TREMOR CORDIS
RICHARD showed no indication to leave his comfortable place on Phœbe
Norris’ porch. And Phœbe hummed about her work like a young healthy
bee. When she felt particularly pleased she put little burbles of
low laughter between her sentences; chuckles is not the exact word;
they were suggestive rather of the cooing of pigeons. On the Lake the
conversation could not be distinguished, but these interjectory ripples
floated out clearly enough.
It was the first thing Walter heard when he had staggered down to the
dock with an old mainsail and a tattered jib which he had resurrected
from the top of a neighbouring oat stack. The music heartened him,
though he was physically pretty well spent. It was all right, he said
to himself; all right.
“Don’t you think you had better be going to the rescue of your friend
Jawn De Lancey Galloway O’Toole?” Phœbe remarked as she stood before
Richard and polished a plate. “He’ll be needin’ you, I’m thinkin’.”
“Jawn can take care of himself,” Richard had rejoined.
“Ordinarily, yes,” she agreed, “if he weren’t gallivantin’. But when
an Irishman like Jawn begins to gallivant, his tongue waggles at both
ends.”
“What’s gallivanting?” inquired Richard lazily. “Comes from ‘galli’ to
gallop--doesn’t it?--and ‘vanti,’ vanity; ‘The vanity of horsemanship.’
The only thing Jawn can ride successfully is a subway express.”
“You’re wrong entirely on your etymology, young man,” she nodded
sagely. “The word ‘gallivant’ comes from the ‘gal,’ meaning ‘woman,’
and ‘vanting,’ meanin’ ‘wantin’ ’em bad.’ At the rate he was goin’ when
I left him,” she chuckled--or burbled, or whatever name you choose
for a yet unnamed accomplishment, “he’s probably on the way to the
priest-house by this time.”
“Who’s the woman?” Richard inquired.
“Well, _he_ didn’t begin by pretendin’ it was the old lady!”
Richard considered that statement for several seconds, while Phœbe
hummed about him.
“Let him!” he finally said.
“One of the first symptoms of insanity,” Phœbe suggested judicially,
although she knew exactly the train of unexpressed thought that led to
the “Let him!” “one of the very first signs--and I should know what I
am talking about--is sudden and unexpected jumps in the conversation.
When I would remark to Seth that it was time to feed the chickens and
he would reply, ‘I wish I had a white rat,’ I always knew it was time
to hide the hammer and lock up the axe.... You’re not feelin’ a bit
ferocious, are you?”
It was the joking over Richard’s possible madness that led to the
particular set of intimate “burbles” which caught Walter’s attention
suddenly, and made him stop in the midst of “bending on” the mainsail,
and listen. He caught not a single word, but the _timbre_, if one
may so describe it, of the conference was unmistakably friendly and
affectionate. Just so she had laughed and joked with him to cheer him
out of moodiness, and the lilt in her voice had been the only decent
memory in his life. Somehow, he could not believe that she would ever
offer it to anyone else--madmen and lovers have such notions--it was
his private possession, he thought; but now she was hovering over
another man and----
Something Richard said--a bit of nonsense, no doubt--had brought a
little shriek of delight from Phœbe, but the remainder of his speech
she would not have. Quickly she had darted back of him and had placed a
hand firmly over his mouth, cutting off a sentence in mid-air. But her
low vibrating laughter showed that she had appreciated the humour of
whatever had been said.
That act, trifling in itself and thoroughly characteristic of Phœbe
Norris, inflamed Walter; it sent a shock through him that started the
blood coursing and left him shaking violently with nervousness. He
opened his mouth the better to breathe; spasms of trembling swept over
him; he sat crouched up amid a swirl of sail-cloth and stared at the
two happy persons before him.
An impartial judge would have decided that the relations between Mr.
Richard and Mrs. Norris had not altered one thousandth of a millimetre
from luncheon. Before Walter or behind Walter there had not been the
slightest shadow of change in the outward attitude. The low laughter
had been pulsating before; the jests had been passed and repassed;
and even the friendly fillip had been exposed to view. But to Walter,
seared with the burning iron of sudden jealousy, all these personal
touches were born of the moment, staged now for the first time, as
the bill-boards say. The data for that sort of thing has been worked
over pretty thoroughly; see the case of Othello versus Desdemona, or
Leontes, king of Sicilia, versus Hermione, his queen. Over an innocent
public leave-taking, one remembers,--the guest, Polixenes, is making
his farewells to the hostess--Leontes cries, “I have tremor cordis on
me! My heart dances, but not for joy! not joy!”
