XXI.

It is doubtful if any guest save Mrs. Diggs and one other had seen

Claire either receive, open, or read her note. The constant movements of

servants hither and thither, and the little conversational cliques

formed among the ladies at this central stage of the entertainment,

would have made such an escape from general notice both natural and

probable. But Mrs. Diggs, who had thus far kept a furtive though

incessant watch upon Mrs. Lee, soon felt certain that her cousin had not

merely seen what had passed; she was visibly affected by it as well; she

could not help regarding Claire across the considerable space which

intervened between them. Her expression was a most imprudent betrayal;

it clearly told, by its acerbity and exultance, that she held the

present occasion to be one of prodigious and triumphant import. No one

except Mrs. Diggs was watching her, and she was unaware of even that

sidelong but intent gaze. The natural mobility of her odd face, which

repelled some and attracted others, needed at all times a certain check;

but chagrins or satisfactions were both readily imprinted there. It

corresponded to the pliability of her body; it would have been a face in

which some clever actress might have found a fortune. She usually

restrained it with discretion, but just now the force of a malign joy

swept aside prudent control. Before Mrs. Diggs's exploring search of it

ended, her last doubt had fled.

'I never saw her look more like the snake that she is,' Claire's friend

had thought. 'The mischief--the deviltry, it may be--lies in that

letter. Claire has grown as white as its paper; but nobody notices,

thank Heaven! She won't faint--she isn't of the fainting sort.'

"Claire," she now said aloud, yet in tones which the most adroit of

eavesdroppers could not have more than just vaguely overheard, "did you

get any bad news a minute ago?"

Claire was no longer addressing the lady at her side. "Why do you ask?"

she responded. "Do I look pale?"

"Not at all; not the least in the world; I've never seen you more

composed," returned Mrs. Diggs, with enormous mendacity, hoping that her

charitable lie would bear reassuring and tranquilizing results.

It did, as soon became apparent. Claire's condition was that in which we

grasp at straws. Perhaps she grew several shades less pale on hearing

that she was not so.

"I must leave the room," she said, pronouncing the words with the edges

of her lips. "I must leave immediately."

"Are you unwell?"

"No--yes--it isn't that. I must go. Could I do it without--without--?"

She paused here; she had not enough clearness of thought, just then, to

finish her sentence coherently.

"Without causing remark?" gently broke in Mrs. Diggs. "Why, of course

you could, my dear. Are you not hostess? A hundred things might call

you away for a little while. No one would dream of thinking it in the

least strange. Why on earth should one?"

There was a light nonchalance about this answer that Mrs. Diggs by no

means felt. She knew that something had gone terribly wrong. Her

rejoinder had been a stroke of impromptu tact, just as her recent glib

falsehood had been.

Its effect upon Claire was immediate. Her friend was doing her thinking

for her, so to speak, and was doing it with a rapid, unhesitating

_aplomb_.

"You don't know what has happened, do you?" she now said.

Mrs. Diggs at once felt the helpless disability of mind and nerves which

this last faltered question implied.

"Give me your note," she said. "Slip it under the table. You will not be

seen."

Claire obeyed. Mrs. Diggs had long ago learned how and why her friend

had left home, before that episode began of her residence with the

Bergemanns. She read the note like lightning, and digested its contents

with an almost equal speed. The sprawl of its writing was uncouth

enough, but not illegible.

For a slight space horrified sympathy kept her silent. Then she said,

with a coolness and placidity that did her fine credit, considering the

cause in which she employed them:--

"I would go at once. You can keep everything quiet. Of course you can. I

will follow you shortly. I will make a perfect excuse for you. You are

feeling a little unwell--that is all. No one has noticed; take my word

for that; I am simply _certain_ of it. When you return--which I promise

you that you shall do quite soon--scarcely a comment will have been made

on your absence. Go, by all means. Go at once, as I said."

'Some of her color has come back,' at the same time passed through poor

Mrs. Diggs's anxious and agitated thoughts. 'I knew she wouldn't faint;

it isn't _in_ her. She will see that I'm right, in a minute. Her wits

will begin to work. She will go.'

