know--I cared--this way?" Sylvia's phrases came out in quick, uneven
gasps, as if every word hurt. "I didn't know--I never knew until Jack
told me just now--about Phil. I didn't know," she moaned.
"Maybe Phil was blind too, dear. I think he was. He put an unreal thing
ahead of a real one, I am afraid, just because he cared so much. You
needn't look surprised, child. Mothers know so much more than any one
ever tells them. Of course I don't know what happened in New York, but
I have always suspected my boy hurt you, and it was the hurt which made
you shut your eyes so tight."
"It was something like that," admitted Sylvia. "It is so horribly easy
to get all muddled and twisted up in life."
"It is," agreed Mrs. Lorrimer. "Sometimes it takes a great grief to
remove the bandages from our eyes."
"I know. When Jack told me--first everything went black and then it was
all white and shining. I felt as if I had never really seen clear in
all my life before, except maybe just once, last September out in the
woods at sunset. I think Phil and I both knew then. Oh, Mrs. Lorrimer,
why didn't he speak? What difference could my money possibly make?
Money and love haven't anything to do with each other. They are in
different kingdoms like animal, vegetable, mineral, only there must be a
fourth kingdom--the love kingdom." Sylvia's eyes smiled a little, like
stars through mist.
"Men do not always understand, little daughter. Perhaps they never
understand quite. You must not blame Philip too much."
"Blame! Oh, I don't. The blame was mine. I shouldn't have rushed like
a mad thing into the fire to save my pride. I wasn't true to love or
Phil or myself or Jack. Maybe I was untruest of all to Jack. He will
never tell me, but I know I have hurt him dreadfully. Sometimes I think
women are the cruellest things in the world. We don't mean to be but we
are."
"I am afraid we are sometimes."
"I didn't mean to be cruel. I've always wanted to be kind. Maybe that
is the trouble. I've been too kind. I let myself believe I loved Jack
because it pleased me to make him happy. And I haven't made him happy.
That is the worst of it. I believe he has been miserable all along
because he knew I was giving him counterfeit gold instead of the real
thing. It was only I who did not know, and even I suspected, sometimes.
That was why I wanted to keep so dreadfully busy all the time, so I
wouldn't have time to think. Mother Lorrimer," in sudden contrition,
"you are so tired and I have chattered and chattered until I almost feel
better because I've talked. As if I mattered--beside you."
Mrs. Lorrimer pressed the girl's hand again.
"Nothing matters very much just now," she said, "except God."
"But God is so far off."
"Oh, no, He isn't, Sylvia.
"'Closer is He than breathing
And nearer than hands and feet.'
Haven't you ever felt how near He is?"
"Yes," said Sylvia, remembering again that night when she and Phil and
the "shadowy third" had been so close to each other that there had not
been a breath between them. And then she fell silent, led at last unto
the forest where she had not dared to go for many months. And in the
forest Sylvia sought God.
It seemed an endless time before they reached the great station in New
York but at last they did arrive. There was no one to meet them. It
was a very different arrival from the one Sylvia remembered in December.
Jeanette had been there then to greet her and Barb and Phil. She had
been breathless, exhilarated with happiness. She remembered how almost
intoxicated with sheer delight of living she had felt when Phil had
helped her into the limousine and recalled also what a queer, deserted,
almost lonely feeling she had experienced, immediately after, when she
leaned out of the car to wave good-by to Barb and Phil on the curb.
The thought of Barb brought a new current of reflection. For all she
knew it was Barb and not herself who had the right to be with Phil now.
How did she know but he might have learned to care for Barb in all those
months? Wasn't it probable, natural, that he should have done so? Why
should she expect him to keep on caring for her while she had given
herself to Jack? A panic seized her. All the way to the hospital even
Phil's desperate illness, which she had never seemed able to sense,
loomed less important than this new specter which had arisen. What if
Barb should be there with him? What if they should say "Who is this
young person? The woman he loves is there already with him. There is
no room for another."
But when they reached the hospital no such questions were raised. Mrs.
Lorrimer swept everything aside with her quiet dignity. "I am his
mother," she had said. "And this is Miss Arden," quite as if the
authorities knew and understood why Miss Arden must be admitted.
