"Not yet. But next time I see him, I'll give him a hint. He might sell
to some one else."
Basil now came in. "Sell what?" he asked, to join in the conversation.
"Oh, nothing," answered Dick. "Courtney and I were discussing the
Donaldson place. Donaldson wants to sell, and we thought we might get
neighbors we didn't like."
"Richard suggested," said Courtney, in her most innocent manner, "that
you might buy it."
Dick looked alarmed. Basil, with his eyes on Courtney, promptly said:
"Maybe I will. It's second only to this place. And I shall always live
here."
"Richard thought it would be a good idea for you to settle there when
you and Helen marry," said Courtney, with a smile only Basil could
understand.
If anything, Basil looked more confused and nervous than did Richard; he
laughed hysterically. "Really--really--that's very attractive--if--" he
stammered.
Just then Helen, out of hearing on the lake-front veranda, happened to
call, "Oh, Mr. Gallatin!"
"Yes," he answered, and hastened out to join her. Richard stared
helplessly at his wife. "Now, why did you do that?" he demanded.
"What?"
"You certainly are the most thoughtless, frivolous person! I never knew
you to be serious about anything--except something that was of not the
least importance. I must remember to be always on guard when I speak
before you."
"Yes, you ought to be careful. I'm not intellectual, like Helen. But I
was forgetting; now you say she's shallow, too."
"All intellectual women are shallow," said Dick. He was ashamed of his
heat of the moment before. "And I never said you were shallow. You
ought to be glad you have no intellectual tendencies, but are a bundle
of instincts and impulses, as a woman should be. I guess you didn't
spill the milk, after all. If Gallatin loves Helen, a little break such
as you made won't scare him off."
"No indeed. When a man's in love, the sight of the net doesn't frighten
him. He helps to hold it open so that he can jump in deep."
Courtney intended to tease Basil, the next time they were alone. But it
slipped her mind until nearly a week later. Basil had got into the
habit of going out for a stroll and a smoke every morning about ten.
She never went with him, because she did not wish to interrupt her work
to which she could give only the mornings, as the time for gardens and
growing things was at hand. One morning it so chanced that her task of
the moment was just finished when Basil moved toward the door. "I'll go
with you," said she.
He hesitated, looked disconcerted.
"Oh, if you don't want me," laughed she.
"Indeed I do," he hastened to say. "Only--usually you don't."
They went out together, walked up and down the wide retaining wall of
the lake, beyond the Smoke House. Presently Helen appeared, on her way
to the apartment over the laboratory. Now that she had charge of the
housekeeping, it was part of her duties to look at the apartment and see
that Lizzie was keeping things clean and was making Gallatin
comfortable. At sight of Basil and Courtney, she stopped short, colored
painfully. She answered their greetings with embarrassment, went with
awkward haste in at the apartment entrance.
"Helen's extremely shy," said Courtney.
"She _is_ difficult to get acquainted with," replied Basil. His manner
might have been either absent or constrained.
"I'm afraid I haven't given you much chance," said Courtney, merely by
way of saying something.
"Oh, I know her pretty well," Basil hastened to protest. "There's a lot
more to her than one sees at first."
"Indeed there is," said Courtney, warmly. "I've grown very fond of
her--fonder than I ever thought I could be of another woman. I don't
care much for women. They're so small toward each other--because they're
all brought up to be cutthroat rivals in the same low
business--husband-catching. But Helen isn't a bit small. She has a real
heart."
"And real intellect, too."
Courtney's smile was absolutely free from malice. "That's just what she
has not," she replied, for she talked with perfect frankness to him, her
other self. "I suppose the man never lived who could judge a
good-looking woman. Women don't always misjudge men. But men always
fancy beauty means brains, if the woman's heavy and serious--and not
downright imbecile."
"I shouldn't call Miss March imbecile," said he. "Or even heavy."
"Now don't be cross because I hinted that women could fool you," teased
Courtney. "And I didn't mean to suggest that Helen is imbecile or
heavy."
