She did not answer. She moved her neck back like an offended swan, and
glanced at Lita as much as to say, "You see the sort of man he is?"
She did, however, remain silent until he had finished, and looking had
said, "But this isn't even good grammar--'Like they was pigmies.'
Don't they teach her grammar at this school?"
Alita Hazlitt was one of those people who, when blame is going about,
assume it is intended for them and consider the accusation most unjust.
"Well, really," she said now, "it wasn't my wish that she should go to
boarding school. It has turned out exactly as I prophesied it would.
Common girls have taught her to run after actors, and inefficient
teachers have failed--"
"I don't remember your prophesying that, Alita."
"You mean to say I did not?"
"I mean to say I have no recollection of it. I do remember that you
said it would make it easier for me to kidnap her. I shall never forget
that."
"You cannot deny that I was opposed to school. I only yielded to your
wishes--such a mistake."
"You have not many of that kind to reproach yourself with."
Lita, who had felt a profound filial emotion at seeing her parents
together, was now distressingly conscious that they had never seemed
less her parents than at this moment. They seemed in fact rather
dreadful people--childish, unjust, lacking in essential self-control.
The last remnant of her childhood seemed to perish with this scene, and
she became hard, matured and to a certain degree orphaned.
"What I am trying to say," Mr. Hazlitt went on, "is that we can hardly
attribute this unfortunate episode entirely to the influence of the
school. I mean that if there had not been some inherent silliness in
the child herself--"
This was too good a point for Mrs. Hazlitt to let slip.
"It was not from me," she said, "that Lita inherited a tendency to run
after people of the stage."
"We need not discuss inherited tendencies, I think."
Mrs. Hazlitt laughed.
"Ah, that is so like you! We may criticize the child or the school
or my bringing up, but the instant we begin to talk about your
shortcomings it is discovered that we are going too far."
"Alita," he said, "I came here in the most coöperative spirit--"
"And do you make it a favor that you should be willing to try to save
your child?"
That was unjust of her mother, Lita thought. Her father was trying to
be nice. It was her mother who kept making the interview bitter, and
yet in essentials her mother had behaved so much better. Why did she
suffer so much in the atmosphere of their anger? Why did she wish so
passionately that they should treat each other at least fairly? She
couldn't understand.
"You have not met me in a coöperative spirit," her father was saying,
"and I see no point in my staying. Good night."
"And you're going--just like that--without doing anything at all?"
"Of course, I shall write to Miss Barton--and if you are not able to
take Lita back to school tomorrow I'll go myself."
Lita noticed that though an instant before her mother had reproached
him with indifference, she treated his last suggestion as if it were
impertinent.
"I think I shall be able to take my daughter safely to school," she
said. "But you must see this man; that I cannot do."
"I shall do nothing so ridiculous," said Mr. Hazlitt. "Valentine! Why,
a man like that gets a basketful a day of letters from idiotic women of
all ages! He's bored to death by them."
"I have yet to find a man who is bored by the adoration of idiotic
women," said Mrs. Hazlitt, and there was no mistake in anybody's mind
as to what she meant by that.
A discussion on the relative idiocy of the sexes broke out with
extraordinary violence. Lita's conduct was utterly forgotten. She might
have slipped out of the room without being noticed, except that her
father was standing between her and the door. She tried to remember
Dacer's saying that quarreling meant love, and found to her surprise
that that idea was almost as shocking. Could it be that she did not
want her parents to have any emotions at all?
When her father had gone, her mother burst into tears.
"I am so sorry," she said, "that you should have seen him like that--at
his very worst."
Lita had just been thinking how much the better of the two he
had appeared. She felt as hard as a stone. She had no wish to be
continually appraising her parents; they left her no choice. Her
childish acceptance of them had been destroyed, and at the moment her
friendly emotion towards them as companions and human beings had not
yet flowered. Instead of wanting to tell her mother about Dacer, she
wanted to tell Dacer about her mother.
