Madam Fulton sat on the veranda, in the shade of the vines. It was
rather early in the morning, and Electra was about her methodical tasks.
Billy Stark sat reading the paper, but nevertheless not failing, from
time to time, to look up and give his old friend a smile. Madam Fulton
could not answer it. She felt estranged in a world where she had failed
to learn the values.
"Billy," she said at length, "do you think she is right?"
"Who?"
"Electra. She says the money I got out of that pesky book is tainted
money. Is it?"
Billy folded his paper and hung it over the veranda rail. His face began
to pucker into a smile, but, gazing at Madam Fulton, it became apparent
to him that she was really troubled. She even looked as if she had not
slept. Her faint pinkness was overlaid by a jaded ivory. Her eyes
interrogated him with a forlorn pleading. All his chivalry rose in arms.
"Hang the book, Florrie!" he said. "Forget it. You've had your fling
with it. You wanted fun and you got it. Stop thinking about it."
"But," she persisted, "is it really true? Have I done a shocking thing,
and is it monstrous to use the money?"
"You've been exceedingly naughty," said Billy. He eyed her with anxiety.
"You ought to have your hands slapped, of course. Electra's done it, so
far as I can see. So now let's get over crying and go out and jump
rope."
"It isn't so much the book nor the money nor Electra. It's because I
can't help wondering whether I'm a moral idiot. Do you think I am,
Billy?"
"I think you're the gamest old girl that ever was, if you want to know.
Let me have the horse put into the phaeton, Florrie, and we'll go out
and jog awhile."
But she was musing. Suddenly he saw how old she looked.
"It's always been so, Billy. I never was able to see things as other
people saw them. These rules they make such a pother about never seemed
so vital to me. It's all a part of life, seems to me. Go ahead and live,
that's what we're in for. Growing things just grow, don't they? They
don't stop and take photographs of themselves on the twenty-third day of
every month. Now, do they?"
"Florrie," said her old friend, still watching her, "I'll tell you what
you do. You just run away with me and come to London. We've got fifteen
good years before us yet, if we take 'em soberly."
She seemed to be considering. Her face lighted.
"I could almost do it," she owned. "Electra's having me here helps out a
lot, but I could almost do it-on my polluted gains."
Billy Stark looked into the distance. In his earlier years he had loved
to ride and take his fences well, even when they loomed too high. He
could not remember many great challenges in life; but what he had
recognized, he had not refused. Everything he had met like an honest
gentleman.
"Florrie," he said, "I shan't want to leave you here in Electra's
clutches. You come--and marry me."
She laughed a little. It was sadly done, but the pink came back into her
cheeks.
"As true as I am a living sinner, Billy," she said, "I'd do it, if I
were half sure how we were coming out."
"Coming out?"
"Yes. If I thought I should be pretty vigorous up to the end, and then
die in my chair, like a lady. Yes, I'd do it, and thank ye, too. But a
million things might happen to me. I might be palsied and helpless on
your hands, head nodding, deaf as a post--damn, Billy! I could swear."
"I might give out myself," he said generously. "You might be the one to
tote the burden."
The old lady laughed again.
"The amount of it is, Billy, we're afraid. Own up. Now aren't we?"
Billy thought it over.
"I'm not so sure of that," he said contentiously, "I'm not prepared to
say I'm afraid. Nor you either, Florrie. Come on, old girl. Chance it."
"I'll think it over," said Madam Fulton. The brightness had come back to
her eye. So much was gained, at any rate, Billy told himself. "There's
that handsome girl coming, Tom's widow.--Electra!"
Electra's scales were beginning, with a serious emphasis.
"I love to see them together," Madam Fulton said. "She makes Electra mad
as hops."
