Villages are scattered plentifully over the unstable buttresses of
Vesuvius, and the inhabitants sleep o' nights: Why not? Quite
unaware that he was much of their condition, Mr. Madison bade his
incidental gossip and the tiny Lottie good-night, and sought his
early bed. He maintained in good faith that Saturday night was "a
great night to sleep," because of the later hour for rising;
probably having also some factitious conviction that there
prevailed a hush preparative of the Sabbath. As a matter of fact,
in summer, the other members of his family always looked
uncommonly haggard at the Sunday breakfast-table. Accepting
without question his preposterous legend of additional matutinal
slumber, they postponed retiring to a late hour, and were
awakened--simultaneously with thousands of fellow-sufferers--at
about half-after five on Sunday morning, by a journalistic
uprising. Over the town, in these early hours, rampaged the small
vendors of the manifold sheets: local papers and papers from
greater cities, hawker succeeding hawker with yell upon yell and
brain-piercing shrillings in unbearable cadences. No good burgher
ever complained: the people bore it, as in winter they bore the
smoke that injured their health, ruined their linen, spoiled their
complexions, forbade all hope of beauty and comfort in their city,
and destroyed the sweetness of their homes and of their wives. It
is an incredibly patient citizenry and exalts its persecutors.
Of the Madison family, Cora probably suffered most; and this was
the time when it was no advantage to have the front bedroom. She
had not slept until close upon dawn, and the hawkers woke her
irreparably; she could but rage upon her hot pillow. By and by,
there came a token that another anguish kept company with hers.
She had left her door open for a better circulation of the warm
and languid air, and from Hedrick's room issued an "_oof_!" of
agonized disgust. Cora little suspected that the youth reeked not
of newsboys: Hedrick's miseries were introspective.
The cries from the street were interminable; each howler in turn
heard faintly in the distance, then in crescendo until he had
passed and another succeeded him, and all the while Cora lay
tossing and whispering between clenched teeth. Having ample
reason, that morning, to prefer sleep to thinking, sleep was
impossible. But she fought for it: she did not easily surrender
what she wanted; and she struggled on, with closed eyes, long
after she had heard the others go down to breakfast.
About a hundred yards from her windows, to the rear, were the open
windows of a church which fronted the next street, and stood
dos-a-dos to the dwelling of the Madisons. The Sunday-school hour
had been advanced for the hot weather, and, partly on this
account, and partly because of the summer absence of many
families, the attendants were few. But the young voices were
conducted, rather than accompanied, in pious melody by a cornetist
who worthily thought to amend, in his single person, what lack of
volume this paucity occasioned. He was a slender young man in hot
black clothes; he wore the unfacaded collar fatally and
unanimously adopted by all adam's-apple men of morals; he was
washed, fair, flat-skulled, clean-minded, and industrious; and the
only noise of any kind he ever made in the world was on Sunday.
"Prashus joowuls, sweet joowuls, _thee_ jams off iz crowowun,"
sang the little voices feebly. They were almost unheard; but the
young man helped them out: figuratively, he put them out. And the
cornet was heard: it was heard for blocks and blocks; it was heard
over all that part of the town--in the vicinity of the church it
was the only thing that could be heard. In his daily walk this
cornetist had no enemies: he was kind-hearted; he would not have
shot a mad dog; he gladly nursed the sick. He sat upon the
platform before the children; he swelled, perspired and blew, and
felt that it was a good blowing. If other thoughts vapoured upon
the borders of his mind, they were of the dinner he would eat,
soon after noon, at the house of one of the frilled, white-muslin
teachers. He was serene. His eyes were not blasted; his heart was
not instantly withered; his thin, bluish hair did not fall from
his head; his limbs were not detached from his torso--yet these
misfortunes had been desired for him, with comprehension and
sincerity, at the first flat blat of his brassy horn.
It is impossible to imagine the state of mind of this young
cornetist, could he have known that he had caused the prettiest
girl in town to jump violently out of bed with what petitions upon
her lips regarding his present whereabouts and future detention!
It happened that during the course of his Sunday walk on Corliss
Street, that very afternoon, he saw her--was hard-smitten by her
beauty, and for weeks thereafter laid unsuccessful plans to "meet"
her. Her image was imprinted: he talked about her to his
boarding-house friends and office acquaintances, his favourite
description being, "the sweetest-looking lady I ever laid eyes
on."
Cora, descending to the breakfast-table rather white herself, was
not unpleasantly shocked by the haggard aspect of Hedrick, who,
with Laura and Mrs. Madison, still lingered.
"Good-morning, Cora," he said politely, and while she stared, in
suspicious surprise, he passed her a plate of toast with
ostentatious courtesy; but before she could take one of the
slices, "Wait," he said; "it's very nice toast, but I'm afraid it
isn't hot. I'll take it to the kitchen and have it warmed for
you." And he took the plate and went out, walking softly.
Cora turned to her mother, appalled. "He'll be sick!" she said.
Mrs. Madison shook her head and smiled sadly.
