We had come to February, 1914. During the intervening months the
conditions in which I lived and worked underwent little change. My days
and nights were passed between the library and the Mary Chilton, with
few social distractions, though I had some. Larry Strangways's sister,
Mrs. Applegate, had called on me, and her house, a headquarters of New
York philanthropies, had opened to me its kindly doors. Through Mrs.
Applegate one or two other women came to relieve my loneliness, and now
and then old Halifax friends visiting New York took me to theaters and
to dinners at hotels. Ethel Rossiter was as friendly as fear of her
father and of social conventions permitted her to be, and once or twice
when she was quite alone I lunched with her. On each of these occasions
she had something new to tell me.
The first was that Hugh had met his father accidentally face to face,
and that the parent had cut the son. Of that Hugh had told me nothing.
According to Ethel, he was more affected by the incident than by
anything else since the beginning of his cares. He felt it too deeply to
speak of it even to me, to whom he spoke of everything.
It happened, I believe at the foot of the steps of a club. Hugh, who was
passing, saw his father coming down, and waited. Howard Brokenshire
brought into play his faculty of seeing without seeing, and went on
majestically, while Hugh stared after him with tears of vexation in his
eyes.
"He felt it the more," Mrs. Rossiter stated in her impartial way,
"because I doubt if he had the price of his dinner in his pocket."
It was then that she gave me to understand that if it were not that
Mildred was lending him money he would have nothing to subsist on at
all. Mildred had a little from her grandfather Brew, being privileged in
this respect because she was the only one of the first Mrs.
Brokenshire's children born at the time of the grandfather's demise. The
legacy had been a trifle, but from this fund, which had never been his
father's, Hugh consented to take loans.
"Hugh, darling," I said to him the next time I had speech with him,
"don't you see now that he's irreconcilable? He'll either starve you
into surrender--"
"Never," he cried, thumping the table with his hand.
"Or else you must take such work as you can get."
"Such work as I can get! Do you know how much that would bring me in a
week?"
"Even so," I reasoned, "you'd have work and I should have work, and we'd
live."
He was hurt.
"Americans don't believe in working their women," he declared, loftily.
"If I can't give you a life in which you'll have nothing at all to do--"
"But I don't want a life in which I'll have nothing at all to do," I
cried. "Your idle women strike me as a weak point in your national
organization. It's like the dinner-parties I've seen at some of your
restaurants and hotels--a circle of men at one table and a circle of
women at another. You revolve too much in separate spheres. Your women
have too little to do with business and politics and your men with
society and the fine arts. I'm not used to such a pitiless separation of
the sexes. Don't let us begin it, Hugh, darling. Let me share what you
share--"
"You won't share anything sordid, little Alix, I can tell you that. When
you're my wife you'll have nothing to think of but having a good time
and looking your prettiest--"
"I should die of it," I exclaimed but this he took as a joke.
That had passed in January. What Ethel Rossiter told me the next time I
lunched with her was that Lady Cecilia Boscobel had accepted her
invitation and was expected within a few weeks. She repeated what she
had already said of her, in exactly the same words.
"She's a good deal of a girl, Cissie is." My heart leaped and fell
almost simultaneously. If I could only give up Hugh in such a way that
he would have to give me up, this girl might help us out of our impasse.
Had Mrs. Rossiter stopped there I might have made some noble vow of
renunciation; but she went on: "If she wants Hugh she'll take him. Don't
be under any illusion about that."
Though my quick mettle was up, I said, docilely:
"Oh no, I'm not. But if you mean taking him away from me--well, a good
many people have tried it, haven't they?"
"Cissie Boscobel hasn't tried it."
But I was peaceably inclined.
"Oh, well," I said, "perhaps she won't. She may not think it worth her
while."