Perhaps they did understand. The doctor who challenged them shot a
quick questioning look at Sylvia and bowed acquiescence. Possibly
Sylvia's eyes were the password. The doctor was used to reading human
faces. He had admitted many another white-cheeked, tortured-eyed young
woman into the chamber of the Shadow ere this. He was gravely
sympathetic. He did not expect the young man in there to live
twenty-four hours. It would be a miracle, he thought, if he got well.
And so the mother and the girl who loved Philip Lorrimer sat beside him
all that still night though he did not know them. Sylvia lived a
thousand lives and died a thousand deaths before the gray dawn came to
the quiet room. And who knows what new agonies the mother who bore the
lad suffered during those long silent hours? To Sylvia at least, there
was something beautiful even in the unspeakable anguish of it all. Even
in death Phil would be hers and she his. Love had crowned her as it had
crowned Gus. She no longer envied the young musician his Grail ecstasy.
She, too, had been anointed.
Sylvia never knew whether she consciously prayed that night. It was
rather that she talked with God and He in His beneficence let her share
some of His eternal secrets.
And underneath it all she was crying out to Phil, "Don't die. Don't
die. Don't die. I love you. I love you. Come back. Come back." And
she did not seem to be saying it to the inert form on the high, narrow
bed. That was not Phil at all. Phil was all strength and energy and
vitality. That was a mere husk of something--what, she did not care. It
had nothing to do with Phil or with herself. She was sending out her
cry, not from her body to his, but from her spirit to his, wherever the
latter was faring. She knew that wherever he was he would hear and
almost she knew he would come back.
The strange part of it was he did come back, as if Sylvia's voice had
arrested him and brought him back from those far fields to which he had
been journeying. Perhaps not so strange, after all. The wisest men of
all the ages have not been able to mark the metes and bounds of the
power of love. At any rate, whether Sylvia's call had anything to do
with it or not, Phil Lorrimer came back. The miracle was achieved.
It was early morning when Phil opened his eyes, blue as ever, though
dark-circled and heavy, and the first thing he saw was Sylvia, who had
just turned from the window where she had been watching the dawn come up
over the city with strange unearthly light and shadow. Something of the
same light was on Phil's face as he recognized Sylvia. With one swift
light step she was beside him, her face bent over his, her heart in her
eyes.
"Sylvia." The voice was faint as if the speaker had come back from
other worlds, but distinct, wondering, happy.
"Phil!" And as he felt Sylvia's kiss on his cheek, Phil closed his eyes
again as if there were now no other bliss to attain in this world or the
next.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*AFTERMATH*
Three weeks later and April had surprised even the city and taken it by
storm. Buds were beginning to burst in the trees in the park, hyacinths
rainbowed here and there, the fountains were released from their winter
bondage. The river took on a bluer hue to match the sky, or was it at
the hint of the bird who arrived just before Easter giving advance
notice of the latest colors in Nature's fashion house, bearing samples
on his own back?
In Miss Josephine Murray's little apartment Suzanne and Barb and Sylvia
were assembled, one blue and gold afternoon, with tongues flying fast as
of old.
"When is Phil going to be able to be moved?" Suzanne was demanding of
Sylvia. "And where is he going to move to?"
"Next week, we hope. And he is coming to Arden Hall."
"Bless us! how modern!" teased Suzanne.
Sylvia flushed and shook her head.
"It isn't so specially modern. It is just natural. The doctors say he
has to get out of the city. His mother thinks she has to get back to
the girls, and she also thinks there is no doctor in the world equal to
Doctor Tom and wants him to set his eye on Phil. Of course, he can't go
to 'Hester house.' That would be too absurd and he'd hate it
anyway--with all those sympathetic females in attendance. There is
always plenty of room at the Hall, and it is lovely there in April. So
he's coming," she concluded.
"Reasons as plenty as blackberries," jeered Suzanne. "Perfectly well
explained. What do you happen to be doing with your fiance in the
meantime?"
Sylvia looked up at that, meeting Suzanne's eyes squarely.
"I haven't any," she announced quietly. "Jack has known for three weeks
I wasn't going to marry him. In fact, he suggested it himself."
"More and more modern," approved Suzanne. "It is indeed well to be off
with the old love before you are on with the new. When are you going to
announce your next engagement?"
"Maybe never," said Sylvia so soberly that Suzanne relented and
obligingly turned the fire on herself.
"Speaking of being off with the old love, it seems to be the one thing I
can't manage. Roger and I have decided we miss quarreling so much when
we are separated that it's simpler and more agreeable to get married and
quarrel in peace."
