CHAPTER XIII

INDIRECT INFLUENCE

In January a heavy snow fell, and Letty, who had begun to cough again,

was kept indoors for a week. After the morning lessons were over, Mammy

Riah amused the child, while Caroline put on her hat and coat, and went

for a brisk walk down the lane to the road. Once or twice Mary joined

her, but since Alan's return Caroline saw the girl less and less, and no

one else in the house appeared to have the spirit for exercise.

Blackburn she met only at breakfast and luncheon, and since Christmas he

seemed to have become completely engrossed in his plans. After the talk

she had heard on the terrace, his figure slowly emerged out of the mist

of perplexity in her mind. He was no longer the obscure protagonist of a

vague political unrest, for the old dishonourable bond which had linked

him, in her imagination, to the Southern Republicans of her father's

day, was broken forever. She was intelligent enough to grasp the

difference between the forces of reaction and development; and she

understood now that Blackburn had worked out a definite theory--that his

thinking had crystallized into a constructive social philosophy. "He

knows the South, he understands it," she thought. "He sees it, not made,

but becoming. That is the whole difference between him and father.

Father was as patriotic as Mr. Blackburn, but father's patriotism clung

to the past--it was grateful and commemorative--and Mr. Blackburn's

strives toward the future, for it is active and creative. Father

believed that the South was separate from the Union, like one of the

sacred old graveyards, with bricked-up walls, in the midst of

cornfields, while the younger man, also believing it to be sacred, is

convinced that it must be absorbed into the nation--that its traditions

and ideals must go to enrich the common soil of America." Already she

was beginning insensibly to associate Blackburn with the great group of

early Virginians, with the men in whom love of country was a vital and

living thing, the men who laid the foundation and planned the structure

of the American Republic.

"Do you think Mr. Blackburn feels as strongly as he talks?" she asked

Mrs. Timberlake one afternoon when they were standing together by the

nursery window. It had been snowing hard, and Caroline, in an old coat

with a fur cap on her head, was about to start for a walk.

Mrs. Timberlake was staring intently through her spectacles at one of

the snow-laden evergreens on the lawn. A covering of powdery white

wrapped the drive and the landscape, and, now and then, when the wind

rattled the ice-coated branches of the elms, there was a sharp crackling

noise as of breaking boughs.

"I reckon he does," she replied after a pause, "though I can't see to

save my life what he expects to get out of it."

"Do you think it is ambition with him? It seems to me, since I heard him

talk, that he really believes he has a message, that he can serve his

country. Until I met him," Caroline added, half humorously, "I had begun

to feel that the men of to-day loved their country only for what they

could get out of it."

"Well, I expect David is as disinterested as anybody else," observed

Mrs. Timberlake drily, "but that seems to me all the more reason why

he'd better let things jog along as they are, and not try to upset them.

But there isn't any use talking. David sets more store by those ideas of

his than he does by any living thing in the world, unless it's Letty.

They are his life, and I declare I sometimes think he feels about them

as he used to feel about Angelica before he married her--the sort of

thing you never expect to see outside of poetry." She had long ago lost

her reserve in Caroline's presence, and the effect of what she called

"bottling up" for so many years, gave a crispness and roundness to her

thoughts which was a refreshing contrast to Angelica's mental vagueness.

"I can understand it," said Caroline, "I mean I can understand a man's

wanting to have some part in moulding the thought of his time. Father

used to be like that. Only it was Virginia, not America, that he cared

for. He wanted to help steer Virginia over the rapids, he used to say. I

was brought up in the midst of politics. That's the reason it sounded so

natural to me when Mr. Blackburn was talking."

Letty, who had been playing with her dolls on the hearthrug, deserted

them abruptly, and ran over to the window.

"Oh, Miss Meade, do you think I am going to be well for Aunt Mary's

wedding?"

"Why, of course you are. This is only January, darling, and the wedding

won't be till June."

"And is that a very long time?"

"Months and months. The roses will be blooming, and you will have

forgotten all about your cold."

"Well, I hope I shan't miss that too," murmured the child, going gravely

back to her dolls.

"I never heard anything like the way that child runs on," said Mrs.

Timberlake, turning away from the window. "Are you really going out in

this cold? There doesn't seem a bit of sense in getting chilled to the

bone unless you are obliged to."

"Oh, I like it. It does me good."

"You've stopped motoring with Angelica, haven't you?"

"Yes, we haven't been for several weeks. For one thing the weather has

been so bad."

"I got an idea it was because of Roane Fitzhugh," said the old lady, in

her tart way. "I hope you won't think I am interfering, but I'm old and

you're young, and so you won't mind my giving you a little wholesome

advice. If I were you, my dear, I shouldn't pay a bit of attention to

anything that Roane says to me."

"But I don't. I never have," rejoined Caroline indignantly. "How on

earth could you have got such an idea?"

A look of mystification flickered over Mrs. Timberlake's face. "Well, I

am sure I don't mean any harm, my child," she responded soothingly. "I

didn't think you would mind a word of warning from an old woman, and I

know that Roane can have a very taking way when he wants to."

"I think he's hateful--perfectly hateful," replied Caroline. Then,

drawing on her heavy gloves, she shook her head with a laugh as she

started to the door. "If that's all you have to worry about, you may

rest easy," she tossed back gaily. "Letty, darling, when I come in I'll

tell you all about my adventures and the bears I meet in the lane."

The terrace and the garden were veiled in white, and the only sound in

the intense frozen stillness was the crackling of elm boughs as the wind

rocked them. A heavy cloud was hanging low in the west, and beneath it a

flock of crows flew slowly in blue-black curves over the white fields.

For a minute or two Caroline stood watching them, and, while she paused

there, a clear silver light streamed suddenly in rays over the hills,

and the snow-covered world looked as if it were imprisoned in crystal.

Every frosted branch, every delicate spiral on the evergreens, was

intensified and illuminated. Then the wind swept up with a rush of sound

from the river, and it was as if the shining landscape had found a

melodious voice--as if it were singing. The frozen fountain and the

white trees and the half buried shrubs under the mounds of snow, joined

in presently like harps in a heavenly choir. "I suppose it is only the

wind," she thought, "but it is just as if nature were praising God with

music and prayer."

In the lane the trees were silvered, and little darting shadows, like

violet birds, chased one another down the long white vista to the open

road. Walking was difficult on the slippery ground, and Caroline went

carefully, stopping now and then to look up into the swinging boughs

overhead, or to follow the elusive flight of the shadows. When she

reached the end of the lane, she paused, before turning, to watch a big

motor car that was ploughing through the heavy snowdrifts. A moment

later the car stopped just in front of her, a man jumped out into a

mound of snow, and she found herself reluctantly shaking hands with

Roane Fitzhugh.

"Tom Benton was taking me into town," he explained, "but as soon as I

saw you, I told him he'd have to go on alone. So this is where you walk?

Lucky trees."

"I was just turning." As she spoke she moved back into the lane. "It is

a pity you got out."

"Oh, somebody else will come along presently. I'm in no sort of hurry."

His face was flushed and mottled, and she suspected, from the excited

look in his eyes, that he had been drinking. Even with her first impulse

of recoil, she felt the pity of his wasted and ruined charm. With his

straight fine features, so like Angelica's, his conquering blue eyes,

and his thick fair hair, he was like the figure of a knight in some

early Flemish painting.

"It's jolly meeting you this way," he said, a trifle thickly. "By Jove,

you look stunning--simply stunning."

"Please don't come with me. I'd rather go back alone," she returned,

with chill politeness. "Your sister went into Richmond an hour ago. I

think she is at a reception Mrs. Colfax is giving."

"Well, I didn't come to see Anna Jeannette." He spoke this time with

exaggerated care as if he were pronouncing a foreign language. "Don't

hurry, Miss Meade. I'm not a tiger. I shan't eat you. Are you afraid?"

"Of you?" she glanced at him scornfully. "How could you hurt me?"

"How indeed? But if not of me, of yourself? I've seen women afraid of

themselves, and they hurried just as you are doing."

Unconsciously her steps slackened. "I am not afraid of myself, and if I

were, I shouldn't run away."

"You mean you'd stay and fight it out?"

"I mean I'd stay and get the better of the fear, or what caused it. I

couldn't bear to be afraid."

His careless gaze became suddenly intense, and before the red sparks

that glimmered in his eyes, she drew hastily to the other side of the

lane. A wave of physical disgust, so acute that it was like nausea,

swept over her. Even in the hospital the sight of a drunken man always

affected her like this, and now it was much worse because the brute--she

thought of him indignantly as "the brute"--was actually trying to make

love to her--to her, Caroline Meade!

"Then if you aren't afraid of me, why do you avoid me?" he demanded.

At this she stopped short in order to face him squarely. "Since you wish

to know," she replied slowly, "I avoid you because I don't like the kind

of man you are."

He lowered his eyes for an instant, and when he raised them they were

earnest and pleading. "Then make me the kind of man you like. You can if

you try. You could do anything with me if you cared--you are so good."

"I don't care." A temptation to laugh seized her, but she checked it,

and spoke gravely. The relations between men and women, which had seemed

as natural and harmonious as the interdependence of the planets, had

become jangled and discordant. Something had broken out in her universe

which threatened to upset its equilibrium. "I don't doubt that there are

a number of good women who would undertake your regeneration, but I like

my work better," she added distantly. She was sure now that he had been

drinking, and, as he came nearer and the smell of whiskey reached her,

she quickened her steps almost into a run over the frozen ground. Some

deep instinct told her that at her first movement of flight he would

touch her, and she thought quite calmly, with the clearness and

precision of mind she had acquired in the hospital, that if he were to

touch her she would certainly strike him. She was not frightened--her

nerves were too robust for fear--but she was consumed with a still, cold

rage, which made even the icy branches feel warm as they brushed her

cheek.

"Now, you are running again, Miss Meade. Why won't you be kind to me?