“Tremor cordis” it was, but Walter could make no pretty speeches
about it. No word could have come from him. It was pitiful to see him
struggling to get breath; pitiful unless one saw also the gleam of hate
in his eye.
What should he do to rid himself of the suffering that possessed him?
His first impulse was to burst in upon them and fight it out openly
with whatever weapon appeared; but that impulse never got so far as
a single movement: the big man, he knew, could fling him into the
Lake, and the woman could pierce him with a glance and a score of
scornful words. Craft whispered in his ear to bide his time and, above
all, make sure. Jealousy demands evidence, concrete proof, specific
torture to add to the mental anguish. Perhaps--Phœbe had gone off in a
matter-of-fact way to see to her chickens, and Richard was coming down
to the dock--perhaps there was nothing to it after all.
Almost as abruptly as it came the feeling of being dispossessed left
him; all but the memory of it and a vague presentiment that he must be
ever watchful. The exultant mood that followed took him to the other
extreme. He laughed and seized the sail vigorously; and when Richard
reached the dock he was humming a sort of a tune.
“Good boy!” Richard encouraged, when he saw the amount of work already
done. “Here Phœbe and I have been fooling away the time while you
have been working like a shoemaker. Why, we’ll be able to try her out
to-day; won’t we?”
In spite of his feeling that all was well again Walter found it hard to
control his speech.
“N-not t-to-day,” he managed. “No w-wind.”
What he meant to say was that he was too dog-tired to hoist sail and
take the trial. It took all his strength to make the boat shipshape for
the night.
“Oh, isn’t there?” Richard squinted about the heavens. “Well then, if
it’s all the same to you, old chap, I’ll just trot up to the house and
see my friend Jawn. Jawn’s a wild one when he’s on his vacation, and
the Lord only knows what I’ll have to apologize for. So long!”
Walter watched him greedily to see if he really took the road that
led to the Big House; and then, when his eyes had assured him, his
suspicious brain suggested plots and stratagems. He stood up in the
boat and craned his head to listen for sounds of Phœbe talking to her
chickens. From the “chicken-runs” came not a single “cluck.” Some of
the former “tremor cordis” seized him again, but not so violently;
he shot a leg into the tender, tilting it at a frightful angle, and
luckily managed to pilot the skiff to shore successfully. There was ten
feet of water at the end of the dock.
Phœbe was not among the chickens; nor could he see her in the orchard,
nor in the vineyards tilted up in full view on the hill. They had gone
off together! It was a ruse to fool him! Oaths slipped from him, as he
dashed up the hill and then down through the orchard to Phœbe’s house.
He almost ran into her as she emerged suddenly from among the dahlias.
She had a large bunch of deep purple flowers in her arm, which she
almost dropped at his sudden excited appearance.
“Land o’ Goshen!” she ejaculated. “If you start runnin’ wild about
here, I’ll be forgettin’ myself and takin’ ye for Seth and lock you up
for the night in the ‘pen’!... What’s the matter with you, boy? You’re
all of a shake.”
A little tenderness softened her tone. She tried to take hold of his
trembling hand, but he grinned and brought himself together.
“Jus’ l-lookin’ for y-you,” he stammered foolishly.
“You’re a funny boy,” she laughed, with some of her native crooning in
her voice. “A funny boy!... Come in and sit down and tell me all about
the new boat. I’m all excited about the races. I see myself standin’ on
the dock at Alley’s Inn with a pair of field-glasses screwed to me two
eyes and rainin’ curses on my good friends Tyler and Fagner.”
“Goin’ to beat ’em both;” Walter glowed under her loyal chatter.
“An’ don’t forget, boy,” she told him gravely, “that if you don’t win
I’ll be feelin’ all the more sympathy for you. It’ll be much better for
you if you lose; for then I’ll spend _all_ my time thinkin’ of you.”
“If I don’t win,” he began savagely, “I’ll--I’ll----”
“You’ll do nothin’ of the kind,” she calmed him firmly. “You’ll just
try again, like everybody else. There isn’t a skipper on the Lake but
what has lost a race some time or other.”
After a long chat together--Walter could always talk to Phœbe
Norris--Phœbe told him it was time to go home. He did not want to go.
