"Thor, would you mind if I went away for a little while?"
He looked at her across the luncheon-table, but her eyes were downcast.
Though she endeavored to maintain the non-committal attitude she had
taken up at breakfast, she couldn't meet his gaze.
"If you went away!" he echoed, blankly. "Why should you do that?"
"I've been to see--" She found a difficulty in pronouncing the
name--"I've been to see Rosie. She's rather--upset."
Under the swift lifting of her lids he betrayed his self-consciousness.
"I suppose so." He kept to the most laconic form of speech in order to
leave no opening to her penetration.
"And I thought if I could take her away--"
"Where should you go?"
"Oh, anywhere. That wouldn't matter. To New York, perhaps. That might
interest her. But anywhere, so long as--"
He got out his consent while making an excuse for rising from the table.
The conversation was too difficult to sustain. It was without looking at
him that she said, as he was leaving the room:
"Then I'll go and ask her at once. I dare say she won't come--but I can
try. It will give me an excuse for going back. I feel worried at having
left her at all."
* * * * *
Between three and four that afternoon she entered her husband's office
hurriedly. It was Mrs. Dearlove who received her. "Do you know where Dr.
Masterman is? Do you know where he expected to call this afternoon?"
Brightstone consulted a card hanging on the wall. "He was to 'ave seen
Mrs. Gibbs, 'm--Number 10 Susan Street--some time through the day."
Lois made no secret of her agitation. "Have they a telephone?"
"Oh, no, 'm; 'ardly. Only a poor charwoman."
"Was he going anywhere at all where they _could_ have a telephone?"
Mrs. Dearlove having mentioned the possibilities, Lois rang up house
after house. She left the same message everywhere: Thor was to be asked
to come directly to his office, where she was awaiting him. It was after
four when he appeared.
She met him in the little entry and, taking him by the arm, drew him
into the waiting-room. "Come in, Thor dear, come in." She knew by his
eyes that he suspected something of what she had to tell.
"Caught me at the Longyears'," he tried to say in a natural voice, but
he could hardly force the words beyond his lips.
"It's Rosie, Thor," she said, instantly. "She's _all_ right."
He dropped into a chair, supporting himself on the round table strewn
with illustrated papers and magazines for the entertainment of waiting
patients. His lips moved, but no sound passed them. Long, dark shadows
streaked the pallor of his face.
She sat down beside him, covering his hands with her own. "She's all
right, Thor dear ... now ... and I don't think she'll be any the worse
for it in the end.... She may be the better.... We can't tell yet....
But--but you haven't heard it in the village, have you?"
He shook his head, perhaps because he was dazed, perhaps because he
didn't trust himself to speak.
"That's good." She spoke breathlessly. "I was so afraid you might ... I
wanted to tell you myself ... so that you wouldn't--you wouldn't get a
shock.... There's no reason for a shock--not now, Thor.... It's
only--it's only ... just what I was afraid of--what I spoke of at
lunch.... She--she--she did it."
He found strength to speak. "She did--what?"
Lois continued the same breathless way. "She threw herself into the
pond.... But she's all right.... Jim Breen and Robbie Willert were out
in a boat--fishing.... They saw her.... They got to her just as she went
down the second time.... Jim Breen dived after her and brought her
up.... She wasn't unconscious very long ... and fortunately Dr. Hill was
close by--at old Mrs. Jukes's in Schoolhouse Lane.... So she's home now
and all right, or nearly.... I arrived just as they were bringing her
ashore.... She was breathing then.... I went on before them to the
house.... I told Mrs. Fay ... and Mr. Fay.... I saw them put her to
bed.... She's all right.... And then I came here--to tell you, Thor--"
He struggled to his feet, throwing his head back and clenching his
fists. "I swear to God that if I ever see Claude again I'll--I'll kill
him!"
Without rising she caught one of his hands and pulled him downward. "Sit
down, Thor," she said, in a tone of command. "You mustn't take it like
that. You mustn't make things worse than they are. They're bad enough as
it is. They're so bad--or at least so hard for--for some of us--that we
must do everything we can to make it possible to bear them."
