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AINSLEE'S
VOL. XV. JUNE, 1905. No. 5.
CONTENTS
The Outgoing of Simeon Elizabeth Duer
Concerning the Heart's Deep Pages Sewell Ford
Song Charlotte Becker
Synopsis of Chapters I--XIII of "The Deluge" Editorial
The Deluge (Continued) David Graham Phillips
The Window Theodosia Garrison
Americans in London Lady Willshire
The Blood of Blink Bonny Martha McCulloch-Williams
Monotony Philip Gerry
"Plug" Ivory and "Plug" Avery Holman F. Day
Supper With Natica Robert E. MacAlarney
By The Fountain Margaret Houston
Bas Bleu Anna A. Rogers
The Vagabond M. M.
The Doing of the Lambs Susan Sayre Titsworth
The Unattained William Hamilton Hayne
The Flatterer George Hibbard
The Miracle of Dawn Madison Cawein
The Song of Broadway Robert Stewart
Green Devils and Old Maids Emerson G. Taylor
Two Sorrows Charles Hanson Towne
Love and Mushrooms Frances Wilson
Some Feminine Stars Alan Dale
For Book Lovers Archibald Lowery Sessions
THE OUTGOING OF SIMEON
By ELIZABETH DUER
Simeon Ponsonby--the professor of botany at Harmouth--had married when
over forty the eldest daughter of a distinguished though impecunious
family in his own college town. His mother, on her deathbed, foresaw
that he would need a housekeeper and suggested the match.
"Simeon," she said, "it isn't for us to question the Lord's ways, but
I am mortally sorry to leave you, my son; it is hard for a man to
shift for himself. I was thinking now if you were to marry Deena
Shelton you might go right along in the old house. The Sheltons would
be glad to have her off their hands, and she is used to plain living.
She would know enough to keep her soup pot always simmering on the
back of the range and make her preserves with half the regular
quantity of sugar. I like her because she brushes her hair and parts
it in the middle, and she has worn the same best dress for three
years."
Soon after Mrs. Ponsonby died and Simeon married Deena.
She didn't particularly want to marry him, but then, on the other
hand, she was not violently set against it. She saw romance through
her mother's eyes, and Mrs. Shelton said Professor Ponsonby was a man
any girl might be proud to win. If his sympathies were as narrow as
his shoulders, his scientific reputation extended over the civilized
world, and Harmouth was proud of the fact. Deena's attention was not
called to his sympathies, and it was called to his reputation.
He proposed to Miss Shelton in a few well-chosen words, placed his
mother's old-fashioned diamond ring on her finger, and urged forward
the preparations for the wedding with an impatience that bespoke an
ardent disposition. Later Deena learned that his one servant had grown
reckless in joints after Mrs. Ponsonby's death, and the house bills
had shocked Simeon into seeking immediate aid.
At twenty Deena was able to accommodate herself to her new life with
something more than resignation; a wider experience would have made it
intolerable. She was flattered by his selection, proud to have a house
of her own, and not sorry to be freed from the burdens of her own
home. There were no little Ponsonbys, and there had been five younger
Sheltons, all clamoring for Deena's love and care, whereas Simeon made
no claims except that she should stay at home and care for the house
and not exceed her allowance. If she expected to see a great deal of
her own family she was mistaken, for, while no words passed on the
subject, she felt that visiting was to be discouraged and the power to
invite was vested in Simeon alone. Respect was the keynote of her
attitude in regard to him, and he made little effort to bridge the
chasm of years between them.
He was a tall, spare man, slightly stooped, with a prominent forehead,
insignificant nose, and eyes red and strained through too ardent a use
of the microscope. He habitually wore gold-rimmed spectacles; indeed,
he put them on in the morning before he tied his cravat, and took them
off at the corresponding moment of undressing at night. His mouth was
his best feature, for, while the lips were pinched, they had a kind of
cold refinement.
He was a just man but close, and the stipend he gave his wife for
their monthly expenses barely kept them in comfort, but Deena had been
brought up in the school of adversity, and had few personal needs. Her
house absorbed all her interest, as well as stray pennies. The old
mahogany furniture was polished till it shone; the Ponsonby silver tea
set looked as bright as if no battering years lay between it and its
maker's hand a century ago; the curtains were always clean; the
flowers seemed to grow by magic--and Deena still parted her wonderful
bronze hair and kept it sleek.