The lunch was fine, but there were too many at lunch. Why not have
a little cosy supper together--just the two of them--on the porch,
watching the sunset?
“You’re goin’ home, boy;” she was jocular but determined. “The breath
of scandal has never yet tarnished me fair escutcheon. I don’t know
what an escutcheon is, my boy, or whether it’s right and proper for
a female to have one; but I know I’m not goin’ to be entertainin’
handsome young bachelors--meanin’ you--all alone by meself at seducin’
suppers. Go ’long with you.”
And although she drove him off and he was very much disappointed, yet
he walked up the hill delighted with himself. Phœbe always had that
effect on him, and she was quite aware of it. She watched him like a
mother as he stalked on, and waved a hand when he turned half-way up
the hill and looked back.
“Well, he seems chipper enough now,” she puzzled over him, “but he was
rather wild at first.... I wonder what got into the lad.”
Richard had not gone directly up to “Red Jacket.” The vineyards took
his eye. The rows and rows of dwarfed grape plants and their thick
clusters of perfect grapes--now hard and green, of course--reminded
him of similar vineyards in France and along the banks of the Rhine.
A negro workman here and there was quite willing to stop and talk.
There were two interests here for Richard--one was the methods used
for keeping these vines free from the thousand and one enemies of the
fruit, and the other was the curious bit of history represented by
these descendants of a Virginia slave plantation transferred to the
North and still working for the old family.
So it was growing upon dusk before he left the vineyard and strolled
up to the Big House. “Tshoti,” “Non,” “Da” and “Waga”--the four huge
porch columns--loomed tremendously in the half light. He caught a
portion of their mystery and remembered Jerry’s prediction that one
night he should come upon them unexpectedly as they performed their
sentinel guard, and that he would feel himself grow small in their
presence.
Jawn was entertaining the Wells family when Richard arrived.
“Make a limerick on Phœbe Norris?” he was repeating a question,
possibly to gain time. “Sure I can!” He rolled his eyes upward. “Sure I
can! It’s a simple matter, if you know how. Uh--let me see. ‘There was
a young lady named Phœbe.’ No! That would never do. The only rhyme for
Phœbe is ‘Hebe,’ the goddess of beer. U-m!... I have it! Well, how’s
this?”
Richard spoiled that limerick by asking:
“Won’t someone introduce me to the poet?” and his hand went out eagerly
to meet Jawn’s.
Jawn, however, was not so receptive. With a jocularity that was
understood by everyone but the watchful Walter, he protested that he
couldn’t be certain whether he ought to meet the gentleman for the
first time or kiss him on either cheek as an old boyhood friend; he
couldn’t be certain until they got together secretly and connived
a bit. A bit of conniving now and then, he assured everybody, was
relished by the best of men--and the worst of women. He had come to
“Red Jacket,” he complained, with a perfectly good alias, and hardly
had he been enjoying a high-class name for an hour when the daughter
of the house saw through his verbal disguise and exposed him to the
ridicule of the natives.
“Under the aristocratic name of Jawn Dalrymple--or was it Dalton?” he
looked about him imploringly.
“It was De Lancey,” helped Jerry.
“De Lancey, of course!----”
Mrs. Wells interrupted. “I beg pardon,” she said, “I don’t want to seem
stupid, but I thought you said your name was De Lancey? Isn’t that your
name, Mr. De Lancey?”
Jerry explained carefully. “He was just joking us, mother. He is Mr.
Richard’s old friend Mr. Galloway, Professor John Galloway of Columbia
University.”
“The cat’s out!” Jawn turned disconsolately to Richard; “so I might as
well shake hands and own up. It was a great mistake. I see it now. I
ought to have worn whiskers.”
“But, really,” Mrs. Wells seemed very much concerned, “I can’t see why
he should not have said Galloway from the beginning.”
The attempt to make clear Jawn’s reason for an incognito was not very
successful, due to the fact that Richard’s incognito could not be
explained. Even Jawn saw that. Both Richard and Jerry gave him open
signals that it would not be politic to try to clear up two incognitos
in one evening--all of which was not lost on Walter--and Mrs. Wells’
disturbed face was ample evidence that silence on that score was the
best policy.
“I’ll tell you how it is,” Jawn jumped into the breach. “My real name
is De Lancey, but when a lad I was adopted by a wealthy New York banker
named Galloway. Well, he lost all his money and died leaving me nothing
but the name. Naturally I sometimes forget and use the old one out of
habit.”
