She woke next morning to that fierce consciousness of a race. And the goal
must now be near, defeat or victory imminent.
It was early and she dressed quickly. She couldn't boldly rap at Sir
Basil's door and call him to join her in the garden for a dewy walk before
breakfast, for Jack's was the room next his; but, outside, as she drifted
back and forth over the lawn, in full view of his window, she sang to
herself, so that he could hear, sang sweetly, loudly, sadly, a strain of
Wagner. It happened, indeed, to be the Pilgrim's March from Tannhäuser that
she fixed upon for her _aubade_. Jack would never suspect such singing, and
Sir Basil must surely seize its opportunity. But he did not appear. She
surmised that he was not yet up and that it might be wiser to wait for him
in the dining-room.
As she crossed the veranda she heard voices around the corner, a snatch of
talk from two other early risers sitting outside the drawing-room windows.
Mary and Rose; she placed them, as she paused.
"But Jack himself often talks in just that way," Mary was saying, pained it
was evident, and puzzled, too, by some imputation, that she hadn't been
able to deny.
"Yes, dear old Jack," Rose rejoined; "he does talk in a very tiresome way
sometimes; so do you, Mary my darling;--you are all tarred with the same
solemn brush; but, you see, it's just that; one may talk like a prig and
yet not be one. Jack, behind the big words, means them all, is them all,
really. Whereas Imogen;--why she's little--little--little. Even Jack has
found that out at last."
"Rose! Rose! Don't--It's not true. I can't believe it! I won't believe it!"
broke from Mary. Her chair was pushed back impetuously, and Imogen darted
into the dining-room and from there into the hall to find herself, at last,
face to face with Sir Basil.
"I hoped I'd find you. I heard you singing in the garden. What is that
thing,--Gounod, isn't it? Do let's have a turn in the garden."
But even as he said it, holding her hand, the fatal chink of the
approaching breakfast tray told them that the opportunity had come too
late. Rose and Mary already were greeting them, Jack and Miss Bocock called
morning wishes from above.
Valerie was a late riser; and Imogen, behind the tea-pot and coffee,
was always conscious of offering a crisp and charming contrast to lax
self-indulgence. But this morning, as they all hemmed her in, fixed her
in her rightful place, her cheeks irrepressibly burned with vexation and
disappointment. The overheard insolence, too, had been like a sudden slap.
She mastered herself sufficiently to kiss Mary's cheek and to take Rose's
hand with a gaze of pure unconsciousness, a gaze that should have been as a
coal of fire laid upon her venomous head.
But Rose showed no symptom of scorching. She trailed to her place, in a
morning-gown all lace and ribbons, smiling nonchalantly at Jack and saucily
at Sir Basil, with whom she had established relations of chaffing coquetry;
she told Imogen to remember that she liked her coffee half-and-half with a
lot of cream and three lumps of sugar. She looked as guiltless as poor Mary
looked guilty.
"Eddy's late as usual, I suppose," she said.
"He inherits laziness from mama," Imogen smiled, putting in four lumps, a
trivial vengeance she could not resist.
"Some of her charms he has inherited, it's true." Rose, in the absence of
her worshiped hostess gave herself extreme license in guileless prods and
thrusts. "I only wish he had inherited more. Here you are, Eddy, after
all, falsifying my hopes of you. We are talking about your hereditary good
points, Eddy;--in what others, except morning laziness, do you resemble
your mother?"
"Well, I hate strings of milk in my coffee," said Eddy, bending over his
sister to put a perfunctory kiss upon her brow, "and as I observe one in
that cup I hope it's not intended for me. Imogen, why won't you use the
strainer?"
With admirable patience, as if humoring two spoiled children, Imogen filled
another cup with greater care.
"Mama feels just as I do about strings in coffee," said Eddy, bearing away
his cup. "We are both of us very highly organized."
"You mustn't be over-sensitive, you know," said Imogen, "else you will
unfit yourself for life. There are so many strings in one's coffee in
life."
"The fit avoid them," said Eddy, "as I do."
"You inherit that, too, from mama," said Imogen, "the avoidance of
difficulties. Do try some of our pop-overs, Miss Bocock; it's a national
dish."
"What are you going to do this morning, Imogen?" Jack asked, and she felt
that his eye braved hers. "It's your Girls' Club morning, isn't it? That
will do beautifully for you, Miss Bocock. I've been telling Miss Bocock
about it; she is very much interested."
"Very much indeed. I am on the committee of such a club in England," said
Miss Bocock; "I should like to go over it with you."
Imogen smiled assent, while inwardly she muttered "Snake!" Her morning,
already, was done for, unless, indeed, she could annex Sir Basil as a third
to the party and, with him, evade Miss Bocock for a few brief moments. But
brief moments could do nothing for them. They needed long sunny or moonlit
solitudes.
"We must be alone together, under the stars, for our souls to _see_,"
Imogen said to herself, while she poured the coffee, while she met Jack's
eye, while, beneath this highest thought, the lesser comment of "Snake!"
made itself heard.