Claire did go. She had no after-recollection of how she left the great

dining-room. But she had indeed moved from it in so silent and yet so

swift a way that her chair had been vacant several seconds, and her

skirts were sweeping one of the thresholds of exit, before the fact of

her departure became even half perceived among the guests.

Once in the large, empty drawing-room immediately beyond that which she

had quitted, she felt her leaping heart grow quiet, and her bewildered

brain clear. It took only seconds, now, to restore in a great measure

her self-possession and her courage.

She passed into the further drawing-room. Both were as void of human

occupant as they were rich and stately in their countless beauties of

adornment. Her visitor was evidently not here. Then she remembered the

smaller reception-room which opened off from the main hall. She directed

her steps thither. They were firm steps; she had grown sensible of this,

and of her newly acquired composure as well.

Two breadths of Turkish tapestry hung down over the doorway of the

reception-room, thus obscuring its interior. As Claire softly parted

them and entered, she saw her mother.

Mrs. Twining stood near a white-and-gilt table that was loaded with

choice ornaments. The chamber was one of great elegance and charm. It

was all white and gilt and pink; there were cherubs on its ceiling

throwing roses at each other; its hangings were of rose-color, and its

two or three mirrors were framed in porcelain of rare design. A

_connoisseur_ who was among Claire's admirers had once assured her that

this little room was exquisite enough to stir the dust of Pompadour.

Mrs. Twining did not at all look as though she might have been any such

famous ghost. Not that she did not present a ghostly appearance. Her

black eyes seemed to be of twice their former size, so lean and haggard

was her altered face. Its cheek-bones stood out with a sharp prominence.

You saw at once that some serious illness had wrought this wan havoc.

Her garments were dark and decent; she did not seem to be a beggar; no

rusty and shabby poverty was manifest on her person. She had refused

stoutly to wait in the hall, and the servant who had admitted her, being

hurried with other matters, had yielded to her insistence, yet deputed

an underling to keep watch on the reception-room after showing her

thither. Claire had not seen the sentinel, who was stationed at a little

distance up the hall, and who joined his fellows when sure that the lady

of the house had condescended to meet this troublesome intruder.

Mrs. Twining looked boldly and severely at her daughter. The drapery had

fallen behind Claire's advancing figure. The two faced each other in

silence for a lapse of time that both no doubt thought longer than it

really was. Each, in her different way, had an acute change to

confront. Claire scarcely recognized her mother at first. Mrs. Twining,

on her own side, had good reasons to be prepared for a difference, and

the superb house had in a way told her, too, what she might expect. But

still, for all that, this was Claire! This was her Claire, whom she had

last seen not far removed from slums and gutters--who had gone forth

from the little Greenpoint home, not two years since, to follow her

father's charity-buried corpse! And here she stood, clad in her

white-and-purple vestments, a shape of more lovely and high-bred

elegance than any she had ever looked upon. The face was the same--there

could be no doubt of that. But everything else--the figure, the attire,

the jewels, the velvets, the laces, the movement, the posture, the mien

... it was all like some fabulous, incredible enchantment.

Forewarned and forearmed as she had been, Mrs. Twining stood

wonder-stricken and confused. The soft strains of the near music seemed

to speak to her instead of Claire's own voice, and with a disdain in

their melody. She saw no disdain on Claire's face, however, as her eyes

scanned it. But it was quite inflexible, though very pale.

Claire broke the silence--if that could be called mere silence which was

for both so electric and pregnant an interval.

"You have come at a strange time. And your note shows me that you chose

it purposely."

Mrs. Twining gave a sombre laugh. What associations the sound woke in

its hearer!

"I was all ready for just this kind of a welcome," she said, knitting

her brows. She began to stare about the room. "It's very fine. It's

mighty splendid. But I wonder the walls of this house don't fall and

crush you, Claire Twining! I wonder I ain't got the power, myself, to

strike you dead with a look!" Her voice now became a growl of menace;

there was something very genuine in her wrath, which she had persuaded

herself to believe an outgrowth of hideous ingratitude. "But I didn't

come to show you your own badness," she went on. "You know all about

that a ready. What I've come for is quite another kind of a thing--oh,

yes, quite." Here she laughed again, with her mouth curving downward

grimly at each corner.

