CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Lois?”

“Yes?”

Dosia had come into the nursery, where Lois sat sewing, a canary

overhead singing with shrill velocity in a stream of sunshine. Her look

gave no invitation to Dosia. She did not want to talk; she was busy, as

ever, with—no matter what she was doing—the self-fullness of her

thoughts, which chained her like a slave. She had been longing to move

into the other house, where, amid new surroundings, she could escape

from the familiar walls and outlook that each brought its suggestion of

pain, with the wearying iterancy of habit, no matter how she wanted to

be happy.

Dosia dropped half-unwillingly into a chair as she said:

“I’ve something to tell you, Lois.”

“Well?”

“I’m engaged to George Sutton.”

“Dosia!”

Lois’ work fell from her hand as she stared at the girl.

“I’m sure I don’t see that you need be surprised,” said Dosia. She

looked pale and expressionless, as one who did not expect either

sympathy or interest.

“No, I suppose not,” said Lois. “Of course, I know he has been paying

you a great deal of attention, but then, he has paid other girls almost

as much.” She stopped, with her eyes fixed on Dosia. In a sense, she had

rather hoped for this; the marriage would certainly solve many

difficulties, and be a very fine thing for Dosia—if Dosia could——!

Yet now the idea revolted Lois. To marry a man without loving him would

have been to her, at any time or under any stress, a physical

impossibility. Marriage for friendship or suitability or support was

outside her scheme of comprehension. She spoke now with cold

disapproval:

“Dosia, you don’t know what you are doing. You don’t love George

Sutton.”

Dosia’s face took on the well-known obstinate expression.

“He loves me, anyhow, and he is satisfied with me as I am. If he is

satisfied, I don’t see why anyone else need object! He likes me just as

I am, whether I care for him or not.”

She clasped both hands over her knee as she went on with that

unexplainable freakishness to which girlhood is sometimes maddeningly

subject, when all feeling as well as reason seems in abeyance, though

her voice was tremulous. “And I _do_ care for him. I like him better

than anyone I know; we are sympathetic on a great many points. No

one—_no one_ has been so kind to me as he! He doesn’t want anything but

to make me happy.”

Lois made a gesture of despair. “Oh, _kind_! As if a man like George

Sutton, who has done nothing but have his own way for forty years, is

going to give up wanting it now! Marriage is very different from what

girls imagine, Dosia.”

“I suppose so,” said Dosia indifferently. She rose and came over to

Lois. “Would you like to see my ring?” She turned the circle around on

her finger, displaying a diamond like a search-light. “He gave it to me

last night.”

“It is very handsome,” said Lois. “I suppose you will have to be

thinking of clothes soon,” she added, with a glimmer of the natural

feminine interest in all that pertains to a wedding, since further

protest seemed futile. “I will write to Aunt Theodosia.”

“Thank you,” said Dosia dutifully.

A hamper of fruit came for her at luncheon, almost unimaginably

beautiful in its arrangement of white hothouse grapes and peaches, and

strawberries as large as the peaches, and the contents of a box of

flowers filled every available vase and jug and bowl in the house, as

Dosia arranged them, with the help of Zaidee and Redge—the former

winningly helpful, and the latter elfishly agile, his bare knees

nut-brown from the sun of the spring-time, jumping on her back whenever

she stooped over, to be seized in her arms and hugged when she recovered

herself. Flowers and children, children and flowers! Nothing could be

sweeter than these.

In the afternoon, in a renewed capacity for social duties, she put on

her hat with the roses and went to make a call, long deferred and

hitherto impossible of accomplishment, on a certain Mrs. Wayne, a bride

of a few months, who, as Alice Torrington, had been one of the girls of

her outer circle. Dosia did not mean to announce her engagement, but she

felt that Alice Wayne’s state of mind would be more sympathetic, even if

unconsciously so, than Lois’.

As she walked along now, she thought of George with a deeply grateful

affection. How good he was to her! He had been unexpectedly nice when he

had asked her to marry him; the very force of his feeling had given him

an unusual dignity. His voice had broken almost with a groan on the

words:

“I have never known anyone with such a beautiful nature as yours, Miss

Dosia! I just worship you! I only want to live to make you happy.”

He did not himself care for motoring—being, truth to tell, afraid of

it—but she was to choose a car next week. She had told him about her

father and her mother and the children. She was to have the latter come

up to stay with her after she was married—do anything for them that she

would. In imagination now she was taking them through all the shops in

town, buying them toy horses and soldiers and balls, and dressing them

in darling little light-blue sailor-suits. She could hardly wait for the

time to come! She thought with a little awe that she hadn’t known that

Mr. Sutton was as well off as he seemed to be. And the way he had spoken

of Lawson—Ah, Lawson! That name tugged at her heart; this suddenly

became one of those anguished moments when she yearned over him as over

a beloved lost child, to be wept for, succored only through her efforts.

