"I said Delia Rodman and Clorinda Clay. I might have included Fanny
Burnaby and the Brown girls. I meant them, of course. I suppose you've
been doing a lot of worrying on their account."
"I--I haven't," she stammered. "I haven't thought of them at all."
"Then I wouldn't. They've got no legal claim on you whatever. When they
put their money into your father's hands--or when other people put it
there for them--they took their chances. Life is full of risks like
that. You're not responsible for them, not any more than you are for the
fortunes of war. If they've had bad luck, then that's their own lookout.
Oh, I shouldn't have them on my mind for a minute."
She was too startled to suspect him of ruse or strategy.
"I haven't had them on my mind. It seems queer--and yet I haven't. Now
that you speak of them, of course I see--" She passed her hand across her
brow. There was a long, meditative silence before she resumed. "I don't
know what I've been dreaming of that it didn't occur to me before. Papa
and Mr. Davenant both said that I hadn't considered all the sides to the
question; and I suppose that's what they were thinking of. It seems so
obvious--now."
She adjusted her veil and picked up her parasol as though about to take
leave; but when she rose it was only to examine, without seeing it, a
plaque hanging on the wall.
"If papa were to take Mr. Davenant's money," she said, after long
silence, without turning round, "then his clients would be as well off
as before, wouldn't they?"
"I presume they would."
"And now, I suppose, they're very poor."
"I don't know much about that. None of them were great heiresses, as it
was. Miss Prince, who keeps the school, told your cousin Cherry
yesterday that the Rodman girls had written her from Florence, asking if
she could give them a job to teach Italian. They'll have to teach away
like blazes now--anything and everything they know."
She turned round toward him, her eyes misty with distress.
"See this bit of jade?" he continued, getting up from his chair. "Real
jade that is. Cosway, of the Gallery, brought it to me when he came home
from Peking. That's not real jade you've got at Tory Hill. It's
jadeite."
"Is it?" She took the little mandarin in her hand, but without examining
him. "I've no doubt you've been dreadfully worried about them--papa's
clients, I mean."
"W-well--a little--or, rather, not at all. That is, I should have been
worried if it hadn't been for the conviction that something would look
out for them. Something always does, you know."
The faint smile that seemed to have got frozen on her lips quivered
piteously. "I wish you could have that comfortable feeling about me."
"Oh, I have. That'll be all right. You'll be taken care of from start to
finish. Don't have a qualm of doubt about it. There's a whole host of
ministering spirits--angels some people call them--I don't say I should
myself--but there are legions of mighty influences appointed to wait on
just such brave steps as you're about to take."
"That is, if I take them!"
"Oh, you'll take 'em all right, dearie. You'll not be able to help it
when you see just what they ought to be. In a certain sense they'll take
you. You'll be passed along from point to point as safely as that bit of
jade"--he took the carving from between her fingers and held it up--"as
safely as that bit of jade has been transmitted from the quarries of
Tibet to brighten my old eyes. It's run no end of risks, but the Angel
of Beauty has watched over all its journeys. It's been in every sort of
queer, mysterious place; it's passed through the hands of mandarins,
merchants, and slaves; it's probably stood in palaces and been exposed
in shops; it's certainly come over mountains and down rivers and across
seas; and yet here it is, as perfect as when some sallow-faced dwarf of
a craftsman gave it the last touch of the tool a hundred years ago. And
that's the way it'll be with you, dearie. You may go through some
difficult places, but you'll come out as unscathed as my little
Chinaman. The Street called Straight is often a crooked one; and yet
it's the surest and safest route we can take from point to point."
* * * * *
As, a few minutes later, she hurried homeward, this mystical optimism
was to her something like a rose to a sick man--beautiful to
contemplate, but of little practical application in alleviating pain.
