Yetta, a pretty girlish figure in soft gray, was leaning on the rail of
the box, lost in the absorption of her first opera. For three or four
exciting days they had been in the city, and Yetta felt as if she had
been swept into fairyland. Everything was wonderful. Miss Randall had
blossomed into a princess in marvelous raiment. The most beautiful
lady in the world, Miss Randall's sister, had taken her to shops and
bought her various garments as fine as Miss Randall's own. She had
been whirled about in warm, closed automobiles. Footmen at whom, less
than a year ago, she would have been pleased to smile, had opened doors
for her while she haughtily passed through, outwardly oblivious of
their magnificence. Miss Randall's friends, while they asked various
questions about her as if she had possessed neither eyes nor ears, were
mostly very kind and gentle to her. It was wonderful, and Yetta felt
that the greatest day of her life had been the one when Miss Randall,
coming down to breakfast, had surprised them all by declaring that she
was going to New York that afternoon for a week or two, that Yetta was
to accompany her, and that neither Mrs. Reeves, nor Grace, nor Timmy,
nor Aunt Sue, nor Matt must divulge to a soul among their neighbors
that she had gone, because she would be back before they had had time
to think twice about it. And the crowning glory of it all was this,
that to-night she was in the great Opera House in a box, leaning out
toward the stage, and listening, listening, listening! She was
certainly herself, Yetta; but it seemed as if she must also be someone
else--someone in a lovely soft gray gown to whom Miss Randall's
friends, coming into the box from time to time, bowed formally, as if
she were a lady, and asked how she was enjoying herself; and quite
secretly, though with all the intensity of her soul and her imagination
she knew it, she was still another person who should, some day, be
there on the stage, charming these hundreds of people as she herself
was now bewitched, by the joy and beauty of a voice--her voice,
Yetta's! But to-night it was enough to be a fairy princess!
Rosamund had not stopped to speculate upon Yetta's readiness for the
great experience until they were on the north-bound train, on the day
after her last encounter with Ogilvie. Her own need had been too
pressing to admit of any other speculation or demand. She knew, when
she turned back from the window after her vigil of the dawn, that she
must get away for a time, away from the very thought of him, if she was
to be able to continue to think at all. So she had bound the remaining
members of the household to secrecy, and, with Yetta, started for New
York.
The girl was really presentable, she thought. A child of no other race
could have adjusted herself so quickly to the new demands; she believed
that Yetta was now ready for a wider horizon, for she spoke and moved
so well that Rosamund was sure even Cecilia's fastidiousness could find
little fault in her. She meant to give her a glimpse of the larger
world, to have her voice "tried" by a competent critic, and then to
return to the little brown house, perhaps with a governess for the
girl, someone who could do more for her education than the little
school-teacher. At any rate, the trip would give her time to recover
herself, to think, perhaps to decipher something of the puzzle of John
Ogilvie's conduct.
So, to-night, Yetta was listening to her first opera, and Cecilia was
chattering away at her side, their friends coming in from time to time
to greet the returned one. It all seemed as unreal to Rosamund as to
Yetta, so sudden had been the transposition.
Pendleton came late into a box across the semi-circle; Cecilia shrugged
and pretended to be unaware of him. It was the first time Rosamund had
seen him since her return, and she was beginning to wonder with some
amusement whether he had transferred his attentions from Cecilia of his
own accord or at the lady's suggestion, when she saw him hastily borrow
his hostess's glass, take one look through it, and dart from the box.
She knew what was coming.
"Rosy!" he cried, with his familiar impertinence, only grinning at
Cecilia, who in turn just raised her eyebrows and became absorbed in
the aria. But he, unabashed, bent over Rosamund. "Rosy! It can't be
you! And--by all the saints, is that, is that the creature who yelped
at Benny a few short months ago?"
"Be quiet," Rosamund whispered, laughing, in spite of herself, at his
nonsense. "Don't be so absurd, Marshall!"
"Absurd!" he cried, in mock indignation. "Is it absurd to greet the
dawn? Here we've all been living in the darkness of your absence, and
now you're back at last, and you tell me not to be absurd! I like
that!"
At his voice Yetta had turned for an instant to smile a recognition.
"Good Heavens!" he whispered, "what have you done to her?"
"It's nothing to what I am going to do," Rosamund told him. "But you
are not to make love to Yetta, my dear Marshall; I'm not going to have
the child told she's beautiful. Who knows but she might take you in
earnest?"
Pendleton grinned cheerfully, and drew a little chair to her side.
"All right, my dear," he said, "I won't say 'boo' to her!"
There were other visitors off and on, but for two acts he flagrantly
deserted the woman he had come with, and sat back of Rosamund's chair,
talking over her shoulder.
