_The President's Daughter, Besought
By Eligibles of Many Lands, Will
Wed An American Citizen
Superb American Beauty Follows Her Heart
Engagement of Miss Helen Phillips and Mr. Harry
Lodge_
Hayward sat down on the first thing that offered itself. He felt just a
little uncertain about standing up. He read the staring headlines over
again, and, hot and cold by turns, plunged into the details of this High
Romance.
Unbelievable? Beyond doubt. Unthinkable even--to him who knew. But
the fabrication artist hammered his brain and heart with such a mass of
detail, with such a crushing tone of assuredness and authority, that the
footman's thoughts and beliefs were pounded into stupefaction and he
knew neither what to think nor what to believe. His brain jumped to
recall the details of their marriage, in fearful search of a possible
defect or omission which might vitiate it. It had been very hurriedly
done, all superfluities were omitted, but the officer had assured him
that they were hard and fast man and wife.
Had Helen discovered a flaw in the contract? And would she evade it
thus? ... When that last question struck his brain, a dozen passions
swarmed to fight within his heart: love, jealousy, fear, defiance.
Shaking with the tumult of them all, he wrote to Helen again.
"It has been six long weeks since you received my last letter. Not a
word has come to me in answer till this, to-day:
(Here he pasted in the headlines clipped from the _Journal_.)
"Is this your reply? If it is, I swear to you it shall not be. That
insufferable cad cannot live upon the earth to take you from me. I will
snuff his contemptible life out rather. You know that you are
mine--wife--by every vow and promise which the law prescribes. It is
incredible that you should ignore your troth plighted to me. It is
impossible for you to break it in this fashion. I would not have
believed you could be a fickle and unfaithful Helen. I do not believe
it. It is a lie. Write and tell me it is a lie. Write quickly for the
love of God. No, no, you need not write. It is false. I know it is
false--for you cannot be false.
"But oh my Helen, why did you not listen to me? Why did you, a wedded
wife, persist in receiving attentions from men, from this one man in
particular, the most contemptibly caddish creature among all your
admirers? I have deplored your unrestraint but I resent it that _Lodge_
should have found such special favour at your hands as to give currency
to this report. He is unutterably unworthy. I beseech you by the love
I shall dare to believe is mine until you tell me I have lost it to
conduct yourself so that such lies as this shall not be printed. Think
what will be said of your gayeties when it is announced that you have
been married a year. I love you, wildly, madly, as this incoherent
letter shows. You have told me that your love is mine and I believe it.
Forgive me and write to me, queen of my heart. I am starving for lack
of the love which is already my own."
Helen's reply to that letter came quickly enough.
"I refer you to yesterday's papers," it said icily, "for my answer to
your ravings about that absurd newspaper story. Your jealousy is
insulting, and your aspersions of Mr. Lodge are inexplicable. He is
everything that is honourable, and it is only your frenzied attack upon
him that is 'unutterably unworthy.' I sincerely regret that I was so
foolish as to marry you when I did. You are unreasonably exacting and I
will not be bound by it. You have no right to make demands of me."
Hayward had the sensation of being struck in the face. If he had been
disturbed with vague doubts theretofore, he was now harassed by very
certain and lively fear. The "yesterday's papers" to which Helen
referred him had had a very explicit denial of the engagement, and
Helen's sharp reply admitted her marriage to him; but the last
declarations of her letter were ambiguous and defiant, and his heart
sank when he remembered that marriages were often annulled, and that,
even though the courts might not give freedom, there was no way to
compel a wife to live with her husband.
Every manner of possibility and expedient whirled round and round in his
brain until his thoughts were an almost insane jumble of fear,
indecision and wrath. Finally out of the travail of his hopelessness and
confusion of ideas there rose his fighting spirit and was born the
mighty oath he swore, that she was his, he must have her, and in spite
of the world, flesh and the devil, by God, he would have her!
One never-to-be-forgotten night was the first he spent after receiving
Helen's letter: a nightmare from his lying down until the dawn. A
tumult of shifting phantasms, disordered, chaotic, terrible, assailed
him with incessant horrors the night long, while through it all there
ran as a continuing and connecting tragedy his struggle to possess
himself of Helen. In his wild dreams she was sometimes his and again
escaping him; but always when he held her it was by right of might. A
time he was clasping her close and warm in his arms, but fainting and
unconscious, as he ran with her down Pennsylvania Avenue, Lodge,
Rutledge, Phillips and an angry horde in hot pursuit. Again, he was
dragging her through a never-ending swamp, limp and lifeless, one side
of her face a-drip with blood. With a blood-stained axe he was fighting
a furious, breath-spent way through vines and tangled undergrowth, the
while there sounded in his ears the lone-drawn baying of hounds upon his
track.
From that bed of horrors he sprang with relief before the first light in
the east. He was glad just to be awake and he felt as if he wished
never to close his eyes again.
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
"You will have Shortman and the landau at the door at ten o'clock," said
Mrs. Phillips to Hayward when he appeared for duty that morning.
Shortman was the coachman.
When the servants appeared at ten for orders they were told that they
should proceed to Cahudaga and bring back with them in the afternoon
Miss Helen and two friends.... Shortman, stolid and indifferent as he
usually was, was yet interested to note that he could not understand
some of the things the footman said and did on that ride to Cahudaga.
Alice Rhinelander's sudden indisposition forbade her to attempt the long
drive to Hill-Top, and Lucile Hammersley, of course, could not leave her
guest. As Helen was to have but one day at home, however, she decided to
go alone, and leave the two others to follow her on the morrow. As it
was, she deferred starting till the latest possible moment. A
threatening sky, splashed with sunshine but brushed with the fleeting
clouds and winds of the close-coming equinox, was Mr. Hammersley's
pretext for insisting that she also remain over night; but a childish
desire to go home now that she was near it impelled her to tear herself
away at the last minute for the solitary drive.
She spoke pleasantly to Shortman and Hayward when she came out to get in
the carriage, and Hayward thought that her perfect composure in what
seemed to him a tense situation was marvellous to behold. At the first
sight of her glorious beauty he had an impulse to prostrate himself in
adoration, but that something of the grand lady which she had
unconsciously taken on held him stiffly to his character, if nothing
else had done so. He held open the door for her, pushed her skirt
clear--his pulses gone wild at the touch of it--shut her in securely,
climbed to his seat beside Shortman and faced steadily to the front. He
was afraid to seek a personal look from Helen's eyes. She, looking upon
his broad back, erect and flat, strong in every line, did not guess the
storm that was shaking him within. She was no little surprised at the
grip he had on himself, and really indulged in some admiration of his
indifferent air in what had been to her notion, also, a rather tense
situation--for him. Her father's daughter, she had never met or
imagined the situation to which she would not be equal...
While Hayward's spirit was being storm-swept, a literal tempest was
driving down upon them. They were less than half-way home and on a
lonely and unpeopled part of their road when the storm fell. The men
and Helen, too, had ascribed the increasing darkness to the fast-coming
nightfall, for the air about them was still and warm, and the sun had
gone some time before behind a bank of low-lying clouds. A
lightning-flash was the first herald of danger; and drive then as
Shortman might, it was a losing race.
The storm seemed disposed to play cat-and-mouse with them. Hurrying
over them in scurrying clouds darker and blacker growing, it only
watched the hard-driven horses, nor so much as blew a breath upon
them.... Mocking them now, it blew a puff, puff--and again was silence.
As if to incite them to more amusing endeavours, along with another puff
it threw at them a capful of giant rain-drops: and again drew off from
the game to watch them run with fright.... Next came a brilliant sheet
of lightning, revealing the cavernous furrows and writhing convulsions
on the storm-god's front--but not the _sound_ of thunder nor the jarring
shock of the riving bolt--that would be carrying the joke with these
scared and fleeing pigmies too far.... Another awful, mocking grimace
of the storm, and then another. After each, the darkness coming like a
down-flung blanket closer and closer to envelop the earth. And through
it all, that awful silent stillness, broken so far only by the clatter
of those sportive raindrops and the rustle of the contemptuous puffs....
But the giant hadn't time to play with children: Crash, ROAR--the
hurricane struck the hapless carriage!
Shortman was driving wildly to reach a little farmhouse two miles yet
ahead, the first hope of shelter. In the sheets of light his eyes swept
the ill-kept road to fix his course, and in the inky blackness following
he held to it in desperate and unslacking haste till another flash
revealed it further to him.
The thundering wind mauled and pummelled them. It shook and tore them.
