the bank and cashed -a cheque. Then she made a round of the garages -and stables and hired every available conveyance. -While Keble was talking with groups of men in the -town, she was using every minute, unknown to him, -to collect influential members of the community and -make them promise to travel to Witney for the final -rally that evening. The cars and wagons were to -leave an hour after her husband’s departure. Nothing -was to be said to him about the scheme, for she -was reserving it as a surprise. Her conscience told -her it was what Keble would spurn as “flummery”. -Well, it was a flummery world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After dinner at the Majestic Hotel in Witney, followed -by anteroom interviews, Keble and his band -of supporters, to the blare of trumpets which made -Miriam conceal a smile, proceeded to the Arena, a -wooden edifice with a false front rising proudly -above the highest telephone poles. Flags, posters, -slogans, confetti, and peanut shells abounded. There -were argumentative groups outside the doors, while -within, every available seat was taken and already -there was talk of an overflow meeting. Louise had -had the satisfaction of seeing her phenomenal procession -of cars, wagons, and beribboned citizens -from the Valley swarm into the town, headed by the -Valley band. It had taken all her skill to prevent -Keble from discovering the ruse. Later on he would -find out and be furious. For the moment she didn’t -care what he thought. Besides, it wasn’t bribery to -offer people a lift over a distance of thirty-five miles -to listen to a speech. She wasn’t bribing them to -vote; they could vote for or against, as their feelings -should dictate after she had got through with them. -Moreover, even if it was trickery, she had used her -own money,—not Keble’s. She smiled at the reflection -that Walter’s predictions were coming true; how -it would have amused him to see her being, with a -vengeance, “one decent member of society”!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The applause on Keble’s appearance was not deafening. -After all, Witney was less well acquainted -with Keble than the Valley, even though it had pleasant -recollections of the compliments uttered by his -father from the back platform of a governmental -railway carriage. Keble’s address was similar to -former addresses, though throughout this final day -he had brought together concise counter arguments -to new attacks, and had prepared a damaging criticism -of his opponent’s latest rosy promises. He was -more than cordially received, but again Louise felt -the absence of enthusiasm which represents the margin -of a majority.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he had resumed his seat, Mr. Goard, in accordance -with a secret plan, called on Mrs. Eveley, to -the amazement of Miriam and Keble, and to the -wonderment of the big audience, who had had three -serious speeches to digest and who sensed in the new -move a piquant diversion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Last night,” Louise began, “I asked my husband -to let me speak at the Valley mass meeting, and he -objected. So, ladies and gentlemen, to-night, I didn’t -ask his permission at all. I asked Mr. Goard’s, and -as you all know, Pat Goard could never resist a lady.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Already she had changed the mind of a score of -men who had been on the point of leaving the hall.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wouldn’t give my husband away by telling you -he refused, unless it illustrated a point I wish to -make. The point is that no matter how hard a man -objects,—and the better they are the more they do object,—his -wife always takes her own way in the end. -Not only that, ladies and gentlemen, but the wife -adds much more color to her husband’s public policies -than the public realizes. You’ve heard the proverb -about the hand that rocks the cradle. I don’t -for a second claim that the average wife is capable -of thinking out a political platform; certainly I -couldn’t; but she is like the irritating fly that goads -the horse into a direction that he didn’t at all know -he was going to take. What it all boils down to is -this: when you elect Keble Eveley at the polls to-morrow, -you’ll elect me too. And if you were by -any mischance to elect Oat Swigger, you’d be electing -Minnie Swigger. Minnie Swigger is a jolly -good girl, one of my oldest friends. But the point -is, ladies and gentlemen, I can lick Minnie!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Shouts of laughter interrupted her. Miriam and -Keble had ceased being shocked. However much -they might deprecate her sops to the groundlings, -they were hypnotized by her control of the mass -which had a few minutes earlier been heterogeneous -and capricious. Her direct personal allusions had -dispelled a hampering ceremoniousness that had prevailed -all evening.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Once when we were girls together at the Valley -school,” Louise continued, seeing that her audience -appreciated the reference to Mrs. Swigger. “I <span class='it'>did</span> -lick her. I had more hair for her to pull, and she -made the most of it. But I had a champion’s uppercut. -Now gentlemen, when you go to the polls to-morrow, -don’t back the wrong girl.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She took a step nearer the row of lamps and held -them by a change of mood. “A little while ago -somebody said that Keble Eveley was a dude. If -he were, his wife would be a dude too; and though -I’ve come up against a lot of rough characters in my -time, nobody has yet been mean enough to call me a -dude to my face; things said behind your back don’t -count. So now, man to man, is there anybody here -who has the nerve to call us dudes? If there is let -him say it now, or forever hold his peace.