"She knows an awful lot," said Basil. "She often corrects me--in little
slips about authors and poetry, and so on."
Courtney could hardly keep from showing her amusement that Basil should
be impressed by what was really one of Helen's weaknesses. For Helen,
like so many who have small or very imperfect knowledge, attached as
great importance to trifles of worthless learning as a college
professor; she became agitated if anyone showed lack of knowledge of
some infinitesimal in etiquette or grammar or what not, just as
fashionable people sweat with mortification or distend with vast inward
derision if some one, however intelligent, however capable, appears
among them in an out-of-style garment or uses an expression not in their
tiny vocabulary. Courtney was striving tactfully to open out a less
ignorant point of view to Helen. And here was Basil showing that Helen's
weakness was in reality a strength, highly useful in dealing with men.
Courtney said: "Helen is a fine, sensible, capable girl--about the
finest I ever knew. And she has genuine sweetness and good taste."
"She does dress well," said Basil warmly. "If she had the means, she'd
be stunning."
"Could be, but wouldn't be," replied Courtney, perfectly just and good
humored, but perhaps a little weary of hearing another young woman's
praises in her lover's voice. "She'd 'settle down' if she married.
She's resolutely old fashioned--hates to think or to exert herself.
She'll make a fine, old-fashioned wife for some man who likes to be
mildly bored at home and wants his fun elsewhere. This reminds me.
Richard has you and her married--wedding in the fall--baby next spring."
Basil flushed at this teasing.
"You don't seem enthusiastic."
"I don't care to hear a good young girl spoken of so lightly," said he,
with some stiffness.
And now Courtney colored. After a moment she said, apologetic without
knowing why: "Perhaps I shouldn't have done it. But I always feel free
to speak out to you any stray thought that drifts into my head--without
choosing my words."
Helen now reappeared, cast a peculiar glance in their direction, blushed
rosily, hastened away toward the house. "She'd better be careful how she
blushes at sight of you," said Courtney smiling, "or you'll be thinking
she's in love with you."
"Nonsense!" protested Basil, again unaccountably irritated.
"How solemn you are to-day, dear. And, why shouldn't she fall in love
with you? I can see how a woman might."
He did not respond to her glance. He stared straight ahead, answered
awkwardly, "Helen and I are simply good friends."
The phrase jarred upon her a little. "Simply good friends." As she
repeated it, she remembered suddenly, vividly, the beginning of their
own love. They too had been "simply good friends." The phrase kept
recurring to her, dinning disagreeably in her ears. She frowned on
herself; she laughed at herself. But it continued to ring and to jar.
"I certainly have a nasty jealous streak hidden away in my disposition,"
she said to herself. "I mustn't encourage it."
During the next few days every time Helen and Basil were together, she
caught herself watching them for signs--"Signs of what?" she demanded of
herself. But in spite of herself she kept on watching. That specter of
the dreadful days without him--that specter so easily called up--began
to glide about in the background of her thoughts, rousing those fears
before which she was abject coward.
Helen had the young girl's usual assortment of harmless little tricks.
Her favorite was to note when a man made a remark which she thought he
regarded as clever, to go back to it after a moment or so, and repeat it
and laugh or admire according as it had been intended to be amusing or
profound. She was constantly doing this--with Richard, with Basil, with
every man she met. The time came when the overworked trick began to get
upon Courtney's nerves, especially as Helen, being entirely without
humor and a close-to-shore wader in the waters of thought, was not
always happy in her selection of the remark. Still, her intentions
being of the best, Courtney endured; and at times she got not a little
secret amusement from seeing how Basil and even Richard were flattered
by the trick, never suspecting, even after Helen had again and again
laughed or admired effusively in quite the wrong place. As she watched
Helen and Basil now, the only "sign" she saw was this clever-stupid
subtlety of Helen's for flattering male vanity--Helen practicing it on
Basil, Basil purring each time like a cat under the stroking of an
agreeable hand. This certainly was not serious. She laughed at herself
with a reproachful "You don't deserve happiness--trying to poison it
with contemptible suspicion." And the specter faded, and she no longer
heard the sound of rain beating, of rain drizzling, of rain dripping
through days and nights of aloneness and despair.
