On Thursday Mr. Grainger came to the library to tea, but notwithstanding
her suggestion Mrs. Brokenshire did not. She came, however, on Friday
when he did not. For some time after that he came daily.
Toward me his manner had little variation; he was courteous and distant.
I cannot say that he ever had tea with me, for even if he accepted a
cup, which he did from time to time, as if keeping up a role, he carried
it to some distant corner of the room where he was either examining the
objects or making their acquaintance. He came about half past four and
went about half past five, always appearing from the house and retiring
by the same way. In the house itself, as I understood from Mrs. Daly, he
displayed an interest he had not shown for years.
"It's out of wan room and into another, and raisin' the shades and
pushin' the furniture about, till you'd swear he was goin' to be
married."
I thought of Mr. Pyne, wondering if, before his trip to Atlantic City
with Mrs. Grimshaw, he, too, had wandered about his house, appraising
its possibilities from the point of view of a new mistress.
On the Friday when Mrs. Brokenshire came and Mr. Grainger did not she
made no comment on his non-appearance. She even sustained with some
success the fiction that her visit was on my account. Only her soft
eyes turned with a quick light toward the door leading to the house at
every sound that might have been a footstep.
When she talked it was chiefly about Mr. Brokenshire.
"It's telling on him--all this trouble about Hugh."
I was curious.
"Telling on him in what way?"
"It's made him older--and grayer--and the trouble with his eye comes
oftener."
It seemed to me that I saw an opportunity.
"Then why doesn't he give in?"
"Give in? Mr. Brokenshire? Why, he never gave in in his life."
"But if he suffers?"
"He'd rather suffer than give in. He's not an unkind man, not really, so
long as he has his own way; but once he's thwarted--"
"Every one has to be thwarted some time."
"He'd agree to that; but he'd say every one but him. That's why, when he
first met--met me--and my mother at that time meant to have me--to have
me marry some one else-- You knew that, didn't you?"
I reminded her that she had told me so among the rocks at Newport.
"Did I? Perhaps I did. It's--it's rather on my mind. I had to change
so--so suddenly. But what I was going to say was that when Mr.
Brokenshire saw that mamma meant me to marry some one else, and that
I--that I wanted to, there was nothing he didn't do. It was in the
papers--and everything. But nothing would stop him till he'd got what he
wanted."
I pumped up my courage to say:
"You mean, till you gave it to him."
She bit her lip.
"Mamma gave it to him. I had to do as I was told. You'd say, I suppose,
that I needn't have done it, but you don't know." She hesitated before
going on. "It--it was money. We--we had to have it. Mamma thought that
Mr.--the man I was to have married first--would never have any more. It
was all sorts of things on the Stock Exchange--and bulls and bears and
things like that. There was a whole week of it--and every one knew it
was about me. I nearly died; but mamma didn't mind. She enjoyed it. It's
the sort of thing she would enjoy. She made me go with her to the opera
every night. Some one always asked us to sit in their box. She put me in
the front where the audience watched me through their opera-glasses more
than they did the stage--and I was a kind of spectacle. There was one
night--they were singing the 'Meistersinger'--when I felt just like Eva,
put up as a prize for whoever could win me. But I was talking of Mr.
Brokenshire, wasn't I? Do you think his eye will ever be any better?"
She asked the question without change of tone. I could only reply that I
didn't know.
"The doctor says--that is, he's told me--that in a way it's mental. It's
the result of the strain he's put upon his nerves by overwork and awful
tempers. Of course, his responsibilities have been heavy, though of late
years he's been able to shift some of them to other people's shoulders.
And then," she went on, in her sweet, even voice, "what happened about
me--coming to him so late in life--and--and tearing him to pieces more
violently than if he'd been a younger man--young men get over
things--that made it worse. Don't you see it would?"
I said I could understand that that might be the effect.
"Of course, if I could really be a wife to him--"
"Well, can't you?"
She shuddered.
"He terrifies me. When he's there I'm not a woman any more; I'm a
captive."
"But since you've married him--"
"I didn't marry him; he married me. I was as much a bargain as if I had
been bought. And now mamma sees that--that she might have got a better
price."
I thought it enough to say:
"That must make it hard for her."
A sigh bubbled up, like that of a child who has been crying.
"It makes it hard for me." She eyed me with a long, oblique regard.
"Don't you think it's awful when an elderly man falls in love with a
young girl who herself is in love with some one else?"
I could only dodge that question.
"All unhappiness is awful."