Rose was coming very fast. She had the walk of women well trained, for
the stage perhaps, the spring and rhythm of art superadded to nature's
willingness. She wore no hat, and the sun made her bright hair brighter
and brought out the tragic meaning in her face. She had been thinking in
the night, and this morning forbade herself to falter. All through her
fluctuating moods there had been a division of joy and dread. The
perplexing questions of her past lay heavily upon her; but when she
thought of Osmond, she was light as air. He made everything easy, his
simplicity, his implied truth. She felt a great loyalty to what seemed
good to him. Her conscious life throughout the night and morning became
a reaching out of hands to him in the passionate asseveration that she
would be true.
Electra came, in answer to Madam Fulton's call. She, too, was grave, but
with a hint of expectation on her face. She had been looking for
MacLeod. Since their meeting, she had done nothing but wait for him
again. Rose was running up the steps. She glanced from one to another of
them with a recognizing swiftness, and when Billy Stark rose and placed
a chair for her, she thanked him with a word, and took her place behind
it, her hands upon it, so that she faced them all. There was a momentary
hush. Madam Fulton put up her eyeglasses and gazed at her curiously, as
if she were a species of tableau arranged for notice. Billy Stark felt
uneasily as if this were one of the occasions for him to take himself
away. Rose spoke rapidly, in her beautifully modulated voice, but
without emotion.
"I want to tell you something. I was not his wife."
Electra was the one to show dramatic feeling. She threw her hands up
slightly.
"I knew it." Her lips formed the words. Her triumphant glance went from
one to another, saying, "I told you so."
Rose stood there with perfect self-possession, very white now and with
the chilled look that accompanies difficult resolution. She glanced at
Madam Fulton, and the old lady met her gaze eagerly with an unbelieving
query.
"For heaven's sake!" she ejaculated, "Electra, why don't you speak?"
"I lived with Tom Fulton as his wife," said Rose, in the same moving
voice. She might have been engaged in the rehearsal of a difficult part.
No one looking at her could have said whether she duly weighed what she
was announcing. "I called myself his wife because I thought I had a
right to. Other people would have called me a disgraced woman."
Billy Stark now, without waiting to find the step, walked off the edge
of the veranda and was presently to be seen, if any one had had eyes for
him, lighting a cigar in the peaceful garden. Madam Fulton had spoken on
the heels of these last words. She brightened into the most cordial
animation.
"This is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life," she
commented, with relish. "Sit down, my dear, and tell us all about it."
"There is nothing more to tell," said Rose. Her eyes traveled to
Electra's face, and stayed there, though the unfriendly triumph of it
shook her resolution. "I had to say this because I must say, too, that I
do not want money and I will not take it. I do not want to be known as
Tom Fulton's wife. I was not his wife."
"You wanted it a week ago," said Electra involuntarily. She had made up
her mind not to speak, not to be severe, not to be anything that would
destroy the picture Markham MacLeod must have of her in his own mind;
but the words escaped her.
"That was before--" Rose stopped. She had almost said it was before her
father came, but it was borne floodingly in upon her that this was not
alone the reason. It was before she had felt this great allegiance to
Osmond Grant.
"Your father confirms you," said Electra, yielding to her overpowering
curiosity. "He says you were my brother's wife."
"My father"--Rose held her head higher--"I have nothing to do with
that," she concluded. "It is the truth that I was never married."
Electra turned away and went into the house. They heard her step in the
neighboring room. She had paused there by the piano, considering, in her
desire to be mistress of herself, whether she should not go on with her
music as if nothing had happened. But the thought of Rose and her
mastery of the keys forbade that, as display, and she turned away and
went upstairs, with great dignity, though there was no one by to
consider the fashion of it. There she sat down by the window, to watch
for Markham MacLeod. Madam Fulton had been regarding Rose with an
exceedingly friendly smile. The girl looked tired, though her muscles
had relaxed with Electra's going.
"Come here, my dear, and sit down," said the old lady, indicating a
chair. Rose shook her head. Then, as she found herself trembling, she
did sit down, and Madam Fulton laid a hand upon her knee. "You are a
very interesting child," she said, with an approving emphasis. "Now what
in the world made you fall in love with Tom Fulton? Did he seem very
nice to you?"