Her mind turned away from it. It turned away, too, from the pillar of
cloud, of which the symbolism began to seem deceptive. Under the stress
of the moment the only vision to which she could attain was that of the
Misses Rodman begging for the pitiful job of teaching Italian in a young
ladies' school. She remembered them vaguely--tall, scraggy, permanently
girlish in dress and manner, and looking their true fifty only about the
neck and eyes. With their mother they lived in a pretty villa on the
Poggio Imperiale, and had called on her occasionally when she passed
through Florence. The knowledge of being indebted to them, of having
lived on their modest substance and reduced them to poverty, brought her
to the point of shame in which it would have been a comfort to have the
mountains fall on her and the rocks cover her from the gaze of men. She
upbraided herself for her blindness to the most obviously important
aspect of the situation. Now that she saw it, her zeal to "pay," by
doing penance in public, became tragic and farcical at once. The
absurdity of making satisfaction to Mrs. Rodman and Mrs. Clay, to Fanny
Burnaby and the Brown girls, by calling in the law, when less
suffering--to her father at least--would give them actual cash, was not
the least element in her humiliation.
She walked swiftly, seeing nothing of the cheerful stir around her,
lashed along by the fear that Peter Davenant might have left Tory Hill.
She was too intent on her purpose to perceive any change in her mental
attitude toward him. She was aware of saying to herself that everything
concerning him must be postponed; but beyond that she scarcely thought
of him at all. Once the interests of the poor women who had trusted to
her father had been secured, she would have time to face the claims of
this new creditor; but nothing could be attempted till the one
imperative duty was performed.
Going up the stairs toward her father's room, the sound of voices
reassured her. Davenant was there still. That was so much relief. She
was able to collect herself, to put on something like her habitual air
of quiet dignity, before she pushed open the door and entered.
Guion was lying on the couch with the rug thrown over him. Davenant
stood by the fireplace, endangering with his elbow a dainty Chelsea
shepherdess on the mantelpiece. He was smoking one of Guion's cigars,
which he threw into an ash-tray as Olivia came in.
Conversation stopped abruptly on her appearance. She herself walked
straight to the round table in the middle of the room, and for a second
or two, which seemed much longer in space of time, stood silent, the
tips of her fingers just touching a packet of papers strapped with
rubber bands, which she guessed that Davenant must have brought. Through
her downcast lashes she could see, thrown carelessly on the table, three
or four strips, tinted blue or green or yellow, which she recognized as
checks.
"I only want to say," she began, with a kind of panting in her
breath--"I only want to say, papa, that if ... Mr. Davenant will ...
lend you the money ... I shall be ... I shall be ... very glad."
Guion said nothing. His eyes, regarding her aslant, had in them the
curious receding light she had noticed once before. With a convulsive
clutching of the fingers he pulled the rug up about his chin. Davenant
stood as he had been standing when she came in, his arm resting on the
mantelpiece. When she looked at him with one hasty glance, she noticed
that he reddened hotly.
"I've changed my mind," she went on, impelled by the silence of the
other two to say something more. "I've changed my mind. It's because of
papa's clients--the Miss Rodmans and the others--that I've done it. I
couldn't help it. I never thought of them till this afternoon. I don't
know why. I've been very dense. I've been cruel. I've considered only
how we--papa and I--could exonerate ourselves, if you can call it
exoneration. I'm sorry."
"You couldn't be expected to think of everything at once, Miss Guion,"
Davenant said, clumsily.
"I might have been expected to think of this; but I didn't. I suppose
it's what you meant when you said that there were sides to the question
that I didn't see. You said it, too, papa. I wish you had spoken more
plainly."
"We talked it over, Miss Guion. We didn't want to seem to force you.
It's the kind of thing that's better done when it's done of one's own
impulse. We were sure you'd come to it. All the same, if you hadn't done
it to-day, we'd made up our minds to--to suggest it. That's why I took
the liberty of bringing these things. Those are bonds that you've got
your hand on--and the checks make up the sum total."
By an instinctive movement she snatched her fingers away; but,
recovering herself, she took the package deliberately into her hands and
stood holding it.
"I've been explaining to Davenant," Guion said, in a muffled voice,
"that things aren't quite so hopeless as they seem. If we ever come into
Aunt Vic's money--"
"But there's no certainty of that, papa."
"No certainty, but a good deal of probability. She's always given us to
understand that the money wouldn't go out of her own family; and there's
practically no one left now but you and me. And if it _should_ come to
us, there'd be more than enough to--to square everything. You'd do it,
dear, wouldn't you, if Aunt Vic were to leave the whole thing to you? I
think she's as likely to do that as not."