"What have you come for?" inquired Claire.

"To get my rights!--_that's_ what I've come for! To let people see who I

am, and how you've cast me off--me, your mother. I d'clare I don't

believe there ever was so horrible a case before. Perhaps some o' the

folks in yonder can tell me if they ever knew one."

Claire kept silent for a moment. Her face was white to the lips, but

there was no sign of flinching in it.

"I did not cast you off," she said. "I left you because you outraged and

insulted the dead body of my father. I have never regretted the step I

took, nor do I regret it now. You say you've come here to get your

rights. What rights? Shelter and food? You shall receive these if you

want them. I will ring and give orders at once that you shall be taken

to a comfortable room and be treated with every care that it is in my

power to bestow. In spite of what I said to you on the day when you

shocked and tortured me into saying it, I would still have sought you

out and rendered you my best aid, if I had known that you were ill. For

I see that you have been ill--your appearance makes that very plain. But

I had no knowledge of any such fact. You were stronger than I when we

parted--stronger, indeed, and better able to work. This is all that I am

willing to say at present. In an hour or two I will join you, and hear

anything you may choose to tell me."

While Claire was in the midst of this rather prolonged reply, Mrs. Diggs

quietly entered the room. The speaker saw her, and did not pause for an

instant, but put forth her hand, which Mrs. Diggs took, while she

steadily watched the large, gaunt, hollow-cheeked woman whom her friend

addressed.

If anything could have intensified the vast sense of accumulated wrong

in Mrs. Twining's breast, it was this placid appearance of one who so

promptly indicated that she stood toward Claire in a supporting and

accessory attitude.

"So, you'll make terms, will you?" said the parent of Claire. "You'll

browbeat me--_me_, your mother--with your fine clothes and fine house

and fine servants? And where's my satisfaction, if you please, Miss?

Hey? Oh, I ain't any saint--you know that, by this time. I ain't going

to forget how I laid eight months in Bellevue Hospital, crippled and

nearly dying. First it was the typhoid fever, 'n then it was the

pneumonia, 'n then it was the inflammatory rheumatism. And where was

_you_, all that time? Spending your thousands as fast as the Wall Street

stock-gambler you'd married could scrape 'em together. Who's this friend

that steps in and looks as if she was going to protect you? Hey? You're

both afraid I'll go in among those grand folks you've got eating and

drinking somewheres, and speak my mind. You'll send me up to a

comf'table room, will you? You'll give orders to your servants about me,

will you? And s'pose I object to being treated like a troublesome tenth

or 'leventh cousin? S'pose I go straight into where they all are, and

just tell 'em the square, plain truth?" The scowl on her wasted face was

very black, now. She had made several quick steps nearer to Claire and

Mrs. Diggs. Once or twice during this acrid tirade she had waved one

hand in front of her, and made its finger and thumb give a contemptuous

audible click. But her voice had not noticeably lowered.

Claire had been watching her with great keenness. She had been reading

her mood. By the light of the past--the retrospective light flung from

weary years lived out at this mother's side, did this daughter now

swiftly see and as swiftly understand.

"Claire," said Mrs. Diggs, spurred by an impulse of heroic interference

no less than an alarmed one, "let me speak a few words; let me"--

"No," interrupted Claire. Her simple veto seemed to cut the air of the

room. She turned and met Mrs. Diggs's gaze for a moment, while dropping

her hand. "I thank you, Kate; but please leave all to me."

Then she faced her mother's irate glare. She was still decidedly pale,

but in her clear voice there was no hint of tremor.

"Very well," she said, "suppose you _do_ go in and find my friends.

Suppose you _do_ tell them everything. I do not merely invite you to go;

I challenge you to go. I will even show you the way myself."

"Claire!" faltered Mrs. Diggs, below her breath.

Claire walked toward the curtained doorway and slightly parted its

draperies. She was looking at her mother across one shoulder.

"Will you come?" she asked. "I am quite ready."

The enraged look began to die from Mrs. Twining's face. She receded a

little. "I can go myself when I choose," she muttered. "I can find the

way myself, when I'm ready. I ain't ready yet."

