FOX had not seen Rose alone since that night, now some weeks distant,
when, after a bitter struggle with himself, he had definitely accepted
the inexorable fact of Margaret’s demand upon him. To injure a woman,
however unwittingly, seemed to him contemptible, even when he secretly
raged against the injustice of her claims and repudiated them in
his heart with something akin to savage anger. It had been a bitter
experience, a shock to his egotism, to his infatuated belief in
himself, that belief which comes sometimes to genius with the force of
absolute conviction.
The adjournment of Congress had left him more at liberty than usual and
he was anxious to leave the city, yet to do so would be interpreted
as flight. He had purposely absented himself from White’s house, and
Margaret, understanding his mood, had refrained from communicating
with him, but he was instinctively aware that she was unshaken in her
resolution, and the news of the open rupture came to him almost as
a relief; it was over, and it was useless to indulge in vague hopes
and futile thoughts of escape from his responsibility; he must meet
the fate that his folly and selfishness had invited, and with it the
wreck of his own happiness! And he was a strong willed, selfish man;
it was well nigh impossible to yield to such a course, to give up,
to let Rose go just when it seemed most possible to win her. As for
Margaret, the manner in which he thought of her, the wretched obstinacy
with which her fate entangled his, argued ill indeed for her future
hope of happiness if he married her. If he yielded that reluctant
assent to the situation, if he accepted the claim she made upon him,
it might be a bare and cruel fate for both. He was himself unaware of
the impossibility of concealment, that his final indifference would be
more cruel, more deadly than present repudiation. He thought, instead,
of himself, of the wreck of a dream which had filled his soul with the
beautiful and tender amenities of love and loyalty and protection;
he forgot that a man can hide his heart as little as the leopard can
change his spots, and that a woman can suffer more in its revelation
than she would from physical brutality.
All this while the thought of Rose came to him with cruel regret.
There were hours, between daylight and dawn, when he walked the floor
battling with his own soul, battling with the irresistible desire to go
to her, to tell her that he loved her, no matter what happened; let the
universe crumble, let her despise him for his weakness, if she would,
but to tell her the truth! It seemed to him supremely worth the cost.
It was late in the afternoon of one of those perfect spring days when
the cherry trees are white with bloom behind the garden walls and all
the parks are full of robins. Fox had left his work in his vacant
committee-room at the Capitol, and crossing the city was walking
westward with no companion but Sandy. The desire to see Rose had
crystallized in his heart even while he struggled against it, and he
turned almost unconsciously in the direction of her home. He had heard
that very morning of the rumors, now numerous and substantial, of Judge
Temple’s financial losses; one man had told him that the judge was on
the brink of ruin, and the thought of distress and sorrow coming to her
stung Fox with renewed misery. As he came in sight of the modest old
house with its ivy mantled wall and its white door, with the half moon
of triangular panes above it, and its fluted white pilasters on either
side, he looked up over it with the feeling of a man who had shut the
gate of Paradise in his own face. He had intended to pass it, crossing
on the street below, but at the corner Sandy stopped and pricked his
ears and then dashed forward with a joyous bark of greeting, and his
master knew that he was betrayed.
Rose had just mounted her horse at her own door and was dismissing the
negro who had held the reins. The sun shone full in her face and made
a nimbus of her soft bright hair, while her slim figure in the saddle
looked more youthful than ever. She had recognized Sandy and greeted
him with a kindly word as he leaped at her stirrup, and seeing his
master behind him, she held in her restless horse and waited quietly,
only a slight deepening of the color in her cheeks indicating the
tumult in her heart. She had schooled herself for the moment and even
in the shock of unexpected meeting her training held good; she was more
composed than he was, as she answered his greeting. But, at a glance,
he saw the change in her, the reserve in her eyes, the slightness of
her smile, and taking offense at what seemed to him an injustice, he
overlooked the fact that it was the baldest, the most pitiful acting of
one who had never dissembled before in her life.
“It’s too perfect a day to be indoors,” she said, with a lightness of
tone which shocked her own ears; “I am going down by the speedway to
see the river and that soft haze which I know is lying over on the
Virginia shore; in the afternoon sun it looks like a mirage.”
“I don’t think I should enjoy the sight,” Fox said dryly; “life has
been too much of a mirage to me lately.”
She looked down at him, the sun illuminating her beautiful eyes.
“Life?” she repeated, with sudden girlish enthusiasm; “isn’t it what we
make it? We owe it to ourselves--that moral responsibility.”
He laughed with bitterness; her childishness struck him with renewed
force; she could never understand his impossible situation; she would
condemn him, and he deserved it! “Moral responsibility!” he repeated,
with sudden fury, “what cant it is. I’d be willing to cast it all into
Hades for one moment of liberty from these wretched shackles which
‘make cowards of us all!’ No living man can control his life where it
touches another’s.”
She shrank instinctively, with a sharp moral recoil, from his
impassioned words, coloring deeply. Her hands trembled as she held
the bridle, and even that slight motion made her horse swerve, eager
to be off. Intuition, swift and unerring, interpreted his words and
his sudden stress of feeling. “Pardon me,” she said simply, “I did not
mean to set myself up as a judge. I suppose I’m very ignorant of such
matters and--I would rather be so,” she added with gentle dignity.
He looked at her deeply touched. “My God, Rose,” he murmured, “leave
me; if you stay a moment longer I must speak, and you will never
forgive me!”
