ROSE SETS FACE TOWARD THE OPEN ROAD
When Rose reached her room, she found the packet of poems lying on her
desk. It had come in the afternoon mail.
She sat down by the toilet table with a burning flush on her face. A
world seemed some way to lie between her present self and the writer of
those imitative verses. She wished to see, yet feared to see what he had
written, and taking up the packet she fingered the string while she
meditated. She had not absolutely promised not to read the letter,
though she had pledged herself to burn the poems.
Her life was so suddenly filled with new emotions and impulses, that she
was bewildered by them. The music, the audience-room, the splendid
assemblage, and some compelling power in Mason--all of these (or he
alone) had changed her point of view. It was a little thing to the great
city, a little thing to him probably, but to her it was like unto the
war of life and death.
What, indeed, was the use of being an echo of passion, a copy? She had
always hated conformity; she hated to dress like other girls; why should
she be without individuality in her verse, the very part where, as Mason
had intimated, she should be most herself?
She had the chance to succeed. The people seemed ready to listen to her
if she had something to say; and she had something to say--why not say
it?
She arose, tense and white with resolution, and opened the stove door
and dropped the packet in, and closed the door and held it as if she
feared the packet might explode in her face, or cry out at her. In her
poems she would have had the heroine fling it in the grate and snatch it
out again, but having no grate the stove must serve, and there could be
no snatching at the packet, no remorseful kisses of the charred body. It
was gone in a dull roar.
She sat down and waited till the flame died out, and then drew up to her
desk and wrote swiftly for an hour. She grew sleepy at last, as the
tumult of her brain grew quieter. Just before she went to sleep all her
lovers came before her: Carl, in the strawberry-scented glade; William
de Lisle, shining of limb, courtesying under the lifting canvas roof;
Dr. Thatcher, as he looked that afternoon in the school-room; then
Forest Darnlee, with the physical beauty of William De Lisle, but vain
and careless; then Professor Ellis, seated at his desk in the
chalk-laden air, or perched on the ladder beneath the great telescope, a
man who lived in abstract regions far from sense and sound; then Tom
Harris, lithe, graceful, always smiling--Tom, who had the songs of
birds, the smell of flowers, the gleam of sunset-water leagued with
him--who almost conquered, but who passed on like a dapple of purple
shadow over the lake.
And now she faced two others, for she could see that Owen was turning to
her from Mary, and he had great charm. He was one of the cleanest-souled
men she had ever known; he had, also, a strange touch of paganism, of
mystery, as of free spaces and savage, unstained wildernesses, and he
could give her a home, and he would allow her freedom. He would be her
subject, not her master.
Then there was Mason--of him what? She did not know. He was outside her
knowledge of men. She could neither read his face nor understand his
voice. He scared her with a look or a phrase. Sometimes he looked old
and cynical, but tonight how tenderly and sympathetically he had spoken!
How considerately silent he had been!
When she awoke, Mary was standing looking down at her.
"If you're going to have any breakfast, Rose, you'd better be stirring.
It's nine o'clock, and everything's ready to clear away. What kind of
time did you have?"
Rose resented her question, but forced herself to answer:
"Beautiful!"
"I saw you in the box. Owen and I were in the second balcony. You were
just scrumptious! I wanted to throw a kiss at you." She fell upon Rose
and squeezed her, quilt and all, in her long arms. "My stars! I wish I
was lovely and a poet."
She had nothing but joy over her idol's good fortune, and it made Rose
feel guilty to think how resentful and secretive she had become. There
was coming into her friendship with Mary a feeling which prevented
further confidence--a feeling that Mary was not a suitable confidant,
and could not understand the subtleties of her position, in which Rose
was quite correct.
With Mary, procedure was always plain sailing. Either she was in love
and wanted to marry, or she wasn't. Her ideals changed comparatively
little, and were healthily commonplace. Her friendships were quick, warm
and stable. She was the country girl in the city, and would be so until
death. If she felt disposed, she chewed gum or ate an apple on the
street like a boy, and she walked on the Lake Shore Sunday evening with
Owen, unconscious (and uncaring) of the servant-girls and their lovers
seated on every bench.
