One afternoon late in February, Eunice was met in the hall by her
mother. 'A letter came for you this morning. It's from New York.' She
stood watching her as Eunice opened it with unsteady fingers.
Eunice looked up in a few moments, very white. 'It's from Professor
Lansing's sister,' she faltered. 'Miss Lansing is coming on to Chicago
this week. She says she would like to see me. She'll stop off in Dayton
over night, Saturday probably, and will come out for lunch if it's
convenient for us to have her. She can make connections by doing that.
Oh, mother, it's beautiful of her to want to come.'
'I don't know that it will do you much good to see her. You'll probably
get upset.'
'No, I won't be upset because I'll be so glad. Stephen said she was a
wonderful woman, and--we can talk about him. He was at her house only a
few days before he--caught cold.'
'Well, I don't know,' said her mother. 'You had better come into the
kitchen where it's warm. You look like a ghost, Eunice. I'll give you a
cup of soup to drink. It's on the stove now.' She laid nervous
compelling fingers on Eunice's arm. 'I suppose,' Mrs. Day was pouring
out the soup as she spoke, 'I suppose that Miss Lansing hasn't any idea
of the way we live. Even the front stoop looks a sight. It's needed a
coat of paint for years.'
'I know,' Eunice answered, her face clouding. 'I wish things were
different for Stephen's sake. But we can't help it.'
'No,' said her mother harshly, 'we can't help it. But I wish she wasn't
coming for a meal. The last decent tablecloth was cut up into napkins a
month ago. I was ashamed of the one we set Mabel Bennet down to the
other night.'
Eunice walked to the window. She looked out upon the backyard, upon the
snow that was reflecting the sunset, a sentence of one of Stephen's
letters in her mind. 'It's the dignity of their living that makes these
Washington Square people so worth while.' And then she recalled that
other letter. 'It will be jolly to have nice linen. Good linen makes you
feel respectable.'
It pained her that they must offer this friend of Stephen's what they
had been ashamed to offer Mabel Bennet. Stephen's pride would be hurt,
Stephen who had loved that word 'dignity'; and Stephen's pride was her
own pride just as much as if she were his wife, as if he were living.
Eunice stood a long time looking out upon the snow, until the rose of
the sunset had gone from it, leaving it blue and cold. She turned from
the window.
'Mother,'--she was glad that in the darkening kitchen she could not see
her mother's face distinctly,--'mother, don't you think we had better
use that very fine cloth you gave me, and the napkins, to make the table
look nice? Hadn't we better use them?'
'Use your things out of your Glory-Box, Eunice!'
'Yes, they are just pretty things, now, mother. All the pain is out of
them. I'm going to wear the best set you made me. I think if I have on
those nice clothes under my dress I won't be so shy with Miss Lansing. I
want--O, mother, I want Stephen to--to feel proud of me.'
Mrs. Day bent to rake the fire, then straightened up. 'If you can stand
wearing that set, I've nothing to say. You have a right to your own
notions. But I don't see how I can bear to look at the cloth.'
'After it's been done up and on the table once, you'll forget there was
anything sad connected with it. I know you will,' said Eunice, with her
brave, pleading eyes fixed on her mother's set face.
'I don't know; maybe I could forget. But I don't see how I could bring
myself to use something out of your own Glory-Box. It seems almost
indelicate. They're all your things.'
Eunice crossed the room and laid her face down on her mother's shoulder.
'You gave me the things, mother, and you've had so little of what you've
always wanted. Can't it be our Glory-Box, for us both to use on special
occasions--like this?' Her arms tightened about her mother's neck.
'Can't we use them this time for Stephen's sake?'
After a moment's silence Mrs. Day pushed her gently away.
'If they are to be washed you'll have to bring them down to-morrow. I'll
want to get them on the line while this good weather lasts. Saturday is
only four days off.'
