Rose Hubbell was spending the hottest of the hot weeks at Christmas
Lake. Christmas Lake was a summer resort--a hotel and its satellites,
plunged in a forest of pines and then made extremely accessible to
motorists by assiduous care of the roads. It was beautiful and
gay--entirely protected from any rough contacts with weather, and an
excellent golf course and tennis courts gave those who wanted exercise
opportunity, while no stigma fell upon those who preferred to dress for
tennis or golf without running any risk of soiling their clothes. A
great many unattached, wealthy people moved lazily about the lawns,
eating, drinking, watching, talking and finding the place entirely to
their liking. So did Rose Hubbell. Just enough of her story was known to
make her interesting and her prettiness and clever clothes added to the
interest in her. She was skillful enough to be docile before the elder
women and wise enough not to attempt to compete with the very young
ones. And by choosing her rôle carefully she drew around her both young
and old, the old pitying her and the younger ones admiring romance, as
she incarnated it for them.
She kept up, as always, her desultory correspondence with Langley. Her
letters to him were idle, half-caressing, half-mocking, and with an
occasional plaintive note. In late July she became rather unusually
plaintive. Why didn’t Jim come and rest a week at the Lake? She was
bored and alone. He must be tired. She had a motor at her disposal and
he knew what lovely drives there were around Christmas Lake. She wrote
on, saying that if he wanted to come and bring Horatia or if Horatia
wanted to come alone, she would play duenna gladly. And urged Horatia’s
coming further.
Jim usually pigeonholed Rose’s letters until she had written three or
four demanding an answer. Then he wrote very briefly. But he re-read
this letter and laid it down beside him, and several times in the day he
referred to it and sat thinking. Late in the afternoon he began an
answer.
“Dear Rose--It would be very pleasant to bring Horatia to Christmas Lake
and you have a way of making the place sound very cool and alluring. She
undoubtedly needs a rest and there are some shadows under those pines
that induce rest.” He stopped and from his smile he must have been
visioning Horatia in those blue shadows--with him, away from all her
relatives and friends and the subtle hostilities to her lover---- He did
no more work, but early in the evening went up the steps of the Williams
house looking young and jubilant.
There were guests and it was half an hour before he could get Horatia by
herself. They went out through Maud’s tiny formal garden to a deep
hammock and sat there. A million stars swung above them.
“I have a plan,” said Jim. “Will you let me kidnap you for a couple of
weeks? Bob can run the office for a little while and we could vacation
together.”
“You have only to throw me on your horse,” said Horatia. “I’ll be the
most willing lady you ever kidnapped. But where shall we go?”
“Just to a very large, conventional resort--do you see? But one that all
the money and nonsense and stupidity in the world hasn’t spoiled--where
there are lovely places to tell you how much I love you. To Christmas
Lake.”
“I’ve never been there. Everyone says that it’s heavenly. But, Jim,
isn’t that where Rose Hubbell is?”
“That’s one of the advantages,” said Jim, eagerly, and yet there was a
little damper on his eagerness even as he spoke. “She would be a sort of
chaperon--only we wouldn’t have to bother about her too much.”
“I see--did she suggest it?”
Jim began to fumble a little.
“She sort of--gave me the idea.”
Horatia was silent for a minute. She felt on dangerous ground and full
of a kind of protective pity for this lover of hers who seemed so oddly
unable to see the ridiculousness of what he proposed.
“Jim, do you remember telling me once that Rose Hubbell was dangerous?”
“I remember that I did, but I don’t feel quite that way about it now.
Rose likes you very much, you see--and she knows how I feel.”
This time there was real hurt in Horatia’s tone.
“You told her--that?”
He tried to recoup. “Only as much as your sister knows and your aunt.”
Horatia remained cruelly silent. When she spoke again her words reverted
to the subject in hand, but her tone was far more distant than they
justified.
“I don’t think Christmas Lake is quite practicable.”
Jim showed his hurt as his plans crashed to the ground.
“Just as you say, dear. I only suggested it because I was silly enough
to think we might play around together there a lot and have a real
rest.”
“But surely you don’t expect me to go under Rose Hubbell’s chaperonage,
Jim. Why, think, Jim--dozens of people know her whole history and----
Think how impossible it would be for me.”