The romantic explanation pleased Mrs. Wells immensely. She grew
tremendously interested in the rich banker and wanted to know many
particulars. Jawn was never at a loss for details.
Walter was keenly interested in Jawn’s talk but, he told himself, he
was not at all taken in by it. A numbing remembrance of the afternoon’s
suspicions came into the background of his mind and settled there. It
was a spectre at all his banquets of happiness: it darted its chill
into his best re-visioning of even that latest chat with Phœbe when she
called him a handsome young bachelor and hinted scandalous things. So
it behoved him to prepare his defences against attack.
The situation was very clear to Walter. This “Mr. Richard” was some
sort of a confidence man. He first attracted the ladies and then
subtracted their purses, or borrowed huge sums from them on bad notes,
or got them to invest in worthless stocks. He had heard about these
fellows. The books were full of them--not only the paper-backs, either,
but real books--meaning cloth-covers--like _Wallingford_ and _Blacky
Daw_ and _Raffles_. Jawn, of course, was a detective on the trail of
Richard. In spite of all his joking and laughing, anyone could see that
he kept his eye on Richard. Did Richard know that he was being trailed?
Walter suspected that he did not.
He wondered if it were criminal to use another man’s name, a big man’s
name at that, one whose reputation was world-wide, whose millions of
money earned as railroad and steamship owner, international banker
and dealer in monopolies in general, had made his name known even to
children. That was the name on the card tacked carelessly on “Mr.
Richard’s” door. He must be engaged in crime on a big scale to need to
assume that name. And why had he changed it? And what was his real
name? These were questions which Walter would like answered. Perhaps a
little careful probing of Jerry would tell him something.
Later in the evening she was conscious of his following her about. In
the tail of her eye she could see him sidling along the hall as she
turned into a room, or standing afar off and watching strangely while
she talked to someone. One got used to having a “queer” brother in the
house, but these movements, stealthy and clumsy at once, were not usual.
“Want to see yuh,” he said to her finally.
“All right, Walter,” she agreed; “go out on the porch and sit beside
‘Waga.’”
“Jes’ y-you,” he nodded; “n-nobody else.”
“All right, Walter.”
Between “Waga” and “Da” they sat and looked out upon the wide sheet of
blue water, startlingly clear in the moonlight.
“H-he’s gotta keep away from Phœbe,” Walter managed to begin.
Jerry was too used to managing her brother to show astonishment at any
remark. He was easily frightened off.
“What makes you think so?” she asked quietly.
“H-he’s been hangin’ ’round, laughin’ and--lookin’ at her.”
“But everyone does, Walter,” she said; “who can help it? She is
wonderful, you know.”
“She’s all right,” said he.
Walter seemed to have nothing further to add to that topic, and Jerry
knew better than to try to force him to talk. She waited until he began
again.
“Smart boy, he is.” His speech became clearer as he grew in confidence,
and his manner became more aggressive. “Talks a lot.... But he’s a
crook.”
The “he,” Jerry figured, must mean Jawn.
“Funny names, and all that,” he explained.
After a moment he laughed derisively, almost vindictively. “Says his
name’s Richard! Huh! Richard Richard! Hah! Fools the women all right.
But don’t fool me.... Has ’nother name, too.” He fumbled in his pocket
and produced the card that Richard had ripped off his stateroom door.
“But I cornered him. Tol’ me ’at was a fake name, too. Found it on his
things ... in his stateroom.... Big gun, he was tryin’ to be.... Big
gun.”
Mechanically Jerry took the card. By the light from the window she
could see the hold black characters. It was indeed a big gun, one of
the Crœsuses of his age. It seemed less like the name of a person, as
she studied it, than that of some heavily advertised merchandise.
Jerry was not a newspaper reader, but vaguely she was conscious
of knowing something about that name. While Walter bragged of his
cleverness in discovering this further act of imposture, she was
searching over her memory. Suddenly it became clear that the man whose
card she held in her hand had been dead several years; he had gone down
at sea with his whole family; she was not sure, but she thought she
remembered something about an accident to a sea-going yacht off the
Newfoundland Banks.
“Where did you find this card?” she asked.
“On his door.”
“His stateroom door?”
“Yes. That’s the name he was goin’ to use at first, but I scared him
off. Tore it down, he did, when I came ’long.”