"I can't talk about him," said Rose. It seemed to her as if now his
shadow might be lifted from her. "It is over. He is dead."
"Of course he's dead. It was the best thing he could do. Well, well, my
dear! What made you come over here and play this little comedy for us?"
The girl's eyes had filled with tears.
"I can't tell you," she answered. It was easy to defend her cause to
Osmond; not to this eager creature who wanted to read her like a curious
book. But Madam Fulton was almost whispering. She looked as if she had
something of the utmost importance to communicate.
"I ask you, my dear, because I am thoroughly bad myself, and it's beyond
me to understand why it's so important whether we are bad or good. And I
thought maybe if you could tell me--did you know you were bad before you
came and Electra found you out?"
Rose was looking kindly into the vivid face.
"No," she said, "I didn't think I was bad."
"That's it!" cried the old lady, in high triumph. "We don't any of us
know it till they find us out. My dear, it's the most awful system--now,
isn't it? You go on as innocent as you please, and suddenly they tell
you you're a criminal. It's as if you made up your mouth to whistle,
walking along the road, and somebody pounces on you and tells you
whistling's against the law and claps you into jail."
Rose was smiling at her now, forgetful, for the moment, of her own coil,
Madam Fulton seemed to her so pathetically young and innocent of
everything save untamed desires.
"What under heavens does it mean?" Madam Fulton was insisting, with the
greatest irritation.
"I must go now," said Rose. "I had to tell you."
Madam Fulton kept the detaining hand upon her knee.
"But where are you going?" she insisted. "Back to France?"
"No, I shall stay in America. I shall sing."
"Do you think anybody'll want to hear you?"
"They'll love to hear me!"
Madam Fulton eyed her smilingly.
"You're a brazen hussy," she said. "But of all things, why did you come
here with your little comedy in your hand, if you didn't mean to play it
out?"
"I did mean to play it," said Rose, laying her head back against the
high rail of the chair. She closed her eyes, for again she felt the
tears coming. "But I--got sick of it."
Madam Fulton nodded confirmingly.
"That's precisely it," she agreed. "We do get sick of it. We get sick of
conduct, good or bad. They don't, the good ones. They go on clambering,
one step after another, up that pyramid, and peering over the edge to
see us playing in the sand, and occasionally, if they can get a brick,
they heave it at us."
"Who are the good ones?" Rose asked languidly. "Electra?"
"Electra? She's neither hot nor cold. But she's of the kind that made
the system in the first place."
"Grannie is good," said Rose absently.
"Bessie Grant? Yes, she's God's anointed, if there is a God. My dear, I
love to talk with you, almost as much as with Billy Stark. You come and
stay with me next winter."
Rose smiled.
"There's Electra," she reminded her.
"Bless you, Electra and I don't live together! I only visit her here
half the year, to save my pocketbook. That's another proof of my general
unworthiness. I flout her and mad her all the time. She wouldn't do that
to me, but she'd drive me to drink trying not to. No, I've got a little
apartment in town, like a hollow tree, and I crawl into it in the
winter. You come, too, and I'll introduce you to all the people I know,
and you can make 'em listen while you sing."
Rose was looking at her in a moved warmth and wonder.
"How kind you are!" she breathed.
"No! no! Only when you said you were a liar, and worse, I suddenly felt
the most extraordinary interest in you. I feel as if you might speak my
language. I don't know that I want to do anything bad, but I don't want
to be kept so nervous trying to decide whether things are bad or not.
You come, my dear--unless I marry Billy Stark. I may do that. I must, if
it will plague Electra."
Rose gave her a quick glance, at once withdrawn, and while she allowed
the last possibility to sink into the depths of her mind, Madam Fulton
was interrogating her again.
"You don't think it is possible," she was urging, with the insistence of
one who sees incredible good fortune, "you don't suppose you haven't any
moral sense?"
