PLAIN LANGUAGE
Once at home, where Beth and the Colonel were still absent, Judith went
to the book-case in the little parlour and drew out the volume of
Rossetti's poems. "Jenny," she found in the index, and turning to the
page, she read:
"Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea----"
No, not that kind of a Jenny was that whom she had seen. Rather this:
"When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
Along the streets alone, and there,
Round the long park, across the bridge,
The cold lamps at the pavement's edge
Wind on together and apart,
A fiery serpent for your heart."
And then the moral, the world-moral, this:
"Like a toad within a stone
Seated while Time crumbles on;
Which sits there since the world was curs'd
By man's transgression at the first;
Which always--whitherso the stone
Be flung--sits there, deaf, blind, alone;--
Aye, and shall not be driven out
Till that which shuts him round about
Break at the very Master's stroke,
And the dust thereof vanish as smoke,
And the seed of Man vanish as dust:--
Even so within this world is Lust."
Judith sat with the book open in her lap, meditating. She knew enough of
that lower life to have for it a man's pity rather than a woman's scorn;
recalling Mather's action, she liked him better for it. And she began to
think of him regretfully, as one who just missed the highest capacities
and so failed to meet the supreme tests. "A fine fellow!" she murmured,
so absorbed that she did not hear the door-bell ring, nor notice
footsteps until Mather himself entered the room with hurried step. He
wore his overcoat; on his brow was still the frown of care.
"Ah," he said, "I am glad to find you. Is Jim Wayne here, Judith?"
She rose and laid the book aside, carefully, so that he should not see
what she had been reading. "No," she answered. "It is his night to come.
But I saw him down town, George, and he looked worried. Is anything
wrong?"
"It has been a bad day in stocks," he answered. "I must find Jim. Excuse
my troubling you, Judith." And he moved toward the door.
"Wait, George." She took from the table the note which earlier she had
written him. "I have an invitation for you."
He took it, opened it, and began to read. "Ah!" he said at first, as if
with pleasure. But as she watched she saw a quick and startling change
in his countenance; his forehead contracted with pain, and he closed his
lips firmly. But he read on to the end, and then looked at her quietly.
"I cannot come," he said.
With a conscious summoning of her courage she asked, "You have an
engagement?"
"No," he replied. "But I cannot march in Ellis's triumph."
"You are entirely mistaken," she said haughtily.
"If not yet, then soon," he returned. She made no answer, yet she
flushed with indignation; he bowed and turned to the door. Then he came
back. "Judith, will you allow me to speak with you frankly? A few words
may make a difference to us forever."
It was not the words which impressed her, it was the emotion which drove
them from his breast, which burned in his eyes. She was so astonished
that she made no answer; he said, to emphasise his request, "It may be
seldom that we speak again."
"Seldom speak again?" she repeated.
He took her words for a consent. "Judith," he asked, "what is this man
Ellis to you? Do you realise that he is using you?"
Her indignation rose. "Using me!"
"To get among us," he explained. "He has no gratitude, no remorse. Once
he has used a man he throws him aside like an old glove; he has never
shown personal feeling for any one. Why do you have to do with him?"
"You envy his ability," she said.
"Not I," he answered. "I admire his firmness, his persistence, his
capacity. But I cannot admire him. Judith, he is a bane, a poison in our
system, a disease!"
"You mistake him," she cried.
"Not I. I know him, and am going to fight him."
"Fight him, then!" she returned.
He spoke more quietly. "We have been careless with him; he has brought
corruption into the city. But small cities are not so conscienceless as
big ones; the better elements are rising against him. This day I was
formally asked to lead them, and I shall probably be against his man in
the mayoralty contest next fall. It is a battle of principles: that is
why I can never take salt with him."
She was quite unmoved, using her previous defense. "It will be a
struggle of the new against the old."
"Ah, Judith," he replied almost sadly, "is he blinding you thus? And do
you see my meaning clearly? All the better elements will oppose him.
Whoever is with him will be against us."
"Who are you," she cried, "to pronounce on good and evil? Take care
against self-righteousness, George."
"I will take care," he answered. "But there is another side to this,
Judith. Put this larger issue by and turn to the smaller, the personal
one between you and me. Judith, I have loved you. I thought you were
womanly at bottom. But have you no heart, after all?" His intensity was
growing.
"That still troubles you?" she inquired.
"Are you absolutely cold?" he asked. "Are your old friends nothing to
you? What if they turn from you?"
"So," she said, "you threaten me with that?"
"It is inevitable," he said with energy. "Even as my love--no boy's
love, Judith--wavers and grows sick, so will their friendship. Have we
all mistaken you? Will you give such approval to such a man?"
Anger at last grew strong within her. "George!" she said in warning.
But he, casting before her his burning reproaches, would not be
repressed. "I say the only thing which can bring you to yourself. Do my
words sting? They tear me as I utter them!" His face was changing as he
spoke, paling as if the effort weakened him, yet still he dragged out
the words. "Judith, I could see you married to an honourable man, and
still love and bless you. I will idealise you until you besmirch
yourself--but you are no child, to do that unknowingly. On the day you
give yourself to Ellis----"
"Stop!" she interrupted.
"No!" he cried. "It is in your mind; you cannot deny it. On the day,
Judith, that you give yourself to him, you sell yourself!"
He stood voiceless and panting, gazing at her with accusing eyes. And
for an instant she reeled, a voice within her cried "Jenny!" and she saw
that woman of the streets. Then fierce indignation flooded her veins;
she started to the table, seized the Japanese knife, and held it naked
in her hand. With ease she balanced and pointed the heavy weapon.
"Do you suppose," he asked, "that you can hurt me deeper?"
For a moment they stood confronting, his courage as strong as her anger.
Then she threw the dagger clattering upon the table, and pointed to the
door. "Go!"
He gave her one searching look, bowed, and went quickly from the house.
The Colonel, entering some fifteen minutes later, found Judith in the
arm-chair where she had flung herself after pacing the room. "Judith,"
he said, "I met Mr. Ellis just now, and he said he was coming up to
dinner."
"Very well," she answered inattentively.
He saw that her brow was clouded, and his desire to speak with her
seriously began to melt. When he was alone it seemed to him simple
enough to say a few fatherly words in favour of Ellis; the Colonel
wished very much to have his mind relieved about the future. But now was
not the time, not while that frown was on her face. So he went
up-stairs.
Then his statement found its way into Judith's mind, and she sprang to
her feet. Ellis was coming--then _it_ was coming! She hurried up-stairs
and dressed herself with care; when she was ready she was a picture. But
it was not her gown and scanty jewels that made her radiant, but the
glow within her, which was the smouldering indignation she still felt
against Mather. Thus to threaten, thus to dare her, thus to set himself
up as judge! She waited impatiently for Ellis to come.