She saw that her whole scheme about Valentine had been ridiculous--a
complete failure. She ought to clear that up at once, but she did not
feel up to explaining it; an explanation with her mother involved
so much. Mrs. Hazlitt would give those she loved anything in the
world--except her attention. It was necessary to hold her attention
with one hand and feed her your confidence with the other. Lita was too
exhausted to attempt it that evening. She would do it the next day, of
course.
The next morning--Sunday--Mrs. Hazlitt awoke with a severe headache.
Though she insisted on Lita's remaining in sight--for fear that she
would rush to the arms of Valentine--it was made clear that no friendly
intercourse between parent and child was possible. Lita felt herself to
be the direct cause of the agony of mind which had led to the headache.
After luncheon, looking like carved marble, Mrs. Hazlitt got up and
announced her intention of escorting Lita back to school. The girl saw
that her mother was not well enough to make the double journey, and
suggested that it would be better for her father to go with her. Mrs.
Hazlitt treated this proposal with the coldest scorn.
"I think we will not trouble your father further," she said.
At times like this she used a flat, remote voice; as dead, Lita
thought, as a corpse talking on a disconnected telephone. In old times
it had nearly broken her heart when her mother spoke to her in that
tone. Today it had lost its power.
They drove to the station in silence, every jar of the car sending a
tremor through Mrs. Hazlitt's eyelids. In the train, she put Lita's
knitting bag behind her head and shut her eyes. Lita, sitting in
silence beside, felt so wooden--inside and out--that, she said to
herself, not even the appearance of Doctor Dacer would make any
difference to her. But when, before they were out of the tunnel, he did
pass through the car--not stopping, just raising his hat--she found it
did affect her.
Her mother opened her eyes.
"Who's that man?" she said in an almost human tone.
"I think he's one of the surgeons who is taking care of Aurelia," Lita
answered, and instantly regretted the "I think." It was positively
deceitful, where she had intended to be merely noncommittal. But all
the relations of her life seemed to have gone wrong.
She had not done any of her work for the next day; not the original
in geometry or the sonnet she should have learned by heart; in fact
she had not opened a book. She couldn't concentrate her mind now on
mathematics or poetry, but she might do some of the collateral reading
for Greek History. She slipped the book out of its strap and opened it.
"Of Lycurgus the lawgiver, we have nothing to relate that is certain
and uncontroverted--" Lita thought: that's at least a candid way to
begin a biography. The door opened, letting in the roar of the train
and the smell of coal smoke, and Lita's nerves remembered it, as if
only once before in her life had she ever known a car door open, and
looked up--to see the conductor. She dropped her eyes and went on: "For
there are different accounts of his birth, his death--" The door again;
this time a passenger in search of a seat. She made a vow to herself to
read three pages without looking up--and did. "Endeavoring to part some
persons who were concerned in a fray, he received a wound by a kitchen
knife, of which he died, and left the kingdom--"
She was aware that something in blue serge was stationary beside her.
She looked slowly up. Yes, there he was.
She introduced him to her mother. The seat in front of them was now
free, and Dacer, turning it over, sat down. Mrs. Hazlitt was not sorry
to show that her coldness concerned her daughter only. She was very
willing to talk agreeably to a stranger. The conversation was carried
on between them as if Lita were too young to be expected to take
part. She was not sorry, and went on glancing at a sentence here and
there: "He set sail, therefore, and landed in Crete--" "--in which the
priestess called him beloved of the gods, and rather a god than a man."
At this she really could not help looking at Dacer, and finding his
eyes on her, she said, "I saw you at the theater yesterday."
He was interested.
"I didn't see you."
"Oh, yes, we were there," said Mrs. Hazlitt languidly. "Such a poor
play! And as for Valentine--these popular actors in America--"
"He was thought very handsome and dashing, in our box," said Dacer.
And then Lita was surprised to hear her own voice saying, "Was that
lady your wife?"
He stared at her for a second as if he had not heard, or could not
understand what he seemed to have heard, and then answered quietly,
"No, I don't care for them by the cubic foot."
Never had such a perfect reply been made, Lita thought. It
reconstructed their relation and the whole world, and yet it took place
so gently that her mother had hardly noticed that they had spoken to
each other. Life was simply immense, she said to herself; she had been
quite wrong about it before.