"Ah, but this! An elderly man!--in love! Madly in love! It's not
natural; it's frightful; and when it's with yourself--"
She moved away from me and began to inspect the room. In spite of her
agitation she did this more in detail than when she had been there
before, making the round of the book-shelves much as Mr. Grainger
himself was in the habit of doing, and gazing without comment on the
Persian and Italian potteries. It was easy to place her as one of those
women who live surrounded by beautiful things to which they pay no
attention. Mr. Brokenshire's richly Italianate dwelling was to her just
a house. It would have been equally just a house had it been Jacobean or
Louis Quinze or in the fashion of the Brothers Adam, and she would have
seen little or no difference in periods and styles. The books she now
looked at were mere backs; they were bindings and titles. Since they
belonged to Stacy Grainger she could look at them with soft, unseeing
eyes, thinking of him. That was all. Without comment of my own I
accompanied her, watching the quick, bird-like turnings of her head
whenever she thought she heard a step.
"It's nice for you here," she said, when at last she gave signs of
going. "I--I love it. It's so quiet--and--and safe. Nobody knows I come
to--to see you."
Her stammering emboldened me to take a liberty.
"But suppose they found out?"
She was as innocent as a child as she glanced up at me and said:
"It would still be to see you. There's no harm in that."
"Even so, Mr. Brokenshire wouldn't approve of it."
"But he'll never know. It's not the sort of thing any one would think
of. I leave the motor down at Sixth Avenue, and this time of year it's
so dark. As soon as I heard Miss Davis was leaving I thought how nice
the place would be for you."
Since it was useless to make the obvious correction here, I thanked her
for her kindness, going on to add:
"But I don't want to get into any trouble."
"No, of course not." She began moving toward the door. "What kind of
trouble were you thinking of?"
I wondered whether or not, having taken one liberty, I could take
another.
"When I see my boat being caught in the rapids I'm afraid there's a
cataract ahead."
It took her some thirty seconds to seize the force of this. Having got
it her eyes fell.
"Oh, I see! And does that mean," she went on, her bosom heaving, "that
you're afraid of the cataract on your own account--or on mine?"
I paused in our slow drifting toward the door. She was a great lady in
the land, and I was nobody. I had much to risk, and I risked it.
"Should I offend you," I asked, deferentially, "if I said--on yours?"
For an instant she became as haughty as so sweet a nature knew how to
be, but the prompting passed.
"No; you don't offend me," she said, after a brief pause. "We're
friends, aren't we, in spite of--"
As she hesitated I filled in the phrase.
"In spite of the difference between us."
Because she was pursuing her own thoughts she allowed that to pass.
"People have gone over cataracts--and still lived."
"Ah, but there's more to existence than life," I exclaimed, promptly.
"There was a friend of my own," she continued, without immediate
reference to my observation; "at least she was a friend--I suppose she
is still--her name was Madeline Grimshaw--"
"Yes, Mrs. Pyne; but she wasn't Mrs. Brokenshire."
"No; she never was so unhappy." She pressed her handkerchief against the
two great tears that rolled down her cheeks. "She did love Mr. Grimshaw
at one time, whereas I--"
"But you say he's kind."
"Oh yes. It isn't that. He's more than kind. He'd smother me with things
I'd like to have. It's--it's when he comes near me--when he touches
me--and--and his eye!"
I knew enough of physical repulsion to be able to change my line of
appeal. "But do you think you'd gain anything if you made him
unhappy--now?"
She looked at me wonderingly.
"I shouldn't think you'd plead for him."
I had ventured so far that I could go a little farther.
"I don't think I'm pleading for him so much as for you."
"Why do you plead for me? Do you think I should be--sorry?"
"If you did what I imagine you're contemplating--yes."
She surprised me by admitting my implication.
"Even if I did, I couldn't be sorrier than I am."
"Oh, but existence is more than joy and sorrow."
"You said just now that it was more than life. I suppose you mean that
it's love."
"I should say that it's more than love."
"Why, what can it be?"
I smiled apologetically.
"Mightn't it be--right?"
She studied me with an air of angelic sweetness.
"Oh no, I could never believe that."
And she went more resolutely toward the door.
Hugh returned in good spirits from Philadelphia. He had been well
received. His name had secured him much the same welcome as that
accorded him on his first excursions into Wall Street. I didn't tell him
I feared that the results would be similar, for I saw that he was
cheered.
To verify the love I had acknowledged to him more than once, I was eager
to look at him again. I found a man thinner and older and shabbier than
the Hugh who first attracted my attention by being kind to me. I could
have borne with his being thinner and older; but that he should be
shabbier wrung my heart.
I considered myself engaged to him. That as yet I had not spoken the
final word was a detail, in my mind, considering that I had so often
rested in his arms and pillowed my head on his shoulder. The fact, too,
that when I had first allowed myself those privileges I had taken him to
be a strong character--the shadow of a rock in a thirsty land, I had
called him--and that I now saw he was a weak one, bound me to him the
more closely. I had gone to him because I needed him; but now that I saw
he needed me I was sure I could never break away from him.
He dined with me at the Mary Chilton on the evening of his return,
sitting where Larry Strangways had sat only forty-eight hours
previously. I was sorry then that I had not changed the table. To be
face to face with two men, on exactly the same spot, on occasions so
near together, in conditions so alike, gave me a sense of faithlessness.
