together in the hall filled with dead marbles and living blossoms of the
Spring.
"It was Helen, then, Helen?" Her eyes flamed the rest of the sentence.
"Yes."
"Ah! I might have guessed it. And I--was vain enough and rash enough
to think I could fill her place to you. Poor, dear John, what you have
lost, and what have you got instead?"
"Far more than I merit in any case, dear. It is her secret, and, but
that I dared not deceive you, should never have passed my lips. It is
over, Posey, buried forty fathoms deep. You see, now, that each of us
has need of charity and forbearance with the other, and you must set me
an example of kind forgivingness for all I have done or left undone
toward you."
"My dear boy," said Mr. Winstanley, who, at this moment, came shuffling
out from the library to join them, "you are late for luncheon, but how
long wouldn't I wait to see you and Posey standing there together? It's
better than any sun-bath to have you around, I tell you! I feel years
younger since you came."
"So do I, father," said Posey. "After this I am going to wear a collar
with a little bell and a leash, and let John lead me upon the Croisette.
It is good to have some one to be will and conscience, both, for me!"
"I'm afraid I've spoiled her for you, just a little, John," added her
father wistfully.
"You and others, perhaps. But such as she is, she's a lot too good for
me, sir--or any man. All the same, I think you'll have to be giving me
Posey before the time you fixed for our probation. We are young and
will grow together, and she'll help me to do big work. And it seems to
me, Mr. Winstanley, that she's got a dose of this Old World at the start
that'll make her willing to settle down in our own country."
"We'll see," nodded the old gentleman. And, indeed, the idea of an
earlier marriage chimed in with his own notions. Since the wing of the
Angel of Death had brushed so near his face in passing, Herbert
Winstanley often thought that to put the future of his impetuous child
into safe hands would give him a happier feeling when he lay down to
sleep o' nights.
Thus Miss Bleecker was wiser than she knew, in predicting a matrimonial
conclusion to the Winstanley winter in Cannes. When she and Helen
accepted Posey's invitation to dine with them "to meet a few friends" on
the night but one following their arrival--an invitation, needless to
say, accepted by Miss Carstairs with perturbation of spirit and the
feeling that she was walking up to the cannon's mouth--things seemed to
point that way. They found Mr. Winstanley, simple and gentle as ever,
standing to receive his guests in the drawing-room with its famous
tapestries, surrounded by gems of art that for the first time in years
had emerged from their Holland cerements. The stately room had flowers
massed in its corners, and a great fire of logs was leaping under a
carved stone mantelpiece also banked high with plants and blossoms. At
her father's right hand stood Posey, blushing and dimpling with artless
pleasure in receiving her friend under circumstances so radically
different from those in which they had met and parted a few months
before; but in dress and bearing so perfectly adapted was she to her
luxurious entourage, that Miss Bleecker blinked when looking upon her,
and refused to believe her eyes. And on Mr. Winstanley's other side,
quiet, grave, a little pale, but collected and fully determined to
maintain his position with dignified acceptance, stood Glynn--as
handsome and bonny a lad as ever rejoiced a father's heart, Mr.
Winstanley was saying inside his own warm receptacle of human emotions.
As Helen's eyes met John's and dropped away; as he clasped her gloved
fingers, marvelling at her grace and distinction in the trailing dinner
gown of pale rose satin without frill or furbelow, each felt that this
occasion had for them the solemn significance of a final renunciation of
their love. It was as if she were standing in the church seeing Glynn
take Posey to be his wife. A keen pang of shame for the weakness that
had overcome her on their journey shot through her being. Ah, well!
Fate had been too strong for her then. That was the last, the very
last--like a farewell breathed into already deadened ears.
