severe smile. "If Helen Cabot doesn't see the difference between you
and the other men she knows now," she said, "I doubt if she ever will.
Besides--" she continued, and then hesitated.
"Well, go on," urged Carroll.
"Well, I was only going to say," she explained, "that leaving the girl
alone never did the man any good unless he left her alone willingly.
If she's sure he still cares, it's just the same to her where he is.
He might as well stay on in London as go to South Africa. It won't
help him any. The difference comes when she finds he has stopped
caring. Why, look at Reggie. He tried that. He went away for ever so
long, but he kept writing me from wherever he went, so that he was
perfectly miserable--and I went on enjoying myself. Then when he came
back, he tried going about with his old friends again. He used to come
to the theatre with them--oh, with such nice girls!--but he always
stood in the back of the box and yawned and scowled--so I knew. And,
anyway, he'd always spoil it all by leaving them and waiting at the
stage entrance for me. But one day he got tired of the way I treated
him and went off on a bicycle-tour with Lady Hacksher's girls and some
men from his regiment, and he was gone three weeks, and never sent me
even a line; and I got so scared; I couldn't sleep, and I stood it for
three days more, and then I wired him to come back or I'd jump off
London Bridge; and he came back that very night from Edinburgh on the
express, and I was so glad to see him that I got confused, and in the
general excitement I promised to marry him, so that's how it was with
us."
"Yes," said the American, without enthusiasm; "but then I still care,
and Helen knows I care."
"Doesn't she ever fancy that you might care for some one else? You
have a lot of friends, you know."
"Yes, but she knows they are just that--friends," said the American.
Miss Cavendish stood up to go, and arranged her veil before the mirror
above the fireplace.
"I come here very often to tea," she said.
"It's very kind of you," said Carroll. He was at the open window,
looking down into the street for a cab.
"Well, no one knows I am engaged to Reggie," continued Miss Cavendish,
"except you and Reggie, and he isn't so sure. _She_ doesn't know
it."
"Well?" said Carroll.
Miss Cavendish smiled a mischievous, kindly smile at him from the
mirror.
"Well?" she repeated, mockingly. Carroll stared at her and laughed.
After a pause he said: "It's like a plot in a comedy. But I'm afraid
I'm too serious for play-acting."
"Yes, it is serious," said Miss Cavendish. She seated herself again
and regarded the American thoughtfully. "You are too good a man to be
treated the way that girl is treating you, and no one knows it better
than she does. She'll change in time, but just now she thinks she
wants to be independent. She's in love with this picture-painting
idea, and with the people she meets. It's all new to her--the fuss
they make over her and the titles, and the way she is asked about. We
know she can't paint. We know they only give her commissions because
she's so young and pretty, and American. She amuses them, that's all.
Well, that cannot last; she'll find it out. She's too clever a girl,
and she is too fine a girl to be content with that long. Then--then
she'll come back to you. She feels now that she has both you and the
others, and she's making you wait; so wait and be cheerful. She's
worth waiting for; she's young, that's all. She'll see the difference
in time. But, in the meanwhile, it would hurry matters a bit if she
thought she had to choose between the new friends and you."
"She could still keep her friends and marry me," said Carroll; "I have
told her that a hundred times. She could still paint miniatures and
marry me. But she won't marry me."
"She won't marry you because she knows she can whenever she wants to,"
cried Marion. "Can't you see that? But if she thought you were going
to marry some one else now?"
"She would be the first to congratulate me," said Carroll. He rose and
walked to the fireplace, where he leaned with his arm on the mantel.
There was a photograph of Helen Cabot near his hand, and he turned
this toward him and stood for some time staring at it. "My dear
Marion," he said at last, "I've known Helen ever since she was as
young as that. Every year I've loved her more, and found new things in
her to care for; now I love her more than any other man ever loved any
other woman."
Miss Cavendish shook her head sympathetically.
"Yes, I know," she said; "that's the way Reggie loves me, too."
Carroll went on as though he had not heard her.
"There's a bench in St. James's Park," he said, "where we used to sit
when she first came here, when she didn't know so many people. We used
to go there in the morning and throw penny buns to the ducks. That's
been my amusement this summer since you've all been away--sitting on
that bench, feeding penny buns to the silly ducks--especially the
black one, the one she used to like best. And I make pilgrimages to
all the other places we ever visited together, and try to pretend she
is with me. And I support the crossing sweeper at Lansdowne Passage
because she once said she felt sorry for him. I do all the other
absurd things that a man in love tortures himself by doing. But to
what end? She knows how I care, and yet she won't see why we can't go
on being friends as we once were. What's the use of it all?"
"She is young, I tell you," repeated Miss Cavendish, "and she's too
sure of you. You've told her you care; now try making her think you
don't care."
Carroll shook his head impatiently.