"He helped to wait on all of us: he must have been doing something
awful."
"More likely he wants permission to do something awful."
Laura looked out of the window.
"There, Cora," said Hedrick kindly, when he brought the toast;
"you'll find that nice and hot."
She regarded him steadfastly, but with modesty he avoided her eye.
"You wouldn't make such a radical change in your nature, Hedrick,"
she said, with a puzzled frown, "just to get out of going to
church, would you?"
"I don't want to get out of going to church," he said. He gulped
slightly. "I like church."
And church-time found him marching decorously beside his father,
the three ladies forming a rear rank; a small company in the very
thin procession of fanning women and mopping men whose destination
was the gray stone church at the foot of Corliss Street. The
locusts railed overhead: Hedrick looked neither to the right nor
to the left.
They passed a club, of which a lower window was vacated
simultaneously with their coming into view; and a small but ornate
figure in pale gray crash hurried down the steps and attached
itself to the second row of Madisons. "Good-morning," said Mr.
Wade Trumble. "Thought I'd take a look-in at church this morning
myself."
Care of this encumbrance was usually expected of Laura and Mrs.
Madison, but to their surprise Cora offered a sprightly rejoinder
and presently dropped behind them with Mr. Trumble. Mr. Trumble
was also surprised and, as naively, pleased.
"What's happened?" he asked with cheerful frankness. "You haven't
given me a chance to talk to you for a long while."
"Haven't I?" she smiled enigmatically. "I don't think you've tried
very hard."
This was too careless; it did not quite serve, even for Trumble.
"What's up?" he asked, not without shrewdness. "Is Richard Lindley
out of town?"
"I don't know."
"I see. Perhaps it's this new chap, Corliss? Has he left?"
"What nonsense! What have they got to do with my being nice to
you?" She gave him a dangerous smile, and it wrought upon him
visibly.
"Don't you ever be nice to me unless you mean it," he said feebly.
Cora looked grave and sweet; she seemed mysteriously moved. "I
never do anything I don't mean," she said in a low voice which
thrilled the little man. This was machine-work, easy and accurate.
"Cora----" he began, breathlessly.
"There!" she exclaimed, shifting on the instant to a lively
brusqueness. "That's enough for you just _now_. We're on our way
to church!"
Trumble felt almost that she had accepted him.
"Have you got your penny for the contribution box?" she smiled. "I
suppose you really give a great deal to the church. I hear you're
richer and richer."
"I do pretty well," he returned, coolly. "You can know just how
well, if you like."
"Not on Sunday," she laughed; then went on, admiringly, "I hear
you're very dashing in your speculations."
"Then you've heard wrong, because I don't speculate," he returned.
"I'm not a gambler--except on certainties. I guess I disappointed
a friend of yours the other day because I wouldn't back him on a
thousand-to-one shot."
"Who was that?" she asked, with an expression entirely veiled.
"Corliss. He came to see me; wanted me to put real money into an
oil scheme. Too thin!"
"Why is it `too thin'?" she asked carelessly.
"Too far away, for one thing--somewhere in Italy. Anybody who put
up his cash would have to do it on Corliss's bare word that he's
struck oil."
"Well?" She turned her face to him, and a faint perturbation was
manifest in her tone. "Isn't Mr. Corliss's `bare word' supposed to
be perfectly good?"
"Oh, I suppose so, but I don't know. He isn't known here: nobody
really knows anything about him except that he was born here.
Besides, I wouldn't make an investment on my own father's bare
word, if he happened to be alive."
"Perhaps not!" Cora spoke impulsively, a sudden anger getting the
better of her, but she controlled it immediately. "Of course I
don't mean that," she laughed, sweetly. "But _I_ happen to think
Mr. Corliss's scheme a very handsome one, and I want my friends to
make their fortunes, of course. Richard Lindley and papa are going
into it."
"I'll bet they don't," said Trumble promptly. "Lindley told me
he'd looked it over and couldn't see his way to."
"He did?" Cora stiffened perceptibly and bit her lip.
Trumble began to laugh. "This is funny: you trying to talk
business! So Corliss has been telling you about it?"
"Yes, he has; and I understand it perfectly. I think there's an
enormous fortune in it, and you'd better not laugh at me: a
woman's instinct about such things is better than a man's
experience sometimes."
"You'll find neither Lindley nor your father are going to think
so," he returned skeptically.
She gave him a deep, sweet look. "But I mustn't be disappointed in
you," she said, with the suggestion of a tremor in her voice,
"whatever _they_ do! You'll take my advice, won't you--Wade?"
"I'll take your advice in anything but business." He shook his
head ominously.
"And wouldn't you take my advice in business,"--she asked very
slowly and significantly--"under _any_ circumstances?"
"You mean," he said huskily, "if you were my wife?"
She looked away, and slightly inclined her head. "No," he answered
doggedly, "I wouldn't. You know mighty well that's what I want you
to be, and I'd give my soul for the tip of your shoe, but business
is an entirely different matter, and I----"
"_Wade_!" she said, with wonderful and thrilling sweetness. They
had reached the church; Hedrick and his father had entered; Mrs.