Posey's attitude toward Helen also touched Miss Carstairs acutely. That
there was in it a new consciousness she felt immediately. She recognized
that Glynn must have eased his honest heart of its burden by telling his
betrothed of his former love for her, and felt that this was as it
should be, if Posey were to remain her friend. It was not tender
apology, or loving sympathy, that Posey showed, nor yet bashful
consciousness that she had in some way taken the ground from under
Helen's feet, but an exquisite mixture of all these. Her high spirits
had for the moment deserted her. She kept close to her father's side,
answered Miss Bleecker's fulsome greetings with no attempt at tart or
witty answers, and, as their other guests came in, proceeded to do the
honors as if "born to the purple" (so Miss Bleecker whispered to John
Glynn).
The chaperon's day of wonder was upon her, while the room rapidly filled
with a company of people distinguished in the world's eye of their
winter colony, all of whom bore themselves toward the tenant of Reine
des Fees and his youthful _chatelaine_ with the friendly consideration
of accustomed intimates. To each of the new-comers, Glynn was presented
by his host; without special announcement, it is true, yet in fashion so
intentional that there was no mistaking the attitude in which he stood
toward father and daughter. As they presently went in to dinner, in a
salle with carved panels of French walnut and great lustres of Venetian
glass illuminating its four corners, to gather around a table that left
nothing for fastidious taste to criticise, Miss Bleecker wanted to pinch
herself upon taking off her gloves, to feel assured that she was not in
a dream. The old gentleman, yonder, well turned out by a good valet, in
appropriate evening clothes, seated between a great lady of France,
whose neck was wrapped in historic pearls, and an Englishwoman, of rank
and exclusive habit, could he be the little old man of shipboard, whom
Helen's chaperon had despised and derided as the veriest pretender to
good society? It was incredible! And the strangest part of the
situation in old Sally's eyes was that, save in externals, Herbert
Winstanley had not altered in any particular from the shrewd quiet
observer of the game of life, the mild commentator upon the ways of men
and women, the almost childlike recipient of courtesy and kind words,
whom she remembered with amused contempt.
Such as he was, these people had taken him up with a good-will there was
no denying. Miss Bleecker had the pleasure of finding herself at table
told off to an old beau of nativity American, overlaid with years of
veneer Continental, who seemed to find satisfaction in extolling to her
the "solid" success of the Winstanleys; the girl's extraordinary ease in
presiding over this banquet of state, and the good luck of that fellow
Glynn, whose significant appearance this evening was evidently intended
to put all of Miss Winstanley's other admirers out of the running.
Old Sally, who had long ago learned how to trim her sails, listened with
bitterness, and while comforting her inner woman with the long
succession of "plats" and wines presented at her elbow, made up her mind
that she would stray over to Reine des Fees, without Helen, next morning
(under her most becoming parasol), with the hope of finding Mr.
Winstanley engaged in taking his sun-bath on the terrace. "And, if I
only get my chance," she meditated, "trust me for following it up." The
announcement, by cable from America that day, of the engagement of a
contemporary of her own, long abandoned in appearance to celibate joys,
to marry "the last man anyone would have expected to see pick her up"--a
recent widower of large means and uncertain temper--accelerated the
spinster's thoughts and lent a false brilliancy to the evening that had
begun for her so dolefully.
To Helen Carstairs, naturally, the ordeal of the dinner was
interminable. Separated from Glynn by a wide extent of flower-decorated
table, amid which candles gleamed softly, and silver lent its sheen to
illuminate beds of maiden-hair and cyclamen, she dared not look in his
direction. All of her efforts were given to self-control. The man who
took her in, a handsome blond young Russian, with all the languages of
earth seemingly at his disposal, decided that the American heiress not
appropriated at this feast was as cold as the snows of his own Caucasus.
The Roumanian prince on her other side gave her up also as a person
impossible to interest. She went through it like an automaton, her one
desire to see Posey signal to the lady with the pearls that it was time
to arise from table.
