Dressed for going out, Mrs. Willoughby was buttoning her gloves as she
stood in the square hall hung with tapestries of a late Gobelins period
and adorned with a cabinet in the style of Buhl flanked by two
decorative Regency chairs. Her gaze followed the action of her fingers
or wandered now and then inquiringly up the stairway.
Her broad, low figure, wide about the hips, tapered toward the feet in
lines suggestive of a spinning-top. She was proud of her feet, which
were small and shapely, and approved of a fashion in skirts that
permitted them to be displayed. Being less proud of her eyes, she also
approved of a style of hat which allowed the low, sloping brim, worn
slantwise across the brows, to conceal one of them.
"You're surely not going in that rag!"
The protest was called forth by Lois's appearance in a walking-costume
on the stairs.
"But, mamma, I'm not going at all. I told you so."
"Told me so! What's the good of telling me so? There'll be loads of men
there--simply loads. Goodness me! Lois, if you're ever going to know any
men at all--"
"I know all the men I want to know."
"You don't know all the men you want to know, and if you do I should be
ashamed to say it. A girl who's had all your advantages and doesn't make
more show! What on earth are you doing that you don't want to come?"
Lois hesitated, but she was too frank for concealments. "I'm going to
see a girl Thor Masterman wants me to look after. He thinks I may be
able to help her."
The mother subsided. "Oh, well--if it's that!" She added, so as not to
seem to hint too much: "I always like you to do what you can toward
uplift. I'll take you as far as the Old Village, if you're going that
way."
There had been a time when such concessions at the mention of Thor
Masterman would have irritated Lois more than any violence of
opposition; but that time was passing. She could hardly complain if
others saw what was daily becoming more patent to herself. She could
complain of it the less since she found it difficult to conceal her
happiness. It was a happiness that softened the pangs of care and
removed to a distance the conditions incidental to her father's habits
and impending financial ruin.
Nevertheless, the conditions were there, and had to be confronted. She
made, in fact, a timid effort to confront them as she sat beside her
mother in the admirably fitted limousine.
"Mother, what are we going to do about papa?"
Mrs. Willoughby's indignant rising to the occasion could be felt like an
electric wave. "Do about him? Do about what?"
"About the way he is."
"The way he is? What on earth are you talking about?"
"I mean the way he comes home."
"He comes home very tired, if that's what you're trying to say. Any man
who works as they work him at that office--"
"Do you think it's work?"
"No, I don't think it's work. I call it slavery. It's enough to put a
man in his grave. I've seen him come home so that he could hardly speak;
and if you've done the same you may know that he's simply tired enough
to die."
Lois tried to come indirectly to her point by saying, "Thor Masterman
has been bringing him home lately."
"Oh, well; I suppose Thor knows he doesn't lose anything by that move."
Lois ignored the remark to say, "Thor seems worried."
The mother's alertness was that of a ruffled, bellicose bird defending
its mate. "If Thor's worried about your father, he can spare himself the
trouble. He can leave that to me. I'll take care of him. What he needs
is rest. When everything is settled I mean to take him away. Of course
we can't go _this_ winter. If we could we should go to Egypt--he and I.
But we can't. We know that. We make the sacrifice."
These discreet allusions, too, Lois thought it best to let pass in
silence. "It wasn't altogether about papa that Thor was worried. He
seems anxious about money."
Bessie tossed her head. "That may easily be. If your father takes our
money out of the firm, as he threatens to do, the Mastermans will
be--well, I don't know where."
The girl felt it right to go a step further. "He seemed to hint--he
didn't say it in so many words--that perhaps papa wouldn't have so very
much to take out."
This was dismissed lightly. "Then he doesn't know what's he talking
about. Archie's frightfully close in those things, I must say. He's
never let either of the boys know anything about the business. He won't
even let me. But your father knows. If Thor thinks for a minute the
money isn't nearly all ours he may come in for a rude awakening."
Reassured by this firmness of tone, Lois began to take heart. Getting
out at the Old Village, she continued her way on foot, and found Rosie
among the azaleas and poinsettias.