So Rose had grown away from her friend. She felt it dimly the first
week. She felt it vividly on the morning after the concert, and it
troubled her. Her life was too subtle, too complicated and too
problematic for honest, freckle-faced, broad-cheeked Mary to analyze.
Then, too, there was the question of Owen. Soon Mary must see how he set
face toward her, but she felt quite equal to answering him when Owen
came to speak, because his appeal to her was not in the slightest degree
sensuous, as Tom Harris' had been.
She spent the day in deep thought, writing some lines which came to her,
and writing a letter home. She filled it full of love and praise for
"pappa John," as if in remorse for growing so far away from him.
That done she fell back upon her group of friends; upon the concert,
upon thought of that wonderful promenade with Mason.
The world of art seemed so secure and reposeful, so filled with splendor
of human endeavor. She drew her breath in a mighty inspiration, and
resolved to be a part of it. Art had always seemed to her so far off,
something European, and now she seemed to be in immediate contact with
it, and soared into exultation for a day, falling soon into dreary
doubt.
Her literary ideals were so hopelessly confused. She had lost the desire
to write as she had been writing, and there seemed nothing left for her
to do. She had so few convictions and so little experience! The door had
closed upon her old forms of action, and yet the way Mason had pointed
out to her was dark and utterly bewildering. She felt great things
moving around her; themes, deeds that were enormous but not defined. She
could not quite lay hold upon them.
She went down the street to Dr. Herrick's house, feeling that she was
committing herself to something. She knew that Isabel had taken her case
in hand, and that she was to meet other young men there. She could not
resent it, for the zeal of her new-found friend was manifestly from the
heart--it could not be otherwise. Of what advantage to Dr. Herrick could
it be to take her up--a poor country girl?
In fact, she was puzzled by this overpowering kindness. There was so
little apparent reason for it all. She could not, of course, understand
the keen delight of introducing a powerful and fresh young mind to the
wonders of the city. She had not grown weary of "sets" and "circles,"
and of meeting the same commonplace people again and again, as Mrs.
Harvey had. Isabel's position was different, but she had an equal
delight, more subtle and lasting, in seeing the genius (as she believed)
of the girl win its way, and besides, the girl, herself, pleased her
mightily.
Isabel Herrick's life was one of deep earnestness and high aims. She was
the daughter of a physician in an interior city. She had worked her way
up from the bottom in the usual American fashion by plucky efforts
constantly directed to one end, and was the head of the house of
Herrick, which consisted of her young sister, a brother at college and
her aged mother, now an invalid.
She had been one of the first three girls to enter the medical school,
and she had been their shield and fortress in the storm which followed
their entrance into the dissecting room. The battle was short but
decisive. Her little head was lifted and her face white as she said:
"Men--I won't say gentlemen--I'm here for business, and I'm here to
stay. If you're afraid of competition from a woman you'd better get out
of the profession."
In the dead silence which followed a lank country fellow stepped out and
raised his voice.
"She's right, and I'm ready to stand by her, and I'll see she's let
alone."
Others shouted: "Of course she's right!" by which it appeared the
disturbance was of the few and not the mass of students, a fact which
Isabel inferred. She spoke a grateful word to the lanky student, and Dr.
Sanborn found his wife right there.
There was little for Isabel to learn of the sordid and vicious side of
men. She knew them for what they were, polygamous by instinct,
insatiable as animals, and yet she had been treated on the whole with
courteous--often too courteous--kindness. Her dainty color and her
petite figure won over-gallant footway everywhere, though she often
said:
"Gentlemen, I have studied my part. I know what I am doing and I ask
only a fair field and no favors."
Thatcher and Sanborn had been her close companions in the stern, hard
course they set themselves; each had said with vast resolution to the
other: "I'm not to be left behind." And each had sworn to take no
mediocre position. Thatcher had made apparently the least mark in the
world, but he was writing a monograph which was expected to give
important facts to the medical profession. He had written to Sanborn
several times: "You have the advantage of association with the 'Little
Corporal.'"