She must never forget! “Lawson, I believe in you.” She stopped in the

shaded, quiet street with its garden-surrounded houses, and said the

words aloud with a solemn sense of immortal infinite power, before

coming back to the eager surface planning of her own life, with an

intermediate throb of a new and deeper loneliness. The Dosia who had so

upliftingly faced truth had only strength enough left now to evade it.

Perhaps some of that exquisite inner perception of her nature had been

jarred confusingly out of touch.

[Illustration: _Flowers and children, children and flowers_]

Mrs. Wayne was in, although, the maid announced, she had but just

returned from town. A moment later Dosia heard herself called from

above:

“Dosia Linden! Won’t you come up-stairs? You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, indeed,” answered Dosia, obeying the summons with alacrity, and

pleased that she should be considered so intimate. This was more than

she had expected—an informal reception and talk! With Dosia’s own

responsive warmth, she felt that she really must always have wanted to

see more of Alice, who, in her lacy pink-and-white negligée, might be

pardoned for wishing to show off this ornament of her trousseau.

“I hope you won’t mind the appearance of this room,” she announced,

after a hospitable violet-perfumed embrace. “I went to town so early

this morning that I didn’t have time to really set things to rights, and

I don’t like the new maid to touch them.”

“You have so many pretty things,” said Dosia admiringly.

“Yes, haven’t I? Take that seat by the window, it’s cooler. Please don’t

look at that dressing-table; Harry leaves his neckties everywhere,

though he has his own chiffonier in the other room—he’s such a _bad_

boy! He seems to think I have nothing to do but put away his things for

him.”

Mrs. Wayne paused with a bridal air of important matronly

responsibility. She was a tall, thin, black-haired, dashing girl, not at

all pretty, who was always spoken of compensatingly as having a great

deal of “style,” but she seemed to have gained some new and gentle charm

of attraction because she was so happy.

“Have this fan, won’t you?” She went on talking: “Harry and I saw you

and George Sutton out walking yesterday. We were in the motor, and had

stopped up on the Drive to speak to Mr. Girard. He _is_ just the

loveliest thing! What a pity he won’t go where there are girls! Harry is

quite jealous, though I tell him he needn’t be.” Mrs. Wayne paused with

a lovely flush before going on. “You didn’t see us, though we stopped

quite near you. My dear, it’s _very_ evident that—” She paused once

more, this time with arch significance. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid, I

never know anything until I’m told. But George is such a good fellow!

I’m sure I ought to know—he was perfectly devoted to me. He’s not the

kind girls are apt to take a fancy to, perhaps,—girls are so foolish

and romantic,—but he’d be awfully nice to his wife. Harry says he’s a

lot richer than anybody knows. And people are so much happier

married—the right people, of course.”

“Did you have a pleasant time while you were away?” asked Dosia, as she

lay back in her low, wide, prettily chintz-covered arm-chair. If she had

had some half-defined impulse to confide in Alice Wayne, it was gone,

melted away in this too fervid sunshine of approval. She had, instead,

one of her accessions of dainty shyness; the ring on her finger,

underneath her glove, seemed to burn into her flesh. Her eyes roved

warily around the room as Mrs. Wayne talked about her wedding-trip and

her husband, folding up her Harry’s neckties as she chattered, her

fingers lingering over them with little secret pats. She brought out

some of her pretty dresses afterwards for Dosia’s inspection. From the

open door of a closet beyond, a pair of shoes was distinctly

visible—Harry’s shoes, which the wife laughingly put back into place as

she went and closed the door. It was impossible not to see that even

those clumsy, monstrously thick-soled things were touched with sentiment

for her because the feet of her dearest had worn them.

In Dosia’s world so far it was a matter of course that some people were

married—their household life went unnoticed, the fact had no relation

to her own intangible dreams or hopes; it was a condition inherent to

these elders, and not of any particular interest to her. But Alice Wayne

had been a girl like herself until now. This matter-of-fact community of

living forced itself upon her notice, as if for the first time, as an

absolutely new thing. The blood surged up suddenly through the ice of

her indifference; the room choked her. George Button’s neckties, not to

speak of his shoes——!

“I’ll have to be going,” she interrupted precipitately, rising as she

spoke.

“Why,”—Alice Wayne stopped in the middle of a sentence, looking at her

in surprise,—“what’s the matter? Aren’t you well?”