At which last Suzannesque paradox Sylvia and Barb laughed and proffered
congratulations.
"Better offer Roger condolences instead," advised Suzanne. "I shall
lead him a life."
"Is he coming to New York to live?" inquired Barb, remembering her
friend's urban preferences.
"He is not. He is having far too much fun stirring things up in Norton,
Pa. We are going in for politics. I think I shall let him run for
mayor. There will be a lovely row, for all the crocks are afraid of him
now, and it isn't a circumstance to what they'll be if they suspect he
wants to raise that particular tempest in their cozy, grafty teapot."
Suzanne chuckled, scenting battle afar off. A "scrap" was as the elixir
of life to her. "I don't want to live in New York, anyway," she
continued. "I couldn't bear to be very far off from mother, and it's
much more distinguished to draw my royalties and breath on some sacred
Parnassian Hill in Norton, Pa. Likewise it is less expensive. I shall
come up often, however, if only to see that they do not murder my
precious play. Vengeance is mine if they touch one hair--that is, one
line--of its blessed substance. Remember my prophecy, sweet friends?
I-did-write-a-play." And, lacking a cushion, Suzanne thumped the tea
table with her fist until the cups rattled ominously.
"You did," agreed Sylvia. "And here is Barbie here, an ornament to the
Cause. Wait until you see her marching in the parade next fall! Wait
till you know what she did to the legislators when she bearded them at
Albany! She is so modest she will hide her light under a bushel, but
I'm all the time hearing things about her. Phil says she's a wonderful
speechifier. To the victor--in her own colors!" And Sylvia dropped the
yellow jonquils she was wearing in her friend's lap and bent over her to
press a butterfly kiss on her forehead.
Sylvia and Barb had come very close to each other during the latter's
recent stay in the city. Phil Lorrimer's accident had been a fiery
ordeal for Barbara as well as Sylvia, and Sylvia, guessing this, felt
very tender toward the other girl. Never once did they reach the point
of putting things into words. But words were not essential to mutual
understanding. Barb and Sylvia knew all there was to know, each about
the other, without communication on the subject and their love was the
stronger for knowing. Perhaps the closest Barbara ever came to a
confession was when she said to Sylvia once that she didn't believe
there was a single woman who was a really inspired worker in the Cause
who hadn't a hurt of her own somewhere underneath to make her pitiful of
scars other women carried. "I guess maybe they are even thankful for
their hurts when they have healed a little," she had added with
Barb-like naivete. "It makes them understand so much more. You've got
to understand to care."
And Sylvia had understood and cared so much for Barbara's hurt that she
would not offer her the last spear thrust--the word of spoken
compassion. And, after all, Sylvia could hardly help seeing that Barb
scarcely needed compassion. She, too, had her Grail fire to follow and
it took her to high places.
"Oh, Barb is some little wonder!" Suzanne had agreed. "Isn't it funny
how much we've all been through since September and yet we aren't any of
us so cock-sure about things as we were then? I was the worst--the most
Sophomoric of the three--and maybe I've come the worst croppers just
because I had to have the cock-sureness forcibly if not painlessly
extracted. Anyway, I don't want to go back and be the Suzanne of
September, nineteen hundred and fourteen again. What about the rest of
you? Would you like old Time to turn back in his flight?"
"No," said Sylvia and Barb in emphatic chorus. Then they all laughed and
grew sober.
"It is a vote," declared Suzanne.
When Sylvia got back to her hotel she found a message from Jeanette
Latham inviting her to dinner. A little reluctantly she telephoned
acceptance. She was not very anxious to see Jeanette, not only because
she had rather distasteful memories of her recent visit but because she
dreaded meeting any of Jack's people just now. It seemed to her they
must dislike and despise her for her treatment of Jack. Not that she
blamed them for that. No one could judge her more harshly than she
judged herself on that score.
Arrived at the great house on the drive, Sylvia was informed that Mrs.
Latham was in her own room and begged that Miss Arden would come up. The
two kissed and then drew back each surveying the other woman fashion,
out of the tail of her eye.
Jeanette was a little pale, Sylvia thought, but somehow prettier than
she had been in December, her rich brunette glow softened and subdued a
little. She was wearing an exquisite rose-colored robe above which her
lovely full throat gleamed white and her eyes looked darker and more
brilliant than ever.