Spring was smiling from every twig. The birds, impatient at winter's
reluctant leave-taking, had arrived before the young leaves were far
enough advanced to cover them. So, every tree was alive with them,
plainly in view, boldly about their courting and nesting, like lovers
who, despairing of finding a quiet place, march along the highway
embracing in defiance of curious eyes. One morning, half an hour after
Basil went out for his habitual stroll and cigarette, Courtney changed
her mind and decided to join him. She looked along the retaining wall.
No Basil. She walked up and down, noting, and feeling in her own blood,
the agitations of the mightiest force in the universe--those agitations
that in the springtime set all nature to quivering. Ten minutes
passed--fifteen--half an hour--nearly three quarters of an hour. Still
no Basil. She decided he must have gone up to his rooms and fallen
asleep. She resisted the temptation to go and waken him, and went
slowly toward the laboratory doors. Just as she was about to jump from
the wall, out of the apartment entrance came Helen, her face aglow, her
eyes sparkling, all the austerity gone from her regular features. "How
pretty she looks," thought Courtney. "I wonder what's delighting her
so. One'd think she was in love and was loved. There never lived a
sweeter, more unselfish girl. Nothing petty in her. She even has a nice
way of being prudent about money."
Helen did not see her, went quickly up the path and into the wood
between the Smoke House and the lawns round the house. Courtney
resisted the impulse to call because she had already been out of the
laboratory too long. As Helen disappeared among the trees, Courtney was
astounded to see appear at the apartment door--Basil! On his face a
contented pleased expression, as if he were reflecting upon something
highly agreeable--Helen's face--his face--Courtney stood for an instant
like a flaming torch planted upon that wall--a torch with a white-hot
flame of hate.
As Basil was taking a last puff at his cigarette, she darted into the
laboratory and sat at her case. When he entered, she was just where she
had been at his going out. "Still at work!" he cried.
"Still at work!" said she. She forced her lips to smile, but she did
not dare lift her fluttering eyelids. She looked calm and, as always,
sweet; but in those few minutes all the sweetness of her nature had
transformed, as the thunderstorm changes milk from food to poison. And
the remembered horror of those days of desolation goaded her toward a
very insanity of fear and jealousy. That smile on Helen's face--then on
his.
He stood behind her. If she had had a knife she would have whirled
round and plunged it into his breast and then into her own. But she had
not; also, this was twentieth-century and conventional life. She sat
rigid, intent upon the flame of the blast tube she was using.
He bent and kissed her neck. "Sweetheart!" he murmured.
The fixed smile became a distortion, as she lowered her head.
"The spring--outdoors," he went on in the same low caressing voice.
"It's hard to bear. It seems so long--so long--since--" His pause
finished the sentence better than any words.
Long indeed, thought she; a singularly patient and restrained lover;
strangely respectful.
"There are more kinds of happiness in love than I imagined," he went on.
"But do you never--never----"
"Please," she interrupted. She found her voice could be trusted; she
ventured to test her eyes. She looked up at him, taking pleasure in
veiling her hate behind a smile. She strove to make the smile sweet and
tender. She felt that she was succeeding. "How homely he is," she
thought. "And I love him--ugly and a traitor. I love him, and I'll
keep on loving him--for, he's all there is between me and misery."
Richard called them into the front compartment, and the three worked
together at the big retort the rest of the morning. It was a strange
hour and a half. She seemed to be two distinct persons--no, three. One
was hating Basil and Helen--a being that seemed to concentrate all that
is venomous and malignant. One was watching with interest and
excitement the awful processes by which calm liquids poured together
suddenly became violent, colorless liquids a marvelous radiance of
exquisite color, heat became infinite cold and cold became heat that
consumed hard metals as if they were bits of fluff. The third
personality within her was aloof and calm, and watched her other two and
wondered at them.