They called her "Little Corporal" among themselves. Her sternly sweet
face had a suggestion of Napoleon in it, and then she ordered them about
so naturally and led them so inevitably in everything she undertook.
It was into the hands of the "Little Corporal" that Rose had fallen, and
all Isabel's enthusiasm was roused in her behalf. Her own little sister
was a sweet, placid little thing, who had inherited the body, and spirit
as well, of her mother, while Isabel had inherited the mind of her
father in the body of her mother.
Something of this Thatcher had told Rose, part of it Isabel had told,
and it made only one definite impression on Rose--this, that a woman
could succeed if she set her teeth hard and did not waste time.
She found Isabel already surrounded by company. She made every other
Sunday evening an informal "at home," and certain well-known artists and
professional people dropped in to talk awhile, or to sit at her generous
table. It was a good place to be and Rose had perception enough to feel
that.
"O, you dear child! I'm glad to see you. There's some one here you'll be
glad to see."
Rose flushed a little, thinking of Mason.
"It's an old friend--Dr. Thatcher."
Rose clapped her hands: "O, is he? I'm so glad; it's almost like seeing
the folks."
"I've asked Elbert Harvey and Mr. Mason also; I didn't want you to think
I had no friends but doctors. It must seem to you as if the world is
made up of doctors. But it isn't."
Thatcher greeted Rose quietly but with a pressure of the hand which made
up for his impassivity of countenance. He trembled a little as he sat
down and watched her greeting Sanborn and Mason.
Fear and admiration were both present in her heart as Mason took her
hand.
She forced herself to look into his face, and started to find his eyes
so terribly penetrating.
"I burned the packet," she said with a constrained smile.
His eyes grew softer and a little humorous.
"Did you indeed. Without opening it?"
"Yes."
"Heroic girl!"
"Am I not?" she said over her shoulder as Isabel dragged her toward a
tall, smooth-faced young fellow who stood talking with Etta.
"Elbert, this is Miss Dutcher--Rose, young Mr. Harvey, son of our
hostess at the concert."
Young Harvey seemed much taken back as he faced Rose, and shook hands in
current angular fashion. His mind formulated these opinions:
"She's a stunner! Caroline was dead right!" By "Caroline" he meant his
mother.
Rose placed him at once. He was another college man. Paul and Etta
joined them and they made a fine group. They were soon as free as
schoolmates, laughing, telling stories, and fighting over the East and
the West.
Rose stoutly defended the western colleges; they had their place, she
said.
"So they have," Elbert said, "but let them keep it."
"Their place is at the head, and that's where we'll put them soon," she
said.
Elbert told a story about hazing a western boy at Yale. He grew excited
and sprang up to dramatize it. He stood on one foot and screwed up his
face, while the rest shrieked with laughter, all except Rose, who
thought it unjust.
Mason looked on from his low chair with a revealing touch of envious
sadness. He had gone past that life--past the land of youth and
love--past the islands of mirth and minstrelsy. He was facing a cold,
gray sea, with only here and there a grim granite reef gnawing the water
into foam.
It made him long to be part of that again, therefore he valued Rose more
at that moment than ever before. "The girl has imagination, she has
variety. She is not a simple personality. At the concert she was
exalted, rapt, her eyes deep. Tonight she is a school-girl. Then it was
Wagner--now it is college horse-play."
Isabel came up to sit a moment by him.
"Isn't she fine? I think I surprised young Harvey. I thought I'd like to
have her meet him--he's such a fine fellow. She should meet someone else
beside us old fogies."
Mason winced a little.
"Well now, that's pleasant! Do you call me an old fogy?"
She laughed:
"O, we're not old in years, but we're old in experience. The bloom of
the grape is lost."
"But the grape is ripe, and we still have that. The bloom--what is it? A
nest for bacteria."