At the end of two years, when she was twenty-two, a ripple of
excitement came into her life; another Shelton girl married, and
caused even greater relief to her family than had Deena, for she
married a Boston man with money. He had been a student at Harmouth and
had fallen in love with Polly Shelton's violet eyes and strange
red-gold hair, that seemed the only gold fate had bestowed upon the
Sheltons. He took Polly to Boston, where, as young Mrs. Benjamin
Minthrop, she became the belle of the season, and almost a
professional beauty, though she couldn't hold a candle to Deena--Deena
whose adornment was "a meek and quiet spirit," who obeyed Simeon with
the subjection St. Peter recommended--whose conversation was "chaste
coupled with fear."
But one day all this admirable monotony came to an end quite
adventitiously, and events came treading on each other's heels. It was
a crisp October day, and an automobile ran tooting and snorting, and
trailing its vile smells, through Harmouth till it stopped at
Professor Ponsonby's gate and a lady got out and ran up the courtyard
path. Deena had been trying in vain to make quince jelly
stiffen--_jell_ was the word used in the receipt book of the late Mrs.
Ponsonby--with the modicum of sugar prescribed, till in despair she
had resorted to a pinch of gelatine, and felt that the shade of her
mother-in-law was ticking the word _incompetent_ from the clock in the
hall--when suddenly the watchword was drowned in the stertorous
breathing of the machine at the gate, and Polly whisked in without
ringing and met Deena face to face.
"We have come to take you for a spin in our new automobile," Polly
cried, gayly. "Where is Simeon? You think he would not care to go?
Well, leave him for once, and come as far as Wolfshead, and we will
lunch there and bring you back before sunset."
Deena's delicate complexion was reddened by the heat of the preserve
kettle, her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and a checked apron
with a bib acted as overalls. Polly twitched her to the stairs.
"What a fright you make of yourself," she exclaimed; "and yet, I
declare, you are pretty, in spite of it! Ben has to go down in the
town to get some more gasoline, and then he means to persuade Stephen
French to go with us, so rush upstairs and change your dress while I
report to him that you will go, and he will come back for us in half
an hour."
Stephen French, who was to make the fourth in the automobile, was
Harmouth's young professor of zooelogy, a favorite alike with the
students and the dons, with the social element in the town as well as
the academic. To Ben Minthrop he had been a saving grace during a
rather dissipated career at college, and now that that young gentleman
was married, and his feet set in the path of commercial
respectability, the friendship was even more cemented. On Ben's part
there was admiration and gratitude, on Stephen's the genuine liking an
older man has for a youngster who has had the pluck to pull himself
together. It was a bond between the Shelton sisters that their
husbands shared one sentiment in common--namely, a romantic affection
for Stephen French.
Deena was standing in her petticoat when her sister joined her in her
bed-room--not in a petticoat of lace and needlework, such as peeped
from under the edge of Polly's smart frock as she threw herself into a
chair, but a skimpy black silk skirt with a prim ruffle, made from an
old gown of Mrs. Ponsonby's. It was neat and fresh, however, and her
neck and arms, exposed by her little tucked underwaist, were of a
beauty to ravish a painter or a sculptor. Polly herself, boyish and
angular in build, groaned to think of such perfection "born to blush
unseen"; her one season in Boston had demonstrated to her the value of
beauty as an asset in that strange, modern exchange we call society.
She was evidently trying to say something that would not get itself
said, and her elder sister was too busy with her toilet to notice the
signs of perturbation. Finally the words came with a rush.
"Deena," she said, "when we were children in the nursery you once said
I was a 'coward _at_ you'--I remember your very words. Well, I believe
I am still! You are so dignified and repressing that I am always
considering what you will think a liberty. I have taken a liberty now,
but please don't be angry. It does seem so absurd to be afraid to make
a present to one's own sister."
She opened the bedroom door, and dragged in a huge box, which she
proceeded to uncord, talking all the while.
"I have brought you a dress," she said; "a coat and skirt made for me by
R----, but Ben cannot bear me in it because it's so womanish--pockets
where no man would have them, and the sleeves all trimmed--and so, as
I think it charming myself, I hoped, perhaps, you would accept it."
Both sisters blushed, Polly with shyness, Deena with genuine delight.
She loved pretty things, although she rarely yielded to their
temptations, and she kissed her sister in loving acknowledgment of the
gift. It never occurred to her that Simeon could object.
