THE GUTTER-CANDLE
Although the Champneys house was tightly closed, with the upper door
and windows boarded up, the blonde person in shoddy fineries rang
the area bell on the chance that there must be a caretaker somewhere
about the premises. She felt that when one has come upon such an
errand as hers, one mustn't leave any stone unturned; and she
couldn't trust to a haphazard letter. An impassive and immaculate
Japanese opened the door, and stood looking at her without any
expression at all. Had the blonde person baldly stated her errand,
the Japanese would probably have closed the door and that would have
been the end of it. But she didn't speak; after a sharp glance at
him she opened her gay hand-bag, extracted a slip of paper, handed
it to him, and stood waiting.
The Japanese read: "I wish you'd do what you can, for my sake," and
saw that it was addressed to Mr. Chadwick Champneys and signed by
Mr. Peter Champneys. It had evidently been carefully kept, and for a
long time, as the creases showed. The Japanese stood reflecting for
a few moments, then beckoned the blonde person inside the house,
ushering her into a very neat basement sitting-room.
"For you?" he asked, glancing at the slip of paper.
"Me? No. I come for a lady friend o' mine. You might tell 'em she's
awful sick an' scared,--just about all in, she is,--or she wouldn't
of sent. But he said she was to come here an' hand in that slip I've
just gave you. That's how I come to bring it."
"All right. You wait," said the Japanese, and glided from the room.
It was the first time Hoichi had received any message from the new
master, as he knew Mr. Peter Champneys to be; if the message was
genuine, he was sure that Mr. Chadwick Champneys, had he been alive,
would have investigated it. Hoichi couldn't imagine how the blonde
person had gotten hold of such a slip of paper, signed by Mr. Peter
Champneys. If there was some trick behind it, some ulterior motive
underlying it, then Hoichi proposed to have the trickster taught a
needed lesson. He was a suspicious man and visions of clever robbers
planning a raid on the premises rose before him. He would run no
risks, take no chances. He rang up Mr. Jason Vandervelde,
fortunately caught the lawyer at home, and faithfully repeated the
blonde person's message. He insisted that the signature was genuine;
he had seen many letters addressed to the late Mr. Champneys by his
nephew, and he would recognize that writing anywhere. He asked to be
instructed.
"Tell her to wait half an hour and I'll be there," said the lawyer
upon reflection.
The blonde person was leaning back in a Morris chair, tiredly, when
Vandervelde was ushered into the basement sitting-room. He
recognized her type with something of a shock. She was what might be
called--charitably--a peripatetic person, and she reeked of very
strong perfume. The lawyer's eyes narrowed, while he explained
briefly that he represented the Champneys interests. Would she
explain as concisely as possible just why and for whom she had come?
She explained ramblingly. Mr. Vandervelde gathered that a certain
"lady friend" of hers, one Gracie Cantrell, now in the hospital,
said her prayers to Mr. Peter Champneys, whom she had met on a time,
and who had advised her if ever she needed help to apply to his
uncle, and to tell him that he had sent her. Feeling herself _down
and out_ now, she had done so.
"Honest to Gawd, the poor little simp thinks this feller's a angel.
Why,--when she gets out o' her head, she don't rave about nothin'
but him, beggin' him to help her. Ain't it somethin' fierce,
though?" The blonde person dabbed at her eyes with a scented
handkerchief.
Mr. Vandervelde rubbed his nose thoughtfully. A girl down and out, a
waif in a city ward, in her delirium calling upon Peter Champneys
for help, didn't sound at all good to him. In connection with that
penciled slip which seemed to imply that she had a right to expect
help, it smacked of possible heart-interest--sob-stuff--so dear to
enterprising special writers for a yellow press. He couldn't
understand how or where Peter had met the girl; possibly some
youthful foolishness back there in Carolina. Maybe she'd followed
him north, to become what her friendship with such as the blonde
person indicated. Vandervelde was a cautious man and he thought he
had better investigate that message, written before Chadwick
Champneys's death.
"My car's outside," he told the blonde person briefly. "We'll see
this Gracie at once and find out just what's to be done."
