Dinner on Sunday, the most elaborate feast of the week for the
Madisons, was always set for one o'clock in the afternoon, and
sometimes began before two, but not to-day: the escorts of both
daughters remained, and a change of costume by Cora occasioned a
long postponement. Justice demands the admission that her
reappearance in a glamour of lilac was reward for the delay;
nothing more ravishing was ever seen, she was warrantably informed
by the quicker of the two guests, in a moment's whispered
tete-a-tete across the banisters as she descended. Another wait
followed while she prettily arranged upon the table some dozens of
asters from a small garden-bed, tilled, planted, and tended by
Laura. Meanwhile, Mrs. Madison constantly turned the other cheek
to the cook. Laura assisted in the pacification; Hedrick froze the
ice-cream to an impenetrable solidity; and the nominal head of the
family sat upon the front porch with the two young men, and wiped
his wrists and rambled politically till they were summoned to the
dining-room.
Cora did the talking for the table. She was in high spirits; no
trace remained of a haggard night: there was a bloom upon her--she
was radiant. Her gayety may have had some inspiration in her
daring, for round her throat she wore a miraculously slender chain
of gold and enamel, with a pendant of minute pale sapphires
scrolled about a rather large and very white diamond. Laura
started when she saw it, and involuntarily threw a glance almost
of terror at Richard Lindley. But that melancholy and
absent-minded gentleman observed neither the glance nor the jewel.
He saw Cora's eyes, when they were vouchsafed to his vision, and
when they were not he apparently saw nothing at all.
With the general exodus from the table, Cora asked Laura to come
to the piano and play, a request which brought a snort from
Hedrick, who was taken off his guard. Catching Laura's eye, he
applied a handkerchief with renewed presence of mind, affecting to
have sneezed, and stared searchingly over it at Corliss. He
perceived that the man remained unmoved, evidently already
informed that it was Laura who was the musician. Cora must be
going it pretty fast this time: such was the form of her brother's
deduction.
When Laura opened the piano, Richard had taken a seat beside Cora,
and Corliss stood leaning in the doorway. The player lost herself
in a wandering medley, echoes from "Boheme" and "Pagliacci"; then
drifted into improvisation and played her heart into it
magnificently--a heart released to happiness. The still air of the
room filled with wonderful, golden sound: a song like the song of
a mother flying from earth to a child in the stars, a torrential
tenderness, unpent and glorying in freedom. The flooding,
triumphant chords rose, crashed--stopped with a shattering
abruptness. Laura's hands fell to her sides, then were raised to
her glowing face and concealed it for a moment. She shivered; a
quick, deep sigh heaved her breast; and she came back to herself
like a prisoner leaving a window at the warden's voice.
She turned. Cora and Corliss had left the room. Richard was
sitting beside a vacant chair, staring helplessly at the open
door.
If he had been vaguely conscious of Laura's playing, which is
possible, certainly he was unaware that it had ceased.
"The others have gone out to the porch," she said composedly, and
rose. "Shan't we join them?"
"What?" he returned, blankly. "I beg your pardon----"
"Let's go out on the porch with the others."
"No, I----" He got to his feet confusedly. "I was thinking---- I
believe I'd best be going home."
"Not `best,' I think," she said. "Not even better!"
"I don't see," he said, his perplexity only increased.
"Mr. Corliss would," she retorted quickly. "Come on: we'll go and
sit with them." And she compelled his obedience by preceding him
with such a confident assumption that he would follow that he did.
The fugitive pair were not upon the porch, however; they were
discovered in the shade of a tree behind the house, seated upon a
rug, and occupied in a conversation which would not have disturbed
a sick-room. The pursuers came upon them, boldly sat beside them;
and Laura began to talk with unwonted fluency to Corliss, but
within five minutes found herself alone with Richard Lindley upon
the rug. Cora had promised to show Mr. Corliss an "old print" in
the library--so Cora said.
Lindley gave the remaining lady a desolate and faintly reproachful
look. He was kind, but he was a man; and Laura saw that this last
abandonment was being attributed in part to her.
She reddened, and, being not an angel, observed with crispness:
"Certainly. You're quite right: it's my fault!"
"What did you say?" he asked vacantly.
She looked at him rather fixedly; his own gaze had returned to the
angle of the house beyond which the other couple had just
disappeared. "I said," she answered, slowly, "I thought it
wouldn't rain this, afternoon."
His wistful eyes absently swept the serene sky which had been
cloudless for several days. "No, I suppose not," he murmured.
"Richard," she said with a little sharpness, "will you please
listen to me for a moment?"