Can't you see that I am mad about you? Ever since the first day I saw

you, you've been in my thoughts every minute. Honestly you could make a

man out of me, if you'd only be a little bit human. I'll do anything you

wish. I'll be anything you please, if you'll only like me."

For a moment she thought he was going to break down and cry, and she

wondered, with professional concern, if a little snow on his forehead

would bring him to his senses. This was evidently the way he had talked

to Mary when Blackburn ordered him out of the house.

"I wish you would go back," she said in a tone she used to delirious

patients in the hospital. "We are almost at the house, and Mr. Blackburn

wouldn't like your coming to Briarlay."

"Well, the old chap's in town, isn't he?"

"It is time for him to come home. He may be here any moment." Though she

tried to reason the question with him, she was conscious of a vague,

uneasy suspicion that they were rapidly approaching the state where

reasoning would be as futile as flight. Then she remembered hearing

somewhere that a drunken man would fall down if he attempted to run,

and she considered for an instant making an open dash for the house.

"I'll go, if you'll let me come back to-morrow. I'm not a bad fellow,

Miss Meade." A sob choked him. "I've got a really good heart--ask Anna

Jeannette if I haven't----"

"I don't care whether you are bad or not. I don't want to know anything

about you. Only go away. Nothing that you can do will make me like you,"

she threw out unwisely under the spur of anger. "Women never think that

they can cajole or bully a person into caring--only men imagine they

have the power to do that, and it's all wrong because they can't, and

they never have. Bullying doesn't do a bit more good than whining, so

please stop that, too. I don't like you because I don't respect you, and

nothing you can say or do will have the slightest effect unless you were

to make yourself into an entirely different sort of man--a man I didn't

despise." Her words pelted him like stones, and while he stood there,

blinking foolishly beneath the shower, she realized that he had not

taken in a single sentence she had uttered. He looked stunned but

obstinate, and a curious dusky redness was beating like a pulse in his

forehead.

"You can't fight me," he muttered huskily. "Don't fight me."

"I am not fighting you. I am asking you to go away."

"I told you I'd go, if you'd let me come back to-morrow."

"Of course I shan't. How dare you ask me such a thing? Can't you see

how you disgust me?"

As she spoke she made a swift movement toward the turn in the lane, and

the next minute, while her feet slipped on the ice, she felt Roane's

arms about her, and knew that he was struggling frantically to kiss her

lips. For years no man had kissed her, and as she fought wildly to

escape, she was possessed not by terror, but by a blind and primitive

fury. Civilization dropped away from her, and she might have been the

first woman struggling against attack in the depths of some tropic

jungle. "I'd like to kill you," she thought, and freeing one arm, she

raised her hand and struck him between the eyes. "I wonder why some

woman hasn't killed him before this? I believe I am stronger than he

is."

The blow was not a soft one, and his arms fell away from her, while he

shook his head as if to prevent a rush of blood to the brain. "You hurt

me--I believe you wanted to hurt me," he muttered in a tone of pained

and incredulous surprise. Then recovering his balance with difficulty,

he added reproachfully, "I didn't know you could hit like that. I

thought you were more womanly. I thought you were more womanly," he

repeated sorrowfully, while he put his hand to his head, and then gazed

at it, as if he expected to find blood on his fingers.

"Now, perhaps you'll go," said Caroline quietly. While the words were on

her lips, she became aware that a shadow had fallen over the snow at her

side, and glancing round, she saw Blackburn standing motionless in the

lane. Her first impression was that he seemed enormous as he stood

there, with his hands hanging at his sides, and the look of sternness

and immobility in his face. His eyelids were half closed with the trick

he had when he was gazing intently, and the angry light seemed to have

changed his eyes from grey to hazel.

"I am sorry to interrupt you," he said in a voice that had a dangerous

quietness, "but I think Roane is scarcely in a fit state for a walk."

"I'd like to know why I am not?" demanded Roane, sobered and resentful.

"I'm not drunk. Who says I am drunk?"

"Well, if you aren't, you ought to be." Then the anger which Blackburn

had kept down rushed into his voice. "You had better go!"

Roane had stopped blinking, and while the redness ebbed from his

forehead, he stood staring helplessly not at Blackburn, but at Caroline.

"I'll go," he said at last, "if Miss Meade will say that she forgives

me."

But there was little of the sister of mercy in Caroline's heart. She had

been grossly affronted, and anger devoured her like a flame. Her blue

eyes shone, her face flushed and paled with emotion, and, for the

moment, under the white trees, in the midst of the frosted world, her

elusive beauty became vivid and dazzling.

"I shall not forgive you, and I hope I shall never see you again," she

retorted.

"You'd better go, Roane," repeated Blackburn quietly, and as Caroline

hurried toward the house, he overtook her with a rapid step, and said in

a troubled voice, "It is partly my fault, Miss Meade. I have intended to

warn you."

"To warn me?" Her voice was crisp with anger.

"I felt that you did not understand."

"Understand what?" She looked at him with puzzled eyes. "I may be

incredibly stupid, but I don't understand now."

For an instant he hesitated, and she watched a deeper flush rise in his

face. "In a way you are under my protection," he said at last, "and for

this reason I have meant to warn you against Roane Fitzhugh--against the

danger of these meetings."

"These meetings?" Light burst on her while she stared on him. "Is it

possible that you think this was a meeting? Do you dream that I have

been seeing Roane Fitzhugh of my own accord? Have you dared to think

such a thing? To imagine that I wanted to see him--that I came out to

meet him?" The note of scorn ended in a sob while she buried her face in

her hands, and stood trembling with shame and anger before him.

"But I understood. I was told----" He was stammering awkwardly. "Isn't

it true that you felt an interest--that you were trying to help him?"

At this her rage swept back again, and dropping her hands, she lifted

her swimming eyes to his face. "How dare you think such a thing of me?"

"I am sorry." He was still groping in darkness. "You mean you did not

know he was coming to-day?"

"Of course I didn't know. Do you think I should have come out if I had

known?"

"And you have never met him before? Never expected to meet him?"

"Oh, what are you saying? Why can't you speak plainly?" A shiver ran

through her.

"I understood that you liked him." After her passionate outburst his

voice sounded strangely cold and detached.

"And that I came out to meet him?"

"I was afraid that you met him outside because I had forbidden him to

come to Briarlay. I wanted to explain to you--to protect you----"

"But I don't need your protection." She had thrown back her head, and

her shining eyes met his bravely. Her face had grown pale, but her lips

were crimson, and her voice was soft and rich. "I don't need your

protection, and after what you have thought of me, I can't stay here any

longer. I can't----"

As her words stopped, checked by the feeling of helplessness that swept

her courage away, he said very gently, "But there isn't any reason----

Why, I haven't meant to hurt you. I'm a bit rough, perhaps, but I'd as

soon think of hurting Letty. No, don't run away until I've said a word

to you. Let's be reasonable, if there has been a misunderstanding. Come,

now, suppose we talk it out as man to man."

His tone had softened, but in her resentment she barely noticed the

change. "No, I'd rather not. There isn't anything to say," she answered

hurriedly. Then, as she was about to run into the house, she paused and

added, "Only--only how could you?"

He said something in reply, but before it reached her, she had darted up

the steps and into the hall. She felt bruised and stiff, as if she had

fallen and hurt herself, and the one thought in her mind was the dread

of meeting one of the household--of encountering Mary or Mrs.

Timberlake, before she had put on her uniform and her professional

manner. It seemed impossible to her that she should stay on at Briarlay,

and yet what excuse could she give Angelica for leaving so suddenly?

Angelica, she surmised, would not look tolerantly upon any change that

made her uncomfortable.

The dazzling light of the sunset was still in Caroline's eyes, and, for

the first moment or two after she entered the house, she could

distinguish only a misty blur from the open doors of the drawing-room.

Then the familiar objects started out of the gloom, and she discerned

the gilt frame and the softly blended dusk of the Sistine Madonna over

the turn in the staircase. As she reached the floor above, her heart,

which had been beating wildly, grew gradually quiet, and she found

herself thinking lucidly, "I must go away. I must go away at

once--to-night." Then the mist of obscurity floated up to envelop the

thought. "But what does it mean? Could there be any possible reason?"

The nursery door was open, and she was about to steal by noiselessly,

when Mrs. Timberlake's long, thin shadow stretched, with a vaguely

menacing air, over the threshold.

"I wanted to speak to you, my dear. Why, what is the matter?" As the

housekeeper came out into the hall, she raised her spectacles to her

forehead, and peered nervously into Caroline's face. "Has anybody hurt

your feelings?"

"I am going away. I can't stay." Though Caroline spoke clearly and

firmly, her lips were trembling, and the marks of tears were still

visible under her indignant eyes, which looked large and brilliant, like

the eyes of a startled child.

"You are going away? What on earth is the reason? Has anything

happened?" Then lowering her voice, she murmured cautiously, "Come into

my room a minute. Letty is playing and won't miss you." Putting her lean

arm about Caroline's shoulders, she led her gently down the hall and to

her room in the west wing. Not until she had forced her into an easy

chair by the radiator, and turned back to close the door carefully, did

she say in an urgent tone, "Now, my dear, you needn't be afraid to tell

me. I am very fond of you--I feel almost as if you were my own

child--and I want to help you if you will let me."

"There isn't anything except--except there has been a

misunderstanding----" Caroline looked up miserably from the big chair,

with her lips working pathetically. All the spirit had gone out of her.

"Mr. Blackburn seems to have got the idea that I care for Roane

Fitzhugh--that I even went out to meet him."

Mrs. Timberlake, whose philosophy was constructed of the bare bones of

experience, stared out of the window with an expression that made her

appear less a woman than a cynical point of view. Her profile grew

sharper and flatter until it gave the effect of being pasted on the

glimmering pane.

"Well, I reckon David didn't make that up in his own mind," she observed

with a caustic emphasis.