It was past the hour for visitors, but Vandervelde's card procured
them admittance to the ward where Gracie lay. At sight of the
big-eyed, white-faced, wasted little creature who looked at him with
such a frightened and beseeching stare, Vandervelde's suspicions of
her died. No matter what she had been,--and the house-physician's
brief comment on her case left him in no doubt,--this poor wrecked
bit of humanity beached upon the bleak shore of a charity ward was
harmless. He absolved her of all evil intent, of any desire to
obtain anything under false pretenses. He even absolved the blonde
person, who despite her brassy hair, her hectic face, had of a
sudden become a kind, gentle, and soothing presence. "Well, dearie,
you got a straight tip from that feller. All I had to do was to show
that piece o' paper he give you, and this kind gent'man come right
off to see you," said the blonde cheerfully. "An' now maybe he'll be
wantin' to talk with you, so I'll leave you be. Good night, dearie,"
and she stepped away quietly, a trail of perfume in her wake, so
that Vandervelde's nose involuntarily wrinkled.
Gracie lay and looked at her visitor.
"You ain't his uncle. You don't look nothin' at all like him," said
she, disappointedly.
"No. His uncle is dead. I'm the lawyer who has the estate in charge.
So you can tell me just exactly what you know about Mr. Peter
Champneys, and then tell me what I can do for you."
He spoke so kindly that Gracie's spirits revived. She told him just
exactly what she knew about Mr. Peter Champneys, which of course was
very, very little. Yet this much was luminously clear: of all the
men Gracie had ever encountered, of all her experiences, Peter
Champneys and the hour he had sat and talked with her stood out
clearest, clean, touched with a soft and pure light, a solitary
sweet remembrance in a sodden and sordid existence.
"Like a angel, he was. I never seen nobody with such a way o'
lookin' at you. Never pretended he didn't understand, but treated me
like a lady. I couldn't never forget him. I kep' the piece o' paper
he give me, mostly because it was somethin' belongin' to him an' it
sort o' proved I hadn't dreamed him. I never meant to ask for no
help--but when I come here--an' there wasn't nothin' else to do, I
kep' rememberin' he said I was to go to his uncle an' say he'd sent
me. I--I'm scared! My Gawd!--I'm scared!"
He remembered once seeing a trapped rabbit die of sheer terror. This
girl, trapped by the inevitable, reminded him unpleasantly of the
rabbit. His kind heart contracted. He asked gently:
"What is it you are so afraid of, Gracie? Try to tell me just what
you want me to do for you." Perspiration appeared upon her forehead.
She clutched him with a skeleton hand.
"I'm scared o' bein' cut up!" she whispered fearfully. "Oh, for
Gawdsake, save me from bein' cut up!" Her eyes widened; in her thin
breast you could see her laboring heart thumping. "I want you keep
'em from cuttin' me up!" she repeated feverishly.
"Cutting you up!" Vandervelde looked at her wonderingly.
"Yes. I heard 'em say I didn't have no chanst. They put you in the
morgue--afterward--when you're folks like me, and then the doctors
come and get you and cut you up. I don't want to be cut up! For
Christ's sake, don't you let 'em cut me up!"
Vandervelde felt a sort of sick horror. He couldn't quite understand
Gracie's psychology; her unreasoning, ignorant terror.
"Why, my poor girl, what a notion! You--" he stammered.
"I been treated bad enough alive without bein' cut up when I'm
dead," said she, interrupting him. "I get to thinkin' about it,
wakin' up here in the night. He said his folks'd help me if I asked
'em."
"Of course, of course! Certainly we'll help!" said Vandervelde
hastily.
"If I had any money saved up, 't wouldn't be so bad. But I ain't. We
never do. I--I been sick a long time. What clothes I had they kep'
against the rent I was owin', when they told me to get out. An' I
walked an' walked,--an' then one o' them cops in Central Park, he
seen me, an' next thing I knew I was here."
She was getting hysterical, and he saw that it was quite useless to
try to reason with her; the one way to allay her terror was to make
the promise she implored.