"If you want to know my opinion," Mrs. Rossiter insisted, as she helped
herself to the peas which the rosebud Thomas was passing, "I think she
will. Men aren't so plentiful over there as you seem to suppose--that
is, men of the kind they'd marry. Lord Goldborough has no money at all,
as you might say, and yet the girls have to be set up in big
establishments. You've only got to look at them to see it. Cissie
marrying a subaltern with a thousand pounds a year isn't thinkable. It
wouldn't dress her. She's coming over here to take a look at Hugh, and
if she likes him-- Well, I told you long ago that you'd be wise to snap
up that young Strangways. He's much better-looking than Hugh, and more
in your own-- Besides, Jim says that now that he's with"--she balked at
the name of Grainger--"now that he's where he is he's beginning to make
money. It doesn't take so long when people have the brains for it."
All this gave me a feeling of mingled curiosity and fear when, a few
weeks later, I came on Mrs. Rossiter and Lady Cecilia Boscobel looking
into a shop window in Fifth Avenue. It was a Saturday afternoon, the day
which I had off and on which I made my modest purchases. It was a cold,
brisk day, with light snow whirling in tiny eddies on the ground. I was
going northward on the sunny side. At a distance of some fifty yards I
recognized Mrs. Rossiter's motor standing by the curb, and cast my eyes
about for a possible glimpse of her. Moving away from the window of the
jeweler's whence she had probably come out, she saw me approach, and
turned at once with a word or two to the lady beside her, who also
looked in my direction. I knew by intuition who Mrs. Rossiter's
companion was, and that my connection with the family had been explained
to her.
Mrs. Rossiter made the presentation in her usual offhand way.
"Oh, Miss Adare! I want to introduce you to Lady Cecilia Boscobel."
We exchanged civil, remote, and non-committal salutations, each of us
with her hands in her muff. My immediate impression was one of color, as
it is when you see old Limoges enamels. There was more color in Lady
Cissie's personality than in that of any one I have ever looked at. Her
hair was red--not auburn or copper, but red--a decorative, flaming red.
I have often noticed how slight is the difference between beautiful red
hair and ugly. Lady Cissie's was of the shade that is generally ugly,
but which in her case was rendered glorious by the introduction of some
such pigment, gleaming and umber, as that which gives the peculiar hue
to Australian gold. I had never seen such hair or hair in such
quantities, except in certain pictures of the pre-Raphaelite
brotherhood, for which I should have supposed there could have been no
earthly model had my father not known Eleanor Siddall. Lady Cissie's
eyes were gray, with a greenish light in them when she turned her head.
Her complexion could only be compared to the kind of carnation which the
whitest of whites is flecked in just the right spots by the rosiest
rose. In the lips, which were full and firm, also like Eleanor
Siddall's, the rose became carmine, to melt away into coral-pink in the
shell-like ears. Her dress of seal-brown broadcloth, on which there was
a sheen, was relieved by occasional touches of sage-green, and the
numerous sable tails on her boa and muff blew this way and that way in
the wind. In the small black hat, perched at what I can only describe as
a triumphant angle, an orange wing became at the tip of each tiny
topmost feather a daring line of scarlet. Nestling on the sage-green
below the throat a row of amber beads slumbered and smoldered with lemon
and orange and ruby lights that now and then shot out rays of crimson or
scarlet fire.
I thought of my own costume--naturally. I was in gray, with inexpensive
black furs. An iridescent buckle, with hues such as you see in a
pigeon's neck, at the side of my black-velvet toque was my only bit of
color. I was poor Jenny Wren in contrast to a splendid bird-of-paradise.
So be it! I could at least be a foil to this healthy, vigorous young
beauty who was two inches taller than I, and might have my share of the
advantages which go with all antithesis.
The talk was desultory, and in it the English girl took no part. Mrs.
Rossiter asked me where I was going, what I was going for, and whether
or not she couldn't take me to my destination in her car. I declined
this offer, explained that my errands were trivial, and examined Lady
Cissie through the corner of my eye. On her side Lady Cissie examined me
quite frankly--not haughtily, but distantly and rather sympathetically.
She had come all this distance to take a look at Hugh, and I was the
girl he loved. I counted on the fact to give poor Jenny Wren her value,
and I think it did. At any rate, when I had answered all Mrs. Rossiter's
questions and was moving off to continue my way up-town, Lady Cissie's
rich lips quivered in a sort of farewell smile.
But Hugh showed little interest when I painted her portrait verbally.