"How's Eleanor?" he asked.
Rosamund thought of Eleanor in the quiet room in the brown house, while
she was here, with the song of the goose-girl in her ears--and her
heart warmed as our hearts are apt to warm toward those we have left
behind.
"Eleanor is well, and lovelier than ever," she told him.
Pendleton screwed up his face. "You aren't the only one who thinks she
is lovely, old lady! If you don't watch out she'll spike your guns
with Benny! He followed her around like Mary's lamb when she was up
before Christmas; and I've known too many men and women in my time,
Rosy dear, to believe they found nothing better to do than to sing your
praises!"
Rosamund looked at him, and smiled tantalizingly. "Oh, we all know how
experienced you are, Marshall," she teased him.
"Why don't you ask after Flood?" he pursued, ignoring her taunt; she
smiled, and meekly said, "Well, how is he?"
"Bloody-thirsty!" he said, in a sepulchral tone.
"What?" she laughed. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Fact. He's had a lust for killing, a sort of Berserker rage against
everything and everyone, ever since we got back from your place, except
while your Eleanor was here. Finally he got into a regular fury with
me, said he'd do various things to me--sort of speech you'd expect from
a navvy, you know. Queer how those fellows revert. I told him to go
west and shoot wild beasts, and, d'you know, he took me at my word!
Now what do you think of that?"
Rosamund was greatly amused. "I think everyone ought to take your word
with a grain of salt," she said.
He shook his head at her with mock reproach. "What makes you so
incredulous, Rose?" he asked, sadly. "It's a lamentable trait in a
woman!"
"I, at least, don't fly into rages with you," she retorted.
At that, he put on an air of intense depression. "It's well you
don't," he said. "Two rages on your account are enough."
"On my account? Two?"
"Oh, yes, yes, wholly on your account. You little know, Rosamund, what
I've tried to do for you!"
"Marshall, you are too absurd!"
"Now there's that lamentable trait of yours again, Rose! Really, it's
time you came down from your mountains, if that's what they do to you!"
"Oh, well, Marshall, I'll believe anything you tell me! What have you
been doing now?"
He drew his chair a little closer to hers, and lowered his voice to a
more confidential tone. "Rosamund, I'm a misunderstood man," he said,
mournfully. "Whenever I try to do anything for you, people seem to
turn against me. Now there's Cecilia--look at those shoulders, will
you? Did you ever see anything so frigid? Make me feel as if there's
a draught on my neck, just to look at them. That's the way she treats
me, ever since I told her to let Flood alone, because he's your
preserve!"
Rosamund laughed; the mystery was made clear. "Good gracious,
Marshall! You never did that?"
But he pretended the utmost seriousness. "That wasn't all," he
declared. "One day I tried to jolly Benny along, cheer him up a bit,
you know! He'd been so awfully down. I tried to tell him something
about the best fruit hanging high, that there was nothing like
perseverance, and all that sort of thing. He told me to mind only my
own business. Yes, he really did, Rose! Wasn't it perfectly shocking
of him? I told him it was, and he said he'd like to knock some sense
into me. That's when I suggested his going off and shooting things."
"You had a fortunate escape," she said dryly.
"Yes, hadn't I?" he agreed. "But something disagreeable always happens
when I try to do you a kindness, Rose! There was that chap Ogilvie; he
seemed to turn against me from the moment I put him wise."
At the unexpected mention of the name, her heart seemed to stand still;
but a flash of insight warned her that she was upon the clue to the
mystery that had so tormented her. She managed to smile at Pendleton,
and to ask, "How was that?"
"Oh, that last afternoon, you know, you've no idea how well you and
Benny looked, seated up there on that red blanket. I called Ogilvie's
attention to it--awfully hard to make conversation with a fellow like
him, you know. I said something about you and Flood being well suited
to each other, and he seemed rather surprised, and actually had the
nerve to ask me what I meant. The way he spoke, or something, put it
into my head that he--er--he--well, that I would be doing you a good
turn by telling him a thing or two. I did."
"What?" she managed to ask, to his dramatic pause.
"Oh, I believe I said that you and Flood must be finding it very good
to be together these few days; that of course nothing had been
announced yet, and something of that sort. I remember he said I must
be misinformed, which quite provoked me. A fellow doesn't like to be
contradicted, you know. What? I assured him I was in a position to
know, and threw in a word or two about your--er--millions being joined
to Benny's, or something of that sort. Most combative chap, Ogilvie!
