It should be said for Jennie Follett that, in the matter of her course
toward Bob Collingham, she had few of those convictions of sin and
righteousness which restrain a proportion of mankind. As with the other
members of her family, her conduct followed certain lines "because she
couldn't help it." That is as far as her analysis would have carried
her, though analysis didn't give her much concern. Having so much to do
to get food and clothes, the higher laws were outside her sphere of
interest. Her chief law was Necessity, and it covered so much ground
that there was little place for any other law.
It may be well to state here that the Folletts belonged to that vast
American contingent who have practically no religion. They had had a
religion in Canada, where they had attended the church of a local god
who seemed to hold no sway over the United States. They never found that
church in the suburbs of New York, or, if they found it nominally, it
didn't, in their opinion, "seem the same." There were no local suasions
and compulsions to bring them to its doors, and so, after a few
spasmodic efforts to re-establish the connection, they gave up the
attempt.
Perhaps this failure was due to the fact that, in the depths of her
strong, proud heart, Lizzie didn't believe in God. Josiah did--or, at
least, he had believed in him up to the time of being thrown upon the
scrap heap. But Lizzie's faith in God had died with the dying of her
faith in man. She had never said so, because she kept her deeper
thoughts to herself; but along these lines her influence on her children
had been negative.
So Jennie had missed those counsels to do right which sometimes form a
part of domestic education. With so little latitude for doing anything,
there was not--apart from the grosser vices--much latitude in the
Follett family even for doing wrong. They did what they "couldn't help"
doing, and there was an end of it. A kind of inborn rectitude kept them
from offenses of which the public would have taken note, but behind it
there was little in the way of principle.
Jennie went to her farewell meeting with Bob untroubled by qualms of
conscience. Even if scruples had worried her, they would have been
allayed by the knowledge, imparted by Bob's own mother, that he had done
her a great injury. He made the same kind of love to every girl he had
known for an hour, and forgot her the next day. "One of these days," the
mother had said, "some girl would catch him, and then he would be
sorry." A girl hadn't caught him in this case, but he had caught a girl,
and didn't know what to do with her. Having compelled her to go through
a form of marriage--it was no more than a form--he was sailing off to
the ends of the world, leaving her not so much as the protection of his
name. She owed him nothing; and only the goodness of his angel mother
was making up for what he owed to her.
And, on his side, Bob was so carried away by his romance as to have no
conception of Jennie's attitude toward him. Seeing himself as a knight
riding to the relief of a damsel in distress, it did not occur to him
that the damsel could have a preference as to her deliverer. It was a
matter of course that, from the window of the tower in which she was a
prisoner, she would drop into his arms.
In other words, Bob had his own view of the advantages of being a
Collingham. They were great advantages, since they gave him the
opportunity of being generous. He was in love with Jennie largely
because she was an exquisite object on which to spend himself. She was a
gem, not in the rough, and yet in need of polishing, and though his own
refinement was not so very great, he could throw refinement in her way.
That is to say, love for Bob was very much a matter of giving himself
out. Girls who could have brought him everything--and they were not
scarce at Marillo Park--didn't interest him. They left no place for the
selflessness which was the basis of his character. He couldn't precisely
be called kind, since kindness implies some deliberation of the will. As
the impulse of a fountain is to pour itself out, so Bob's impulse was to
give, while Jennie was a crystal chalice wide open to receive.
"I want you to have everything in the world, Jennie darling," he
declared, bending above her as lovingly as a bench in the park would
permit. "I can't give it to you right off the bat, worse luck, but
sooner or later I'll be able to dope you out every little wish. Good
Lord! How I'll enjoy it."
"What do you mean by sooner or later?" Jennie asked, with eyes downcast.
"When I get the family broken to the bit. I can't tell you in dates or
time. They'll be hard in the mouth at first; and mother pulls like the
devil."
At this false witness, Jennie was revolted. No one knew better than
herself the bigness of that maternal heart which, as early as next week,
would give liberal proof of its sincerity, when Bob's promises would
still be in the air.
Bob had the afternoon at his disposal. The park offered itself as a
delicious trysting place, because it was the month of May. In a nook
where lilac and syringa overshadowed them and water glinted between
lawns and glades, they sat discreetly side by side, and she permitted
him to hold her hand.
He went on to sketch his plans for the immediate future. His most trying
lack was that of ready cash. The parental system had always been
generous as to things, but penurious in money. In the matter of things,
he would be as extravagant as he reasonably liked, so long as the bills
were sent to dad. Before he went to work at the bank, his allowance in
money wouldn't have kept him in cigarettes. Even now, he was only on the
weekly pay roll for thirty-eight dollars and sixty-six cents per, handed
him in a pay envelope. Food, lodging, clothes, saddle horses, motor
cars--all these were thrown in extra; but in actual coin he didn't
handle more than his two thousand dollars a year, like any other clerk.
Jennie could see, therefore, that, to begin with, their position would
be difficult, though only to begin with. He could send her a little
money while he was away, but it wouldn't be very much.
"I don't want you to send me any," she said, hastily.
"You forget that I'm your husband, dear. If I didn't, you could bring an
action for divorce on the ground of nonsupport."
This idea being new to Jennie, she had it explained to her, rejecting it
as a resource because it was unromantic.
"And so, to be on the safe side against that," he laughed, "I've got
this for you now."
Slipping an envelope from his pocket, he forced it into the hand he was
holding.
"It's only a hundred dollars--" he was beginning to explain.