"Well, now that your message has reached us, Gracie, you need not be
afraid any more, because what you fear won't happen; it can't
happen. There!--Put it out of your mind."
She stared at him intently, and decided that this large, fair man
was one to be implicitly trusted.
"You bein' one o' his people, if you say it won't happen, then it
won't happen," she told him, and fetched a great sight of relief.
"Oh! I was that scared I 'most died! I--I just naturally can't bear
the idea o' bein' turned over to them doctors." And she shuddered.
"Well, now that you're satisfied you won't be, suppose you tell me
something more immediate that I can do for you. Isn't there
something you'd like?"
"I'd like it most of anything if you'd tell me somethin' about
_him_," she said timidly. "I know I got no right to ast, me bein'
what I am," she added, apologetically. "You see, nobody ever behaved
to me like he did, an' I can't forget him."
She looked so pathetically eager, her look was so humble, that
Vandervelde couldn't find it in his heart to deny the request. He
found himself telling her that Peter Champneys had become a great
painter, that he had never returned to America, and that his wife
also was abroad.
"Is the lady he's married to as nice as him? I sure hope she's good
enough for him," was Gracie's comment.
Seeing how mortally weak she was, Vandervelde took his departure,
promising to see her again. He had a further interview with the
house-physician and the head nurse. Whatever could be done for her
would be done, but they had handled too many Gracies to be
optimistic about this particular one. They knew how quickly these
gutter-candles flicker out.
Commonplace as the girl was, she managed to win Vandervelde's
interest and sympathy. That she had won young Peter Champneys's
didn't surprise him. He was glad that she had had that one
disinterested and kindly deed to look back to. The boy's quixotic
behavior brought a smile to the lawyer's lips. Fancy his wishing to
send such a girl to his uncle and being sure that old Chadwick
wouldn't misunderstand! Gracie cast a new light upon Peter
Champneys, and a very likable one. Vandervelde had seen in the uncle
something of that same unworldliness that the nephew displayed, and
it had established the human equation between Peter and the shrewd
old man.
Busy as he was, he managed to see Gracie again. She had refused to
be put into a private room; she preferred the ward.
"It's not fittin'," she said. "Anyhow, I don't want to stay by
myself. When I wake up at night I want to feel people around
me,--even sick people's better than nobody. It's sort o' comfortin'
to have comp'ny," and she stayed in the ward, sharing with less
fortunate ones the fruit and flowers Vandervelde had sent to her.
Once the gripping fear that had obsessed her had been dispelled,
once she was sure of a protecting kindness that might be relied
upon, she proved a gay little body. As the blonde person said,
Gracie wasn't a bad sort at all. As a matter of fact, neither was
the blonde person. Vandervelde saw that, and it troubled his
complacent satisfaction with things. He saw in the waste of these
women an effect of that fatally unmoral energy ironically called
modern civilization. He wondered how Marcia, or Peter's wife, would
react to Gracie. Should he tell them about her? N-no, he rather
thought not.
Marcia had cabled that she and Anne were leaving Italy--were, in
fact, on their way home. During his wife's absence he had had to
make two or three South American trips, to safeguard certain
valuable Champneys interests. The trips had been highly successful
and interesting, and he hadn't disliked them, but Vandervelde was
incurably domestic; he liked Marcia at the household helm.
"I wanted to hire half a dozen brass-bands to meet you," he told his
wife the morning of her arrival, and kissed her brazenly. "Marcia,
you are prettier than ever! As for Anne--" At sight of Anne
Champneys his eyes widened.
"Why, Anne!--Why Anne!" He took off his glasses, polished them, and
stared at his ward. Marcia smiled the pleased smile of the artist
whose work is being appreciated by a competent critic. She was
immensely proud of the tall fair girl, so poised, so serene, so
decorative.
"As a target for the human eye," said Vandervelde, fervently,
"you're more than a success: you're a riot!"
Anne slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. "I'm glad you like
me," said she, frankly. "It's so nice when the right people like
one."
