Jerry had been reinforced by a colored cateress and the country supper
produced at The Shack proved to be a sumptuous dinner. Kemp had brought
from his well-stocked cave on the farm the ingredients for a certain
cocktail, known by his name throughout the corn-belt. The “Tommy
Kemp” was immediately pronounced to be the last word in cocktails,--a
concoction which, one of the visitors declared, completely annulled
and set aside the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States as an insolent assault upon the personal liberty and the
palate of man. Kemp was in the gayest spirits; the party was wholly to
his taste. The men he entertained were conspicuously successful, and
leaders in the business and social life of their several cities. Irene
had confided to Grace that there were at least ten millions of good
money represented in the party.
The cocktails were served in the living room to the accompaniment of
much lively chatter. Grace found herself observing with interest the
readiness with which the young women who were strangers to The Shack’s
hospitality entered into the spirit of the occasion and met on terms
of familiar good fellowship the men they hadn’t seen before. It helped
her to forget her disappointment at the size of the party to speculate
about the men and the curious phase of human nature that made it
possible for gentlemen whose names were well known throughout America,
who looked as though they might pass the plate in church every Sunday,
to enter joyfully into the pleasures of such a function. Irene had made
no mistake in her choice of girls; they were handsome; they looked well
in their summer frocks; they were lively and responsive; they were
pastmistresses of the gentle art of kidding. There was no question but
that the visiting gentlemen of wealth and social position enjoyed being
kidded, and the fact that some of them had daughters at home much older
than the girls who did the kidding in no wise mitigated their joy.
One of the gentlemen evidently preferred Grace to the girl who had
been assigned to him. Under the inspiration of his cocktail he told
Grace that he had long wished to meet her; that now they had met he
was resolved that they should never part again. Grace summoned all
her powers of flirtation and encouraged him, realizing that to snub
him would be to prove herself a poor sport; and she had heard enough
of parties from Irene to know that a girl must not when “on a party”
give cause for any suspicion that she is of the melancholy tribe of
kill-joys. She took a sip of the “Tommy Kemp” and handed it to the
gentleman who was so beguiled by her charms, who drained the glass,
murmuring ecstatically:
“To the most beautiful girl in the world!”
“Don’t let grandpa worry you,” whispered Irene. “Just tease him a
little and he’ll think he’s having the time of his life. We’re not
drinking--you and I. This is positively my last party! I’m going to
have my hands full keeping Tommy sober.”
Trenton was talking during the cocktailing period to one of the most
attractive of the girls, and when Grace glanced at him he smiled and
held up his unemptied glass and put it back on the tray. He was not
drinking, not even the single cocktail he usually permitted himself.
There was serious business before them; both must keep their heads
clear for it.
The dinner seemed endlessly long. Now and then Grace felt the
reassuring pressure of Trenton’s hand, but the gentleman on the other
side of her, under the mellowing influence of champagne piled upon the
“Tommy Kemps” he had imbibed, was making violent love to her; and his
elaborate tributes of adoration could not be wholly ignored. Seeing
that Trenton was talking little, Kemp, still sober, thanks to Irene’s
watchfulness, addressed him directly:
“I’ve got news for you, Ward. At five o’clock this afternoon I closed a
deal for Cummings’s plant. Bought Isaac Cummings’s controlling interest
and for better or worse the darned thing’s mine. Please, everybody,
drink to good luck!”
“We don’t know what it’s all about, but we’re for you, Tommy,” cried
one of the girls.
“I thought you said you’d never do it, Tommy,” said Trenton, smiling at
his friend and lifting his champagne glass, reversed as it had stood on
the table.
Kemp protested that this was bad luck and ordered Jerry to serve no
more food until every one had drunk to the success of the merger. This
brought them all to their feet with lifted glasses.
“Oh, king, live forever!” cried Irene.
“That’s something like it,” said Kemp. “I didn’t mention the matter
just to advertise my business. I wanted you to know, Grace, that it
gave me a special satisfaction on your account to see Cummings pass
out. It was a downright low trick he played on your father. Things do
sort o’ even up in this world and this struck quick and hard. When
Cummings threw your father out the business was ripe for bankruptcy.
Don’t let Ward scold me. He advised me against it.”
“I advised you against taking on new responsibilities,” Trenton
replied. “You’ve got enough on your hands now.”
“You think I’m a sick man,” said Kemp. “But I’m going to see you all
under the sod. I like this world and I’m going to live a hundred years.
Jerry, fill ’em up!”