"Yes, that's the girl," he observed indifferently, "red-headed,
long-legged, slashy-colored, laid on a bit too thick."
"She's beautiful, Hugh."
"Is she? Well, perhaps so. Wouldn't be my style; but every one to his
taste."
"It you saw her now--"
"Oh, I've seen her often enough, just as she's seen me."
"She hasn't seen you as you are to-day, and neither have you seen her. A
few years makes a difference."
He looked at me quizzically.
"Look here, little Alix, what are you giving us? Do you think I'd turn
you down now--for all the Lady Cissies in the British peerage? Do you,
now?"
"Not, perhaps, if you put it as turning me down--"
"Well, as you turning me down, then?"
"Our outlook is pretty dark, isn't it?"
"Just wait."
I ignored his pathetic boastfulness to continue my own sentence.
"And this prospect is so brilliant. You'd have a handsome wife, a big
income, a good position, an important family backing on both sides of
the Atlantic--all of which would make you the man you ought to be. Now
that I've seen her, and rather guess that she'd take you, I don't see
how I can let you forfeit so much. I don't want to make you regret the
day you ever saw me--"
"Or regret yourself the day you ever saw me."
If I took up this challenge it was more for his sake than my own.
"Then suppose I accept that way of putting it?"
He looked at me solemnly, for a second or two, after which he burst out
laughing. That I might have hesitations as to connecting myself with the
Brokenshires was more than he could grasp. He might have minutes of
jealousy of Larry Strangways, but his doubt could go no further. It went
no further, even after he had seen Lady Cecilia and they had renewed
their early acquaintance. Ethel Rossiter had managed that, of course
with her father's connivance.
"Fine big girl," Hugh commended, "but too showy."
"She's not showy," I contradicted. "A thing isn't necessarily showy
because it has bright colors. Tropical birds are not showy, nor roses,
nor rubies--"
"I prefer pearls," he said, quietly. "You're a pearl, little Alix, the
pearl of great price for which a man sells all that he has and buys it."
Before I could respond to this kindly speech he burst out: "Good Lord!
don't you suppose I can see what it all means? Cissie's the gay
artificial fly that's to tempt the fish away from the little silvery
minnow. Once I've darted after the bit of red and yellow dad will have
hooked me. That's his game. Don't you think I see it? What dad wants is
not that I shall have a wife I can love, but that he shall have a
daughter-in-law with a title. You'd have to be, well, what I hope you
will be some day, to know what that means to a man like dad. A
son-in-law with a title--that's as common as beans to rich Americans;
but a daughter-in-law with a title--a real, genuine British title, as
sound as the Bank of England--that's something new. You can count on the
fingers of one hand the American families that have got 'em"--he named
them, one in Philadelphia, one in Chicago, one or two in New York--"and
dad's as mad as blazes that he didn't think of the thing first. If he
had, he'd have put Jack on to it, in spite of all Pauline's money; but
since it's too late for that I must toe the mark. Well, I'm not going
to, do you see? I'm going to choose my own wife, and I've chosen her.
Birth and position mean nothing to me, for I'm as much of a Socialist as
ever--or almost."
With such resolution as this there was no way of reasoning, so that I
could only go on, wondering and hoping and doing what I could for the
best.
What I could do for the best included watching over Mrs. Brokenshire.
As winter progressed the task became harder and I grew the more anxious.
So far no one suspected her visits to Mr. Grainger's library, and to the
best of my knowledge her imprudence ended there. Further than to wander
about the room the lovers never tried to elude me, though now and then I
could see, without watching them, that he took her hand. Once or twice I
thought he kissed her, but of that I was happily not sure. It was a
relief, too, that as the days grew longer occasional visitors dropped in
while they were there. The old gentleman interested in prints and the
lady who studied Shakespeare came not infrequently. There were couples,
too, who wandered in, seeking for their own purposes a half-hour of
privacy. After all, the place was almost a public one to those who knew
how to find it; and I was quick enough to see that in this very
publicity lay a measure of salvation.