Lady Campstown, watching this little drama of every day, felt worried
and puzzled. She had never given up the idea that Clandonald had cared
for Miss Carstairs, and was only debarred from telling her so from his
pride of poverty and the clog attached to his career. Although her
ladyship's secret heart yearned over Posey, and she would have given
worlds to see Clan's allegiance transferred to her, the American rival
well disposed of in some other way (nature not settled in her mind) and
Posey becoming a member of their family, her very own to cherish through
life, the joyous regenerator of her nephew's hopes and fortunes--she now
felt this to be a fairy tale beyond chance of reality. Much as she had
talked to Posey about Clan that winter (and one must have experience of
the wealth of conversation a lonely old woman lavishes upon the young,
strong, vigorous manhood that belongs to her and has gone out to the
world, forsaking her, to know just how much that was), the girl had
never in return given her a hint of interest in him beyond the common.
She had spoken of their meeting on shipboard, had acceded to Lady
Campstown's appeals for interest in the chief events of his life, but
had ventured nothing on her own account.
Slowly, but surely, therefore, Lady Campstown had seen the evanishment
of this hope, conceived in secret and brought forth in fear, without a
suggestion of it having been consigned to Miss Winstanley. The arrival
of Mr. Glynn, duly presented to her ladyship in form, had shown the
dowager the futility of her hopes. The engagement with Glynn was real,
tangible, not a boy-and-girl fancy that might drift into smoke--it was
undeniably "there to stay."
Lady Campstown, perhaps unwillingly, could not withhold from Glynn the
tribute of admiration his manly exterior, his fearless earnestness of
character, were wont to extort from strangers. She had failed, though,
to discern in Posey any of the usual signs and tokens by which a girl
takes the world into her confidence concerning her joy at a lover's
coming. She marvelled at the child's matter-of-fact demeanor, her
off-hand bonhommie, her warm spirit of comradeship to Glynn. It must
be, thought the old lady, a little put out by these conditions, which
were not according to her recollections or her views, "that is the way
they do it in America!"
Thus, perforce falling back upon the Helen Carstairs idea again, that
young lady's arrival in Cannes had seemed little short of Providential.
Clandonald must, according to his promises and forecasts of travel, be
shortly in the field. There was no question that he had once admitted
to his aunt it was some American lady who had caused the trouble from
Ruby shortly after his return to Beaumanoir. He had been vague,
elusive, as men always are in telling what their womenkind want to know
about other women; but there had been a girl, an American girl; Ruby had
attacked him through this girl, he had paid dearly to silence the base
tormentor, and then, in an access of wounded pride and disgust, had
again shaken the dust of his native land from his feet, and journeyed
into the unknown. Months had passed, long enough for Clandonald's angry
feelings to subside. He must soon come back to Villa Julia, where he
had known so many happy hours. His aunt would make him thoroughly
comfortable, happy, as she well knew how to do. She would go slowly,
leaving Helen and himself to drift together again in the natural order
of such things. It must, it must come out all right!
While indulging in this optimistic thought for the twentieth time in two
days, Lady Campstown had happened to catch a glimpse of Helen's face
between two candelabra. It was the first time she had seen it in repose
since the young lady's visit to Beaumanoir, and she was struck with an
increase of thought and pain in the rare, fine countenance. At once she
decided that Helen was fretting after Clan, and her warm heart bounded
with sympathy. She went up to Miss Carstairs when the women were
together after dinner and spoke to her cordially, flatteringly. Posey,
from where she sat with her two greatest ladies--tarrying there,
however, just long enough to say a few modest words, then leaving them
to what they desired, conversation with each other--saw the talk between
her two friends, and longed to join in it. Hastening upon her rounds as
a hostess, she in due time came up with them.
"What a nice time you two dear souls are having!" she exclaimed. "And
how I've wanted to be with you! It is so much nicer always to be with
the few one loves than with the many one merely has to know."
"You have been gleaning golden opinions, all the same," said Helen.
"Lady Campstown has been telling me what Princess Z---- says of you as
an entertainer--that you were born, not made."
"I reckon--no, I _fancy_ I came by it honestly," laughed Posey. "I
always enjoy the things we give so much more than those we go to."
"I am asking Miss Carstairs to come to me to-morrow for luncheon," said
Lady Campstown, putting with loving fingers a stray bit of Posey's lace
in place. "And I do hope, dear, you haven't promised anybody else."