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a silence, then a shuffling sound directed -attention to a corner, whence a facetious voice -called out, “His father’s a sure enough dude, ain’t -he?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise darted a glance to see who had spoken, -paused a moment, smiled, and took the audience into -her confidence. “It’s Matt Hardy,” she announced. -“Matt’s a clever boy (Matt was fifty and weighed -fifteen stone), but like many clever people he overshoots -the mark. Matt says Keble Eveley’s father -is a dude; and his obvious implication is that we are -therefore dudes. For the sake of argument, let’s -admit that Lord Eveley is a dude——”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A damn fine dude at that,” interposed a friendly -voice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A damn fine dude,” echoed Louise. “We’ll admit -that.” She wheeled around with dramatic suddenness, -facing Matt’s corner. “Now Matt Hardy’s -father used to live in Utah. The obvious implication -is that Matt is a Mormon with six concealed wives.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a howl of enjoyment while the discomfited -Matthew tried to maintain a good-humored -front against the nudges with which his neighbours -plagued him. The success of the sally lay in the fact -that every one knew Matt for a bachelor who paid -his taxes and enjoyed an immaculate reputation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise’s spirits rose as she leaned forward over -the lights and focused attention again by a gesture -of her arms.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It doesn’t in the least matter whether we’re dudes -or not,” she said. “You’re going to elect us anyway. -Bye and bye I’ll tell you why. My husband told you -some of the reasons, but there are a lot of others he -hadn’t time to touch on. Never mind that now. Before -I get to the reasons I must sweep the ground -clear of objections. That’s the quickest way. I’ve -disposed of one. Are there any other objections to -us as your representatives in the Legislative Assembly? -Any more objections, Matt?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Matt was still smarting. He had been harboring -a desire for revenge. But his wits stood still -under provocation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Matt’s cartridges are used up,” she announced, -turning away.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No they’re not,” he shouted, with a sudden inspiration. -“You’re French.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His voice was drowned by a chorus of jeers. -Louise motioned for silence, then smiled imperturbably. -“That’s what Minnie Swigger said, ladies -and gentlemen. That’s what we fought about. And -Minnie was half right. But only half. She overlooked -the fact that <span class='it'>me mother was Irish</span>!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The success of this was almost too great. It -threatened to rob the session of its seriousness. -After the first delight had simmered down, individuals -were suddenly seized with a recollection of the -wink and the brogue and burst into renewed guffaws -or slapped their legs with resounding thwacks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise saw the necessity of counteracting this levity, -and for several minutes talked straight at the -issue, pointing out the practical changes that had -come about as a result of her husband’s efforts to -civilize and develop his district, and the far-reaching -improvements that he, of all people, was in a position -to effectuate. She heard herself enunciating -facts and generalizations which had never occurred -to her before. Once again, as in the case of Billy -Salter’s funeral, she found herself thinking in public -more rapidly and concisely than she had ever thought -in private. And under the surface of it all was a -wonderment that she should be so passionately supporting -Keble in a plan that had been distasteful to -her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Only once she relieved the tenseness by another -flash of humor, when, referring to the candidature -of Otis Swigger, she said that while Oat’s barber -shop in the Valley had always been recognized as a -public forum, Oat would be at a distinct disadvantage -in Parliament, because he couldn’t lather the -faces of the other members, consequently no one -would be obliged to listen to him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She brought her address to a climax with the instinct -of an orator, just when the whole audience -had settled down comfortably for more.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She paused a moment, exulting in the silence, then, -changing from an earnest to a girlish manner, she -dropped her arms and said quietly, “Well, ladies and -gentlemen, you still have twelve hours to think over -the truth of all I’ve said. Are you going to vote for -us?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The answer was in an affirmative that shook the -rafters of the Arena and made Miriam turn pale. -The air was charged with an enthusiasm which for -Louise, as she sank back exhausted, spelt Majority. -Keble was forced to acknowledge the prolonged acclamation, -and Pat Goard quickly followed up the -advantage with a few words of dismissal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Excitement and lack of sleep, following on her -long ordeal, had overtaxed Louise. She felt weak -and a little frightened as she walked towards a side -door in a deserted back room of the building, followed -by Keble, who came running to overtake.