* * * * *
Thor Masterman met her an hour later, as she returned homeward. He knew
where she had been as soon as he saw her turn the corner at which the
road descends the hill, recognizing with a curious pang her promptness
in carrying out his errand. The pang was a surprise to him--the
beginning of a series of revelations on the subject of himself.
Her desire to please him had never before this instant caused him
anything but satisfaction. It had been but the response to his desire to
please her. He had not been blind to the goal to which this mutual
good-will would lead them, but he had quite made up his mind that she
would make him as good a wife as any one. As a preliminary to marriage
he had weighed the possibility of falling ardently in love, coming at
last to the conclusion that he was not susceptible to that passion.
His long-standing intention to marry Lois Willoughby was based on the
fact that besides being sympathetic to him she was plain and lonely. If
the motive hadn't taken full possession of his heart it was because the
state of being plain and lonely had never seemed to him the worst of
calamities, by any means. The worst of calamities, that for which no
patience was sufficient, that for which there was no excuse, that which
kings, presidents, emperors, parliaments, congresses, embassies, and
armies should combine their energies to prevent, was to be poor. He was
entirely of Mrs. Fay's opinion, that with money ill-health and
unhappiness were details. You could bear them both. You could bear being
lonely; you could bear being plain. Consequently, the menace that now
threatened Lois Willoughby's fortunes strengthened her claim on him; but
all at once he felt, as he saw her descend the hill, that the claim
might make complications.
Was it because she was plain? Curious that he had never attached
importance to that fact before! But it blinded him now to her graceful
carriage as well as to the way she had of holding her head with a noble,
independent poise that made her a woman of distinction.
She was smiling with an air at once intimate and triumphant. "I think
I've won in the first encounter, at any rate."
In his wincing there was the surprise of a man who in a moment of
expansion has made a sacred confidence only to find it crop up lightly
in subsequent conversation. He was obliged to employ some self-control
in order to say, with a manner sufficiently offhand, "What happened?"
She told of making her approaches under the plea of buying potted
plants. A cold reception had given way before her persistent
friendliness, while there had been complete capitulation on the tender
of an invitation to County Street to tea. The visit had been difficult
to manage, but amusing, and a little pitiful.
To the details that were difficult or pitiful he could listen with calm,
but he was inwardly indignant that Lois should find anything in her
meeting with Rosie that lent itself to humor. He knew that humor. The
superior were fond of indulging in it at the expense of the less
fortunate. Even Lois Willoughby had not escaped that taint of class.
Fearing to wound her by some impatient word, he made zeal in his round
of duties the excuse for an abrupt good-by.
But zeal in his round of duties changed to zeal of another kind as with
set face and long, swinging stride he hurried up the hill. The plans he
had been maturing for the psychological treatment of Mrs. Fay melted
into eagerness to know how the poor little thing had taken Lois's
advances. He was disappointed, therefore, that Rosie should receive him
coldly.
Within twenty-four hours his imagination had created between them
something with the flavor of a friendship. He had been thinking of her
so incessantly that it was disconcerting to perceive that apparently she
had not been thinking of him at all. He was the doctor to her, and no
more. She continued to direct Antonio, the Italian, who was opening a
crate of closely packed azalea-plants, while she discussed the effect of
his sedative on her mother. Her manner was dry and business-like; her
replies to his questions brief and to the point.
But professional duty being done, he endeavored to raise the personal
issue. "What did you mean yesterday when you said that you couldn't play
fair, but that you'd play as fair as you could?"
She turned from her contemplation of the stooping Antonio's back. "Did I
say that?"
He hardly heeded the question in the pleasure he got from this glimpse
of her green eyes. "You said that--or something very much like it."
His uncertainty gave her the chance to correct that which, in the light
of Claude's warning, might prove to have been an indiscretion. "I'm sure
I can't imagine. You must have--misunderstood me."
