She was standing before the mirror in the bedroom, adjusting her hat,
very delicately touching her hair under its net, tilting her head from
side to side, frowning thoughtfully, trying to foresee the effect she
would produce upon Sillon and Devery, Mrs. Russell and Polly, who would
be in the church. She pictured herself and Eddie walking up the
aisle--Eddie still in uniform, tall, severe, impressive, and beside him
his beautiful young bride. She was wearing a plain dark brown broadcloth
suit, a big black hat, and a magnificent set of silver fox furs Eddie
had given her. She looked like a princess. They couldn’t, any of them,
find a flaw in her--in her appearance or in her bearing. None of those
born ladies could approach her. She looked what she was determined
actually to be, the equal of any one of them. There was a position ready
for her, and she was competent to fill it.
Eddie had been so delighted with the change in her. She hadn’t seen much
of him since his return at the end of the war, but all his hours with
her had been a perpetual service of praise. He had hurried to
her his first free minute; he had wanted to give her anything,
everything--extravagantly and ridiculously. He had been tactful and
kindly with the rather contemptuous Mrs. Kennedy. He had been to see
Devery and Sillon, and had won their hearts. He had been quite perfect.
And all these thoughts were merely flitting across her mind like birds
flying above a frozen pond. Under the ice were horrors beyond naming.
She did her utmost to ignore them, to think of those things as dead and
buried and forever gone from her world; but she could not.
All that night she had been dreaming of her drowned lover, floating,
horribly, in the sea; and with him, directly beside him, her
baby--_their_ baby--its little body extended like his, its tiny white
face upturned. And she and Eddie sat on the deck of a ship, she facing
these two corpses which came smoothly along behind them, and she was
using all her wit, all her charm, to keep Eddie from turning his head
and seeing them.
The dream haunted her and mingled with her wretched thoughts. For now
that she was within a stone’s throw of her goal, now that the cup was in
her hand, to be raised to her lips, she was filled with a desperate
impatience, a terrible fever of haste and fear. Her hands were burning,
her knees weak and trembling.
"Oh, just this one more hour!" she murmured. "If only, only, _only_
nothing will happen!"
She looked past the moment, to the haven of happy years beyond, as a man
sailing a perilous channel might look ahead to the wide and quiet sea
beyond.
"Something will happen!" she told herself. "At the last minute some one
will tell him--scream it out in the church--stop the wedding. Oh, God!
Just help me now! Let me get safely married to Eddie, and I’ll try my
best to be good!"
She was conscious of being a little too pallid, too worn, and she rubbed
on her smooth cheeks a little rouge. It looked horrible, and she wiped
it off frantically.
"No! It must be my eyes that look so queer. I wonder if Eddie’ll notice,
and think I look queer! It might make him suspicious."
She forced herself to smile.
"Of course I’m nervous," she said. "Every one is. It’s nothing--nothing
at all!"
She suppressed a scream when the door-bell rang. She listened, behind
her half-closed door, until she heard Eddie’s voice talking quite in his
usual tone to her mother. No one called her. Nothing had happened.
She stood still, in a sort of daze, getting no further forward in her
dressing, until her mother entered the room.
"He’s going to take me down and put me in the auto," said Mrs. Kennedy.
"Then he’s coming back after you. You’d better hurry. It’s late, and I
don’t see any use for you to be keeping all those people waiting. That’s
not a very good way to begin."
"All right!" said her daughter hurriedly. "Go on, mother!"
She set to work in haste to add the finishing touches to her dress,
fastening the little bar pin with diamonds given her by Mrs. Russell,
drawing on her white kid gloves.
She heard him coming. She heard him stop at the kitchen door, and tell
the woman working in the kitchen that she might go. Then he came and
knocked at her door.
"Ready, Angelica?" he called out.
She gave one glance in the mirror; then she opened the door with a
forced, polite smile. There stood the poor soldier who wished to give
her all he had--poor, ardent Eddie, longing so to take her back to his
beloved home, and give it into her keeping. He stood in the doorway of
her little room, looking at her, and he too was smiling--a smile as
strained, as artificial as her own.
"Angelica!" he said softly.
He had grown quite pallid, as he did when deeply moved, and his hands
clenched and unclenched nervously. His face, his expression, had
changed. He was struggling his utmost to look, and to be, tender and
respectful; but his heart was beating with an emotion neither tender nor
respectful. He wiped his damp forehead, and came a step nearer, always
smiling, but with eyes strangely brilliant and fixed.
"No!" said Angelica sharply. She knew how he felt--she knew too well how
he felt. It sickened and shamed her.
"My darling girl!" said Eddie. "_My_ Angelica!"
"Don’t!" she said. "_Don’t_ say that! I’m not!"
"But you will be, very soon! I----”
"We ought to go, Eddie. It’s late!"
"Then kiss me, just once!"
She shook her head with a ghastly affectation of coquetry.
"No," she said. "You’ll have to wait!"
"Just as you like, Angelica," said the poor fellow. "You know, don’t
you, dear girl, that my chief wish in life is to make you happy? I
wouldn’t for----”
"Then do come on, or I’ll think you don’t want to marry me at all!"
He turned instantly, and she followed him--just to the door of her room;
but no farther. He looked back.
"Aren’t you ready?" he asked.