"Oh--what?" He was like a diver coming up out of deep water. "What
did you say?" He laughed apologetically. "Wasn't I listening? I
beg your pardon. What is it, Laura?"
"Why do you let Mr. Corliss take Cora away from you like that?"
she asked gravely.
"He doesn't," the young man returned with a rueful shake of the
head. "Don't you see? It's Cora that goes."
"Why do you let her, then?"
He sighed. "I don't seem to be able to keep up with Cora,
especially when she's punishing me. I couldn't do something she
asked me to, last night----"
"Invest with Mr. Corliss?" asked Laura quickly.
"Yes. It seemed to trouble her that I couldn't. She's convinced
it's a good thing: she thinks it would make a great fortune for
us----"
"`Us'?" repeated Laura gently. "You mean for you and her? When
you're----"
"When we're married. Yes," he said thoughtfully, "that's the way
she stated it. She wanted me to put in all I have----"
"Don't do it!" said Laura decidedly.
He glanced at her with sharp inquiry. "Do you mean you would
distrust Mr. Corliss?"
"I wasn't thinking of that: I don't know whether I'd trust him or
not--I think I wouldn't; there's something veiled about him, and I
don't believe he is an easy man to know. What I meant was that I
don't believe it would really be a good thing for you with Cora."
"It would please her, of course--thinking I deferred so much to
her judgment."
"Don't do it!" she said again, impulsively.
"I don't see how I can," he returned sorrowfully.
"It's my work for all the years since I got out of college, and if
I lost it I'd have to begin all over again. It would mean
postponing everything. Cora isn't a girl you can ask to share a
little salary, and if it were a question of years, perhaps--
perhaps Cora might not feel she could wait for me, you see."
He made this explanation with plaintive and boyish sincerity,
hesitatingly, and as if pleading a cause. And Laura, after a long
look at him, turned away, and in her eyes were actual tears of
compassion for the incredible simpleton.
"I see," she said. "Perhaps she might not."
"Of course," he went on, "she's fond of having nice things, and
she thinks this is a great chance for us to be millionaires; and
then, too, I think she may feel that it would please Mr. Corliss
and help to save him from disappointment. She seems to have taken
a great fancy to him."
Laura glanced at him, but did not speak.
"He _is_ attractive," continued Richard feebly. "I think he has a
great deal of what people call `magnetism': he's the kind of man
who somehow makes you want to do what he wants you to. He seems a
manly, straightforward sort, too--so far as one can tell--and when
he came to me with his scheme I was strongly inclined to go into
it. But it is too big a gamble, and I can't, though I was sorry to
disappoint him myself. He was perfectly cheerful about it and so
pleasant it made me feel small. I don't wonder at all that Cora
likes him so much. Besides, he seems to understand her."
Laura looked very grave. "I think he does," she said slowly.
"And then he's `different,'" said Richard. "He's more a `man of
the world' than most of us here: she never saw anything just like
him before, and she's seen _us_ all her life. She likes change, of
course. That's natural," he said gently. "Poor Vilas says she
wants a man to be different every day, and if he isn't, then she
wants a different man every day."
"You've rather taken Ray Vilas under your wing, haven't you?"
asked Laura.
"Oh, no," he answered deprecatingly. "I only try to keep him with
me so he'll stay away from downtown as much as possible."
"Does he talk much of Cora?"
"All the time. There's no stopping him. I suppose he can't help
it, because he thinks of nothing else."
"Isn't that rather--rather queer for you?"
"`Queer'?" he repeated.
"No, I suppose not!" She laughed impatiently. "And probably you
don't think it's `queer' of you to sit here helplessly, and let
another man take your place----"
"But I don't `let' him, Laura," he protested.
"No, he just does it!"
"Well," he smiled, "you must admit my efforts to supplant him
haven't----"
"It won't take any effort now," she said, rising quickly.
Valentine Corliss came into their view upon the sidewalk in front,
taking his departure. Seeing that they observed him, he lifted his
hat to Laura and nodded a cordial good-day to Lindley. Then he
went on.
Just before he reached the corner of the lot, he encountered upon
the pavement a citizen of elderly and plain appearance, strolling
with a grandchild. The two men met and passed, each upon his
opposite way, without pausing and without salutation, and neither
Richard nor Laura, whose eyes were upon the meeting, perceived
that they had taken cognizance of each other. But one had asked a
question and the other had answered.
Mr. Pryor spoke in a low monotone, with a rapidity as singular as
the restrained but perceptible emphasis he put upon one word of
his question.
"I got you in the park," he said; and it is to be deduced that
"got" was argot. "You're not _doing_ anything here, are you?"