There was more food than any one needed or wanted and when Jerry began
serving dessert Trenton suggested to Grace that they leave the table.
Their leaving evoked loud protests. Irene was now furiously angry
at Kemp, who had been unable to resist the lure of the champagne, a
vintage without duplicate in all America, he declared.
The gentleman at Grace’s left, reduced to a maudlin state by his host’s
generous distribution of wine, loudly importuned her not to go. Kemp
announced his purpose to make a speech and was trying to get upon his
feet when Irene pulled him down. One of the visitors began to sing and
seized a candle from the table with which to beat time. He was bawling,
“He’s a jolly good fellow,” as Grace and Trenton effected their escape.
They breathed deep of the clean country air when they reached the long
veranda at the side of the house.
“Poor Tommy; I suppose there’s no way of stopping him,” remarked
Trenton.
Both were aware of a new restraint the moment they were alone. The
still night was sweet with spring and the earth seemed subdued by the
mystery of green things growing.
Grace walked the length of the veranda, then back to the steps, Trenton
beside her. He was still troubled by a sense of responsibility for
Kemp. The discordant noises from the dining room followed them and
they debated whether they should try to break up the party but decided
against it.
“Let’s get away from the racket,” said Trenton. “When I suggested
coming out for supper it didn’t occur to me that Tommy would be pulling
off a bacchanalian feast. Tommy’s incorrigible--dear old Tommy! But--we
must talk. Shall we go up yonder where we can look out over the river?”
The stars and an old moon that stared blandly across the heavens made
the path easily discernible. As they loitered along he spoke of Kemp’s
purchase of the Cummings concern.
“I did advise Tommy against it,” he said, “because of the additional
burdens he’ll have to carry. But it’s a good business stroke. He’s
wiped out an old competitor and with your father’s improvements on
Cummings’s motor Tommy’s going to be greatly strengthened.”
“I’ve been afraid,” said Grace, “that father’s ideas wouldn’t prove
practical. He’s seemed terribly worried lately.”
“Only the usual perplexities of a genius who’s worn out from long
application! He can breathe easy now. The motor’s going to be a wonder.
I was with your father all day and he’s attained every excellence he
claimed. You have every reason to be proud of him.”
“It’s all your kindness,” she murmured.
“Oh, not a bit of it! There’s no sentiment about mechanics. You’ve
either got it or you haven’t. And your father is sound on the
fundamentals where most inventors are weak.”
They sat down on a rustic bench on the bluff above the river and he
threw his overcoat across her knees. Above them towered a sycamore;
below they heard the murmur and ripple of running water. He put his
arm about her, drew her close and kissed her.
“I wish it were all true, as we can imagine it to be in this quiet
place, that we’re absolutely alone in the world--just ourselves.”
“But it isn’t true; we’ve just run away from the world for a little
while,” she said, “but I’m glad for this.”
She laid her hand on his and gently stroked it.
“I hope you understood why I didn’t go yesterday as I’d intended. I
couldn’t leave without explaining. I couldn’t have you think that I
took you to Miss Reynolds’s just to make you uncomfortable. It was my
mistake and a stupid blunder.”
“No; the mistake was mine,” she insisted. “I realized afterwards that
my first feeling was right, that it was foolish to go.”
“I was honest about it. Mrs. Trenton had led me to think that she
wouldn’t resent meeting any woman who promised to give me the love and
companionship it wasn’t in her power to give me. I took her at her
word. You understand that, don’t you?”
“You ought to have known, Ward, and so should I, that no woman would
ever have anything but hatred for another woman her husband falls in
love with.”
“But what I’ve given you she never had! I want you to believe me when I
say that I was really deceived by what I took to be her wholly friendly
attitude.”
“It doesn’t make the least difference now, Ward. I know you wouldn’t
have taken me to see her if you’d known what would happen. I’ll never
have any but the kindest thoughts of you. Please believe that.”
She moved a little away from him and leaned back, her hands relaxed in
her lap.
“It’s all been a mistake--everything--from the beginning,” she went on
in a low voice.
“My loving you hasn’t been a mistake,” he said earnestly. “Nothing has
changed that or can ever change it.”
“You merely think that. If you didn’t see me for a while you’d forget
me,” she said, following unconsciously the ritual of unhappy lovers in
all times.
“No,” he gently protested. “That isn’t the way of it. You don’t really
think that. Please say that you don’t.”
His tone of pleading caused her to turn to him and fling her arms about
his neck.
