Two days later she met Trennahan on the Montgomerys' verandah. She was
her old sedate self, to his unspeakable relief. That Magdaléna should
change, be less than the admirable creature he had loved when he was
something more than himself, would have seemed no less a calamity than
had the stars turned black. She sat up very straight in her prim little
way and talked of Helena's new project; which was to build bath-houses
down by the lagoon at Ravenswood and bathe when the tide was in. He told
her that he too had a project: to persuade the men of Menlo to build a
Club House, and thus have some sort of informal social centre. She told
him that she thought that would be nice, and added that she wished she
had a project too, but she was hopelessly unoriginal. Trennahan assured
her that she did herself injustice; and in these admirable platitudes
they pushed along a half-hour like a wheel-barrow, while both thought of
the great oak staring at them from the foot of the garden.
It will come easier with time, she thought that night, as she pulled her
clothes off with heavy fingers. I can almost look him in the eyes
without wanting to fling myself at him. His voice does not matter so
much, for I always hear it anyway. They say that when you no longer hear
a person's voice in your memory the love has gone too. They will be away
for a year after they marry. Perhaps I shall forget then. My memory is
not very good.
She opened the upper drawer of her bureau and lifted out her large
handkerchief box. In its lower part, carefully hidden away, were
Trennahan's letters, several of his faded boutonnières, and one of his
gloves. She had made up her mind the day she heard of his engagement to
Helena that these things must be burnt, but had dreaded their sight and
touch. Now, however, they must go. She was always conscious of their
presence; something of her weakness might pass with their destruction.
As she lifted out the handkerchiefs she came upon the dagger. It was a
beautiful toy, but she pushed it aside resentfully. Its magic was not
for her. She gathered up her tokens with trembling fingers, resisted the
impulse to sit down and weep over them, laid them in the grate, and
flung a bunch of lighted matches into the pyre.
* * * * *
Helena immediately gave a party. The Belmont house, like most of the
others of Menlo, had been designed for comfort rather than for
entertaining; but the dining-room was large, and when stripped of the
many massive pieces of furniture which Colonel Belmont had brought from
his Southern home, would have accommodated more dancing folk than the
neighbours and their guests. The famous Four were not present; nor were
they seen in Menlo that summer. Immediately after the announcement of
Helena's engagement some cruel wag had sent each a miniature tub with
"For Tears" inscribed with black paint upon the bottom. It was generally
supposed that the afflicted quartette were spending their leisure over
these tubs, for they had retired into as complete an obscurity as their
various callings would permit. Helena told Magdaléna that she lived in
terror of their poisoned or perforated bodies being found in the dark
byways of Golden Gate Park; but the youth of the modern civilisation,
while amenable to suffering, thinks highly of himself as a factor in
current history.
Trennahan was not allowed to spend the evening in the smoking-room with
the older men; he must keep himself in sight even while his Helena was
dancing with another. He wandered about with a grim smile on his mouth,
talking occasionally to the older ladies who sat in a corner;
wall-flowers there were none. He wished that Magdaléna would take pity
on him, for he was unmercifully bored; but she danced with exasperating
regularity. Occasionally Helena slipped her hand through his arm and
took him out in the garden, purring upon his shoulder and begging him
not to be bored; but she must look at him! If he insisted upon it, she
would not dance. He refused to countenance such a sacrifice, and
protested that he was just beginning to understand the pleasure of
evening parties. Once he did slip away, and was lying, with his coat
off, a cigar between his lips, crosswise on a bed upstairs with Colonel
Belmont and Mr. Washington, when he received a peremptory message to go
downstairs at once. He threw his cigar away, jerked himself into his
coat, and left the room with jeering condolences in his wake. He felt
cross for the moment; but when he reached the hall below he smiled
humorously as he met the protesting eyes of his lady.
"I can't bear to have you out of my sight!" she exclaimed. "It's
horribly selfish, but I feel as if everything were a blank when you are
out of the room."
What could a man do in the face of so much beauty and so much affection,
but to vow to hold up the wall for the rest of the evening?
As he was taking Magdaléna to her carriage a little after midnight, she
said to him shyly,--
"I hope you are quite happy."