In the last week of March came a succession of warm rains. The leaves
burst from their impatient hiding just within the cracks in the gray
bark. And on Monday the unclouded sun was irradiating a pale green
world from a pale blue sky. The four windows of Pauline and Olivia's
sitting-room were up; a warm, scented wind was blowing this way and
that the strays of Pauline's red-brown hair as she sat at the table,
her eyes on a book, her thoughts on a letter--Dumont's first letter on
landing in America. A knock, and she frowned slightly.
"Come!" she cried, her expression slowly veering toward welcome.
The door swung back and in came Scarborough. Not the awkward youth of
last October, but still unable wholly to conceal how much at a
disadvantage he felt before the woman he particularly wished to please.
"Yes--I'm ten minutes early," he said, apology in his tone for his
instinct told him that he was interrupting, and he had too little
vanity to see that the interruption was agreeable. "But I thought
you'd be only reading a novel."
For answer she held up the book which lay before her--a solemn volume
in light brown calf.
"Analytical geometry," he said; "and on the first day of the finest
spring the world ever saw!" He was at the window, looking out
longingly--sunshine, and soft air washed clean by the rains; the
new-born leaves and buds; the pioneer birds and flowers. "Let's go for
a walk. We can do the Vergil to-night."
"YOU--talking of neglecting WORK!" Her smile seemed to him to sparkle
as much in the waves of her hair as in her even white teeth and
gold-brown eyes. "So you're human, just like the rest of us."
"Human!" He glanced at her and instantly glanced away.
"Do leave that window," she begged. "We must get the Vergil now. I'm
reading an essay at the society to-night--they've fined me twice for
neglecting it. But if you stand there reminding me of what's going on
outside I'll not be able to resist."
"How this would look from Indian Rock!"
She flung open a Vergil text-book with a relentless shake of the head.
"I've got the place. Book three, line two forty-five--
"'Una in praecelsa consedit rupe Celaeno----'"
"It doesn't matter what that hideous old Harpy howled at the pious
Aeneas," he grumbled. "Let's go out and watch the Great God Pan
dedicate his brand-new temple."
"Do sit there!" She pointed a slim white forefinger at the chair at
the opposite side of the table--the side nearer him. "I'll be generous
and work the dictionary to-day." And she opened a fat, black,
dull-looking book beside the Vergil.
"Where's the Johnnie?" he asked, reluctantly dropping into the chair.
She laid Dryden's translation of the Aeneid on his side of the table.
They always read the poetical version before they began to translate
for the class-room--Dryden was near enough to the original to give them
its spirit, far enough to quiet their consciences. "Find the place
yourself," said she. "I'm not going to do everything."
He opened the Dryden and languidly turned the pages. "'At length
rebuff'd, they leave their mangled----'" he began.
"No--two or three lines farther down," she interrupted. "That was in
the last lesson."
He pushed back the rebellious lock that insisted on falling down the
middle of his forehead, plunged his elbows fiercely upon the table, put
his fists against his temples, and began again:
"'High on a craggy cliff Celaeno sate
And thus her dismal errand did relate--'
Have you got the place in the Latin?" he interrupted himself.
Fortunately he did not look up, for she was watching the waving boughs.
"Yes," she replied, hastily returning to the book. "You do your part
and I'll do mine."
He read a few lines in an absent-minded sing-song, then interrupted
himself once more: "Did you ever smell anything like that breeze?"
"Never. 'Bellum etiam pro caede bovum'--go on--I'm listening--or
trying to."
He read:
"'But know that ere your promised walls you build,
My curse shall severely be fulfilled.
Fierce famine is your lot--for this misdeed,
Reduced to grind the plates on which you feed.'"
He glanced at her. She was leaning on her elbow, obviously weaving
day-dreams round those boughs as they trembled with the ecstasy of
spring.
"You are happy to-day?" he said.
"Yes--happier than I have been for a year." She smiled mysteriously.
"I've had good news." She turned abruptly, looked him in the eyes with
that frank, clear expression--his favorite among his memory-pictures of
her had it. "There's one thing that worries me--it's never off my mind
longer than a few minutes. And when I'm blue, as I usually am on rainy
days, it makes me--horribly uncomfortable. I've often almost asked
your advice about it."
"If you'd be sorry afterward that you told me," said he, "I hope you
won't. But if I can help you, you know how glad I'd be."
"It's no use to tell Olivia," Pauline went on. "She's bitterly
prejudiced. But ever since the first month I knew you, I felt that I
could trust you, that you were a real friend. And you're so fair in
judging people and things."
His eyes twinkled.
"I'm afraid I'd tilt the scales--just a little--where you were
concerned."
"Oh, I want you to do that," she answered with a smile. "Last fall I
did something--well, it was foolish, though I wouldn't admit that to
any one else. I was carried away by an impulse. Not that I regret. In
the only really important way, I wouldn't undo it if I could--I think."
Those last two words came absently, as if she were debating the matter
with herself.
"If it's done and can't be undone," he said cheerfully, "I don't see
that advice is needed."
"But--you don't understand." She seemed to be casting about for words.
"As I said, it was last fall--here. In Saint X there was a man--and he
and I--we'd cared for each other ever since we were children. And then
he went away to college. He did several things father didn't like.
You know how older people are--they don't make allowances. And though
father's the gentlest, best--at any rate, he turned against Jack, and--"
Scarborough abruptly went to the window and stood with his back to her.
After a pause Pauline said, in a rush, "And he came here last fall and
we got married."
There was a long silence.
"It was DREADFUL, wasn't it?" she said in the tone of one who has just
made a shocking discovery.
Scarborough did not answer.
"I never realized till this minute," she went on after a while. "Not
that I'm sorry or that I don't--don't CARE--just as I always did. But
somehow, telling it out loud to some one else has made me see it in a
different light. It didn't seem like treachery to them--to father and
mother--then. It hasn't seemed like a--a marriage REALLY
marriage--until now."
Another long silence. Then she burst out appealingly: "Oh, I don't
see how I'm ever going to tell them!"
Scarborough came back to his chair and seated himself. His face was
curiously white. It was in an unnatural voice that he said: "How old
is he?"
"Twenty-five," she replied, then instantly flared up, as if he had
attacked Dumont: "But it wasn't his fault--not in the least. I knew
what I was doing--and I wanted to do it. You mustn't get a false
impression of him, Hampden. You'd admire and respect him. You--any
one--would have done as he did in the same circumstances." She blushed
slightly. "You and he are ever so much alike--even in looks. It was
that that made me tell you, that made me like you as I have--and trust
you."