Jack thought that he had never seen Imogen looking graver than on that
night when he came again. Her face seemed calm only because she so
compressed and controlled all sorts of agitating things. Her mother was
with her in the lamp-lit library and he guessed already that, in any case,
Imogen, before her mother, would rarely show gaiety and playfulness. Gaiety
and playfulness would seem to condone the fact that her mother found so
little need of help in "bearing" the burden of her regret and of her
self-reproach. But, allowing for that fact, Imogen's gravity was more than
negative. It confronted him like a solemn finger laid on firmly patient
lips; he felt it dwell upon him like solemn eyes while he shook hands with
Mrs. Upton, whom he had not seen since the morning of her arrival.
Mrs. Upton, too, was grave, after a fashion; but her whole demeanor might
be decidedly irritating to a consciousness so burdened with a sense of
change as Imogen 'a evidently was. Even before that finger, those eyes,
into which he had symbolized Imogen's manner, Mrs. Upton's gravity could
break into a smile quite undisturbed, apparently, by any inappropriateness.
She sat near the lamp crocheting; soft, white wool sliding through her
fingers and wave after wave of cloudy substance lengthening a tiny baby's
jacket, so very small a jacket that Jack surmised it to be a gift for an
expectant mother. He further surmised that Mrs. Upton would be very nice to
expectant mothers; that they would like to have her abound.
Mrs. Upton would not curb her smile on account of Imogen's manner, nor
would she recognize it to the extent of tacitly excluding her from the
conversation. She seemed, indeed, to pass him on, in all she said, to
Imogen, and Jack, once more, found his situation between them a little
difficult, for if Mrs. Upton passed him on, Imogen was in no hurry to
receive him. He had, once or twice, the sensation of being stranded, and
it was always Mrs. Upton who felt his need and who pushed him off into the
ease of fresh questions.
He was going back to Boston the next day and asked Imogen if he could take
any message to Mary Osborne.
"Thank you, Jack," said Imogen, "but I write to Mary, always, twice a week.
She depends on my letters."
"When is she coming to you again?"
"I am afraid she is not to come at all, now."
"You're not going away?" the young man asked sharply, for her voice of sad
acceptance implied something quite as sorrowful.
"Oh, no!" Imogen answered, "but mama does not feel that I can have my
friend here now."
Jack, stranded indeed, looked his discomfort and, glancing at Mrs. Upton,
he saw it echoed, though with, a veiled echo. She laid down her work; she
looked at her daughter as though to probe the significance of her speech,
and, not finding her clue, she sat rather helplessly silent.
"Well," said Jack, with attempted lightness, "I hope that I'm not exiled,
too."
"Oh, Jack, how can you!" said Imogen. "It is only that we have discovered
that we are very, very poor, and one's hospitable impulses are shackled.
Mama has been so brave about it, and I don't want to put any burdens upon
her, especially burdens that would be so uncongenial to her as dear, funny
Mary. Mama could hardly care for that typical New England thing. Don't mind
Jack, mama; he is such a near friend that I can talk quite frankly before
him."
For Mrs. Upton was now gathering up her innocent work, preparatory, it was
evident, to departure.
"You are not displeased, dear!" Imogen protested as she rose, not angry,
not injured--Jack was trying to make it out--but full of a soft withdrawal.
"Please don't go. I so want you and Jack to see something of each other."
"I will come back presently," said Mrs. Upton. And so she left them. Jack's
thin face had flushed.
"She means that _she_ won't talk quite frankly before you, you see," said
Imogen. "Don't mind, dear Jack, she is full of these foolish little
conventionalities; she cares so tremendously about the forms of things; I
simply pay no attention; that's the best way. But it's quite true, Jack; I
don't know that I can afford to have my friends come and stay with me any
more. Apparently mama and papa, in their so different ways, have been very
extravagant; and I, too, Jack, have been extravagant. I never knew that I
mustn't be. The money was given to me as I asked for it--and there were
so many, so many claims,--oh, I can't say that I'm sorry that it is gone
as it went. 'But now that we are very poor, I want it to be my pleasures,
rather than hers, that are cut off; she depends so upon her pleasures, her
comforts. She depends more upon her maid, for instance, than I do even upon
my friends. To go without Mary this winter will be hard, of course, but our
love is founded on deeper things than seeing and speaking; and mama would
feel it tragic, I'm quite sure, to have to do up her own hair."