It shook and tore the very earth as they plunged fearfully forward
through the terrible light and the awful darkness. In the deafening,
blinding roar and rush, sight and hearing were pounded almost into
insensibility and Helen tried to cry out to the swaying figures on the
driver's seat--but screamed instead in terror as calamity caught them.
Crack! _Crash_! CRUSH!--and woman, men, horses and carriage were
buried under a down-coming treetop.
* * * * *
Helen felt she had not lost consciousness, but she did not know.
Hayward was struggling to release her from the wrecked landau. He was
calling to her, screaming rather,--for the shrieking wind was raging as
if with the taste of blood. She could see him plainly as he fought
through the threshing branches of the giant oak that had smashed them.
The light which revealed him to her was continuous, but flashing and
dancing. She looked to see whence it came, and her blood froze as she
saw the sputtering end of an electric transmission cable which the
falling forest monarch had broken and carried down. At the foot of
Niagara were mighty turbines a-whirl which sent the deadly current to
threaten and to slay. Men had intended it for works of peace and
industry in lake villages, but Nature had stepped in to reclaim it as
one of her own cataclysmic forces, and Niagara's rioting waters,
unwitting and uncaring, sent it just as merrily and as mightily to works
of death.
Hayward well knew that death was in the touch of that whipping wire,
tangled in boughs beaten and lashed by the demoniac winds: but Helen was
in danger, and he hesitated not to come to her. After a struggle that
tested muscle as well as courage, he dragged her free and started to
carry her up the roadside bank to a small hut or shack which the light
revealed. Helen shook herself from his arms.
"Where is Shortman?" she cried against the tempest.
Hayward pointed to the wrecked carriage. As she looked, one of the
horses, uttering a cry and trying to rise, was flicked on the head by
the end of the hissing wire, and, in a flash of greenish-blue flame,
sank down and was still.
"Help Shortman!" Helen cried again.
At her command Hayward plunged into the tree-top and after a longer
struggle than had been necessary in rescuing Helen, he pulled the
coachman out and laid him limp at his wife's feet. He understood rather
than heard the question she asked. He nodded his head in affirmative
answer, and said, as if talking to himself:
"Dead, Miss Helen."
It had not been more than two minutes since the fury of the storm broke
upon them. The rain-drops, which had been desultory, now came down in
torrents. Hayward turned toward his wife. She was sinking trembling to
the road. He caught her up and hurried her to the hut.
Their refuge was quite small, but afforded shelter from the downpour of
water. It was a little patched-up affair that had been used by the
labourers who constructed the electric transmission line, and was
without opening except the door, there being no shutter to that. A rude
table of rough planks built against the wall was its only furnishing.
What had been a small bench was broken up and useless.
Hayward held Helen in his arms while he inventoried the contents in the
uncertain light, but at her first movement to free herself from his
embrace he gently seated her on the little table and stood beside her at
the end of it. She was faint with horror and fright and, closing her
eyes, sank back against the wall for support: while the wind-driven
torrent howled and surged past the door and the fierce but unspeaking
lightning lit up the awful night.... Helen was getting some sort of
grip on her nerves again when, turning toward the door, in the pallid
light she had a vision of the ghastly face lying in the road below them.
She shuddered--the faintness was overmastering--and toppled unconscious
against her husband's arm. He caught her tenderly, not knowing she had
lost consciousness, and, putting his arm around her, drew her softly and
closely to himself.
For a long time he stood thus in silence, fearing that speech might
break the spell. At last he spoke to her, but she did not answer. He
ascribed her silence to fright, and with gentle and reassuring words
essayed to compose her fears. He took note of her failure to speak to
him: but she was submissive to his caresses, and he was well content
with that. At her non-resistance he became more affectionate in his
tendernesses, and was lost in the ecstasy of holding her to his heart.
Gone--far removed--from him was the thought of the storm-riven night.
An end, he exulted, to nightmares in which she was fleeing from him.
His wife was in his arms at last! The silent modesty with which she had
committed herself to him was eloquent of her heart's love and
faithfulness:--and his pulses sang with joy despite the tragedy that had
befallen.
The wind and rain were slackening, but the lightning played on. With a
sigh and shiver Helen stirred, and pushed feebly away.
"Where am I? Where are we?" she asked confusedly.
"About two miles and a half from the Lake Drive," Hayward answered,
"about four miles from home."
"But what are we doing here? How did we get here?"
Hayward started. In heaven's name, her mind was not unsettled!
"The wreck--I carried you in here out of the storm."
"Oh--yes,--now I remember," Helen said, leaning back against the wall
and putting her hands before her eyes as if to shut out memory.
In a flash Hayward was in the clutch of the old terror.
"She did not know, then," he thought. "She was unconscious, and did not
give herself to me." Again he was on the rack, all his doubts and fears
and jealousies a-surge, but maddened and fired by the memory, the
lingering perfume, of her smooth cheek and warm lips.
"How long must we stay here?" Helen asked, starting up.
"Until the storm is over, at the least. They may send after us when we
do not arrive on time. I cannot leave you here, or I would go after
help now."
"No! you must not leave me here! We will wait till help comes or
until--I can go with you. Do you think it will be long?"
Hayward went to the little door and surveyed the heavens.
"Another storm seems to be headed this way," he said. "If that strikes
us there's no telling when we will get away. We are perfectly safe
here, however. This cabin is built back against the hill and there are
no trees near enough to fall on us."
"Were you hurt?" asked Helen abruptly, for the first time thinking of
the dangers they had gone through as dangers.
"Nothing worth reporting," said Hayward in order to allay her fears. It
was a lie well told, for he had a decidedly caved-in feeling about his
ribs.
"You saved my life again--this time at risk of your own. When the
carriage was crushed I thought that I--oh, it is too horrible!" She
trembled violently.
Hayward saw that he must divert her thoughts from this direful night.
He was much desirous of discussing other matters anyway. After a silent
minute he began.
"Your return was quite unexpected to--us," he said.
"Yes, and a very short visit I'm to make as it is. I leave again day
after to-morrow morning."
She stopped and apparently did not care to say more of herself--or of
her plans.... Hayward was of a different mind.
"You didn't say anything of this visit in your last letter," he
ventured.
"No, I had not decided on it then." ... Silence again.
"Helen, why did you write me that letter?" Hayward squared himself for
battle and fired the first shot.
"I only answered yours--your two letters, rather. You insisted on making
your--demands, and I simply told you what I thought. You also attacked
one of my friends, and I defended him."
Helen was not versed in the art of indirection or evasion. Hayward was
very thankful for that. It made the issue clear, and made it quickly.
"As for your friend," said Hayward, "your defence of him is without
knowledge--"
"As your attack upon him was without justice," Helen interrupted.
"I said he was a contemptible cad, and I stand ready to prove it. You
may be the judge of it. He was my friend at college, and our relations
were of such intimacy as I have told you about, and yet, knowing me full
well, he refused to know me in Washington, or to shake hands with me, or
to speak to me, even."
"Perhaps he did not remember you. Remember it has been five or six--"
"I'm telling you he did know me. He admitted it--in order that his
affront might be unequivocal. I tell you he's a cad, a damnable cad,
and I want you to cut him off your list. Promise me that you will have
nothing more to do with him."
The man in his half-demand, half-plea, put out his arm toward her to
reinforce his appeal with a caress, but his wife drew away from him and
warded off his hand as she spoke to him.
"No," she cried, "I cannot believe it. There must be some
explanation--I cannot do it--I'm to be one of his automobile party next
Thursday.... Don't--don't!"
"What! May I not kiss you?"
"No, no. Not--not now."
"But you are my wife--I have the right to kiss you."
"You have no right," said Helen.
Hayward grew suddenly cold with passion.
"I have every right--more right than that contemptible Lodge has to put
his arm around you in the dance!"
"He at least has my permission," Helen replied spiritedly. But she
would not have provoked him perhaps if she had known of the fever rising
in his blood for all these months.
"Your permission, has he! And I am to beg for rights that are mine--and
be refused!" His voice rose in anger with the roar and rush of the
new-coming storm.
"You are mine!" he screamed. "I forbid you to meet him again! No man
shall take you from me! I love you--I love you---and I will kill any man
who tries to rob me of you! Helen, Helen, tell me you are mine--mine
now! Not that you will be mine when I win my commission, but that you
are already mine--_mine now_!"
