chagrined. “It’s a beautiful spot, and it’s _not_ snakey.”
“It is!” said Andrée. “We’ve seen snakes swimming in your beautiful
natural swimming pool.”
“They weren’t poisonous snakes, then,” he assured her. “And they’ll keep
out of your way.”
“I won’t give them the trouble,” said Andrée.
“We’ll look after you, Miss Edna and I,” said Mr. MacGregor. He always
made a point of pretending that he and Edna were the firmest of allies,
perhaps because she was the only member of the family he didn’t at all
fear.
“I believe I’ll risk it!” said Edna. “It looks so lovely and cool and
I’m so terribly hot.”
The fat youth and the young man had gone away again, and Mr. MacGregor
and the host withdrew, to return very promptly in their bathing suits.
Claudine was filled with quiet amusement at them; each was so evidently
satisfied with his superiority over the other. Mr. MacGregor had an air
of saying “I don’t believe you realized what a fine, big man I am! This
poor chap’s tights are too short for me, and my chest almost bursts his
poor little jersey. I may be an artist, but what a manly one!” And young
Stephens, straighter than ever, couldn’t keep a grin from his freckled
face; he was itching with a desire to show off. He was, moreover, very
proud of the arrangements he had provided for the ladies; a little tent
to serve as their dressing-room, with a mirror fastened to one of its
sides.
It was characteristic that Andrée should be the most daring and reckless
of them all. Claudine could not swim; she waded waist deep into the pool
and stood there throwing water over her shoulders, like a little statue
in a fountain, Edna thought, full of a precise and formal grace, not one
burnished hair out of place. Mr. MacGregor swam powerfully all about the
pool once or twice, to show his strength, and Edna followed him, and
though she didn’t go nearly so fast, she wasn’t nearly so tired. He felt
a little pang of envy for her youth that tinged his admiration for her
with an almost unkindly feeling. Seen in a bathing suit, she was more
robust than one would have imagined; she was small, like her mother, but
it was not at all a fairylike smallness. She had a beautiful, a perfect
figure, well-developed, supple, and sturdy; her skin was as white as a
Dryad’s in that tree-shadowed place, and her blond hair was like
sunshine, although her dimpled face had no sort of resemblance to any
wild wood creature. Never would she pine or die for love! She was a
young woman, not a sprite, and she had all of woman’s marvelous
resources against suffering. Compared with her, Andrée was an immature
and _farouche_ school-girl.
And yet it was she they all looked at. She was a fleet swimmer, but with
little endurance. She had a well-known trick of swimming out too far and
becoming panic-stricken and needing help to get back to the shore. She
had a positive talent for alarming and distressing the others, for being
perpetually the centre of attention. It was not that she consciously
tried to “show off,” like Stephens; what she did, she did to satisfy
some requirement of her own nature. She insisted upon swimming too near
the waterfall; she _would_ dive, heedless of remonstrance. She was
wayward, taciturn, defiant. She was the only one of the women to get her
hair wet, the only one who emerged dank, shivering and dishevelled. And
when they sat down on the pebbly shore for supper, she alone was untidy,
she alone out of spirits. Her damp hair hung about her shoulders, her
lips were bluish; she had only the curtest answers, and was obviously
disinclined to speak at all.
“I’m afraid you stayed in the water too long,” said Claudine, with a
shade of anxiety.
“No,” whispered Edna to her mother. “It’s not that. She was simply
terrified every minute! That snake, you know! And yet, of course, she
would hover about the very spot where we saw it.... Don’t speak to her,
Mother darling! She’ll be all right in a few minutes.”
The supper was undeniably a triumph for Mr. Stephens. He had done
wonders. Carefully concealed, he had caused to be brought a freezer of
ice cream, great vacuum bottles of iced tea, and rum to flavour it for
those who liked it. His bearers had lighted a fire before leaving, and
in it were roasted potatoes and corn. There were also cold chicken and a
fine boiled ham and a great number of other delicacies. The guests were
hungry and complimentary.
Afterward he brought out that gold cigarette case and passed it about.
“Do you mind if I have one, Mother?” asked Andrée.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” said Claudine, coldly. There was nothing she
disliked more.
But Mr. MacGregor intervened.
“As long as Miss Andrée isn’t a singer,” he said, “won’t you be
indulgent, Mrs. Vincelle? I believe they’re very good for the nerves. In
my younger days, of course, such a thing would have been out of the
question. But live and learn! My own sister--”
“Mercy, what a killing look!” murmured Edna to her sister. “He wants to
show you how up-to-date and young he is!”