"Good heaven, my dear Imogen! if you are so poor, surely she can learn to
do up her own hair!" Jack burst out, the more vehemently from the fact
that Mrs. Upton's unprotesting, unexplanatory departure had, to his own
consciousness, involved him with Imogen in a companionship of crudity
and inappropriateness. She would not interfere with their frankness, but
she would not be frank with them. She didn't care a penny for what his
impression of her might be. Imogen might fit as many responsibilities upon
her shoulders as she liked and, with her long training in a school of
reticences and composures, she would remain placid and indifferent. So Jack
worked it out, and he resented, for Imogen and for himself, such tact and
such evasion. He wished that they had been more crude, more inappropriate.
Thank heaven for crudeness if morality as opposed to manners made one
crude. He entrenched himself in that morality now, open-eyed to its
seeming priggishness, to say, "And it's a bigger question than that of her
pleasures and yours, Imogen. It's a question of right and wrong. Mary needs
you. Your mother ought not to keep a maid if other people's needs are to be
sacrificed to her luxuries."
Imogen was looking thoughtfully into the fire, her calmness now not the
result of mastery; her own serene assurance was with her.
"I've thought of all that, Jack; I've weighed it, and though I feel it, as
you do, a question of right and wrong, I don't feel that I can force it
upon her. It would be like taking its favorite doll from a child. She is
trying, I do believe, to atone; she is trying to do her duty by making, as
it were, _une acte de présence_; one wants to be very gentle with her; one
doesn't want to make things more difficult than they must already seem.
Poor, dear little mama. But as for me, Jack, it's more than pleasures that
I have to give up. I have to say no to some of those claims that I've given
my life to. It's like cutting into my heart to do it."
She turned away her head to hide the quiet tears that rose involuntarily,
and by the sight of her noble distress, by the realization, too, of such
magnanimity toward the trivial little mother, Jack's inner emotion was
pushed, suddenly, past all the bolts and barriers. Turning a little pale,
he leaned forward and took her hand, stammering as he said: "Dear, dearest
Imogen, you know--you know what I want to ask--whenever you will let me
speak; you know the right I want to claim--"
It had come, the moment of avowal; but they had glided so quietly upon it
that he felt himself unprepared for his own declaration. It wad Imogen's
tranquil acceptance, rather than his own eagerness, that made the situation
seem real.
"I know, dear Jack, of course I know," she said. "It has been a deep, a
peaceful joy for a long time to feel that I was first with you. Let it rest
there, for the present, dear Jack."
"I've not made anything less joyful or less peaceful for you by speaking?"
"No, no, dear. It's only that I couldn't think of it, for some time yet."
"You promise me that, meanwhile, you will think of me, as your friend, just
as happily as before?"
"Just as happily, dear Jack; I could never, as long as you are you and I
am I, think of you in any other way." And she went on, with her tranquil
radiance of aspect, "I have always meant, you know, to make something of my
life before I chose what to do with it."
Jack, too, thought Imogen's life a flower so precious that it must be
placed where it could best bloom; but, feeling in her dispassionateness a
hurt to his hope that it would best bloom in his care, he asked: "Mightn't
the making something of it come after the choice, dear?"
Very clear as to what was her own meaning, Imogen shook her lovely,
unconfused head. "No, only the real need could rightly choose, and one can
only know the real need when one has made the real self."
These were Jack's own views, but, hearing them from her lips, they chilled.
"It seems to me that your self, already, is very real," he said, smiling
a little ruefully. And Imogen now, though firm, was very wonderful, for,
leaning to him, she put for a moment her hand on his and said, smiling back
with the tranquil tenderness: "Not yet, not quite yet, Jack; but we trust
each other's truth, and we can't but trust,--I do, dear Jack, with all my
heart,--that it can never part us."
He kissed her hand at that, and promised to trust and to be patient, and
Imogen presently lifted matters back into their accustomed place, saying
that he must help her with her project for building a country home for her
crippled children. She had laid the papers before him and they were deep in
ways and means when a sharp, imperious scratching at the door interrupted
them.
Imogen's face, as she raised it, showed a touch of weary impatience.
"Mamma's dog," she said. "He can't find her. Let him scratch. He will go
away when no one answers."
"Oh, let's satisfy him that she isn't here," said Jack, who was full of a
mild, though alien, consideration for animals.