"I met him--I mean Roane Fitzhugh to-day. Of course it was by accident,

but he had been drinking and behaved outrageously, and then Mr.

Blackburn found us together," pursued Caroline slowly, "and--and he said

things that made me see what he thought. He told me that he believed I

liked that dreadful man--that I came out by appointment----"

"But don't you like him, my dear?" The housekeeper had turned from the

sunset and taken up her knitting.

"Of course I don't. Why in the world--how in the world----"

"And David told you that he thought so?" The old lady looked up

sharply.

"He said he understood that I liked him--Roane Fitzhugh. I didn't know

what he meant. He was obliged to explain." After all, the tangle

appeared to be without beginning and without end. She realized that she

was hopelessly caught in the mesh of it.

"Well, I thought so, too," said Mrs. Timberlake, leaning forward and

speaking in a thin, sharp voice that pricked like a needle.

"You thought so? But how could you?" Caroline stretched out her hand

with an imploring gesture. "Why, I've never seen him alone until

to-day--never."

"And yet David believed that you were meeting him?"

"That is what he said. It sounds incredible, doesn't it?"

For a few minutes Mrs. Timberlake knitted grimly, while the expression,

"I know I am a poor creature, but all the same I have feelings" seemed

to leap out of her face. When at last she spoke it was to make a remark

which sounded strangely irrelevant. "I've had a hard time," she said

bluntly, "and I've stood things, but I'm not one to turn against my own

blood kin just because they haven't treated me right." Then, after

another and a longer pause, she added, as if the words were wrung out of

her, "If I didn't feel that I ought to help you I'd never say one single

word, but you're so trusting, and you'd never see through things unless

somebody warned you."

"See through things? You mean I'd never understand how Mr. Blackburn got

that impression?"

Mrs. Timberlake twisted the yarn with a jerk over her little finger. "My

dear, David never got that idea out of his own head," she repeated

emphatically. "Somebody put it there as sure as you were born, and

though I've nothing in the world but my own opinion to go on, I'm

willing to bet a good deal that it was Angelica."

"But she couldn't have. She knew better. There couldn't have been any

reason."

"When you are as old as I am, you will stop looking for reasons in the

way people act. In the first place, there generally aren't any, and in

the second place, when reasons are there, they don't show up on the

surface."

"But she knew I couldn't bear him."

"If you'd liked him, she wouldn't have done it. She'd have been trying

too hard to keep you apart."

"You mean, then, that she did it just to hurt me?"

Lifting her slate-coloured eyes, the old lady brushed a wisp of hair

back from her forehead. "I don't believe Angelica ever did a thing in

her life just to hurt anybody," she answered slowly.

"Then you wouldn't think for an instant----"

"No, I shouldn't think for an instant that she did it just for that.

There was some other motive. I don't reckon Angelica would ever do you

any harm," she concluded with a charitable intonation, "unless there was

something she wanted to gain by it." From her manner she might have been

making a point in Angelica's favour.

"But even then? What could she possibly gain?"

"Well, I expect David found out that Roane had been here--that he had

been motoring with you--and Angelica was obliged to find some excuse.

You see, responsibility is one of the things Angelica can't stand, and

whoever happens to be about when it is forced on her, usually bears it.

Sometimes, you know, when she throws it off like that, it chances to

light by accident just in the proper place. The strangest thing about

Angelica, and I can never get used to it, is the way she so often turns

out to be right. Look at the way it all happened in Letty's illness.

Now, Angelica always stuck out that Letty wouldn't die, and, as it

turned out, she didn't. I declare, it looks, somehow, as if not only

people, but circumstances as well, played straight into her hands."

"You mean she told him that about me just to spare herself?" Caroline's

voice was angry and incredulous.

"That's how it was, I reckon. I don't believe she would have done it for

anything else on earth. You see, my dear, she was brought up that

way--most American girls are when they are as pretty as Angelica--and

the way you're raised seems to become a habit with you. At home the

others always sacrificed themselves for her, until she got into the

habit of thinking that she was the centre of the universe, and that the

world owed her whatever she took a fancy for. Even as a girl, Roane used

to say that her feelings were just inclinations, and I expect that's

been true of her ever since. She can want things worse than anybody I've

ever seen, but apart from wanting, I reckon she's about as cold as a

fish at heart. It may sound mean of me to say it, but I've known Cousin

Abby to sit up at night and sew her eyes out, so the girl might have a

new dress for a party, and all the time Angelica not saying a word to

prevent it. There never was a better mother than Cousin Abby, and I've

always thought it was being so good that killed her."

"But even now I can't understand," said Caroline thoughtfully. "I felt

that she really liked me."

"Oh, she likes you well enough." Mrs. Timberlake was counting some

dropped stitches. "She wasn't thinking about you a minute. I doubt if

she ever in her life thought as long as that about anybody except

herself. The curious part is," she supplemented presently, "that

considering how shallow she is, so few people ever seem to see through

her. It took David five years, and then he had to be married to her, to

find out what I could have told him in ten minutes. Most of it is the

way she looks, I expect. It is so hard for a man to understand that

every woman who parts her hair in the middle isn't a Madonna."

"I knew she was hard and cold," confessed Caroline sadly, "but I thought

she was good. I never dreamed she could be bad at heart."

Mrs. Timberlake shook her head. "She isn't bad, my dear, that's where

you make a mistake. I believe she'd let herself be burned at the stake

before she'd overstep a convention. When it comes to that," she

commented with acrid philosophy, "I reckon all the bad women on earth

could never do as much harm as some good ones--the sort of good ones

that destroy everything human and natural that comes near them. We can

look out for the bad ones--but I've come to believe that there's a

certain kind of virtue that's no better than poison. It poisons

everything it touches because all the humanity has passed out of it,

just like one of those lovely poisonous flowers that spring up now and

then in a swamp. Nothing that's made of flesh and blood could live by

it, and yet it flourishes as if it were as harmless as a lily. I know

I'm saying what I oughtn't to, but I saw you were getting hurt, and I

wanted to spare you. It isn't that Angelica is wicked, you know, I

wouldn't have you believe that for a minute. She is sincere as far as

her light goes, and if I hadn't seen David's life destroyed through and

through, I suppose I shouldn't feel anything like so bitterly. But I've

watched all his trust in things and his generous impulses--there was

never a man who started life with finer impulses than David--wither up,

one after one, just as if they were blighted."

The sunset had faded slowly, and while Caroline sat there in the big

chair, gazing out on the wintry garden, it seemed to her that the

advancing twilight had become so thick that it stifled her. Then

immediately she realized that it was not the twilight, but the obscurity

in her own mind, that oppressed and enveloped her with these heavy yet

intangible shadows. Her last illusion had perished, and she could not

breathe because the smoke of its destruction filled the air. At the

moment it seemed to her that life could never be exactly what it was

before--that the glow and magic of some mysterious enchantment had

vanished. Even the garden, with its frozen vegetation and its forlorn

skeletons of summer shrubs emerging from mounds of snow, appeared to

have undergone a sinister transformation from the ideal back to the

actuality. This was the way she had felt years ago, on that autumn day

at The Cedars.

"And he never defended himself--never once," she said after a silence.

"He never will, that's not his way," rejoined Mrs. Timberlake. "She

knows he never will, and I sometimes think that makes matters worse."

As Caroline brooded over this, her face cleared until the light and

animation returned. "I know him better," she murmured presently, "but

everything else has become suddenly crooked."

"I've thought that at times before I stopped trying to straighten out

things." Mrs. Timberlake had put down the muffler, and while she spoke,

she smoothed it slowly and carefully over her knee. In the wan light her

face borrowed a remote and visionary look, like a face gazing down

through the thin, cold air of the heights. She had passed beyond mutable

things, this look seemed to say, and had attained at last the bleak

security of mind that is never disappointed because it expects nothing.

"I reckon that's why I got into the habit of keeping my mouth shut, just

because I was worrying myself sick all the time thinking how different

things ought to be." A chill and wintry cheerfulness flickered across

the arid surface of her manner. "But I don't now. I know there isn't any

use, and I get a good deal of pleasure just out of seeing what will

happen. Now, you take David and Angelica. I'm wondering all the time how

it will turn out. David is a big man, but even if Angelica isn't smart,

she's quick enough about getting anything she wants, and I believe she

is beginning to want something she hasn't got."

"When I came I didn't like Mr. Blackburn." Though the barriers of the

old lady's reserve had fallen, Caroline was struggling still against an

instinct of loyalty.

"Well, I didn't like him once." Mrs. Timberlake had risen, and was

looking down with her pitiful, tormented smile. "It took me a long time

to find out the truth, and I want to spare you all I suffered while I

was finding it out. I sometimes think that nobody's experience is worth

a row of pins to any one else, but all the same I am trying to help you

by telling you what I know. David has his faults. I'm not saying that

he is a saint; but he has been the best friend I ever had, and I'm going

to stand up for him, Angelica or no Angelica. There are some men, my

poor father used to say, that never really show what they are because

they get caught by life and twisted out of shape, and I reckon David is

one of these. Father said, though I don't like heathen terms, that it

was the fate of a man like David always to appear in the wrong and yet

always to be in the right. That's a queer way of putting it, but father

was a great scholar--he translated the "Iliad" before he was thirty--and

I reckon he knew what he was talking about. Life was against those men,

he told me once, but God was for them, and they never failed to win in

the end." With the last words she faltered and broke off abruptly. "I

have been talking a great deal more than I ought to, but when once I

begin I never know when to stop. Angelica must have come home long ago."

Bending over she laid her cheek against Caroline's hair. "You won't

think of going away now, will you?"

Surprised and touched by the awkward caress, Caroline looked up

gratefully. "No, I shan't think of going away now."