Her lip trembled like a child’s, but her clear eyes were full of a
grave condemnation; yet she was deeply moved; he had never called her
by her name before, and the sound of it upon his lips, the very way in
which it was uttered voiced his heart; she could not close her ears
to it, no matter how much she struggled with herself, and she did
struggle, determined to hide her own pang of anguished regret. For a
moment neither spoke, then she leaned slightly from her saddle and held
out her hand. “Let us part friends,” she said in a voice of restraint.
He did not take her hand; he groaned. “I cannot!” he exclaimed with
renewed bitterness; “do not offer a sop to a starving man!”
Her horse plunged and she grasped the bridle again with both hands.
Her face changed so completely that it seemed to him a strange face.
He could not read it but he believed that, in her heart, she condemned
him, that he appeared to her in the guise of Mephistopheles himself.
Yet, as she turned and looked back at him, there was an expression in
her eyes at once inscrutable and beautiful; he could never be sure how
far it confessed her heart. Had she loved him? It was impossible to
know, and he stood mute watching her slight figure outlined against
the sun as she galloped down the long quiet street, under an arcade of
new green, wreathed here and there with the bloom of the tulip trees,
narrowing at last to an arched vista of luminous sky above blue distant
hills; its stillness and its new thick foliage shutting from view, at
once of mind and eye, the city life which enfolded it, and was shut
out by its gracious gift of leafage, which hid long rows of houses or
clothed them with imaginary beauty.
Fox stood still, rooted to the spot, his mind darkened by the fierce
tumult of feeling which clamored against fate and against Margaret. She
had broken with him long ago, what right had she to thrust herself into
his life? Then the picture of her in her forlorn grief, in her appeal
to him, came back with an abruptness which wrung a groan from his lips.
What man, so placed as he, could fling her unhappy love in her face?
And Rose? What she believed of him, shaping her thoughts by that stern
old moralist her father, it was not difficult to imagine!
He started to self-consciousness as Sandy, tired of waiting, suddenly
jumped up and pawed his arm. Coming to himself again he flushed hotly
at the discovery that some chance passers-by were staring at him, and
whistling to the dog he walked rapidly away, the battle still raging in
his soul with bitterness.
Meanwhile Rose had turned her horse’s head through less frequented
streets toward the White Lot, and galloping through the bridle paths
around the ellipse, she turned and crossing the street rode down to the
speedway, the sun shining athwart her path and the river lying before
her a sheet of silver.
As she had anticipated, a soft haze floated on the farther shore, the
sun seemed to turn the very mist to gold, and through this glowing,
impalpable atmospheric vapor she saw the beautiful swelling hills, half
fledged in tenderest green, the shadows purple, the distances melting
into the sky itself. Across the river a flock of birds winged their
flight, vanishing at last into the heart of the west.
The long white road stretched smooth and bare to the water’s edge,
she heard the tide lap the sand, and the sharp hoofbeats of her horse
rang clear. It was almost deserted; some social function had drawn the
tide of carriages and motors elsewhere; a few stragglers passed her,
but she galloped on. Behind her the city dropped away into silence,
the foliage in the open spaces of the park and the White House grounds
almost hiding the public buildings and clothing the whole with a sylvan
aspect. Some children paddled at the water’s edge; a boy cast his net;
the prattle of their voices came up through the clear soft air.
Rose checked her horse and sat looking across the river, shading her
eyes with her hand. The sight of Fox, the sound of his voice had
unnerved her. She had thought herself strong enough to dismiss him
from her mind, to live down that dream, that idle futile dream, but
she found that she had not counted the cost, that she had suffered
a serious hurt. Already Rose’s inner mind began to question her own
judgment. She knew nothing of the circumstances; had she a right to
condemn him? Secretly she blamed Margaret; what woman does not blame
the other woman a little? What woman does not know that the other’s
charming ways, her skill, her beauty, may have captured the unwary
male creature almost against his will and certainly against his better
judgment? Eve would never have blamed Adam in her heart if there had
been any one for Adam to flirt with, but therein lay Eve’s profound
superiority over her descendants--she was the only woman!
But Rose knew Margaret, knew her charm, her subtilty, her daring, and
she battled with herself, trying to beat down her secret condemnation
of the woman only. She was a stern little moralist, and she tried to
be just; Fox must be to blame also, for was not Margaret married?
The enormity of his offense could not be excused; besides, as she
reflected, with a gnawing pain at her heart, of what avail to argue?
If the divorce was granted--and it would be, beyond a doubt--Fox would
marry Margaret.
Her lips tightened, her hands grasped the bridle again, and she
galloped on, a wave of misery sweeping over her young soul, blotting
out the bright contentment of her life, her natural cheerfulness.
Suddenly she thought of that day a year ago, how happy she had been!
She remembered it, a bright beautiful day, and she and Mrs. Allestree
and Robert had driven out to Rock Creek Park and she had found some
wood violets. A few months, and her old life had been blotted out,
her happiness clouded; even her affection for her father seemed
overshadowed, her whole being preoccupied and absorbed with this new
misery. Was this then what men called love? Alack, she wished that
she had never met the little blind god, or meeting him, had passed
unscathed!
She turned her horse’s head and rode slowly back; the scent of flowers,
of sweet new grass, of the fresh turned earth came to her, and the
sweet treble note of a song-sparrow, but the world would never be quite
the same again; she had met life face to face and learned one of its
profound lessons. The young purity of her soul refused to accept it
as a common lot, and it was characteristic of the sweetness of her
temperament that, however she suffered, she did not blame Fox for
having deliberately won her love, but she shrank, with almost physical
repugnance, from the thought of him as the lover of a married woman.
The judge’s lessons had gone even deeper than he knew.