Helen turned away from him, terrified by his violence of speech. The
man's every passion went wild as he read refusal in her movement. Only
for a moment does she look away, however. In that instant she sees
again the dead coachman, prone and ghastly as before, but with the end
of that blazing wire lying against the back of his head, from which
rises the vapour of burning flesh. Sickened with horror she turns to
Hayward and reaches out her hand for his support. He clutches her
passionately. His blood rushes to his heart in a flood--and then stands
still.
"This is surrender," he thinks,--and his veins are aflame.
Helen is quiescent in his arms for a short space and suffers his
caresses. Suddenly startled, she looks at his face. In a flash of
light she sees it--distorted! With a shriek of terror she wildly tries
to push him from her: but the demon of the blood of Guinea Gumbo is
pitiless, and against the fury of it, as of the storm, she fights and
cries--in vain.
*CHAPTER XXIX*
With his editorial duties and with the plans of his campaign for Mr.
Killam's seat in the Senate, Evans Rutledge was as busy a man as
Washington knew. However, he dropped his work long enough to attend upon
Lola DeVale's marriage. He was no little surprised when Oliver Hazard
asked him to stand by at his wedding. He was on friendly terms with the
bride--and with Hazard, too, for that matter; but he did not know the
strength and sincerity of Lola DeVale's friendship for him.
"We must have Mr. Rutledge," she had said to Hazard when they were
choosing their attendants; "and he shall be paired with Elise. I have
set my heart on that match, for if it fails I have been kissed for
nothing."
"Certainly we'll have him if you wish. He's a great fellow, I think,
and he'll be a winner all right, don't worry yourself. He'll win out on
naked luck, for any man who can just stumble along and kiss you by
mistake is evidently a special protege of the gods." ...
The score or more of young people in the bridal party met at Grace
Church on the afternoon before the event to get the details of their
marching and countermarching in order. Lola was there to overlook
putting them through their paces, but she left the details of
straightening out the chattering, rollicking bridesmaids and groomsmen
to Elise and Hazard. Rutledge soon learned his role and stood to it like
a schoolboy when he was ordered, but he spent most of the time in
sympathetic talk with the bride-to-be.
That night when the other girls who filled the house were scattered to
their rooms and Elise and Lola were snuggled up in bed, Lola put her arm
around her friend and began to say what was on her mind.
"I think it's very rude to refuse to answer a civil question, don't you,
Elise?"
Elise was thinking of something else, but she heard enough of what Lola
said to answer "yes" in an absent-minded way.
"That would be so with any question. But if it was about a matter of
importance the refusal to answer would be more than rude, it would
be--exasperating, don't you think?"
"What are you talking about?" Elise asked.
"And if it were a matter of the very greatest importance," Lola
continued, "and by every right and custom an answer of some sort was
due, and one was flatly told there was _no answer_, then such
unpardonable rudeness should be resented, and self-respect would
_demand_ that the question be not repeated."
"Lola DeVale," said Elise, turning to face her, "in the name of sense,
have you gone daffy?"
"I agree with Mr. Rutledge," said Lola in the same monotone, as she in
turn faced away from Elise, "self-respect forbids."
"Here," exclaimed Elise, "turn back over here and say all that again."
"Haven't time," said Lola with a yawn. "I must be getting my
beauty-sleep. Good night."
Elise was quiet half a minute.
"Of all the silly people!"--she stirred Lola up with a poke in the
ribs--"when did he tell you that?"
"I'm not divulging any confidences," said Lola.
"And what, pray, are you divulging?" asked Elise.
"My opinion that a civil question demands an answer of some sort--a good
round 'no,' if nothing else--not the dismissal one gives a telegraph
messenger."
"There you go again---and I don't understand; but you said something of
'self-respect'?"
"I'm glad he has it. A man's not made for a woman to wipe her feet on,
even if he does love her."
"For goodness sake, Lola, quit making riddles. Just what do you think
you are talking about?"
"Do you mean to tell me," demanded Lola, turning toward her, "that Mr.
Rutledge did not ask you to marry him and that you didn't tell him there
was _no answer_,--that you didn't treat him with contempt, with
indifference, with just about as much consideration as you would a clerk
who gave you a hand-bill of a cut-price sale? There now!"
"So that's the cause of all this--this _self-respect_, the reason for
all this religious silence of his lips--while his eyes work overtime? I
thought it was becau--that it--that there was really something; and is
_that_ all!" Elise laughed merrily.
"I think it's shameful, myself!" said Lola severely. "I glory in his
resentment."
"I have never noticed any resentment, and--_I did not treat him so_,"
replied the quick-witted Elise combatively. Quietly her heart laughed
on.
"You deny it?" asked Lola.
"Yes, I deny it. He did not ask me to marry him. He simply told
me--quite abruptly--that he loved me, and, after some time, asked me for
my answer. What was I to answer? When there is no question there can be
no answer. So I told him there was _no answer_. If a man will insist
upon an answer he must not be so stupid as to forget to put a question."
Elise chuckled inwardly as she constructed this specious defence. She
was in very good humour with herself,--and with Lola.
"But promise me," she hurried on to say, "that you will not intimate to
Mr. Rutledge that it is his stupidity that has swelled his bump of
self-respect for these last four years."
Lola demurred to this form of statement: bless her, she was a loyal
friend. But Elise insisted.
"Not a word to Mr. Rutledge! Let him discover his mistakes unaided.
Promise me. _Promise_," she demanded.
Lola promised.
"Cross your heart and hope you may die," Elise added.
Lola laughingly went through these binding formalities.
"Now the goblins will get you if you ever tell him and besides that I
would know it at once. If you do I'll send him packing for good and
all."
Lola protested that she would leave Mr. Rutledge entirely to his own
devices,--and she kept her promise.
Lola had insisted on retiring early for a good night's rest, but it was
long after midnight before she and her school-day chum grew sleepy over
their confidences. Along at the last Elise pressed her face down in the
pillow beside Lola's cheek and whispered:
"Honey, if it wasn't very dark and our last night together I couldn't
tell you; but do you know if Mr. Rutledge were to ask me to marry him
to-morrow I would have to tell him there was no answer."
Lola lay still till she caught the meaning of this confession. Then she
softly kissed Elise good-night.
"Let your heart decide, dearest," she said.
At the wedding breakfast next morning, and at the church at noon,
Rutledge was bewildered by the softness, the gentleness of Elise's
manner toward him. There was nothing of the cold brilliance, nor of the
warm combativeness, nor of the lukewarm indifference of her moods for
such a long time past. Like the breath of long forgotten summers, of
one particular halcyon summer, was her simple-hearted friendliness on
that day. He harked back by a conscious effort to keep in touch with
his grievance, but it seemed to be eluding his grasp.
For a great part of five hours on the train returning to Washington he
sat beside her and steadily forgot everything that had come to pass
since the days when he first knew and loved this adorable girl. His
resentment and his resolutions were toppling and falling, despite his
efforts at reserve in his few scattering lucid intervals of
"self-respect."
Elise, outrageously well-informed of the reasons and resources and
weaknesses of his resistance, almost laughed outright at the ease with
which she scattered his forces and at his spasmodic attempts to regather
them. She recalled the rigour of her treatment of him, the contempt she
had had for the quality of his love, the apparent heartless lack of
appreciation of his championship of her name in the Smith affair: and
she was of a mind to make amends. In making amends she tore Rutledge's
resentment and "self-respect" to tatters, and set his love a-fire. She
really did not intend to overdo it. She sincerely wished only to make
amends.
At last he turned to her with a look which scared her. She saw that the
last shred of his "self-respect" was gone, and that only the crowded car
prevented a precipitate, outspoken surrender. She felt very generous
toward that "self-respect" now that it was defeated. She did not care
to humiliate it. She was also in a temper to be mischievous and a mite
reckless. And, further, she was not ready to have Rutledge putting any
questions. As the train was rolling under the shed at Washington she
said to him in the very friendliest and most serious way:
"Mr. Rutledge, it seems that you are under the delusion that once upon a
time you asked me a question which has never been answered. In order
that I may not appear rude or unappreciative I will say that my answer
to that question would have been 'no.'"
And she left him to think over that.
*CHAPTER XXX*
On the day that Congress convened after the Christmas holidays President
Phillips sent to the Senate, among other nominations, that of John H.
Graham to be a second lieutenant of cavalry.
Hayward had been for a long time unhappy, depressed, apprehensive of
failure. That his name had not been among those submitted at the
beginning of the session in December had almost assured his defeat.
