IT was a clear, starry night, and the long black plume of smoke
from the engine was plainly visible as the train rounded the curve
and came slowly up to the station. It seemed to approach solemnly,
with a certain portentous stateliness, its long line of lighted cars
mysteriously welded together and suggesting a giant caterpillar
suffering from internal conflagration.
The soft spring night, so illusive in its fragrance and its stillness,
was suddenly riven by the fierce clamor of the monster’s bell, and the
long platform of the station shook and trembled under foot.
Mr. Carter and Daniel waited at the gates, detailed for this painful
duty by the panic-stricken Mrs. Carter. The train was late, and they
had been waiting fifteen minutes. Daniel patiently leaned on his cane,
while his father gripped the iron bars at times with the air of an
exasperated tiger looking for a victim. Aware of other people also
waiting and within ear-shot, they had said little to each other; but as
the train finally approached, Mr. Carter broke out with a suppressed
rumble.
“The young donkey!” he said for the hundredth time. “I--I wonder what
I’m here for, anyway?”
Daniel, who had borne a good deal already, pulled at his sleeve.
“They’ll hear you. For Heaven’s sake, make the best of it!”
Mr. Carter gave utterance to a sound that seemed to be a cross between
a grunt and a bellow, but the thunderous arrival of the engine drowned
all other noises, and he fell silent while he stared gloomily down the
long aisle between the tracks where the passengers were disembarking.
“There’s William,” said Daniel in his ear.
“Where?” Mr. Carter experienced a strange, sinking feeling around the
diaphragm. “Oh, I see!”
The two stood silent, trying to get a good view through the crowd.
“My word, Dan, has he married a kid? She’s no size at all!”
Dan went forward, his halting walk jarring anew on his father. Mr.
Carter hated to have one of his boys a cripple, but to-night he felt
that Daniel was heroic. He followed in a panic.
William saw them.
“Hello, Dan! How d’you do, father? Here--here’s your new daughter,” he
added in a lower, more vibrant tone, drawing his wife forward, pride
in his face.
Mr. Carter made a desperate plunge, tried to think of something to say,
stumbled badly, and surprised himself and both his sons by suddenly
kissing the bride.
“Welcome home!” he said loudly. “We’re all mighty glad to see you.
We----”
He stopped short with his mouth open, amazed at his own performance. He
had never intended to do anything of the kind. He was suffering from
stage fright, his mind became a blank, and he simply stared.
But the bride was not at loss. His greeting seemed to touch her. She
held out both hands with a fluttering, birdlike gesture, one to him and
one to Dan, and she lifted a lovely, animated face.
“_Vous parlez Français?_” she cried eagerly, with shining eyes.
Mr. Carter looked about aghast.
“Good Lord, William! Can’t she speak English?”
He was answered with a chorus of laughter. Young Mrs. Carter, William,
and Daniel giggled outrageously.
“Of course she does, father! She’s half American,” replied William.
But the laugh had broken the ice. Mr. Carter looked more narrowly at
his daughter-in-law, and discovered that her eyes were lovely. She
raised them to his now with a look that suddenly recalled William’s
description. They were soft and brown and tender, with something sylvan
and untamed in their lucid depths.
“By George, a wild fawn, of course, of course!” thought Mr. Carter, and
he offered her his arm.
She took it, clinging to him a little with a touch at once soft and
confiding. There was the ghost of an elusive fragrance in her hair,
and in the light veil that floated across his shoulder. It suggested
violets wet with dew, and even Mr. Carter was intuitively aware that
there was something unique, something distinguished and amazing about
the small figure, so slight and graceful, and the delicately poised
head.
“Of course I speak English,” she murmured softly in his ear as they
threaded the crowd, followed by William and Daniel and two porters
with innumerable bags. “_Mais, hélas!_ I wanted to speak French to you
because I love it. It’s the language of my heart, and you”--there was
a lovely tremor in her voice--“you’re so good to me here in this smoky
place--like a father! I--oh, I know--_je t’adore!_”
Mr. Carter, unaccustomed to the language of extravagance, had a
pleasurable feeling of elation. Hitherto, his performances in the
social line had been unappreciated, even in the bosom of his family. He
had frequently felt like a dancing bear, but now all was changed; this
little French girl knew a good thing when she saw it.
“That’s all right, you’re William’s wife,” said Mr. Carter, “and I’m
mighty fond of William. His mother thinks he’s a chip of the moon, I’ll
tell you that!”
“_Tiens!_” The girl drew in her breath quickly. “Then I’m afraid--she
will never like me!”
