The hills were in their most magnificent autumn color. When the sun
shone the masses of trees were almost unbearably brilliant. Scarlet and
yellow shaded into orange and crimson and in all the riot there was not
one discordant note. On the shadowy, misty days Horatia loved it best.
Then the colors seemed a saddened glory, hinting at their own passing.
And to see the leaves reflected in the lakes--wonderful colored
mirrors--was the most wonderful sight of all. She loved to take
Anthony’s canoe and drift over the reflections, moving so silently and
graciously that the movement seemed unreal. The time was coming when she
must leave all this and she was clinging to her peace. It had been
peace. Only lately had the old restlessness come to disturb her. Only
lately had she begun to wonder what was happening in the city. Her
weariness had passed and she was eager for life again. But as she made
ready for action she realized that she must reconstruct in the light of
what she had learned and that one of her first problems would be
Anthony.
Anthony, slender and strong in his khaki clothes, bareheaded, energetic,
full of life, Anthony kind and tender, Anthony brave and generous,
Anthony controlled and yet full of fire, Anthony burning for life
himself, intolerant of shabbiness or weakness, Anthony the aristocrat.
There was no possible great criticism of Anthony. Little things,
perhaps, Horatia would admit to herself, but as a man he showed few
weaknesses. He had a great deal to offer and he was offering it in all
but words. Marjorie could have told her that Anthony was not himself at
all--that the Anthony his sister saw sometimes was a frightened boy with
all his self-assurance gone, saying to her:
“She’ll never have me. I know she won’t. I haven’t a thing to offer
her--none of this highbrow stuff she’s so keen for.”
And again Anthony was a dominant man who watched for the woman he wanted
and as he watched and planned could say exultantly:
“I’ll do everything in the world to make her happy and I know I’m the
sort of person to do it. She needs the life I can give her. I’m sure she
does--calmness--protection--she needs a husband.”
And yet again he said nothing at all but looked hungry or was
exuberantly gay.
Without the slightest resentment Marjorie came very close to Horatia.
She liked her more and more, as she told Anthony, and whatever her hopes
were, she kept them to herself.
The Country Club dinner-dance had come and Horatia in Maud’s yellow
dress with the soft yellow chiffon hat on her head was very beautiful.
As Aunt Caroline had sagely said, “yellow was becoming to one so dark,”
and the softness of it and the rosy brown of Horatia’s country color
made her look like the autumn itself. She had borrowed a black velvet
coat from Maud and stood with it over her arm, gazing through the
casement window of the living-room. A little early--she had known that
he would be--Anthony was there, and he stopped at the door with a long
ecstatic whistle.
“Stunning, Horatia! Where did you keep all this radiance? Is this the
way you dress in the country?”
“Mostly Maud’s,” said Horatia. “The hat was a debauch--a mortal sin!”
“It’s as attractive as sin,” he agreed, helping her aboard the car.
They had become very used to the roadster, thought Horatia. It seemed as
if this place belonged to her. She said so.
“It does belong to you--all of it from the tail light to the carburetor!
And the chauffeur is thrown in!”
“Look out--I’ll take it as a deed of gift!”
“I’ll tell you how to take it--no, not now---- Look here--you’re not
going next week, are you?”
“We must. Maud has to open up her town house and it’s getting cold for
the children.”
“Let them go and stay yourself.”
“I must go to work, young man.”
“On that newspaper? Isn’t that all over?”
Her face clouded, but they were at the club and he could not go on.
It was a successful dinner. Maud found people all over the room whom she
knew and whom, after her tea-party, she dared approach. She made
inquiries about their plans--tentative advances towards a continuation
of their society in the city, and was not rebuffed--to her great
delight. Her table, with Anthony and Horatia, was rather noticeable and
Maud, more than the absorbed young people, felt the looks and glances of
men and women turning towards the lovely girl in yellow and the
whispering about the situation which everyone suspected between her and
young Wentworth.
Horatia had never been more radiant. The admiration in Anthony’s eyes
was answered by the feeling in her own. She felt very young and
handsome, part of all this high-bred color and gaiety. And Anthony felt
that he had reached the climax of his courting and that at last the time
was ripe. They rose from the table and swung into a dance in the open
space in the middle of the room, alone on the floor for an instant. He
was suddenly immensely conscious of the glances towards them and that
the glances recognized Horatia as his. He drew her closer than he
usually did. Her arm lay over his shoulder and her cheek was close to
his own as they swung into each movement of the dance. The floor grew
crowded and he held her protectingly now, guiding her against casual
contact as if he was trying to express his desire to so guide her
always. It was not an embrace and yet Horatia felt it as one, and was
not as she usually was while she danced--aware of only music and rhythm;
now she was aware of Anthony. There was a response in her unexpected to
herself. She gave herself up to his leadership and this assumption of
control. All the instincts which for generations have encouraged women
to lean on men awoke in her and for those few moments she knew the joy
which women have always had and will always have in being cared for, in
having decisions made for them and their wills bent to the desires of
others. Such instincts had never had any encouragement from Horatia.