All his attempts at communication with Helen since the night of the
storm had been met with an accusing silence. Her pale face, which had
not regained its colour for weeks, was always averted, and by no trick
or chance, by no wild torrent of self-denunciation, nor heart-moving
prayer for pardon, nor protestations of love, nor dumb humility of
sorrow in his eyes or attitude, could she be brought to look upon him.
Neither had she written a line in answer to all his letters of pleading
and repentance. True, he had his fiery moments of self-assertion and
desperate resolves, and they had fought self-revilings for possession of
his soul in many an hour since that wild night, but he crushed them
under heel within his heart, and ever wrote contritely to his wife.
For several days after his nomination went to the Senate he waited in
hope to receive Helen's congratulations. It had meant so much to them.
With a last remnant of hope he wrote to her of it. If that would not
break the silence he was undone. At the end of the letter he added in
most abject contrition:
"I would joyfully die to atone. My life awaits your command."
The silence was not broken.
* * * * *
Miss Lily Porter's eyes had not fallen on Hayward since his return from
Hill-Top. When she saw in the papers that his nomination was before the
Senate she hesitated not to write to him to come to see her. On his
first night off, Hayward went.
If ever a man was pursued by a woman the White House footman was that
man. He saw the game ahead of him before he had been five minutes
within the door. A proposal was expected of him. Clearly, it was
expected that evening. Hayward was in a frame of mind to welcome the
diversion. He had no idea of making the proposal, of course, but he was
careless enough of what should happen to him to be quite willing to give
Miss Porter the worth of her trouble in the way of mild excitement.
Lily opened up the subject with her congratulations: and the game was
on. Up and down, back and forth, round and round the field of
conversation she chased the quick-tongued, nimble-witted young fellow in
her effort to coax, persuade, lead, drive, push him into the net. The
young man was entertaining, but elusive. He was gallant, admiring,
soft-spoken, confiding--but there was no way of bringing him to book.
The girl took another tack. She went to the piano and sang for him.
She sang for him at first, many of the ballads and one thing and another
that he formerly had delighted in. Then she sang to him. Hayward leaned
against the piano and listened with a very lively appreciation. Music
had a power for him where many other things would fail, and the music in
Lily Porter's throat was enough to enthrall even though he were deaf to
the song in her heart.
Henry Porter was caught by the real note in his daughter's voice as he
passed the door, and, stopping where he could see as well as hear, he
was enlightened by the tale her face was telling. He was mad all over
in a minute, and he made short work of it.
"Git out of my house," he blurted out at Hayward as he stalked angrily
into the midst of Lily's melodious love-making. "I tol' you once I
didn' want any footman callin' on my daughter!"
"Oh, papa! What do you mean?" Lily cried, springing up from the piano.
"I mean git out when I say git out!"
"Wait a moment, Mr. Hayward," Lily called to the footman, who, chin in
air, was leaving the room, truth to tell, no little relieved at this
complete solution of what was fast becoming an embarrassing situation
for him.
"No use to wait. Move on!" the father growled, placing himself across
the door to prevent Lily's following her caller. Upon her attempt to
push by him he caught her and shoved her into a chair. As the outer
door closed with a very modest and well-mannered snap, he released his
hold upon her arm. He was yet in a fury.
"So you've lied to me! Thought you could fool your ol' daddy! But I
guess not!"
"I haven't lied to you."
"You have! You tol' me you were goin' to marry a military man, and here
you are, dead gone on this footman--and no use to deny out of it!"
Lily didn't attempt to deny it.
"Umhuh, I knew it! Already promised him, ain't yuh?"
No denial of that either, to her father's consternation.
"What! And you a-tellin' me all the time you were goin' to marry a
military man! You lyin' huzzy!"
"But he's a military man--he's the John H. Graham whose commission is
before the Senate--now I hope you are satisfied!"
Henry Porter stopped his stamping about and looked at his daughter
several seconds in silence.
"He's--he's who?" he asked in astonishment.
"He's the same John H. Graham you were reading about in the _Post_ this
morning--the man the President has appointed a lieutenant in the
cavalry."
"But his name's not Graham."
"His name _is_ Graham--John Hayward Graham--Lieutenant John Hayward
Graham when the Senate confirms it."
Old Henry looked a little bit nonplussed. His daughter took courage.
She jumped up and grabbed him.
"Come on right now and write him an apology, and send it so that it will
get to his rooms by the time he does!"
Old Henry demurred. His dignity was a very real thing--as hard and
substantial as his dollars.
"Oh, no, no. Wait awhile. Le's think about it. No use to be in a
hurry. He'll come back agin. What did he go sneakin' roun' here
without his name for if he wanted people to treat him right? A man's
got no business monkeyin' with his name."
"But you _must_ write him an apology, papa. You just must!"
"Oh, well, mebbe I will. But I'll wait till to-morrer. Better wait till
the Senate confirms him though, and be certain about it."
"Oh, no! That would _never_ do. It would be too plain,"--and Lily went
into a long disquisition to fetch her hard-headed old daddy to her way
of thinking. He showed some signs of relenting but could not be
persuaded that night. When the morning came it took all her powers to
push him to the point of sending a suitable note to Hayward: but she
accomplished it. Hayward's stinging, sarcastic, withering reply was not
written till late in the afternoon, and in the footman's agitation over
other concerns was not mailed till his mother found it in his room on
the day after that. By the time Mr. Henry Porter received it, other
events had come to pass that gave it some emphasis....
When Hayward Graham returned to his room after his dismissal from
Porter's house he found a letter addressed to him in his wife's writing.
He tore it open hungrily.
"You say you would joyfully die to atone. That would be the very best
thing you could do--the only fitting thing you could do.--H."
A grim smile lighted the man's face. At the moment the blood of some
long-dead cavalier ancestor splashed through his heart, and he wrote the
brief reply.
"Your wish is law, and shall be obeyed. Grant me one day to put my
house in order."
* * * * *
Her maid handed the message to Helen before she was out of bed the next
morning. The girl read it, caught its meaning, and shook with an ague
of fear. Her love for her husband, outraged and stricken, may not have
been dead--for who shall speak the last word for a woman's heart?--and
her tender soul recoiled at the murder so calmly forespoken: and yet
neither of these impulses was elemental in her agony of terror. Her
impetuous letter of the day before, breaking a silence she had sworn to
keep, was not intended as a reply to anything that Hayward had written.
It was but a wild protest against the new-born realization that her
situation was tragic, and could not be ignored nor long concealed. She
had not meant to suggest or to counsel death, but to rail against life.
The possibility of his taking-off had not occurred to her. His letter
terrified her! Death!--her husband's death? It was the one thing that
must _not_ be! When she had read his words, her blood was ice. "No!
No!" her teeth chattered as she dressed, "he must not, he must not!" In
the nervousness, the weakness, the faintness, the sickness into which
fevered meditations upon the day-old revelation had shaken her, she did
not think to question the sincerity of Hayward's purpose at
self-destruction. The calamity was imminent--and trebly calamitous.
The chill of more than death was upon her. When she had dressed she
dashed off a hurried scrawl.
"No, no, no. I did not mean that. It is not my wish that you destroy
yourself. You must not. _You must not_! I need you--above everything
I _need you_. If you die I am undone! Where is our marriage
certificate? Or was there one? And who was that witness? Do not die,
do not die. As you love me _do not die_!"
She carefully arranged every detail of her toilet, pinched her pale
cheeks into something of pink, put on her morning smile, and, with a
very conscious effort at lightness of manner, tripped out into the hall
and down the stairs. She knew the very spot on which she would see her
husband standing. With a round-about journey she approached it. He was
not there. She laughed nervously, and with an aimless air, but a faster
thumping heart, sought him at another haunt. Failure. And failure
again. She went to breakfast, and displayed a lack of appetite and a
tendency to hysterics. After breakfast she lingered down-stairs on
every conceivable pretext, and journeyed from one end of the house to
the other many times and again. At last when her nerves could not stand
the strain a second longer she asked the coachman, who had driven the
carriage to the door, where Hayward was. She felt that there was a full
confession in the tones of her voice.
"Hayward asked for a day off this mornin', mum. He didn't come. Just
telephoned."
Helen felt the tension of her nerves snap. She hurried to her room,
suppressing fairly by force an impulse to scream, and locking the door,
threw herself across the bed. There for three hours, pleading a
headache and denying admittance to all who knocked, she cowered before
the thoughts of her seething brain--and suffered torment.