Mrs. Brokenshire was as quick to perceive this as I. When there were
other people there she was more at ease. Nothing was simpler then than
for Mr. Grainger and herself to be visitors like the rest, strolling
about or sitting in shady corners, and keeping themselves unrecognized.
There was thus a Thursday in the early part of March when I didn't
expect them, because it was a Thursday. They came, however, only to find
the old gentleman interested in prints and the lady who studied
Shakespeare already on the spot. I was never so glad of anything as of
this accidental happening when a surprising thing occurred to me next
day.
It was between half past five and six on the Friday. As the lovers had
come on the preceding day, I knew they would not appear on this, and was
beginning to make my preparations for going home. I was actually pinning
on my hat when the soft opening of the outer door startled me. A soft
step sounded in the little inner vestibule, and then there came an
equally soft, breathless standing still.
My hands were paralyzed in their upward position at my hat; my heart
pounded so that I could hear it; my eyes were wide with terror as they
looked back at me from the splendid Venetian mirror before which I
stood. I was always afraid of robbers or murderers, even though I had
the wrought-iron grille between me and them, and Mr. or Mrs. Daly within
call.
Knowing that there was nothing for it but to go and see who was there,
and suspecting that it might be Mrs. Brokenshire, after all, I dragged
my feet across the few intervening paces. It was not Mrs. Brokenshire.
It was a man, a man who looked inordinately big and majestic in this
little decorative pen. I needed a few seconds in which to gaze, a few
seconds in which to adjust my faculties, before grasping the fact that I
saw Mrs. Brokenshire's husband. On his side, he needed something of the
sort himself. Of all people in the world with whom he expected to find
himself face to face I am sure I must have been the last.
I touched the spring, however, and the little portal opened. It opened
and he stepped in. He stepped in and stood still. He stood still and
looked round him. If I dare to say it of one who was never timid in his
life, he looked round him timidly. His eyes showed it, his attitude
showed it. He had come on a hateful errand; his feet were on hateful
ground. He expected to see something more than me--and emptiness.
I got back some of my own self-control by being sorry for him, giving no
indication of ever having met him before.
"You'd like to see the library, sir," I said, as I should have said it
to any chance visitor.
He dropped into a large William and Mary chair, one of the show pieces,
and placed his silk hat on the floor.
"I'll sit down," he murmured less to me than to himself. His stick he
dandled now across and now between his knees.
The tea things were still on the table.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" I asked, in genuine solicitude.
"Yes--no." I think he would have liked it, but he probably remembered
whose tea it was. "No," he repeated, with decision.
He breathed heavily, with short, puffy gasps. I recalled then that Mrs.
Brokenshire had said that his heart had been affected. As a matter of
fact, he put his gloved left hand up to it, as people do who feel
something giving way within.
To relieve the embarrassment of the situation I said:
"I could turn on all the lights and you could see the library without
going round it."
Withdrawing the hand at his heart, he raised it in the manner with which
I was familiar.
"Sit down," he commanded, as sternly as his shortness of breath allowed.
The companion William and Mary chair being near, I slipped into it.
Having him in three-quarters profile, I could study him without doing it
too obviously, and could verify Mrs. Brokenshire's statements that
Hugh's affairs were "telling on him." He was perceptibly older, in the
way in which people look older all at once after having long kept the
semblance of youth. The skin had grown baggy, the eyes tired; the beard
and mustache, though as well cared for as ever, more decidedly mixed
with gray. It was indicative of something that had begun to disintegrate
in his self-esteem, that when his poor left eye screwed up he turned the
terrifying right one on me with no effort to conceal the grimace.
As it was for him to break the silence, I waited in my huge ornamental
chair, hoping he would begin.
"What are you doing here?"
The voice had lost none of its soft staccato nor of its whip-lash snap.
"I'm Mr. Grainger's librarian," I replied, meekly.
"Since when?" he panted.
"Since not long after I left Mrs. Rossiter."
He took his time to think another question out.
"How did your employer come to know about you?"
I explained, as though he had had no knowledge of the fact, that Mrs.
Rossiter had employed for her boy, Brokenshire, a tutor named
Strangways. This Mr. Strangways had attracted Mr. Grainger's attention
by some articles he had written for the financial press. An introduction
had followed, after which Mr. Grainger had engaged the young man as his
secretary. Hearing that Mr. Grainger had need of a librarian, Mr.