"But it is so beautiful with the bloom on," she said wistfully. "I'd
take it again, bacteria and all. See those young people! The meeting of
their eyes is great as fame, and the touch--the accidental touch of
their hands or shoulders, like a return of lost ships. I am thirty-three
years of age and I've missed that somewhere."
Mason lifted his eye-brows:
"Do you mean to say that the touch of Sanborn's hand does not hasten
your blood?"
"I do--and yet I love him as much as I shall ever love anybody--now."
Mason studied her, and then chanted softly:
"'Another came in the days that were golden,
One that was fair, in the days of the olden
Time, long ago!'
You've never told me about that."
She smiled. "No, but I will some time--perhaps."
She led the way out to supper with Dr. Thatcher, and the rest followed
without quite breaking off conversation, a merry, witty procession.
Rose was conscious of a readjustment of values. Dr. Thatcher had less
weight in the presence of these people, but Mason--Mason easily
dominated the table without effort. Indeed, he was singularly silent,
but there was something in the poise of his head, in the glance of his
eyes, which showed power and insight into life.
The young folks, led by young Harvey took possession of the table, and
laughter rippled from silence to silence like a mountain stream. Young
Harvey aided at the chafing-dish with the air of an adept, and Isabel
was almost as light-hearted in laughter as he.
Thatcher and Mason seemed to sit apart from it, and so it was Mason
found opportunity to say:
"You knew our young friend of the coule--discovered her, in fact?"
"Yes, as much as any one could discover her. It's a little early to talk
of her as if she had achieved fame."
"Dr. Herrick thinks she's on the instant of going up higher, and so
we're all hanging to her skirts in hopes of getting a rise."
Thatcher didn't like Mason's tone.
"Rose is a hard worker. If she rises any higher it will be by the same
methods which put her through college." He spoke with a little air of
proprietorship.
Mason felt the rebuff, but he was seeking information about Rose,
therefore he ignored it.
"She's an only child, I believe."
"Yes; her father is a hard-working, well-to-do farmer in a little
'coolly' in Wisconsin."
"It's the same old story, I suppose; he doesn't realize that he's lost
his daughter to the city of Chicago. We gain at his expense."
Mason's mind had something feminine about it, and he saw as never before
how attractive to a girl a fine young fellow like Harvey could be. Being
rich he was lifted above worry. His activity was merely wholesome
exercise, and his flesh was clean and velvety as a girl's. He was
strong, too, as it was the fashion of college men of his day to be. He
had never known want or care in his beautiful life. He was, moreover, a
clean boy. Money had not spoiled his sterling nature. It was no wonder
that Rose's eyes grew wide and dark as they rested on him. They were
physically a beautiful pair and their union seemed the most inevitable
thing in the world.
Isabel leaned over to say:
"Aren't they enjoying themselves? I wish Mrs. Harvey could see them."
After they had returned to the sitting room a couple of young artists
came in with John Coburg, Mason's room-mate on the _Star_. He was a
smooth-faced fellow of extra-solemn visage, relieved by twinkling black
eyes. The artists were keen, alert-looking fellows, with nothing to
indicate their profession save their pointed beards. One of them being
lately from Paris turned his moustaches up devilishly; the other had
fallen away from his idols sufficiently to wear his moustaches turned
down and an extra width to his beard.
Rose was glad Mr. Davidson twisted his mustache; there was so little
else about him to indicate his high calling.
Their coming turned the current of talk upon matters of art, which made
Rose feel perfectly certain she was getting at the heart of Chicago
artistic life.
Mr. Davidson inveighed against America, and Chicago especially, for its
"lack of art atmosphere."
"If you've got the creative power you can make your own art atmosphere,"
his companion hotly said. "You always start up on that thing." Evidently
it was a source of violent argument between them.
"The trouble is you fellows who paint, want to make a living too easy,"
Mason remarked.
"You ought to stay and do pioneer work among us," said Isabel.
"I don't consider it worth while so far as I am concerned. I prefer
Paris."
"You're not very patriotic."
"There is no patriotism in art."