Claire let the draperies fall. She resumed her former position. "You

will never be ready," she said, with a melancholy scorn, "and you know

it as well as I. You thought to come here and make me cringe with terror

before you, while you threatened and stormed. But you had no intention

of bringing matters to any crisis. You think me very prosperous, very

powerful, and very rich. You are secretly glad that I am. You would not

on any account harm me as a person of importance; but you wanted to keep

me, as one, in a state of rule, a state of subjection. By that means you

could climb up to a place something like my own ... so you have argued.

You would share what I have secured. You were always a very ambitious

woman. Your sickness (which Heaven knows I am sorry enough to hear

about) hasn't changed you a particle. I thought at first that it might

have turned or clouded your brain--have made you reckless of

consequences. But it has done nothing of the sort. You are precisely the

same as ever."

Here Claire paused. Her mother had sunk into a chair. In her working

lips and the uneasy roll of her eyes a great, abrupt dismay was evident.

"I think I can guess just what has occurred to send you here," Claire

soon proceeded. "You became sick; you got into the hospital. While you

were there a certain lady now and then visited your bedside. You told

this lady who you were. Perhaps she asked you questions, and drew out

all your history--perhaps you gave her all of it voluntarily. The lady

was an enemy of mine. She put this and that together. She began by

suspecting; she finished by being certain. We will say that you

described me to her with great accuracy; or we will say that she knew I

had once lived with the Bergemann family, and that you easily recalled

the fact of Sophia Bergemann having been my friend long ago at Mrs.

Arcularius's school. It is of no consequence how the real truth

transpired; it _did_ transpire. As you grew better, the lady formed a

little plot. I think you perceived this; it is like you to have

perceived it. You saw that the lady wanted to make you her tool, her

cat's-paw."

Here Mrs. Twining rose, and put out both hands. "She didn't do it,

though," was her flurried exclamation. "She thought she'd have me come

here and get up a scene. I was 'cute enough to see that. I was reading

her just like a book, all the time."

"I have no doubt of it," said Claire, with the same melancholy scorn.

"But you chose _this time_ at which to come. You were willing to be her

accomplice _that far_."

"She wouldn't tell me where you lived nor what was your name," protested

Mrs. Twining. "She kept putting me off whenever I asked her. She fixed

things at the hospital so's I only left it to-day; she made 'em keep me

there, though I was well enough to quit more 'n a week ago."

"She told you to-day, then, of this entertainment? She told you that if

you came to-day, at a certain hour, you would find me surrounded by

friends?"

Mrs. Twining set her eyes on the floor. She had begun to tremble a

little. "Well, yes, she said something of that sort. And I knew what she

was up to, just as clear as if she'd told me she had a grudge against

you and was crazy to pay it. I was going to stay away till the party was

all over--but I ... well, I" ...

Here the speaker raised her eyes and flashed them confusedly at her

daughter. That glance was like the expiring glow of her conquered,

treacherous wrath.

"Look here, Claire, I'm weak, and I can't stand this kind of thing much

longer. Let me go up to that room and lay down. I'll wait till you come

up. We can talk more when all your big friends have gone."

"I will send a woman to you," said Claire. "You can give her what orders

you please." ...

"Do you feel strong enough to go back at once?" asked Mrs. Diggs, when

she and Claire stood, presently, in the front drawing-room.

"Oh, yes, perfectly," was Claire's answer.

Mrs. Diggs kissed her. "Claire," she said, "the more I see of you, the

more you astonish me. I thought everything was lost, and how splendidly

you turned the tables! Ah, my dear, you were born for great things. You

ought to have been on a throne. I hate thrones. I'm a Red Republican, as

I told you the first time we met. But I'd change my politics in a minute

if you represented an absolute monarchy."

Claire smiled. The color was coming back to her cheeks. "I am on a kind

of throne now," she said. "Only it is going to pieces. Kate, you have

seen that woman. She is my mother. I wish you had seen and known my

father. Whatever strength there is in me comes from _her_. But what

little good there is in me comes from _him_."

They went back into the dining-room immediately afterward, and Claire

spoke with lightness to a few of the ladies about having felt a

temporary indisposition which had now entirely ceased. She at once

changed the subject, and throughout the remainder of the repast betrayed

not a sign by which the most alert watcher could have detected the least

mental disturbance.