Along about two o'clock she sprang up suddenly and turned out of her
trunk all of her husband's letters and began feverishly to search for
one she remembered written long ago which by chance contained the street
number of his lodgings. She was nearly an hour finding it.
Again she went through the womanly process of making herself
presentable, and sauntered freshly forth in quest of the post office and
a special delivery stamp. With an added prayer that he relieve her
suspense quickly, she dropped her agonized note into the box under the
hurry postage. Having thus done all that was possible to save her
husband's life--and her own--she went back to her bed in collapse, and
waited for the night-fall as one, hoping for a reprieve, who must die at
sunset.
*CHAPTER XXXI*
Helen waited in vain for a word from her husband. Her letter did not
come to his hand. She tossed in agonized suspense through the long
hours--through the snail-paced minutes--through the dragging, tortured
moments.
Elise came in to see her. Helen gave the first explanation of her
indisposition that came to mind, and declined all ministrations. Her
mother came, and she would have dismissed her as briefly had not Mrs.
Phillips asserted authority and ordered her into bed and suggested
calling the family physician. At this intimation Helen demurred. She
felt that she would suffocate if she were to be tucked up and made to
lie quiet, with the doctor fingering her pulse and talking of sleeping
potions while her soul was throbbing in such a frenzy of horror.
To escape from them and from herself, she suddenly sat up and announced
her intention of attending the dancing party which Elise was giving for
the evening. There was a vigorous opposition to this procedure by both
her mother and Elise, and by her father also, who had come in to have a
look at her: but she outwilled them all.
* * * * *
Elise's dancing party was an affair to be remembered--an affair that is
remembered. It deserved to be an unusual occasion, for in arranging it
Elise was conscious of being in an unusual frame of mind. She was in
some way disposed to be so perfectly even-handed in her dispensations.
She directed the three invitations to Mr. Evans Rutledge, Captain George
St. Lawrence Howard and Senator Joseph Richland with her own hand and
with almost one continuous stroke of the pen. She took this batch of
three invitations as a separate handful and placed them together in the
basket for the mail. She assigned to each of these gentlemen one dance
with herself, and one only, in the programme of the formal first half of
the evening. She appointed as attendants for the eleven o'clock
collation Mr. Rutledge to Mrs. Hazard, Captain Howard to Helen, and
Senator Richland to Alice Mackenzie--the fiancee of Donald MacLane. In
everything she was judicially impartial. She played no favourites.
Her plans carried through charmingly, and after dancing through the card
a delighted lot of guests sat down to the light luncheon, though three
men in the party, despite all their gallant attentions to the women
beside them, were using half of their brains at least in planning for
the catch-as-catch-can hour and a half that was to follow. Elise had
smiled upon them equally and tormentingly, and not a man of them but
felt that the briefest little five minutes _tete-a-tete_ might do
magical things.
"Well," said Lola, after she and Rutledge had effervesced in a few
minutes of commonplaces and conventionalities, "is your money still on
the Englishman?"
"No," said Rutledge, "I've quit gambling."
"Lost your sporting nerve?"
"No, not that; but a man who bets against himself deserves to lose, and
I can't afford to lose."
"But your self-respect?" laughed Lola.
"Now Miss--ah--Mrs. Hazard, don't jump on a fellow when he's down.
Self-respect is nothing less than an abomination when it comes between a
man and a girl like--that,--and besides, she didn't mean it that way."
"Oh, didn't she?"
"No, she didn't, and she's just the finest, dearest woman in the whole
wide--unmarried state!"
"Thank you," said Lola, "but you needn't have minded. And so I'm to
congratulate you? I've been so anxious to hear, but our mail has never
caught up with us since the day we left New York."
"Oh, bless your heart, there are no congratulations--only good wishes, I
hope. Take note of the exact mathematical equality in the distances by
which Richland and Sir Monocle and I are removed from the chair of the
Lady Beautiful. Could anything be more beautifully impartial?"
"And who is the ancient gentleman with Elise?" Lola asked.
"Some old party from York State. Bachelor uncle or cousin or some such
chap--quite a character too, it seems--danced with Dolly Madison or
Martha Washington or the Queen of Sheba or somebody like that in his
youth. Miss Phillips was telling me of him awhile ago."
"That was a very safe subject of discussion," said Lola.
"Yes," Rutledge replied grimly, "and do you know I tried my very hardest
to lose him out of the conversation and he just wouldn't drop. Miss
Phillips must be greatly interested in him."
"Anything will do in a pinch, Mr. Rutledge. What were you trying to
talk about?"
"Oh, that's it, you think? Well I wish I had ten good minutes with her.
I'd make the talk--for half the time--or know the reason why."
"I think I remember that Elise told me once that you could be very
abrupt."
"Yes, and I'm going to do a few stunts in abruptness that will surprise
her the next time I have a chance. I've tried the easy and graceful
approach for the last six weeks, and it's getting on my nerves."
"I tell you what, Mr. Rutledge," Lola laughed, "Elise is to be with me
to-morrow evening. You come around after dinner, and I promise you
shall have a square deal and ten minutes at least for your very own.
Come early and avoid the rush."
"Good. I'll do it. You are a trump!"
"And you may run along now if you wish," she said as they came out of
the dining-room, "and take her away from the old party before the others
get a chance at her."
"You'll go to heaven when you die," Rutledge whispered as he left
her....
Evans met some difficulty in cutting Elise out of the herd. It took
time and determination and some strategy to carry the smiling young
hostess off down the hall alone; but he brought it to pass, and drew a
breath of exultation when he had shaken himself free. However, turn
where he would, every nook and corner seemed to be occupied. He was not
openly on the hunt for a retired spot, but he was wishing for one with a
prayerful heart and wide-open eyes.
Now a man can make love to a girl right out in the open--in full view of
the multitude--in fact there is a sort of fascination in it--in telling
her what a dear she is with the careless air and gesture which, to the
onlookers, suggests a remark anent the blizzard in the west or the hot
times in South Carolina; but when it comes to putting the cap-sheaf on
the courting and running the game to earth, in pushing the inquiry to
ultimate conclusions and demanding the supreme reply,--a man who dares
to hope to win and whose blood has not been thinned by promiscuous
flirtations ever wants the girl to be in a situation grab-able.
When Evans became convinced that the fates were against him on that
evening, he set definite plans in order for the next.
"Mrs. Hazard tells me that you are to be with her to-morrow evening," he
said to Elise, with something of that abruptness. "May I not call upon
you there? There is something I wish very much to tell you, and the
crowd here is always too great."
Elise looked up at him quickly. The something he wished to tell her was
to be read in his face, but she could not presume to assume it had been
said. The man waited quietly for his answer.
"Why, certainly, yes, I will be very glad to see you," she said in a
tone of conventional politeness; but assuredly, Rutledge thought, the
light in her gray eyes was not discouraging.
"But I must be going now, if you will take me back," she said; and they
turned to go up the hall. A lumbering crash and a stifled little cry
changed their purpose.
Three minutes before, they had seen Helen and Harry Lodge turn a corner
in the hall and pass round behind some of the overflowing greenery which
almost shut off a side entrance. Lodge was as intent upon the pursuit
of Helen as Rutledge of Elise, and was making more of his opportunities.
Helen was welcoming any excitement that carried her out of herself. With
Lodge's pushfulness and her indifference to consequences, it did not
take long to bring the issue to a point. From her manner Harry did not
gather the faintest idea of losing. She listened to his speeches with a
smile which was not in the least false but none the less deceiving. She
did not offer the slightest objection to his wooing nor put the smallest
obstruction in the way of it. In his enthusiasm he developed an
eloquence, and, taking her unresisting hand, he rushed along to the
climax of a rapturous declaration.
"--And will you be my wife?" he asked, with his arm already half about
her.
"No," Helen answered dispassionately, drawing herself back from him as
if his meaning were but just now made clear to her: but that "no" came
too late.
A pair of eyes in which the lightnings had gathered and gone wild had
looked upon the whole of this tender scene except the last moments of
it. Hayward Graham felt the devils in the blood of all his ancestors
white and black cry to be uncaged as he looked upon Lodge in his ecstasy
of love-making, and when Lodge took Helen's hand and it was not
withdrawn, the devils broke the bars.
"So," cried Hayward in his soul, "it's for you--to resign her to your
arms--that I am asked to die! No! If I may not possess her, not you,
you hound!"
A door was wrenched open and Lodge had only time to straighten himself
before he was knocked senseless by the infuriated husband.