"That's the regular Parisian jabber," returned his friend. "I talked all
that myself. What you need is a touch of poverty. I'd like to see your
people drop you in a small town where you had to make your living for a
little while."
"All the hard conditions of Chicago are changing," Isabel interposed,
with peaceful intent. "All that was true a few years ago is not true
now. The materialism you war against, no longer dominates us. We are
giving a little time to art and literature."
Davidson twisted his mustache point. "It isn't noticeable yet--O,
there's a little band of fellows starving here like rats in a
garret--but what general recognition of art have you?"
"What could you expect?"
"Well, you might buy pictures."
"We do--old masters and salon pictures," said Mills, with a relenting
acknowledgment of the city's weakness.
"That's it exactly!" said Davidson. "You've no judgment here. You are
obliged to take your judgment from somebody else."
So the talk proceeded. To Rose it was illuminating and epoch-making. She
read in it the city's developing thought. Paris and the Rocky Mountains
met here with Chicago and the most modern types of men and women.
Meanwhile Mason found opportunity to say to Thatcher, who seemed a
little ill at ease:
"These little informal Sunday suppers and free-for-alls are increasing
in number, and they are signs of civilization. Of course a few of the
women still go to church in the morning, but that will wear off, except
at new-bonnet time."
Thatcher did not reply; he thought Mason a little flippant.
Rose sought opportunity to talk about Mrs. Thatcher and Josephine.
"They're quite well."
"I wish I could see them both."
"We should be glad to welcome you back to Madison any time. But I hardly
expect to see you, except on a vacation, possibly. You're a city dweller
already. I can see that." He seemed sadder than she had ever known him,
and his look troubled her a little.
At ten o'clock she rose to go, and young Harvey sprang up:
"Are you going? If you are I hope you'll give me the pleasure--my
carriage--"
"Thank you very much," she answered quickly. "I've a friend coming for
me." Thatcher rose as if to go with her, but sat down again with a level
line of resolution on his lips.
Mason and Harvey both wondered a little about that friend. Mason took a
certain delight in young Harvey's defeat, and analyzed his pulse to find
out why he was delighted. "We should mob that friend," he said to
Sanborn. "He is an impertinence, at this time."
Rose felt Isabel's arm around her as she entered the cloakroom.
"Isn't he fine?"
"Who?"
"Mr. Harvey."
"O--yes--so are the artists." Rose began to wonder if Isabel were not a
matchmaker as well as a promoter of genius.
Isabel had a suspicion of Rose's thought and she laughingly said:
"Don't think I'm so terrible! I do like to bring the right people
together. I see so many people wrongly mated, but I don't mean--I only
want you to know nice people. You're to do your own choosing," she said
with sudden gravity. "No one can choose for you. There are some things I
want to talk about when I can venture it."
Mason and Sanborn were the last to go and when Isabel returned from the
door, where she had speeded the last guest, she dropped into a chair and
sighed.
"It's splendid good fun, but it does tire me so! Talk to me now while I
rest."
"Sanborn, talk!" Mason commanded.
Sanborn drew a chair near Isabel and put his arm about her. She leaned
her head on his shoulder.
Mason rose in mock confusion.
"I beg your pardon! I should have gone before."
Isabel smiled. "Don't go; we're not disturbed."
"I was considering myself."
"O, you were!"
"Such things shock me, but if I may smoke I may be able--"
"Of course. Smoke and tell me what you think of Rose. Isn't it strange
how that girl gets on? She's one of the women born to win her way
without effort. It isn't true to say it is physical; that's only part of
it--it's temperament."
Mason got his cigar well alight before he said:
"She has the prime virtue--imagination."
"Is that a woman's prime virtue?"
"To me it is. Of course there are other domestic and conjugal virtues
which are commonly ranked higher, but they are really subordinate.
Sappho and Helen and Mary of the Scots were not beautiful nor virtuous,
as such terms go; they had imagination, and imagination gave them
variety, and variety means endless charm. It is decidedly impossible to
keep up your interest in a woman who is the same yesterday, today and
tomorrow--whose orbit can be predicted, whose radiance is without the
shadow of turning."