Madison and Laura were waiting on the steps. Cora and Trumble came
to a stop some yards away. "Wade, I--I _want_ you to go into
this."
"Can't do it," he said stubbornly. "If you ever make up your mind
to marry me, I'll spend all the money you like on _you_, but
you'll have to keep to the woman's side of the house."
"You make it pretty hard for me to be nice to you," she returned,
and the tremor now more evident in her voice was perfectly
genuine. "You positively refuse to do this--for me?"
"Yes I do. I wouldn't buy sight-unseen to please God 'lmighty,
Cora Madison." He looked at her shrewdly, struck by a sudden
thought. "Did Corliss ask you to try and get me in?"
"He did not," she responded, icily. "Your refusal is final?"
"Certainly!" He struck the pavement a smart rap with his
walking-stick. "By George, I believe he _did_ ask you! That spoils
church for me this morning; I'll not go in. When you quit playing
games, let me know. You needn't try to work me any more, because I
won't stand for it, but if you ever get tired of playing, come and
tell me so." He uttered a bark of rueful laughter. "Ha! I must say
that gentleman has an interesting way of combining business with
pleasure!"
Under favourable circumstances the blow Cora dealt him might have
been physically more violent. "Good-morning," she laughed, gayly.
"I'm not bothering much about Mr. Corliss's oil in Italy. I had a
bet with Laura I could keep you from saying `I beg to differ,' or
talking about the weather for five minutes. She'll have to pay
me!"
Then, still laughing, she lowered her parasol, and with superb
impudence, brushed it smartly across his face; turned on her heel,
and, red with fury, joined her mother and sister, and went into
the church.
The service failed to occupy her attention: she had much in her
thoughts to distract her. Nevertheless, she bestowed some
wonderment upon the devotion with which her brother observed each
ceremonial rite. He joined in prayer with real fervour; he sang
earnestly and loudly; a great appeal sounded in his changing
voice; and during the sermon he sat with his eyes upon the
minister in a stricken fixity. All this was so remarkable that
Cora could not choose but ponder upon it, and, observing Hedrick
furtively, she caught, if not a clue itself, at least a glimpse of
one. She saw Laura's clear profile becoming subtly agitated; then
noticed a shimmer of Laura's dark eye as it wandered to Hedrick
and so swiftly away it seemed not to dare to remain. Cora was
quick: she perceived that Laura was repressing a constant desire
to laugh and that she feared to look at Hedrick lest it overwhelm
her. So Laura knew what had wrought the miracle. Cora made up her
mind to explore this secret passage.
When the service was over and the people were placidly buzzing
their way up the aisles, Cora felt herself drawn to look across
the church, and following the telepathic impulse, turned her head
to encounter the gaze of Ray Vilas. He was ascending the opposite
aisle, walking beside Richard Lindley. He looked less pale than
usual, though his thinness was so extreme it was like emaciation;
but his eyes were clear and quiet, and the look he gave her was
strangely gentle. Cora frowned and turned away her head with an
air of annoyance. They came near each other in the convergence at
the doors; but he made no effort to address her, and, moving away
through the crowd as quickly as possible, disappeared.
Valentine Corliss was disclosed in the vestibule. He reached her
an instant in advance of Mr. Lindley, who had suffered himself to
be impeded; and Cora quickly handed the former her parasol,
lightly taking his arm. Thus the slow Richard found himself
walking beside Laura in a scattered group, its detached portion
consisting of his near-betrothed and Corliss; for although the
dexterous pair were first to leave the church, they contrived to
be passed almost at once, and, assuming the position of trailers,
lagged far behind on the homeward way.
Laura and Richard walked in the unmitigated glare of the sun; he
had taken her black umbrella and conscientiously held it aloft,
but over nobody. They walked in silence: they were quiet people,
both of them; and Richard, not "talkative" under any
circumstances, never had anything whatever to say to Laura
Madison. He had known her for many years, ever since her
childhood; seldom indeed formulating or expressing a definite
thought about her, though sometimes it was vaguely of his
consciousness that she played the piano nicely, and even then her
music had taken its place as but a colour of Cora's background.
For to him, as to every one else (including Laura), Laura was in
nothing her sister's competitor. She was a neutral-tinted figure,
taken-for-granted, obscured, and so near being nobody at all,
that, as Richard Lindley walked beside her this morning, he
glanced back at the lagging couple and uttered a long and almost
sonorous sigh, which he would have been ashamed for anybody to
hear; and then actually proceeded on his way without the slightest
realization that anybody had heard it.
She understood. And she did not disturb the trance; she did
nothing to make him observe that she was there. She walked on with
head, shoulders, and back scorching in the fierce sun, and allowed
him to continue shading the pavement before them with her
umbrella. When they reached the house she gently took the umbrella
from him and thanked him; and he mechanically raised his hat.
They had walked more than a mile together; he had not spoken a
word, and he did not even know it.