Hayden was not in town. He didn't, as a matter of fact, know that
they had left Italy, for Anne's last letter had said nothing of any
intention to return to America shortly. Anne felt curiously
disappointed that he wasn't at the pier with Jason to meet them. She
was surprised at her own eagerness to see him. He pleased her more
than any man she had ever met, and her impatience grew with his
absence.
Marcia, a born general, was already planning with masterly attention
to details the social career of Mrs. Peter Champneys. With the
forces that she could command, the immense power that Berkeley
Hayden would swing in her favor, and the Champneys money, that
career promised to be unusually brilliant, when one considered Anne
herself.
The Champneys house was to be reopened. In the main, as Chadwick
Champneys had planned it, it pleased Marcia's critical taste. Anne
herself appreciated as she had been unable to do when she first came
to it. She liked its fine Aubusson carpets, its lovely old rosewood
and mahogany furniture, its uncluttered stateliness. But there were
certain changes and improvements she wished made, and she took a
businesslike pleasure in supervising the carrying out of her orders.
The portrait of Mr. Chadwick Champneys, painted the year before his
death hung over the library mantel and seemed to watch her
thoughtfully, critically, with its fine brown eyes. The girl he had
snatched from obscure slavery liked to study the visage of the old
monomaniac who had been the god in the machine of her existence. Her
judgment of him now was clear-eyed but cold. He had been liberal
because it fell in with his plans. He had never been loving.
She was sitting in the library one morning, looking up at him rather
somberly. Workmen came and went, and somewhere in the back regions a
hammer kept up a steady tapping.
"Mr. Hayden," said Hoichi, as he ushered that gentleman into the
room.
She turned her head and looked at him for a full moment, before
rising to greet him: one of Anne Champneys's long, still, mysterious
looks, that made his heart feel as if it were a candle, blown and
shaken by the wind. Then she smiled and held out her hand. It was
good to see him again! She was prouder of his friendship than of
anything that had yet come to her. It gave her a sense of security,
raised her in her own estimation.
She explained, eagerly, the changes and improvements she was
planning, and he went over the house with her. He liked it as Marcia
liked it; once or twice he offered suggestions; the relationship of
pupil and master was at once resumed,--but this time the pupil was
more advanced.
Then he took her out to lunch. It was with difficulty that he
restrained the exuberant delight he felt; just to have her with him
went to his head. "Marcia's advice was wise, but my behavior's going
to be otherwise, if I don't keep a tight hold upon myself," he told
himself.
He jealously watched her social progress, and he contributed not a
little toward it. He had a sense of proprietorship in her, and he
did not mean that she should be just one among many; he wished her
to be a great luminary around which lesser lights revolved. Under
Marcia Vandervelde's wing, then, Mrs. Peter Champneys was launched,
and from the very first she was a success. She played her part
beautifully, though she was curiously apathetic about her triumphs.
The incense of adulation did not make as sweet an odor in her
nostrils as one might have supposed. Anne Champneys was oddly
lacking in personal vanity, and she retained her sense of values,
she was able to see things in their just proportions. That she had
created a sensation didn't turn her red head. But she had a feeling
that she had, in a sense, kept her word to Chadwick Champneys,
discharged part of her debt. This was what he had wished her to
accomplish. Very well, she had accomplished it. She was glad. But
she sensed a certain hollowness under it all. Sometimes, alone in
her room, she would stand and look long and earnestly at the red
Indian face of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, brought from Florence and
now hanging on her wall. That room had changed. It was plain and
simple, almost austere; the "honest monk" who had died in the fire,
and the wooden crucifix under him, seemed to dominate it. That
treasure of a maid whom Marcia had secured for her, secretly sniffed
at Mrs. Champneys's bed-chamber. She couldn't understand it. It
wasn't in keeping with the rest of the house. For, it was a
brilliant house, as the home of an exceedingly fashionable, wealthy,
and handsome woman should be.
