"I can't even laugh. It's too funny; it's too awfully funny."
"Let me get you a little wine." Electra had put her papers together and
now she rose.
Then Madam Fulton found her strength.
"Sit down, Electra," she said. "Why, child, you don't realize--I don't
know what you'd do if you did--you don't realize I put that in there by
the merest impulse."
"Of course," said Electra kindly. "I understand that. You never dreamed
of its having any bearing on things as they are now, they have gone on
in this way so long. But it would be shocking to me, shocking, to seem
to own this house when it is yours--ethically."
"Don't say ethically. I can't stand it. There, Electra! you're a good
girl. I know that. But you're conscience gone mad. You've read George
Eliot till you're not comfortable unless you're renouncing something.
Take things a little more lightly. You can if you give your mind to it.
Now this--this is nothing but a joke. You have my word for it."
"It isn't a joke," said Electra firmly, "when grandfather could write
that over his own signature and send it to a well-known person. How did
it come back into your hands, grandmother?"
But Madam Fulton looked at her, wondering what asylum Electra would put
her in, if she knew the truth. She essayed a miserable gayety.
"Very well, Electra," she smiled, "call it so, if you like, but we won't
say any more about it. I can't have houses made over to me. I may totter
into the grave to-morrow."
Electra's eyes went involuntarily to the garden where Billy Stark was
placidly walking up and down, smoking his cigar and stopping now and
then to inspect a flower. The old lady interpreted the look.
"I know, I know," she said wickedly; "but that's nothing to do with it.
Besides, if I marry Billy Stark, I shall go to London to live. What do I
want of houses? Let things be as they are, Electra. You keep the house
in your hands and let me visit you, just as I do now. It's all one."
Electra spoke with an unmoved firmness. Her face had the clarity of a
great and fixed resolve.
"The house is yours; not legally, I own, but--"
"Don't you say ethically again, Electra," said the old lady. "I told you
I couldn't bear it."
She sank back still further into her chair and glared. At last Madam
Fulton was afraid of her own emotions. Such amazement possessed her at
the foolish irony of things, such desire of laughter, that she dared not
yield lest her frail body could not bear the storm. Man's laughter, she
realized, shout upon shout of robust roaring, was not too heroic for
this folly. Electra was speaking:--
"I insist upon the truth from others," she said, still from a basic
resolution that seemed invulnerable. "I must demand it from myself."
"The truth, Electra!" groaned Madam Fulton. "You don't tell the truth."
"I don't tell the truth?"
"You don't know anything about it. You've thought about it so much that
now you only tell horrible facts."
This Electra could not fathom, but it was evident that she was putting
it away in her consciousness for a thoughtful moment. Madam Fulton was
rallying. She felt a little stronger, and she knew she was mentally more
vigorous than her young antagonist. It was only in an unchanging will
that Electra distanced her.
"Electra," she said, "you've got to be awfully careful of yourself."
There was a wistful kindness in her voice. It was as if she spoke to one
whom she wished to regard leniently, though she might in reality shower
her with that elfin raillery which was the outcome of her own
inquietude.
Electra opened her eyes in a candid wonder.
"Careful of myself?" she repeated. "Why, grandmother?"
"You've trained so hard, child. You've trained down to a point where
it's dangerous for you to try to live."
"Trained down, grandmother? I am very well."
"I don't mean your body. I mean, you've thought of yourself and your
virtues and your tendencies, and tested yourself with tubes and examined
yourself under a glass until you're nothing but a bundle of
self-conscious virtues. Why, it would be better for you if you were a
care-free spontaneous murderess. You'd be less dangerous."
"Suppose we don't talk about it any more," said Electra, in that
soothing accent suited to age.
"But I've got to talk about it. I never have done any particular duty by
you, but I suppose the duty's there. I've got to tell you when you sail
into dangerous latitudes. You mark my words, Electra, assure as you sit
there, you've trained so hard that there's got to be a reaction. Some
day you'll fly all to pieces and make an idiot of yourself."
Electra had risen.
"Excuse me for a moment, grandmother," she said. "I must get you a glass
of wine."
Madam Fulton, too, got up and rested one hand upon the table.
"If you leave the room before I've finished," she cried, "I'll scream it
after you." A small red spot had come upon each cheek. She looked like a
fairy god-mother, a pinpoint of fury in the eye. "I insist upon your
listening. God Almighty meant you for a handsome, well-behaved woman.