“Oh, I love you so! I love you so!” she sobbed.
His face was wet with her tears. He took her again into his arms,
turning her face that he might kiss the tears away. Her whole body
shook with her convulsive sobs.
“Dearest little girl! Poor, dear little child!”
In the branches above a bird fluttered and cheeped as though startled
in its dreaming. She freed herself, sought her handkerchief to dry her
eyes. With the impotence of man before a woman’s grief he sought to
brush back a wisp of hair that had fallen across her cheek and his hand
trembled. Her face seemed to hover in the star dusk; he saw the quiver
of her lashes, the parted lips, felt for an instant the throbbing pulse
in her throat.
“I knew the end would come,” she said, with a deep sigh, “But I didn’t
know it would be like this. It’s been so dear, so wonderful! I thought
it would go on forever!”
Her gaze was upon the dark uneven line of the trees across the river
where they brushed the stars.
“But it isn’t the end, dear! A love like ours can’t die. It belongs to
the things of all time.”
“Please, Ward,” she said impatiently, drawing her cloak more tightly
about her shoulders. “Let’s not deceive ourselves any more. You know we
can’t go on,” she continued, as one who has reasoned through a thing
and reached an irrefutable conclusion. “It’s all been like a dream; but
dreams don’t last. And this should never have begun!”
“You break my heart when you say things like that! As we’ve said so
many times--it all had to be!”
“We were fools to think it could last,” she said. “But it was more my
fault than yours. And you’ve been dear and kind--Oh, so beautifully
kind.”
“You’ve trusted me; you’ve proved that! You’ve never doubted--you don’t
doubt now that I love you!”
“Oh, it does no good to talk--let’s just be quiet--I do love you----”
“I must talk,” he replied stubbornly. “You are the dearest thing in
the world to me. I couldn’t foresee what happened. It’s only right you
should know what occurred after you left Miss Reynolds’s.”
“No! Please no! I have no right to know; and it can make no difference.
I knew it was all over when I left the house, but I did want to see you
once more----”
She was trying to be brave but the words faltered and died.
“I didn’t discuss you, try to explain you in any way. I only expressed
my indignation at the wholly unnecessary manner in which Mrs. Trenton
treated you, after encouraging me to believe that you would be treated
with every courtesy. I suppose it was jealousy that prompted her to
speak to you as she did. Miss Reynolds came in at once. You must have
met her--and I took leave after I’d tried to cover up the fact that
something disagreeable had happened. That was all.”
“It was enough. There wasn’t a thing you could say. Mrs. Trenton had
every right on her side. I hope you’ll go back to her and tell her
that any feeling you had for me was just a mistake; make light of the
whole thing. Of course she loves you. If she didn’t she wouldn’t be
jealous. There’s nothing for you to do now but to make your peace with
her. Don’t trouble about me. I don’t want to stand in the way of your
happiness.”
“Grace,” he said, patient in spite of her strained petulant tone,
“there’s no question of love about it. We know we love each other; but
we’ve got to be sane about this.”
“Let’s not talk about it, Ward! You know as well as I do that we’ve
reached the end. And please, dear, don’t make it harder for me by
pretending it isn’t. I’m not a child, you know.”
“We’re not going to pretend anything, Grace, least of all we’re not
going to pretend that everything’s over when we know we couldn’t
forget if we wanted to. But we’ve got to have a care for a little
while at least, now that Mrs. Trenton knows just enough to arouse
her suspicions. I feel my responsibility about you very seriously.
Please--won’t you believe me when I say that it’s of you I’m thinking
first? We might go on seeing each other as we have been, or I might
take you away with me--I’ve thought of that; but I’ve thought too of
the danger. I can’t promise you that Mrs. Trenton wouldn’t spy upon
us,--do something that would drag you into the newspapers, make an
ugly mess. Her prominence would make attractive newspaper material of
you and me, too. I love you too dearly to take any chances. Don’t you
understand? Isn’t it better----”
“Oh, please stop, Ward! Don’t talk to me as though I were a child! It
all comes to the same thing, that we mustn’t see each other any more.
I knew it when I left Miss Reynolds’s yesterday. It would have been
better if we hadn’t come out here.”
“It won’t be forever,” he doggedly persisted. “In the end I’m going to
have you. I want you to remember that.”
“Ward, how perfectly foolish of you to talk that way! If we were to go
on as we have been we wouldn’t be happy. Let’s just acknowledge that
this is the last time.”