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know it was cheap,” she quickly forestalled -him, “but I couldn’t help it.” He seemed to have -been subdued by the pandemonium she had let loose, -as though suddenly aware that he had been satisfied -with too little until she gave a demonstration of what -pitch enthusiasm could and must be raised to. “It’s -my love of acting,” she added. “I hope you weren’t -annoyed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was in the grip of a retrospective panic. -“Why am I always finding things out so late!” he -cried, with a profound appeal in his voice. “I’m -always walking near a precipice in the fog. Why -can’t I see the things you see?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her fatigue made her a little hysterical. “Why -do you keep your eyes shut?” she retorted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>A cloud of feeling that had been growing heavier -for weeks burst and deluged Keble with the sense of -what his wife meant to him. He saw what a jabber -all social intercourse might become should she -withhold her interpretative affection from him or expend -it elsewhere. He had long been restive under -her continued use of the weapon of polite negativity -with which he had originally defended himself -against her impulsiveness. Now he longed to recapture -the sources of the old impulsiveness, to defend -them as his rarest possession, and his longing was -redoubled by a fear that it was too late.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why——” he commenced, but his voice broke -and he reached out his arms. It was dark. She was -dazed, and seemed to ward him off.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then what made you do it?” he finally contrived -to say. “You’ve saved the day, if it can be saved. -Not that it really matters. Why? Why? Why not -have let me blunder along to defeat, like the silly ass -I am?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No woman likes to see her husband beaten,” she -replied, in tired, tearful tones, “by a barber!” she -added.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Louise!” he implored, in a welter of hopes, fears, -and longings that made him for once brutally incautious. -He caught her into his arms, then marvelled -at the limpness of her body. He turned her face to -the dim light, and saw that she had fainted.</p> - -<h3>2</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>Not until Dare had been driven to Witney, there -to entrain for the coast, did Louise give in to the -weariness with which she had been contending for -many days prior to Keble’s election. Only her determination -to spare Dare the knowledge that she had -overtaxed her strength for him kept her from yielding -sooner. On the day of his departure she retired -to her bedroom, drew the blinds, got into bed, and -gave an order that nobody should be admitted. They -might interpret her retirement as grief at Dare’s departure -if they chose; for the moment she didn’t care -a tinker’s dam what any one thought.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Aunt Denise discouraged Keble’s immediate attempt -to telephone for Dr. Bruneau. “She doesn’t -need medicine,” she said, “but rest. Leave her to -me; I understand her temperament.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Once more Keble and Miriam could only pool -their helplessness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We had better leave matters in her hands,” -Miriam decided. “The Bruneaus seem to be infallible -in cases of illness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was only half reassured. “Usually when -Louise has a headache that would drive any ordinary -person mad, she goes out and climbs Hardscrapple. -I have a good mind to telephone in spite of Aunt -Denise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you do,” said Miriam, “Louise will be furious, -and that will only make matters worse. It’s merely -exhaustion. Even I have seen it coming.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wish to God I’d fetched a nurse from Harristown -when Dare was ill.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Louise wouldn’t have given up her patient if you -had imported a dozen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was vexed and bitterly unhappy. “What -are you going to do with a woman like that!” he -cried. “I don’t mind her having her own way; but -damn it all, I object to her doing things that half -kill her. That’s stupid.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One of the most difficult lessons Miriam had learnt -in her long discipleship under Louise was how and -when to be generous. She saw an opportunity and -breathed more freely. “I think it’s cruel of you to -call her sacrifice stupid. If she breaks down it is -not that she has undertaken too much; but that other -people undertake so little. When Louise resolved to -nurse Dare she did it because there was, as she said -to me, no one else. But during that period she was -putting the best brain-work into our campaign. The -minute she was free she went to the Valley, worked -like a horse, and turned the tide single-handed because, -as she might have put it, there was nobody -else. She thinks and acts for us all. It isn’t our -fault if we are not alert enough to live up to her -standard, but the least we can do when she becomes -a victim to our sluggishness is to refrain from blaming -her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, Miriam, I give it up! I don’t understand -Louise; I don’t understand Aunt Denise; I don’t -even understand you. You women have one set of -things to say for publication, and then disclose -amendments which alter the color of the published -reports. Each new disclosure rings true, yet they -don’t piece together into anything recognizable. I -no sooner get my sails set than the breeze shifts. -. . . There’s only one thing left for me to do, and -that is to go on as I began, just crawling along -like a tortoise, colliding into everything sooner or -later. By the time I’m eighty I may have learned -something and got somewhere. If not I’ll just -stumble into my grave, and on my tombstone they -can write, ‘Poor devil, he meant well’.