She snatched her hand away as if she had been stung.
"Oh, Bob, I can't!"
That situation amused him. It was one more proof of the naïve honesty of
the little girl. He knew how hard up she was, how hard up all the family
must be, and yet money didn't tempt her.
"You're a funny little kid," he laughed, drawing her as near to him as
the park laws would permit. "You'd think I didn't have a right to take
care of you."
But Jennie was feeling that if she took this money she would be bound to
him by principles more acute than the promises she had made before the
parson.
"No, Bob, I can't. Please don't make me--_please_!"
But in the end he forced it on her, and she stowed it away in her little
bag. By that time, too, she had reviewed the family situation. With a
hundred dollars in her possession they could less easily be sold out of
house and home at the end of the following week. That calamity, at
least, could be dodged, whatever other misfortune might overtake
herself. She might decide that to be sold out of house and home would be
easier than to bind herself further to Bob by using his money; but,
still, she would have the choice. As to the twenty-five thousand, there
was always the possibility that it might not come in time. She had not
yet seen Hubert; she couldn't see him till Bob had sailed. When she did,
the other woman might be in her place and her heart would have to break
in spite of everything. Better it should break with a hundred dollars in
her pocket than that she should be helpless to stay the family disaster.
But when Bob sailed on the Monday she was free to make the great test.
Notwithstanding his definite farewells on the Saturday, he had tried to
see her again on the Sunday, but the necessity for secrecy made it
possible for her to put him off. For one thing, she couldn't go through
a second time such a good-by as that of Saturday. Bob had been too much
overcome. As unexpectedly to himself as to her, he had broken down.
Braving all publicity, he had suddenly seized her hand, pressed it to
his lips, and as he bent over it she could feel his tears against her
fingers. He hadn't exactly cried; he had only breathed hard, with two
great sobs.
"My God! how I love you, Jennie!" she had heard him muttering. "How I
love you! How I love you! How can I do without you all the time till I
come back?" When he raised his head he laughed sheepishly, though the
tears were still on his cheeks. "Forget it, little girl," he begged,
unsteadily, wiping his cheeks and blowing his nose. "I just worship you,
and that's all there is about it. It breaks me all up to go away and
leave you; but the time will pass, and, if I can help it, I shall never
go away from you again."
Defying the park laws once more, he had kissed her and kissed her. She
had let him do it because she was so unnerved. Besides, she was sorry
for him, and would have been sorrier still if she hadn't known that by
to-morrow he would have forgotten her. That was always the way with
fellows who took things so hard. The true love was too stern and strong
to show emotion.
Nevertheless, she had had an unhappy Sunday thinking of those two sobs.
It was not until after ten o'clock on Monday morning that she was able
to turn again to the compulsion of the man she loved. At ten, Bob
sailed, and that episode in Jennie's life was probably behind her. By
the time he came back, he would be in love with a girl of his own class
and eager to seize the freedom she, Jennie, would be in a position to
deliver him. At last the way was clear. She had only to go to her lover
and tell him she was there.
She went that afternoon. Her plan was simple. She would say that if he
had not yet found a model for the girl in the Byzantine chair, she was
ready to do the work. The rest would come as a matter of course.
Now that she was face to face with the task, her heart was oddly
apathetic. "I might be out to buy postage stamps," she said to herself,
while crossing the ferry.
None the less, she wished she didn't have to look at this water down
which Bob had sailed only four or five hours previously. Off toward the
south, in the haze of the warm May afternoon, there was a giant steamer
lying as if becalmed. It might be his. There was one still farther out
to sea. That, too, might be his. Far down on the horizon, just passing
out of sight, there was a little black spot with a pennon of black
smoke. That could very easily be his. She watched it. It might be
carrying him away to where he would forget her. Perhaps he had forgotten
her already. His mother had said--and his mother must know him--that he
made love to girls one day and forgot them on the next, and it was
already two days since Saturday. Very well! Let him forget! Only, it
didn't seem as if those kisses and those tears were quite in keeping
with a heart which treated love so easily.
She was glad when the ferryboat bumped softly against its pier and she
could get away from the great stream of which the very smells and sounds
would now begin to make her think of him. She wished there was another
means of returning home. She wished he had gone by train. She wished....
At the door of the studio building she was seized with a great terror.
She began to understand what it was she had come to do. She had come to
give herself up. She was to say, in fact, "Here I am--take me." And he
would take her--if he hadn't already taken some one else. The betrayal
of a husband who was hardly a husband was no longer in her mind. She was
appalled at this yielding of herself.
Yet she did everything as she had been accustomed to do it and entered
the studio by the door she generally used.
At first she thought there was no one there. Certainly the other woman
was not there, and that was so far a relief. Slowly, cautiously, she
made her way between the brocades, old furniture, and pedestals. Then
she saw Hubert and Hubert saw her.
She stood very much as a deer stands when surprised in the bracken--head
erect, eyes curious. Till he gave her a sign she made no movement to go
farther. And for a minute he gave her no sign. He only remained seated
and looked. He looked, with a sketch and pencil in his hand. He had been
occupied in touching something up.
But she couldn't mistake it. It was the girl in the Byzantine chair. Her
heart, which seemed to swell to thrice its size, thumped painfully.
Then, at last, a smile broke over his face, lifting his mustache and
mounting to his violet eyes. He didn't speak; he didn't move. He only
looked, hushed, enraptured, as the hunter at the startled deer.