Mr. Carter, who felt that this time he had really put his foot in it,
covered his confusion by hustling her into a waiting taxi. Daniel
and he had secured one, but it was necessary to take another for the
hand-luggage, and Daniel rode home in that, alone with the bags and
umbrellas, while his father and William sat with the bride.
Daniel, who had exchanged a word or two with his brother as they
crossed the station together, was aware of William’s uneasiness. In the
familiar station, confronted with his father and his brother, and all
the old realities of his home life, William must have suffered some
kind of a shock. He had even said, rather thickly, as they walked along:
“How are they all? Judge Jessup, Dr. Barbour--the--the Denbighs?”
Daniel, staring straight before him, had answered shortly. All their
friends were in good health, he said. But he had previously caught
William’s eye, and something in its expression rankled in Daniel’s
mind. He glanced moodily at the heap of luggage in the cab with him,
topped by a small green-leather bag with the initials “F. L. F.” in
silver on the flap. She was pretty; he had perceived the subtle charm
of the small, irregular face and the beautiful, wild eyes. Yet he was
not reassured; he was, in fact, vaguely uneasy.
Then he reflected bitterly that he was a prejudiced judge. He had never
been able to get the look in Virginia Denbigh’s eyes out of his mind.
He could see them still as he gave her the first warning. The blood
went up to Daniel’s ears and burned there; he abhorred that little
green bag.
Both taxis slowed down at the Carters’ door, a stream of light flowed
out of the house, and Mrs. Carter, frightened and tearful, appeared at
the threshold, supported on either hand by Leigh and Emily.
Daniel, busying himself with directions about the hand-luggage, escaped
the ordeal of the greeting, but he caught a glimpse of his mother
trying to be nice to the bride and then crying on William’s shoulder.
When Daniel finally entered the house, the young stranger had taken off
her hat and tossed aside the light furs that she had worn with such
a daring effect of style. Her brother-in-law was almost startled, she
looked so small, so delicate, and so young. Her hair was fluffy and
dusky and riotously pretty; it escaped into curls about her little ears
and on the nape of her white neck. Her dress, too, in the extreme of
the prevailing mode, was a little daring in its display of both neck
and ankles.
As Daniel entered, she had discovered Emily, a gawky girl of sixteen,
and was displaying a flattering interest in her that covered the
embarrassed Emily with blushes. Mrs. Carter tried to save the situation
by urging her daughter-in-law to come up-stairs.
“I’ve got the very best room ready for you, my dear,” she said
tremulously. “You’ll want to arrange your things and come right down.
We’ve waited supper for you.”
“How sweet of you, _maman_! I may call you _maman_, mayn’t I?” She laid
a light hand on Mrs. Carter’s arm, raising her soft eyes to her face.
“If I’m good I may call you that--_toujours--toujours, n’est-ce-pas?_”
“For Heaven’s sake, Fanchon, don’t talk French to mother!” her husband
exclaimed. “She doesn’t know a word of it--and you can speak English.”
“I used to speak French quite a little, Willie,” Mrs. Carter protested,
coloring faintly; “but I--I’m a little rusty!”
Mr. Carter laughed.
“Mama can just about say, ‘_oui, oui_,’ like a pig,” he said bluntly.
“You women hurry up; I want my supper.”
Fanchon, with one foot on the stairs, turned and kissed her hand to him.
“I’m coming,” she declared. “I’m starving, too. I won’t be ten minutes!”
“She means two hours,” said William, his eyes following the small
figure with a look that did not escape either his father or Daniel.
“She’s turned his head,” the latter thought moodily, not unaware of the
charm of the light, hurrying voice and the accent, delicate and sweet,
that made her English so exotic.
At the moment, too, Leigh appeared, laden with Fanchon’s luggage. Like
a beast of burden he toiled up behind the women, plainly captivated.
William, seeing it, grinned and laid his hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
Daniel was the only one who had, so far, shown no signs of capitulation.
“Well, Dan, got any of those old cigarettes in your room?” he asked
jocularly.
Daniel yielded, returning his smile, and the two brothers, anxious
perhaps for a little talk together, went up-stairs.
Left alone--marooned, as it were--on the old Turkey rug in the hall,
Mr. Carter prowled about for a moment, his mind in a maze. He looked
into the dining-room, wondered if supper was ready, and finally went
into the library and sank heavily into his favorite chair. He had a
confused feeling of amazement that the room looked just as usual--the
same old books around the walls, the same old portrait of an ancestral
Carter over the fireplace, and the guttered chairs, looking as homelike
and shabby as ever. Even the litter on the table--it hadn’t set itself
in order, this corner of the house having escaped the cleaning up for
the bride. There was the same old lamp in the center, and his old
brier-wood lay there, too.