At dinner time she and Richard walked to the house together, Basil
stopping at the apartment to tidy himself, as usual. "Well, how do you
think they are getting on?" she asked carelessly.
"I can't tell," replied Richard, "till I've got several other
reactions."
"Helen and Basil, I mean."
"How should I know? All right, I suppose."
"Didn't you tell me, a week or so ago, you thought it was a match?"
"Of course it's a match," said he, as if there weren't a doubt about it.
She quivered at this pressure upon the thorn that was pricking and
festering. "Why are you so positive?" she asked.
"You know as much as I do. He goes out to meet her every morning,
doesn't he?"
Every morning! To smoke! In a series of internal explosions whose
flames scorched her soul she traced the progress of that smoking habit
of his. With an outer calmness that amazed her she pursued her
inquiries. "Are they--affectionate when they're alone?" she asked.
"How?" Richard's mind was back at his experiments.
She repeated her question in a voice that was under still better
control.
"I've never seen them but once--one day when he was helping her balance
herself at the edge of the wall--she was pretending to look down into
the water at something--the old trick."
Courtney laughed. "The old trick--yes." She laughed again.
"It's all settled, no doubt," declared Richard. "And good business!"
Courtney hurled a glance of fury at him. "Unless he's making a fool of
her."
"Oh--absurd. He's a gentleman."
"Gentleman. That sounds as if it meant a lot, but does it?"
Richard wished to think of his work uninterrupted by this trifle of a
love affair. "Why not ask her about it? She's no doubt dying to
tell--if you give her the excuse of opening the subject."
Courtney went up to her balcony, seated herself in a rocking-chair. She
rocked and thought, thought, thought--getting nowhere, motion without
progress, like that of her chair. She did all the talking at dinner
that day. She took the relations of men and women for her subject and
shot arrows of wit at it. As Winchie was having dinner next door with
the Donaldson children, she did not need to restrain herself. She was
mocking, cynical, audacious. Basil stopped laughing and stared at his
plate. Helen, all blushes, looked as if she would sink under the table.
Richard remained calm--he was not hearing a word. Basil's gloom and
Helen's shocked modesty delighted Courtney, edged her on to further
audacities. She looked from one to the other, smiling, jeering at
them--and she rattled on and on, because she felt that if she stopped
scoffing and laughing, she would spring at him or at her. She had the
longing to do physical violence, like one in the torment of a toothache.
Richard and Basil had not been gone many minutes before she began on the
unconscious Helen. A sigh gave her the opening. "Unhappy?" she said.
"No, indeed," answered Helen. "If anything, too happy. You know what
this life here means to me."
"But you must find it lonely."
"Lonely! Not for an instant."
"We've had almost no company this winter and spring. I must hunt up some
young men for you."
"I don't want them, as I've often told you." Courtney remembered that
she had, and muttered, "What a blind fool I've been." Helen went
sweetly on: "Beside such men as Richard and Mr. Gallatin, the ordinary
young man is anything but interesting."
"Still, you must marry. And you've got the looks to make a first-rate
bargain."
Helen looked gently disapproving of this frank mode of stating the case.
"I could never marry for anything but love."
"Of course. But, being a well-brought-up woman, you'll not have
difficulty in loving any proper candidate."
"I'm well content."
Courtney bent low over the scarlet and pink and white tulips in one of
the window boxes. Content! This woman who was stealing her lover--this
woman who was thrusting her back into the despair of those loveless,
hopeless days when Basil was gone and the icy rains poured on and on
upon her desolate life! She controlled herself, repeated vaguely:
"Content? Impossible unless you've got your eye on a likely man. No
single woman ever was since the world began."
Helen blushed consciously.
"Who is he?" teased Courtney. She had seen the blush, and her nerves
were twitching. "Who is it?" she repeated softly. "Basil?"
The blush deepened.
"I thought so!" exclaimed Courtney with laughing triumph. "You've
yielded to his fascinations, have you?"