BOOK SECOND

REALITIES

CHAPTER I

IN BLACKBURN'S LIBRARY

The fire was burning low, and after Blackburn had thrown a fresh log on

the andirons, he sat down in one of the big leather chairs by the

hearth, and watched the flames as they leaped singing up the brick

chimney. It was midnight--the clock in the hall was just striking--and a

few minutes before, Angelica had gone languidly upstairs, after their

belated return from a dinner in town. The drive home had been long and

dreary, and he could still see the winter landscape, sketched in vivid

outlines of black and white, under a pale moon that was riding high in

the heavens. Road, fields, and houses, showed as clearly as a pen and

ink drawing, and against this stark background his thoughts stood out

with an abrupt and startling precision, as if they had detached

themselves, one by one, from the naked forms on the horizon. There was

no chance of sleep, for the sense of isolation, which had attacked him

like physical pain while he drove home with Angelica, seemed to make his

chaotic memories the only living things in a chill and colourless

universe.

Though it was midnight, he had work to do before he went up to bed--for

he had not yet given his final answer to Sloane. Already Blackburn had

made his decision. Already he had worked out in his own mind the phrases

of the letter; yet, before turning to his writing-table, he lingered a

moment in order to weigh more carefully the cost of his resolve. It was

not an age when political altruism was either mentally convincing or

morally expedient, and the quality of his patriotism would be estimated

in the public mind, he was aware, by the numbers of his majority.

Sloane, he was sure, had been sounding him as a possible candidate in

some future political venture--yet, while he sat there, it was not of

Sloane that he was thinking. Slowly the depression and bitterness

gathered to a single image, and looked out upon him from the pure

reticence of Angelica's features. It was as if his adverse destiny--that

destiny of splendid purpose and frustrated effort--had assumed for an

instant the human form through which it had wrought its work of

destruction.

"Well, after all, why should I decline? It is what I have always wanted

to do, and I am right."

The room was very still, and in this stillness the light quivered in

pools on the brown rugs and the brown walls and the old yellowed

engravings. From the high bookshelves, which lined the walls, the

friendly covers of books shone down on him, with the genial

responsiveness that creeps into the aspect of familiar inanimate things.

Over the mantelpiece hung the one oil painting in the room, a portrait

of his mother as a girl, by an unknown painter, who drew badly, but had

a genuine feeling for colour. The face was small and heart-shaped, like

some delicately tinted flower that has only half opened. The hair lay in

bands of twilight on either side of the grave forehead, and framed the

large, wistful eyes, which had a flower-like softness that made him

think of black pansies. Though the mouth was pink and faintly smiling,

it seemed to him to express an infinite pathos. It was impossible for

him to believe that his mother--the woman with the pallid cameo-like

profile and the saintly brow under the thin dark hair--had ever faced

life with that touching, expectant smile.

There had been a strong soul in that fragile body, but her courage,

which was invincible, had never seemed to him the courage of happiness.

She had accepted life with the fortitude of the Christian, not the joy

of the Pagan; and her piety was associated in his mind with long summer

Sundays, with old hymns played softly, with bare spotless rooms, and

with many roses in scattered alabaster vases. Her intellect, like her

character, he recalled as a curious blending of sweetness and strength.

If the speculative side of her mind had ever existed, life had long ago

hushed it, for her capacity for acquiescence--for unquestioning

submission to the will of God--was like the glory of martyrdom. Yet,

within her narrow field, the field in which religion reigned as a

beneficent shade, she had thought deeply, and it seemed to Blackburn

that she had never thought harshly. Her sympathy was as wide as her

charity, and both covered the universe. So exquisitely balanced, so

finely tempered, was her judgment of life, that after all these years,

for she had died while he was still a boy, he remembered her as one

whose understanding of the human heart approached the divine. "She

always wanted me to do something like this," he thought, "to look

forward--to stand for the future. I remember...."

* * * * *

From the light and warmth of the room there streamed the sunshine and

fragrance of an old summer. After a hot day the sun was growing faint

over the garden, and the long, slim shadows on the grass were so pale

that they quivered between light and darkness, like the gauzy wings of

gigantic dragon flies. Against a flushed sky a few bats were wheeling.

Up from the sun-steeped lawn, which was never mown, drifted the mingled

scents of sheepmint and box; and this unforgotten smell pervaded the

garden and the lane and the porch at the back of the house, where he had

stopped, before bringing home the cows, to exchange a word with his

mother. The lattice door was open, and she stood there, in her black

dress, with the cool, dim hall behind her.

"Mother," he said, "I have been reading about William Wallace. When I

grow up, I want to fight kings."

She smiled, and her smile was like one of the slow, sad hymns they sang

on Sunday afternoons. "When you grow up there may be no kings left to

fight, dear."

"Will they be dead, mother?"

"They may be. One never knows, my son."

All the romance faded suddenly out of the world. "Well, if there are any

left," he answered resolutely, "I am going to fight them."

He could still see her face, thin and sad, and like the closed white

flowers he found sometimes growing in hollows where the sun never shone.

Only her eyes, large and velvet black, seemed glowing with hope.

"There are only three things worth fighting for, my son," she said,

"Your love, your faith, and your country. Nothing else matters."

"Father fought for his country, didn't he?"

"Your father fought for all three." She waited a moment, and then went

on more slowly in a voice that sounded as if she were reciting a prayer,

"This is what you must never forget, my boy, that you are your father's

son, and that he gave his all for the cause he believed in, and counted

it fair service."

The scene vanished like one of the dissolving views of a magic lantern,

and there rose before him a later summer, and another imperishable

memory of his boyhood....

* * * * *

It was an afternoon in September--one of those mellow afternoons when

the light is spun like a golden web between earth and sky, and the grey

dust of summer flowers rises as an incense to autumn. The harvest was

gathered; the apples were reddening in the orchard; and along the rail

fence by the roadside, sumach and Virginia creeper were burning slowly,

like a flame that smoulders in the windless blue of the weather.

Somewhere, very far away, a single partridge was calling, and nearer

home, from the golden-rod and life-ever-lasting, rose the slow humming

of bees.

He lay in the sun-warmed grass, with his bare feet buried in sheepmint.

On the long benches, from which the green paint had rubbed off, some old

men were sitting, and among them, a small coloured maid, in a dress of

pink calico, was serving blackberry wine and plates of the pale yellow

cake his mother made every Saturday. One of the men was his uncle, a

crippled soldier, with long grey hair and shining eyes that held the

rapt and consecrated vision of those who have looked through death to

immortality. His crutch lay on the grass at his feet, and while he

sipped his wine, he said gravely:

"A new generation is springing up, David's generation, and this must

give, not the South alone, but the whole nation, a leader."

At the words the boy looked up quickly, his eyes gleaming, "What must

the leader be like, uncle?"

The old soldier hesitated an instant. "He must, first of all, my boy, be

predestined. No man whom God has not appointed can lead other men

right."

"And how will he know if God has appointed him?"

"He will know by this--that he cannot swerve in his purpose. The man

whom God has appointed sees his road straight before him, and he does

not glance back or aside." His voice rose louder, over the murmur of the

bees, as if it were chanting, "If the woods are filled with dangers, he

does not know because he sees only his road. If the bridges have fallen,

he does not know because he sees only his road. If the rivers are

impassable, he does not know because he sees only his road. From the

journey's beginning to its end, he sees only his road...."

* * * * *

A log, charred through the middle, broke suddenly, scattering a shower

of sparks. The multitudinous impressions of his boyhood had gathered

into these two memories of summer, and of that earlier generation which

had sacrificed all for a belief. It was like a mosaic in his mind, a

mosaic in which heroic figures waited, amid a jewelled landscape, for

the leader whom God had appointed.

The room darkened while he sat there, and from outside he heard the

crackling of frost and the ceaseless rustle of wind in the junipers. On

the hearthrug, across the glimmering circle of the fire, he watched

those old years flock back again, in all the fantastic motley of

half-forgotten recollections. He saw the long frozen winters of his

childhood, when he had waked at dawn to do the day's work of the farm

before he started out to trudge five miles to the little country school,

where the stove always smoked and the windows were never opened. Before

this his mother had taught him his lessons, and his happiest memories

were those of the hours when he sat by her side, with an antiquated

geography on his knees, and watched her long slender fingers point the

way to countries of absurd boundaries and unpronounceable names. She had

taught him all he knew--knowledge weak in science, but rich in the

invisible graces of mind and heart--and afterwards, in the uninspired

method of the little school, he had first learned to distrust the kind

of education with which the modern man begins the battle of life.

Homespun in place of velvet, stark facts instead of the texture of

romance! The mornings when, swinging his hoe, he had led his chattering

band of little negroes into the cornfields, had been closer to the

throbbing pulse of experience.

When he was fourteen the break had come, and his life had divided. His

mother had died suddenly; the old place had been sold for a song; and

the boy had come up to Richmond to make his way in a world which was too

indifferent to be actually hostile. At first he had gone to work in a

tobacco factory, reading after hours as long as the impoverished widow

with whom he lived would let the gas burn in his room. Always he had

meant to "get on"; always he had felt the controlling hand of his

destiny. Even in those years of unformed motives and misdirected

energies, he had been searching--searching. The present had never been

more than a brief approach to the future. He had looked always for

something truer, sounder, deeper, than the actuality that enmeshed him.

Suddenly, while he sat there confronting the phantom he had once called

himself, he was visited by a rush of thought which seemed to sweep on

wings through his brain. Yet the moment afterwards, when he tried to

seize and hold the vision that darted so gloriously out of the shining

distance, he found that it had already dissolved into a sensation, an

apprehension, too finely spun of light and shadow to be imprisoned in

words. It was as if some incalculable discovery, some luminous

revelation, had brushed him for an instant as it sped onward into the

world. Once or twice in the past such a gleaming moment had just touched

him, leaving him with this vague sense of loss, of something missing, of

an infinitely precious opportunity which had escaped him. Yet invariably

it had been followed by some imperative call to action.

