CHAPTER TWELVE

To live in the same house, to meet not only at the accepted times, but

in all the little passing ways—on the stairs, coming in and out of the

door; to meet also in all the little unpremeditated ways that are really

premeditated—the going to the library for a book, the searching over

this, that, and the other, with all its pretended inconsequence and

surprise; the abstraction of two people from the same room at the same

time on different pretexts; the lingerings while the minutes grew toward

the hour, the sudden hurried partings at a foot-step, the reunion for

just a moment more when the foot-step did not come that way—all this

unnoticed and casual intercourse with its half-secrecy and hint of the

forbidden becomes a large factor in its relation to after-events, when

the participants are a man and a woman. There is no influence so little

regarded for the young by those in authority as the tremendous influence

of propinquity.

Among all the social comings and goings at the Leverichs’, the

excitement of Lawson’s presence held its place with Dosia. The sudden

sight of his olive profile and his lithe figure, his cool, appraising

gaze, his “Well, young lady?” with its ironic tone that yet conveyed a

subtle kindness, his lazy, caressing expostulation, “Why not, when we

are friends?”—these things made heart-beats that Dosia took pains to

assure herself were of a purely Platonic nature, when she stopped at

rare occasions to take tally of her emotions, though there was a

continual unacknowledged inner protest, in spite of her yielding, which

made her resolve each day to withdraw a little on the next. But they

never talked of love; they talked only of goodness, or art, or music, or

about the way you felt about different subjects, or little teasing

things, like why she drew her mouth down at the corners when he looked

at her, or why she had seemed to disapprove the night before. They were

bound together by the hope of higher things. She met him always in the

morning with the bright uplifting smile that said, “I know you will

repay my confidence—for _I_ believe in you!”

“I really wish Lawson would go away,” said Mrs. Leverich, one day, as

the two sat over their afternoon tea together.

“Why?” asked Dosia, with the suddenly concentrated composure his name

always brought her outwardly. “I thought you said last week that he had

improved so much.”

“Oh, yes, he’s had one of his good streaks lately; and he _is_ a sweet

fellow when he’s nice—he was the dearest _little_ boy! Lawson can twist

me around his little finger when he wants to; he knows that he can get

money out of me every time, even when he oughtn’t to have it. But he

can’t keep up this sort of thing long, you know, he is so restless;

there’s bound to be a breakdown afterwards. I dread it; the breakdowns

get worse, now, every time.”

“Perhaps there will be no breakdown, after all,” said Dosia, in an even

voice, but with that sudden deep sensation of disenchantment which his

sister’s words always brought to her, and which lay upon her spirit like

a living thing, dragging her fancy in chains. It was not alone Mrs.

Leverich’s words, either, that had this power; when anyone spoke of

Lawson it brought the same displeasing uneasiness, followed by the

wonted eager remorsefulness later, when she saw him. But through each

phase one foundational sense held good—he was not at all the kind of

man she would ever want to marry; the whole attraction of the situation

was in the fact that one could be so nobly intimate, and still keep off

the danger-ground. Once or twice he had seemed to be infringing on it,

and then she had turned him aside with sweet solemnity and additional

inner excitement.

These were days indeed! It was Lent, but there were all the minor

pleasures of luncheons and card-parties, and little evening

entertainments held at Mrs. Leverich’s hospitable mansion. It mattered

not whether there was anything going on in the town or not; society

focused at her house, with Dosia for the central point. When she thought

of going back again to Lois it was with a blank shiver.

Lois, indeed, had not been well lately; the children were out of

quarantine, but she had a sore throat, and kept her room under the care

of a trained nurse. Dosia had not seen her, but only Justin, who looked

tired and older. Dosia was not to return now until after Easter and

after the ball—Mrs. Leverich was going to give a ball for Dosia; it was

to be, in a sense, her “coming out.”

She had by this time become quite used to her position as daughter of

the house, accepted luxuries as a matter of course, and even suggested

improvements, when she found that it pleased Mrs. Leverich to have her

do so. She received that lady’s embraces gracefully, brought newspapers

unasked for Mr. Leverich, and gave orders to the maids for her hostess.