Hayward drew himself up, terrible, before his wife, and Helen in the
moment of recognition threw herself into his arms with a glad cry.
"Oh, you have come at last!" she moaned. "You got my letter at last and
have come to me!"
"No. What letter?" asked Hayward--but as he asked it Helen was pushing
herself from him as savagely as she freely had thrown herself to him.
Her ear had caught the sound of people approaching. Hayward was too
confused to notice that. He was in consternation at the lightning
change from love to aversion, and clung to her desperately.
A second later he was lying prone upon the floor with Evans Rutledge
standing above him, murder in his eyes. He made a wild attempt to rise,
when another terrific blow from Rutledge's arm sent him again to the
floor. The hall was in an uproar, and a couple of palms were knocked
aside as President Phillips burst into the midst of the melee in time to
restrain another smash from Rutledge's clenched fist.
"In the name of God, what's the row?" he asked.
"This nigger has assaulted Miss Helen," said Rutledge, gasping and
choking with fury.
Mr. Phillips trembled with a fearful passion, but, seeing Helen
apparently unhurt, pulled himself down to a terrible quiet.
"Get up," he growled to Hayward. "Now"--when the footman was on his
feet--"what have you to say for yourself?"
Hayward looked for the hundredth part of a second in Helen's eyes.
"I have no excuse," he answered simply.
Only silence could greet such an admission. For five seconds the
silence and the stillness were torturing.
As Mr. Phillips moved to speak, Helen took two quick steps to the
negro's side. His renunciation, his silent, unhesitating committal of
the issue--of his life--to her decision, had touched her heart.
"I am his wife," she said, as she took his hand and turned to face the
circle of her friends.
[Illustration: "'I AM HIS WIFE,' SHE SAID."]
*CHAPTER XXXII*
Helen's announcement was made quietly, without any melodramatic display.
In the circle immediately surrounding her and her husband were her
father and mother, Elise and Evans Rutledge, and Hal Lodge but just now
coming to his senses and his feet. Behind these were Mrs. Hazard,
Captain Howard, Senator Richland, and a gathering of other excited
guests. For a space after Helen's speech the scene was steady and fixed
as for a flashlight picture, and was photographed on Elise's brain: the
incredulity on her father's face--the horror on that of Evans
Rutledge--the perfectly restrained features of Howard--the quickly
suppressed smile of Richland as he glanced at Evans in lightning
comprehension of all the situation meant--the ghastly pallor of Mrs.
Phillips as she sank voiceless in a dead faint--
"No--o!"
The harshly aspirated protest of Mr. Phillips was propelled from his
lungs with a burst of indignant anger, but drawn out at the end into a
pathetic quaver--and the scene dissolved.
Rutledge caught and lifted Mrs. Phillips whose collapse was unnoticed by
her husband in his transfixed stare at Helen, and pushing back through
the crowd was about to place her upon a settle in the hall; but at
Elise's bidding he carried her up the broad stairs and left her in the
care of her daughter and Lola Hazard. There could be no good-bye
said--no time for it; but at the glance of dismissal Elise gave him from
her mother's bedside--at the look of suffering in her eyes--his heart
was like to burst.
Down-stairs the confusion was painful. The guests were hesitating
between being accounted so ill-bred as to stare at a family scene, and
running away from it as from a scourge.
To her father's unsteady denial Helen repeated her simple statement: "I
am his wife."
"Since when?" Mr. Phillips demanded.
"A year ago last October."
The father looked about him as for help.
"Come along with me," he said. "Both of you. Good night, ladies and
gentlemen," he added to the hesitating guests--and there was a breath of
relief and a scattering for home.
* * * * *
With his hand upon Helen's arm, and Hayward following, President
Phillips led the way to his offices.
"I am not to be disturbed," he told a servant after he had stopped at
the door and waved Helen and Hayward into the room. "Ask Mrs. Phillips
if she will please come here."
Entering, he motioned Hayward to a chair, and, taking Helen with him,
went into the inner office and closed the door behind him.
"Now, my child," he said, with a break in his voice despite every effort
to keep it steady, "tell me all about this, and we--we'll find a way
out."
He patted her hand reassuringly.
"There's no way out, papa. I loved Hayward, and I married him."
"No, no, child, not love. You were infatuated--he was a footman and you
are--"
"He was a gentleman," interrupted Helen.
"In a way, perhaps, but uncultured and common--how could--"
"He is a Harvard man," Helen cut in again, "a man of intelligence and
education. He is--"
"But a weakling--no genuine Harvard man could be a menial--a flunkey--"
"He's not a weakling, papa. He stooped to the service for love of me.
He loved me long before we came here--when he was a student at Harvard.
It was so romantic, papa--he saw me first at a football game and he has
loved me from that day. He was the hero of the game and he has yet the
Harvard pennant I gave him--and, oh, he's a greater hero than that,
papa--he was a soldier and he was the trooper that--wait a moment."
Helen ran to the door.
"Here, Hayward, give me the knife," she called; and she came running
back, holding it out to her father.
"The knife that the trooper stole!" she said, with a pitiful little
attempt at gayety in her voice and face.
"What's that?" her father asked harshly.
"Why, papa, you surely don't forget the knife I gave you on your
birthday? The one that was taken by the trooper who rescued you at
Valencia?"
The light of understanding came to her father's eyes.
"Well, Hayward was the man, papa! He it was who saved your life to
us--oh, how I have loved him for that! Just think, daddy dear, how
often you have told me what a heroic thing it was--and for such a long
time I have known it was Hayward and wanted so to tell you, but I
couldn't."
"Why couldn't you?" demanded her father.
"Well, I found it out by accident when he caught me off my falling
horse--there it is again, papa--he saved my life as well as yours--it
was just the grandest thing the way he did it!--no wonder I have loved
and married him--he's the sort that can take care of a woman--enough
different from Bobby Scott, who couldn't stay in his own saddle!"
"But Mr. Scott is of an excellent family--distinguished for
generations--while Hayward is a nobody--a--a nothing--no family and no
recognized personal distinction or merit of his own--the commonest
circus clown can ride a horse, my child."
"But he is personally distinguished, papa; and you have approved his
merit by making him a lieutenant of cavalry."
"When? How?" the father asked.
"He is John H. Graham, papa--John Hayward Graham; and there can be no
denying his fitness or ability, for you have certified to both."
Mr. Phillips saw he was estopped on that line; but it only made him
angry and stirred his fighting blood.
"That's the reason," Helen continued, "that Hayward wouldn't let me tell
you who he was or thing about his service to you. He wanted to obtain
his commission absolutely on his merit and without appealing to your
gratitude--wasn't it noble of him?"
A grunt was all the answer Helen got to her question.
"But his people, who are they? What sort of a family have you married
into? Do you know?" Mr. Phillips demanded sharply.
"He lives with his mother--his father is dead--oh, I wish you could hear
him tell about his father and mother, and his grandfather--it's just
beautiful. I don't know whether he has any other relatives,--but that
doesn't make any difference. I am not married to them, papa, and he's
not responsible for his people but must be judged by his own personal
character and excellence!"
In this last speech of Helen, Mr. Phillips thought he caught an echo of
something he had heard himself say, and he winced a little: but it only
added a spark more to his anger.
"But he's so far below you socially, Helen. You cannot be happy with
him! You must remember that you are the President's daughter and--"
"And my husband," interrupted Helen, "is of the one order of American
nobility--_a man_! I've thought about all that--the man's the thing,
you said, papa--and besides, an army officer has no social superiors."
There was no mere echo in Helen's defence now. It was plain fighting her
father with his own words: and it irritated him beyond endurance. His
wrath burst through and threw off the shell of theories and sentiment
which he had built up around himself and the man's real self spoke.
"But he's a negro, Helen! _A negro_! How could you!"
"A _negro_, papa?" Helen questioned in unmixed surprise. "What has that
to do with it? He's the finest looking man in Washington if he is--and
didn't you tell Elise that that was nothing more than a colour of
skin?--that the man was the thing?--that a--that a--negro must stand or
fall upon his own merit and not upon his colour or caste?--and did you
not say to Mr. Mackenzie that colour has nothing to do with a man's
acceptability in your house?--and that--"
"Oh, my God! yes, my child, but I did not mea--you are too young, too
young to be married, my child,--too young and too--yes, too young, and
we must annul this marriage--yes, we must annul it, we must annul it--we
can annul it without trouble, don't worry about it, child, don't
worry--we can annul it, and--for you are too young, my little girl, my
little girl, my little girl!"