“Perhaps somebody else put it there by mistake.”
“Nope! He owned up all right, when I put it to him.”
“Just how did he ‘own up,’ as you say?”
“Said----” Walter thought for a moment to get the words right, “--said
he was sorry to use a fine name like that; said if I’d keep mum he’d
stick by me.”
“And so you are keeping mum.”
“Well!” he flared. “Guess I c’n tell it to my own sister, can’t I?...
An’ he ain’t stickin’ by me.”
“Oh!” she recalled. “You think he is interested in Phœbe?”
“Well, he better not be.”
No matter what Jerry may have privately thought she knew her duty at
this moment, and that was to rid this boy’s mind of the suspicions
that had begun to darken it. She was startled by the revelation; she
would have to get alone and think things together before she could
make up her mind as to the meaning of the facts Walter had presented;
particularly was she astonished at Walter’s interest in protecting
Phœbe Norris; but all that she cast aside and bent to the task of
reassuring Walter of Richard’s good faith. She reminded him of the
scene at the back of the _Victoria_, and drew tactfully the picture
of Richard’s work in saving Walter from a terrible “accident”; she
repeated Richard’s constant expression of interest in Walter’s welfare;
but none of these seemed to affect the boy in the least.
Then she was driven out of the truth. “A fib in time saves nine,” she
remembered one of Richard’s jokes. Prevarications had been piling up
ever since that first deception. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when
first we practise to deceive!” One must keep in mind that in spite of
Jerry’s calm in Walter’s presence she had always been afraid of him.
He was absolutely heartless and, when he had the courage, brutal. In
her own heart she believed he was a harmless lunatic who might any
moment become violent. So she steadied herself for a final effort.
“You are quite wrong about Richard and Phœbe. They are simply good
friends,” she said.
“How do you know?” he cried. “I’ve seen ’em together and he talks soft
to her an’----” He began to work himself into a dangerous mood.
“I know what I’m talking about, Walter,” she increased the firmness of
her tone. “Richard is not interested in Phœbe at all, in the way you
mean.”
“Got to show me,” he muttered.
“I can prove it.”
“Aw! He’d lie quick enough.”
“Do you think I would lie to you, Walter?”
No; Walter did not think so. Jerry always spoke the truth. Jerry was
all right.
“Well, then,” she said, nerving herself for the statement, “Richard is
not interested in Phœbe Norris; he--he is interested in me.”
The effect upon Walter was all that she had expected. He softened up
suddenly, grew exultant at the turn which his clogged mind had not
guessed, but which, all at once, seemed perfectly apparent.
“Is that so!” he cried. “Did he ask you to marry him?”
“Richard and I understand each other,” she replied evasively.
“Good girl!” he said, thinking only of his own luck.
After ruminating over the new situation for a while he rose to go. His
laugh was almost pleasant.
“Clever boy, that Richard,” he said; “clever boy, he is! Always said
he was a clever boy. Smart, he is! Smart! I tol’ him----” He chuckled
at the thought.
“Yes?”
“I tol’ him once ’at you had the tin----”
“Tin? Oh, yes; I understand. Go on.”
“I tol’ him you’d have a good share; and he seemed mighty pleased. Oh,
he’s smart, he is!”
“How is your boat, Walter?” she asked.
“Aw right.... Tol’ me, he did, ’at he didn’t believe in work. Pfut!” he
spluttered out an ironic laugh; “no use workin’ when you c’n jus’ pick
it up easy. Oh, he’s a very smart, clever boy!”
It took all Jerry’s will to control her instinctive desire to slap the
boy’s smirking face.
“Well,” she smiled; “it’s rather late for a skipper, isn’t it? Early to
bed nowadays if you want to have a chance in these races.”
“Tha’s right,” he agreed and yawned prodigiously. “Guess I’ll be goin’
to bed.” But the single idea was not easily dislodged from his mind.
“Clever boy, he is! Clever and--smart!”
“Good-night, Walter.” Jerry spoke very sweetly, a great tribute to her
growing power of control over speech.
As Walter sauntered in the great central door she heard the voices of
Jawn and Richard. Evidently they were coming out upon the porch.
“Where’s Jerry?” she heard Richard ask.