"I wonder what it means now," he thought, "I suppose the truth is that I

have missed things again." The inspiration no longer seemed to exist

outside of his own mind; but under the clustering memories, he felt

presently a harder and firmer consciousness of his own purpose, just as

in his boyhood, he would sometimes, in ploughing, strike a rock half

buried beneath the frail bloom of the meadows. It was the sense of

reality so strong, so solid, that it brought him up, almost with a jerk

of pain, from the iridescent cobwebs of his fancy; and this reality, he

understood after a minute, was an acute perception of the great war that

men were fighting on the other side of the world. His knowledge of

these terrible and splendid issues had broken through the perishable

surface of thought. The illusion vanished like the bloom of the meadows;

what remained was the bare rocky structure of truth. He had not meant to

think of this now. He had left the evening free for his work--for the

decision which must be made sooner or later; yet, through some

mysterious trend of thought, every personal choice of his life seemed to

become a part of the impersonal choice of humanity. The infinite issues

had absorbed the finite intentions. Every decision was a ripple in the

world battle between the powers of good and evil, of light and darkness.

And he understood suddenly that the great abstractions for which men lay

down their lives are one and indivisible--that there was not a corner of

the earth where this fight for liberty could not be fought.

"I can fight here as well as over there," he thought, "if I am only big

enough."

Now that his mind had got down to solid facts, to steady thinking, it

worked quickly and clearly. It would be a hard fight, with all the odds

against him, and yet the very difficulties appealed to him. Out of the

dense fog of political theories, out of the noise and confusion of the

Babel of many tongues, he could discern the dim framework of a purer

social order. The foundation of the Republic was sound, he believed,

only the eyes of the builders had failed, the hands of the builders had

trembled. That the ideal democracy was not a dream, but an unattained

reality, he had never doubted. The failure lay not in the plan, but in

the achievement. There was obliquity of vision, there was even

blindness, for the human mind was still afflicted by the ancient error

which had brought the autocracies of the past to destruction. Men and

nations had still to learn that in order to preserve liberty it must

first be surrendered--that there is no spiritual growth except through

sacrifice. But it must be surrendered only to a broader, an ever-growing

conception of what liberty means.

As in the sun-warmed grass on those Sunday afternoons, he still dreamed

of America leading the nations. The great Virginians of the past had

been Virginians first; the great Virginians of the future would be

Americans. The urgent need in America, as he saw it, was for unity; and

the first step toward this unity, the obliteration of sectional

boundaries. In this, he felt, Virginia must lead the states. As she had

once yielded her land to the nation, she must now yield her spirit. She

must point the way by act, not by theory; she must vote right as well as

think right.

"And to vote right," he said presently, thinking aloud, "we must first

live right. People speak of a man's vote as if it were an act apart from

the other acts of his life--as if they could detach it from his

universal conceptions. There was a grain of truth in Uncle Carter's

saying that he could tell by the way a man voted whether or not he

believed in the immortality of the soul." It was Uncle Carter, he

remembered, who had described the chronic malady of American life as a

disease of manner that had passed from the skin into the body politic.

"Take my word for it," the old soldier had said, "there is no such thing

as sound morals without sound manners, for manners are only the outer

coating--the skin, if you like--of morals. Without unselfish

consideration for others there can be no morality, and if you have

unselfish consideration in your heart, you will have good manners

though you haven't a coat on your back. Order and sanity and precision,

and all the other qualities we need most in this Republic, are only the

outward forms of unselfish consideration for others, and patriotism, in

spite of its plumed attire, is only that on a larger scale. After all,

your country is merely a tremendous abstraction of your neighbour."

Well, perhaps the old chap had been talking sense half the time when

people smiled at his words!

Rising from his chair, he pushed back the last waning ember, and stood

gazing down on the ashes.

"I will do my best," he said slowly. "I will fight to the last ditch for

the things I believe in--for cleaner politics, for constructive

patriotism, and for a fairer democracy. These are the big issues, and

the little ends will flow from them."

As he finished, the clock in the hall struck twice and stopped, and at

the same instant the door of the library opened slowly, and, to his

amazement, he saw Mary standing beyond the threshold. She carried a

candle in her hand, and by the wavering light, he saw that she was very

pale and that her eyes were red as if she had been weeping.

"The lights were out. I thought you had gone upstairs," she said, with a

catch in her voice.

"Do you want anything?"

"No, I couldn't sleep, so I came for a book."

With a hurried movement, she came over to the table and caught up a book

without glancing at the title.

"Are you ill?" he asked. "Is anything the matter?"

"No, nothing. I am well, only I couldn't sleep."

"There is no trouble about Alan, is there? Have you quarrelled?"

"Oh, no, we haven't quarrelled." She was plainly impatient at his

questioning. "Alan is all right. Really, it is nothing."

Though his affection for her was deep and strong, they had never learned

to be demonstrative with each other, perhaps because they had been

separated so much in childhood and early youth. It was almost with a

hesitating gesture that he put out his hand now and touched her hair.

"My dear, you know you can trust me."

"Yes, I know." The words broke from her with a sob, and turning hastily

away, she ran out of the room and back up the stairs.

CHAPTER II

READJUSTMENTS

In Letty's nursery the next afternoon, Blackburn came at last to know

Caroline without the barrier of her professional manner. The child was

playing happily with her paper dolls in one corner, and while she

marched them back and forth along a miniature road of blocks, she sang

under her breath a little song she had made.

Oh, my,

I'd like to fly

Very high

In the sky,

Just you and I.

"I am very cold," said Blackburn, as he entered. "Mammy Riah has

promised me a cup of tea if I am good."

"You are always good, father," replied Letty politely, but she did not

rise from the floor. "I'm sorry I can't stop, but Mrs. Brown is just

taking her little girl to the hospital. If I were to get up the poor

little thing might die on the way."

"That must not happen. Perhaps Miss Meade will entertain me?"

"I will do my best." Caroline turned from her writing and took up a

half-finished sock. "If you had come an hour earlier you might have seen

some of Mrs. Blackburn's lovely clothes. She was showing us the dress

she is going to wear to dinner to-night."

"You like pretty clothes." It was a careless effort to make

conversation, but as he dropped into the armchair on the hearthrug, his

face softened. There was a faint scent of violets in the air from a

half-faded little bunch in Caroline's lap.

She met the question frankly. "On other people."

"Do you like nothing for yourself? You are so impersonal that I

sometimes wonder if you possess a soul of your own."

"Oh, I like a great many things." Mammy Riah had brought tea, and

Caroline put down her knitting and drew up to the wicker table. "I like

books for instance. At The Cedars we used to read every evening. Father

read aloud to us as long as he lived."

"Yet I never see you reading?"

"Not here." As she shook her head, the firelight touched her close, dark

hair, which shone like satin against the starched band of her cap.

Almost as white as her cap seemed her wide forehead, with the intense

black eyebrows above the radiant blue of her eyes. "You see I want to

finish these socks."

"I thought you were doing a muffler?"

"Oh, that's gone to France long ago! This is a fresh lot Mrs. Blackburn

has promised, and Mrs. Timberlake and I are working night and day to get

them finished in time. We can't do the large kind of work that Mrs.

Blackburn does," she added, "so we have to make up with our little bit.

Mrs. Timberlake says we are hewers of wood and drawers of water."

"You are always busy," he said, smiling. "I believe you would be busy

if you were put into solitary confinement."

To his surprise a look of pain quivered about her mouth, and he noticed,

for the first time, that it was the mouth of a woman who had suffered.

"It is the best way of not thinking----" She ended with a laugh, and he

felt that, in spite of her kindness and her capability, she was as

elusive as thistle-down.

"I can knit a little, father," broke in Letty, looking up from her

dolls. "Miss Meade is teaching me to knit a muffler--only it gets

narrower all the time. I'm afraid the soldiers won't want it."

"Then give it to me. I want it."

"If I give it to you, you might go to fight, and get killed." As the

child turned again to her dolls, he said slowly to Caroline, "I can't

imagine how she picks up ideas like that. Someone must have talked about

the war before her."

"She heard Mrs. Blackburn talking about it once in the car. She must

have caught words without our noticing it."

His face darkened. "One has to be careful."

"Yes, I try to remember." He was quick to observe that she was taking

the blame from Angelica, and again he received an impression that she

was mentally evading him. Her soul was closed like a flower; yet now and

then, through her reserve and gravity, he felt a charm that was as sweet

and fresh as a perfume. She was looking tired and pale, he thought, and

he wondered how her still features could have kindled into the beauty he

had seen in them on that snowy afternoon. It had never occurred to him

before, accustomed as he was to the formal loveliness of Angelica, that

the same woman could be both plain and beautiful, both colourless and

vivid.

This was perplexing him, when she clasped her hands over her knitting,

and said with the manner of quiet confidence that he had grown to expect

in her, "I have always meant to tell you, Mr. Blackburn, that I listened

to everything you said that day on the terrace--that afternoon when you

were talking to Colonel Ashburton and Mr. Sloane. I didn't mean to

listen, but I found myself doing it."

"Well, I hope you are not any the worse for it, and I am sure you are

not any the better."

"There is something else I want to tell you." Her pale cheeks flushed

faintly, and a liquid fire shone in her eyes. "I think you are right. I

agree with every word that you said."

"Traitor! What would your grandmother have thought of you? As a matter

of fact I have forgotten almost all that I said, but I can safely assume

that it was heretical. I think none of us intended to start that

discussion. We launched into it before we knew where we were going."

Her mind was on his first sentence, and she appeared to miss his closing

words. "I can't answer for my grandmother, but father would have agreed

with you. He used to say that the State was an institution for the

making of citizens."

"And he talked to you about such things?" It had never occurred to him

that a woman could become companionable on intellectual grounds, yet

while she sat there facing him, with the light on her brow and lips, and

her look of distinction and remoteness as of one who has in some way

been set apart from personal joy or sorrow, he realized that she was as

utterly detached as Sloane had been when he discoursed on the functions

of government.

"Oh, we talked and talked on Sunday afternoons, a few neighbours, old

soldiers mostly, and father and I. I wonder why political arguments

still make me think of bees humming?"