Strangways had suggested me.
I could see suspicion in the way in which he eyed me as well as in his
words.
"Had you no other recommendation?"
"No, sir," I said, simply, "none that Mr. Grainger ever told me of."
He let that pass.
"And what do you do here?"
"I show the library to visitors. If any one wishes a particular book, or
to look at engravings, I help him to find what he wants." I thought it
well to keep up the fiction that he had come as a sight-seer. "If you'd
care to go over the place now, sir--"
His hand went up in a majestic waving aside of this courtesy.
"And have you many visitors to the--to the library?"
Though I saw the implication, I managed to elude it.
"Yes, sir, taking one day with another. It depends a little on the
weather and the time of year."
"Are they chiefly strangers--or--or do you ever see any one
you've--you've seen before?"
His difficulty in phrasing this question made me even more sorry for him
than I was already. I decided, both for his sake and my own, to walk up
frankly and take the bull by the horns. "They're generally strangers;
but sometimes people come whom I know." I looked at him steadily as I
continued. "I'll tell you something, sir. Perhaps I ought not to, and it
may be betraying a secret; but you might as well know it from me as hear
it from some one else." The expression of the face he turned on me was
so much that of Jove, whose look could strike a man dead, that I had all
I could do to go on. "Mrs. Brokenshire comes to see me."
"To see--you?"
"Yes, sir, to see me."
The staccato accent grew difficult and thick. "What for?"
"Because she can't help it. She's sorry for me."
There was a new attempt to ignore me and my troubles as he said:
"Why should she be sorry for you?"
"Because she sees that you're hard on me--"
"I haven't meant to be hard on you, only just."
"Well, just then; but Mrs. Brokenshire doesn't know anything about
justice when she can be merciful. You must know that yourself, sir. I
think she's the most beautiful woman God ever made; and she's as kind as
she's beautiful. I'll tell you something else, sir. It will be another
betrayal, but it will show you what she is. One day at Newport--after
you'd spoken to me--and she saw that I was so crushed by it that all I
could do was to creep down among the rocks and cry--she watched me, and
followed me, and came and cried with me. And so when she heard I was
here--"
"Who told her?"
There was a measure of accusation in the tone of the question, but I
pretended not to detect it.
"Mrs. Rossiter, perhaps--she knows--or almost anybody. I never asked
her."
"Very well! What then?"
"I was only going to say that when she heard I was here she came almost
at once. I begged her not to--"
"Why? What were you afraid of?"
"I knew you wouldn't like it. But I couldn't stop her. No one could stop
her when it comes to her doing an act of kindness. She obeys her own
nature because she can't do anything else. She's like a little bird that
you can keep from flying by holding it in your hand, but as soon as your
grasp is relaxed--it flies."
Something of this was true, in that it was true potentially. She had
these qualities, even if they were nipped in her as buds are nipped in a
backward spring. I could only calm my conscience as I went along by
saying to myself that if I saved her she would have to bear me out
through being true to the picture I was painting, and living up to her
real self.
Praise of the woman he adored would have been as music to him had he
not had something on his mind that turned music into poignancy. What it
was I could surmise, and so be prepared for it. Not till he had been
some time silent, probably getting his question into the right words,
did he say:
"And are you always alone when Mrs. Brokenshire comes?"
"Oh no, sir!" I made the tone as natural as I could. "But Mrs.
Brokenshire doesn't seem to mind. Yesterday, for instance--"
"Was she here yesterday? I thought she came on--"
I broke in before he could betray himself further.
"Yes, she was here yesterday; and there was--let me see!--there was an
old gentleman comparing his Japanese prints with Mr. Grainger's, and a
middle-aged lady who comes to study the old editions of Shakespeare. But
Mrs. Brokenshire didn't object to them. She sat with me and had a cup of
tea."