"Can you feel any fondness for such wisps of sentimentality and greediness
as that?" Imogen asked, as the tiny _griffon_ darted into the room and ran
about, sniffing with interrogative anxiety.
"Not fondness, perhaps, but amused liking."
"There, now you see he will whine and bark to be let out again. He is as
arrogant and as troublesome as a spoilt child."
"I'll hold him until she comes," said Jack. "I say, he is a nice little
beast--full of gratitude; see him lick my hand." He had picked up the dog
and come back to her.
"I really disapprove of such absurd creatures," said Imogen. "Their very
existence seems a wrong to themselves and to the world."
"Well, I don't know." Theoretically Jack agreed with her as to the
extravagant folly of such morsels of frivolity; but, holding the
_griffon_ as he was, meeting its merry, yet melancholy, eyes, evading
its affectionate, caressing leaps toward his cheek, he couldn't echo her
reasonable rigor. "They take something the place of flowers in life, I
suppose."
"What takes the place of flowers?" Mrs. Upton asked. She had come in while
they spoke and her tone of kind, mild inquiry slightly soothed Jack's
ruffled sensibilities.
"This," said he, holding out her possession to her.
"Oh, Tison! How good of you to take care of him. He was looking for me,
poor pet."
"Imogen was wondering as to the uses of such creatures and I placed them in
the decorative category," Jack went on, determined to hold his own firmly
against any unjustifiable claims of either Tison or his mistress. He
accused himself of a tendency to soften under her glance when it was so
kindly and so consciously bent upon him. Her indifference cut him and made
him hostile, and both softness and hostility were, as he told himself,
symptoms of a silly sensitiveness. The proper attitude was one of firmness
and humor.
"I am afraid that you don't care for dogs," Mrs. Upton said. She had gone
back to her seat, taking up her work and passing her hand over Tison's
silky back as he established himself in her lap.
"Oh yes, I do; I care for flowers, too," said Jack, folding his arms and
leaning back against the table, while Imogen sat before her papers,
observant of the little encounter.
"But they are not at all in the same category. And surely," Mrs. Upton
continued, smiling up at him, "one doesn't justify one's fondness for a
creature by its uses."
"I think one really must, you know," our ethical young man objected,
feeling that he must grasp his latent severity when Mrs. Upton's vague
sweetness of regard was affecting him somewhat as her dog's caressing
little tongue had done. "If a fondness is one we have a right to, we
can justify it,--and it can only be justified by its utility, actual or
potential, to the world we are a part of."
Mrs. Upton continued to smile as though she did not suspect him of wishing
to be taken seriously. "One doesn't reason like that before one allows
oneself to become fond."
"There are lots of things we must reason about to get rid of," Jack smiled
back.
"That sounds very chilly and uncomfortable. Besides, something loving,
pretty, responsive--something that one can make very happy--is useful to
one."
"But only that," Imogen now intervened, coming to her friend's assistance
with decision. "It serves only one's own pleasure;--that is its only use.
And when I think, mama darling, of all the cold, hungry, unhappy children
in this great town to-night,--of all the suffering children, such as those
that Jack and I have been trying to help,--I can't but feel that your
petted little dog there robs some one."
Mrs. Upton, looking down at her dog, now asleep in a profound content,
continued to stroke him in silence.
Jack felt that Imogen's tone was perhaps a little too rigorous for the
occasion. "Not that we want you to turn Tison out into the streets," he
said jocosely.
"No; you mustn't ask that of me," Valerie answered, her tone less light
than before. "It seems to me that there is a place for dear unreasonable
things in the world. All that Tison is made for is to be petted. A child is
a different problem."
"And a problem that it needs all our time, all our strength, all our love
and faith to deal with," Imogen returned, with gentle sadness. "You _are_
robbing some one, mama dear."
"Apparently we are a naughty couple, you and I, Tison," Mrs. Upton said,
"but I am too old and you too eternally young to mend."
She had begun to crochet again; but, though she resumed all her lightness,
her mildness, Jack fancied that she was a little angry.
When he was gone, Mrs. Upton said, looking up at her daughter: "Of course
you must have Mary Osborne to stay with you, Imogen,"
Imogen had gone to the fire and was gazing into it. She was full of a deep
contentment. By her attitude toward Jack this evening, her reception of his
avowal, she had completely vindicated herself. Peace of mind was impossible
to Imogen unless her conscience were clear of any cloud, and now the
morning's humiliating fear was more than atoned for. She was not the woman
to clutch at safety when pain threatened; she had spoken to him exactly as
she would have spoken yesterday, before knowing that she was poor. And,
under this satisfaction, was the serene gladness of knowing him so surely
hers.