"Sylvia, it is good to see you," she murmured. "Take off your wraps. We
are going to have dinner up here if you don't mind. Francis is dining
out. We can have a cozy gossip all to ourselves."
As the dainty little dinner was being served the two talked about
everything in general and nothing in particular, taking pains to avoid
anything that could possibly interest either. It was only after the
meal was cleared away and the maid banished that they came to the really
important things.
"Sylvia, I know you think I am going to be disagreeable about Jack. I'm
not. I'm glad. No, don't speak yet. I want to tell you why I am glad.
I knew you didn't care for Jack, at least not enough. You sort of half
way cared just as I did for Francis. You thought it would be suitable
and agreeable and easy and please everybody all round especially Jack.
And you thought that the rest would come in time, didn't you?"
Sylvia nodded in shamed silence.
"On the whole, your reasons for getting engaged were quite as creditable
as mine for getting engaged to Francis, certainly more so than Isabel's
for getting engaged to her miserable count. But, even so, they weren't
good enough. There is only one reason for getting engaged to a man,
anyway, only one for marrying him, and that is just plain old-fashioned
love. I found that out in a very expensive course of lessons. You
didn't love Jack. I knew it that night. I had just sent Charlton away
and I knew the real thing--what it was. I care more for Jack than
almost anybody in the world and I didn't want him to be unhappy any more
than you did, but he is going to be more unhappy now than if you had
said no last December."
Sylvia winced at that.
"I know it, Jeanette. I am as sorry about that as you can possibly be."
"I know. I didn't mean to reproach you. I just wanted to tell you I
know it was better this way, hard as it is for Jack. He'll get over it
now. At least, I hope he will, but if you had married him he wouldn't
have gotten over it. He would have been like Francis. Francis knows I
don't care. At least he knows I didn't use to care. It has hurt him
pretty badly sometimes, I'm afraid. Maybe now he'll understand. I'm
not so bad as I might have been. I--Sylvia, do you know why I sent
Charlton away?"
Sylvia shook her head.
"I had just found out--something--about myself. I am not much good but
I couldn't go on with that kind of thing when I knew-- Sylvia, please
understand. It is harder to say than I thought."
And suddenly Sylvia did understand, and came and put her arms around the
other woman with real joy and affection.
"If it will only be a boy," sighed Jeanette. "It is dreadful to be a
woman in this world, and Dad would like it so, and so would Francis."
When she returned to the hotel again there was a letter from Jack
waiting for Sylvia, the second only since she had come to New York. The
first had been in response to her telegram announcing that Phil was
surely out of danger. It had been a very brief letter, expressing his
relief and pleasure at the good news of Phil's recovery. "And Sylvia,
Belovedest," it had added, "don't forget I meant just what I said that
day. Don't bother about me. I don't count. Nothing counts except your
being happy. I believe I have always known it was Phil you really cared
for. Anyway, I know it now. You have always been an angel of goodness
to me and I am grateful. It has been just Jack and Jill going up the
hill. Jack fell down and broke his crown all right, but there is no
reason in the world why Jill should come tumbling after. And in order
to prevent such a disaster the best thing Jack can say is good-by."
Sylvia had written back a long, affectionate and remorseful letter
blaming herself wholly and severely and accepting his proffered release
from their engagement. She had not heard from him again until now.
Consequently she tore open the letter with some trepidation.
"Dear Sylvia,"--So it ran--
"I am sailing to-morrow to join the American Ambulance Field Service in
France. It isn't a new notion. It has been in the back of my brain a
long time. I should have gone in December if you had refused me then.
I am not much good at anything but driving a car. I stuck to the
business because you wanted me to but my heart wasn't in it. Dad
understands, and is perfectly willing I should go. Don't misunderstand
me, please, sweetheart. I am not doing this for gallery play or to work
on your feelings. And I'm not going to talk any tommyrot about my life
being spoiled and wanting to throw it away. I don't want to throw it
away. I want to find it if I can over there. It seems to me France
ought to drive whip and spur into any chap and make a man of him.
Anyway, I'm going to have a try at it. Of course there is a little
danger--not much. You must not worry. Danger agrees with me, and I'm a
lucky chap in everything but love. Best wishes to old Phil. Remember
that means in _everything_.
"I would have come to say good-by in person, but it took a little more
nerve than I have just now. It was easier for both of us for me to make
a quiet getaway. Wish me luck, Sylvia.
"Yours, as always,
"JACK."