Polly, in high spirits at her success, next declared that she must
arrange Deena's hair, and she pushed her into a low chair in front of
the dressing table, and fluffed the golden mane high above the
temples, and coiled and pinned it into waves and curls that caught the
sunlight on their silken sheen and gave it back. A very beautiful
young woman was reflected in old Mother Ponsonby's small
looking-glass, a face of character and spirit, in spite of its
regularity.
"There, admire yourself!" exclaimed Polly, thrusting a hand mirror
into her sister's grasp. "I don't believe you ever look at your
profile or the back of your head! You are so busy enacting the part of
your own mother-in-law that I only wonder you don't insist upon
wearing widow's caps. Oh! I beg your pardon--I forgot that could only
be done by forfeiting Simeon! Where do you keep your shirt-waists?
This one isn't half bad; let me help you into it."
She chose the least antiquated blouse in Deena's wardrobe, and pinned
it into place with the precision of experience; next she hooked the
new skirt round the waist and held the little coat for her sister to
put on.
"Where is your hat?" she demanded.
Deena fetched a plain black straw, rusty from the sun and dust of two
summers, and shook her head as she tried to pinch the bows into shape.
"I shall be like a peacock turned topsy-turvy," she laughed--"ashamed
of my head instead of my feet!"
Polly took it out of her hand.
"Of course, you cannot wear _that_ with your hair done in the new
way--besides, it spoils your whole costume. I saw quite a decent hat
in a shop window in the next street. I'll get it for you!" and she was
out of the room like a flash of lightning.
Deena ran to the window and caught her mercurial sister issuing from
the door below.
"Stop, Polly!" she called. "I cannot afford a new hat, and I cannot
accept anything more--please come back."
Polly made a little grimace and walked steadily down the path; at the
gate she condescended to remark:
"Have all your last words said to your cook by the time I get back,
for Ben will not want to wait."
In ten minutes she returned with a smart little hat, and in answer to
Deena's remonstrances, she tossed the condemned one into the wood
fire that was burning on the dining-room hearth; at the same instant
the automobile arrived at the gate. Deena, nearly in tears, pinned the
unwelcome purchase on her head, and followed her sister to the street.
The hat set lightly enough on her curls, but it weighed heavily on her
conscience.
After the manner of the amateur chauffeur, Ben was doubled up under
the front wheels of his motor, offering a stirrup-cup of machine oil
to the god of the car, but Stephen French stood at the gate, his grave
face lighted up with the fun of a stolen holiday.
"You see a truant professor!" he exclaimed. "Simeon doesn't approve;
we couldn't induce him to come. He said a day off meant a night on for
him--he is so wise, is Simeon--but I positively had to do something in
the way of sport; I am in a reckless mood to-day."
"I'll do the wrecking for you, if that's all you want," came from
under the auto's wheels.
Stephen conveyed his thanks.
"I dare say you will, with no effort on your part," he said, opening
the back door of the great, puffing monster. "Get in here, Mrs.
Ponsonby. Ben likes his wife beside him in front, he says, because she
understands how to run the machine when he blows his nose, but I think
it is a clear case of belated honeymoon."
Here Ben scrambled to his feet, his broad, good-humored face crimson
from groveling.
"Deena, good-day to you," he cried. "How perfectly stunning you look!
I declare I thought Polly was the pick of the Sheltons, but, by Jove!
you are running her hard. What have you been doing to yourself?"
Stephen French was delighted--he laughed his slow, reluctant laugh,
and then he called to Ben:
"Turn round and see whether you dropped them in the road."
"Dropped what?" asked Ben, his hand on the lever, making a black
semicircle.
"Your manners," said Stephen, and chuckled again.
"You go to thunder," roared Ben, shooting ahead. "A poor, wretched
bachelor like you instructing a married man how to treat his
sister-in-law, and just because once upon a time I sat in your lecture
room and let you bore me by the hour about protoplasms! Do you suppose
I should dare admit to Polly that Deena is as handsome as she is? Why,
man alive, a Russian warship off Port Arthur would be a place of
safety compared to this automobile."
Deena, laughing though embarrassed, was trying to cover the
countenance that provoked the discussion with a veil, for her hat
strained at its pins and threatened to blow back to Harmouth before
the knotty point was settled as to who should pay for it.