Then presently Dacer drew from Mrs. Hazlitt the admission that she
had a wretched headache--hadn't slept--had had a disagreeable day--so
foolish, but she was affected by scenes--
"Everybody is, you know," said Dacer.
She should not have come on such an expedition. The idea of her
driving four miles out to the school in a jiggling car--and right back
again--was absurd. He spoke almost sternly. He had a time-table in
his pocket; a train left for New York five minutes after their train
arrived at Elbridge; Mrs. Hazlitt must take that back, go straight to
bed; he would give her a powder. Of course he would see Miss Hazlitt
safely to the school--yes, even into Miss Barton's presence. He wrote
his prescription. Lita saw that her mother was going to obey.
As they got out at the station they saw the New York train already
waiting. Dacer put Mrs. Hazlitt on it; and Lita, watching them, saw
Mrs. Hazlitt turn at the steps and give him some special injunction.
Well, she probably would not confide to him so soon the scandal of
the letter to Valentine; and if she did, it would be easy to explain.
Dacer's face was untroubled as he returned to her.
"She's all in," he said.
A sharp self-reproach clutched at Lita's heart, the capacity for
emotion having unexpectedly returned to her.
"Did it really do her harm to come out here?"
"It really is better for her to go straight home," he answered, as if
admitting other motives had entered into his advice.
They got into the school flivver, which was waiting for them. Rain had
just stopped and the back curtains were down. It was dark.
As they wheeled away from the station lights Lita heard him saying,
"Didn't you know I wasn't married?" She did not immediately answer. Her
hand was taken. "Didn't you know?" he said again.
A strange thing was happening to Lita. She formed the resolution of
withdrawing her hand; she sent the impulse out from her brain, but it
seemed only to reach her elbow; her hand, limp and willing, continued
to remain in his.
They spoke hardly at all. The near presence of Matthew, the driver, a
well-known school gossip, made speech undesirable. Besides, it wasn't
necessary. Lita was perfectly content with silence as long as that
large, solid hand enveloped hers.
As they turned in at the school gate he said, "You'll come over to see
Aurelia this evening, I suppose."
She knew it wouldn't be possible, and was obliged to say so. And he was
going back to town by a morning train. There was a pause.
As they got out he said, "Do you ever get up very early--as early as
six?"
"I could always make a beginning," said Lita.
And then, true to his promise, he turned the chairman of the
self-government committee over to the keeping of Miss Barton herself.
One excellent way of waking early is not to sleep at all. Lita hardly
slept and was out of bed in time to watch the slow but fortunately
inevitable spreading of the dawn. The new day was evidently going
to be one of those days in late March when, though the earth has no
suggestion of spring, the sky and the air are as vernal as May. Lita
could see a light in the upper story of the infirmary. Dacer's perhaps.
It was not yet six when she stole downstairs and across the green. She
had a good reason for being anxious about Aurelia--the stitches had
been taken out of the wound the night before. That's what she would
say if anyone asked her. But no one was awake, except far away in
the school kitchen. The door of the infirmary was locked, but as she
pressed noiselessly against it a figure faced her on the other side
of the glass--Dacer. He opened the door and came out. It shut behind
him, and as the night latch was still on, they were locked out. So they
sat down on the narrow steps of the cottage, each with a pillar to
lean against, and for the first time looked long and steadily at each
other, as people who have met by deliberate acknowledged plan.
"Do you like the early morning?" he asked.
"I never did before," she answered.
He smiled at her.
"Do you realize," he said, "that in this lifelong friendship of ours
that is the first decent thing you have ever said to me?"
Why, it was true! To Lita it had been so clear that she was more
interested than he was; more eager; but it was true, she had given him
none of those poignant, unforgettable sentences which he had left with
her, to go over in his absence. She smiled, too--very slowly.
"Perhaps it won't be the last," she said.
At half past seven Dacer went in, and a few minutes later Lita arrived
at Room 11 to inquire after her friend. When it was time to go, she
shook hands with Doctor Dacer in the presence of Aurelia, Aurelia's
mother, who had just arrived, and the trained nurse.
It was the last possible meeting before the Easter holidays.