A watcher of this sort was Mrs. Lee, and both Claire and Mrs. Diggs were

certain of it. "She hasn't tasted a morsel for three courses," soon

whispered the latter. "Upon my word, I don't think I could be restrained

from throwing a glass or a plate at her, if I were sure it wouldn't hit

somebody else. I was always a wretched shot."

But Mrs. Diggs delivered another kind of missile after the banquet had

broken up and the ladies had all passed once again into the

drawing-rooms.

"I want to speak with you, Sylvia, if you don't object," she said dryly

to Mrs. Lee. The latter had opportunely strayed away from her

companions; she was pretending to scrutinize a certain painting in the

front apartment. This gave Mrs. Diggs precisely her desired chance.

"You know I've never liked you, Sylvia, and I don't think you've ever

liked me," her cousin began. She showed no anger; her voice was so

ordinary in tone that she might have been discussing the most

commonplace of matters.

Mrs. Lee started, and twisted herself, as usual, into a fresh pose. "I

really don't see the occasion, Kate," she murmured, "for this vast

amount of candor." She had got back her old drawl. She was concerned

with a knot of roses at her bosom, which had or had not become partially

unfastened; her gaze was drooped toward the roses, and thus avoided that

of her kinswoman.

"You don't see the occasion for candor, Sylvia? I do. You know just what

you have tried to do this morning. There is no use of denying."

"Tried to do?" she repeated, raising her eyes.

"Yes," sped Mrs. Diggs, with a kind of snap in every word. "We've never

liked each other, as I said, and I preluded my remarks with this

statement because I want to show you why, from to-day henceforward, we

are open foes. You would have had Claire Hollister's mother rush like a

mad woman into that dining-room. You wanted it. You planned, you plotted

it. There's no use of asserting that you didn't."

Mrs. Lee quietly threw back her head. "Oh, very well, since the poor

woman," she began, "has really betrayed me, I"--

"Betrayed you?" broke in Mrs. Diggs. "She has done nothing of the sort.

If you exacted any promise from her, I know nothing of that--nor does

Claire. We both understood that you were behind the whole affair, and

when Mrs. Twining was taxed with your complicity she did not presume to

disavow it."

Mrs. Lee looked at her roses again, and touched some of their petals

with a caressing hand.

"If you think me culpable to have told a poor wretch in a hospital the

address of the daughter who had deserted her," she said, "I am only

sorry that your code of morals should so materially differ from mine."

"Morals?" replied Mrs. Diggs, with a quick laugh that seemed to crackle.

"It's amusing, truly, to hear such a word as that from you to me,

Sylvia!"

Mrs. Lee again lifted her eyes. She was smiling, and her small, dark

head, garnished with a tiny crimson bonnet, was set very much sideways.

"My dear Kate," she said, "did it ever occur to you how enormously

vulgar you can be at a pinch?"

"I'd answer that question if I didn't see through the trick of it. We're

not talking of manners, if you please; we're talking of morals. Do you

consider that there is anything moral in a mean, underhand revenge? That

is exactly what you resorted to. To serve a spiteful hatred, you would

have had Mrs. Twining dart like a Fury into yonder dining-room."

"If it were not unladylike, I should tell you that you are uttering a

falsehood."

"Bah! You can tell me so a thousand times, if you want. Why did you

never let Claire's mother know her marriage-name or her address until

to-day? Why did you keep her in the hospital until to-day? Why, unless

you wanted to unloose her, like a raging lioness?"

"Really, Kate, you have passed the bounds of impertinence. You are now

simply diverting."

Mrs. Diggs laughed a second time. "I intend to divert you still further,

Sylvia, before I have done with you."

Mrs. Lee took a step or two in an oblique direction. The lids of her

dark eyes had begun to move rapidly. "I have the option of declining to

be bored," she answered, in a muffled voice, "unless you intend personal

violence. In that case, you know, there are always the footmen."

"Answer me one question, please, if you have a spark of honesty left.

What right had you to believe that Claire Hollister ever wronged her

mother?"

