ALINE TURNS A CORNER
Aline might have been completely prostrated by the news of her
husband’s sudden end, coming as it did as the culmination of a week of
strain and horror. That she did not succumb was due, perhaps, to
Ridgway’s care for her. When Harley’s massive gray head had dropped
forward to the table, his enemy’s first thought had been of her. As
soon as he knew that death was sure, he hurried to the hotel.
He sent his card up, and followed it so immediately that he found her
scarcely risen from the divan on which she had been lying in the
receiving-room of her apartments. The sleep was not yet shaken from her
lids, nor was the wrinkled flush smoothed from the soft cheek that had
been next the cushion. Even in his trouble for her he found time to be
glad that Virginia was not at the moment with her. It gave him the
sense of another bond between them that this tragic hour should belong
to him and her alone—this hour of destiny when their lives swung round
a corner beyond which lay wonderful vistas of kindly sunbeat and dewy
starlight stretching to the horizon’s edge of the long adventure.
She checked the rush of glad joy in her heart the sight of him always
brought, and came forward slowly. One glance at his face showed that he
had brought grave news.
“What is it? Why are you here?” she cried tensely.
“To bring you trouble, Aline.”
“Trouble!” Her hand went to her heart quickly.
“It is about—Mr. Harley.”
She questioned him with wide, startled eyes, words hesitating on her
trembling lips and flying unvoiced.
“Child—little partner—the orders are to be brave.” He came forward and
took her hands in his, looking down at her with eyes she thought full
of infinitely kind pity.
“Is it—have they—do you mean the verdict?”
“Yes, the verdict; but not the verdict of which you are thinking.”
She turned a quivering face to his. “Tell me. I shall be brave.”
He told her the brutal fact as gently as he could, while he watched the
blood ebb from her face. As she swayed he caught her in his arms and
carried her to the divan. When, presently, her eyes fluttered open, it
was to look into his pitiful ones. He was kneeling beside her, and her
head was pillowed on his arm.
“Say it isn’t true,” she murmured.
“It is true, dear.”
She moved her head restlessly, and he took away his arm, rising to draw
a chair close to the lounge. She slipped her two hands under her head,
letting them lie palm to palm on the sofapillow. The violet eyes looked
past him into space. Her tangled thoughts were in a chaos of disorder.
Even though she had known but a few months and loved not at all the
grim, gray-haired man she had called husband, the sense of wretched
bereavement, the nearness of death, was strong on her. He had been kind
to her in his way, and the inevitable closeness of their relationship,
repugnant as it had been to her, made its claims felt. An hour ago he
had been standing here, the strong and virile ruler over thousands. Now
he lay stiff and cold, all his power shorn from him without a second’s
warning. He had kissed her good-by, solicitous for her welfare, and it
had been he that had been in need of care rather than she. Two big
tears hung on her lids and splashed to her cheeks. She began to sob,
and half-turned on the divan, burying her face in her hands.
Ridgway let her weep without interruption for a time, knowing that it
would be a relief to her surcharged heart and overwrought nerves. But
when her sobs began to abate she became aware of his hand resting on
her shoulder. She sat up, wiping her eyes, and turned to him a face
sodden with grief.
“You are good to me,” she said simply.
“If my goodness were only less futile! Heaven knows what I would give
to ward off trouble from you. But I can’t, nor can I bear it for you.”
“But it is a help to know you would if you could. He—I think he wanted
to ward off grief from me, but he could not, either. I was often lonely
and sad, even though he was kind to me. And now he has gone. I wish I
had told him how much I appreciated his goodness to me.”
“Yes, we all feel that when we have lost some one we love. It is
natural to wish we had been better to them and showed them how much we
cared. Let me tell you about my mother. I was thirteen when she died.
It was in summer. She had not been well for a long time. The boys were
going fishing that day and she asked me to stay at home. I had set my
heart on going, and I thought it was only a fancy of hers. She did not
insist on my staying, so I went, but felt uncomfortable all day. When I
came back in the evening they told me she was dead. I felt as if some
great icy hand were tightening, on my heart. Somehow I couldn’t break
down and cry it out. I went around with a white, set face and gave no
sign. Even at the funeral it was the same. The neighbors called me
hard-hearted and pointed me out to their sons as a terrible warning.
And all the time I was torn with agony.”
“You poor boy.”
“And one night she came to me in a dream. She did not look as she had
just before she died, but strong and beautiful, with the color in her
face she used to have. She smiled at me and kissed me and rumpled my
hair as she used to do. I knew, then, it was all right. She understood,
and I didn’t care whether others did or not. I woke up crying, and
after I had had my grief out I was myself again.”
“It was so sweet of her to think to come to you. She must have been
loving you up in heaven and saw you were troubled, and came down just
to comfort you and tell you it was all right,” the girl cried with soft
sympathy.
“That’s how I understood it. Of course, I was only a boy, but somehow I
knew it was more than a dream. I’m not a spiritualist. I don’t believe
such things happen, but I know it happened to me,” he finished
illogically, with a smile.
She sighed. “He was always so thoughtful of me, too. I do wish I
had—could have been—more—”
She broke off without finishing, but he understood.
“You must not blame yourself for that. He would be the first to tell
you so. He took you for what you could give him, and these last days
were the best he had known for many years.”
“He was so good to me. Oh, you don’t know how good.”
“It was a great pleasure to him to be good to you, the greatest
pleasure he knew.”
She looked up as he spoke, and saw shining deep in his eyes the spirit
that had taught him to read so well the impulse of another lover, and,
seeing it, she dropped her eyes quickly in order not to see what was
there. With him it had been only an instant’s uncontrollable surge of
ecstasy. He meant to wait. Every instinct of the decent thing told him
not to take advantage of her weakness, her need of love to rest upon in
her trouble, her transparent care for him and confidence in him so
childlike in its entirety. For convention he did not care a turn of his
hand, but he would do nothing that might shock her self-respect when
she came to think of it later. Sternly he brought himself back to
realities.
“Shall I see Mr. Mott for you and send him here? It would be better
that he should make the arrangements than I.”
“If you please. I shall not see you again before I go, then?” Her lips
trembled as she asked the question.
“I shall come down to the hotel again and see you before you go. And
now good-by. Be brave, and don’t reproach yourself. Remember that he
would not wish it.”
The door opened, and Virginia came in, flushed with rapid walking. She
had heard the news on the street and had hurried back to the hotel.
Her eyes asked of Ridgway: “Does she know?” and he answered in the
affirmative. Straight to Aline she went and wrapped her in her arms,
the latent mothering instinct that is in every woman aroused and
dormant.
“Oh, my dear, my dear,” she cried softly.
Ridgway slipped quietly from the room and left them together.