“Yes, yes, but I have an appointment,” affirmed Dosia desperately. “I’ve

been enjoying it all so much, but I’d forgotten I must go—at once!

Good-by.”

She almost ran on the way home. There was no appointment, but it was

imperative that she should be alone, away from all suggestion of the

newly married. She hoped that there would be no visitors, but as she

neared the house she saw that there was some one on the piazza—George

Sutton, frock-coated and high-hatted, with a rose above his white

waistcoat and a beaming face that rivaled the rose in color as he came

to meet her.

“Why, I thought you were not coming until this evening,” said Dosia

demandingly,—“not until you could see Justin.”

“Did you think I could stay away as long as that?” asked George. His

manner the night before had been almost reverential in the depth of his

honest emotion; the kiss he had imprinted on her forehead had seemed of

an impersonal nature, and she a princess who regally allowed it. She was

conscious now of a change.

“Where is Lois?” she asked, as they went up the steps together.

“The maid said she had stepped out for a moment.”

“Then we’ll sit here on the piazza and wait for her,” said Dosia,

without looking at her lover. Taking the hat-pins out of her hat, she

deposited it on a chair with a quick decision of movement, and then

seated herself by a wicker table, while Mr. Sutton, looking

disappointed, was left perforce to the rocker on the other side.

The piazza was rather a long one, and, except for a rambling vine, open

toward the street; but around the corner of the house Japanese screens

walled it off from passers-by into a cozy arbored nook, sweet with big

bowls of roses.

“Come around to the other end of the porch,” said George appealingly.

“No,” said Dosia, with her obstinate expression; “I like it here.”

She stripped the long gloves from her arms, and spread out her hands,

palms upward, in her lap. The diamond, which had been turned inward,

caught the sunshine gloriously. His gaze fell upon it, and he smiled.

Dosia saw the smile and reddened.

“I wish you wouldn’t sit there looking at me,” she said in a tone which

she tried to make neutral.

“Come down to the other end of the piazza—just for a moment.”

“No!” said Dosia again. She gave a sudden movement and changed her tone

sharply: “Oh, there’s a spider on the table there, crawling toward me!

Please take it away.” Her voice rose uncontrollably. “I hate spiders—

oh, I _hate_ spiders! I’m afraid of them. Make it go away! please!

There—now you’ve got it; throw it off the piazza, quick! Don’t bring it

near me!”

“The little spider won’t hurt you,” said George enjoyingly.

Dosia, flushing and paling alternately, carried entirely out of her

deterring placidity, her blue eyes dilatingly raised to his, her red

lips quivering, was distractingly lovely; fear gave to her quick,

uncalculated movements the grace of a wild thing. George, in spite of

his solid good qualities, possessed the mistaken playfulness of the

innately vulgar. He advanced, the spider now held between his thumb and

forefinger, a little nearer to her—a little nearer yet. There is a type

of bucolic mind to which the causeless, palpitating fear of a woman is

an exquisitely funny joke.

“Don’t,” said Dosia again, in a strangled voice, ready to fly from the

chair. The spider touched her sleeve, with George’s fatuously smiling

face behind it. The next instant she had fled wildly down to the

screened corner of the veranda, with George after her, only to be

stopped by the screens at the end. His following arms closed tightly

around her as he kissed her in happy triumph.

After one wild, instinctive effort at struggle, Dosia stood perfectly

still, with that peculiarly defensive self-possession that came into

play at such times. She seemed to yield entirely now to the rightful

caresses of an accepted lover as she said in a perfectly even and casual

tone of voice:

“Let me go for a moment, George! I must get my handkerchief from

up-stairs. I’ll be right back again.”

“Don’t be gone long,” said George fondly, releasing her

half-unconsciously at the accent of custom.

“No,” said Dosia, very pale, and smiling back at him coquettishly as she

went off with unhurried step—to dart up two pairs of stairs like a

flying, hunted thing, and into her room, to lock the door fast and bolt

it as if from the thoughts that pursued her.

Lois, coming up the stairs half an hour later, rattled the door-knob

ineffectually before she knocked.

“Dosia, what’s the matter? To whom are you talking? Let me in! Katy

said, when she came up, you would not answer—she said Mr. Sutton had

been walking up and down the piazza for a long time. Dosia, let me in;

let me in this minute!”

The key clicked in the lock, the bolt slipped back, and the door flew

open. Dosia, in her blue muslin frock, her hair in wild disorder, was

standing in the center of the room, fiercely rubbing her already scarlet

cheeks with a rough towel. Every trace of assumed listlessness had

vanished; she was frantically alive, with blazing, defiant eyes, and

talking half-disconnectedly.