"Eddie!" she cried in a high, dreadful voice. "Eddie! _I can’t do it!_"
"Can’t do what?" he asked, startled.
"I can’t do it! I can’t marry you! Not unless I tell you!"
He stared at her for an instant, his quick and clear mind at work upon
this.
"What is there to tell me?" he asked. "Let’s have it!" He was alert and
suspicious now. "Come on! Let’s have it!" he repeated.
"Eddie!" she began, but a great horror at her own folly assailed her.
She felt impelled toward this abyss, while she struggled madly to turn
aside, aghast at the destruction before her. Perhaps even now it wasn’t
too late; perhaps she could disarm the suspicion that she had aroused,
could stop, and not tell him any more.
Thank God, it wasn’t too late! She _hadn’t_ told him. She felt like a
person cutting his own throat--the knife had only pricked--he is still
alive, and in a mad exultation of thankfulness.
She smiled.
"I--I got engaged to another fellow," she said; "but it’s all over now."
"When? Who was it?"
"Last year."
"Who was it, I say?"
"He was--a--a factory superintendent," said Angelica. "But it’s all over
now. I’m awfully, awfully sorry, Eddie."
"You mean you--engaged yourself to this fellow while I was in France?
After you’d promised to marry me?"
"I know it was--wrong; but I hope you’ll forgive me, Eddie!"
"Yes," he said, "I forgive you, Angelica; but oh, how _could_ you? I’m
so disappointed in you! It was so dishonourable! It was--low."
"I know! I know! I know!" she cried, with an uncontrollable impatience.
"But--forgive me and forget all about it. I’m so sorry. What more can I
say?"
"Did he--did you let him--kiss you?"
"Yes!" she murmured.
"Angelica!"
"Oh, but I’m _sorry_!" she cried desperately.
Eddie stood looking at the floor for an instant; then, with fierce
suddenness, he caught her by the arm and pulled her forward, so that he
could look into her face.
"Look here!" he shouted. "How far did this thing go?"
"It was nothing!" she cried.
"You said he kissed you. You said you were engaged to him. Some coarse,
common brute of a workman mauling you--I know those people--I know their
love-making. God, Angelica! You make me _sick_! You’ve no fineness,
no--decency!" he cried.
He searched her face with eyes that terrified her.
"I don’t believe you," he said suddenly.
"But, Eddie----” she stammered.
"I don’t believe you!" he said again. "You’re lying. This fellow was
your lover!"
"Oh, don’t!" she cried.
"Answer me! Tell me the truth!"
"No! I did! I did tell you the truth. There was nothing--like that."
"Swear it! Say, ‘I swear to God I was absolutely faithful to you all the
time you were away.’"
His eyes never left her face; but she repeated, firmly:
"I swear to God I was absolutely faithful to you all the time you were
away."
He looked puzzled. He sat down heavily in a chair and covered his eyes
with his hand.
"I’m sorry," he said. "I didn’t mean to be so rough. Only--it’s a
terrible disappointment to me, Angelica. I never imagined such a thing.
I almost wish you hadn’t told me. I keep seeing you and some hulking
fellow in overalls----”
She was sobbing bitterly, standing before him like a forlorn and
penitent child.
"Don’t cry!" he said more kindly. "Don’t cry, my dear. I’ll try to
forget it. I’ll try!"
"Will it--not make any difference?" she sobbed.
"I’ll try not to let it. Only, Angelica--it was often so hard--over
there--not to--so hard to be true to you--not even to think of any one
else; and when I think of it, and how I hated myself, even for my
thoughts--I feel like a _fool_. I don’t believe you’d have cared _what_
I did. You don’t feel as I do. You don’t value loyalty as I do."
She seized this opening.
"No!" she cried. "I shouldn’t have cared, one bit, whatever you did, if
only we love each other now!"
"No, don’t! I don’t like to hear you say that. I want you to care, as I
do. I want you to be fine and--high-minded."
"Eddie, I’m not. There’s no use pretending that I am."
"I don’t want you to pretend to be. I want you to try to be."
"I will!"
He was silent for a time.
"Now, then!" he said. "It won’t do to keep them all waiting any longer.
Are you quite ready?"
"Do you mean for us to get married just the same?"
"Of course!" he said. "I couldn’t be such a prig. I’ve simply got to
forget what you’ve told me, and thank Heaven that I’ve got you after
all. You might have married the fellow!"
He was his own kind self again, but she could see that his great pride
in her, his great joy, were gone.
"Come!" he said again. "We shall be very late."
But she prevented him from leaving. She caught him by the arm and stood
before him, looking up into his face.
"Eddie!" she cried, with a gasp that seemed to tear her heart out. "I’ve
_got_ to! I can’t deceive you. Oh, _God_! It’s so awful!"
He didn’t move or speak.
"Eddie," she said, "it _was_ that!"
"Ah, it was!" he said, in a tone of polite surprise.
"I had a baby."
A shudder ran through him, and he closed his eyes in mortal pain.
"You can’t ever know what I suffered! Oh, Eddie, Eddie, I’ve been
punished enough for what I did! And the poor little baby----”
"Never mind!" he said, in a voice so low that she could hardly hear him.
"Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to know." He undid her fingers
from his arm. "I want to get away," he said. "Good-by!"
But she stopped him again.
"And the man was _Vincent_!" she screamed. "Now! Now! _Now_ you know!"