They were latent in the depths of a femininity which she never would
willingly develop greatly, but instincts can live along without
nourishment, yet now and then rise to the surface of a life with immense
power.
The music stopped and he unwillingly released her.
“Horatia,” he said, his voice very soft and grave with emotion,
“Horatia--sweetheart----”
She flushed and the flush rose like a tide of feeling.
A little dizzy, they made their way back to the table.
There were many partners for Horatia that night. She danced as she had
never danced before. To the old accuracy and conscientiousness of her
steps was added a vigor, a vivaciousness and a pliability that for the
moment gave her Rose Hubbell’s gift of motion. She suited herself to
each man, but in the dances with Anthony she was more pliable and yet
more vigorous than she had ever been.
An evening colored like the autumn with splendid gorgeousness and as
transient. The time came when Anthony could stand it no longer.
“Haven’t you had enough of this? Will you come for a ride? And then I’ll
take you home.”
Her crisis was upon her and a fear overtopped by courage filled her.
They stopped to tell Maud and Marjorie. Maud’s benignant glance jarred
Horatia, but Anthony did not even see it. Nor did he catch the look of
half-worry, half-confidence which his sister gave him. All that he felt
was Horatia’s hand upon his arm.
Silently they drove through the night, bewildered by the vastness of
this thing they had brought upon themselves. They turned from the
highway into a country road and there Anthony stopped the car at the
beginning of a wooded path they both knew, magical now in the dim
moonlight.
“Let’s walk a bit.”
But they had not walked far before he slipped his arm through hers and
turned her to him. Gently he drew her closer until her head was near his
shoulder. Even then he could only say her name at first, lovingly,
longingly, brokenly, and then--
“I love you so, Horatia, I love you so.”
He kissed her forehead and she did not resist. It amazed her that she
felt no resistance--no desire to pull away from him, and the next words
were the words which best pleaded his cause.
“We were made for each other.”
That was what she had been wondering. It helped her to have him so sure.
Perhaps they were made for each other.
“See how your head fits into the curve of my arm. It belongs there. You
are so beautiful--so lovely, Horatia.”
But after a little he wanted his response.
“Do you love me a little?”
“I don’t know. I am so puzzled--so unsure of myself. I don’t know.”
That did not frighten him.
“You will love me,” he said, confidently, “because I’ll love you so much
that you can’t help it. Because I adore you.”
“I’m afraid I’m only hypnotized by all this atmosphere sometimes--by the
kindness and the care you’ve given me.”
“Then you can stay hypnotized--you can stay hypnotized forever because I
haven’t begun to be kind to you yet or to care for you as I am going to.
There are so many things I want to do.”
“Perhaps I only want to lie back and let you do them--perhaps it’s all
laziness. If I can only be sure, Anthony!”
“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. This is all natural. It will all take
its natural course.”
Horatia was not listening.
“A few months ago it was Jim. You remember how I told you it was Jim
then. Aren’t you aghast at my infidelity?”
He was glad to have Jim’s name in the open, reluctant as he was to spoil
his love-making by discussion.
“It’s not infidelity, sweetheart. It was the excitement--the fascination
of certain circumstances. It wasn’t real. You imagined yourself into a
situation. This is real. I want you to marry me soon and let me show you
how real it can be. I want to live with you. Every moment I spend away
from you now is wasted. I want to have you always--with me--in our
home--in the depths of me--my wife.”
He had let her go a little, visioning the life as it came to
him--emotion enriched by the joy of life together. Horatia watched his
face, tender, immensely uplifted by this passion which led so directly
to the high-spirited life of which he dreamed. And a change was coming
over her. She was no longer relaxed. His love had not repelled her. But
this talk of marriage, this pressing intimacy, was that drawing her?
Anthony noticed no change in her. Swept by the sense of her presence, he
gathered her close again and, passionate now, bent to her lips with the
kiss that told of his passion. But everything changed. That caress woke
in her a flood of resistance, of defence, that cleared her mind as a
thunderstorm clears the air. It was Jim who had kissed her like that.
It could not be done again. It was Jim who had the right!
She wrenched herself away.
“No--Anthony--no!”