Anne bore the name of Champneys like a conquering banner. What had
happened on a smaller scale in Florence, happened on a large scale
here at home. Something of the Champneys story had crept out,--the
early marriage, which had kept all the wealth in the family; the
departure of the bridegroom to become an artist, and the fact that
he had really become a noted one. The halo of romance encircled her
head. She was considered beautiful and clever, and the glamour of
much money added to the impression she created; but she was also
considered cold, inaccessible, and perhaps, as the Italian had said,
without a heart. She became, as Marcia had laughingly predicted, a
legend in her own lifetime.
Jason Vandervelde watched her speculatively. He adored Anne, and he
hoped she wasn't going to be spoiled by all the pother made over
her. And he watched with a growing concern Berkeley Hayden's quiet,
persistent, deliberate pursuit of her. Jason wasn't under any
illusions about the Champneys marriage, but he had, as his wife
said, an almost superstitious respect for Chadwick Champneys, and
that marriage had been the old man's darling plan. It was upon that
he had builded, and Vandervelde hated to see that plan brought to
naught. Anne wouldn't really lose, of course,--Hayden could give her
as much as she might forego,--but Vandervelde somehow didn't relish
the idea. That girl Gracie, lingering on in the hospital ward, had
brought the real Peter Champneys poignantly close to his trustee. He
couldn't help thinking that if Anne could know that real Peter,
there might be a hope that old Chadwick's judgment would be once
more vindicated. At the same time, he cared a great deal for
Berkeley Hayden, and the latter wanted Anne. And when Hayden wanted
anything, he generally got it. What Anne herself thought, or what
she might know, he couldn't determine. And Marcia, when he ventured
to speak to her about the matter, said cryptically:
"Why worry? What is to be, will be. Kismet, Jason, kismet!"
* * * * *
On a certain afternoon the house-physician telephoned Mr.
Vandervelde that the girl Gracie was very low, and that she had
asked for him. Vandervelde finished the letter he was dictating to
his secretary, gave a few further instructions to that faithful
animal, and had himself driven to the hospital. He couldn't explain
his feelings where Gracie was concerned. There was something to
blame, somewhere, for these Gracies. It made him feel a bit
remorseful, as if he and his sort had left something undone.
The house-physician said that Gracie's hold upon life was a mystery
and a miracle; by all the laws she should have been gone some months
since. She had certainly taken her time about dying! Her little,
sharp, immature face had lost all earthliness; only the eyes were
alive. They looked at Vandervelde gratefully. He had been very kind,
and Gracie was trying to thank him.
"Good-by," said Gracie. "You been white. Tell _him_--I couldn't
never forget him." She put out a claw of a hand, and the big man
took it.
"Is there--anything else I can do for you, Gracie? Isn't there
something you'd like?" The business of seeing Gracie go wasn't at
all pleasant.
Her eyes of a sudden sparkled. She smiled.
"There's one thing I been wanting awful bad. But I ain't sure I
ought to ask."
"Tell me, my child, tell me."
"I want to see _her_," said Gracie, unexpectedly.
"Her?"
"His wife. I got no right to ast, but I want somethin' awful to see
his wife. Just once before I--I go, I want to see her."
Vandervelde felt bewildered. He had never spoken of Gracie to
Marcia, or to Anne. They were so far removed from this poor little
derelict that he was not sure they would understand. He said after a
moment's painful reflection:
"My poor child, I will see what I can do. But if I--that is, if
she--" He paused, not knowing exactly how to put his dilemma into
words without wounding her. But Gracie understood.
"You mean if she won't come? That's what I want to know," said she,
enigmatically. So weak was she that with the words on her lips she
dropped into sudden slumber. He stood looking down upon her
irresolutely. Then he tiptoed away, meeting at the door the
house-physician.
"How long?" asked the lawyer, jerkily.
"Probably until morning. Or at any minute," said the doctor,
indifferently. He thought it the best thing Gracie could do.
Vandervelde nodded. Then, moved by one of those impulses under the
influence of which the most conservative and careful people do
things that astonish nobody more than themselves, he got into his
car and went after Anne Champneys.
* * * * *
Anne was for the moment alone. The spring dusk had just fallen, and
she was glad to sit for a breathing-space in the shadowy room.