"I'll come, surely," exclaimed the girl. "Though I suppose I ought not
to forsake daddy and John these few days we have together. But to tell
you the mortifying truth, they are continually falling knee-deep into
talks of which I can't understand a thing. And sometimes I slip out with
my dogs, and they don't even know that I have gone."
"'Slip out' to-morrow, then, at 1.30, and bring the dogs," said Lady
Campstown. "But, my dear, what does this mean that I hear, Mr. Glynn is
for leaving us on Thursday?"
"He's going to catch the 'Kronprinz' at Cherbourg, Saturday, and must
have a few hours in Paris. It's awfully stupid, I tell him, but when an
American man gets hold of a scheme that spells business you can no more
induce him to loose hold of it than my darling Maida will consent to
give up a particular pet bone."
"But he's coming back very soon, they tell me. How you Americans can go
racing back and forth across the Atlantic as you do----"
"Yes, he's coming back very soon," said Posey, faltering a little, and
pulling to pieces a superb white rose with purple-red outside petals
that hung from a vase on the console next to her. "I may as well tell
you both, what I meant to do to-morrow, that daddy and he decided to-day
the wedding's to come off at the end of March. John will accordingly
rush through a lot of things in New York, tear back again, probably via
Genoa, if they put on one of the fast ships, and where his trousseau's
to come in, I can't imagine. My own will take every minute from now
till then, and all of the missionary aid you two dears choose to lend
me, to make it an accomplished fact."
"You can count upon me in all things," Helen said very quietly.
"Oh, my dear lamb, and you ask me to be glad when it means that I've got
to lose you," put in Lady Campstown, thinking for the moment honestly
about herself, and thereby covering what might have been a trying pause
to both girls. A servant, presenting a tray of coffee-cups at Lady
Campstown's side, helped further to bridge the moment, and others of
Posey's guests surrounding her with chat and laughter, the question of
the marriage floated away into space. Helen, however, took it back to
her hotel with her, wrestled with it during sleepless hours, and next
day, to stave off intolerable thought, set out for a long walk alone.
Whither she went she neither cared nor knew. She had a vague
remembrance of having passed through the flower-market, and being set
upon to buy, by a soft-voiced, smiling woman who stood behind great
blurs of red and yellow and white and purple, shrined in verdure, from
which luscious scent arose. To get rid of her, she had paid a
persistent child a franc for a big bunch of violets, and the girl, with
a saucy, merry face, thrust into her hand also a spray of orange
blossom. Helen threw this last away impatiently. Impossible to be rid
of the suggestions of that wedding, ten-fold more abhorrent to her now
that she had seen for herself and knew beyond a peradventure that it was
inspired by no such love as she and John had felt for each other only a
day or two before; such love as she must feel for him, God help her,
till she died.
She walked on through the town, far into the outskirts, till seeing a
sign of "New Milk" upon a chalet near the road made her suddenly
remember she had set out without even her morning coffee. Going inside
the building, she sat for a few moments at a table while a woman served
her with rolls and a glass of milk, and then, starting forth again, was
vaguely tempted to ascend a hillside which rose abruptly above the spot,
crowned with a noble growth of trees.
Helen had no sooner gained the smooth plateau of the summit than she
remembered where she was. Long ago, as a child, in charge of her
English governess, journeying from the Italian seashore to join her
father at Marseilles, they had stopped over for a midsummer fete at Mont
St. Cassien, where, in blazing heat, the Cannois and their rustic
neighbors from miles around had fulfilled an old custom of Provence in
holding service at a little chapel on this hill, the remainder of the
day and evening being spent in feasting at tables spread on the slopes
and in the green valley below. She could shut her eyes and see again
the lights gleaming around the tables, as the hot darkness fell, the gay
costumes, and the chain of dancers threading its way among the trees.
The grass was growing wild and coarse where she followed a shaded path
to the little hut in which a holy hermit had once lived and died. A
peasant woman in the kitchen of the hermitage was cooking something in a
casserole over a tiny fire, but she left it civilly to conduct the
stranger through to the chapel adjoining. A girl grown to woman's
height, but, alas, a child in intellect, began pulling and tugging at
her mother's gown, asking witless questions and being repeatedly, but
tenderly, thrust aside by the woman, and told to stay in her own place.