“No,” he protested. “It’s not going to be that way! You’ve lost your
courage and I can’t blame you for seeing things black. If I had only
myself to consider I’d run away with you tonight; but that would be a
despicable thing for me to do. I love you too much for that!”
The protestation of his love brought her no ease. She was half angered
by his stubborn refusal to face the truth, and his professed belief
that sometime in some way they were to be reunited. He was trying to
see the light of hope ahead where all was dark to her.
It was strange to be sitting there beside him, thinking already of
their love with all its intimacies, that had seemed to bind them
together forever, as something that had been swept into a past from
which, in a little while, memory would cease to recall it. This was
love! This was the thing that had been written of and sung of in all
the ages; and it was a lure contrived only to bruise and break and
destroy.
She touched the lowest depths of despair, snatched away her hand when
he tried to possess it; thought of him for an instant with repulsion.
The wistful tenderness of the night, the monotonous ripple of water
beneath, the very tranquillity of the stars seemed to mock and taunt
her.
He waited patiently, silent, impassive, as though he knew what she was
thinking and knew, too, that such thoughts were inevitable and must run
their course.
The silence fell upon her like a soothing hand. The tumultuous rush of
her thoughts ceased; she was amazed at the serenity with which suddenly
she viewed the situation.
He was finer than she, wiser, more far seeing. Something in his
figure, in his dimly etched profile in the faint starlight touched her
profoundly. It was selfish of her to forget that he too suffered. He
was a man she had given herself to without reservation, and with all
the honesty and fervor of her young heart, and to think harshly of him
was to acknowledge herself a shameless wanton, no better than a girl on
the street. She could not think ill of him without debasing herself.
And she did love him; she had loved him from the first, and it was not
the way of love to wound.
Perhaps he had been sincere in saying that he wished to protect
her--this was like him, and it was cruel of her to question his love,
to fail to help him when he sought with all kindness and consideration
to find some hope in the future. They must part and it might be for the
last time, but she would not send him away feeling that she had not
appreciated all that his love had been and would continue to be to her.
Without him, without some knowledge of his whereabouts and activities
and the assurance of his well-being, life would be unbearable. She was
all tenderness, all solicitude, wholly self-forgetful, as she softly
uttered his name.
“Ward!” her arms found their way round his shoulders. “I’m selfish,--I
was thinking that you taught me to love you only to thrust me away.
But I know better, dear. You are dearer to me than anything in all the
world--dearer than my life even and I know you mean to be kind. I know
you want to do the right thing for both of us.”
“Yes; yes!” he whispered eagerly and kissed her gently on lips and
eyes. “If we truly love each other there will be some way. It was not
of our ordering--any of this.”
“Yes, we must believe that, dear! There can never be any man for me but
you!”
“And no woman for me but you!”
They clung to each other, silent, fearing to utter even the reassuring
and consoling words that formed on their lips. Beyond the river a train
passed swiftly with a long blast of the locomotive.
They drew apart, listening till the whistle’s last echo and the rumble
of cars died away. Trenton sighed deeply. The disturbance had been an
unwelcome reminder of the energies of the world of men hidden by the
night. Grace was the first to speak.
“It’s been so dear to have this hour! But, we mustn’t meet again.
Please don’t ask me to see you--ever--not in any way. We’ll both be
happier if what we say tonight is final. We can’t just begin over again
and be friends. That would mean forgetfulness--and we can’t forget.
Please don’t write me. I’m going to be all right. I’ll be happy just
thinking of you. We’re both brave and strong and knowing that will
help--won’t it, dear?”
He knew that at the moment at least she was the braver and stronger.
He had nothing to add to what she had said. She rose and took his face
in her hands and kissed him gently, passionlessly; passed her hands
across his eyes, spoke his name softly. He neither spoke nor responded
to her caresses.
“Come, dear!”
She touched his arm lightly and started down the path. He waited a
moment before following.
She talked in a cheery tone of irrelevant things, laughed merrily
when she lost the path; and so they came back to the garden where the
lights of the house confronted them. At the veranda steps he caught her
suddenly in his arms.
“It can’t be like this! I’m not going to give you up! Tell me you
understand that it’s only for a little while----”
“We’re not going to talk about it any more--” she said without a
quaver--with even a little ring of confidence in her voice. But she
suffered his kiss, yielded for a moment to his embrace.
“I’ll love you always, always, always!” she said slowly.
“I’ll love you till I die!” he replied. They stood with hands clasped
for an instant, then she turned and ran into the house.