She had grown accustomed to being waited on, petted, made much of, and

given presents, and blossomed like the rose under this vernal shower of

kindness; her dress, her manner, her very expression, betrayed the ease

of elegance. She did not like to own, even to herself, that long

conversations with Mrs. Leverich were somewhat tiresome when the subject

was neither Lawson nor herself, and she learned to get out of the way of

too many tête-à-têtes. This did not keep her from having a fervent

gratitude for all the blessings of the situation, and a real love for

the dispenser of them. Now, when the time of her stay was narrowing to a

close, she clung to each day as if it neared the end of life; every

pleasure was doubly dear in that it was the last of its kind. To be

sure, the fairy prince had not arrived as yet—Bailey Girard, who had

come to the house while she was still a stranger to it, had been half

across the Continent since. It is one of the shabby jests that life is

always playing us, that two who have met once as wayfarers on the same

road, with the memory of that one meeting so curiously vivid and

intimate that it seems as if the fate of the next turning must bring

them within touch again, are yet kept out of sight or sound of each

other for miles by the slight accidents of travel. Fate, when we count

upon her, is apt to be extraordinarily slow in working out her

fulfillments.

Dosia hailed with delight a proposition made by Mrs. Leverich to get up

a party and drive over one evening to a neighboring town to hear a

lecture given there by a friend. The lecture was nothing, the friend not

a very great attraction, but the expedition in itself gave an excuse for

a drive, and a supper on the return to the Leverich mansion. It was

early April, but the weather was unseasonably warm, and there was a

golden moon. They were to go in a “barge”—the local name for a long,

low, uncovered wagon, with two lateral seats, holding about thirty

people. Mrs. Leverich had insisted on plenty of lap-robes and extra

wrappings and even umbrellas, in spite of remonstrances. She herself

could not go, but there were plenty of chaperons, little Mrs. Snow

having been pressed into service as a substitute at the last moment,

with every promise of mild evening weather especially beneficial to

rheumatism.

Some one had a bugle that woke the echoes as the caravan drew up at each

door to gather the different segments of the party. Dosia felt wild with

glee as she bundled into the barge, amid merry shrieks and laughter, and

found herself seated by Mr. William Snow, while Lawson took the place on

the other side of her. Ada and Mr. Sutton were farther down, with Mrs.

Snow near them. Opposite Dosia was a chaperon of the chaperons.

Dosia hardly knew what she was saying as she laughed and talked with the

crowd, while Lawson conversed across with Mrs. Malcolmson, but the sense

of his nearness never left her. Billy at last got a chance to say to her

in a low, intense voice:

“Why are you always listening for what _he_ says?”

Her glance followed his, and her color rose.

“Dear little Billy is rude; Billy must learn manners,” she retorted

gayly, but with a sharpness below the gayety.

“I don’t care whether it’s rude or not. Here I’m sitting by you for the

first time this week, and you don’t seem to hear a word I say. I’ve been

trying to talk to you, and you don’t pay the slightest attention.”

“Oh, you poor child!” said Dosia. “Would it like some candy?”

“It’s no use talking to me like that,” returned William stubbornly. “I

know you’re a year older than I am——”

“Two,” interpolated Dosia.

“It’s seventeen months and three days—but that’s nothing to do with it.

It’s no use your trying the grandmother act—I could marry you, just the

same, if I _am_ younger. Mrs. Stanford is two years older than her

husband, and Mrs. Taylor is five years older than hers. Lots of people

do it—but that’s not the point now. I’m miles older than you in

everything but years. I’ve had experience of the world, and you

haven’t.” His belligerent tone softened, and he looked at her tenderly

as he towered above her, his blue eyes alight. “You need somebody to

take care of you. I don’t care whether you believe it or not, I know

what I’m talking about. I wish you’d drop that fellow.”

“Why?” asked Dosia, with dangerous calm.

“Why? Because—you ought to know. He isn’t a gentleman; he’s no good. He

isn’t _fit_. If he was, don’t you think he’d look out for you, and not

take advantage the way he does? If he had a decent spark in him, he’d

never let you be seen with him; he knows it, if you don’t. Why, there

have been times I’ve seen him when you wouldn’t pick him up off the road

with a pair of tongs.”

“Mr. Barr, will you fasten this cloak around me?” said Dosia, in a clear

voice.

She turned with her back to William and leaned a little closer to

Lawson, after he had helped her arrange the garment. Lawson had made

every resolution to take no advantage of his position, but he was not

proof against this alluring moment; his warm hand with its long,

tapering fingers sought hers under cover of the lap-robe, and held it

while he still talked with apparent unconcern to his matronly vis-à-vis.

Once he looked around at Dosia with those teasing eyes full of laughter,

and yet of something more. She could not drag her hand away without

betraying the struggle, as his closed more tightly over it, though her

riotous heart beat so that she feared it must get into her voice, and

there was an odd feeling as if she were doing some one a wrong. Her

fluttering was intoxication to Lawson.