I knew I had come to dangerous ground, and was ready for my part in the
adventure. Had he asked the question: "Was there anybody else?" I was
resolved, in the spirit of my maxim, to tell the truth as harmlessly as
I knew how. But I didn't think he would ask it. I reckoned on his
unwillingness to take me into his confidence or to humiliate himself
more than he could help. That he guessed at something behind my words I
could easily suspect; but I was so sure he would have torn out his
tongue rather than force his pride to cross-examine me too closely, that
I was able to run my risk.
As a matter of fact, he became pensive, and through the gloom of the
half-lighted room I could see that his face was contorted twice, still
with no effort on his part to hide his misfortune. As he took the time
to think I could do the same, with a kind of intuition in following the
course of his meditations. I was not surprised, therefore, when he said,
with renewed thickness of utterance:
"Has Mrs. Brokenshire any--any other motive in coming here than
just--just to see you?"
I hung my head, perhaps with a touch of that play-acting spirit which
most women are able to command, when the time comes.
"Yes, sir."
He waited again. I never heard such overtones of despair as were in the
three words which at last he tried to toss off easily.
"What is it?"
I still hung my head.
"She brings me money for poor Hugh."
He started back, whether from anger or relief I couldn't tell, and his
face twitched for the fourth time. In the end, I suppose, he decided
that anger was the card he could play most skilfully.
"So that that's what enables him to keep up his rebellion against me!"
"No, sir," I said, humbly, "because he never takes it." I went on with
that portrait of Mrs. Brokenshire which I vowed she would have to
justify. "That doesn't make any difference, however, to her wonderful
tenderness of heart in wanting him to have it. You see, sir, when any
one's so much like an angel as she is they don't stop to consider how
justly other people are suffering or how they've brought their troubles
on themselves. Where there's trouble they only ask to help; where
there's suffering their first instinct is to heal. Mrs. Brokenshire
doesn't want to sustain your son against you; that never enters her
head: she only wants him not--not"--my own voice shook a little--"not
to have to go without his proper meals. He's doing that now, I
think--sometimes, at least. Oh, sir," I ventured to plead, "you can't
blame her, not when she's so--so heavenly." Stealing a glance at him, I
was amazed and shocked, and not a little comforted, to see two tears
steal down his withered cheeks. Knowing then that he would not for some
minutes be able to control himself sufficiently to speak, I hurried on.
"Hugh doesn't take the money, because he knows that this is something he
must go through with on his own strength. If he can't do that he must
give in. I think I've made that clear to him. I'm not the adventuress
you consider me--indeed I'm not. I've told him that if he's ever
independent I will marry him; but I shall not marry him so long as he
isn't free to give himself away. He's putting up a big fight, and he's
doing it so bravely, that if you only knew what he's going through you'd
be proud of him as your son."
Resting my case there, I waited for some response, but I waited in vain.
He reflected, and sat silent, and crossed and uncrossed his knees. At
last he picked up his hat from the floor and rose. I, too, rose, waiting
beside my chair, while he flicked the dust from the crown of his hat and
seemed to study its glossy surface as he still reflected.
I was now altogether without a clue to what was passing in his mind,
though I could guess at the age-long tragedy of December's love for May.
Having seen Ibsen's "Master Builder," at Munich, and read one or two
books on the theme with which it deals, I could, in a measure,
supplement my own experience. It was, however, the first time I had seen
with my own eyes this desperate yearning of age for youth, or this
something that is almost a death-blow which youth can inflict on age. My
father used to say that fundamentally there is no such period as age,
that only the outer husk grows old, while the inner self, the vital
_ego_, is young eternally. Here, it seemed to me, was an instance of the
fact. This man was essentially as young as he had been at twenty-five;
he had the same instincts and passions; he demanded the same things. If
anything, he demanded them more imperiously because of the long, long
habit of desire. Denial which thirty years ago he could have taken
philosophically was now a source of anguish. As I looked at him I could
see anguish on his lips, in his eyes, in the contraction of his
forehead--the anguish of a love ridiculous to all, and to the object of
it frightful and unnatural, for the reason that at sixty-two the skin
had grown baggy and the heart was supposed to be dead.
From the smoothing of the crown of his hat he glanced up suddenly. The
whip-lash inflection was again in the timbre of the voice.