Berkeley Hayden had just left. His visit had been momentous, and as
a result she was shaken to the depths. She had come face to face
with destiny, and she was called upon to make a decision.
For the first time Hayden had broken the rigid rule of conduct he
had set for himself. He felt that he could endure no more. He had to
know. They had chatted pleasantly, idly. But of a sudden Berkeley
had risen from his chair, gone to the window, looked out, turned and
faced her.
"Anne," said he, directly, "what are you going to do about Peter
Champneys?"
She started as if she had received an electric shock. After a
moment, looking at him with a confused and startled stare, she
stammered:
"W-why do you ask!"
"I have to know," said Hayden, and his voice trembled. "You must be
aware, Anne, that I love you. I have loved you from the first moment
of our meeting. You are the only woman I have ever really wished to
marry. That is why I must ask you: What are you going to do about
Peter Champneys?"
"I--I don't know," said she, twisting her fingers.
"Do you fancy you might be able to love him,--later?"
"No," said she, violently. "No!"
"Why, then, do you not have this abominable marriage annulled?" he
demanded. "I know nothing of Champneys, except that he's an
artist,--and, truth forces me to say, a great one. But if he doesn't
love you, if you do not love him, do you think anything but misery
is ahead for you both, if you decide to carry out the terms of that
promise extorted from you?"
She shrank back in her chair. She made no reply, and Hayden came and
stood directly before her, looking down at her.
"And I--am I nothing to you Anne? I love you. What of me, Anne?"
"What can I say?" said she, falteringly. "I am not free."
"If you were free, would you marry me? For that is what I am asking
you to do,--free yourself, and marry me."
She lifted her troubled eyes. "If I were free," she said, "if I were
free--Berkeley, give me time to consider this. It isn't only the
annulling of my marriage to a man I had never seen until the day I
married him, and have never seen since,--it's the breaking of my
promise to Uncle Chadwick--" They were in the library, and she
looked up at the portrait above the mantel. Hayden's glance followed
hers.
"He had no right to extort any such promise from you!" he cried.
"Anne, think it over! Weigh Peter Champneys and me in the balance.
And,--let the best man win, Anne. Will you?"
She regarded him steadfastly. "Yes," she said.
"And when you have decided, you will let me know?"
"I will let you know," said she, smiling faintly.
Berkeley took her hand and kissed it. He looked deep into her eyes.
Then he left her. He had been very quiet, but his passion for her
glowed in his eyes, rang in his voice, and was in the lips that
kissed her palm.
She had not been in the least thrilled by it, but she was not
displeased. She liked him. As for loving him, she didn't think it
was really in her to love anybody. Looking back upon her youthful
infatuation for Glenn Mitchell, she smiled at herself twistedly.
She knew now that she had been in love with the bright shadow of
love.
But, she reflected, if she did not love Hayden, she respected him,
she was proud of him; he represented all that was best and most
desirable in her present life. Life with Berkeley Hayden wouldn't be
empty. And life as she faced it now was as empty as a shell that has
lost even the faintest echo of the sea. Despite its outward glitter,
its mother-of-pearl sheen, she was beginning to be more and more
aware of its innate hollowness. Her young and healthy nature
cried out against its futility. She was in the May morning of her
existence, and yet the joy of youth eluded her.
She had, perhaps, one more year of freedom. Then,--Peter Champneys.
Berkeley might well ask what she was going to do about it! Was she
to accept as final that contract which would make her the unloved
wife of an unloved husband? Now that she had grown somewhat older
and considerably wiser, now that her horizon had widened, her sense
of values broadened, she perceived that she owed to herself, to her
sacredest instincts, the highest duty. She did not like to break her
pledged word; but that pledge wronged Berkeley, wronged her, wronged
Peter.
Her feeling toward that unknown husband was one of stark terror, a
sick dislike that had grown stronger with the years. In her mind he
remained unchanged. She saw him as the gawky, shrinking boy, his
lips apart, his eyes looking at her with uncontrollable aversion.