He pursued the topic not because he cared, but in order to make her look
at him again. "Oh no, I didn't. Don't you remember? It was after you
said that there was one thing that might happen--"
She was sure of her indiscretion now. He might even be setting a snare
for her. Dr. Sim Masterman might have withdrawn from her mother's case
in order to put the one brother on the other's tracks. If Claude was
right in his suspicions, there was reasonable ground for alarm. She
said, with assumed indifference: "Oh, that! That was nothing. Just a
fancy."
He still talked for the sake of talking, attaching no importance to her
replies. "Was it a fancy when you said that I would be one of the people
opposed to it--if it happened?"
"Well, yes. But you'd only be one among a lot." She shifted to firmer
ground. "I wasn't thinking of you in particular--or of any one in
particular."
"Were you thinking of any _thing_ in particular?"
The question threw her back on straight denial. "N-no; not exactly; just
a fancy."
"But I shouldn't be opposed to it, whatever it is--if it was to your
advantage."
His persistence deepened her distrust. A man whom she had seen only once
before would hardly display such an interest in her and her affairs
unless he had a motive, especially when that man was a Masterman. She
took refuge in her task with the azaleas. "No, not there, Antonio. Put
them there--like this--I'll show you."
The necessity for giving Antonio practical demonstration taking her to
the other side of the hothouse, Thor felt himself obliged to go. He went
with the greater regret since he had been unable to sound her on the
subject of Lois Willoughby's advances, though her skill in eluding him
heightened his respect. His disdain for the small arts of coquetry being
as sincere as his scorn of snobbery, he counted it to her credit that
she eluded him at all. There would be plenty of opportunities for speech
with her. During them he hoped to win her confidence by degrees.
In the bedroom up-stairs, where the mother was again seated in her
upholstered arm-chair with the quilt across her knees, he endeavored to
put into practice his idea of mental therapeutics. He began by speaking
of Matt, using the terms that would most effectively challenge her
attention. "When he comes back, you know, we must make him forget that
he's ever worn stripes."
She eyed him sternly. "What'd be the good of his forgetting it? He'll
have done it, just the same."
"Some of us have done worse than that, and yet--"
"And yet we didn't get into Colcord for them. But that's what counts.
You can do what you like as long as you ain't put in jail. Look at your
father--"
"So when he comes home--" he interrupted, craftily.
She leaned forward, throwing the quilt from her knees. "See here," she
asked, confidentially, "how would you feel if you saw your son coming up
out of hell?"
"How should I feel? I should be glad he was coming up instead of going
down. You would, too, wouldn't you? And now that he's coming up we must
keep him up. That's the point. So many poor chaps that have been in his
position feel that because they've once been down they've got to stay
down. We must make him see that he's come back among friends--and you
must tell us what to do. You must give your mind to it and think it out.
He's your boy--so it's your duty to take the lead."
Her cold eye rested on him as if she were giving his words
consideration. "Why don't you ask your father to take the lead? He sent
him to Colcord."
Thor got no further than this during the hour he spent with her, seeing
that Uncle Sim had been right in describing the case as one for
ingenuity--and something more. Questioning himself as to what this
something more could be, he brought up the subject tentatively with
Jasper Fay, whom he met on leaving the house. Thor himself stood on the
door-step, while Fay, who wore gardening overalls, confronted him from
the withered grass-plot that ended in a leafless hedge of bridal-veil.
"She's never been a religious woman at all, has she?"
Fay answered with a distant smile. "She did go in for religion at one
time, sir; but I guess she found it slim diet. It got to seem to her
like Thomas Carlyle's hungry lion invited to a feast of chickenweed.
After that she quit."
"I had an idea that you belonged to the First Church and were Dr.
Hilary's parishioners."
Fay explained. "Dr. Hilary married us, but we haven't troubled the
church much since. I never took any interest in the Christian religion
to begin with; and when I looked into it I found it even more fallacious
than I supposed." To account for this advanced position on the part of a
simple market-gardener he added, "I've been a good deal of a reader."
Thor spoke slowly and after meditation. "It isn't so much a question of
its being fallacious as of its capacity for producing results."
Fay turned partially round toward the south, where a haze hung above the
city. His tone was infused with a mild bitterness. "Don't we see the
results it can produce--over there?"