Helen paled and her lip trembled. "Please don't," she faltered. "Don't
joke me about--about him."
Courtney turned hastily away to hide the devil that gleamed from her
eyes; for she felt that her worst suspicions were confirmed. "Tell me,"
she said, as soon as she could find voice, and could make that voice gay
with good-humored raillery, "how long has this--this idyll been going
on?"
"Really--you're quite mistaken, dear," pleaded Helen.
"How long have you and he been keeping those trysts?"
"You're quite wrong. We've met by accident," protested Helen. "We just
happen to meet." She hung her head. "I'll admit I--I arrange to go to
look at the apartment about the time I know he comes out to smoke."
Courtney was all smiles. "And he arranges to come out to smoke about
the time he knows you're going to the apartment. How--delicious!"
"Do you think he does it deliberately?" inquired Helen eagerly.
Courtney was amazed at the girl's skill in duplicity. She began to
wonder how far they had gone. But her face was bright and innocent as a
poison locust bloom when she said: "You sly child! What were you and he
doing in his apartment to-day?"
"Oh!" cried Helen, covering her face with her hands.
Courtney's features were distorted with fear and fury; the specter was
stalking and leering. But her voice sounded soft and seductive as she
urged: "Go on, dear. You needn't be afraid to tell me--everything."
Helen lifted her flaming face. "There's nothing to tell," cried she.
"When you asked me that question, something in your tone made me feel as
if I had done a--a wickedly indiscreet thing. But it was all so
harmless and accidental. I came earlier than usual, and he was getting
the cigarette case he'd forgotten."
"Highly probable!" exclaimed Courtney, apparently much amused. "And so,
you could make love to each other at your ease."
"Courtney!" Helen started up, horror-stricken. "Can you think I'd let
him lay the weight of his finger on me?" And she burst into tears.
"Oh, _what_ have I done!" she sobbed. "And it seemed perfectly
innocent."
Insane with jealousy though she was, Courtney could not but be
convinced. "Don't take it so to heart, my dear," said she. "Tell me
all about it."
"And you could suspect me! But I deserve it. If I'd been really a good
woman, I'd not have thought of him until he had spoken to me."
"Dry your eyes," said Courtney, calm and practical. "How far has this
gone?"
"Not at all," declared Helen. "We've never said a word of love to each
other."
"Is that the truth?"
"As God is my judge."
"Not a kiss--no hand-holding?"
"Nothing."
"Only looks?"
"Sometimes--I've hoped--from the way he looked--" She sighed. "But I'm
afraid he meant nothing."
Courtney studied her ingenuous face as a bank teller a note that is
under suspicion of being counterfeit. Yes--Helen was telling the truth.
"Do you think he cares?" asked Helen wistfully. "He seems to like to
talk with me. And he's very eloquent about sentimental things. He
talks and he acts like a man in love. But--at times I feel as if it
were with another woman."
Courtney buried her face in the urn of violets. And next to her feeling
of enormous relief at the clearing of Basil from the worst charge
against him was gratitude that she would not have to try to play the
tyrant--try to send Helen away.
"It may be some bad woman's gotten hold of him," continued the girl
reflectively. "He may be chained by a love he's ashamed of."
"That sounds like a weekly story paper."
"I know there's _some_ weight on his conscience," maintained Helen.
Courtney looked strangely at her and laughed. "When people look and
talk remorse, they're only boasting. He's trying to make himself
interesting, my dear. He wants to thrill you with the story of his
life--some commonplace adventure he exaggerates into an epic drama."
She laughed again, most unpleasantly. "Heaven deliver me from these 'My
God! How she loves me' men!"
"He's not like that--not at all," protested Helen. "But--oh, I wish I
knew whether he cared for me. I don't know _what_ to do! I've given
him every opportunity--" She stopped short with such an expression of
horror at her slip that Courtney laughed outright. "I don't mean I've
done anything forward or unladylike--" stammered Helen.
"He's a man of the world." She pinched Helen's cheek. "He reads that
innocent little mind of yours like an electric sign."