Tried to tell me that a woman of your type would not be likely to stay
up in the mountains so far from a fiancé. 'Pon my word, I almost
thought the fellow must be really hit, himself! I said he probably
hadn't had much experience with women of your type; never can tell what
freak you girls will take to next. Oh, we had quite a word or two, I
assure you. Ended in his being huffy. Wouldn't walk up the hill
beside me, and all that, you know. What?"
Rosamund was never more grateful in her life than to the unsuspecting
man whose coming into the box ended Pendleton's chatter. During the
rest of the evening she dared not let herself think of his revelations.
On the way home, however, she made herself sure of the truth of part of
them.
"What happened between Marshall and Mr. Flood?" she asked Cecilia.
Mrs. Maxwell gave an exclamation of impatience. "Oh, my dear!
Marshall has been altogether too insufferable! Mr. Flood has spoiled
him. He got to the point where he thought he owned Mr. Flood. Oh,
yes, there was a fight, of course." She raised her eyebrows towards
Yetta, who, opposite them, was peering out at the receding
street-lights with eyes still bright with wonder. Rosamund, catching
the signal, said,
"It is perfectly safe to talk."
Then Cecilia, rather more circumstantially than Pendleton, told her of
the triangular quarrel. "And now," she said, "Marshall is absurd
enough to think I mind his dangling after that Mrs. Halley! She's
welcome to him! Did he happen to say where Mr. Flood had gone?"
"He said he had gone west to shoot things," Rosamund told her, and
Cecilia became very thoughtful. Later, while Rosamund was undressing,
she came into her room, and said,
"Rose, the Whartons have asked me to go on their yacht to the
Mediterranean. If you are sure you will not need me for a month or two
I believe I'll go."
They talked for a while of plans, with no mention of Flood. Rosamund
had small difficulty in adding the sum of two and two; it was plain
enough that her sister had accepted the hint of the defeat of any hopes
she might have had, and now was aiming somewhere else; but Cecilia, in
a blue negligée, her hair down and her cheeks still delicately flushed,
looking intently at the toe of her silver slipper, was bewitchingly
pretty, and she had not the heart to laugh. When Rosamund announced
her intention of leaving New York next morning, Cecilia, in turn,
ignored any suspicions she might have had. She even offered to keep
Yetta for a week, to take her to the master who was to hear her voice,
to find the suitable governess and to send her back in the governess's
charge before she sailed. She had taken a strange liking to the girl;
perhaps the adoration in the black eyes had something to do with it.
Then, at last, Rosamund was alone. Do we ever, she wondered, look back
upon our doubts and misunderstandings, when once they are dissolved,
with anything but scorn and disgust for our own stupidity, our
blindness? Pendleton's part in the affair was too mean to be given a
second thought. Such people, she supposed, there must be, content to
feed upon the crumbs of society, winning their way by their very
silliness, which amuses more by its vociferous nonsense than by
inherent wit. She could dismiss him as a meddler, knowing him too well
to credit him with worse intentions; he was not bad at heart, and she
knew that he would not have been merely spiteful toward herself. He
had meant her no harm. It was her own part in it, and above all
Ogilvie's, that were hard to think about. It was not for the woman to
move with courage high enough to overcome misunderstandings; it was
Ogilvie who had failed there. He at least had known what Pendleton had
said, while she had been unaware of it. After that hour of wordless
revelation, she asked herself, how could he have doubted her? In their
walks and drives she had been so sincerely herself with him, had given
him so many opportunities of knowing her character--even, she
blushingly told herself, of knowing her heart. Was it possible that
any man, after that, could so misunderstand her as to believe her
capable of such deception? How could he have believed her engaged to
Flood? Yet she realized that if he did indeed believe it, he would not
have pressed his own claims. Whatever his feeling for her, he would
not have tried to win her from the friend whom he placed so high, whom
he knew to be so worthy a man, for whom he had told her that he would
make any sacrifice. She was sorely wounded; yet there was that quality
in her blood which refused to be vanquished. It would have been
natural enough to scorn him for his doubt, to punish him for his
neglect, to condemn him for his lack of courage, when a word or two,
scarcely a question, would have made everything clear between them. To
blame him, she told herself, would be the easier way. But her courage
was higher than that. Beyond every other consideration, she knew very
well that she must give precedence to the love that was in his heart
and hers.
She recalled Mother Cary's words, "I reckon there's a door o' distrust
most of us has to pass through, before we can stand in the land where
there's only content, an' love, an' trust." Her heart warmed anew to
the wise, tender old woman whose wisdom was large and loving enough to
illumine every shadow.
She fell asleep pondering upon it all, and carried the same thoughts
with her to the train next morning. She left New York before Yetta was
awake, having said farewell to a very drowsy and very charming Cecilia.