He sighed, slowly rubbing the back of his head with one hand, while he
gazed reflectively at the other. He was confusedly aware of an elusive
fragrance about his fingers, the ghost of a perfume, and he had a
dazzled consciousness of those wild-fawn eyes, and the red lips, and
little pointed chin. He had a guilty recollection, too, of calling his
son a young donkey.
He was still sitting there, staring into the vacant fireplace, when
he heard the rustle of skirts and felt his wife’s entrance. He did
not look up; he seemed to feel an unsympathetic atmosphere, and he
heard Mrs. Carter drop into a chair by the table with a heaviness that
suggested collapse after an ordeal.
He waited, expectant, but nothing happened. The silence, in fact,
grew rather thick. Mrs. Carter sat there, saying nothing, though she
swallowed once or twice rather audibly. Unable to endure it any longer,
her husband broke the pause.
“She’s mighty pretty,” he said at last, apparently addressing the
fireplace.
His wife said nothing. She only turned a slow, absent look toward him,
her mind at work on some problem too deep for him.
“Maybe it’ll turn out better than we thought, mama,” he ventured again.
“Maybe,” she assented reluctantly. “Poor Willie.”
“Poor fiddlesticks! He’s in love.” Mr. Carter frowned heavily. “I
reckon a man has a right to pick his own wife, anyway,” he decided
finally.
Mrs. Carter gave him another mysterious look--a look that seemed to
deplore his ignorance. Then she rose, murmured something about supper,
and left the room. She was going up the front stairs, but she heard
William coming down, and, for the first time in her life, she avoided
her first-born. With a feeling of guilty panic, she fled up the back
stairs. She could hear the bride still moving about in the best parlor
chamber, and she slipped past it and crept softly into Emily’s room.
At the moment her daughter was standing in front of the looking-glass,
staring fixedly into it, but Mrs. Carter did not notice this. She shut
the door behind her with the air of a conspirator. Her knees felt weak
under her, and she needed sympathy, the sympathy of her own sex. Of
course, Emily was a child, but she was a girl child.
Mrs. Carter drew a long breath and put her finger on her lip. Her
astonished daughter viewed her a moment in alarm; then a look of
understanding dawned in Emily’s eyes, and she stood quite still,
waiting. Mrs. Carter tiptoed across the room and whispered:
“Emily, do you think she paints her eyes?”
Emily shook her head.
“It’s her eyelashes. I looked hard at ’em, mama, and she does something
to them. They look thick and soft like feathers. I think they’re just
lovely!”
“Emily!”
“I do! That’s why her eyes look so nice. I’m going to find out how she
does it, too.”
“Emily Carter, aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I--oh!” Mrs. Carter
wiped her eyes. “I’m so ashamed--for Willie! My son’s wife with
make-believe eyelashes! It--it isn’t respectable!”
“I wish I knew how she did it,” said Emily. “Anyway, I’m going to find
out.”
Mrs. Carter, having dropped into a chair, buried her face in her
handkerchief. She had been longing for a good cry, and this was her
first moment of real enjoyment. Her comfortable shoulders rose and fell
convulsively, and her daughter caught the muffled sounds of grief.
Emily did not heed them, but turned again to her mirror. She had short,
blond eyelashes, a good two shades lighter than her blond hair. She
viewed them now with the cold eye of an unbiased critic.
“Light eyelashes are horrid,” she said to herself with a glitter of
determination in her eye. “I must find out how she does it.”
“My daughter-in-law!” sobbed Mrs. Carter under her breath. “My Willie’s
wife, and--and she chalks her nose--I saw it myself!”
V
THE CARTERS, after a few days, tried to settle down and get used to
it, but the new Mrs. Carter never quite let them do it. She kept
taking them by surprise, with a kind of flying grace that left them
speechless. She was making rapid conquests, too. Leigh had become her
slave. He followed her about in an embarrassed state of subjugation,
and spent long hours in his room writing sonnets, dedicated to Fanchon,
or, more often, to “another’s wife.”
Emily, meanwhile, was making some curiously subtle alterations in
her own appearance, as yet undiscovered by her anxious mother. She
had successfully negotiated a loan of three dollars from Daniel--for
purposes unknown.