"I will not stoop to such tricks and pretense, Marion," he cried,
impatiently. "All I have is my love for her; if I have to cheat and to
trap her into caring, the whole thing would be degraded."
Miss Cavendish shrugged her shoulders and walked to the door. "Such
amateurs!" she exclaimed, and banged the door after her.
Carroll never quite knew how he had come to make a confidante of Miss
Cavendish. Helen and he had met her when they first arrived in London,
and as she had acted for a season in the United States, she adopted
the two Americans--and told Helen where to go for boots and hats, and
advised Carroll about placing his plays. Helen soon made other
friends, and deserted the artists with whom her work had first thrown
her. She seemed to prefer the society of the people who bought her
paintings, and who admired and made much of the painter. As she was
very beautiful and at an age when she enjoyed everything in life
keenly and eagerly, to give her pleasure was in itself a distinct
pleasure; and the worldly tired people she met were considering their
own entertainment quite as much as hers when they asked her to their
dinners and dances, or to spend a week with them in the country. In
her way, she was as independent as was Carroll in his, and as she was
not in love, as he was, her life was not narrowed down to but one
ideal. But she was not so young as to consider herself infallible, and
she had one excellent friend on whom she was dependent for advice and
to whose directions she submitted implicitly. This was Lady Gower, the
only person to whom Helen had spoken of Carroll and of his great
feeling for her. Lady Gower, immediately after her marriage, had been
a conspicuous and brilliant figure in that set in London which works
eighteen hours a day to keep itself amused, but after the death of her
husband she had disappeared into the country as completely as though
she had entered a convent, and after several years had then re-entered
the world as a professional philanthropist. Her name was now
associated entirely with Women's Leagues, with committees that
presented petitions to Parliament, and with public meetings, at which
she spoke with marvellous ease and effect. Her old friends said she
had taken up this new pose as an outlet for her nervous energies, and
as an effort to forget the man who alone had made life serious to her.
Others knew her as an earnest woman, acting honestly for what she
thought was right. Her success, all admitted, was due to her knowledge
of the world and to her sense of humor, which taught her with whom to
use her wealth and position, and when to demand what she wanted solely
on the ground that the cause was just.
She had taken more than a fancy for Helen, and the position of the
beautiful, motherless girl had appealed to her as one filled with
dangers. When she grew to know Helen better, she recognized that these
fears were quite unnecessary, and as she saw more of her she learned
to care for her deeply. Helen had told her much of Carroll and of his
double purpose in coming to London; of his brilliant work and his lack
of success in having it recognized; and of his great and loyal
devotion to her, and of his lack of success, not in having that
recognized, but in her own inability to return it. Helen was proud
that she had been able to make Carroll care for her as he did, and
that there was anything about her which could inspire a man whom she
admired so much to believe in her so absolutely and for so long a
time. But what convinced her that the outcome for which he hoped was
impossible, was the very fact that she could admire him, and see how
fine and unselfish his love for her was, and yet remain untouched by
it.
She had been telling Lady Gower one day of the care he had taken of
her ever since she was fourteen years of age, and had quoted some of
the friendly and loverlike acts he had performed in her service, until
one day they had both found out that his attitude of the elder brother
was no longer possible, and that he loved her in the old and only way.
Lady Gower looked at her rather doubtfully and smiled.
"I wish you would bring him to see me, Helen," she said; "I think I
should like your friend very much. From what you tell me of him I
doubt if you will find many such men waiting for you in this country.
Our men marry for reasons of property, or they love blindly, and are
exacting and selfish before and after they are married. I know,
because so many women came to me when my husband was alive to ask how
it was that I continued so happy in my married life."
"But I don't want to marry any one," Helen remonstrated, gently.
"American girls are not always thinking only of getting married."
"What I meant was this," said Lady Gower: "that, in my experience, I
have heard of but few men who care in the way this young man seems to
care for you. You say you do not love him; but if he had wanted to
gain my interest, he could not have pleaded his cause better than you
have done. He seems to see your faults and yet love you still, in
spite of them--or on account of them. And I like the things he does
for you. I like, for instance, his sending you the book of the moment
every week for two years. That shows a most unswerving spirit of
devotion. And the story of the broken bridge in the woods is a
wonderful story. If I were a young girl, I could love a man for that
alone. It was a beautiful thing to do."
Helen sat with her chin on her hands, deeply considering this new
point of view.
"I thought it very foolish of him," she confessed, questioningly, "to
take such a risk for such a little thing."
Lady Gower smiled down at her from the height of her many years.
"Wait," she said, dryly, "you are very young now--and very rich; every
one is crowding to give you pleasure, to show his admiration. You are
a very fortunate girl. But later, these things which some man has done
because he loved you, and which you call foolish, will grow large in
your life, and shine out strongly, and when you are discouraged and
alone, you will take them out, and the memory of them will make you
proud and happy. They are the honors which women wear in secret."