He laughed with a zest she had never heard in his voice before. "And the

smell of sheepmint and box!"

"I remember--and blackberry wine in blue glasses?"

"No, they were red, and there was cake cut in thin slices with icing on

the top of it."

"Doesn't it bring it all back again?"

"It brings back the happiest time of my life to me. You never got up at

dawn to turn the cows out to pasture, and brought them home in the

evening, riding the calf?"

"No, but I've cooked breakfast by candlelight."

"You've never led a band of little darkeys across a cornfield at

sunrise?"

"But I've canned a whole patch of tomatoes."

"I know you've never tasted the delight of stolen fishing in the creek

under the willows?"

Her reserve had dropped from her like a mask. She looked up with a laugh

that was pure music. "It is hard to believe that you ever went without

things."

"Oh, things!" He made a gesture of indifference. "If you mean

money--well, it may surprise you to know that it has no value for me

to-day except as a means to an end."

"To how many ends?" she asked mockingly.

"The honest truth is that it wouldn't cost me a pang to give up

Briarlay, every stock and stone, and go back to the southside to dig

for a living. I made it all by accident, and I may lose it all just as

easily. It looks now, since the war began, as if I were losing some of

it very rapidly. But have you ever noticed that people are very apt to

keep the things they don't care about--that they can't shake them off?

Now, what I've always wanted was the chance to do some work that

counted--an opportunity for service that would help the men who come

after me. As a boy I used to dream of this. In those days I preferred

William Wallace to Monte Cristo."

"The opportunity may come now."

"If we go into this war--and, by God, we must go into it!--that might

be. I'd give ten--no, twenty years of my life for the chance. Life! We

speak of giving life, but what is life except the means of giving

something infinitely better and finer? As if anything mattered but the

opportunity to speak the thought in one's brain, to sing it, to build it

in stone. There is a little piece of America deep down in me, and when I

die I want to leave it somewhere above ground, embodied in the national

consciousness. When this blessed Republic leaves the mud behind, and

goes marching, clean and whole, down the ages, I want this little piece

of myself to go marching with it."

So she had discovered the real Blackburn, the dreamer under the clay!

This was the man Mrs. Timberlake had described to her--the man whose

fate it was to appear always in the wrong and to be always in the right.

And, womanlike, she wondered if this passion of the mind had drawn its

strength and colour from the earlier wasted passion of his heart? Would

he love America so much if he loved Angelica more? As she drew nearer

to the man's nature, she was able to surmise how terrible must have been

the ruin that Angelica had wrought in his soul. That he had once loved

her with all the force and swiftness of his character, Caroline

understood as perfectly as she had come to understand that he now loved

her no longer.

"If I can cast a shadow of the America in my mind into the sum total of

American thought, I shall feel that life has been worth while," he was

saying. "The only way to create a democracy,--and I see the immense

future outlines of this country as the actual, not the imaginary

democracy,--after all, the only way to create a thing is to think it. An

act of faith isn't merely a mental process; it is a creative force that

the mind releases into the world. Germany made war, not by invading

Belgium, but by thinking war for forty years; and, in the same way, by

thinking in terms of social justice, we may end by making a true

democracy." He paused abruptly, with the glow of enthusiasm in his face,

and then added slowly, in a voice that sounded curiously restrained and

distant, "I must have been boring you abominably. It has been so long

since I let myself go like this that I'd forgotten where I was and to

whom I was talking."

It was true, she realized, without resentment; he had forgotten that she

was present. Since she had little vanity, she was not hurt. It was only

one of those delicious morsels that life continually offered to one's

sense of humour.

"I am not quite so dull, perhaps, as you think me," she responded

pleasantly. After all, though intelligence was sometimes out of place,

she had discovered that pleasantness was always a serviceable quality.

At this he rose from his chair, laughing. "You must not, by the way, get

a wrong impression of me. I have been talking as if money did not count,

and yet there was a time when I'd willingly have given twenty years of

my life for it. Money meant to me power--the kind of power one could

grasp by striving and sacrifice. Why, I've walked the streets of

Richmond with five cents in my pocket, and the dream of uncounted

millions in my brain. When my luck turned, and it turned quickly as luck

runs, I thought for a year or two that I'd got the thing that I

wanted----"

"And you found out that you hadn't?"

"Oh, yes, I found out that I hadn't," he rejoined drily, as he moved

toward the door, "and I've been making discoveries like that ever since.

To-day I might tell you that work, not wealth, brings happiness, but

I've been wrong often enough before, and who knows that I am not wrong

about this." It was the tone of bitterness she had learned to watch for

whenever she talked with him--the tone that she recognized as the subtle

flavour of Angelica's influence. "Now I'll find Mary," he added, "and

ask her if she saw the doctor this morning. The reading I heard as I

came up, I suppose was for her benefit?"

"I don't know," replied Caroline, wondering if she ought to keep him

from interrupting a play of Alan's. "I think Mr. Wythe had promised to

read something to Mrs. Blackburn."

"Oh, well, Mary must be about, and I'll find her. She couldn't sleep

last night and I thought her looking fagged."

"Yes, she hasn't been well. Mrs. Timberlake has tried to persuade her to

take a tonic."

For a minute he hesitated. "There hasn't been any trouble, I hope.

Anything I could straighten out?" He looked curiously young and

embarrassed as he put the question.

"Nothing that I know of. I think she feels a little nervous and

let-down, that's all."

The hesitation had gone now from his manner, and he appeared relieved

and cheerful. "I had forgotten that you aren't the keeper of the soul as

well as the body. It's amazing the way you manage Letty. She is happier

than I have ever seen her." Then, as the child got up from her play and

came over to him, he asked tenderly, "Aren't you happy, darling?"

"Yes, I'm happy, father," answered Letty, slowly and gravely, "but I

wish mother was happy too. She was crying this morning, and so was Aunt

Mary."

A wine-dark flush stained Blackburn's face, while the arms that had been

about to lift Letty from the floor, dropped suddenly to his sides. The

pleasure his praise had brought to Caroline faded as she watched him,

and she felt vaguely disturbed and apprehensive. Was there something,

after all, that she did not understand? Was there a deeper closet and a

grimmer skeleton at Briarlay than the one she had discovered?

"If your mother isn't happy, Letty, you must try to make her so," he

answered presently in a low voice.

"I do try, father, I try dreadfully hard, and so does Miss Meade. But I

think she wants something she hasn't got," she added in a whisper, "I

think she wants something so very badly that it hurts her."

"And does your Aunt Mary want something too?" Though he spoke jestingly,

the red flush was still in his face.

Letty put up her arms and drew his ear down to her lips. "Oh, no, Aunt

Mary cries just because mother does."

"Well, we'll see what we can do about it," he responded, as he turned

away and went out of the door.

Listening attentively, Caroline heard his steps pass down the hall,

descend the stairs, and stop before the door of the front drawing-room.

"I wonder if Mr. Wythe is still reading," she thought; and then she went

back to her unfinished letter, while Letty returned cheerfully to her

play in the corner.

* * * * *

This is an ugly blot, mother dear, but Mr. Blackburn came in so suddenly

that he startled me, and I almost upset my inkstand. He stayed quite a

long time, and talked more than he had ever done to me before--mostly

about politics. I have changed my opinion of him since I came here. When

I first knew him I thought him wooden and hard, but the more I see of

him the better I like him, and I am sure that everything we heard about

him was wrong. He has an unfortunate manner at times, and he is very

nervous and irritable, and little things upset him unless he keeps a

tight grip on himself; but I believe that he is really kind-hearted and

sincere in what he says. One thing I am positive about--there was not a

word of truth in the things Mrs. Colfax wrote me before I came here. He

simply adores Letty, and whatever trouble there may be between him and

his wife, I do not believe that it is entirely his fault. Mrs.

Timberlake says he was desperately in love with her when he married her,

and I can tell, just by watching them together, how terribly she must

have made him suffer. Of course, I should not say this to any one else,

but I tell you everything--I have to tell you--and I know you will not

read a single word of this to the girls.

I used to hope that Letty's illness would bring them together--wouldn't

that have been just the way things happen in books?--but everybody

blamed him because she went to the tableaux, and, as far as I can see,

she lets people think what is false, without lifting a finger to correct

them. It is such a pity that she isn't as fine as we once thought

her--for she looks so much like an angel that it is hard not to believe

that she is good, no matter what she does. If you haven't lived in the

house with her, it is impossible to see through her, and even now I am

convinced that if she chose to take the trouble, she could twist

everyone of us, even Mr. Blackburn, round her little finger. You

remember I wrote you that Mr. Wythe did not like her? Well, she has

chosen to be sweet to him of late, and now he is simply crazy about her.

He reads her all his plays, and she is just as nice and sympathetic as

she can be about his work. I sometimes wish Miss Blackburn would not be

quite so frank and sharp in her criticism. I have heard her snap him up

once or twice about something he wrote, and I am sure she hurt his

feelings. One afternoon, when I took Letty down to the drawing-room to

show a new dress to her mother, he was reading, and he went straight on,

while we were there, and finished his play. I liked it very much, and so

did Mrs. Blackburn, but Miss Blackburn really showed some temper because

he would not change a line when she asked him to. It was such a pity she

was unreasonable because it made her look plain and unattractive, and

Mrs. Blackburn was too lovely for words. She had on a dress of grey

crepe exactly the colour of her eyes, and her hair looked softer and

more golden than ever. It is the kind of hair one never has very much

of--as fine and soft as Maud's--but it is the most beautiful colour and

texture I ever saw.

Well, I thought that Miss Blackburn was right when she said the line was

all out of character with the speaker; but Mrs. Blackburn did not agree

with us, and when Mr. Wythe appealed to her, she said it was just

perfect as it was, and that he must not dream of changing it. Then he

said he was going to let it stand, and Miss Blackburn was so angry that

she almost burst into tears. I suppose it hurt her to see how much more

he valued the other's opinion; but it would be better if she could learn

to hide her feelings. And all the time Mrs. Blackburn lay back in her

chair, in her dove grey dress, and just smiled like a saint. You would

have thought she pitied her sister-in-law, she looked at her so sweetly

when she said, "Mary, dear, we mustn't let you persuade him to ruin it."