In one way or another, the bride had made progress with them all; she
had fascinated, or dazzled, or perplexed first one member of the family
and then another. It was only Daniel, the student and philosopher, who
still resisted. In the rôle of an observer, he maintained an unruffled
tranquillity.
It was this very thing--his inaccessibility, his aloofness--that
ruffled young Mrs. Carter. At first she had not noticed him--a pale
young man who limped; but after a while she caught herself watching
him, expecting something, she knew not what. She was tantalized by his
silence, his drawling Southern speech, his quiet observation. In a
hundred little ways she had tried to take him unawares and failed. Then
he grew interesting, and she studied him. She had that love of conquest
that some women have, and she had not conquered Daniel.
Quite unaware of the interest he had excited, Daniel pursued his usual
course, except in one direction. He had had neither the heart nor the
courage to go to the Denbighs. It seemed to him that he could never
bear to see again that look in Virginia’s eyes, a look that was not for
him--and not caused by him, thank God! It followed him when he worked
in Judge Jessup’s office, on briefs that were soon to make him famous,
and when he walked, meditating, under the stars. It could not be shut
out, because Virginia’s face, her eyes, her smile, had been with him so
long in secret.
He had tried to thrust the image out when he thought she was to be his
brother’s wife, but now he did not try to battle with it. He would,
indeed, have loved to dwell upon it, but for that look of doubt and
pain in her eyes when she first heard of William’s marriage. Love’s
vision is excruciatingly clear when it is looking at love revealed. He
knew now! And he had found it too hard to go there; he felt as if he
had, in some mysterious way, become heir to his brother’s falsehood.
He was bearing a vicarious punishment by denying himself a sight of
Virginia’s face; but he thought of her with a constancy that shut out
his brother’s bride.
He was thinking of Virginia one day when he came in rather earlier than
usual, and, finding the library empty, sat down to write a letter or
two. He chose his place, too, because there was a picture of Virginia
on the mantelpiece--a small photograph of her as a schoolgirl, which
she had given to his mother. It was framed and standing there beside
the old ormolu clock.
As Daniel wrote he looked up at the picture with that curious sense of
companionship that lonely people, people who have suffered, draw from
such inanimate images of those they love. It comforted him. He lit his
pipe and began to write. For the moment he forgot his lameness, that
lameness which seemed to him such an insuperable barrier to his own
hopes of happiness.
The house was quiet. His father and William had not yet come in, his
mother and Emily seemed to have effaced themselves, and he knew that
Leigh was taking an examination at school. It was very peaceful.
The old, worn room had a certain shabby dignity, the company of
books looked down at him, and through the open window he could see a
snow-white lilac in full and splendid bloom. He halted his pen for
a moment, and looked out at the sunshine that seemed to bathe the
delicate blossoms in a shower of splendor.
He had utterly forgotten the sensation of the household, his brother’s
wife, and he was taken unawares. The door behind him opened softly, he
perceived the scent of violets, and Fanchon entered.
“_Ma foi._” She stood looking at him, her head on one side. “I didn’t
know you were here!”
Daniel laid down his pen. He had come to expect something new every
time he saw her.
“Does that matter?” he asked, smiling, aware that she was dressed
for the street and that she looked lovely, a dark, bewitching little
creature with haunting eyes. “I don’t matter. Come in, do!”
She came, watching him, and put out her hand.
“_Mais non!_ Let us be friends,” she said softly, with a kind of
childish frankness.
“I thought we were friends already,” he retorted, touching the hand
lightly and flushing in spite of himself.
She shook her head.
“_Non, non_, you don’t like me!”
Daniel rose and drew forward a chair.
“Pardon me, _madame_,” he said gaily. “I forgot my manners. You see,
I’m your brother and I don’t remember.”
She perched lightly on the arm of the chair, waving him back to his
seat.
“It isn’t that,” she retorted quickly. “You don’t like me, _monsieur_!”
He leaned back in his own chair, watching her, wondering just what she
meant.
“Perhaps you’re mistaken. Perhaps I do like you. Why shouldn’t I?”
She laughed, throwing one arm lightly across the back of the chair
and letting the light flash on the jewels she wore on her small
fingers--extraordinary jewels, Daniel thought, for William’s wife.
“_Mais non_, I know! I feel things here!” She touched her heart
lightly, the dark eyes misting suddenly, the red lips trembling. “I--I
can’t live unless I’m loved!”
“If we all felt like that there’d be a good many deaths,” Daniel
remarked.
For a moment she made no reply, but her face seemed to grow pale and
small and appealing.