They were flying between fields strewn with Michaelmas daisies and
wooded banks gay with the first kiss of frost, and gradually Deena
forgot everything but the exhilaration of rushing through the air, and
their attitude of holiday-making. She was thoroughly at her ease with
French; he was Simeon's one intimate in the corps of professors, the
only creature who was ever welcome at the Ponsonby table, the one
discerning soul who found something to admire in Simeon's harsh
dealings with himself and the world. Their line of study naturally
drew them together, but Stephen admired the man as well as the
scholar; the purity of his scientific ambition, the patience with
which he bore his poverty--for poverty seemed a serious thing to
French, who was a man of independent fortune, and whose connection
with the university was a matter of predilection only. With Ponsonby
it was bread and butter, and yet he had ventured to marry with nothing
but his splendid brain between his wife and absolute want. French
stole a glance at Deena, who was looking more beautiful than he had
ever seen her, and wondered whether she found her lot satisfactory;
whether there were not times when Simeon's absence was precious to
her. Without disloyalty to his friend, he hoped so, for he had
something to tell her before the day was over that might lead to a
temporary separation, and he hated to think of those lovely eyes
swimming in tears--all women were not Penelopes.
"She can't care in _that way_," he reflected. "Ponsonby is tremendous
in his own line, of course, but no woman could love him."
Perhaps he was mistaken--perhaps Mrs. Ponsonby loved her husband with
all the fervor of passion, but she conveyed an impression of
emancipation to-day, and of powers of enjoyment hitherto suppressed,
that made Stephen doubt. She was like a child bubbling over with
happiness, gay as a lark, as unlike her usual self in behavior as her
modish appearance was unlike that of Simeon Ponsonby's self-denying
wife.
"Of course she won't mind; why should she?" he decided, and yet
determined to put off making his announcement till after lunch.
At Wolfshead they stopped at the little inn, found the one o'clock
dinner smoking on the table, and sat down with the rest of the hungry
company--employees of a branch railroad that had its terminus there;
drummers in flashy shop-made clothes, and temporary residents in the
little town. This jaunt had given them an appetite, and roast beef and
apple tart disappeared at a rate that should have doubled their bill.
After lunch they strolled down to the beach, Deena starting ahead with
French, while Polly went with Ben to get cushions from the automobile.
The present generation seems to consider comfort the first aim of
existence, though the trouble they take to insure it more than
counterbalances the results in old-fashioned judgment.
Stephen stopped to light his cigar behind the shelter of a tree, and
then came running after Deena, who was walking slowly toward the vast
plain of blue water stretching to the east. She turned at the sound of
his footsteps and waited for him, wondering what his classes would
think if they could see their professor bounding along with his hat
under his arm. There was something peculiarly charming in the lighter
side of Stephen's nature; a simplicity and boyishness, which was the
secret of his popularity far more than his weightier qualities. The
women of Harmouth called him handsome, but he had small claims to
beauty. A well set-up figure rather above the medium height, dark hair
grizzled at the temples, eyes that seemed to laugh because of a slight
contraction of the muscles at the outer corners, and a nose decidedly
too high and bony. The expression of the mouth was shrewd, almost
sarcastic, and possibly a little coarse, but his smile redeemed it and
illumined his face like sunshine. What dazzled the ladies of Harmouth
was really a certain easy luxury in dress and habits not common in the
little town. It is always the exotic we prize in our conservatories.
This summing up of French's outer man was not Deena's estimate, as she
watched his approach--she was too familiar with his appearance to
receive any especial impression. She accepted his apologies for his
cigar and for keeping her waiting with an indifferent air, and turned
once more toward the sea.
CHAPTER II.
The beach at Wolfshead was pebbly, with rocks thrown untidily about
and ridges of blackened seaweed marking the various encroachments of
the tide. Stephen brushed the top of a low bowlder with his
handkerchief and invited Deena to sit down.
"You would be more comfortable," he said, "if Ben would come with the
cushions."
"I am quite comfortable without them," she answered, "though I cannot
but resent the Paul and Virginia attitude of the young Minthrops. One
would think a year of married life would have satisfied their greed
for _tete-a-tetes_. I wonder whether they would continue sufficient to
each other if they really were stranded on a desert island."
"Could you be happy on such an island with the man of your heart, Mrs.
Ponsonby?" asked Stephen.
And Deena, feeling that Simeon was perforce the man of her heart, and
that he was quite unfitted to live on sea air and love, answered,
smiling:
"Not unless there were a perfectly new flora to keep him contented."