“Did I frighten you, darling? I’m sorry--I’m sorry.”
“Not that--you made it clear--I don’t love you--I don’t love you.”
She was almost exultant, so glad was she to have it clear in her mind.
He was appalled at her tone, rather than her words.
“What have I done, Horatia? You loved me a moment ago!”
The frightened appeal in his voice broke through her absorption. She
faced him quietly, bravely.
“I’ve been wrong, Anthony. I thought perhaps I did love you. But now I’m
sure I don’t. I’m sure there can be nothing more between us as I was
sure months ago. It’s been wicked to let you in for this--I’m sorry--so
terribly sorry. I never in my life liked anyone so much or liked to be
with anyone so much, but----”
“But that’s enough to go on. That’s all I ask. You’ve been rushed too
hard. Let the question of love go. Let me love you and you like me----”
She left her hands in his.
“It might be enough, dear Anthony, it might be enough except that I love
Jim and I must be with Jim.”
There was so much surety, so much yearning in her voice that he dropped
her hands. But he could not cease pleading.
“You don’t know what you’re doing. It’s infatuation. It’s so wrong--so
unreasonable.”
“I’ve been trying to be reasonable,” she answered, with a little gesture
that brushed reason aside as irrelevant. “I’ve been trying to be
reasonable and intellectual. Those things don’t matter. I love Jim.
That, I’m afraid, is all that does matter.”
“But later,” he cried, tortured, “later you’ll find you’ve done the
wrong thing.”
“There’s no right or wrong thing. It’s the only thing.”
The tremendous chastity of love was speaking through her and momentarily
it sobered Anthony. Reason, emotion might protest in him but before the
fact that she was avowing, that she was given to another man, he was
helpless. He turned away, the fine carriage of his shoulders changed
into the droop of a disappointed boy. And Horatia’s heart was full of
pity and misery at the inexorableness of his love for her and the
impossibility of loving him.
“I’m so sorry--so sorry,” she cried.
“It’s all right.” There was a touch of resentment in his tone. “Well,
there’s nothing more to be said--and no use prolonging this. I’ll take
you back.”
But at the edge of the wood the memory of that first embrace went to his
head and he must embrace her pleadingly, demandingly again. She was
submissive. It was her fault that he felt so. She had made herself clear
but she even ventured in her pity to stroke the hair back from his
miserable, saddened face.
“I love you, I’ll always love you,” he groaned. “It’s so damned
cruel--so unnecessary. Tonight in my arms you loved me. Until you got
brooding over memories. I can erase your memories if you give me a
chance. I’ll give you everything in the world--all the beauty and power
of it. Horatia--we’re young--we belong together.”
But her revelation had been indeed revelation. Cruel, mistaken, even
wrong love might be but love was love and to her marrying must include
love. It was a stormy drive home. Anthony sullen, angry, pitiful,
pleading, almost broke her down. He did break down her confidence and
destroy her joy in her revelation, but against the one final fact he
battered in vain. At last at the door of Maud’s cottage he kissed her
again, almost angrily.
“Must I give up? I’ll wait--wait--if you say.”
“Please give it up, Anthony. It’s no good.”
He was gone and Horatia, weary and disheveled, sat in her unlit room,
watching the road in the moonlight. Soon Maud would be home. She would
be angry and disappointed. But she would build other ambitions and not
waste the advantages she had gained through this summer. Horatia thought
of Marjorie. She would be sorry too. And yet she might understand. Some
day Horatia thought, she would tell Marjorie all about it. Now she must
go back to her work. Back to _The Journal_ if they wanted her. But
perhaps they did not--perhaps not even Jim wanted her. No matter. She
was buoyed up by a tremendous surety. She had been faithful to her
love--she had made sorrow and she might have to face more of it but she
had escaped degradation.
Marjorie found Anthony face downwards on his bed. She had never been
sure that he would win and now she knew he had lost. She stole in and
sat by him, a wise, white figure in her soft negligee.
“She won’t have me,” he said bitterly.
Marjorie asked no questions--only waited.
“At first she thought she cared--she was so wonderful--but she loves
Langley! She found it out when--when I kissed her.”
At the intolerable memory he sprang up and paced the room.
“That’s final,” said his sister, quietly. “She knows.”
“She’s wrong,” cried Anthony. “She belongs to me. I’m the person to make
her happy. He’s not.”
“She loves Jim,” said Marjorie under her breath, and dismissing Horatia
for a while, she turned to help her brother. There was only a little
that she could do but she left him quieter, prouder of himself and his
emotion, tortured by the memory of sweetness rather than by bitterness.
He was in good hands.