"That's right, too." Thor was so much in sympathy with this point of
view that he hardly knew how to go on. "And yet some of us doctors are
beginning to suspect that there may be a power in Christianity--a purely
psychological power, you understand--that hasn't been used for what it's
worth."
Fay nodded. He had been following this current of contemporary thought.
"Yes, Dr. Thor. So I hear. Just as, I dare say, you haven't found out
all the uses of opium."
"Well, opium is good in its place, you know."
"I suppose so." He lifted his starry eyes with their mystic, visionary
rapture fully on the young physician. "And yet I remember how George
Eliot prayed that when her troubles came she might get along without
being drugged by that stuff--meaning the Christian religion, sir--and I
guess I'd kind o' like that me and mine should do the same."
Thor dropped the subject and went his way. As far as he had opinions of
his own, they would have been similar to Fay's had he not within a year
or two heard of sufficiently authenticated cases in which sick spirits
or disordered nerves had yielded to spiritual counsels after the doctor
had had no success. He had been so little impressed with these instances
that he might not have allowed his speculations with regard to Mrs. Fay
to go beyond the fleeting thought, only for the fact that on passing
through the Square he met Reuben Hilary. In general he was content to
touch his hat to the old gentleman and go on; but to-day, urged by an
impulse too vague to take accurate account of, he stopped with
respectful greetings.
"I've just been to see an old parishioner of yours, sir," he said, when
the preliminaries of neighborly conversation had received their due.
"Have you, now?" was the non-committal response, delivered with a
North-of-Ireland intonation.
"Mrs. Fay--wife of Fay, the gardener. I can't say she's ill," Thor
went on, feeling his way, "but she's mentally upset." He decided to
plunge into the subject boldly, smiling with that mingling of
frankness and perplexity which people found appealing because of its
conscientiousness. "And I've been wondering, Dr. Hilary, if you couldn't
help her."
"Have you, now? And what would you be wanting me to do?"
Thor reflected as to the exact line to take, while the kindly eyes
covered him with their shrewd, humorous twinkle. "You see," Thor tried
to explain, "that if she could get the idea that there's any other stand
to take toward trouble than that of kicking against it, she might be in
a fair way to get better. At present she's like a prisoner who dashes
his head against a stone wall, not seeing that there's a window by which
he might make his escape."
There was renewed twinkling in the merry eyes. "But if there's a window,
why don't you point it out to her?"
Thor grinned. "Because, sir, I don't see it myself."
"T't, t't! Don't you, then? And how do you know it's there?"
Thor continued to grin. "To be frank with you, sir, I don't believe it
is there. But if you can make her believe it is--"
"That is, you want me to deceive the poor creature."
"Oh no, sir," Thor protested. "You wouldn't be deceiving her because you
do believe it."
"So that I'd only be deceiving her to the extent that I'm deceived
myself."
"You're too many for me," Thor laughed again, preparing to move on. "I
didn't know but that if you gave her what are called the consolations of
religion--that's the right phrase, isn't it--"
"There is such a phrase. But you can't _give_ people the consolations of
religion; they've got to find them for themselves. If they won't do
that, there's no power in heaven or earth that can force consolation
upon them."
"But religion undertakes to do something, doesn't it?"
The old man shook his head. "Nothing whatever--no more than air
undertakes that you shall breathe it, or water that you shall drink it,
or fire that you shall warm yourself at its blaze."
Thor mused. When he spoke it was as if summing up the preceding remarks.
"So that you can't do anything, sir, for my friend, Mrs. Fay?"
"Nothing whatever, me dear Thor--but help her to do something for
herself."
"Very well, sir. Will you try that?"
"Sure, I'll try it. I'm too proud of the Word of God to thrust it where
it isn't wanted--_margaritas ante porcos_, if you've Latin enough for
that--but when any one asks for it as earnestly as you, me dear Thor--"
Having won what he asked, Thor shook the old man's hand and thanked him,
after which he hurried off to the garage to take out his runabout and
bring Lois's father home from town.