Stephen saw his opportunity to make his communication, and said,
quickly:
"I suspect you have been reading those articles of Simeon's in the
_Scientist_ on the vegetation of Tierra del Fuego. They are very able.
He ought to go there and verify all he has gleaned by his reading. We
fully appreciate we have a remarkable man at Harmouth in our professor
of botany."
Deena colored with pleasure.
"Poor Simeon," she said; "his limited means have stood in the way of
such personal research, and then, also, the college holidays are too
short for extended trips."
"Let him throw over his classes in the cause of science," said
Stephen, with excitement. "Why, such a book as Simeon would write
after an exploration of--Fuegia, let us say--would place him among the
scientists of the world."
The thought that raced across Deena's mind was what dull reading it
would be, but she recognized the impropriety of the reflection and
said, simply:
"It is too bad we haven't a little more money."
Stephen put his hand in his breast pocket and half drew out a letter,
and then let it drop back, and then he walked a little apart from
Deena and looked at her thoughtfully, as if trying to readjust his
previous ideas of her to the present coquetry of her appearance. The
way her thoughts had flown to Simeon when a desert island existence
was mooted seemed as if she did care, and Stephen hated to give pain,
and yet the letter had to be answered, and the opportunity was not
likely to occur again. The thing he had always admired most in his
friend's wife was her common sense--to that he trusted.
"Mrs. Ponsonby," he said, boldly, "if Simeon had a chance to do this
very thing--free of expense--would you be unhappy at his desertion?
Would you feel that the man who sent him to Patagonia was doing you an
unkindness you could not forgive?"
"I should rejoice at his good fortune," she answered, calmly. "The
fact that I should miss him would not weigh with me for a moment."
French gave a sigh of relief, while his imagination pictured to him a
dissolving view of Polly under similar circumstances.
"The Argentine Government is fitting up an expedition," he went on,
"to go through the Straits of Magellan and down the east coast of
Fuegia with a view of finding out something more exact in regard to
the mineral and agricultural resources than has been known hitherto. I
happen to have been in active correspondence for some time with the
man who virtually set the thing going, and he has asked me to send him
a botanist from here. Shall I offer the chance to your husband? He
must go at once. It is already spring in that part of the world, and
the summer at Cape Horn is short."
Deena's face grew crimson and then paled. She felt an emotion she
could not believe--pure, unalloyed joy! But in a second she understood
better; it was joy, of course, but joy at Simeon's good luck.
"Could he get leave of absence right in the beginning of the term?"
she asked, breathlessly.
And Stephen answered that he had never taken his Sabbatical year, and
that some one could be found to do his work, though it might mean
forfeiting half his salary.
Here they were joined by Polly and Ben, and as Deena made no reference
to the subject they had been discussing, the talk wandered to general
topics.
The sun was making long shadows and the hour to start was come. The
gayety of the morning deserted Deena as they sped back to Harmouth.
Her brain was busy fitting her ideas to this possible change that
French had just foreshadowed, and though she was silent, her eyes
shone with excitement and her color came and went in response to her
unspoken thoughts.
In her mind she saw Tierra del Fuego as it looked on the map at the
end of the narrowing continent, and then she remembered a picture of
Cape Horn that had been in her geography when she was a child--a bold,
rocky promontory jutting into a restless sea, in which three whales
were blowing fountains from the tops of their heads. She reflected
that it was very far away, and that in going there Simeon might
encounter possible dangers and certain discomfort, and she tried to
feel sorry, and all the time a wild excitement blazed in her breast.
She felt as if her youth had been atrophied, and that if Simeon went
it might revive, and then a great shame shook her to have allowed such
thoughts, and a tender pity for the lonely man she had married
obliterated self.
Stephen's voice broke in upon her reverie.
"Have I depressed you, Mrs. Ponsonby?"
"No, no," she answered. "I am only considering ways and means. I want
him to go. We might rent our house for the winter, and I could go home
to live. Count upon my doing everything in my power to make Simeon's
going easy, Mr. French."
"You are admirable," said Stephen, with genuine satisfaction. He even
half put out his hand to give hers a grasp of approbation, but thought
better of it. If she had had her hair parted in the middle, and had
been mending Ponsonby's stockings under the drop-light in her parlor,
he might have done so, braving the needle's point; but, looking as she
did to-day, it seemed safer to refrain.
It was six o'clock when the auto stopped at Deena's door.