"How much do you get here?"
I was taken aback, but I named the amount of my salary.
"I will give you twice as much as that for the next five years if--if
you go back to where you came from."
It took me a minute to seize all the implications contained in this
little speech. I saw then that if I hoped I was making an impression, or
getting further ahead with him, I was mistaken. Neither had my
interpretation of Mrs. Brokenshire's character put him off the scent
concerning her. I was so far indeed from influencing him in either her
favor or my own that he believed that if he could get rid of me an
obstacle would be removed.
Tears sprang into my eyes, though they didn't fall.
"So you blame me, sir, for everything."
He continued to watch his gloved hand as it made the circle of the crown
of his hat.
"I'll make it twice what you're getting here for ten years. I'll put it
in my will." It was no use being angry or mounting my high horse. The
struggle with tears kept me silent as he glanced up from the rubbing of
his hat and said in a jerky, kindly tone: "Well? What do you say?"
I didn't know what to say; and what I did say was foolish. I should have
known enough to suppress it before I began.
"Do you remember, sir, that once when you were speaking to me severely,
you said you were my friend? Well, why shouldn't I be your friend, too?"
The look he bent down on me was that of a great personage positively
dazed by an inferior's audacity.
"I could be your friend," I stumbled on, in an absurd effort to explain
myself. "I should like to be. There are--there are things I could do for
you."
He put on his tall hat with the air of a Charlemagne or a Napoleon
crowning himself. This increase of authority must have made me
desperate. It is only thus that I can account for my _gaffe_--the French
word alone expresses it--as I dashed on, wildly:
"I like you, sir--I can't help it. I don't know why, but I do. I like
you in spite of--in spite of everything. And, oh, I'm so sorry for
you--"
He moved away. There was noble, wounded offense in his manner of passing
through the wrought-iron grille, which he closed with a little click
behind him. He stepped out of the place as softly as he had stepped in.
For long minutes I stood, holding to the side of the William and Mary
chair, regretting that the interview should have ended in this way. I
didn't cry; I had, in fact, no longer any tendency to tears. I was
thoughtful--wondering what it was that dug the gulf between this man and
his family and me. Ethel Rossiter had never--I could see it well enough
now--accepted me as an equal, and even to Hugh I was only another type
of Libby Jaynes. I was as intelligent as they, as well born, as well
mannered, as thoroughly accustomed to the world. Why should they
consider me an inferior? Was it because I had no money? Was it because I
was a Canadian? Would it have made a difference if I had been an
Englishwoman like Cissie Boscobel, or rich like any of themselves? I
couldn't tell. All I knew was that my heart was hot within me, and since
Howard Brokenshire wouldn't have me as a friend I wanted to act as his
enemy. I could see how to do it. Indeed, without doing anything at all I
could encourage, and perhaps bring about, a situation that would send
the name of the family ringing through the press of two continents and
break his heart. I had only to sit still--or at most to put in a word
here and there. I am not a saint; I had my hour of temptation.
It was a stormy hour, though I never moved from the spot where I stood.
The storm was within. That which, as the minutes went by, became rage in
me saw with satisfaction Howard Brokenshire brought to a desolate old
age, and Mildred and Ethel and Jack and Pauline, in spite of their
bravado and their high heads, all seared by the flame of notorious
disgrace. I went so far as to gloat over poor Hugh's discomfiture,
taking vengeance on his habit of rating me with the socially
incompetent. As for Mrs. Brokenshire, she would be over and done with, a
poor little gilded outcast, whose fall would be such that even as Mrs.
Stacy Grainger she would never rise again. Like another Samson, I could
pull down this house of pride, though, happier than Samson, I should not
be overwhelmed in the ruin of it. From that I should be safe--with Larry
Strangways.
Nearly half an hour went by while I stood thus indulging in fierce
day-dreams. I was racked and suffering. I suffered, indeed, from the
misfortunes I saw descending on people whom at bottom of my heart I
cared for. It was not till I began to move, till I had put on my jacket
and was turning out the lights, that my maxim came back to me. I knew
then that whatever happened I should stand by that, and having come to
this understanding with myself, I was quieted.