I
That night Theodora wrote a long letter to her mother. It was devoted
almost wholly to Lary’s triumph. The following week the Bromfield
Sentinel heralded on its front page the news of Mr. Larimore
Trench’s latest artistic success. The florid paragraph hinted of
other successes. One must not infer that the designing of a New York
millionaire’s country home was a novel experience to the brilliant
young architect, whose parents were natives of Bromfield. The item
ended with the announcement that Mrs. David Trench was a guest in the
home of her brother, “the Honourable T. J. Larimore.”
“Whew! we’d better confiscate this thing before Lary sees it,” Eileen
ejaculated. “Mamma always could pull the long bow; but she pretty near
overshot herself this time. You’d think Lary was a corporation.”
“Would Sylvia be vexed?” Judith asked. Sylvia was out riding with Dr.
Schubert when the garrulous sheet left the postman’s hand.
“Yes ... because it smacks of the small town. She hasn’t any better
taste than mamma has. It wouldn’t jolt her the way it would Lary or
papa. Lady Judith, I used to cringe and sweat blood when Hal said crass
things before Lary. Now it doesn’t matter what my brother thinks. I
want to shout Hal from the house-tops. I don’t care who knows that we
love each other, and that we have broken all the silly shackles that
our stodgy civilization thinks are so important. Papa dislikes him
because he isn’t the Sunday school kind, and Lary says he’s crude and
common. Well, just the way he is ... is exactly right for me. I’m no
Dresden china shepherdess, myself. How would I feel, marrying a man who
couldn’t stand for a little slang--or expressing your real feelings,
now and then? With such a man as Lary or Syd Schubert, I’d be a fish
out of water.”
“Are you quite sure you are a fish?” Judith asked searchingly. “Did it
ever occur to you, my dear, that you have been in the water with Hal
until you fancy yourself a fish of his kind? Aren’t you afraid that
you’ll be tossed up on the bank some day, a little drowned bird?”
“No! No!” Eileen screamed, her cheeks blanching. “Don’t take all the
glory, all the wonder out of it. Don’t you understand that I am free?
You talk about slave-women. Men don’t make slaves of them. It is their
own selfishness that chains them. I wish I could pour out my heart to
you ... make you see it as I do. Not the sordid thing that love usually
is--Sylvia’s love for Oliver, that pays for a swell apartment and a
bundle of gaudy rags. I want to be free, and I want to show other women
the light.”
“My dear, dear girl,” Mrs. Ascott cried in alarm, “you are only
sixteen. You haven’t even the rudiments of the system you are trying
to teach. Can’t you get your feet on solid ground and stay there until
you are a few years older? I was wrong when I suggested water. You are
up in the clouds. If I thought it would serve to deter you from this
madness, Eileen, I would open for you the darkest chapter of my life.”
“I know ... already. I heard mamma telling papa that you were
divorced--that you tried to get even with your husband by running away
with another man. It was contemptible of me to listen; but I did it
because I wanted to see how bad she would make it out.”
Judith Ascott’s face flamed.
“And papa was quiet a long time--and then he said that there were some
people who could touch pitch and not be defiled. When he said that--it
got me by the heart, and I made a little gurgling noise in my throat. I
was sure they heard me. But mamma flared back at him so furiously that
I was half way down the stairs before they came out of their room. That
was several weeks ago--a few days after you told her. And I wondered
how it would affect him--towards you.”
“And--”
“The next morning at breakfast, he said you were the purest, noblest
woman he had met in years. And Theo and Lary and I all raised such a
chorus of approval that mamma ran out to the kitchen to tell Drusilla
that the waffles were tough.”
An arm stole around the girl’s waist. What had come over Judith Ascott,
that she should care ... that David Trench’s approval should mean so
much? But Eileen misunderstood. In a sudden burst of confidence, she
whispered:
“Will you take care of the wedding ring, along with the other?”
“You are married!”
“No, but we are going to be, before Hal leaves for college. We finally
decided ... last night. Then I am going to him as soon as he is settled
in Brooklyn. Of course his mother must not know.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do this, you poor, infatuated child. Give Hal the
advantage of a little perspective. Look at him when he comes home for
the holidays. It isn’t a summer romance--or a drama, to be disposed of
in the fourth act.”
“But what if he saw some girl in Brooklyn he liked better than me?”
“Then you couldn’t possibly hold him--if you were ten times married.
That is just the danger. You and Hal will almost surely grow apart when
you are removed from identical influences. A year from now you may
detest him, and he is more than likely to lose interest in you.”
Eileen sprang up and ran stumbling from the room.