He sat down at her bidding; but with elbows resting on the table he
covered his face with his hands. She clasped her own and sat looking at
him. That is, she sat looking at his strong knuckles and at the shock of
dark hair that fell over the finger-tips where the nails dug into his
forehead. She felt a great pity for him; but a pity that permitted her
to sit there, watchful, detached, not as if it was Thor--but some one
else.
There would be an end now to silences and concealments. She saw that
already. He was making no further attempt to keep her in the dark. In
the shock of the moment all the barricades he had built around his
secret life had fallen like the walls of Jericho. She had nothing to do
but walk upward and inward and take possession. All was open. There was
neither shrine nor sanctuary any longer. It was no privilege to be
admitted thus; anybody would have been admitted who sat beside him as
she was sitting now.
But in the end the paroxysm passed and his hands came down.
"I know it's hard for you, Thor--" The eyes he turned on her were full
of such unspeakable things that she stopped. She was obliged to wait
till he looked away again before she could go on. "I know it's hard for
you, Thor. It's hard for--for us all. But my point is that bitterness or
violence will only make it worse. You must remember--I feel that I
_must_ remind you of it--that you're not the--not the only sufferer."
He bowed his head into his hands again, but without the mad anguish of a
few minutes earlier.
"Where so much is intolerable," she pursued, "what we have to do--each
one of us--is to see how tolerable we can make things for every one
else."
He raised his head for one quick, reproachful glance. "Do you mean
tolerable for--for Claude?"
"Yes, I do mean for Claude. _We_ sha'n't have to punish him."
He gave her another look. "Then what have we got to do?"
"Nothing that isn't kind--and well thought out beforehand. That's really
the important thing. When one can't move without hurting some one, isn't
it better not to move at all?"
It was the old doctrine of tarrying the Lord's leisure against which his
instincts were still in revolt. His indignation was such that he could
partially turn and face her. "Do you mean to say that we should _let_
him abandon her--_now_?"
She laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Thor dear, it isn't for us to let--or
prevent--or anything. We can't drive other people--and it's only to a
slight degree that we can lead them. Even I know that. What we can do
best is to follow--and pick up the pieces."
He shook his head blankly. "I don't understand. What good would that
do?"
She rose, saying quietly, "I shall have to let you think it out for
yourself."
As he remained seated, his forehead resting on his hand, she passed
behind him. With her arm thrown lightly across his shoulders she bent
over him till her cheek touched his hair. "Thor dear," she whispered,
"we've got our own problems to solve, haven't we? We can't solve
Claude's and Rosie's too. No one can do that but themselves. Whatever
happens--whether he comes back and marries her, or whether he
doesn't--no help would ever come of your interference or mine. If we'd
only understood that before--"
"You mean, if I had."
"Well, Thor darling, you haven't. You see, human beings are so terribly
free. I say terribly, on purpose--because you can't compel them to be
wise and prudent and safe, even when they're making the most obvious
mistakes. We must let them make them--and suffer--and learn." She bent
closer to his ear. "And it's what we must do, Thor dear, you and I.
We've made our mistakes already--though perhaps we didn't know it. Now
we must have the suffering--and--and the learning."
She brushed her lips lightly across his hair and left him.
As she walked through the Square, and past the terminus of the
tram-line, and on into the beginning of County Street, she was obliged
to keep repeating her own words--"Nothing that isn't kind and well
thought out beforehand." Having counseled him against bitterness and
violence, she saw that her immediate task was not to swallow her own
words. Bitterness was beyond suppression, and violence would have been
so easy! "_Well thought out beforehand_," she emphasized. "Whatever I do
I must keep to that. If _I_ don't, God knows where we shall be."
In pursuance of this principle she turned in at her father-in-law's
gate. He and Mrs. Masterman must also be warned. Rosie's rash act would
touch them so closely that unless they were informed of it gently
something regrettable might be said or done.
As to that, however, her fears proved groundless. Masterman himself
opened the door for her as she went up the steps. "Saw you coming," he
explained. "Just got out from town. Ena's been telling me the most
distressing thing--the most damnably theatrical, idiotic thing. Perhaps
you've heard of it."