“Never let him come here again—never, never!” she appealed to Lois.

[Illustration: _“Never let him come here again—never, never!_”]

“Whom do you mean?”

“George Sutton!”

A contraction passed over her face; she began rubbing again with renewed

fury.

“Don’t do that, Dosia! You’ll take the skin off. Stop it!”

Lois, alarmed, put her arm around the girl, trying to push the towel

away from her. “Dosia, sit down by me here on the bed—how you’re

trembling! What on earth is the matter? Dosia, you must not, you’ll take

the skin off your face.”

“I want to take it off,” whispered Dosia intensely. “I hate him, I hate

him! I never want to see him again. I can’t see him again! I threw the

ring out in the hall somewhere. You’ll have to find it—— I couldn’t

have it in the room with me! Lois, you must tell him I can’t see him

again; promise me that I’ll never see him again—promise, _promise_!”

She clung to Lois as if her life depended on that protection.

“Yes, yes, dear, I promise,” said Lois with a sudden warmth of sympathy

such as she had never before felt for the girl. This situation, this

feeling, she could comprehend—it might have been her own in similar

case. She had known girls before who had been engaged for but a day or a

week, and then revolted; it was not so new a circumstance as the world

fancies.

She drew the towel now from Dosia’s relaxed fingers, and held her closer

as she said:

“There, be quiet, Dosia, and don’t make yourself ill. I don’t see what

that poor man is going to do—of course he’ll feel dreadfully; but you

can’t help that now—it’s a great deal better than finding out the

mistake later. I’ll tell him not to come again, I promise you. Of

course, I’ll have to speak to Justin; I don’t know what he will say!”

Lois broke into a rueful smile. “Dosia, Dosia! What scrape will you get

into next?”

“Isn’t it dreadful!” gasped poor Dosia. She sat up straight and looked

at Lois with tragic eyes.

“Now two men have kissed me. I can never get over that in this world. I

can never be nice again—no one can ever think I’m nice again! No one

can ever—_love_ me in this world!” She buried her hot face in Lois’

bosom, sobbing tearlessly against that new shelter, in spite of the

other’s incoherent words of comfort so unalterably, so inherently a

woman made to be loved that the loss of the dream of it was like the

loss of existence. After a moment Dosia went on brokenly:

“It seems so strange—things begin—and you think they are going to turn

out to be something you want very much, and then all of a sudden they

end—and there is nothing more. Everything is all beginning—and then it

ends—there is nothing more. And now I can never be really nice again!”

“Nonsense! You’ll feel very differently about it all after a while,”

said Lois sensibly.

“I don’t want to go down-stairs again.” Dosia began to shake violently.

“If he were to come back——”

“Well, stay up here. Zaidee shall bring you your dinner,” said Lois

humoringly. “I must go down now; I hear Justin. Only, you’ll have to

promise me to be quiet, Dosia, and not begin going wild again the moment

I’m out of the room.”

“No, I’ll be good,” murmured Dosia submissively. “Oh, Lois, you’re so

kind to me! I love you so much!”

Her head ached so hard that it was easy to be quiet now. She could not

eat the meal which Zaidee, assisted to the door by the maid, brought in

to her. It seemed, oddly enough, like a reversion back to that first

night of her arrival—oh, so long ago!—after tempest and disaster. Yet

then the white, enhancing light of the future had shone down through

everything, and now there was no future, only a murky past, and she a

poor girl who had dropped so far out of the way of happiness that she

could never get back to it, never be nice again. That hand that had once

held hers so firmly, so steadily, that she could sleep secure with just

the comfort of its remembered touch—the thought of it had become only

pain, like everything else. Oh, back of all this shaming hurt with

Lawson and George Sutton was another shame, that went deeper and deeper

still. Since that visit of Bailey Girard’s, she had known that he had

thought of her as she had thought of him, with a knowledge that could

not be controverted. It is astonishing that we, who feel ourselves to be

so dependent on speech as a means of communication, have our intensest,

our most revealing moments without it. He had thought of her as she had

of him, and, with the thought of her in his heart, had been content

easily that it should be no more.

Oh, if this stranger had been indeed the hero of her dreams,—lover,

protector, dearest friend,—to have sought her mightily with the

privilege and the prerogative of a man, so that she might have had no

experience to live through but that white experience with him!

“Dosia! Open the door quickly.”

It was the voice of Lois once more, with a strange note in it. She

stood, hurried and breathless, under the gas she turned on as she held

out a telegram—for the second time the transmitter of bad news from the

South. The message read: “Your father is ill. Come at once.”