They drove for five miles with the early spring moonlight shining

silverly through the last rosy haze of the sunset, the air sweet with

the scent of green grass and dewy blossomings.

Lawson did not look at Dosia as he helped her out of the wagon, nor did

he come in to listen to the lecture, through which she sat pulsating at

the thought of the drive home, desiring yet fearing it. Would he be near

her then? Her question was answered. He helped to put everyone else in

the wagon, and they two came last. This time their opposite neighbors

were a young couple engrossed in each other. Dosia’s quick eye took in

the situation at once. She was determined not to speak first, and they

rode for a while in silence; then he moved nearer, and asked in a low

tone:

“Why don’t you look at me?”

“Why did you—hold my hand?” She spoke in a whisper that he had to bend

his head to hear.

“I might tell you a good many reasons—but one will do. I am going away

for good.”

“What?” She turned breathlessly, with a quick pang. The night had grown

very dark, but she could see the gleam of his eyes and the outline of

his olive face as it leaned over her. “Why?”

“Because—” He stopped, and his quizzical look changed into something

deeper. “I believe I ought to. I’ve had a sort of an offer out West, and

it’s time I made a change.”

“Is it to lead a new life?” asked Dosia, with deep and tender solemnity.

Mrs. Leverich’s words came back to her; this, then, had been all

planned.

“Oh, let us always hope so!” said Lawson lightly. “Who knows? Perhaps

I’ll turn into a highly respectable individual and make money. You can’t

be respectable without money, I’ve tried it, and I know. I had a sort of

an opening in Central Africa which my dear brother-in-law pressed upon

me, but I decided against it.”

“Central Africa!”

“Yes. I appreciated Leverich’s feelings in the plan—you can’t get back

easily from Central Africa, if you get back at all. So I’m going, for

good or bad, to a nice little mining-camp in Nevada, where you get your

mail every six weeks or so, and where you can go down into your grave

any way you please without scandalizing your friends. I’ll be really

quite out of the way.”

“Out of the way!” Her heart leaped with pride in him. How little William

knew of this man!

“Yes, out of everybody’s way—and yours, dear little girl. I’m not good

enough for much, but perhaps I’m good enough for that.”

“Oh,” said Dosia, distressed and fascinated by his tone of real feeling.

“But why—oh, I shall miss you so much—and think of you—so much!” Her

voice broke. “I can’t bear to think of your going off in this way—so

lonely.”

There was a shriek from farther down the barge. “It’s beginning to rain,

it’s beginning to rain!” A wild scramble ensued for cloaks and

umbrellas. A furious shower was descending almost with the words, and

the whole party slid off the two long seats into the straw on the bottom

of the barge, and cowered under the carriage-robes pulled up around them

for a shelter, showing only a mass of umbrellas above.

Lawson’s quick movements had insured Dosia’s protection.

“You are not getting wet at all?” He bent over her tenderly under the

enveloping umbrella.

“Not at all,” she whispered.

It was as if everything were a confidence now. She reverted to the

subject of their conversation:

“Oh, do you think you will really not come back?”

He laughed. “Yes, I mean it—now. Of course, you know that’s my chief

fault—my resolutions are too frequently writ on sand.” He spoke of his

own weakness with the bitter yet facile contempt which too often

enervates still more instead of strengthening. “Yes, I mean it. Do you

wonder I took your hand? Are you sorry I’m going—? is my little friend

sorry? She mustn’t be sorry; you know, nobody is sorry—she must be glad

to get rid of inc. Speak—and say it.”

“No,” whispered Dosia.

He pressed her arm close to him, as he held her hand and pulled the

wraps around her, shifting the umbrella as the wind changed. One of the

men in front lighted a lantern and held it out in the rain at arm’s

length, to glimmer ahead in the pitchy darkness and show the road to the

driver, who held the horses at a walk. The wagon lurched and tipped in

mud-holes and unexpected ridges and depressions, running up once on the

edge of a bank, while the couples on the floor of it screamed and

laughed. There were muttered rolls of thunder in the distance. Rain in

the night had always brought back the scene of the disaster to Dosia,

but she only thought now that she could not think. All of her that lived

was living at this moment here.

“Why are you so silent?” he murmured headily, after an interval.

“I don’t know.”

“Is there anything else that you want to tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, yes, you do.” His voice had grown dangerously tender. “What is it?”

He waited again, bending nearer. “Don’t you want me to leave you—is

that it? Don’t you want me to leave you?”