"No!" answered Corliss with condensed venom, his back already to
the other. He fanned himself with his hat as he went on. Mr. Pryor
strolled up the street with imperturbable benevolence.
"Your coast is cleared," said Laura, "since you wouldn't clear it
yourself."
"Wish me luck," said Richard as he left her.
She nodded brightly.
Before he disappeared, he looked back to her again (which
profoundly surprised her) and smiled rather disconsolately,
shaking his head as in prophecy of no very encouraging reception
indoors. The manner of this glance recalled to Laura what his
mother had once said of him. "Richard is one of those sweet,
helpless men that some women adore and others despise. They fall
in love with the ones that despise them."
An ostentatious cough made her face about, being obviously
designed to that effect; and she beheld her brother in the act of
walking slowly across the yard with his back to her. He halted
upon the border of her small garden of asters, regarded it
anxiously, then spread his handkerchief upon the ground, knelt
upon it, and with thoughtful care uprooted a few weeds which were
beginning to sprout, and also such vagrant blades of grass as
encroached upon the floral territory. He had the air of a virtuous
man performing a good action which would never become known.
Plainly, he thought himself in solitude and all unobserved.
It was a touching picture, pious and humble. Done into coloured
glass, the kneeling boy and the asters--submerged in ardent
sunshine--would have appropriately enriched a cathedral: Boyhood
of Saint Florus the Gardener.
Laura heartlessly turned her back, and, affecting an interest in
her sleeve, very soon experienced the sensation of being stared at
with some poignancy from behind. Unchanged in attitude, she
unravelled an imaginary thread, whereupon the cough reached her
again, shrill and loud, its insistence not lacking in pathos.
She approached him, driftingly. No sign that he was aware came
from the busied boy, though he coughed again, hollowly now--a
proof that he was an artist. "All right, Hedrick," she said
kindly. "I heard you the first time."
He looked up with utter incomprehension. "I'm afraid I've caught
cold," he said, simply. "I got a good many weeds out before
breakfast, and the ground was damp."
Hedrick was of the New School: everything direct, real, no
striving for effect, no pressure on the stroke. He did his work:
you could take it or leave it.
"You mustn't strain so, dear," returned his sister, shaking her
head. "It won't last if you do. You see this is only the first
day."
Struck to the heart by so brutal a misconception, he put all his
wrongs into one look, rose in manly dignity, picked up his
handkerchief, and left her.
Her eyes followed him, not without remorse: it was an exit which
would have moved the bass-violist of a theatre orchestra. Sighing,
she went to her own room by way of the kitchen and the
back-stairs, and, having locked her door, brought the padlocked
book from its hiding-place.
"I think I should not have played as I did, an hour ago," she
wrote. "It stirs me too greatly and I am afraid it makes me
inclined to self-pity afterward, and I must never let myself feel
_that_! If I once begin to feel sorry for myself. . . . But I
_will_ not! No. You are here in the world. You exist. You _are_!
That is the great thing to know and it must be enough for me. It
is. I played to You. I played _just love_ to you--all the yearning
tenderness--all the supreme kindness I want to give you. Isn't
love really just glorified kindness? No, there is something more.
. . . I feel it, though I do not know how to say it. But it was in
my playing--I played it and played it. Suddenly I felt that in my
playing I had shouted it from the housetops, that I had told the
secret to all the world and _everybody_ knew. I stopped, and for a
moment it seemed to me that I was dying of shame. But no one
understood. No one had even listened. . . . Sometimes it seems to
me that I am like Cora, that I am very deeply her sister in some
things. My heart goes all to You--my revelation of it, my release
of it, my outlet of it is all here in these pages (except when I
play as I did to-day and as I shall not play again) and perhaps
the writing keeps me quiet. Cora scatters her own releasings: she
is looking for the You she may never find; and perhaps the penalty
for scattering is never finding. Sometimes I think the seeking has
reacted and that now she seeks only what will make her feel. I
hope she has not found it: I am afraid of this new man--not only
for your sake, dear. I felt repelled by his glance at me the first
time I saw him. I did not like it--I cannot say just why, unless
that it seemed too intimate. I am afraid of him for her, which is
a queer sort of feeling because she has alw----"
Laura's writing stopped there, for that day, interrupted by a
hurried rapping upon the door and her mother's voice calling her
with stress and urgency.
The opening of the door revealed Mrs. Madison in a state of
anxious perturbation, and admitted the sound of loud weeping and
agitated voices from below.
"Please go down," implored the mother. "You can do more with her
than I can. She and your father have been having a terrible scene
since Richard went home."
Laura hurried down to the library.