At sight of her father's tears, and the trembling that shook him as he
sank down in a chair, Helen's combative attitude began to melt and her
eyes to fill.
"Yes, little girl, don't worry," he said, drawing her tenderly down
within his arms, "don't worry, and we will have it annulled in short
order."
"It's too late, papa," she spoke against his shoulder.
"No, no, precious heart, it's not too late--we can have it
annulled--don't cry, and don't worry, we can have it annulled."
"But, papa," she said again as she pushed herself back so that he looked
her full in the face, "it's too late, I tell you!
It's--too--late!"--and with outburst of weeping she curled herself up
against him.
With a dry sob of comprehension her father gathered her close to his
heart.
* * * * *
For a long time after he heard the voices cease Hayward Graham waited in
Mr. Phillips' outer office to learn his fate. He had caught some of the
excited discussion--enough to be convinced of his father-in-law's
opposition; but he could not be sure of the details. A servant had come
in to say that Mrs. Phillips could not come to the office, and had
knocked softly on the inner door several times while the discussion was
at its warmest. Failing to get an answer, he had left his message with
Hayward and retired. When the voices were quiet and the inner room
became silent Hayward was on the _qui vive_ for developments; and stood
facing the door in a fever of expectation.... His fever, however, had
time to burn itself out.... In that long silence President Phillips
fought his greatest battle.... The issue was predestined, of course.
In his heart there was no passion at all comparable to his love for
Helen, and that love won over all obstacles.... He saw clearly in what
measure he was responsible for her undoing; and he came squarely to the
mark with a courage that would face _all_ odds for his little girl--that
would face a frowning world, a laughing, a mocking world--that would
face his own soul even to the death--that her gentle heart might not be
troubled.... He held her while her sobs shook themselves out, and then
on and on he held her, close and warm, as if he would never again let
her out of his sheltering arms,--while he gazed over her bowed head into
the dying fire, and fixed and fortified his resolution.
At last Graham summoned courage to knock upon the door. President
Phillips started as from a reverie.
"Come in," he said, rising unsteadily and placing Helen gently on her
feet, his arm still about her.
"Why, certainly, Hayward, come in,"--and then he added after a short
pause: "Helen has told me all about it, and, while I can't approve of
the clandestine marriage, I shall do what I can to make my little girl
happy--yes, I'll do what I can to make her happy.... And since this has
been such an--unusual--evening I'll ask you to go now and come back
to-morrow morning."
Hayward delivered the belated message from Mrs. Phillips, stood for a
moment uncertain whether Helen would speak to him, and then turned to
go.
"And do not wear your livery in the morning, Hayward," said Mr.
Phillips.
"Very well, sir," said Hayward, as he withdrew.
*CHAPTER XXXIII*
When President Phillips came out of his office after dismissing Hayward,
he found a score of reporters and newspaper correspondents fighting for
places at the great front door. They were awaiting with what patience
they could Mr. Phillips' pleasure in giving to the public an
authoritative statement of his daughter's marriage.
The President, after he had obtained from Helen the details of time and
place, and other items of interest, gave the press men the story. He
customarily had his secretary to make statements to the newspaper
people, but he chose to do this for himself: in his infinite loyalty to
his little girl he was taking the situation by the horns. There was no
elation in his manner, but there certainly was nothing to indicate his
slightest objection to Helen's marriage, nor to Hayward Graham as his
son-in-law. He gave a short sketch of that young man's life and
excellences. He stated that he had not known Graham was either his
footman or his daughter's husband when he had nominated him for a
lieutenancy in the cavalry. He did not state that Graham had carried
him off the battlefield at Valencia.
When he had finished with the men of the pencil Mr. Phillips went back
to his office for Helen, and they sought the mother's room together.
With another flood of tears Helen dropped on her knees by her mother's
bed.
This scene was hardly less a trial for the father than had been the
travail of his own soul. Here also must he win if he would save his
child's happiness: and so, amid the tears and the sobs of the mother and
daughters, and with misgivings and dread in his own heart, at first
unflinchingly, then more zealously, and at last of necessity reserving
nothing, he excused, and upheld, and vindicated, Helen.
Mrs. Phillips was too heart-broken to utter a word in opposition or
condemnation, and Elise did not open her lips to speak. It was against
accusing silence, therefore, and upbraiding tears, that the father made
his desperate defence.... Such a debate can never be brought to any
real finish; and it was at last only in exhaustion, Helen of nerves, her
father of words, and Elise and her mother of lamentation, that the
distressed family found peace--enough at least to permit of dispersal to
their rooms for the night.
Elise was bowed down in grief for Helen, and for Helen she wept upon her
pillow till the fountain of tears was dry: but even then there was no
sleep for her. Her mind was painfully alive to her own personal
problems, and her brain was awake the night long although weariness held
her scalded eyelids down. The incident of the evening, like an electric
storm, had clarified the haze of uncertainty for her heart--but only to
plunge it into a more intense perplexity.
No longer unchoosing, her heart had spoken its choice. It were better
had it never spoken at all; but there could be no mistaking its
decree--she loved Evans Rutledge. As she had looked upon the three men
who loved her in that brief time when Helen proclaimed her husband, _she
had known_: and she had known that not for her was the man who in the
fleetest moment could smile while her heart was breaking; nor for her
that other, who, with his alien point of view, was untouched with her
distress, and who with his perfect breeding--she resented it--could be
so contained, so unmoved, in a situation which brought anguish to her.
In the throes of that anguish her soul had turned, unerring, to its
affinity in suffering, to _the heart that understood_ and wept, not in a
ready sympathy for her pain, but in the pains of a common grief.
In such manner Elise accounted for the reading of her heart's message.
She believed that it had been undecipherable, confused, until that
evening. Yet in all her distress then, and in the heartaches afterward
resulting from its choosing, she was strangely happy because her heart
had been true to the fancy of its earlier years, had been faithful to
its first girlish inclination to love, had not misled her, had not been
fickle in any degree, or false. She told herself with a tremor of
rapturous, prideful humility that one man had been the master of her
love from the beginning.
Thinking on it as she lay unsleeping through the night, she more than
once forgot her tears and was lost in the transport of loving. She
petted and caressed her heart for its constancy. She made excuses for
its indecision in that long time when the man's love had seemed
unworthy. She murmured tender things to it because it had prevailed,
even though with a hesitating loyalty, against her head's capricious
disapproval.
In her wanderings back and forth through the desert of her miseries on
that night, she straggled back many times to this oasis of her love and
stopped to soothe her troubled heart with its upspringing
freshnesses.... And yet a wildness of perplexity was set about her, and
she could not find a way out. She knew that Rutledge loved her--had
loved her from the time he declared it on the flood-beaten rock in the
St. Lawrence till the moment of his tender unspoken good-night three
hours ago. That his love could not be shaken by any act not her own,
she verily believed. But would he have loved her?--would he have dared
to love her?--could he, with his blood-deep, immutable ideas, _could_ he
have loved her?--if he had known that his love would bring him to this
unspeakable extremity, to this heart-breaking dilemma, where he must be
traitor to himself and to her--or become brother-in-law to a negro?
Yes, he would have _loved_ her--her of all women--despite the slings and
arrows of the most outrageous fortune, her heart told her: but, with
prescience of such calamity, would he have _spoken_ his love?--would he
have asked for that interview for to-morrow evening that he might tell
it to her again? Was he not even now regretting that appointment? Was he
not even now _pitying_ his love for her? She must know. But how could
she know? By what means could she learn _the truth_? ... Way there was
none: and yet she _must know_. Doubt, uncertainty, here would be
unendurable--and implacable for she could no longer find peace in
indifference. She loved Evans Rutledge, and her love would fight, was
fighting, desperately for its own.... But again, her own must be
worthy, without compulsion, or she would repudiate it. Her heart's
tenderness, virgin, single, measureless, she held too precious to barter
for a love, withal sincere and beautiful, which were weighted with a
minim of regret or limitation. Rather would she crush back its
fragrance eternally in her own bosom, than dishonour it by exchange for
less than the highest.... Yes, she must know.... And she could _not_
know.... And the morning came, bringing no relief for heart or
brain....
Mr. Phillips was at some pains to intimate to his wife and Elise what he
thought a proper pride demanded in the way of the "front" they should
show to the public. Queer that he should have thought it necessary:
but, unhappy man, he spoke out of his fears for his own steadiness.