“No,” whispered Dosia.

“Then I’ll stay!”

His arm slid exultingly around her waist, and his hand pressed her head

down upon his shoulder, while she submitted passively, a thing of

suffocating heart-beats and burning blushes, captive to she knew not

what. “You oughtn’t to have said that, you know, for now I’ll never go.

I’ll stay with you. Hush—keep still!” He held her firmly as some one

spoke from the front, and he answered in a loud tone:

“Yes, Mrs. Malcolmson, it’s the right road. Swing the lantern a little

further around, Billy. Yes, that’s the old white house; we turn

there—it’s all right.”

He kept his attitude of attention for a few minutes, looking from under

the cover of his umbrella at the huddled heaps and the umbrellas in

front of him. Then Dosia felt that he was coming back to her. She tried

desperately to rally her forces, to think if this was the man with whom

she wanted to spend her life, her husband for all her days. Alas, she

could not think! Some giant, unknown force had sapped her power of

thought. She weakly took his two hands and tried to push his arm from

around her waist and to raise her head from his shoulder. His arm did

not move; her head sank back again. His lips were on hers—which no man

had ever touched before,—and those lips now were Lawson’s.

“There was _one_ girl kissed to-night,” announced Mrs. Snow, as she took

off her numerous layers of shawls and worsted head-coverings in

household conclave after her return from the Leverichs’.

“It was perfectly disgraceful! Is there any hot water on the stove,

Bertha? I want a glassful to drink. I hope you left a piece of stale

bread in the oven for me, I feel a little need of something. Oh, yes, of

course there was a supper, we had lobster Newburg and champagne, but I

didn’t take any; a cup of beef-tea or a little cereal would have suited

me much better. It’s a mercy if I haven’t taken my death of cold. It was

Dosia Linden’s goings-on that I was speaking of; she’s a bold sort of a

piece, evidently, quite different from what I thought. Sh—William’s

gone up-stairs, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Snow dropped her voice mysteriously.

“My dear, she and Lawson Barr sat hidden under an umbrella all the way

home, and never spoke a word. You can’t tell _me_! Never said a word

that anyone could hear. When she came into the dining-room at the

Leverichs’, her face was scarlet, and she couldn’t even look at anyone,

though she talked enough for ten while he played some queer thing on the

piano. You can just ask Ada.”

Miss Bertha had preserved an immovable countenance throughout the

monologue, but her eye now sought her sister’s and received a swift

glance of confirmation from that silent and discreet damsel. The

confirmation brought a shock to Miss Bertha—fond of the trivial and

unimportant in gossip, the scandal which hurt the young devolved a hurt

on her, too. As mothers who have lost children feel a tenderness for

those who do not belong to them, so Miss Bertha, who had lost her youth,

felt toward the youth in others. Her mother’s small mind yet had an

uncanny power of partial divination, gained from years of experience and

espial, that irritated while it impressed.

“Her face was probably red from the wind and the rain,” said Miss

Bertha, in a matter-of-fact tone, regardless of her mother’s

contemptuous sniff. “What kind of a time did you have, Ada? Did you see

anything of Mr. Sutton?”

“Just a little,” replied Ada temperately.

This time it was the mother’s and Miss Bertha’s eyes that telegraphed.

“Ada, my dear, you may take my shawls up-stairs. She was with him _all_

the time. I hope he saw enough of Dosia Linden’s bold actions to disgust

him, at any rate. Yes, my dear, everything was managed very beautifully

at the Leverichs’, and it was all very elegant; but she is a little

common—Mrs. Leverich, I mean. She was really quite put out because we

hadn’t driven back faster. There was a Mr. Girard who had come out from

the city, and she wanted Miss Dosia to meet him before he left—he had

just come back from somewhere in the West. She really made quite a time

about it. And there’s a sort of vulgar display about her that I don’t

care for; you can see she’s Lawson’s brother. Oh, well, don’t take me up

so, Bertha; you know what I mean, well enough. You have such a sharp way

with you sometimes, like your dear father’s family.

William—_Wil-liam_!”

“Yes, mother.”

“I want you to come down and put the cat out and lock up at once,—oh,

you did, did you?—and kissed me good night, too, you say? I didn’t

notice it. And did you empty the water-pan under the ice-box, and bank

up the fire, and water the big palm? Oh, very well. Then,

William—Wil-liam! I want you to come down again, now, and take a

rhinitis tablet, after the dampness of to-night.”

There was an emphatic sound from above.