She seemed to hang upon the answer. Rose, in spite of herself and the
unhappy moment, laughed.
"I hoped I had," she rejoined, "but I don't believe I ever thought much
about it."
Madam Fulton nodded quite gayly.
"That's it!" she cried. "Don't you see you haven't? When they have it,
they're always thinking about it. It's like a cinder in the eye. My
dear, you're just as bad as I am, and I thank my stars I've met you."
But all this touch and go was a strange, poor sequel to the task of that
confession. It had all turned out very small beer indeed, except so far
as Electra was concerned. Electra, Rose was convinced, in a moment of
sadly mirthful fancy, was upstairs setting her judgments in order and
decorously glad to have been proven right.
"I'll go now," she said, rising. She felt very tired with it all. "I've
told you."
"But come again, my dear," the old lady insisted. "Be sure you come
again. You are so understanding, I shall miss you sadly. Come every
day."
Rose went down the garden path and noted, with some irony, that Billy
Stark, still smoking, turned away into the grape arbor. It looked like
the shyness of decorum. She could hardly know that Billy felt unable to
bear any more revelations from womenfolk. And now she said to herself,
"I shall have to tell grannie and I shall have to tell Peter."
Opportunity was easy, for Peter was at that moment coming whistling
along the road on the way to Electra's. When she saw him, her purpose
failed. He looked so boyish, so free and happy-hearted. How could she
give him a sordid secret to keep, in place of their admiring
comradeship?
"Where is my father?" she asked him, when they met and Peter had pulled
off his hat and salaamed before her.
"Gone down to the plantation to see Osmond."
She took fright.
"To see Osmond! How does my father know anything about him? How does he
dare--"
"Osmond sent for him," said Peter, turning to walk with her. He was
tossing up his stick and catching it, in love of the day. "It's the
first human being Osmond has expressed an interest in. But I don't
wonder. Everybody wants to see the chief."
"Why should he have sent?" she repeated to herself.
"I'll tell you something," continued Peter. "The chief will tell you
when you see him. He has been summoned."
"My father?"
"Yes. He is needed."
"Where?"
"He won't tell me. But it's urgent. It means canceling his engagements
here. Of course there's but one supposition."
"Russia?"
He nodded.
"I wish I could go with him," he said impetuously.
She looked at him, and his face was glowing. She had seen that look so
many times on other faces, that wistful longing for the unnamed
beautiful. It was what Markham MacLeod was always calling out in faces.
They might be young, they might be the faces of those who had suffered
long experience, but always it was those who were hungry, either with
the hunger of youth or the delay of hope, the cruelty of time. He seemed
to be the great necromancer, the great promiser. Could such promises
come to naught?
"To leave here?" she suggested. "To leave--" she hesitated.
"I shouldn't leave Electra," said Peter simply. "When I met you, I was
going to ask her to go with me."
She stopped and held out her hand to him.
"Go," she said. "Go to her and ask her. I wish you luck, Peter--dear
Peter!"
He did not look altogether a happy lover, as he stood holding her hand.
He gazed at her, she thought, sadly, as if he dreamed of things that
could not be. What was it in youth that made everything into twilight,
even with the drum and fife calling to wars and victories? She was
impatient with it, with deceiving life itself that promised and then
lied. She took her hand away.
"Good-by, Peter," she said, sadly now in her turn, because it occurred
to her that after Peter should have seen Electra, he would never again
be her own good comrade. He would know. She left him standing there
looking after her, and then, when he found she would not loiter, he went
on his way. But Peter did not toss his stick up now. He walked slowly,
and thought of what he meant to do.
They seemed to be walking with him, one on each side, Rose and Electra.
It was chiefly the thought of Electra, as it had moulded him from year
to year while he had been absent from her; but it was the delicate
presence of the other woman, so wonderful by nature and so equipped with
all the arts of life that the pleasure of her was almost pain. They
seemed to keep a hand upon him, one through his fealty to her and the
other by compelling and many-sided beauty.