Helen hardly knew why she had acceded to the woman's suggestion that she
should visit the uninteresting sanctuary, with its cheap emblems and
smell of stale incense, and decorations of paper flowers.
But she understood, when through the now opened front door a gentleman
stepped from broad sunshine into the chill interior, apparently as
aimless as herself, and came up to her side.
"Helen! You are alone?"
"You here!" she answered under her breath. "When I have come all this
distance to be away from you!"
"It is the same with me, Helen," Glynn said in a sombre voice. "I have
wandered and wandered up here for no reason in particular, trying to
believe you are not in Cannes, trying to master my ungovernable desire
to be with you only once again."
"It is all of a piece with our being thrust together that day upon the
train," she cried impetuously. "What have we done that such things
should be forced upon us?"
"Come out at least into the sunshine," he said, taking her cold hand.
"You will be chilled in this dreary place."
Giving a douceur to the poor guardian of the premises, they went
together to a point of the hillside whereon the trunk of a fallen tree
offered a semblance of a seat.
Helen, actually nerveless, dropped upon it, Glynn standing beside her,
neither daring to speak first.
"You know that I am leaving to-morrow?" he asked finally.
"Posey told me so last night," she answered.
"She told you what was to follow my return at the end of March?"
"Yes."
"The question is, Am I a man of honor or a scoundrel?" he went on with a
frowning brow. "I have thought of it so long, so intensely, that my
judgment has ceased to act. Helen, you have the clearest mind, the most
well-balanced conscience I ever knew----"
"You can say that, when I was so false to myself and you as to let you
go that time in New York, before all these complications came upon us?"
she interrupted him bitterly. "But there, what is the use? We have
parted, there is no hope, let us never speak of ourselves together
again. If it is your duty to Posey, to her father, that torments you; I
bid you keep your pledge. It is impossible that you should now make any
motion to withdraw from it. The one terrible thing to me was that we
should all go on and Poesy have no idea what you and I once were to each
other----"
"Nobody could know that," the man said sturdily. Helen shivered.
"But you have relieved me of that fear," she hurried on. "I saw at
once, last night, that you had told her----"
"Only that you were the woman I had loved before plighting myself to
her. She knows nothing of the circumstances of our acquaintance. That
is my secret, mine only, to be treasured till I die."
"She knows enough, however, to make clear the way between us," Helen
made further haste to say. "If you are kind now, you will end this
conversation that ought never to have begun. I shall be leaving Cannes
shortly. My father is coming for me in his yacht. Before I see you
again you will have in your keeping the happiness, the trust, of
one--no, two, of the kindest, most confiding creatures God ever made.
Never think that it is I who could try and weaken you at the outset of
such a task. If necessary, rather let Posey think that I have grown cold
to her than run the risk of such a re-awakening of old feeling as we two
have innocently suffered from to-day."
Her voice dropped to a whisper. Violet shadows had formed under her
eyes, the lines around her mouth had deepened painfully. But when she
looked at him full in the eyes, he knew there would be no more weakening
in his direction. Presently she arose, and they walked together to the
foot of the hill, where Helen hailed a passing carriage and asked him to
put her in it. A moment more, and Glynn was indeed alone.
As he walked rapidly homeward, he forced his mind away from the
overpowering interest of this last chance interview to dwell upon minor
things, among which he was inclined to classify even the settling of the
affair with Posey's tormentor, Mrs. Darien. He had, according to his
engagement with that lady, gone over to Nice by an early train the day
following their interview in the garden. He had found her in the
melancholy splendors of a saloon bedroom in a cheap hotel, with a screen
half encircling an untidy couch, a dressing-table littered with strange
scents and unguents, shabby finery hanging upon hooks, and a _chaise
longue_ of rusty plush drawn up before a writing-table containing, in
addition to its blotter and inkstand, a case of liqueurs and glasses.