“He’s shut his door,” said Miss Bertha.

Ah, what does a girl think who has given up all her bright anticipations

for a man whom she knows is not worthy? Lawson had pressed Dosia’s hand

only when he said good night,—there were others around,—but he had

looked at her lips. She knew how his felt upon them; their touch—more

than all the murmured elusive questions and answers—had made her his.

She knelt down by the big chair in her room, and buried her hot face in

the cushions, to try and think at last, with a suddenly sinking heart

that feared when it should have rejoiced. He had told her that no one

could make him go, now that she loved him; he would stay here. “And work

for me?” she had asked, and he had answered, “Yes, and work for you.”

She should be so happy now, so happy! The perspective down which she had

always seen her future was suddenly shortened; this was the end. Lawson

Barr, the man she had been playing with at a delightful, enthralling,

forbidden game, he was the man with whom she had promised to spend her

life, her husband for all her days; that which was to have been her

uplifting was instead something for her to carry. Suppose that she had

more of those awful, clear-sighted moments which had disenchanted her

when his sister spoke? No, no; that must not happen, that must not!

Dosia had acquiesced in what was said about him, with the large-eyed

uncomprehension of the girl who pretends that she understands what

everyone expects her to; it meant something—she was afraid to have

anyone tell her what; she pretended to understand, because she was

afraid some one would let her know of half-divined, unmentionable

things. He was not—good; he drank—people despised him: but he clung to

her, and she had let him kiss her, oh, not only once or twice, but many,

many times. She knew in her heart, she knew, that he was what they said;

but it was to be her work to help him always. When she had been with him

hitherto, there had always been the excitement of feeling that the claim

was temporary, to hold or not, at will, a mere pretense of a claim. Now

it was real. She was bound forever!

Was the moment of disenchantment upon her now? She did not deceive

herself—too late she owned the truth. What was the worst? He was

weak—then she must be strong. She thought of herself in years to come.

People said you couldn’t reform a man who drank—her father had been

very strong on this point. She had thought of it all before, to be sure;

but now—now it came home. She imagined herself keeping his house for

him, getting his meals—perhaps with children; waiting, listening

suspiciously for his returning footsteps; trying to keep him

“straight,”—perhaps not succeeding. Yes, she must succeed! People

looked down on him—so they would look down on her. And while her clear

and pure nature reasserted itself, and thought and tried pathetically to

find out truth alone, her cheeks still burned, her senses owned his

sway. Those intoxicating moments forced themselves upon her, whether she

would or no. But the truth—the truth below that, the truth was that she

did not love him. You can carry any burden if you have the strong wings

of love, but she had them not. What was to have been the crowning of her

maidenhood had come to this—a sacrifice to the baser, and without love.

Nay, not that, not quite that! The maternal spirit in Dosia rose and

yearned over this outcast, whom nobody loved, with a tenderness which

owned no thought of self; she must never think of herself any more, but

only what was best for him. She was to be his wife. The word brought a

choking feeling, with its thrill of mystery. She was so young—so young!

Could she keep up a sacrifice always? Why had she not been able to think

in this way until now? The answer came clearly in her search for truth:

because she would not let herself do so. She had been warned—she had

been warned.

“Pray—it helps.” That was what she had said to him. Ah, yes! She slid

to her knees; her only real help was in Heaven. She must keep her

promise! She must always love him whom nobody loved, and trust him whom

nobody trusted. Perhaps—perhaps when he kissed her again—She put the

thought away, so that she, a child, might speak straight to God. And

while she prayed Lawson was coming down-stairs with his hat on.

“You are not going out?” His sister barred the way, in a purple velvet

gown, and laid a plump jeweled hand on his sleeve. The lights were

already out in the drawing-room, and, beyond, the servants were removing

the last traces of the supper.

He did not answer for a moment, looking at her with hard eyes, void of

expression save for a certain tenseness. It was a look she knew. Then he

answered roughly:

“I’m going in on the twelve-o’clock train with some of the boys. It’s no

good to talk.”

“Lawson! not now.” Her tone was angry. “Go up-stairs—to bed.”

“Well, I guess—not!” said Lawson. He swept her hand from his arm, and

was out of the door and running quickly down the steps before she

turned.

[Illustration: _It was a look she knew_]

Dosia, on her knees, heard his step; it set her heart beating with a

rush of emotions that drowned her prayer. She was his, though she had

been warned.

Warned—yes; and left carelessly to her fate in a world of chaperons and

parents and guardians and people who knew!