Oh, no! Life with Peter Champneys was unthinkable! There remained,
then, Berkeley Hayden. It wasn't unpleasant to think of Berkeley
Hayden. It made one feel safe, and assured; there was a glamour of
gratified pride about it,--Nancy Simms,--Mrs. Peter Champneys,--Mrs.
Berkeley Hayden. A little smile touched her lips.
Into these not unpleasant musings Mr. Jason Vandervelde irrupted
himself, with the astounding request that she come with him now,
immediately, to a hospital where a girl unknown to her prayed to see
her. Hoichi had turned the lights on upon Mr. Vandervelde's
entrance, and Anne looked at her visitor wonderingly.
"I do sound wild," admitted Jason, "but if you could have seen the
poor thing's face when she asked to see you--Anne, she'll be dead
before morning." The big man's glance was full of entreaty.
"But if she doesn't know me, why on earth should she wish to see
me,--at such a time?" asked Anne, still more astonished.
Flounderingly Vandervelde tried to tell her. A questionable girl, to
whom Peter Champneys had been kind,--she couldn't exactly gather
how. Dying in a hospital, and before she went wishing to see Peter
Champneys's wife.
Peter Champneys's wife, fortunately for herself, was still too near
and close to the plain people to consider such a request an
outrageous impertinence, to be refused as a matter of course. The
terrible power of money had not come to her soon enough to make her
consider herself of different and better clay than her fellow
mortals. She wasn't haughty. The heart she was not supposed to
possess stirred uncomfortably. She looked at Vandervelde
questioningly.
"You wish me to go?"
"I leave that to you entirely," said he, uncomfortably. "But," he
blurted, "I think it would be mighty decent of you."
"I will go," she said.
When they reached the hospital, the blonde person was with Gracie.
The blonde person had been crying, and it had not improved her
appearance. Her nose looked like a pink wedge driven into the white
triangle of her face. Screens had been placed around the bed. A
priest with a rosy, good-humored face was just leaving.
Gracie turned her too-large eyes upon Peter Champneys's wife with a
sort of unearthly intensity, and Anne Champneys looked down at her
with a certain compassion. Anne had a bourgeois sense of
respectability, and she had involuntarily stiffened at sight of the
blonde drab sitting by the bedside, staring at her with sodden
eyes. She hadn't expected the blonde. She ignored her and looked,
instead, at Gracie. One could be decently sorry for Gracie.
A faint frown puckered Gracie's brows. Her hand in the blonde
person's tightened its grasp. After a moment she said gravely:
"You came?"
"Yes," said Anne, mechanically. "I came. You wished to see me?" Her
tone was inquiring.
"I wanted to see if you was good enough--for _him_," said the
gutter-candle, as if she were throwing a light into the secret
places of Anne Champneys's soul. "You ain't. But you could be."
Vandervelde had the horrid sensation as of walking in a nightmare.
He wished somebody in mercy would wake him up.
Anne's brows came together. She bent upon Gracie one of her long,
straight, searching looks.
"Thank you--for comin'," murmured Gracie. "You got a heart." Her
eyelids flickered.
"I am glad I came, if it pleases you to see me," said Anne. "Is that
all you wished to say to me!"
"I wanted to see--if you was good enough for _him_," murmured Gracie
again. "You ain't. But remember what I'm tellin' you: you could
be." Her eyes closed. She fell into a light slumber, holding the
blonde person's hand. Vandervelde touched Anne on the arm, and they
went out.
As they drove home Vandervelde told her, as well as he could, all
that the little wrecked vessel which was now nearing its last harbor
had told him. He was deeply moved. He said, patting her hand.
"It was decent of you to come. You're a little sport, Anne."
For a while she was silent. Peter Champneys, then, was capable of
kindness. He could do a gentle and generous deed. And perhaps he
also was finding the heavy chain of his promise to his uncle, of his
marriage to herself, galling and wearisome. She reached a woman's
swift decision.
"I'm going to be a better sport," said she. "I'm going to reward
Peter Champneys by setting him free. I shall have our marriage
annulled."