Ann sighed. She was still holding Virginia's hand, and she now began
timidly to caress it as it lay on her knee.
"I don't like the way it's turned out a bit," she said. "The Chester
stock can't stand being balked in anything; they couldn't bear to be
beat in love by a poor, self-made man like Luke, and great, big trouble
may be brewing. Langdon might push a row on him. Luke is writing all
sorts of things against the evil of war and fighting and the like, but
under pressure he'd resent an insult. I'd hate to see him plumb mad.
Then, again, Langdon might sink low enough to actually throw that
imprudence of yours at him. If he did, that would be a match to powder.
If Luke was a preacher and stood in the pulpit calling up mourners, he'd
step down and act on that sort of an invitation. Virginia, if ever a man
loved a woman, he loves you. His love is one of the exceptions to the
rule I was talking about just now, and it seems to me that, no matter
how you treat a man like that other scamp, you won't have a right to
refuse Luke King. The truth is, I'm afraid he never could stand it. He's
set his great, big, gentle soul on having you for his helpmeet, and I
don't believe you will let any silly notion ruin it all. He's got brain
enough to tackle the biggest human problems and settle them, but he'll
never give his heart out but once."
Virginia withdrew her hand and swept it across her face, as if to brush
away the flush upon it.
"I can never be his wife," she faltered. She paused, turned her face
away, and said, in a low tone: "I am not good enough. I deliberately
flirted with Langdon Chester. I used to love to have him say sweet
things to me, and I led him on. I've no excuse to make. If I had been
good enough to be the wife of a man like Luke King, I'd never have been
caught in that trap, even to save my mother, for if I'd acted
differently he'd never have done what he did. It's all my fault. If
Langdon Chester is upset and bent on trouble, I'm the cause of it. If it
results in unhappiness to the--to the noblest and best man I ever knew,
it will all be my fault. You needn't try to comfort me, Mrs. Boyd. I
tell you I'd rather die than have Luke King know all that has happened,
and God knows I'd never be his wife otherwise. So that is the end of
it."
Ann was silent for several minutes, then she said: "I feel like you are
wrong somehow, and yet I don't exactly know how to make you see it my
way. We must both study over it. It's a problem, and no little one.
There is one thing certain: I'll never advise you to start married life
on deception of any kind. I tried that, with the best intentions, and it
was the worst investment I ever made."