“She’s either a creature of a hundred moods,” he thought musingly, “or
she has an extraordinary facial control.”
Fanchon seemed to feel his thought. His very attitude, aloof and
challenging and critical, affected her. She shivered, covering her eyes
with her hands.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried passionately. “_Mon Dieu_, I
can’t bear it! You--you hate me!”
Daniel reddened; he found himself in an uncomfortable position. Had he
shown his hostility so strongly? Had he let this wild young creature
see that he felt she was an interloper?
“You’re talking nonsense, Fanchon,” he said gravely. “I hate no one--as
far as I can remember. I’m a colorless fellow, you know, and a cripple.
I don’t count.”
She lifted her face from her hands at that and looked at him again, her
dark eyes soft, tender, almost caressing.
“Why do you think of that so much?” she asked him kindly. “It hurts you
all through to your soul, I see it! Yet it doesn’t matter--_ça ne fait
rien_! You’re only a little lame, it is so interesting, _si distingué_.”
“Thank you,” he smiled bitterly. “If you keep on, Fanchon, I shall have
cause to love you in good earnest. I hate being lame.”
“I know it!” Her eyes still dwelt on his with a kind of wild
softness--the sylvan, fawn-like look again. “And I care--see? Yet you
can’t like me! Oh, I know”--she shook her head--“I always know--because
I’ve been unhappy, too.”
“You?” he smiled, this time with amusement. “You seem to me a thing of
thistledown and sunshine, a sprite, a nymph--anything but unhappy.”
She clasped her hands on her knee, looking at him dreamily.
“Ah, _mais non_, that’s because you don’t know! I’m an orphan; I had no
one--until William came.” Her face softened, glowed, grew infinitely
tender. “_Guillaume de mon cœur!_ Before that--I will tell you. _Maman_
died when I was two years old. She was Irish--she was born in southern
California, but all her people were Irish. She was poor; she worked in
a little inn near a great fruit-grower’s ranch. _Mon père_”--Fanchon
made a sudden grimace--“I didn’t like him. You think that’s wicked?
I didn’t love him. He was French and he made wine upon the ranch. He
married the Irish girl, and I was born.”
She stopped, her chin in her hand, thinking. Daniel, listening,
smiled inwardly. Involuntarily his eyes lifted to the portrait of the
ancestral Carter.
“Shade of my ancestors!” he thought amusedly. “An Irish waitress and a
French wine-maker!”
But Fanchon’s voice, light and sweet and tantalizing, went on.
“Papa took me to Paris after _maman_ died. He put me in a convent
and left me there. That’s all. I never saw him again, though he sent
money now and then. At last he died. _Voilà!_” She clenched her hands
passionately. “No one loved me, no one cared whether I lived or died
except the good sisters.” She leaned over and laid one hand lightly on
the table, looking at him. “Do you wonder now--that I’m so wild?”
“I didn’t know you were wild,” Daniel replied, smiling. “I’m
sorry--poor child!”
“No one else was sorry!”
“Oh, yes, I think some one else must have been--besides William,” said
Daniel.
She drew her breath quickly, biting her lip. For a long moment she
studied him; then, with a shrug, she reached for a match on the table
and looked at it, turning it over in her hand.
“I----” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes veiled by their
long lashes. “Please give me a cigarette,” she pleaded. “William didn’t
want me to frighten your mother. I’m--I’m dying to smoke!”
Daniel stared, not so much at the request as at the sudden change. It
was as if she had dropped a mantle and revealed her true self. The
tragedy and pathos which, a moment before, had made her so appealing,
so childlike, vanished. She sat on the arm of the chair, a daring
little figure, one hand stretched out, the other holding the match
ready to strike. Her face, too, sharpened, and seemed to have lost its
soft beauty.
There was something keen and reckless about it, and the darkened lashes
and reddened lips gave it a bizarre effect, almost like a mask.
“Please--a cigarette!” she pleaded.
Daniel thrust his hand into his pocket, produced his cigarette-case,
and held it out.
“Better smoke when mother isn’t on hand,” he counseled her. “She’s
old-fashioned, you know.”
Fanchon drew a long breath of content, lit the cigarette, and began to
smoke. She smoked, daintily, her eyes changing and the long-fringed
lashes shading them. Gradually, visibly, she relaxed, the sharpness
softened, the eyes grew languorous.
“What heaven!” she said after a moment. “It’s dreadful, isn’t it, when
you’ve always smoked, and you can’t get it? I--I think I should have
stolen it soon!”