Saturday evening Eunice lighted the candles on her bureau; lighting the
candles seemed like another ceremony of this perfect day. She had got up
early so as to put her room and the rest of the house in order. While
her mother was finishing in the kitchen she had set the table. It had
been a joy to do that, to spread the cloth so that the creases would
come in just the right place, and the large initial 'D' show without
being too conspicuous, and to fold the napkins prettily and arrange the
dishes. At the last moment she had decided that it would not be too
extravagant to buy a little plant of some sort for a centrepiece. So
there was just time for her to slip into the clothes that had been
spread out on the bed, and do over her hair, before Miss Lansing
arrived.
Stephen had said, 'You will like her, Eunice.' Like her!--she was the
most wonderful woman she had ever met. She was elderly, but strangely
enough you did not wonder whether she had been pretty or beautiful when
she was young. She was wonderful just as she was now. You could not
think of her as being different. She was tall, a little taller than
Eunice herself. Her face was finely cut, the sort of face you saw in
engravings of old portraits; there were not many lines in it. Her eyes
were dark and young too, though she had quite gray hair and evidently
didn't care to be in the fashion, for her black silk fell all around in
ample lengths. Eunice had watched her hands. They were not small, but
long and slender and very white; the two rings she wore seemed made for
them.
And Eunice had not felt shy. At first she had thought she was going to;
Miss Lansing had seemed at first so like a personage; but the thought of
Stephen, and of the featherstitched best set she was wearing made her
forget that Washington Square was, as Stephen had said, rather
terrifying on the outside. It was Stephen's friend whom they were
entertaining, and Stephen's friend was not a personage really, but a
wonderful woman who had loved Stephen too.
After lunch they talked together in the parlor while her mother was
clearing things away. Miss Lansing said that she had seen a great deal
of Stephen that last year. He had seemed to enjoy coming to the house.
He had come to dinner sometimes, but more often he had dropped in on
Saturday or Sunday afternoons for tea. One afternoon he had not been
quite himself. She had questioned him a little and he had confessed with
a laugh that he was homesick for Ohio.
'That was the time he talked for two hours about you, my dear,' Miss
Lansing said, smiling. 'Fortunately no one else came in, so he was
uninterrupted. I liked to listen to his talk; he had charm.' But Eunice
saw her eyes kindle. 'He was more than charming. He was great.'
'Yes,' Eunice answered very low. 'He would have been a great man, Miss
Lansing. I always knew he would.'
At that Miss Lansing put out both hands and covered Eunice's that were
clasped tightly in her lap. 'He would have been a great man,' she
repeated, 'and you, my dear, would have made him a great wife.'
Eunice felt that never, unless she should hear Stephen's voice again,
should she listen to such wonderful words as those. Ever since Miss
Lansing had gone they had sung themselves in her heart like a sacred
refrain. She was glad that it was night now so that she could fall
asleep repeating them.
'Getting ready for bed, Eunice?'
'I'm beginning to.' Eunice opened the door to her mother, who stood
outside winding the clock.
'Do you know,' said Mrs. Day as she set the alarm, 'I've been thinking
again what a good idea it was to open that can of peas. They did make
the chops look so tasty, and they were almost as tender as the French.
I helped Miss Lansing twice.'
Eunice kissed her as she turned away.
'It was a nice dinner throughout, mother, and the table looked lovely.'
'Well, I saw Miss Lansing look at the cloth. She was too much of a lady
to say anything, of course, but I could tell she noticed it.'
'Yes,' said Eunice, 'I think she did.'
Mrs. Day was closing her door.
'Put out the light in the hall before you go to bed, Eunice.'
'Yes, mother,' said Eunice, softly closing her own door.
She stood still a moment in the centre of the candle-lighted room. Then
she went over to the Glory-Box and took out the kimono and laid it over
the footboard so that the pink folds could catch the light. When she had
undressed, she put it on. 'It will be a beautiful ending to the day,'
she said, as she stood before the mirror braiding her hair.
Her eyes rested on Stephen's picture.
'I think you would have been proud to-day, dear, and I think you would
have liked this.'
She turned to the mirror, and looked at the girl reflected there, at the
dark eyes and hair and at the kimono draping her soft white gown.
'Dawn and apple-blossoms,' she whispered and then stretched out her
arms.
'Stephen, my dear! O Stephen.'