Elise, at least, had no need for his admonitions. Her pride was the
pride of youth: the pride which finds all sufficiency in itself, and
needs not the prop of outward circumstance which age requires to hold
its chin in air.
It was this pride which gave Elise some hesitation in deciding what she
should do with her promise to see Rutledge that evening. Pride said:
"Meet him as if nothing has happened to disturb the serenity of your
life. Do not show--to him, of all men--chagrin at this episode _en
famille_." But pride said: "No! Recall that engagement. Do not appear
to hold him by so much as a hair. His love must be undistrained!"
She wavered between these conflicting demands of a consistent
self-respect until the middle afternoon. Then the pride of her love
overmastered the pride in her pride: and she wrote Rutledge a short
note.
"MY DEAR MR. RUTLEDGE:--I find it necessary to change my plans for this
evening. This will prevent my seeing you at Mrs. Hazard's as I
promised. I am very sorry.
"Sincerely,
"ELISE PHILLIPS."
This was her afternoon at home; and after having dispatched the message
to Rutledge Elise gave her mind over as far as might be to receiving her
callers. They were more numerous than usual, despite many notable
absences, and before they fairly well had begun to crowd in she realized
that she was on parade. Oh, the duplicity of women! How they chirruped
and chattered about every imaginable thing under heaven, while they
listened and looked for only one thing: to find out what Helen's family
really thought of her marriage.
This was not Mrs. Phillips' afternoon, nor Helen's and they did not
appear--to have done so would have been to overdo composure: and so it
was that Elise alone fenced with the dear, dear procession of sensation
hunters who passed in and out of her doors. The women came in such
flocks that she really did not have time to be embarrassed, for the
sympathetic creatures who showed a disposition to sidle up close to her
and begin with low-voiced confidences covert attacks upon her reserve
were quite regularly bowled over by their oncoming followers before they
could get their sly little schemes of investigation well going. It
became fascinating to her to watch them defeat each other's plans, and
she was somewhat regretful when they stopped coming. They stopped quite
suddenly, for the reason that, in eagerness to see for herself, every
daughter of Eve among them had made the White House the first
stopping-place in her round of visits for the afternoon.
When the women were all come and gone, save two who evidently were
trying to sit each other out, Captain Howard was announced. Elise was
unfeignedly glad to see him and in a few minutes the two contesting
ladies departed and left the Englishman and the girl together.
Captain Howard's coming was very refreshing, and Elise was grateful. He
was the only person she had seen that day who did not seem to be
conscious of the electric condition of the atmosphere, and she sat down
to talk to him with a feeling of genuine relief and pleasure. His
conversation began easily and unconstrainedly and ran along the usual
lines with all freedom. As chance demanded he spoke of Helen several
times in connection with one small matter, and another, and his manner
of doing it was positively restful.
Elise felt so comfortable sitting there talking to him that for the
first time she was impressed to think that it might be a nice thing to
have him always to come and sit beside her and make her forget that
things went wrong. The unfluttered ease and peacefulness of his manner
and his words appealed very strongly to her distressed heart, and it
warmed toward him in simple gratefulness.
Captain Howard was not without knowledge of the tense situation created
by the announcement of Helen Phillips' marriage. He read the newspapers
and could not but know that a tremendous sensation was a-blow. He was
himself excited by the affair--in a steady-going fashion. It was as if
a princess of the blood had eloped and married a--say a tradesman--or,
maybe, a gentleman--of course it was sensational.
In his amorous state of mind, however, the captain thought kindly of the
wealth of love which had inspired the young woman with such a sublime
contempt for rank--for that very real and very puissant divinity, Rank.
He also had shaken himself sufficiently free from the shackles of
provincialism to be able to recognize the effect of democratic ideas in
making possible and permissible such an event. Affairs of this sort
could not be entirely unlooked for in a genuinely democratic society;
and, since the President acquiesced in his daughter's choice and had no
regrets, there was no more to be said. Altogether Captain Howard viewed
the matter very calmly and philosophically.
Having this attitude, he had no hesitation after a time in speaking
directly of Helen's marriage and its dramatic announcement. He was a
gentleman in every instinct, was Captain Howard; and there could not be
the slightest offence taken by Elise at his natural and sympathetic
interest in what he considered a most romantic episode. But while one
may not be offended or resentful, one may become nauseated. Captain
Howard did not know of the chill of disgust and horror that was creeping
over the girl's heart, nor notice the silence to which she was come.
Her friendliness had been so graciously simple and so promising that his
purpose had been formed and he was moving straight toward it, not
noticing her silence further than to be glad she was saying nothing to
create a diversion.... Elise felt that if she spoke she would be very,
very rude.
* * * * *
"--And your America, Miss Phillips, is assuredly the natural home of
Romance. Here every man is a peer in posse, and every woman a princess
incognita--and possibility keeps pace with imagination. In England a
footman is a footman to the end of his life. Here the footman of
yesterday is the President's son-in-law to-day, and may himself be the
ruler of his people to-morrow! Can life hold more for a man? The right
to aspire and the luck to win!--and to win not only the recognition
which his personal merits deserve, but that supreme gift which no man
could deserve: your beautiful sister's love! It is almost unthinkable
to an outsider like me, but it is glorious! Yes, your America is the
Land of Romance!"
This all sounded very well, but Elise's nerves were on the ragged edge.
She knew if she spoke it would be to cry out: "Yes, a rank outsider!
Oh, why can't you drop that subject before I scream!"
But Captain Howard had only finished the preliminaries. He continued:
"And in this land, Miss Phillips, where a man may hope for anything, I,
too, have taken courage to aspire to the highest, and--"
"A note for you, Miss Elise; the messenger is waiting," a servant said.
Excusing herself to Howard, Elise read.
"MY DEAR MISS PHILLIPS:--If I may not see you to-night, may I not see
you to-morrow afternoon--or evening? Or day after to-morrow? When?
"Sincerely yours,
"EVANS RUTLEDGE."
Elise read this over several times, and gazed idly at the paper for some
time longer. She quite forgot the waiting messenger and Captain Howard.
At last she thought, "On his own head be the result!" and sat down at a
daintily carved desk to write.
"MY DEAR MR. RUTLEDGE:--The disturbance of my programme for the evening
seems to have been largely imaginary. I will be very glad to see you at
Mrs. Hazard's as at first agreed.
"Sincerely,
"ELISE PHILLIPS."
When she had given her answer to the servant Elise came back to Captain
Howard with a commonplace question which made for naught all his words
up to that point. He realized he must make a new beginning if he would
tell her what he wished. Her face and mood had changed and he saw that
her thoughts were elsewhere. After several attempts to pull the
conversation back into the old channel he gave it up and retired,
mentally cursing his luck and hoping for a more auspicious occasion.
* * * * *
Elise awaited Rutledge's coming at Lola Hazard's with some trepidation.
She was uncertain of herself. She did not know what she would do. Being
assured of what Rutledge would say to her, under ordinary conditions she
would have been elusive for a season, and finally have surrendered when
overtaken. But with outside circumstance warring against her love, she
felt wildly impelled to let herself go, to fling restraint to the winds
and give her heart's impulse free rein. Delicious were the tremors of
anticipation with which she waited to hear again words of tenderness
from him. Overflowing was her heart with tender response. His
insistence on the meeting when she had given him an opportunity to avoid
it, proved his faith was fast. He had met the supreme test for a
Southern white man: he loved her more than his caste. In her own spirit
she knew the agony of his trial. How sweet to surrender to such a love!
How tenderly she could reward it! She longed to meet it with a frank
and blissful confession. So, she was in some trepidation: she was
afraid she might not be properly reserved.
Lola Hazard came into the sitting-room and found Elise sitting before
the open grate.
"Honey," she said, slipping an arm about the girl's waist, "you look
positively glorious to-night. I never saw you half so pretty. What
have you done to yourself? Your eyes are brilliants, and your colour
is--delicious!"
"I have been looking at the fire," said Elise in explanation.
"The pictures you saw must be very pleasing," Lola answered. "I hope
they'll all come true. But before we begin to discuss that, let me tell
you that Mr. Rutledge asked to call this evening, and he may be here any
moment."
"Yes," said Elise, "I know. He told me last night."
"Oh, he did, did he? Well, I promised him if he came early he might
have ten minutes for his very own to talk to you to-night. I hope
you--"
"He may have ten minutes--and as many--more--as--he--wants," said Elise
brazenly.