"I wish she had shown a little more emotion at his going," was
Stephen's reflection as he helped her out, forgetting how he had
dreaded any evidence of distress; but he only said:
"May I come back to tea, Mrs. Ponsonby? I should like to talk this
over with Simeon to-night."
She acquiesced with an inward misgiving; it was the first time, she
had ever given an invitation to her own table, but it was her
husband's friend, and she was still excited. As she exchanged good-bys
with her sister and Ben, Polly suddenly remembered to tell her
something quite unimportant.
"Oh, Deena!" she whispered, bending over the side of the automobile,
"when I came to pay for your hat today, I found I hadn't enough money,
and I knew you wouldn't like me to explain the circumstances to Ben,
so I told them to send the bill to you and we will settle it later."
"I'll settle it!" said Deena. She was a proud woman, and hated favors
that savored of cash. "Good-night--I am afraid you will be late in
getting to Newbury Hill for your dinner."
"All aboard, French!" shouted Ben--and they were gone.
Deena stood for a moment and watched the retreating machine before she
followed the path to the front door. A great deal that was pleasant
was disappearing with its puffs--Ben's gay spirits and Polly's ready
sympathy, which, if superficial, was very soothing--and the money
power that made them what they were, which, in fact, permitted the
auto to exist for them at all. It had all come into Deena's life for a
few brief hours, and was gone, but something remained--something that
had not been there when she got up that morning: the knowledge that
she was a very beautiful woman, and more than a suspicion that a
crisis was impending in her life.
As she turned to face the house the remembrance of the unpaid hat bill
laid a cold clutch on her heart. Until the first of next month she had
exactly ten dollars at her credit, and that was Simeon's--not
hers--given to her for a specific purpose. She determined to throw
herself upon his indulgence, confess her weakness and beg him to pay
the bill for her. She had never before asked a personal favor of him,
but was she justified in doubting his kindness, because of her own
shyness and pride in concealing her needs? She almost persuaded
herself he would be gratified at her request. After all, Simeon was
not an anchorite; he had his moods like other men, and there were
times when a rough passion marked his dealings with his wife; perhaps
he had not been very felicitous in his role of lover, but the
remembrance that there was such a side to his nature gave a fillip to
her courage.
For the first time he would see her at her best; might not her
prettiness--bah! the thought disgusted her! That she, a typical,
housewifely, modest New England woman should be calculating on her
beauty to draw money from a man's pocket, even though that man were
her husband, seemed to her immoral. She would plainly and directly ask
him to pay the money, and there was the end of it. She opened the
front door and went in.
The Ponsonby house was two stories high, built of wood and set a
little back from the street, with flower beds bordering the path to
the gate and neat grass plots on either side. Within, a small parlor
and dining room on the right of the hall, and to the left a spacious
study; behind that was the kitchen.
The door of the study was half open, and Simeon sat at his desk
reading proof; one of his many contributions to a scientific
periodical, and, judging by the pile of galley sheets, an important
article. He had a way of pursing his lips and glaring through his
spectacles when he read that gave him a look of preternatural wisdom.
He was never what Deena's cook called "a pretty man."
Mrs. Ponsonby's slim figure slid through the opening without pushing
the door wide, and spoke with a kind of reckless gayety.
"Good-evening, Simeon," she said, making a little courtesy; "you see,
I have returned safely, 'clothed and in my right mind.'"
He made a marginal note of cabalistic import before he swung round in
his chair and looked at her over his spectacles.
"Hardly in your right mind, I should think," he said, coldly.
"Don't you like me in my new clothes?" she asked, twirling slowly
round to give him the entire effect of her costume.
He was apt to be irritable when disturbed at his work, and Deena had
not attached much importance to his speech.
"I think," he said, curtly, "you look like a woman on a poster, and
not a reputable woman at that."
"That is hardly a nice thing to say of one's wife----" she began, when
he interrupted her.
"Look here, Deena, I have work to do before tea, and the discussion of
your appearance is hardly important enough to keep publishers waiting.
Oblige me by taking off that dress before I see you again. Where did
you get it--if I may ask?"
"Polly gave it to me," she answered, and was astonished to find a lump
in her throat, a sudden desire to burst into tears.
"Then Polly was guilty of an impertinence you should have resented
instead of accepting. Ben Minthrop's money may dress his own wife, but
not mine. Let it go for this time, but never again subject me to such
an indignity."
"But she didn't give me the hat, Simeon," said poor Deena, who knew it
was now or never.