“I see!” Daniel laughed softly. “You should always smoke, Fanchon.
Without it you’re a prey to sadness, to memories, to imagination. With
a cigarette you’re happy!”
“_Mais non_, I’m not happy!” She lifted her lashes and gave him a
fleeting glance. “But it soothes me. I’m not happy, because”--she rose
and stood looking at him, the cigarette in her fingers--“because I know
you all wanted William to marry _her_!”
With one of her sudden, birdlike dives, she touched the picture of
Virginia Denbigh on the mantel. In spite of himself, Daniel started
violently and colored. An impulse, as sudden and uncontrollable as her
movement, made him spring to his feet. He wanted to snatch the picture
from her hand; but he restrained himself, lifted his pipe from the
table, and knocked the tobacco out into his father’s ash-tray.
“Why do you think so?” he asked her quietly, beginning to refill the
pipe.
She laughed, but he saw that the hand which held Virginia’s picture
was trembling. She did not answer him in words, but turned and looked
at him over her shoulder, her dark eyes glowing in a face that seemed
colorless except for the scarlet lips. Daniel, aware of the look,
avoided it, a sudden fear in his heart. Something, something subtle and
inexplicable, moved him. With an effort of self-control--greater than
he knew--he took the picture of Virginia out of her hands and replaced
it on the shelf.
“Why do you think that about it?” he asked.
She laughed.
“I know it! I know the kind--_jeune fille à marier_! Whenever your
mother looks at me in here, she looks at that picture and sighs. And
your father stares at it and stares at me--comparing us!” She laughed
again, a little wildly. “_Mon Dieu_, I know!”
Daniel frowned.
“You let your imagination run away with you,” he said sharply,
returning to his seat and lighting his pipe.
He wanted to make her feel that she had transgressed foolishly. He
wanted to be a shield for Virginia Denbigh--wanted it passionately.
Fanchon watched him, her head lowered. She looked, he thought, like a
slender bewitching sorceress about to work a spell upon him--or upon
Virginia’s picture.
“Ah!” she said slowly and softly. “I can’t make you like me--you’re my
enemy!”
Daniel stared, aghast, groping for words. But she did not wait; she
turned, ran out of the room, and slammed the door behind her. She left
Daniel still staring, half-perplexed, half-amused. He was angry, too.
“The little whirlwind!” he said below his breath.
Then he thought of William with a qualm of pity. Not that he thought
that William greatly deserved it, for Daniel’s heart still flamed
with anger for Virginia Denbigh; but William was plainly unequal to
this--this handful! The observer of the family, Daniel had already
suspected a rift in the lute. He knew that his brother was no longer
radiantly happy. William had, in fact, the air of the uneasy keeper of
a new leopardess, not yet broken in to the etiquette of the zoological
park. Daniel had intercepted warning glances, signs, and murmurs
between the two, and he had seen William’s evident embarrassment when
Fanchon came in contact with his mother.
“He’s been expecting this,” Daniel thought, and smiled, reaching for
his pipe again.
It had gone out twice already, and he began to coax it. Before he could
rekindle it, the door opened--softly this time--and Mrs. Carter came in
with a pale face and staring eyes. She stopped tragically just at the
threshold.
“Dan, was she _smoking_?” she gasped out in an awed undertone.
“I’m afraid she was, mother. Why?”
Mrs. Carter clung to the back of the chair Fanchon had just vacated.
“I thought so! I--I saw it, Dan! She went out of the front door of my
house--my son’s wife--smoking a cigarette,” she cried in a climax of
horror.
Daniel tried to stem the tide.
“She’s been educated in Paris, mother. Lots of women smoke.”
“Not in our set, Dan, and not in the street, anyway!” Mrs. Carter sank
into the chair. “Daniel, I--I’m mortified to death!”
“Nonsense! She’ll stop after a while--when she finds out you don’t like
it. Never mind, mother, make the best of it. Very likely no one saw her
but you.”
“Saw her!” Mrs. Carter sat up straight and stared at him. “Do you
happen to know who are talking to William at this very minute, at the
end of this street, just where she’s sure to meet them?”
Daniel laid down his pipe, turning a little pale.
“No,” he said slowly. “Who?”
“Colonel Denbigh and Virginia!”
Her son said nothing, but he turned his eyes slowly away and looked out
of the window at the white lilac.
“Virginia Denbigh!” wailed Mrs. Carter. “Think, just think of Virginia
smoking!”
And she burst into angry, shamed, helpless tears.