It seemed strange that here the busy life of the city could be rushing
on, crowding and grinding and shrieking, while there, in her mountains,
as she knew so well, only quiet stretches of snow and lines of black
pines and bare treetops, only the sun and the stars, only the few
slowly moving people, an old white mare bringing home a tired man, the
call of the man or boy crossing the fields, the lowing of cattle from
the barnyards--only these made up the world! Here every second was
crowded with activity; the deeper workings of human hearts were drowned
in noise. There, nothing ever hastened; life matured normally, like
the winter wheat; grew slowly, and to a largeness impossible in the
cities.
She had forgotten that the trains, in winter, were less frequent. She
missed the last one, and had to spend the night in Baltimore, and make
a late start the next morning. She had been thinking, thinking, during
every waking moment since the hour of Pendleton's disclosure, and in
the station she bought an armful of papers and magazines; even pictures
of criminals, financiers and actresses were better company than her own
thoughts! There was no Pullman car on the train in winter, and she
welcomed the changing company of the day-coach; but passengers happened
to be few, and she was soon forced to take up her papers.
She was no exception among the women of her sort; newspapers made
uninteresting reading. She looked first with a slight distrust at the
flaring headlines on the front page, then turned to the social notes.
Those exhausted, an advertisement or two caught her attention; and then
there seemed to leap at her the words: "TOBET FREE." She read, almost
at a glance, the short paragraph which followed.
"The Federal authorities have failed to obtain sufficient evidence to
convict Joseph Tobet, of Long Mountain, of the charge of illicitly
distilling the so-called 'White Lightning.' Tobet had been under
suspicion for some months, and was arrested last October, but the
charge against him has been dismissed, and the man was set at liberty
yesterday."
The paper dropped to her feet. She wondered what effect this would
have upon Grace, and remembered the note of warning. But, just from
New York as she was, such doubts or fears seemed too utterly trivial to
be of account. Joe might threaten, Doctor Ogilvie might shake his
head, and Grace, poor soul, might tremble; but the arm of the law was,
after all, a sure protection. There was really nothing that Joe could
do; and she dismissed the thought of him for the more welcome one of
Ogilvie.
The day before, her impatience had been boundless. She had not doubted
that she should seek him out at once, as the most courageous thing to
do, tell him what Pendleton had said, and of Flood's absence in the
West; that, she told herself, would surely be enough. He would then
understand.
But to-day, as she drew nearer the end of her journey, her resolution
faltered. He had been stupid; his doubts had wronged her; his
restraint, if such it had been, was unfair to them both, and had stolen
something from their love which there would never be time enough to
replace. It was not the woman's part to offer apologies; it was the
man's part to have faith, or, at the very worst, to seek explanation.
If he could so deny himself, if her love was so small a thing to him
that he could bring himself to do without it, was it for her to urge it
upon him?
Her revulsion of feeling went still farther. Life, she told herself,
was after all pretty much the same, wherever it was lived. To give
happiness to Eleanor and Tim, to care for Yetta--that was what had
justified her spending the winter in the mountains; she could have done
as much in town. If she had not found sincerity of purpose and
singleness of aim among her earlier friends, it was because she had not
learned to look for it. She had only chosen the easier part, not the
higher; it was easier to be sincere and simple in the mountains than in
town where life was more crowded. It was she who had been at fault in
not finding in the old life what was more plainly to be seen in the
new; she was so small a creature that she could not reach high purpose
through confusing interventions, but must have it laid before her in
bareness and singleness. And what was, in truth, her feeling for this
man who could so readily doubt her, or, at the very least of his
offending, hold himself aloof from her through any consideration
whatever? Aside from his belief in her baseness, had he not been
willing to sacrifice her for his friend? Would not love, such love as
she felt herself worthy of receiving, have put aside without a thought
of misgiving anything and everything but the glory and necessity of its
own demands?
All the way her mind was busy with such problems of its own making.
The journey seemed long. She told herself that her impatience was only
to end it, to reassure herself by the sight of him; yet the impatience
was there. It was mid-afternoon when she alighted, remembering her
last return. She wondered whether White Rosy would be there, and bent,
on her way down the car, to look along the platform.
But the only familiar form was the important person who combined the
functions of station master, storekeeper and retailer of news. He
grinned when he saw her, and came towards her with unusual alacrity.
"Well, I declare," he said, "got the news a'ready, have ye? Bad news
sho'ly does travel fast!"
She stood still and looked at him. His eyes brightened still more when
he perceived that he was to be the first to inform her.
"Why, ain't ye heard?" he cried. "Yer house was burnt down to the
groun' las' night. Thought ye was in it, the doctor did. That's how
he so nigh got killed."