"And who furnished you with the hat?" he asked, insultingly.
"I meant to ask you to," she said, and a tear escaped and splashed on
the lapel of her new coat, "but never mind, I will find some means to
pay for it myself." And she moved toward the door, wounded pride
expressed in every line of her retreating figure.
"Come back, if you please," he called. "This is childish folly. How
can you pay when you have no money except what I give you? I am
responsible for your debts, and as you have taken advantage of that
fact, I have no choice but to pay. This must never occur again. How
much is it?"
"I--I don't know," faltered Deena, struggling with her emotion.
"You don't know? You buy without even asking the price?" he pursued.
The enormity of the offense crushed his irritation; it struck at the
very foundations of his trust in Deena's judgment, at her whole future
usefulness to him; he almost felt as if his bank account were not in
his own keeping.
She tried to answer, but no words would come; explanations were beyond
her powers, and she left the room, shutting the door behind her. A
passion of tears would have made the situation bearable, but when you
are the lady of the house and unexpected company is coming to tea, and
you have but one servant, you have to deny yourself such luxuries.
Deena went for a moment into the open air while she steadied her
nerves; she forced herself to think what she could add to the evening
meal, and succeeded in burying her mortification in a dish of smoked
beef and eggs.
Old Mrs. Ponsonby had never given in to late dinners, and Simeon's
digestion was regulated to the more economical plan of a light supper
or tea at seven o'clock.
Deena gave the necessary orders and went upstairs to her own room. One
blessing was hers--a bedroom to herself. Simeon had given her his
mother's room and retained his own, which was directly in the rear.
She shut the communicating door, and was glad she had done so when she
heard his step in the passage and knew he had come to make the brief
toilet he thought necessary for tea. She tore off her finery--hung the
pretty costume in her closet, and, as she laid her hat on the shelf,
registered a vow that no power on earth should induce her to pay for
it with Ponsonby money. Though the clock pointed to ten minutes to
seven, she shook down her hair and parted it in the severe style that
had won its way to her mother-in-law's heart. At this point Simeon's
door opened, and Deena remembered, with regret, that she had omitted
to tell him that French was coming to tea. He was already halfway
downstairs, but she came out into the passageway and called him. He
stopped, gave a weary sigh, and came back.
"I forgot to tell you Mr. French is coming to tea," she said, quite in
her usual tone.
"Who asked him?" demanded Simeon, and Deena, too proud to put the
responsibility on French, where it belonged, said: "I did."
Simeon was not an ill-tempered man, but he had had an exasperating
day, and his wife's conduct had offended his prejudices; he was not in
a company frame of mind, and was at small pains to conceal his
feelings; he hardly looked at her as he said:
"I do not question your right to ask people to the house, but I should
be glad to be consulted. My time is often precious beyond what you can
appreciate, and I happen to be exceptionally busy to-night--even
French will be an unwelcome interruption."
"I shall remember your wish," Deena said, quietly, and returned to her
room.
A moment later she heard Stephen arrive, and the study door shut
behind him.
Her toilet was soon made. She knew every idiosyncrasy of the hooks and
buttons of her well-worn afternoon frock. It was dark blue, of some
clinging material that fell naturally into graceful lines, and was
relieved at the throat and wrists by embroidered bands always
immaculate. The damp sea breeze had ruffled her hair into rebellion
against the sleekness Simeon approved, so that, in spite of her
efforts, some effects of the holiday still lingered. Suppressed tears
had made violet shadows under her eyes, and her mouth--sweet and
sensitive like a child's--drooped a little in recollection of her
annoyances, but, all the same, she was a very beautiful young woman,
whether sad or merry.
The study door was still shut as she passed downstairs and into the
little parlor. Her workbasket was standing by her chair, piled high
with mending that she had neglected for her pleasuring. It was
Saturday night, and no good housewife should let the duties of one
week overlap the next. Simeon's aphorism, "A day off means a night
on," seemed likely to be her experience with darning needle and
patches, but it was a quarter past seven, and she deferred beginning
her task till after tea.
The servant announced the meal, and by Deena's orders knocked at the
study door, but got no response; indeed, the _piece de resistance_--the
smoked beef and eggs--had almost hardened into a solid cake before the
friends emerged, arm in arm, and followed Deena to the table. French
drew out her chair with that slight exaggeration of courtesy that lent
a charm to all he did, and with his hands still on the bar he bent
over her and said--smiling the while at Simeon:
"I have been telling your husband of what I hinted to you this
afternoon, Mrs. Ponsonby; the expedition to Patagonia and his chance
to join it."