"Should he be stopped?" Isabel asked of Sanborn.
"I shouldn't like the job," Sanborn replied. "When he strikes that line
of soliloquy he's out of my control."
* * * * *
Rose found Owen waiting in the hall, and she accepted his escort with
the frankness of a sister.
"Have you waited long?"
"No, I was just going to ring the bell when I heard your voice."
They walked on in silence. At last he asked:
"Did you have a good time?"
"Splendid!" she answered.
"We missed you," he said.
Rose felt something tender in his voice and remained silent.
"I heard from my partners today." He went on after a little: "They're
feeling mighty good. Struck another vein that promises better than the
one we have. I ought to go out, but I----" He paused abruptly. "Did you
ever see the Rockies in late fall? O, they're mighty, mighty as the sky!
I wish you'd--I wish we could make up a party some time and go out. I'd
take a car----"
She faced the situation.
"I'll tell you what would be nice: When you and Mary take your wedding
trip I'll go along to take care of you both."
Owen fairly staggered under the import of that speech, and could find
nothing to say for some time.
"Did you have a good time tonight?" he asked again.
"Splendid! I always do when I go to Isabel's." Thereafter they walked in
silence.
Rose fell to thinking of young Harvey in the days which followed. There
was allurement in his presence quite different from that of any other.
She could not remember anything he had said, only he had made her laugh
and his eyes were frank and boyish. She felt his grace and the charm
that comes from security of position and freedom from care.
He brought up to her mind by force of contrast, her father, with his
eyes dimmed with harsh winds and dust and glowing sun. He was now
spending long, dull days wandering about the house and barn, going to
bed early in order to rise with the sun, to begin the same grind of
duties the day following. Young Harvey's life was the opposite from
this.
He admired her, she felt that as distinctly as if he had spoken to her.
He wanted to be near her. He had asked her to help him with the
chafing-dish that night, and to pour the beer while he stirred the gluey
mass of cheese. All the little things by which a young man expresses his
admiration he had used almost artlessly, certainly boyishly.
There was nothing there but a vista of pleasures, certain relief from
toil and worry. What a marvelous thing to be suddenly relieved from all
fear of hunger and every harassing thought about the future! And it was
not a question of an old man of wealth, or a man of repulsive
appearance; it was a question of taking a bright, handsome, clean-souled
man, together with his money. She felt the power to put out her hand and
claim him as her own.
She liked him, too; he amused her and interested her. She admired his
splendid flesh and his clear, laughing eyes. It seemed the easiest thing
in the world--to an outsider. She felt that Isabel was working hard to
have her see young Harvey at his best, and she felt, too, that Mrs.
Harvey was taking unusual interest in her, and in her secret heart she
knew she could marry into that fine family, but--
Liking was not love. She did not shiver when he clasped her hand, as she
did when Mason greeted her. She feared Mason. When he came by, her
judgment blurred and her eyes fell. She couldn't tell what his traits
were, and she didn't know whether he was a good man or not. She hungered
to see him, to hear his voice; beyond that she hardly dared consciously
go.
His attitude toward her she could not understand. Sometimes he seemed
anxious to please her, sometimes he seemed equally determined that she
should understand how inconsequential she was in his life--and always he
dominated her.
She did not once think it might be indecision in his mind, after the
usual stupidity of love's victims. She thought his changes of manner due
in some way to her. She had acted foolishly, or she was looking so badly
he was ashamed of her.
In this condition of mind, it may be imagined, she did not do much
studying or writing. She went to the library regularly, but she could
not concentrate her thoughts upon her book. She grew surly and
changeable with Mary, who no longer dared to talk unguardedly with her.
Mary's eyes were not glass marbles; she could see things with them, and
she said gleefully to Owen one night:
"She's in love, that's what is the matter with her. I don't mind it.
She'll be all right after a while. She's short as pie-crust with me, but
I know how it is myself. She's in love with some high-flyer she's met at
Dr. Herrick's house."
Then she wondered why Owen made no reply.