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam had been laughing at the funny aspect of -his misery, but her smile became grim. “That isn’t -a bad epitaph. I wish I could be sure that I’ll be entitled -to one as good.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble glanced at her curiously. “You’re morbid, -Miriam. I don’t wonder, with the monotony of our -life here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” she corrected, despite the tyrant. “The -life here has done more than anything to cure me of -morbidness. Although, to tell the truth, I wasn’t -conscious of the morbid streak in me until after I’d -been here for a while.” To herself Miriam explained -the matter with the help of a photographic -metaphor: Keble’s personality had been a solution -which brought out an alluring but reprehensible -image on the negative of her heart; Louise’s character -had been a solution which had gradually -brought out a series of surrounding images which -threw the reprehensible image into the right proportion, -subordinating it to the background without in -any way dimming it. Miriam was now forced to -admit that one overture on Keble’s part, one token of -a tyrant within him that reciprocated the desire of -her tyrant, would have sufficed to overthrow all her -scruples.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I don’t see what you mean,” said Keble.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam thought for a moment. “You deserve an -explanation. I can’t explain it all; it’s too personal.” -She had almost said too humiliating. “But I’ll make -a partial confession. Louise imported me here long -ago as a sort of tutor, at her expense. You weren’t -to know; but it can’t do any harm to give the game -away now. While I was supposed to be tutoring her, -I was really learning. By watching Louise I’ve -learned the beauty of unselfishness, trite as that may -sound. I can’t be unselfish on Louise’s scale, for I -can’t be anything on her scale, good, bad, or indifferent. -But like you I can mean well, and since I’ve -known Louise I can mean <span class='it'>better</span>.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You sometimes speak of Louise’s play-acting. -When your people were here we once said that she -was having a lovely time showing off. I know better -now. I’m convinced that she was trying, in her -own way, to reflect distinction on you, just as I’m -convinced that when she jerrymandered the proletariat -she was going it in the face of bodily discomfort -and your disapproval simply because she couldn’t -bear the thought of your being disappointed. I don’t -think either of us has given Louise enough credit -for disinterestedness, chiefly because she doesn’t -give herself credit for it. She prates so much about -her individual rights, that we assume her incapable -of sacrificing them. At times we’ve mistaken her -pride for indifference. Do look back and see if that -isn’t so. I’m inclined to think that even her present -illness is merely the nervous strain consequent upon -some splendid reticence.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam paused, unable to confess that the reticence -had to do with herself, as she suspected it had. She -saw that she had permission to go on.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then her interest in Dare. That, you and I have -avoided referring to, and I think we were a little -hypocritical. But the core of the secret is connected -with Dare, and I can’t do Louise the injustice of not -telling you. It was unpardonable of me to listen, -but I did. I was in the sun-parlor, in the hammock, -dozing, and she and Dare came and sat by the fire in -the hall. The door was open.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“When was this?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Only yesterday. They were talking about the -elections. ‘When I saw all those idiots wavering between -Oat Swigger and Keble,’ she said, ‘something -snapped. From that moment I had only one determination: -to make them feel the worth of all the -things Keble stood for in the universe’ . . . The -conversation swung around to the monkey. She -told Dare, as she had long ago told me, that before -the monkey arrived she hoped he would be a boy, -not for her sake, but to gratify his grandfathers. -Then when he did turn out a boy, she was amazed -to find herself thankful for your sake. The grandfathers -were forgotten, but she was indifferent. -Then after the elections she was for the first time -conscious of cherishing the monkey for her own -sake. That feeling grew until she suddenly resented -your rights in him. Then yesterday she took it into -her head to bathe the monkey, and had an insane -delusion that she could wash off his heredity,—scrubbed -like a charwoman till the poor darling -howled. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘I was sorry, and by the -time I had got on all his shirts I felt that I had put -his heredities on again, and was glad and kissed him -and he flapped his arms and squealed. Then I cried, -because, deep down, I was terrified that perhaps -Keble might some day, if he hasn’t already, resent -<span class='it'>my</span> contribution to the monkey’.