Linda, who expected to see Pleydon's statue of Simon Downige finished
immediately in a national recognition of its splendor, was disappointed
by his explanation that, probably, it would not be ready for casting
within two years. He intended to model it again, life-size, before he
was ready for the heroic. April, the vivifying, had returned; and,
as always in the spring, Linda was mainly conscious of the mingled
assuaging sounds of life newly admitted through open windows. A single
shaded lamp was lighted by a far table, where Arnaud sat cutting the
pages of _The Living Age_ with an ivory blade; Dodge was blurred in the
semi-obscurity.
He came over to see them more frequently now, through what he called the
great moment--so tiresomely extended--of his life. Pleydon came oftener
but he said infinitely less. It was his custom to arrive for dinner and
suddenly depart early or late in the evening. At times she went up
to her room and left the two almost morosely silent men to their own
thoughts or pages; at others she complained--no other woman alive would
stay with such uninteresting and thoroughly selfish creatures. They
never made the pretense of an effort to consider or amuse her. At this
Arnaud would put aside his book and begin an absurd social conversation
in the manner of Vigné's associates. Pleydon, however, wouldn't speak;
nothing broke the somberness of his passionate absorption in invisible
tyrannies. She gave up, finally, a persistent effort to lighten his
moods. Annoyed she told him that if he did not change he'd be sick, and
then where would everything be.
All at once, through the open window, she heard Stella, her mother,
laughing; the carelessly gay sound overwhelmed her with an instinctive
unreasoning dread. Linda rose with a half gasp--but of course it was
Vigné in the garden with Bailey Sandby.
She sank back angry because she had been startled; but her irritation
perished in disturbing thought. It wasn't, she told herself, Vigné's
actions that made her fear the future so much as her, Linda's, knowledge
of the possibilities of the past. Her undying hatred of that existence
choked in her throat; the chance of its least breath touching Vigné,
Arnaud's daughter, roused her to any embittered hazard.
The girl, she was certain, returned a part at least of Bailey's feeling.
Linda expected no confidences--what had she done to have them?--and
Arnaud was right, affairs of the heart were never revealed until
consummated. Her conclusion had been reached by indirect quiet
deductions. Vigné, lately, was different; her attitude toward her mother
had changed to the subtle reserve of feminine maturity. Her appearance,
overnight, it seemed, had improved; her color was deeper, a delicate
flush burned at any surprise in her cheeks, and the miracle of her body
was perfected.
It wasn't, Linda continued silently, that Vigné could ever follow the
example of Stella Condon through the hotels and lives of men partly
bald, prodigal, and with distant families. Whatever happened to her
would be in excellent surroundings and taste; but the result--the
sordid havoc, inside and out, the satiety alternating with the points
of brilliancy, and finally, inexorably, sweeping over them in a leaden
tide--would be identical. She wondered a little at the strength of her
detestation for such living; it wasn't moral in any sense with which she
was familiar; in fact it appeared to have a vague connection with her
own revolt from the destruction of death. She wanted Vigné as well to
escape that catastrophe, to hold inviolate the beauty of her youth, her
fineness and courage.
She was convinced, too, that if she loved Bailey, and was disappointed,
some of the harm would be done immediately; Linda saw, in imagination,
the pure flame of Vigné's passion fanned and then arbitrarily
extinguished. She saw the resemblance of the dead woman, all those other
painted shades, made stronger. A sentence formed so vividly in her mind
that she looked up apprehensively, certain that she had spoken it aloud:
If Vigné does come to care for him they must marry.
Her thoughts left the girl for Arnaud--he would absolutely oppose her
there, and she speculated about the probable length his opposition would
reach. What would he say to her? It couldn't be helped, in particular it
couldn't be explained, neither to him nor to the friendly correctness of
Bailey Sandby's mother. She, alone, must accept any responsibility, all
blame.
The threatened situation developed more quickly than she had
anticipated. Linda met Bailey, obviously disturbed, in the portico,
leaving their house; his manner, mechanically, was good; and then, with
an irrepressible boyish rush of feeling, he stopped her:
“Vigné and I love each other and Mr. Hallet won't hear of it. He
insulted us with the verse about the old woman who went to the cupboard
to get a bone, and if he hadn't been her father--” he breathed a
portentous and difficult self-repression. “Then he took a cowardly
advantage of my having no money, just now; right after I explained how I
was going to make wads--with Vigné.”
An indefinable excitement possessed Linda, accompanied by a sudden acute
fear of what Arnaud might say. She wanted more than anything else in
life to go quickly, inattentively, past Bailey Sandby and up to her
room. Nothing could be easier, more obvious, than her disapproval of a
moneyless boy. She made a step forward with an assumed resolute ignoring
of his disturbed presence. It was useless. A dread greater than her
fright at Arnaud held her in the portico, her hand lifted to the
polished knob of the inner door. Linda turned slowly, cold and white,
“Wait,” she said to his shoulder in an admirable coat; then she gazed
steadily into his frank pained eyes.
“How do you know that you love Vigné?” she demanded. “You are so young
to be certain it will last always. And Vigné--”
“How does any one know?” he replied. “How did you? Married people always
forget their own experiences, the happy way things went with them.
From all I see money hasn't much to do with loving each other. But, of
course, I'm not going to be poor, not with Vigné. Nobody could. She'd
inspire them. Mr. Hallet knows all about me, too; and he's the oldest
kind of a friend of the family. I suppose when he sees father at the
Rittenhouse Club they'll have a laugh--a laugh at Vigné and me.” His
hand, holding the brim of a soft brown hat, clenched tensely.
“No,” Linda told him, “they won't do that.” Her obscure excitement was
communicated to him. “Why not?” he demanded.
“Because,” she paused to steady her voice, “because I am going to take a
very great responsibility. If it fails, if you let it fail, you'll ruin
ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will consent to your marrying
Vigné.” She escaped at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude.
Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in the hall, busy with the
loosening of her veil. Perhaps it would be better to speak to him after
dinner; she ought to question Vigné first; but, as she stood debating,
her daughter passed her tempestuously, blurred with crying, and Arnaud
angrily demanded her presence.