Grace had been home a week when she received a letter from Trenton,
written in Pittsburgh. He was closing up his home; looking after
the settlement of Mrs. Trenton’s estate. She had bequeathed her
considerable property to the societies for social reform in which she
had been interested. He hoped to be in Indianapolis shortly, he wrote,
and continued:
... “My thoughts in these past weeks have not been happy ones; but I
must turn now to the future. In my dark hours I have groped toward
you, felt the need of your leading hand. I love you. That is the one
great fact in the world. Whatever I have left to me of life is yours;
and it is now my right to give it.... It was my fate, not my fault,
that I learned to love you. Nothing can change that. Let me begin
over again and prove my love for you--win you as it is a woman’s
right to be won, in the world’s eyes. I want you to bear my name;
belong to me truly, help me to find and keep the path of happiness.”
She did not understand herself as the days passed and she felt no
impulse to reply. She loved him still--there was no question of
that--but she tortured herself with the idea that he had written only
from a chivalrous sense of obligation. Trenton was free; but she too
was free; and marriage was an uncertain quantity. She encouraged
in herself the belief that to marry him would be only to invite
unhappiness. While she was still debating with herself, she learned
from Irene that Trenton was again in town and working hard.
The new club for business girls, which Miss Reynolds decided to name
Friendship House, was in process of furnishing and was to be opened on
Thanksgiving Day.
Nothing in the preparations had proved so embarrassing as the choice of
the first occupants. It might have seemed that all the young women in
town were clamoring for admission and only fifty could be accommodated.
Miss Reynolds and Grace spent many hours interviewing applicants.
Then, too, there was the matter of working out a plan for the general
management of Friendship House until the club members took hold of it
for themselves.
“The girls can make their own rules,” said Miss Reynolds. “But I’m
going to have one little rule printed and put in every room and worked
into all the doormats and stamped into the linen--just two words--Be
Kind! If we’d all live up to that this would be a lot more comfortable
world to live in!”
Being so constantly at Miss Reynolds’s Grace had heard the Bob
Cummingses mentioned frequently. The merger had obliterated the name
from the industrial life of the city; the senior Cummings had gone West
to live with his eldest son and Miss Reynolds had spoken frequently
of the plight in which the collapse of the family fortunes had left
Bob. Evelyn came in one morning when Grace was alone in the improvised
office.
“We’ve sold our house,” she announced, after they had talked awhile.
“It was mine, you know; a wedding present from my uncle. And I’ve
got about a thousand a year. So I’m going to turn Bob loose at his
music. He’s already got a job as organist in Dr. Ridgley’s church and
he’s going to teach and do some lecturing on music. He can do that
wonderfully.”
“That’s perfectly splendid!” said Grace warmly. “But it’s too bad--the
business troubles. I’ve wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
“Well, I’m not so sure any one ought to be sorry for us. Our
difficulties have brought Bob and me closer together, and our chances
of happiness are brighter than on our wedding day; really they are! I’m
saying this to you because you know Bob so well, and I think you’ll
understand.”
Grace was not sure that she did understand and when Evelyn left she
meditated for a long time upon the year’s changes. She had so jauntily
gone out to meet the world, risking her happiness in her confidence
that she was capable of directing her own destiny; but life was not so
easy! Life was an inexorable schoolmaster who set very hard problems
indeed!
Irene, pretending to be jealous of Miss Reynolds, declared that there
was no reason why Grace, in becoming a philanthropist should forget
her old friends. This was on an afternoon when Grace, in Shipley’s
to pick up some odds and ends for Friendship House, looked into the
ready-to-wear floor for a word with Irene.
Hard-pressed to defend her neglect she accepted an invitation to
accompany Irene and John to a movie that night.
“John will have to work for an hour or so but we can get in for the
second show. You just come up to Judge Sanders’ office about eight and
we can have an old-fashioned heart-to-heart talk till John’s ready. You
never take me into your confidence any more,” she concluded with an
injured air.
“I don’t have any confidences; but if I had you certainly wouldn’t
escape.”
“You’re not seeing, Ward, I suppose?” Irene asked carelessly.
“No,” Grace replied with badly-feigned indifference. “I haven’t seen
him and I have no intention of seeing him again.”
“I suppose it’s all over,” said Irene stifling a yawn.
“Yes, it’s all over,” Grace replied testily.
“Strange but Ward just can’t get that idea! Of course he’s had a lot to
do and think about but he’d never force himself on you.”
“No; he wouldn’t do that,” Grace assented.
“Ward’s a free man,” said Irene dreamily. “He’ll probably marry again.”
“Irene! It was silly of me to be as crazy about him as I was. That
freedom I used to talk about was all rubbish. We can’t do as we please
in this world,--you and I both learned that! And after--well--after
all that happened I could never marry Ward. And it would be a mistake
for him to marry me--a girl--who----”
“Grace Durland!” Irene interrupted with lofty scorn, “you are talking
like an idiot! You’re insulting yourself and you’re insulting Ward. I
know a few things. He telephoned you at Miss Reynolds’s twice and asked
to see you and you refused. Don’t let Miss Beulah Reynolds intimidate
you! She took you to Colorado hoping you’d forget Ward!”
“Miss Reynolds is perfectly fine!” Grace flared. “She’s never said a
word against Ward!”
“Oh, she wouldn’t need to say it! She’s just trying to keep you away
from him. I’m not knocking Beulah--she’s all right; but when there’s a
man in the world who is eating his heart out about you, you just can’t
stick your nose in the air and pretend you don’t know he’s alive.”
Grace had been proud of her strength in denying Trenton the interview
for which he had asked; but she left Irene with an unquiet heart.
Trenton was lonely, and his letter had been written in a fine and
tender spirit. She knew that she was guilty of dishonesty in trying
to persuade herself that the nature of their past association made
marriage with him impossible. He had said nothing that even remotely
suggested this. On the other hand he had declared plainly that sooner
or later he would have her, meaning, of course, through marriage. She
despised herself for her inconsistencies. She had told him that she
loved him; love alone could have justified their relationship; and
yet she was viewing him in the harshest light without giving him the
hearing for which he had asked at the earliest moment possible.