Helen came back to town in September, and for the first few days was
so occupied in refurnishing her studio and in visiting the shops that
she neglected to send Carroll word of her return. When she found that
a whole week had passed without her having made any effort to see him,
and appreciated how the fact would hurt her friend, she was filled
with remorse, and drove at once in great haste to Jermyn Street, to
announce her return in person. On the way she decided that she would
soften the blow of her week of neglect by asking him to take her out
to luncheon. This privilege she had once or twice accorded him, and
she felt that the pleasure these excursions gave Carroll were worth
the consternation they caused to Lady Gower.
The servant was uncertain whether Mr. Carroll was at home or not, but
Helen was too intent upon making restitution to wait for the fact to
be determined, and, running up the stairs, knocked sharply at the door
of his study.
A voice bade her come in, and she entered, radiant and smiling her
welcome. But Carroll was not there to receive it, and, instead, Marion
Cavendish looked up at her from his desk, where she was busily
writing. Helen paused with a surprised laugh, but Marion sprang up and
hailed her gladly. They met half-way across the room and kissed each
other with the most friendly feeling.
Philip was out, Marion said, and she had just stepped in for a moment
to write him a note. If Helen would excuse her, she would finish it,
as she was late for rehearsal.
But she asked over her shoulder, with great interest, if Helen had
passed a pleasant summer. She thought she had never seen her looking
so well. Helen thought Miss Cavendish herself was looking very well
also, but Marion said no; that she was too sunburnt, she would not be
able to wear a dinner-dress for a month. There was a pause while
Marion's quill scratched violently across Carroll's note-paper. Helen
felt that in some way she was being treated as an intruder; or worse,
as a guest. She did not sit down, it seemed impossible to do so, but
she moved uncertainly about the room. She noted that there were many
changes, it seemed more bare and empty; her picture was still on the
writing-desk, but there were at least six new photographs of Marion.
Marion herself had brought them to the room that morning, and had
carefully arranged them in conspicuous places. But Helen could not
know that. She thought there was an unnecessary amount of writing
scribbled over the face of each.
Marion addressed her letter and wrote "Immediate" across the envelope,
and placed it before the clock on the mantel-shelf. "You will find
Philip looking very badly," she said, as she pulled on her gloves. "He
has been in town all summer, working very hard--he has had no holiday
at all. I don't think he's well. I have been a great deal worried
about him," she added. Her face was bent over the buttons of her
glove, and when she raised her blue eyes to Helen they were filled
with serious concern.
"Really," Helen stammered, "I--I didn't know--in his letters he seemed
very cheerful."
Marion shook her head and turned and stood looking thoughtfully out of
the window. "He's in a very hard place," she began, abruptly, and then
stopped as though she had thought better of what she intended to say.
Helen tried to ask her to go on, but could not bring herself to do so.
She wanted to get away.
"I tell him he ought to leave London," Marion began again; "he needs a
change and a rest."
"I should think he might," Helen agreed, "after three months of this
heat. He wrote me he intended going to Herne Bay or over to Ostend."
"Yes, he had meant to go," Marion answered. She spoke with the air of
one who possessed the most intimate knowledge of Carroll's movements
and plans, and change of plans. "But he couldn't," she added. "He
couldn't afford it. Helen," she said, turning to the other girl,
dramatically, "do you know--I believe that Philip is very poor."
Miss Cabot exclaimed, incredulously, "Poor!" She laughed. "Why, what
do you mean?"
"I mean that he has no money," Marion answered, sharply. "These rooms
represent nothing. He only keeps them on because he paid for them in
advance. He's been living on three shillings a day. That's poor for
him. He takes his meals at cabmen's shelters and at Lockhart's, and
he's been doing so for a month."
Helen recalled with a guilty thrill the receipt of certain boxes of La
France roses--cut long, in the American fashion--which had arrived
within the last month at various country-houses. She felt indignant at
herself, and miserable. Her indignation was largely due to the
recollection that she had given these flowers to her hostess to
decorate the dinner-table.
She hated to ask this girl of things which she should have known
better than any one else. But she forced herself to do it. She felt
she must know certainly and at once.
"How do you know this?" she asked. "Are you sure there is no mistake?"
"He told me himself," said Marion, "when he talked of letting the
plays go and returning to America. He said he must go back; that his
money was gone."
"He is gone to America!" Helen said, blankly.