"You haven't yet become violent. You are still diverting. So I will

answer. She left her alone in poverty, neglect, and misery."

"She left her after a life of tyranny and persecution. She left her a

strong, hale, able woman. She left her with ten, twenty times as much

money in her pocket as Claire herself had--for Claire had scarcely

anything, and this persecuted heroine of a mother had enough money to

give her dead husband decent Christian burial, yet refused it. Did she

tell you that, Sylvia, when you found her sick in the hospital? Did she

tell you how her daughter cried out in grief, beside the very body of a

dead and beloved father, that if only he were not laid in Potter's

Field--if only he might receive holy rites of interment, she would work,

even slave, for her mother's support? Did she tell you--this model and

deeply wronged parent--that her child got from her nothing but a surly

refusal? Did she tell you that Claire then, and only then, resolved to

leave her forever? Did she tell you how Claire, faithful till the last,

followed her father, on foot or by street-car, to his pauper grave, and

saw the clods heaped over him as if he had been a dead dog, while she,

his lawful wife, stayed shamelessly at home? No, Sylvia; I will warrant

that she made another plausible story, nearly all false, with just a

grain of truth. And you readily accepted it, because it suited your

malicious ends to do so!"

By this time Mrs. Lee had produced an exquisite fan of dark satin,

painted with charming figures of birds and flowers. While she used the

fan, slowly and gracefully, she answered: "And is it possible that you

credit this theatrical improbability, Kate?"

Mrs. Diggs looked stern. "I don't merely believe it--I know it," she

said. "I have seen the woman. To see her--to hear her speak, was enough.

You, too, have had both experiences."

Mrs. Lee still slowly fanned herself. "That is quite true. I have. The

charity-burial story is the purest nonsense, the most preposterous

invention, on your dear friend's part. That is my confident belief; I

assure you it is. Do you want me any more, Kate? Or are you going to

keep me here with your wild tales an hour or two longer?"

Mrs. Diggs never in her life, with all her personal deficiencies, looked

so simply and calmly dignified as when she responded:--

"I shall keep you only a very little while longer, Sylvia. You may or

may not have wanted Claire's mother to enter that dining-room. But you

had your hour for her coming neatly timed, and any mortification, any

distress that you could have inflicted would have been a pleasure to

you. But I think that in all this wily and clever performance you quite

failed to remember me. I'm very staunch, very loyal to Claire. And I

give you my word that your share in the event of to-day shall not go

unpunished."

Mrs. Lee stopped fanning herself. "Unpunished?" she repeated, haughtily

enough.

"Oh, yes. Are you surprised at the word? Let me explain it. I merely

mean that in as short a time as I can possibly command Stuart Goldwin

shall know every detail of your recent behavior. And pray don't have the

least fear that he will disbelieve me. He knows how devoted _I_ am to

Claire Hollister. You know just how devoted to her _he_ is. I wonder in

what kind of estimation he will hold you after I have narrated my little

story, not missing a single particular ... not one, Sylvia--rest certain

of that!"

Mrs. Lee began to fan herself again, and at the same time moved away.

Mrs. Diggs's eyes followed the slim, retreating figure. She had already

seen that her cousin's face wore an expression of pained affright.

Claire's guests had begun to make their farewells. Mrs. Lee did not join

them in this civility. She slipped from the drawing-room, instead,

unnoticed by any one, except her late antagonist, and perhaps Claire

herself.

'She will try to meet Goldwin before I do,' thought Mrs. Diggs. 'But she

will not succeed. I, too, will leave without saying good-by to Claire,

who might not approve my scheme of chastisement if she learned it. But

it is no affair of hers. I am doing it entirely on my own account. I

propose to make Sylvia Lee remember this day as long as she lives.'

Among the carriages of the departing guests, that of Mrs. Lee was the

first one to roll away. The carriage of Mrs. Diggs soon followed it.

Both were driven at a rapid rate, and for a certain time in the same

direction. But ultimately the courses of the two vehicles diverged.

Each lady sent a telegram to the same destination, less than ten

minutes afterward. And each lady, after so doing, employed the same

formula of reflection: 'He will come as soon as he receives it.'

But Mrs. Diggs's summons was the more potent; it contained the name of

Claire.