“Very well!” said Claudine, graciously. But it was not Mr. MacGregor’s
plea which had persuaded her; it was the peculiar look on her child’s
face. It would be unwise to cross her, she thought.
And Andrée smoked, leaning back against a tree, looking an abandoned,
reckless young creature, surrounded by a subtle and dangerous atmosphere
of adoration.
The moon came up ... what further enchantment did she need than that
light on her pale, dark face, than all that sweetness and mystery of the
midsummer night about her?
The bearers came back and took away their burdens, and a little later
the picnickers followed. Claudine walked a little in advance with Mr.
MacGregor, and whenever, with a strange uneasiness, she turned to look
behind her, she certainly saw two little points of light from two
cigarettes among the shadows.
She condemned Mr. Stephens to Limbo.
§ iii
Naturally when Gilbert came out the next week-end he wished to know all
about this picnic, and he wished to know also, although he dared not
ask, why his candidate, Mr. MacGregor, had appeared so obviously
discouraged. They had become great friends; they dined and went to the
theatre together, and maintained a delightful bachelor intimacy, coming
and going as they pleased. He had listened to MacGregor’s praise of
Claudine with a sore heart. She kept her charm, her affability, well
hidden from her husband! There she sat beside him, on the veranda, her
book politely closed on her lap, just wifely, no more.
“Who was the fellow who gave the picnic?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of
him. You haven’t mentioned his name in your letters.”
“You’ll see him in the dining-room this evening,” said Claudine. “He’s
not--not quite our own sort, you know, Gilbert, but he’s very nice and
pleasant.”
“Well, I’m no snob!” said Gilbert. He was in a wonderfully pleasant
mood, his wife noticed, and if she had felt the least assurance of its
keeping on, she would have unbent a little. But so many, many times had
she hurried to meet him half way, only to see him retreat.... His
thoughts would have astounded her.
“Why in God’s name can’t the woman be simple and friendly with me--and
not so damned suspicious!” he said to himself. “She’s always watching me
out of the corners of her eyes.... If we’re not--in love, there’s no
reason why we shouldn’t be friends.”
He was really anxious to be friendly that day, poor devil, who had never
had a friend in his life, or ever been one!
“No, I’m not a snob,” he went on. “That’s a feminine failing. But I
don’t like my family making bosom friends of people I don’t know.”
“He’s certainly not a bosom friend,” said Claudine, “and as for your
not knowing him, how could that be helped, when you weren’t here?”
“Very well! Very well!” he said, impatiently. “We won’t argue. Introduce
the fellow to me, and I’ll soon see what sort he is.”
No one could imagine Claudine’s dread and misery. She knew very well
what Gilbert would think of Mr. Stephens.
His solitary little table was near a window, and a vagrant breeze that
ruffled his light hair gave him a boyish and untidy look. He had a book
propped up before him and he was eating absent-mindedly. She pointed him
out with a smile which was the equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders,
throwing the poor young fellow to the wolves.
“There he is, Gilbert!” she said.
Gilbert stared incredulously at the cheerful young man, with sleeves
rolled up on his sunburnt arms, coatless, innocently absorbed in his
book.
“What!” he said. “That fellow!”
“I told you he wasn’t quite--”
“And that’s the sort of man you encourage--and have hanging around your
daughters, while you raise cain about a gentleman like MacGregor!”
He stared again.
“You introduce him to me,” he said, “and I’ll soon settle his hash!”
“Don’t be rude to him, Gilbert! Remember we’ve accepted his
hospitality.... You’ll put me in a very undignified position.”
“You’ve done that for yourself,” he said.
With what reluctance did she approach the unsuspecting young man, and
present him to Gilbert! He got up with alacrity and held out his hand,
but Gilbert ignored it. He glanced round, and saw that Claudine had
gone, and that he might therefore be rude without fear of interruption.
He was terribly upset; he had a dim suspicion that Claudine had set up
this man in opposition to his Mr. MacGregor, that it was altogether some
beastly feminine plot.
“I want to thank you for your hospitality to my family,” he said,
slowly. “However--”
“However?” repeated Mr. Stephens, encouragingly, but Gilbert found it
very difficult to go on. He stood with his hands behind his back, the
very image of respectability and decent prosperity, lowering at “that
grasshopper,” as he mentally named the other.