You're not clever. There's no need of your being. But you've made
yourself so intelligent that you're as dull as death. You've cultivated
your talents till you've snapped them all in two. You've tried so hard
to be a model of conduct that you're a horror, a positive horror. And
you mark my words, the reaction will come and you'll do something so
idiotic that you won't know yourself. And then when you're disgraced and
humble, then will be the time I shall begin to like you."
She was shaking all over, and Electra looked at her in great alarm. She
dared not speak lest the paroxysm should come again. A little new gleam
sprang into Madam Fulton's eyes. At last she realized that she had,
though by ignoble means, quite terrified her granddaughter. That one
humorous certainty was enough, for the time, to mitigate her plight. She
drew a quick breath, and shrugged her shoulders.
"There!" said she. "It's over. I don't know when I've had such a
satisfying time. Run along, Electra. It won't happen again to-day." Then
it occurred to her that she was foregoing an advantage, and she added
shrewdly, "Though it might at any minute. But if you bring me anything
to take, anything quieting or restorative, I'll throw it out of the
window."
Electra, relieved slightly at the lulling of the storm, looked
delicately away from her and out at the peaceful lawn. She would have
been sorry to see again the red of anger in those aged cheeks. Her gaze
hung arrested. Inexplicable emotion came into her face. She looked
incredulous of what so fired her. Madam Fulton sat down again, breathing
relief at the relaxing of her inward tension, and she too looked from
the window. A man, very tall and broad, even majestic in his bearing,
stood talking with Billy Stark. Billy, with all his air of breeding and
general adaptability, looked like comedy in comparison.
"Grandmother!" Electra spoke with a rapid emphasis, "do you know who
that is?"
"No, I'm sure I don't."
"It is Markham MacLeod."
"What makes you think that?"
"I know him. I know his picture. I know that bust of him. He is here
before Peter expected."
Life and color came into her face. She laid down her book and papers,
and went with a sweeping haste to the hall-door. Billy was coming with
the stranger up the path, and MacLeod, glancing at the girl's waiting
figure, took off his hat and looked at her responsively. Electra's heart
was beating as she had never felt it beat before. Greatness was coming
to her threshold, and it looked its majesty. MacLeod had a tremendous
dignity of bearing added to the gifts nature had endowed him with at the
start. He was a giant with the suppleness of the dancer and athlete. His
strong profile had beauty, his florid skin was tanned by the sea, his
blue eyes were smiling at Electra, and in spite of the whiteness of his
thick hair he did not seem to her old. She would have said he had the
dower of being perennially young. Meantime Billy Stark, who had known
him at once from his portraits, had named him to her, and the great man
had taken her hand. He had explained that he was in advance of his time,
that he had driven to Peter's and had been told that the young man was
probably here. So he had strolled over to find him.
"He is not here," said Electra. "Please come in." She was breathless
with the excitement of such notability under her roof. She led the way
to the sitting-room, judging hastily that grandmother was too shaken by
her mysterious attack to see a stranger, and also even tremblingly
anxious to speak with him before any one could share the charm. MacLeod
followed her, offering commonplaces in a rich voice that made them
memorable, and Billy stayed behind to throw away his cigar, and debate
for an instant whether he need go in. Then he heard a voice from the
library softly calling him.
"Billy, I want you."
He stepped in through the long window, and there was Madam Fulton, half
laughing, half crying, and shaking all over. He ran to her in
affectionate alarm.
"Billy," said she, "I've had a temper fit."
Billy put his arm about her and took her to the sofa. There he sat down
beside her, and she dropped her head on his shoulder.
"Shoulders are still very strengthening, Billy," said she, laughing more
than she cried, "even at our age."
"They're something to lean on," said Billy. "There! there, dear! there!"
Presently she laughed altogether, with no admixture of tears, and Billy
got out his handkerchief and wiped her face. But she still shook, from
time to time, and he was troubled for her.
"Now," she said presently, withdrawing from him and patting her white
hair, "Now I think we've weathered it."
"What was it?" ventured Billy.
"I can't tell you now. I might die a-laughing. But I will." She rested
her hand on his shoulder a moment before she went away. "I'll tell you
what it is, Billy," she said, "the beauty of you is you're so human.
You're neither good nor bad. You're just human."