Her face, as she turned it toward her mother, adjusted itself to a task of
loving severity. "I cannot think of having her, mama."
"Why not? She will add almost nothing to our expenses. I never for a moment
dreamed of your not having her. I don't know why you thought it my wish."
Imogen looked steadily at her: "Not your wish, mama? After what you told me
this morning?"
"I only said that we must be economical and careful."
"To have one's friends to stay with one is a luxury, is not to be
economical and careful. I don't forget what you said of my expensive mode
of life, of my clothes--a reproof that I am very sure was well deserved; I
should not have been so thoughtless. But it is not fair, mama, really it is
not fair--you must see that--to reproach me, and my father--by implication,
even if not openly--with our reckless charities, and then refuse to take
the responsibility for my awakening."
Imogen, though she spoke with emotion, spoke without haste. Her mother sat
with downcast eyes, working on, and a deep color rose to her cheeks.
"I do want things to be open and honest between us, mama," Imogen went on.
"We are so very different in temperament, in outlook, in conviction, that
to be happy together we must be very true with each other. I want you
always to say just what you mean, so that I may understand what you really
want of me and may clearly see whether I can do it or not. I have such a
horror of any ambiguity in human relations, I believe so in the most
perfect truth."
Valerie was still silent for some moments after this. When she did speak it
was only of the practical matter that they had begun with. "I do want you
to have your friends with you, Imogen. It will not be a luxury. I will see
that we can afford it."
"I shall be very, very glad of that, dear. I wish I had understood before.
You see, just now, before Jack, I felt that you were hurt, displeased, by
my inference from our talk this morning. You made me feel by your whole
manner that you found me graceless, tasteless, to blame in some
way--perhaps for speaking about it to Jack. Jack is very near me, mama."
"But not near me."
"Ah, you made me feel that, too; and that you reproached me with having, as
it were, forced an intimacy upon you."
Valerie was drawing her dark brows together, as though her clue had indeed
escaped her. Imogen's mind slipped from link to link of the trivial, yet
significant, matter with an ease and certainty of purpose that was like the
movement of her own sleek needle, drawing loop after loop of wool into a
pattern; but what Imogen's pattern was she could hardly tell. She abandoned
the wish to make clear her own interpretation, looking up presently with a
faint smile. "I'm sorry, dear. I meant nothing of all that, I assure you.
And as to 'Jack,' it was only that I did not care to seem to justify myself
before him--at your expense it might seem."
"Oh, mama dear!" Imogen laughed out. "You thought me so wrong, then, that
you were afraid of harming his devotion to me by letting him see how very
wrong it was! Jack's devotion is very clear-sighted. It's a devotion that,
if it saw wrongs in me, would only ask to show them to me, too, and to
stand shoulder to shoulder with me in fighting them."
"He must be a remarkable young man," said Valerie, quite without irony.
"He is like most _real_ people in this country, mama," said Imogen, on a
graver note. "We have, I think, evolved a new standard of devotion. We
don't want to have dexterous mamas throwing powder in the eyes of the men
who care for us and sacrificing their very conception of right on the altar
of false maternal duty. The duty we owe to any one _is_ our truth. There is
no higher duty than that. Had I been as ungenerous, as unkind, as you, I'm
afraid, imagined me this evening, it would still have been your duty, to
him, to me, to bring the truth fearlessly to the light. I would have been
amused, hadn't I been so hurt, to see you, as you fancied, shielding me!
Please never forget, dear, in the future, that Jack and I are
truth-lovers."
Looking slightly bewildered by this cascade of smooth fluency, Valerie,
still with her deepened color, here murmured that she, too, cared for the
truth, but the current bore her on. "I don't think you _see_ it, mama, else
you could hardly have hurt me so."
"Did I hurt you so?"
"Why, mama, don't you imagine that I am made of flesh and blood? It was
dreadful to me, your leaving me like that, with the situation on my hands."
Valerie, after another little silence, now repeated, "I'm sorry, dear,"
and, as if accepting contrition, Imogen stooped and kissed her tenderly.