Simeon's brow contracted. It was disagreeable to him to have momentous
affairs like his own discussed by anticipation with Deena--Deena, who
was only a woman, and he now feared a silly one at that.
"It is no secret, then!" said Simeon, contemptuously, and added,
turning to his wife: "Be good enough not to speak of this before the
servant; I should be sorry to have the faculty hear of such a thing
from anyone but me."
She grew scarlet, but managed to murmur a word of acquiescence.
Stephen looked amazed; he thought he must be mistaken in the rudeness
of his friend's manner, and then began making imaginary excuses for
him. Of course, the tea table was not the place for confidences, and,
naturally, a man would prefer telling such things privately to his
wife, and the rebuke was meant for him, not for Mrs. Ponsonby. How
lovely she looked--even prettier than in those smart clothes she had
worn in the morning. He wondered whether Ponsonby knew how absolutely
perfect she was.
The servant was much in the room, and the talk turned on the
progressive spirit of Argentina, its railroads, its great natural
resources, its vast agricultural development. It was a dialogue
between the men, for Simeon addressed himself exclusively to
French--what could a woman know of what goes to make the wealth of
nations!--and, as for Stephen, he was still uncomfortable from the
failure of his first effort to bring her into the discussion.
When tea was over Simeon pushed back his chair and was about to stalk
from the room, when he remembered that French was his guest, and
halted to let him go out first, but when French waited beside him to
let Deena pass, an expression of impatience crossed her husband's
face, as if the precious half seconds he could so ill spare from his
work, in order to reach conclusions, were being sacrificed to dancing
master ceremonials.
Deena sat sewing till Stephen came to bid her good-night.
"I think it is all arranged," he said, but without the joyousness of
his first announcement. He had, perhaps, lost a little of his interest
in his friend, Ponsonby, since the incident at the tea table.
Deena, with a woman's instinct, guessed at his feelings, and made no
effort to detain him. She was tired and discouraged, and would gladly
have gone to bed when their guest departed, except for a suspicion
that Simeon would want to talk things over with her, in spite of his
seeming indifference. She was not mistaken. In ten minutes he came
into the parlor and threw himself wearily on the sofa.
"Deena," he said, and his tone was kind, "if I should go away for six
months, do you think you could manage without me?"
"I am sure I could," she answered, cheerfully, "and I want to say to
you, now that you have opened the subject, that you must not let my
expenses stand in your way. I know, of course, if you give up your
college work, part of your salary would naturally pass to the person
who, for the time, undertakes your duties, and I have been thinking
that a simple plan would be to rent this house."
The idea was not quite agreeable to Simeon--the old house was part of
himself; he had been born there; his love for his mother overflowed
into every rickety chair; but the common-sense commercial value of the
scheme made him regard Deena with revived respect.
"It is hardly practicable," he said. "In the first place, it is too
old-fashioned to attract, and, in the second, there is no market for
furnished houses at Harmouth."
"Mrs. Barnes would take it, I fancy," said Deena. "She is the mother
of the student who was hurt last week in the football match. She is
trying everywhere to find a furnished house so that she can take care
of him and yet let him stay on here. I think we could rent it, Simeon,
and I should need so little--so very little to keep me while you are
gone."
He took off his spectacles and sat up.
"It isn't a bad idea," he said, almost gayly. "The rent would pay the
taxes and give you a small income besides, and leave me practically
free. You have relieved my mind of a serious worry. Thank you, Deena."
"You will see the president to-morrow?" she asked.
He hesitated before admitting that such was his intention; it was one
thing for his wife to meet his difficulties with practical
suggestions, and quite another for her to put intrusive questions.
"You shall be informed when things take a definite shape," he said,
pompously. "Good-night, my dear; I shall be at work on my galley proof
till daylight."
"Good-night, Simeon," she said, gently. "I am sorry I displeased you
today."
He mumbled something about young people having to make mistakes, but
his mumble was pleasant, and then he crossed to her side, and kissed
her forehead.
She felt the pucker of his lips like wrinkled leather, but she told
herself it was kind in Simeon to kiss her.
As she laid her head on her pillow, she thought:
"He never had the curiosity to ask what I proposed to do with myself
when my home and husband were taken from me," and the tears came at
last, unchecked.