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Miriam waited. “I couldn’t resist passing on that -monologue to you, for it seems the most complete -answer to many criss-cross questions, and Louise -might never have brought herself to let you see. It -would be impudent of me to say all this had we not -formed a habit out here of being so criss-crossly -communicative, and if you hadn’t tacitly given me a -big sister’s licence. Anyway, there it is, for what -it’s worth. At least I mean well.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble was too strangely moved to trust his voice, -and walked out of the house to ride over the rain-soaked -roads.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That was the most bitter moment that Miriam -had ever experienced. She had come to know that -Keble had no emotion to spare for her; but that he -should fail to see into her heart, or, seeing, refuse -her the barest little sign of understanding and compassion,—it -was really not quite fair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She had letters to write. She had decided to leave, -but apart from that her plans were uncertain. Her -most positive aim was to avoid living with her old-fashioned -aunt in Philadelphia. Grimly she looked -forward to a process of gradual self-effacement. In -two or three years she would probably not receive -invitations to the bigger houses. Then there would -be some hot little flat in Washington, on the Georgetown -side, with occasional engagements to give lessons -in something,—at best a post as social secretary -to the wife of some new Cabinet Member full of her -importance. Something dependent, and dingy. Each -year would add its quota to an accumulation of dust -on the shelves of her heart. And with a sigh she -would take down from a shelf and from time to -time reread this pathetic romance in the wilderness. -From time to time she would receive impulsive invitations -from Louise, and would invent excuses for -declining. Perhaps, some years hence, when she -could view the episode with some degree of impersonality -and humor, she would write a long letter -of confession to Louise. In advance she was sure -of absolution. That was her only comfort.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dare had guessed her secret, and she had been too -hypocritical to take him into her confidence. Now -that he was gone she regretted that she had not -been flexible enough to enter into the spirit of his -overture. By evading, she had not only screened her -own soul, but denied commiseration to him. In future -she would try to be more alert to such cues. -She wondered whether inflexibility might not have -had a good deal to do with the barrenness of her -life. She even wondered whether at thirty-five one -would be ridiculous in vowing to become flexible,—would -that be savoring too strongly of the old maids -in farces?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>From her window, as she was patting her hair into -place before going down to tea, she caught sight of -Keble’s tall, clean figure dismounting at the edge -of the meadow. Katie was passing along the road -with the perambulator, and Keble went out of his -way to greet the monkey. His high boots were -splashed with mud. His belted raincoat emphasized -the litheness of his body. The face that bent over -the carriage glowed from sharp riding against the -damp air. The monkey was trying to pull off the -peak of his father’s cap, and Keble was pretending -to be an ogre. Katie looked on indulgently.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even Katie,” thought Miriam, “puts more into -life than I do.” A few months before, Miriam would -have thought, “gets more out of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The mail had been delayed by the state of the -roads. Miriam found a letter from London. When -tea was poured she read as follows:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear Miss Cread: I don’t know whether you -are still at Hillside or whether you will be at all interested -in the suggestion I am about to make, but -I am writing on the off chance. My old friend -Aurelie Graybridge is leaving soon on a visit to -America. Yesterday, during a chat with her, I happened -to mention your name. She recalled having -met you some years ago, and inquired minutely after -you. She has been looking for a companion to help -her keep the run of her committees, and so forth. -For several years a cousin was with her, but her -cousin married and that leaves her with no one. I -suggested that you might be induced to go to her, and -she asked me to sound you.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You would divide your time between England -and the continent. The duties would be light, chiefly -correspondence. A good deal of spare time; travelling -and all expenses provided, and a decent allowance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Aurelie plans to sail next week. I’m enclosing -her address. Please write her if the idea appeals to -you. I hope it may, for that will mean that I shall -be likely to see you from time to time. You may of -course have much more interesting plans, in which -case don’t mind this gratuitous scrawl.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was signed by Alice Eveley. Miriam restored -the letter to its envelope, and was thankful that -Keble and Aunt Denise were too occupied to notice -her face.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her anger was redoubled by the realization that -the offer was too good to be turned down. She -knew she would end by despatching an amiably -worded letter to Mrs. Graybridge, then write Keble’s -sister a note thanking her for her kind thoughtfulness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The cat! Oh, the cat!” she was saying under her -breath.