You know I really began to ask myself if I had not been unjust to her in

thinking that she could be a little bit mean. Then I remembered that

poor old woman in Pine Street--I wrote you about her last autumn--and I

knew she was being sweet because there was something she wanted to gain

by it. I don't know what it is she wants, nor why she is wasting so much

time on Mr. Wythe; but it is exactly as if she had bloomed out in the

last month like a white rose. She takes more trouble about her clothes,

and there is the loveliest glow--there isn't any word but bloom that

describes it--about her skin and hair and eyes. She looks years younger

than she did when I came here.

I wanted to write you about Mr. Blackburn, but his wife is so much more

fascinating. Even if you do not like her, you are obliged to think about

her, and even if you do not admire her, you are obliged to look at her

when she is in the room. She says very little--and as she never says

anything clever, I suppose this is fortunate--but somehow she just

manages to draw everything to her. I suppose it is personality, but you

always say that personality depends on mind and heart, and I am sure her

attraction has nothing to do with either of these. It is strange, isn't

it, but the whole time Mr. Blackburn was in here talking to me, I kept

wondering if she had ever cared for him? Mrs. Timberlake says that she

never did even when she married him, and that now she is irritated

because he is having a good many financial difficulties, and they

interfere with her plans. But Mr. Blackburn seems to worry very little

about money. I believe his friends think that some day he may run for

the Senate--Forlorn Hope Blackburn, Colonel Ashburton calls him, though

he says that he has a larger following among the Independent voters than

anybody suspects. I shouldn't imagine there was the faintest chance of

his election--for he has anything but an ingratiating manner with

people; and so much in a political candidate depends upon a manner. You

remember all the dreadful speeches that were flung about in the last

Presidential elections. Well, Mr. Sloane, who was down here from New

York the other day, said he really thought the result might have been

different if the campaign speakers had had better manners. It seems

funny that such a little thing should decide a great question, doesn't

it? I suppose, when the time comes for us to go into this war or stay

out of it, the decision will rest upon something so small that it will

never get into history, not even between the lines. You remember that

remark of Turgot's--that dear father loved to quote: "The greatest evils

in life have their rise from things too small to be attended to."

After hearing Mr. Blackburn talk, I am convinced that he is perfectly

honest in everything he says. As far as I can gather he believes, just

as we do, that men should go into politics in order to give, not to

gain, and he feels that they will give freely of themselves only to

something they love, or to some ideal that is like a religion to them.

He says the great need is to love America--that we have not loved, we

have merely exploited, and he thinks that as long as the sections remain

distinct from the nation, and each man thinks first of his own place,

the nation will be exploited for the sake of the sections. He says, too,

and this sounds like father, that the South is just as much the nation

as the North or the West, and that it is the duty of the South to do her

share in the building of the future. I know this is put badly, but you

will understand what I mean.

Now, I really must stop. Oh, I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Blackburn

wants to know if you could find time to do some knitting for her? She

says she will furnish all the wool you need, and she hopes you will make

socks instead of mufflers. I told her you knitted the most beautiful

socks.

I am always thinking of you and wondering about The Cedars.

Your loving,

CAROLINE.

It looks very much as if we were going to fight, doesn't it? Has the

President been waiting for the country, or the country for the

President?

CHAPTER III

MAN'S WOMAN

From the second drawing-room, where Angelica had tea every afternoon,

there drifted the fragrance of burning cedar, and as Blackburn walked

quickly toward the glow of the fire, he saw his wife in her favourite

chair with deep wings, and Alan Wythe stretched languidly on the white

fur rug at her feet. Mary was not there. She had evidently just finished

tea, for her riding-crop lay on a chair by the door; but when Blackburn

called her name, Alan stopped his reading and replied in his pleasant

voice, "I think she has gone out to the stable. William came to tell her

that one of the horses had a cough."

"Then I'll find her. She seems out of sorts, and I'm trying to make her

see the doctor."

"I am sorry for that." Laying aside the book, Alan sprang to his feet,

and stood gazing anxiously into the other's face. "She always appears so

strong that one comes to take her fitness as a matter of course."

"Yes, I never saw her look badly until the last day or two. Have you

noticed it, Angelica?"

Without replying to his question, Angelica rested her head against the

pink velvet cushion, and turned a gentle, uncomprehending stare on his

face. It was her most disconcerting expression, for in the soft

blankness and immobility of her look, he read a rebuke which she was

either too amiable or too well-bred to utter. He wondered what he had

done that was wrong, and, in the very instant of wondering, he felt

himself grow confused and angry and aggressive. This was always the

effect of her stare and her silence--for nature had provided her with an

invincible weapon in her mere lack of volubility--and when she used it

as deliberately as she did now, she could, without speaking a syllable,

goad him to the very limit of his endurance. It was as if her delicate

hands played on his nerves and evoked an emotional discord.

"Have you noticed that Mary is not well?" he asked sharply, and while he

spoke, he became aware that Alan's face had lost its friendliness.

"No, I had not noticed it." Her voice dropped as softly as liquid honey

from her lips. "I thought her looking very well and cheerful at tea."

She spoke without movement or gesture; but the patient and resigned

droop of her figure, the sad grey eyes, and the hurt quiver of her

eyelashes, implied the reproach she had been too gentle to put into

words. The contrast with her meekness made him appear rough and harsh;

yet the knowledge of this, instead of softening him, only increased his

sense of humiliation and bitterness.

"Perhaps, then, there is no need of my speaking to her?" he said.

"It might please her." She was sympathetic now about Mary. "I am sure

that she would like to know how anxious you are."

For the first time since he had entered the room she was smiling, and

this slow, rare smile threw a golden radiance over her features. He

thought, as Caroline had done several afternoons ago, that her beauty,

which had grown a little dim and pale during the autumn, had come back

with an April colour and freshness. Not only her hair and eyes, but the

ivory tint of her skin seemed to shine with a new lustre, as if from

some hidden fire that was burning within. For a minute the old appeal to

his senses returned, and he felt again the beat and quiver of his pulses

which her presence used to arouse. Then his mind won the victory, and

the emotion faded to ashes before its warmth had passed to his heart.

"I'll go and find her," he said again, with the awkwardness he always

showed when he was with her.

Her smile vanished, and she leaned forward with an entreating gesture,

which flowed through all the slender, exquisite lines of her body.

Instinctively he knew that she had not finished with him yet; that she

was not ready to let him go until he had served some inscrutable purpose

which she had had in view from the beginning. His mind was not trained

to recognize subtleties of intention or thought; and while he waited for

her to reveal herself, he began wondering what she could possibly want

with him now? Clearly it was all part of some intricate scheme; yet it

appeared incredible to his blunter perceptions that she should exhaust

the resources of her intelligence merely for the empty satisfaction of

impressing Mary's lover.

"David," she began in a pleading tone, "aren't you going to have tea

with me?"

"I had it upstairs." He was baffled and at bay before an attack which he

could not understand.

"In the nursery?" Her voice trembled slightly.

"Yes, in the nursery." As if she had ever expected or desired him to

interrupt her amusements!

"Was Cousin Matty up there?" Though he was still unable to define her

motive, his ears detected the faint note of suspense that ruffled the

thin, clear quality of her voice.

"No, only Letty and Miss Meade."

A tremor crossed her face, as if he had struck her; then she said, not

reproachfully, but with a pathetic air of self-effacement and humility,

"Miss Meade is very intelligent. I am so glad you have found someone you

like to talk to. I know I am dull about politics." And her eyes added

wistfully, "It isn't my fault that I am not so clever."

"Yes, she is intelligent," he answered drily; and then, still mystified

and dully resentful because he could not understand, he turned and went

out as abruptly as he had entered.

While his footsteps passed through the long front drawing-room and

across the hall, Angelica remained motionless, with her head bent a

little sadly, as if she were listening to the echo of some

half-forgotten sorrow. Then, sighing gently, she looked from Alan into

the fire, and reluctantly back at Alan again. She seemed impulsively,

against her will and her conscience, to turn to him for understanding

and sympathy; and at the sight of her unspoken appeal, he threw himself

on the rug at her feet, and exclaimed in a strangled voice,

"You are unhappy!" With these three words, into which he seemed to put

infinity, he had broken down the walls of reticence that divide human

souls from each other. She was unhappy! Before this one torrential

discovery all the restraints of habit and tradition, of conscience and

honour, vanished like the imperfect structures of man in the rage of the

hurricane.

She shivered, and looked at him with a long frightened gaze. There was

no rebellion, there was only a passive sadness in her face. She was too

weak, her eyes said, to contend with unhappiness. Some stronger hands

than hers must snatch her from her doom if she were to be rescued.

"How can I be happy?" The words were wrung slowly from her lips. "You

see how it is?"

"Yes, I see." He honestly imagined that he did. "I see it all, and it

makes me desperate. It is unbelievable that any one should make you

suffer."

She shook her head and answered in a whisper, "It is partly my fault.

Whatever happens, I always try to remember that, and be just. The first

mistake may have been mine."

"Yours?" he exclaimed passionately, and then dropping his face into his

hands, "If only I were not powerless to protect you!"

For a moment, after his smothered cry, she said nothing. Then, with an

exquisite gesture of renunciation, she put the world and its temptations

away from her. "We are both powerless," she responded firmly, "and now

you must read me the rest of your play, or I shall be obliged to send

you home."