Sylvia read the letter, dazed, troubled but by no means surprised. It
was like Jack to do the gallant, generous, splendid, impulsive thing.
As she finished she made a rapid calculation. "I sail to-morrow." That
must mean to-day. He was already gone. Somewhere out beyond the harbor
his ship was plowing its way toward France. The tears came into her
eyes. Jack was very dear to her. Why, oh why had she driven him to this
unnecessary danger, this fearful carnage field overseas? And yet was he
not right? Would he not find something worth the risk in the stern
realities of that glorious and tragic country he went to aid? That he
had not gone into it lightly she saw. He had counted the possible cost
as any man who was not a fool must count it. But he had not gone in
bravado or in bitterness. He had taken pains to show her that. He had
gone simply, in quiet earnest to prove himself, not to throw away his
life recklessly but to find it as he said. Dear Jack! No wonder
Sylvia's eyes were wet as she folded his letter and put it back in its
envelope.
*CHAPTER XXIV*
*HIGH TIDE*
For weeks after his injury Phil Lorrimer had been too sick to care very
much about anything except the agreeable fact that his mother and Sylvia
hovered over him like seraphim as he assured them later. It had
mattered very little to him where he was nor how he got there so long as
Sylvia was there too. It might be Heaven for all he knew. For a while
it had seemed quite probable it was Heaven, for he remembered quite
distinctly that Sylvia had kissed him and she had never done that on
earth he was quite certain.
But presently his mind had cleared and things had been explained. He
heard how he had been hurt and how his mother had come at once. Neither
of these things seemed hard to grasp. But why was Sylvia here? Sylvia
was engaged to Jack. Why was she here spending long hours by his
bedside? Sylvia was always kind. It must have been sheer kindness that
brought her he concluded. But somehow there appeared to be more than
kindness in Sylvia's eyes, though after that heavenly dream she had not
kissed him again.
It was not until he was almost able to travel that Sylvia told him that
she and Jack were no longer engaged, that they had decided it had all
been a mistake and that Jack had gone to France. Phil took the news in
silence and sobriety. He had very little to say on that subject or any
other for the rest of the day. And Sylvia, suddenly self-conscious, had
kept away from the hospital on the next day. But on the next, the day
before the cavalcade was to start for Greendale, she came. Phil was
sitting by the window looking somewhat like his old self though gaunt
and lean as a wintered wolf.
"You weren't here yesterday," he accused sternly.
"No. What a spoiled invalid you are getting to be! You don't expect to
see me every day, do you? Those carnations need fresh water. I'll get
some." Sylvia turned, flowers in hand, but Phil had waxed suddenly,
unexpectedly imperious.
"Put 'em down," he ordered so stentoriously that Sylvia obeyed without
really intending to.
"Come here," he still further ordered. Sylvia did not come nearer but
she did stand perfectly still looking at him.
"I missed you like the devil yesterday," he observed.
"You flatter me," said Sylvia.
He ignored her irony.
"I say, are you really not engaged any more?"
Sylvia admitted that she really was not.
"Why did you end it?"
"I told you. We decided that it was a mistake."
"When?"
"A few weeks ago."
"Precisely when?"
"The night I knew you were hurt." Sylvia faced him steadily now. If he
wanted facts he should have them.
"Was that why you broke it off?"
"I didn't break it off. Jack did."
"You mean he didn't like your coming here to me?"
"No. It wasn't that. He just knew--well, he knew I couldn't marry him.
Jack is a dear. He always sees things without being told."
"And I don't see things until they are rammed into my darn fool eyes.
Is that it?"
Sylvia acknowledged that that seemed to be a fair statement of the case.
"You tried to show me a thing or two last winter?"
"Yes."
"And when I wouldn't look, you cut me good and proper as I deserved and
got engaged to Jack?"
Sylvia nodded.
"Sylvia!"
"Well?"
"Barb opened my eyes as to what an idiot I'd been about the money
business. She did it one night, too late though. I rushed out to see
you the next day, first minute I had, and Jeanette told me you were
engaged to Jack and had gone home. That cooked my goose, all right."
"Well, the silly fowl ought to have been cooked." There was a faint
twinkle in Sylvia's eyes.
"Granted," agreed Phil heartily. "See here, Sylvia, I've a whole lot of
things to say to you but a man in a bath robe doesn't cut a very
impressive figure saying the things I've got to say and--"