"No, he wanted to go, but I wouldn't let him," Marion went on. "I told
him that some one might take his play any day. And this third one he
has written, the one he finished this summer in town, is the best of
all, I think. It's a love-story. It's quite beautiful." She turned and
arranged her veil at the glass, and as she did so, her eyes fell on
the photographs of herself scattered over the mantel-piece, and she
smiled slightly. But Helen did not see her--she was sitting down now,
pulling at the books on the table. She was confused and disturbed by
emotions which were quite strange to her, and when Marion bade her
good-by she hardly noticed her departure. What impressed her most of
all in what Marion had told her was, she was surprised to find, that
Philip was going away. That she herself had frequently urged him to do
so, for his own peace of mind, seemed now of no consequence. Now that
he seriously contemplated it, she recognized that his absence meant to
her a change in everything. She felt for the first time the peculiar
place he held in her life. Even if she had seen him but seldom, the
fact that he was within call had been more of a comfort and a
necessity to her than she understood.
That he was poor, concerned her chiefly because she knew that,
although this condition could only be but temporary, it would distress
him not to have his friends around him, and to entertain them as he
had been used to do. She wondered eagerly if she might offer to help
him, but a second thought assured her that, for a man, that sort of
help from a woman was impossible.
She resented the fact that Marion was deep in his confidence; that it
was Marion who had told her of his changed condition and of his plans.
It annoyed her so acutely that she could not remain in the room where
she had seen her so complacently in possession. And after leaving a
brief note for Philip, she went away. She stopped a hansom at the
door, and told the man to drive along the Embankment--she wanted to be
quite alone, and she felt she could see no one until she had thought
it all out, and had analyzed the new feelings.
So for several hours she drove slowly up and down, sunk far back in
the cushions of the cab, and staring with unseeing eyes at the white,
enamelled tariff and the black dash-board.
She assured herself that she was not jealous of Marion, because, in
order to be jealous, she first would have to care for Philip in the
very way she could not bring herself to do.
She decided that his interest in Marion hurt her, because it showed
that Philip was not capable of remaining true to the one ideal of his
life. She was sure that this explained her feelings--she was
disappointed that he had not kept up to his own standard; that he was
weak enough to turn aside from it for the first pretty pair of eyes.
But she was too honest and too just to accept that diagnosis of her
feelings as final--she knew there had been many pairs of eyes in
America and in London, and that though Philip had seen them, he had
not answered them when they spoke. No, she confessed frankly, she was
hurt with herself for neglecting her old friend so selfishly and for
so long a time; his love gave him claims on her consideration, at
least, and she had forgotten that and him, and had run after strange
gods and allowed others to come in and take her place, and to give him
the sympathy and help which she should have been the first to offer,
and which would have counted more when coming from her than from any
one else. She determined to make amends at once for her
thoughtlessness and selfishness, and her brain was pleasantly occupied
with plans and acts of kindness. It was a new entertainment, and she
found she delighted in it. She directed the cabman to go to
Solomons's, and from there sent Philip a bunch of flowers and a line
saying that on the following day she was coming to take tea with him.
She had a guilty feeling that he might consider her friendly advances
more seriously than she meant them, but it was her pleasure to be
reckless: her feelings were running riotously, and the sensation was
so new that she refused to be circumspect or to consider consequences.
Who could tell, she asked herself with a quick, frightened gasp, but
that, after all, it might be that she was learning to care? From
Solomons's she bade the man drive to the shop in Cranbourne Street
where she was accustomed to purchase the materials she used in
painting, and Fate, which uses strange agents to work out its ends, so
directed it that the cabman stopped a few doors below this shop, and
opposite one where jewelry and other personal effects were bought and
sold. At any other time, or had she been in any other mood, what
followed might not have occurred, but Fate, in the person of the
cabman, arranged it so that the hour and the opportunity came
together.
There were some old mezzotints in the window of the loan-shop, a
string of coins and medals, a row of new French posters; and far down
to the front a tray filled with gold and silver cigarette-cases and
watches and rings. It occurred to Helen, who was still bent on making
restitution for her neglect, that a cigarette-case would be more
appropriate for a man than flowers, and more lasting. And she scanned
the contents of the window with the eye of one who now saw in
everything only something which might give Philip pleasure. The two
objects of value in the tray upon which her eyes first fell were the
gold seal-ring with which Philip had sealed his letters to her, and,
lying next to it, his gold watch! There was something almost human in
the way the ring and watch spoke to her from the past--in the way they
appealed to her to rescue them from the surroundings to which they had
been abandoned. She did not know what she meant to do with them nor
how she could return them to Philip; but there was no question of
doubt in her manner as she swept with a rush into the shop. There was
no attempt, either, at bargaining in the way in which she pointed out
to the young woman behind the counter the particular ring and watch
she wanted. They had not been left as collateral, the young woman
said; they had been sold outright.
"Then any one can buy them?" Helen asked, eagerly. "They are for sale
to the public--to any one?"
The young woman made note of the customer's eagerness, but with an
unmoved countenance.
"Yes, miss, they are for sale. The ring is four pounds and the watch
twenty-five."
"Twenty-nine pounds!" Helen gasped.