Mrs. Trenton was immediately visible, writing at a small table in the
living room, when they were ushered into the reception parlor. She
wore a pair of shell-rimmed library glasses, and it occurred to Grace
that the blank stare that had been so disconcerting the previous night
was probably attributable to some defect of vision. She did not lift
her head when the maid spoke to her but nodded and went on writing for
several minutes. Then she laid aside the glasses and walked unhurriedly
to the door.
“Ah, Ward, back again!”
“I believe you’ve met Miss Durland, May,” said Trenton.
“Yes; of course,” she replied with a smile of recognition that faded
instantly. “It’s nice of you to come, Miss Durland. I didn’t know last
night that you were acquainted with Mr. Trenton. Dear Miss Reynolds
didn’t mention it or I should, of course----”
She broke off in her odd way, her gaze wandering. Her indifference was
an achievement in itself, a masterly thing. She wore a blue house gown
of an exquisite simplicity. A string of crystal beads hung about her
neck and she put her hand to them frequently as though to make sure
they were there. As she sank into a chair her long figure relaxed into
graceful lines. She was much more composed than at the dinner, with
a languorous composure that might have been donned for the occasion
like a garment. She reminded Grace of those portraits of women done by
fashionable painters which satisfy the artistic sense without conveying
a sense of reality.
“You forget, May, that I haven’t met Miss Reynolds,” Trenton remarked
to her; but she ignored him.
“You are--what do you say--a Hoosier, Miss Durland?” she asked, her
gaze falling as if by chance upon Grace.
“Oh, yes, I’m a native.” Grace answered with a faint smile; but her
courage was ebbing. She hated Mrs. Trenton. She tried to think of
something amusing to add to her confession that she was a native
Indianian but the atmosphere of the room was not conducive to
brilliancy. To make conversation Trenton reminded his wife that they
had once met a certain senator from Indiana at White Sulphur Springs.
A “yes” charged with all the apathy that can be conveyed by the rising
inflexion, was the only reply that was evoked by this attempt to link
Indiana to large affairs of state. Trenton asked Grace whether Indiana
had ever produced more than one president, and she tried to ease her
discomfiture by replying that the state had rather specialized in
vice-presidents.
“Oh, that!” remarked Mrs. Trenton. “How very droll! I suppose the
Indiana school teacher has a frightful time instilling in the young
Hoosier mind the names of all your vice-presidents. Do they pay
teachers well in Indiana?”
“Not so well as farther West, I believe,” Grace answered; “but I know
little about it.”
“That’s the next thing I’m going to take up. I’m having data collected
now,” Mrs. Trenton said with more spirit than she had before manifested.
“That’s fine, May,” said Trenton cordially. “That’s a work worth doing.”
“You’d really approve of that, Ward?” she asked. “You haven’t always
been so indulgent of my whims.”
Grace, increasingly uncomfortable, started when Mrs. Trenton addressed
her directly.
“Miss Durland, if you see too much of Mr. Trenton you will find him a
singularly unreasonable person. But,” with a shrug, “all men have the
ancient conceit of their sex superiority.”
She had drawled the “if you see too much” in a manner to give the
phrase a peculiar insinuating emphasis. Grace caught its significance
at once and her cheeks burned; but she was less angry at the woman than
at Trenton, whose face betrayed no resentment. She rose and walked to
the door.
“Dear me, don’t run away!” Mrs. Trenton exclaimed. “Miss Reynolds will
be back shortly. She was called away to some hospital--I think it
was--to see a friend. Do wait. There will be tea, I think.”
Trenton was on his feet. No man’s mind is ever quite so agile or
discerning as a woman’s. He had just caught up with the phrase that had
angered Grace.
“I have kept my word,” he said, rising and addressing his wife
directly. “When I promised you that if I ever met a woman I felt
I could care for I would tell you, I was in earnest. At your own
suggestion and in perfect good faith I asked Miss Durland to come here.”
“My dear Ward! You were always a man of your word!” she said with a
hint of mockery in her voice. “I assure you that I’m delighted to meet
Miss Durland. She’s very charming, really.”
“I don’t intend that you shall forget yourself!” he said sharply. “Your
conduct since you came into this room has been contemptible!”
“I’m most contrite! Do forgive me, Miss Durland.”
She lay back in her chair in a pose of exaggerated ease and lazily
turned her head to look at Grace.
“I assume,” she said, “that you are my chosen successor, and I can’t
complain of my husband’s taste. You are very handsome and I can see
how your youth would appeal to him, but--there are things I must
consider. Please wait”--Grace had laid her hand on the door,--“I may
as well say it all now. I’ve probably led Ward to think that if such
an emergency as this arose I’d free him and bid him Godspeed. But, you
see, confronted with the fact, I find it necessary to think a little of
myself. One must, you know, and I’m horribly selfish. It would never
do to give my critics a chance to take a fling at me as a woman whose
marriage is a failure. You can see for yourself, Miss Durland, how my
position would be weakened if I were a divorcee. Much as I hate to
disappoint you--it would never do--really it would not!”
“Just what are you assuming, Mrs. Trenton?” demanded Grace, meeting the
gaze of the older woman.
“We needn’t discuss that now!” interrupted Trenton peremptorily.
“No; I suppose you’d have to confer privately with Miss Durland before
reaching a conclusion. But, I suggest, Miss Durland, for the sake of
your own happiness, that you avoid, if, indeed, the warning isn’t too
late, forming any--what do we call such--”
“That will do! Stop right there!” Trenton interrupted.
Grace had swung round from the door, and stood, her lips parted and
with something of the look of an angry, hurt child in her eyes. It
seemed to her that she was an unwilling eavesdropper, hearing words not
intended for her ears, but without the power to escape. Then she heard
Trenton’s voice.
“You’d better go, Grace,” he said quietly. “Craig is waiting. He will
take you home.”
Grace closed the door after her and paused in the dim hall. A nightmare
numbness had seized her; and she found herself wondering whether
she could reach the outer door; it seemed remote, unattainable.
She steadied herself against the newel, remembering an accident in
childhood that had left her dazed and nauseated. Trenton had told her
to go; at his wife’s bidding he was sending her away and it wasn’t
necessary for him to dismiss her like that!
She felt herself precipitated into a measureless oblivion; nothing good
or beautiful ever had been or would be. He had told her to go; that
was all; and like a grieved and heartbroken child she resented being
sent away. In her distress she was incapable of crediting him with the
kindness that had prompted him to bid her leave.
She was startled by a quick step on the walk outside, followed by the
click of the lock, and the door, flung open, revealed Miss Reynolds.
“Why, Grace, I had no idea--why, child! What’s the matter? You’re as
white as a sheet!”
“I must go,” said Grace in a whisper, withdrawing the hand Miss
Reynolds had clasped. The door remained open and the world, a
fantastically distorted world, lay outside. With slow steps she passed
her bewildered friend, saying in the tone of one muttering in an
unhappy dream:
“I must go! He told me to go.”
“He--who?”
The astonished Miss Reynolds, who at first thought Grace was playing a
joke of some kind, watched her pass slowly down the walk to the gate
and enter the waiting car. She went out upon the steps, uncertain what
to do and caught a last glimpse of Grace’s face, her eyes set straight
ahead, as the machine bore her away.