"I know what you mean. I've been there. I was there when they brought
her ashore. It may have been idiotic, as you say, but I don't think it
was theatrical."
"You will when you know. Ena," he called up the stairs after they had
entered the hall; "Lois is here. Come down."
Mrs. Masterman entered the library a minute later with both hands
outstretched. "Oh, my dear, what a comedy this is!" It was not often
that her manner forsook its ladylike suavity. "_What_ a comedy! But of
course you don't know. Nobody knows, thank God! But we must tell _you_."
She turned to her husband. "Will you tell her, Archie, or shall I?"
"If it's about Claude and Rosie Fay," Lois said, when they had got
seated, "I know all that. Thor told me. He told me yesterday,
because--well, because I'd been taking an interest in Rosie for some
months past, and when I went to see her yesterday afternoon old Mr. Fay
wouldn't let me. He said there'd been trouble--or something--between
Claude and Rosie--"
"Oh, he's been so romantic, poor boy," Ena interrupted, "and so loyal.
You'd hardly believe. He's been taken in completely. He _did_ want to
marry her. That's true. There's no use denying it. He told his father
and he told me. Oh, you've no idea. We've been _so_ worried. But he must
have found her out--_simply_ found her out."
Lois weighed the wisdom of asking questions or of learning more than
Thor chose to tell her, but in the end it seemed reasonable to ask,
"Found her out--how?"
Ena threw up her pretty hands. "Oh, well, with a girl of that sort what
could you expect? Claude's been completely taken in--or he was. He's so
innocent, poor boy. He wouldn't believe--not even when I told him. I
tried to stand by him--I really did. Didn't I, Archie? When he said he
wanted to marry her I said, said I, 'If she's a good girl, Claude, and
loves you, I'll accept her.' I really did, Lois--and you can imagine
what it cost me. But I could see at once. Any one who wasn't infatuated
as Claude was would have seen at a glance. The girl must be--well,
something awful."
Lois spoke warmly. "Oh, I don't think that."
"My dear Lois, I _know_. What's more, Thor knows, too. And I must say I
can't help blaming Thor. He's backed Claude up--and backed him up when
all the while he's known what she was."
Lois felt obliged to speak. "I don't think he's known anything--anything
to her discredit."
"Oh, but he has. I assure you he has. And what amazes me about
Thor--simply amazes me--is that he shouldn't see it in the right light.
Archie did, as soon as I told him. Didn't you, Archie? And I _didn't_
tell him," Ena ran on, excitedly, "till I saw what trouble dear Claudie
was in. When Claudie began to see for himself I betrayed his confidence
to the extent of telling his father, but not before. You could hardly
blame me for that, could you?--his own father. And when I did tell
Archie--why, it was so plain that a child could have understood."
The question, "What was plain?" could not but come to Lois's lips, but
she succeeded in withholding it. She even rose, with signs of going. It
was Archie who responded to his wife, taking a man's view of that which
seemed to her so damning.
"We must make allowances, of course, for its being a cock-and-bull story
to begin with. Girls like that never know how to tell the truth."
"We couldn't treat it as a cock-and-bull story so long as Claude
believed it," the mother declared, in defense of her right to be
anxious. "And Thor believed it, too. I know he did. And I _do_ blame
Thor for not telling Claude--a boy so inexperienced!--that a girl
couldn't be getting money from some other man--and go on getting it
after she was married--unless there'd been something wrong."
Lois felt as if her blood had been arrested at her heart. "Money from
some other man?"
"Money from some other man," Mrs. Masterman repeated, firmly. "I told
Claude at the time that no man in his senses would settle money on a
girl like that unless there'd been a reason--and a very good reason,
too. A very good reason, _too_, I said. But Claude's as ignorant of the
world as if he was ten years old. He really is. She took him in
completely."
Being too consciously a gentleman to say more in disparagement of a
woman's character than he had permitted himself already, Masterman
remained in the library while his wife accompanied Lois to the door. The
latter had said good-by and was descending the steps when Ena cried out
in a tone that was like a confession:
"Oh, Lois, you don't think that poor girl had any _reason_ to throw
herself into the pond, do you?"