Though I wanted nothing so much as to be honest with them both, I was
afraid of being so with neither; and yet for this I hardly knew where to
place the blame. I suffered for Hugh because of Larry Strangways, and I
suffered for Larry Strangways because of Hugh. If I suffered for myself
I was scarcely aware of it, having to give so much thought to them.
Nevertheless, I regretted that I had not chosen another table, and all
the more when Hugh brought the matter up. He had finished telling me of
his experiences in Philadelphia. "Now what have you been doing?" he
demanded, a smile lighting up his tired face.
"Oh, nothing much--the same old thing."
"Seen anybody in particular?"
I weighed my answer carefully.
"Nobody in particular, except Mr. Strangways."
He frowned.
"Where did you see that fellow?"
"Right here."
"Right here? What do you mean by that?"
"He came to dine with me."
"Dine with you! And sat where I'm sitting now?"
I tried to take this pleasantly.
"It's the only place I've got to ask any one I want to talk to."
"But why should you want to talk to--to--" I saw him struggling with the
word, but it came out--"to that bounder?"
"He's a friend of mine, Hugh. I've asked you already to remember that
he's a gentleman."
"Gentleman! O Lord!" He became kindly and coaxing, leaning across the
table with an ingratiating smile. "Look here, little Alix! Don't you
think that for my sake it's time you were beginning to drop that lot?"
Though I revolted against the expression, I pretended to see nothing
amiss.
"You mean just as Libby Jaynes had to drop the barbers and the pages in
the hotel when she became Mrs. Tracy Allen."
He laughed nervously.
"Oh, I don't go as far as that. And yet if I did--"
"It wouldn't be too far." I gave him the impression that I was thinking
the question out. "But you see, Hugh, dear, I don't see any difference
between Mr. Strangways--"
"And me?"
"I wasn't going to say you, but between Mr. Strangways and the people
you'd like me to know. Or rather, if I do see a difference it's that Mr.
Strangways is so much more a man of the world than--than--"
Perceiving my embarrassment, he broke in:
"Than who?"
I took my courage in both hands.
"Than Mr. Rossiter, for example, or your brother, Mr. Jack Brokenshire,
or any of the men I met when I was with your sister. If I hadn't seen
you--the truest gentleman I ever knew--I shouldn't have supposed that
any of them belonged to the real great world at all."
To my relief he took this good-naturedly.
"That's what we call social inexperience, little Alix. It's because you
don't know how to distinguish."
"That is, I don't know a good thing when I see it."
"You don't know that sort of good thing--the American who counts. But
you can learn. And if you learn you've got to take as a starting-point
the fact that, just as there are things one does and things one doesn't
do, so there are people one knows and people one doesn't know--and no
one can tell you the reason why."
"But if one asked for a reason--"
"It would queer you with the right people. They don't want a reason. If
people do want a reason--well, they've got to stay out of it. It was one
of the things Libby Jaynes picked up as if she'd been born to it. She
knew how to cut; she knew how to cut dead; and she cut as dead as she
knew how."
"But, Hugh, darling, I don't know how."
He was all forbearance.
"You'll learn, sweet." As for the moment the waitress was absent, he put
out his hand and locked his fingers within mine. "You've got it in you.
Once you've had a chance you'll knock Libby Jaynes into a cocked hat."
I shook my head.
"I'm not sure that you're right."
"I know I'm right, if you do as I tell you: and to begin with you've got
to put that fellow Strangways in his place."
I let it go at that, having so many other things to think of that any
mere status of my own became of no importance. I was willing that Hugh
should marry me as Tracy Allen married Libby Jaynes, or in any other
way, so long as I could play my part in the rest of the drama with
right-mindedness. But it was precisely that that grew more difficult.
When Mrs. Brokenshire and Mr. Grainger next met under what I can only
call my chaperonage they were distinctly more at ease. The first
stammering, shamefaced awkwardness was gone. They knew by this time what
they had to say and said it. They had also come to understand that if I
could not be moved I might be outwitted. By the simple expedient of
wandering away on the plea of looking at this or that decorative object
they obtained enough solitude to serve their purposes. Without taking
themselves beyond my range of vision they got out of earshot.
As far as that went I was relieved. I was not responsible for what they
did, but only for what I did myself. I was not their keeper; I didn't
want to be a spy on them. When, at a certain minute, as they returned
toward me, I saw him pass a letter to her, it was entirely by chance. I
reflected then that, while she ran no risk in using the mails in writing
to him, it was not so with him in writing to her, and that
communications of importance might have to pass between them. It was
nothing to me. I was sorry to have surprised the act and tried to
dismiss it from my mind.
It was repeated, however, the next time they came and many times after
that. Their comings settled into a routine of being twice a week, with
fair regularity. Tuesdays and Fridays were their days, though not
without variation. It was indeed this variation that saved the situation
on a certain afternoon when otherwise all might have been lost.