Blackburn, meanwhile, had stopped outside on his way to the stable, and

stood looking across the garden for some faint prospect of a clearer

to-morrow. Overhead the winter sky was dull and leaden; but in the west

a thin silver line edged the horizon, and his gaze hung on this thread

of light, as if it were prophetic not only of sunshine, but of

happiness. Already he was blaming himself for the scene with Angelica;

already he was resolving to make a stronger effort at reconciliation and

understanding, to win her back in spite of herself, to be patient,

sympathetic, and generous, rather than just, in his judgment of her. In

his more philosophical moments he beheld her less as the vehicle of

personal disenchantment, than as the unfortunate victim of a false

system, of a ruinous upbringing. She had been taught to grasp until

grasping had become not so much a habit of gesture, as a reflex movement

of soul--an involuntary reaction to the nerve stimulus of her

surroundings.

Though he had learned that the sight of any object she did not own

immediately awoke in her the instinct of possession, he still told

himself, in hours of tolerance, that this weakness of nature was the

result of early poverty and lack of mental discipline, and that

disappointment with material things would develop her character as

inevitably as it would destroy her physical charm. So far, he was

obliged to admit, she had risen superior to any disillusionment from

possession, with the ironic exception of that brief moment when she had

possessed his adoration; yet, in spite of innumerable failures, it was

characteristic of the man that he should cling stubbornly to his belief

in some secret inherent virtue in her nature, as he had clung, when love

failed him, to the frail sentiments of habit and association. The

richness of her beauty had blinded him for so long to the poverty of her

heart, that, even to-day, bruised and humiliated as he was, he found

himself suddenly hoping that she might some day change miraculously into

the woman he had believed her to be. The old half-forgotten yearning for

her swept over him while he thought of her, the yearning to kneel at her

feet, to kiss her hands, to lift his eyes and see her bending like an

angel above him. And in his thoughts she came back to him, not as she

was in reality, but as he longed for her to be. With one of those

delusive impersonations of memory, which torment the heart after the

mind has rejected them, she came back to him with her hands outstretched

to bless, not to grasp, and a look of goodness and love in her face.

He remembered his first meeting with her--the close, over-heated rooms,

the empty faces, the loud, triumphant music; and then suddenly she had

bloomed there, like a white flower, in the midst of all that was

ineffectual and meaningless. One minute he had been lonely, tired,

depressed, and the next he was rested and happy and full of wild,

startled dreams of the future. She had been girlish and shy and just a

little aloof--all the feminine graces adorned her--and he had

surrendered in the traditional masculine way. Afterwards he discovered

that she had intended from the first instant to marry him; but on that

evening he had seen only her faint, reluctant flight from his rising

emotion. She had played the game so well; she had used the ancient decoy

so cleverly, that it had taken years to tear the veil of illusion from

the bare structure of method. For he knew now that she had been

methodical, that she had been utterly unemotional; and that her angelic

virtue had been mere thinness of temperament. Never for a moment had she

been real, never had she been natural; and he admitted, in the passing

mood of confession, that if she had once been natural--as natural as the

woman upstairs--the chances were that she would never have won him.

Manlike, he would have turned from the blade-straight nature to pursue

the beckoning angel of the faint reluctance. If she had stooped but for

an instant, if she had given him so much as the touch of her fingers,

she might have lost him. Life, not instinct, had taught him the beauty

of sincerity in woman, the grace of generosity. In his youth, it was

woman as mystery, woman as destroyer, to whom he had surrendered.

Descending the steps from the terrace, he walked slowly along the brick

way to the stable, where he found Mary giving medicine to her favourite

horse.

"Briar Rose has a bad cough, David."

He asked a few questions, and then, when the dose was administered, they

turned together, and strolled back through the garden. Mary looked cross

and anxious, and he could tell by the way she spoke in short jerks that

her nerves were not steady. Her tone of chaffing had lost its ease, and

the effort she made to appear flippant seemed to hurt her.

"Are you all right again, Mary?"

"Quite all right. Why shouldn't I be?"

"There's no reason that I know of," he replied seriously. "Have you

decided when you will be married?"

She winced as if he had touched a nerve. "No, we haven't decided." For a

minute she walked on quickly, then looking up with a defiant smile, she

said, "I am not sure that we are ever going to be married."

So the trouble was out at last! He breathed heavily, overcome by some

indefinable dread. After all, why should Mary's words have disturbed him

so deeply? The chances were, he told himself, that it was nothing more

than the usual lovers' quarrel.

"My dear, Alan is a good fellow. Don't let anything make trouble between

you."

"Oh, I know he is a good fellow--only--only I am not sure we--we should

be happy together. I don't care about books, and he doesn't care any

longer for horses----"

"As if these things mattered! You've got the fundamental thing, haven't

you?"

"The fundamental thing?" She was deliberately evading him--she, the

straightforward Mary!

"I mean, of course, that you care for each other."

At this she broke down, and threw out her hands with a gesture of

despair. "I don't know. I used to think so, but I don't know any

longer," she answered, and fled from him into the house.

As he looked after her he felt the obscure doubt struggling again in his

mind, and with it there returned the minor problem of his financial

difficulties, and the conversation he must sooner or later have with

Angelica. Nothing in his acquaintance with Angelica had surprised him

more than the discovery that, except in the embellishment of her own

attractions, she could be not only prudent, but stingy. Even her

extravagance--if a habit of spending that exacted an adequate return for

every dollar could be called extravagance--was cautious and cold like

her temperament, as if Nature had decreed that she should possess no

single attribute of soul in abundance. No impulse had ever swept her

away, not even the impulse to grasp. She had always calculated, always

schemed with her mind, not her senses, always moved slowly and

deliberately toward her purpose. She would never speak the truth, he

knew, just as she would never over-step a convention, because

truthfulness and unconventionality would have interfered equally with

the success of her designs. Life had become for her only a pedestal

which supported an image; and this image, as unlike the actual Angelica

as a Christmas angel is unlike a human being, was reflected, in all its

tinselled glory, in the minds of her neighbours. Before the world she

would be always blameless, wronged, and forgiving. He knew these things

with his mind, yet there were moments even now when his heart still

desired her.

An hour later, when he entered her sitting-room, he found her, in a blue

robe, on the sofa in front of the fire. Of late he had noticed that she

seldom lay down in the afternoon, and as she was not a woman of moods,

he was surprised that she had broken so easily through a habit which had

become as fixed as a religious observance.

"It doesn't look as if you had had much rest to-day," he said, as he

entered.

She looked up with an expression that struck him as incongruously

triumphant. Though at another time he would have accepted this as an

auspicious omen, he wondered now, after the episode of the afternoon, if

she were merely gathering her forces for a fresh attack. He shrank from

approaching her on the subject of economy, because experience had taught

him that her first idea of saving would be to cut down the wages of the

servants; and he had a disturbing recollection that she had met his last

suggestion that they should reduce expenses with a reminder that it was

unnecessary to employ a trained nurse to look after Letty. When she

wanted to strike hardest, she invariably struck through the child.

Though she was not clever, she had been sharp enough to discover the

chink in his armour.

"Did you find Mary?" she asked.

"Yes, she seems out of sorts. What is the trouble between her and Alan?"

"Is there any trouble?" She appeared surprised.

"I fear so. She told me she was not sure that they were going to be

married."

"Did she say that?"

"She said it, but she may not have meant it. I cannot understand."

Angelica pondered his words. "Well, I've noticed lately that she wasn't

very nice to him."

"But she was wildly in love with him. She cannot have changed so

suddenly."

"Why not?" She raised her eyebrows slightly. "People do change, don't

they?"

"Not when they are like Mary." With a gesture of perplexity, he put the

subject away from him. "What I really came to tell you isn't very much

better," he said. "Of late, since the war began, things have been going

rather badly with me. I dare say I'll manage to pull up sooner or later,

but every interest in which I am heavily involved has been more or less

affected by the condition of the country. If we should go into this

war----"

She looked up sharply. "Don't you think we can manage to keep out of

it?"

"To keep out of it?" Even now there were moments when she astonished

him.

For the first time in months her impatience got the better of her. "Oh,

I know, of course, that you would like us to fight Germany; but it seems

to me that if you stopped to think of all the suffering it would

mean----"

"I do stop to think."

"Then there isn't any use talking!"

"Not about that; but considering the uncertainty of the immediate

future, don't you think we might try, in some way, to cut down a bit?"

Turning away from him, she gazed thoughtfully into the fire. "If it is

really necessary----?"

"It may become necessary at any moment."

At this she looked straight up at him. "Well, since Letty is so much

better, I am sure that there is no need for us to keep a trained nurse

for her."

She had aimed squarely, and he flinched at the blow. "But the child is

so happy."

"She would be just as happy with any one else."

"No other nurse has ever done so much for her. Why, she has been like a

different child since Miss Meade came to her."

While he spoke he became aware that she was looking at him as she had

looked in the drawing-room.

"Then you refuse positively to let me send Miss Meade away?"

"I refuse positively, once and for all."

Her blank, uncomprehending stare followed him as he turned and went out

of the room.

CHAPTER IV

THE MARTYR

A fortnight later light was thrown on Blackburn's perplexity by a shrewd

question from Mrs. Timberlake. For days he had been groping in darkness,

and now, in one instant, it seemed to him that his discovery leaped out

in a veritable blaze of electricity. How could he have gone on in

ignorance? How could he have stumbled, with unseeing eyes, over the

heart of the problem?

"David," said the housekeeper bluntly, "don't you think that this thing

has been going on long enough?" They were in the library, and before

putting the question, she had closed the door and even glanced

suspiciously at the windows.

"This thing?" He looked up from his newspaper, with the vague idea that

she was about to discourse upon our diplomatic correspondence with

Germany.

"I am not talking about the President's notes." Her voice had grown

rasping. "He may write as many as he pleases, if they will make the

Germans behave themselves without our having to go to war. What I mean

is the way Mary is eating her heart out. Haven't you noticed it?"

"I have been worried about her for some time." He laid the paper down on

the desk. "But I haven't been able to discover what is the matter."

"If you had asked me two months ago, I could have told you it was about

that young fool Alan."