</p> - -<h3>3</h3> - -<p class='pindent'>In the third week of December Keble returned to -Hillside after his first session in the Provincial Assembly. -He had been loth to leave his wife at the -ranch, but she had been too weak to accompany him -and was still somewhat less energetic than she had -formerly been. Keble found her on a divan in her -own sitting room, with the monkey propped up beside -her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s just as you said it would be,” he remarked. -“Having to waste precious weeks in that dull hole -makes the ranch so unbelievably wonderful a place -to come back to!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When the first questions had been answered, -Louise held up a prettily bound little volume from -which she had been reading. “Look! A Christmas -present already,—from Walter Windrom. A collection -of his own verse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble admired it, then Louise, in a tone which -she succeeded in making casual, said, indicating one -of the pages, “That’s a strange sort of poem, the one -called ‘Constancy’. Whatever made Walter write a -thing like that?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Keble read the poem. “I’ve seen it before. It’s -quite an old one. Girlie clipped it from some review -or other and sent it to me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What does it mean?” Louise insisted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How should I know?” he laughed. “Girlie had -a theory about it. Walter was smitten with an -American actress for a while,—what was her name? -Myra something: Myra Pelter. She treated him -rather shabbily. Took his present, then threw him -down for somebody else, I believe, after they’d been -rather thicker, as a matter of fact, than Girlie quite -knew. Walter is romantic, you know, for all his -careful cynicism; he’s always singing the praises of -bad lots, and that makes Girlie wild, naturally. Girlie -said the poem was Walter’s attempt to justify this -Myra person’s uppish treatment of him, an attempt -to make her out a lady with duties to art,—all that -sort of blether. It’s Girlie’s prosaic imagination: she -can never read a book or a poem without trying to -fit it, word for word, into the author’s private life. -I had quite forgotten its existence.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was difficult for Louise to conceal her relief -after years of pent-up unhappiness caused by her -over-subjective interpretation of the poem’s mission. -“How could a man as clever as Walter ever take -Myra Pelter and her art seriously. Miriam and I -went to see her once. She’s only a Japanese doll!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dolls are an important institution. They have -turned wiser heads than Walter’s.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise looked again at the historical lines. “I -hate it,” she mildly remarked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Tell Walter so—not me!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh no,” she sighed. “The poor little lines meant -well enough.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>While her remark did not make sense to him, it -seemed an echo of something he had once said to -himself; it brought a dim recollection of pain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I <span class='it'>would</span> tell him at a pinch,” she continued. -“I’m no doll that says only the ugly things for which -you press a button in its back!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ungainly sentence, that!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He remembered now. It was the ghostly little -gramaphone record, that had brought him a message -about Dare.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It’s an ungainly subject,” she retorted, absent-mindedly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Change it then. There’s always the monkey.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, there’s him. Aren’t you glad?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Rather! . . . I don’t suppose anything could be -done about his legs. They’re as curved as hoops. -If he ever tries to make a goal he’ll have to stand -facing the side-lines and kick sideways like a crab.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Louise buried her nose in the monkey’s fragrant -dress and shook him into laughter. She was languidly -wondering where her own goal was, whether -it was still ahead or whether, as Walter had so discouragingly -predicted, she would find it at her starting -post. She was happy; but she suspected that she -was happy only for the moment. The complacence -with which Keble had accepted their revival of interest -in each other was already stirring a little singing -restlessness of nerves within her. He so had the -air of having won the race. Perhaps he had, and -perhaps he always would. But she was none the less -hare-like, for all that! She looked into the monkey’s -eyes. “Tell your daddy,” she said, “the important -thing is to <span class='it'>make</span> the goal,—whether you do it sideways -or frontways or whatever old ways!”</p> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:.8em;'>THE END</p> - -<hr class='pbk'/> - -<p class='line' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'>TRANSCRIBER NOTES</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. -Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been -employed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious -printer errors occur.</p> - -<p class='line'> </p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARE AND TORTOISE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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