At the foot of the steps Lois turned and looked upward. Ena was wringing
her hands, but the daughter-in-law didn't notice it. As a matter of
fact, Lois was too deeply sunk into thoughts of her own to have any
attention to spare for other people's searchings of heart. Having heard
the question, she could answer it, but absently, and as though it were a
point of no pressing concern.
"She hadn't the reason you're thinking of. I feel very sure of that.
I've asked her mother--and she says she knows it."
Mrs. Masterman was uttering some expression of relief, but Lois could
listen to no more. In her heart there was room for only one
consideration. "Money! Money!" she was saying to herself as she went
down the avenue beneath the leafing elms. "He was going to give
her--that."
But Ena returned to the threshold of the library, where her husband,
standing with his back to the empty fireplace, was meditating moodily.
"Archie," she faltered, "you do think that girl was only seeking
notoriety, don't you?"
He raised his head, which had been hanging pensively. "Certainly. Don't
you?"
She tried to speak with conviction. "Oh yes; of--of course."
"That is," Archie analyzed, "she was going in for cheap tragedy in the
hope that the sensation would reach Claude. That was her game--quite
evidently. Dare say it was a put-up job between her and those two young
men. Took very good care, at any rate, to have 'em 'longside."
"But if Claude should hear of it--"
"Must see that he doesn't. Wiring him to-night to go on to Japan, after
he's seen California. Let him go to India, if he likes--round the world.
Anything to keep him away--and you and I," he added, "had better hook it
till the whole thing blows over."
She looked distressed. "Hook it, Archie?"
"Close the house up and go abroad. Haven't been abroad for three years
now. Little motor trip through England--and back toward the end of the
summer. Fortunately I've sold that confounded property. Good price, too.
Hobson, of Hobson & Davies. Going to build for residence. Takes it from
the expiration of the lease, which is up in July. He'll clear out the
whole gang then, so that by the time we come back they'll be gone. What
do you think? Might do Devonshire and Cornwall--always wanted to take
that trip--with a few weeks in Paris before we come home."
The suggestion of going abroad came as such a pleasing surprise that
Mrs. Masterman slipped into a chair to turn it over in her mind. "Then
Claude _couldn't_ come back, could he?" expressed the first of the
advantages she foresaw. "He'd have nowhere to go."
"Oh, he'll not be in a hurry to do that," Archie said, confidently.
"And I do want some things," she mused further. "I had nothing to wear
for the Darlings' ball--nothing--and you know how long I've worn the
dinner-dresses I have. I really couldn't put on the green again." She
was silent for some minutes, when another of those queer little cries
escaped her such as had broken from her lips when she stood at the door
with Lois: "But, oh, Archie, I want to do what's right!--what's right,
Archie!"
He looked at her from under his brows as his head again drooped moodily.
"What's--_what_?"
"What's right, Archie. Latterly--Oh, I don't know!--but latterly--" She
passed her hand across her brow.... "Sometimes I feel--I get to be
afraid, Archie--as if we weren't--as if we hadn't--as if something were
going to happen--to overtake us--"
Crossing the room, he bent back her pretty head and kissed her.
"Nonsense," he smiled, unsteadily. "Nerves, dear. Don't wonder at
it--with all we've been through--one way and another. But that's what
we'll do. Close the house up and go abroad for three months.
Inconvenient just now with the upset in the business--but we'll do it.
Get out of the way. See something new. There, now, old girl," he coaxed,
patting her on the shoulder, "brace up and shake it off. Nothing but
nerves." He added, as he moved back toward his stand by the fireplace,
"Get 'em myself."
"Do you, Archie? Like that? Like--like what I said?"
He had resumed his former attitude, his feet wide apart, his hands
behind his back, his head hanging, when he muttered, "Like the devil."
She was not sure how much mental discomfort was indicated by the phrase,
so she sat looking at him distressfully. Being unused to grappling with
grave questions of right and wrong, she found the process difficult. It
was like wandering through morasses in which she could neither sink nor
swim, till she found herself emerging on solid, familiar ground again
with the reconciling observation, "Well, I do need a few things."