"I was thinking the other day how much you lose in not having known her
as she was when I met her first."
"I have the miniature."
"I know. But that's only a suggestion. It doesn't help me bring her to
life for you. She had beauty--not so much as you have--and an
extraordinary grace and charm. She had, too, that something we trace
back to breeding."
He had always undervalued the virtues claimed by gentle birth, and she
looked at him, amazed. He understood, and laughed a little. His best
weapon against the aristocrat had been tolerance, at its mildest, or a
gentle scorn. Where a mob threw eggs, he tossed a rounded epithet.
"I know," he said, "you think I laugh at breeding. Not in her. She had
its rarest virtues. She was like an old portrait come to life. She
couldn't think of her own advantage. She couldn't lie. Ah, well! well!"
He seemed to be musing over the sadness of things begun and ended all
too soon, over a light quenched, a glory gone. Rose found herself
passionately anxious to hear more. He had brought her a jewel, a part of
her heritage; she might have seen it, but without knowing how bright it
was. She was acquiescing, too, in the old spell of his kindness, but
never, it seemed to her, so beguilingly administered: for he had come,
like a herald accredited by an impeccable authority--the talisman of her
mother's name. He was, she thought from his voice, gently amused, even
smiling a little to himself.
"You see, Rose, your mother made a bad match. Her people, the few there
were, repudiated her. I had no qualifications. I was a poor scribbler,
too big, too robust, too everything to suit them. I breathed up all the
air. I just went into their stained-glass seclusions and carried her
off. They never forgave me."
"Her father died very soon?" She had never referred to the two old
people as her grandparents. She found, in her emotional treasury, no
right to them, even as a memory. This hesitating question, indeed,
seemed a liberty, as it subtly brought them nearer.
"Yes. Your mother was prostrated by that. She had a strong sense of
family feeling."
Immediately Rose pictured to herself the wonder of having such clinging
tendrils, to aspire upward, and such filaments of root, to mingle with
kindred roots in a tended ground. Until now it had seemed to her brave
and desirable to walk alone without inherited ties, the cool wind
breathing about her, unchecked by walls of old restraint. Now, whether
he was gently guiding her thoughts toward his desired ends, or whether
some actual hunger in her was impelling them to seek lost possibilities,
she did not know; but she was sad. She wanted the spacious boughs of a
tree of family life to sit under, to play there and rest. He was
continuing,--
"Above all, your mother was a woman of great loyalties, not only to
individuals but to her inherited pride. You know that threadbare phrase,
_noblesse oblige_? I can laugh when most of them use it. I never laughed
when I saw her cutting her conduct by it."
"I never knew--" She was about to say, in her glowing surprise, that she
never knew he cared so much for her mother, or that he had been
cherishing such memories.
"That's the reason, my dear," he was saying now, "why you must model
yourself on her, and not on me. I don't know that you ever had the least
desire to model yourself on me, but I feel very strongly about your
knowing what kind of woman she was and letting her--well, letting her
decide things for you."
"I wish"--All sorts of longings were choking her and crying for
expression; but she could only finish, "I wish she had not died."
"Yes, child. Now these people here, Rose,"--his voice had changed into a
decisive affirmation,--"they are a good sort, very gentle, very well
worth your meeting them with fairness. You haven't met them fairly. Now,
have you?"
"What do you mean?" She was trembling, not so much under his words as
from her own dreary shame. The shame had been with her all day, until
she was tired with it, and the words seemed to be little separate
floutings to make the burden heavier.
"Electra called you an adventuress. She had every right to."
"Yes. She had every right to." But Rose spoke with the unreasoning
bitterness of youth that, finding itself in the wrong path, is sure the
way, once entered, has no turning.
"She says you came here with a lie on your lips. Isn't that true?"
"But you told me"--She was seeking to get back her lost self, the one
that still believed in its own integrity. "I didn't choose to lead the
life she thinks I led. You told me it was the noblest thing to do."
"Ah!" He took the words out of her mouth. "I did. But did you make your
stand magnificently and face the conventions you defied? No! you came
here and told a lie. You chose the cheapest part you could, and played
it."
His righteous anger was sweeping her away. Everything helped him, even
her own sad sense of inexorable destiny and her poor desert.
"You have taken a very unfortunate step, child," he was saying. "You
came here on a questionable errand. Now you have owned up to these
people. They know what you are."
"Oh!" She threw out her hands at the horror of it. Until now she had not
seen herself as she must be, even in Electra's eyes. His way of
presenting things made them intolerably vivid.
"But they--they will not--" She quivered before him, and seemed to
crouch and lessen.
"They won't tell? I don't feel sure of that. But do you want to trade on
their not telling? Such things are always known."
"Well, I have done wrong. I must suffer for it."
"Who suffers? You--and I. The blow to me is incalculable. I don't
understand it. Your mother's memory--that should have kept you straight.
So far, child--why, you're a liar."
She was, she told herself, the tears streaming over her face. The happy
certainties she had felt with Osmond withdrew into a vague distance. At
last she understood; she had sinned, and she was not forgiven.
"Now!" said MacLeod. His voice had a ring she knew. "Now, we must
consider what is to be done. One thing I have done already. I have taken
passage for you. I will stand by you if you go back to France. I won't
support you here. Nor shall they. Think what you did. A cheap
adventuress could do no more, except persist in it." He was all
breathing indignation.
"Do you mean"--Her voice broke. "Do you mean to take me back to him?"
"The prince? By no means. I mean to take you back to work, to be good
and clean and honest. You must retrieve this step. You shall be
independent of me, if you like. You shall sing. My dear daughter, you
may not think I have shown you much affection,--but your honor is very
dear to me." He looked nobly sincere, and yet she bent her brows upon
him, and tried to read a deeper soul than he displayed.
"Father!" The word was wrung from her. She had not willingly called him
by it for the two years past. "You have persuaded me before. How can I
believe you?"
A melting change came over him. It was evident in his voice, his
suffused look, his whole manner.
"My child," said he, "can't you believe I loved your mother?"
Immediately the tides of her filial being were with him. If she denied
him, she must hurt something to which her very blood bade her be
faithful. The house of life, the father, mother, and their child,--these
were the sacred three, and it might be her high emprise to keep their
union holy.
"Can you be ready to-morrow?" he asked, with that emphasis his followers
knew. "You will stay in town with me until we sail."
"Yes."
"Will you be ready?"
"I will be ready."
He got up and bent to kiss her forehead. But she retreated.
"No," she breathed. "I'll do it, father, but don't be kind to me."
He gave her a little pat on the shoulder, and a reassuring, "Nonsense!
I'm always kind. We'll have famous times yet, my dear."
She stood droopingly while his steps went down the stairs and out
through the veranda and ceased upon the grass. Then she opened her door
and crossed the hall to grannie's room and tapped.
"Come in," called the kind old voice. Grannie was in bed, a candle by
her, a book in her hand. She looked, in her nightcap, like a beautiful
old baby. "I had to crawl in here," she said apologetically. "I get so
stiff sitting about. But I don't want to sleep. Draw up the
rocking-chair."
Rose went up to the bedside, and dropped upon her knees, looking up so
that the light could strike her face. It was a wretched face, but she
tried to keep it calm lest it should plead for her.
"My father is going to take me away," she began. "I must pack to-night.
But I want to tell you--"
"Take you away? where?" asked grannie.
"To France."
"Why, I don't like that!"