"What's become of that interesting girl who had the rival club, Imogen?"
Rose asked. "The one you squashed."
"We make her very welcome when she comes to ours." Imogen did not descend
to self-exculpation. She spoke gently and gravely, casting only a glance at
Sir Basil, as if calling him to witness her pained magnanimity.
"It would be fun, you know, to help her to start a new one," said
Rose;--"something rebellious and anarchic. Will you help me if I do, Eddy?
Come, let's sow discord in Imogen's Eden, like a couple of serpents."
Reptilian analogies seemed uppermost this morning; Imogen felt their
fitness while, smiling on, she answered: "I don't think that mere
rebellion--not only against Eden but against the Tree of Knowledge as
well--would carry you far, Rose. Your membership would be of three--Mattie
and the two serpents."
Sir Basil laughed out at the retort.
"You evidently don't know the club and all those delightful young women,"
he said to Rose.
"Oh, yes, indeed I do. Every one sees Imogen's clubs. I don't think them
delightful. Women in crowds are always horrid. We are only tolerable in
isolation."
"You hand over to us, then,"--it was Jack who spoke, and with his usual
impatience when bending to Rose's folly,--"all the civic virtues, all the
virtues of fraternity?"
"With pleasure; they are becoming to nobody, for that matter. But I'm quite
sure that men are brothers. Women never are sisters, however, unless,
sometimes, we are sisters to you," Rose added demurely, at which Sir Basil
gave a loud laugh.
Imogen, though incensed, was willing that on this low ground of silly
flippancy Rose should make her little triumphs. She kept her smile. "I
don't think that those of us who are capable of another sisterhood will
agree with you," and her smile turned on Mary another coal of fire, for
she suspected Mary of apostasy. "I don't think that the women whose aim
in life is--well--to make brothers of men in Rose's sense, can understand
sisterhood at all, as, for instance, Mary and I do."
"Oh, you and Mary!"--Rose tapped her eggshell and salted her egg. "That's
not sisterhood;--that's prophetess and proselyte. You're an anarchist
to the bone, Imogen, like the rest of us;--you couldn't bear to share
anything--It's like children playing games:--If I can't be the driver, I
won't play horses."
"Oh, Rose!" came in distressed tones from Mary; but Imogen did not flinch
from her serenity.
Outside on the veranda, where they all wandered after breakfast, her
moment came at last. Jack had walked away with Mary; Miss Bocock, with a
newspaper, stood in the shade at a little distance. Rose and Eddy were
wandering among the flowers.
Imogen knew, as she found herself alone with Sir Basil, that the impulse
that rose in her was the crude one of simply snatching. She controlled its
demonstration so that only a certain breathlessness was in her voice, a
certain brilliancy in her eye, as she said to him, rapidly:--
"He will never let you see me! Never!"
"He? Who?--What do you mean?" Sir Basil, startled, stared at her.
"Jack! Jack! Haven't you noticed?"
"Oh, I see. Yes, I see." His glance became illuminated. In a voice as low
as her own he asked: "What does it mean?--I never can get a word with
you. He's always there. He's very devoted to you, I know; but, I supposed
that--well, that his chance was over."
His hesitation, the appeal of his glance, were lightning-flashes of
assurance for Imogen, opening her path for her.
"It is over;--it is over;--but it's false that he is devoted to me," she
whispered. "He hates me. He is my enemy."
"Oh, I say!" gasped Sir Basil.
"And since he failed to win me--Don't you see--It's through sheer
spite--sheer hatred."
Her brilliant eyes were on him and a further "Oh!" came from Sir Basil as
he received this long ray of illumination. And it was so dazzling, although
Imogen, after her speech, had cast down her eyes, revealing nothing more,
that he murmured hastily:--"Can't I see you, Imogen, alone;--can't you
arrange it in some way?"
Imogen's eyes were still cast down, while, the purpose that was like a
possession, once attained, her thoughts rushed in, accused, exculpated, a
wild confusion that, in another moment had built for her self-respect the
shelter of a theory that, really, quite solidly sustained the statement so
astounding to herself when it had risen to her lips. Hatred, spite; yes,
these were motives, too, in Jack's treachery; she hadn't spoken falsely,
though it had been with the blindness of the overmastering purpose. And her
dignity was untarnished in Sir Basil's eyes, for, she had seen it at last,
her path was open; she had only to enter it.
Her heart seemed to flutter in her throat as she said on the lowest,
most incisive note: "Yes,--I, too, want to see you, Sir Basil. I am so
lonely;--you are the only one who cares, who understands, who is near me.
There must be real truth between us. This morning--he has prevented that.
But to-night, after we have all gone up-stairs, come out again, by the
little door at the back, and meet me--meet me--" her voice wavered
a little, "at the rustic bench, up in the woods, where we went last
night. There we can talk." And catching suddenly at all the nobility, so
threatened in her own eyes, remembering her love for him, her great love,
and his need, his great need, of her, she smiled deeply, proudly at him and
said:
"We will see each other, at last, and each other's truth, under God's
stars."