“However,” said Mr. Stephens. “It mustn’t happen again. Is that it?” He
was, it must be confessed, rather unduly sensitive to the social
disapproval of capitalists.
“Yes!” said Gilbert. “I’m very particular--in regard to the
acquaintances--about the people--about people I know nothing
about--where my family is concerned.”
“Well,” said Stephens, “you can investigate, if you like. You can find
out all about me. You can write to--”
“No! It won’t do!... No, I’ll have to ask you to--to discontinue the
intimacy.”
“There isn’t any intimacy.”
“There’s not to be any intercourse whatever.”
“I don’t see how you can stop it,” said Stephens.
“I forbid it!” said Gilbert, with a scowl.
“You can’t forbid me, you know. As for your ‘family,’ I don’t know
whether you can forbid them or not. That’s their business. If they
consider it the best policy to knuckle down, why, I shan’t think any the
worse of them. It’s the way of the world to dance when the fellow with
the money fiddles. You--”
“Look here, you damned, impudent, vulgar jackanapes--”
“Don’t begin calling names, or I might call you a damn’ vulgar bully.
But I won’t. I don’t lose my temper so easily. Fellows like me know that
when they do lose their tempers, they’ve got to back it up with their
fists. Something your sort never do, do you? You yell and curse, and
that’s the end of it.”
They were disturbed by the distressful voice of Mrs. Dewey, outraged by
these loud voices, but respectful before two such profitable persons.
“Gentlemen!” she said. “Please ...!”
Gilbert turned on his heel and strode out of the room. He went, of
course, to his wife.
“I’ve been having a talk with that gentlemanly friend of yours,” he
said, with a desperate effort to steady his voice. “And I want to tell
you, once and for all, I’ll have--I’ll have ... I’ll have.... Understand
me, both of you--and I want you to tell Andrée, too--you’re not to speak
to the fellow again. Under any circumstances.”
“I’ll have to answer him if he speaks to me,” said Edna.
Both her parents were astonished.
“No, you don’t!” said her father. “I won’t have it!”
“I can’t be rude to him,” said Edna, in her most tranquil, sensible
voice.
“I tell you!” shouted Gilbert. “I won’t have it!”
Edna said nothing, but the expression of her face was not obedient.
Gilbert didn’t know how to proceed; he hesitated a moment, then he
turned away.
“Claudine,” he said, from the doorway, “this is your business! You
brought them up, and now you can handle them. You see to it that
my--wishes are carried out. Understand, I’ll have no nonsense!”
“Oh, my dear child!” said Claudine, when the door had banged after him.
“I wish you had more--tact! Surely Mr. Stephens isn’t worth a quarrel
with your own father!”
“I don’t know, Mother. I think he’s rather wonderful. I wouldn’t be rude
to him for anything. You know Andrée and I have seen a lot of him this
week. We’ve been rowing with him, and walking, and he’s been as nice as
could be. You can’t imagine!... He’s so different from anyone else we’ve
ever known. And even if he is common, he’s not the least
bit--objectionable. Why, Mother, you can see how trustworthy and honest
he is! It’s written all over him!”
“I know, my dear. But your father--”
“Father’s not infallible. He makes mistakes. He’s not a good judge of
people at all. And I’m not going to be rude to the poor man. And I’m
_sure_ Andrée won’t, either. She loves to hear him talk. She says he
makes her ambitious.”
Claudine was in despair. How did other mothers manage to impress their
children? Was the trouble because she was singularly ineffectual or
because her children were singularly rebellious? It didn’t occur to her
that it might be because she was wrong. She decided to try another
tack.
“Edna!” she cried, fervently. “For my sake, dear, avoid any trouble with
your father! You can’t think how it distresses me!”
“Mother!” said Edna, firmly. “That’s not fair! That’s just as bad as
Father’s way. It isn’t fair to try to make me do what I don’t think is
right.”
But she melted at the sight of her mother’s face.
“Very well, darling!” she said. “I hate to do it, but if it’ll make you
any happier, I’ll be tactful. Father won’t know a thing about it. I’ll
give Mr. Stephens a little hint. He’s never offended. I’ll only talk to
him when Father isn’t here.”
And Claudine must be satisfied with this.