"Mr. Davenant must know already that I shall give my whole life to
trying to pay our debt. If there's anything I could sign at once--"
Davenant moved from the fireside. "There's nothing to sign, Miss Guion,"
he said, briefly. "The matter is ended as far as I'm concerned. Mr.
Guion has got the money, and is relieved from his most pressing
embarrassments. That's all I care about. There's no reason why we should
ever speak of it again. If you'll excuse me now--"
He turned toward the couch with his hand outstretched, but during the
minute or two in which Olivia and he had been facing each other Guion
had drawn the rug over his face. Beneath it there was a convulsive
shaking, from which the younger man turned away. With a nod of
comprehension to Olivia he tiptoed softly from the room. As he did so he
could see her kneel beside the couch and kiss the hand that lay outside
the coverlet.
She overtook him, however, when he was downstairs picking up his hat and
stick from the hall table.
She stood on the lowest step of the stairs, leaning on the low, white
pillar that finished the balustrade. He was obliged to pass her on his
way to the door. The minute was the more awkward for him owing to the
fact that she did not take the initiative in carrying it off. On the
contrary, she made it harder by looking at him gravely without speaking.
"It's relief," he said, nodding with understanding toward the room
up-stairs. "I've seen men do that before--after they'd been facing some
danger or other with tremendous pluck."
He spoke for the sake of saying something, standing before her with his
hat and stick in his hand, not seeing precisely how he was to get away.
"It's a relief to me, too," she said, simply. "You can't imagine what
it's been the last few days--seeing things go to pieces like that. Now,
I suppose, they'll hold together somehow, though it can't be very well.
I dare say you think me all wrong--"
He shook his head.
"I couldn't see any other way. When you've done wrong as we've done it,
you'd rather be punished. You don't want to go scot-free. It's something
like the kind of impulse that made the hermits and ascetics submit to
scourging. But it's quite possible that I shouldn't have had the courage
to go through with it--especially if papa had broken down. As you said
from the first, I didn't see what was truly vital."
"I shouldn't blame myself too much for that, Miss Guion. It often
happens that one only finds the right way by making two or three plunges
into wrong ones."
"Do you think I've found it now?"
There was something wistful in the question, and not a little humble,
that induced him to say with fervor, "I'm very sure of it."
"And you?" she asked. "Is it the right way for you?"
"Yes; and it's the first time I've ever struck it."
She shook her head slowly. "I don't know. I'm a little bewildered. This
morning everything seemed so clear, and now--I understand," she went on,
"that we shall be taking all you have."
"Who told you that?" he asked, sharply.
"It doesn't matter who told me; but it's very important if we are. _Are_
we?"
He threw his head back in a way that, notwithstanding her preoccupation,
she could not but admire. "No; because I've still got my credit. When a
man has that--"
"But you'll have to begin all over again, sha'n't you?"
"Only as a man who has won one battle begins all over again when he
fights another. It's nothing but fun when you're fond of war."
"Didn't I do something very rude to you--once--a long time ago?"
The question took him so entirely unawares that, in the slight,
involuntary movement he made, he seemed to himself to stagger backward.
He was aware of looking blank, while unable to control his features to a
non-committal expression. He had the feeling that minutes had gone by
before he was able to say:
"It was really of no consequence--"
"Don't say that. It was of great consequence. Any one can see that--now.
I was insolent. I knew I _had_ been. You must have been perfectly aware
of it all these years; and--I _will_ say it!--I _must_ say it!--you're
taking your revenge--very nobly."
He was about to utter something in protest, but she turned away abruptly
and sped up the stairs. On the first landing she paused for the briefest
instant and looked down.
"Good-by," she faltered. "I must go back to papa. He'll need me. I can't
talk any more just now. I'm too bewildered--about everything. Colonel
Ashley will arrive in a day or two, and after I've seen him I shall be a
little clearer as to what I think; and--and then--I shall see you
again."
He continued to stand gazing up the stairway long after he had heard her
close the door of Guion's room behind her.