“I didn’t count on seeing much of her, you see,” said poor Jim, trying
to defend not Rose Hubbell, but his own care and protection of Horatia.
“And she would have been just a nominal chaperon. But I see that I was a
fool. Just consider the suggestion cancelled, will you, darling? Put it
out of your head absolutely.”
He drew her close to him and may have been simple enough to fancy his
request had been granted. But thoughts were spinning madly around in
Horatia’s head. This outrageously silly plan of Jim’s seemed to clinch
the whole matter of Rose Hubbell. If Rose could make him believe that
such an arrangement was all right--that it was all right to take the
girl he was going to marry away under the chaperonage of a woman about
whom he had been the co-respondent in a divorce suit, she could make him
believe black was white. She felt older than Jim for once--responsible
for him. With an instinctive feminine reaction she refused to blame the
man. It was a matter between her and Mrs. Hubbell.
“Jim,” she said softly, “don’t you think the time has come for you to
give up Rose Hubbell?”
Jim started. “How on earth could I give her up? She’s nothing to me,
Horatia. Child, you surely don’t dream----”
The word “child” offended Horatia.
“No--of course I don’t think you are in love with her--or anything like
that. But I think she thinks she has a hold on you and that she intends
to play it for what it’s worth. She has a little proprietary air--and I
think she has an influence over you which you don’t realize and that for
your good you shouldn’t see her any more at all.”
The youth of Horatia, hurling such statements at any man and worst of
all at the man who wished to be especially fine and strong in her eyes!
She went on, a little flurried and feeling her way.
“Truly, I’m not jealous. I know you love me and I know that you’re not
flirting. But I don’t like to see that woman hang around you because she
has absolutely nothing to give you. From your own admission you see her
because you feel you have a duty towards her and that is no reason at
all. She is well able to look out for herself.”
“So am I, sweetheart.” That was the man in him.
Horatia did not agree.
“Let’s not quarrel about Rose Hubbell, please, darling,” he went on. “I
don’t give a copper what becomes of her. But she is an old acquaintance
and a perfectly harmless one. If you don’t like her you’ll never have to
see her again.”
“And would you go on seeing her?”
“Why, no, darling--not unless I couldn’t help it. I can’t go around the
block to avoid her--or cut her on the street.”
The slight impatience in his tone found immediate reflection in
Horatia’s answer.
“Don’t be silly, Jim. I’m not unreasonable or going to be unreasonable.
But I want to know where you stand with her and then we will drop it.”
She was pressing the point now partly because her pride wouldn’t let her
admit that she was being unreasonable or foolish and partly from sheer
womanly desire to break down the resistance in her lover. And because
she felt very near to tears her voice was hard and her figure tightened.
Jim took it as a repulse, but he became more serious.
“What is it you want, Horatia?”
“I want you to drop Rose Hubbell. Not go to see her. Tell her if
necessary that you are dropping her. It wouldn’t hurt her very much. Of
course I don’t mean that you’re not to speak to her, but don’t ask her
to dance when you are out places--don’t let her write to you. I want you
to promise me.”
The tears showed in her voice now and who knows what Jim would not have
been ready to promise if the word had not called out the memory of a
promise given just a few weeks before to Rose. She had pleaded just not
to be dropped. He had a clear memory of the whole conversation with her.
“Will you?” asked Horatia. “Truly it’s awfully hard to ask you. Won’t
you promise just that?”
She felt like a child begging for a favor and like a woman to whom
refusal would be outrage.
“Will it satisfy you, dear, if I promise to bear all this in mind and
never to offend you again?”
The reservation puzzled Horatia and piqued her.
“Why won’t you promise outright?”
“Frankly, dear, I can’t. I can’t give a promise like that. It might be
impossible to keep it without wounding Rose terribly.”
Horatia felt that she was wounded terribly. She turned her head away.
“Please,” begged Langley, “this is dreadful, Horatia. Can’t you trust
my love for you and forget it?”
Horatia was weeping frankly now. He tried to take her in his arms but
she drew away.
“Go away, Jim. Go home now. I want to think.”
“Let me sit here quietly while you think.”
“Please go--please.”
He took her hands and buried his face in them for a moment, his lips
against the soft palms. Then he went down the path and through the
garden gate.