CHAPTER SEVEN
STEPHENS EXPLAINS HIMSELF
It was perhaps a mistake not to have told all this to Andrée. She had
been almost all the afternoon in the woodshed with two baby kittens she
adored, quite happy there in the dim light and the quiet, and determined
to avoid the possibility of a motor ride with her father. When she came
in to dress for supper, everyone was calm again, and Mr. Stephens’ name
wasn’t mentioned. After supper Gilbert had to return to the city, and
his wife and Edna went with him to the station, but Andrée said she had
a headache, and remained behind. She sat in a corner of the veranda,
still in the same vague and happy mood in which she had passed the
afternoon, glad to be alone.
Presently she saw a familiar figure in the lighted doorway, and she
called out, cheerfully--
“Hello, Mr. Stephens!”
“Hello!” he answered, but to her amazement, instead of coming to her, he
went on toward the steps.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “To the drugstore? I’ll come with
you.”
“No,” he answered. “No ... I was going for a walk.”
“Wait a minute!” she said, and jumping up, went over to him.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You’re--queer! Why don’t you sit down
and talk to me?”
He glanced uneasily at the row of dark figures rocking behind them.
“Well ... under the circumstances ...” he murmured.
“What circumstances?”
“You know what your father said--”
“No, I don’t, and I don’t care, either. Tell me!”
“Not here.”
“Then let’s walk!”
They strolled over the lawn, beyond earshot of the veranda.
“Well,” said he. “We had--words. He told me not to speak to any of you
again. I said, of course, I’d speak to you as long as you cared to speak
to me.... But--”
“How beastly!” cried Andrée. “How horrible! But please don’t pay any
attention to it. Edna and I never do.”
“At first I thought I wouldn’t. They’re free agents, I thought; it’s up
to them to say whether they want to drop me or not. I’ve never had much
respect for parental authority, in regard to adults. But when I’d
thought it over--I saw it wouldn’t do. It’s not fair to you. You’re not
free agents. It puts you in a rotten position.”
“So you’re not going to speak to us?”
“No, not that.... I’m going away to-morrow morning.”
“No! No! Don’t! I couldn’t bear to think you were driven away like that!
Please don’t go!”
“I must. I’ve told Mrs. Dewey already. I--the whole thing has made
me--sick. I’ve got to go!”
Andrée stopped short.
“Very well!” she said. “If that’s all you care....”
“It has nothing to do with--caring.”
“If you valued our friendship--as I do--”
“You don’t!” he cried. “You don’t! You can’t! You don’t know me.... I’m
just a sort of--of freak--to amuse you on your holiday.”
“Look here!” said Andrée, sternly. “What makes you think that? You’re
the last person in the world I’d have expected to be--silly and
sensitive and imagining things like that. Can’t you see that Edna and I
like you?”
“I thought you did.... But to tell you the truth, I never know, with
people like you, how much is real, and how much is politeness. I’m not
polite; I’m not used to politeness.”
“No one else ever thought that Edna and I were very polite,” she
observed, laughing.
“But I can’t make you out!” he cried. “I never realized what a
difference there was.... You’re a mystery to me.”
“Don’t think like that,” said Andrée, rather sharply. “What I admired so
much about you was your way of looking at everyone as simply _human_.”
They had turned down the road in the direction of the big hotel; in the
dusk he could see her face, and never had anything seemed to him less
simply human. She looked to him so wonderful, so strange, so troubling;
all his ideas about the frank and sensible companionship that ought to
exist between man and woman were dissolving in her spell. Never had he
felt less companionable--or less human. He was exalted and very unhappy.
Humility was not one of his virtues; he had an honest consciousness of
his own worth, and he did not feel humble now, but he was frightened. He
knew very well that he was in love with her, and in a silly,
unreasonable way, too. He saw no justification for adoring a woman, but
he adored this one.
“Well ...” he said. “Why do you like me, anyway?”
“Because you’re _real_,” answered Andrée, promptly. “And honest. And
specially because you haven’t any limits.”
“Oh--outside the pale!” he cried, very much hurt.
Andrée was surprised.
“Why do you always think things like that?” she asked. “You seem to
think that matters so much--that--that artificial difference. It doesn’t
to me.”
“It has to. I know I’m touchy. I’m ashamed of it, but I can’t help it.
I’m always looking for slights, and I generally find them.... But what
did you mean then by my not having any limits?”
“I meant a sort of feeling--that I could tell you anything. You might
not always understand, but you’d try. You’d listen. I couldn’t imagine
you ever saying ‘This is _too_ much!’ like Father. You haven’t put up
any boundaries.”
“I see,” he said, gravely. “Well ... it’s true, to some extent. I don’t
pretend to understand everyone, but I can say I’ve never seen a soul yet
that was really--well, altogether strange to me. There’s always
something in common.... Now, with women, you know. Lots of these
fellows--writers and all--they like to call woman a mystery. I know I
said you were, but now I’m speaking in a general sense. My idea is--”
He stopped and looked a little anxiously at Andrée, and was reassured by
her quiet attention. He had long ago grasped that strange quality of
comprehension in her; she was not particularly clever or original, but
she could grasp everything. She didn’t know; she saw. It was like a
seeress gazing into a crystal; she might not comprehend the significance
of what was presented, but she _saw_, so clearly and justly. Experience
in talking to feminine comrades had taught him how dangerously inclined
they were to make personal applications; this girl would never do that.
He went on, a little more easily.
“I don’t see anything mysterious in women,” he said. “I haven’t any use
for what you call ‘chivalry.’ I’d defend a woman--any woman, anywhere,
but it wouldn’t be because I--well--felt any reverence; it would be
because she was weaker. I wouldn’t try to make life easy for women--or
for anyone.... Only a fair show. I’m a man; I expect to take a man’s
part in the world. And I look to women to take their own part, and do
their own work, and shoulder their own burdens.... Here’s the
drug-store; shall we have a soda?”
Andrée assented and they went into the shop, which was filled with
couples engaged in the same pursuit. He found a stool for Andrée, but
there was none for himself; and he stood beside her, seriously consuming
an elaborate thing of nuts, marshmallow, syrup and ice-cream. He was
conscious all the time that he was enjoying a luxury; this thing was to
him no frappé, but a symbol, a part of his share of the benefits of
civilization. He would have liked to arrange for every one of the
workers of the world to have a due allowance of such confections. His
thoughts at that moment were very far from Andrée; he was, in fact,
concerned with the memory of a hokey-pokey vendor on the lower East
Side, surrounded by dirty children pitifully eager for his poisonous
wares. He might have been disappointed to know how personally Andrée had
applied his words--and then, he might not have been.
His words--“I’m a man, and I expect to take a man’s part in the world,”
had given her a curious thrill.
“He is a man!” she thought. “More so than anyone I’ve ever met.” She
glanced back over her shoulder at him, but his blue eyes were fixed upon
the bourgeoisie consuming their unearned luxuries. She thought that
among all the men there he stood forth notably as soldier, sturdier,
oddly impressive in his utter honesty. And not bad-looking. His short
blond hair showed a neat, well shaped head, the mouth beneath his absurd
little mustache was a well cut one, resolute and very kindly; he carried
himself splendidly.
“Well!” he said, at last. “Let’s be getting on!”
Andrée got up, still thoughtful. He turned in the direction of Pine
Villa, but she protested.
“I don’t want to go back now!”
“Better,” he said cheerfully. “Your mother’ll be worried.”
This did not please Andrée, for she felt that any such dutiful ideas
should have come from herself. She was about to say something a little
disagreeable, when they caught sight of Claudine coming down the road,
always an unmistakable figure by her gait and her bearing. The young man
was disconcerted; he had no way of knowing how she had regarded her
husband’s hostility, and he was very much in dread of her politeness. It
was too dark to see her face; he had to wait for her voice, and to his
great relief, it came to him tranquil and friendly. She didn’t say
anything remarkable, only “Good evening,” but it implied for him all
sorts of astounding and exquisite things. She didn’t mind his taking a
walk with the matchless Andrée....
“I hope you’re not converting Andrée,” she said, in just the light and
agreeable tone she would have used toward any of the bourgeoisie. “I
shouldn’t like her to be a Revolutionary.”
“I’m not, myself,” he answered, seriously. “Did you ever read
Dostoievsky, Mrs. Vincelle?”
“Yes,” she answered, secretly amused at his fatal responsiveness.
“Well, I think that fellow’s idea is the best philosophy I’ve ever come
across. I believe to some extent in Conscious Evolution, but not so much
through the development of a new type of humanity as through the
development of compassion. You know. The kingdom of Heaven on earth. I
think it’s compassion rather than intelligence that can save the world.
If you can learn to pity, you learn to help.”
“Presupposing a little energy,” said Claudine. He was very much aware of
her resistance; she did not wish to argue; she had a dread of being
serious; she was never, never, to be convinced. Her mind and her
opinions were unalterably formed; she was willing enough to listen, to
think, but she accepted nothing. It was altogether different from
talking to Andrée.
“I think it’s quite possible to be compassionate and selfish at the same
time,” she went on.