While Walter was mumbling his reply--his tones were cheerful, she was
glad to note--she slipped into the grounds at the side and made quickly
off to the winding road at the back which leads up to the top of the
ridge. Until she could collect her thoughts she did not want to see
either man. In her perturbed condition Richard’s mildness would have
stirred her to quarrel, and Jawn’s hearty volubility would have led to
a blow. She was quite sure that if he had attempted another limerick
she would have screamed.
The walk up the old familiar road was a soothing delight. She went
on till she came to the hunter’s hut wherein she had spent many a
fine winter night. An old kitchen chair was waiting invitingly on its
slender porch. There she sat and tried to get her mental bearings while
the serene moon grew higher and higher in the sky.
Alone on the porch of the hunter’s lodge with the dark valley before
her and a patch of the white-blue Lake shining brilliantly in the
moonlight, Jerry called herself to account. The quickly planned “fib”
which she had just told to Walter was worrying her. To be sure, Richard
of all persons would understand exactly the motive that led her to
her supposed confession and he would see the necessity of it. That
did not bother her half so much as the effect which the spoken words
had had upon herself. The moment they were uttered she experienced
a most uncomfortable feeling of joy and guilt. It was as if she had
unwittingly expressed her very self.
Richard, no doubt, would explain it glibly with his theory of
“subliminal self,” which is always telling us the unknown truth. Why
had that expedient come so pat to her tongue? She did not need to ask.
Whether or not the questionable “subliminal” had spoken, she, the only
self she really believed in, knew it to be the expression of her own
wish.
Had she known this disturbing fact from the beginning? Lovers are prone
to claim as much. Isn’t it the time-honoured formula to ask. “When did
you--ah--begin to care?” and to answer, “From the beginning.” As she
reviewed their days together from that long uncomfortable first day
on the steamer when unknown to him she had lounged beside him in her
steamer-chair and watched him repel each invader of his solitude, the
design of her life began to appear; and she knew, then, that she had
“cared from the beginning.”
Predestination, Richard would call it. She smiled at the picture of his
mild interested face as he would analyze the rare experience into terms
of kismet. “The gods” would be blamed cheerfully.
Each incident was fitted into its mate to make the full design. She
had watched the modern Gobelin weavers in Paris and noted how the
meaningless splotches of colour here and there grew gradually into a
meaningful pattern. Life was like that. Her suggestion that they go
about Naples together; the intimacy caused by the incognito; her own
insistence upon secrecy; the invitation to “Red Jacket”; even her
indignation at his suggestion that she would eventually make eyes at
him--all these were parts of the curious weaving.
And she had begun already to make eyes at him! Not in a literal sense,
to be sure--she would die before she did that--but in confessing her
hopes to Walter she had gone a considerable step toward making the
first move.
Hers was the type of mind which cleared up one confused thought at a
time. The important matter of her own relation to Richard having been
settled, she permitted Walter’s accusations to come in review. Was this
impersonal friendly Richard a genteel bad man, after all? She could
not decide. The actual card which Walter had found on his door looked
like the practice of some sort of confidence man. She remembered that
he had been most reluctant to give up the comfortable “Mr. Richard”
which she had dubbed him. And his philosophy of drifting along, coupled
with no occupation and a shocking state of low funds--all that seemed
to fit in; along with his even more shocking lack of a sense of the
culpability of all wrong-doers.
And she had been quite taken by his philosophy. A faithful
Episcopalian--true to her Virginia traditions--she had never questioned
religious matters. She had neither believed deeply nor troubled herself
to disbelieve. Richard it was who constantly reminded her of the
foundation principles of her own faith. “Neither do I condemn thee” had
been one of his most striking quotations. “Judge not lest ye also be
judged” was another; and “Father, forgive them; they know not what they
do.” And now she saw that this attitude would be consistent with the
credo of a man who might choose to act against the moral code of those
about him. According to Walter, Richard was after her “tin.” “Well,”
she laughed, “he is welcome to it--what there is of it--so long as he
is willing to take me, too.”
But Walter had also hinted rather strongly--strange how this important
thought had come last in review!--that Richard had been paying open
court to Phœbe Norris. So far her mind had worked openly and frankly
in the light. Now it began to deceive her; or rather, to put it in
terms that Richard might have employed, the subliminal self did not
lay all its cards on the table. It was a most uncomfortable thought
that Richard and Phœbe Norris should be chatting and laughing together
intimately--a most uncomfortable thought. But Jerry did not at all
recognize the little wave of “tremor cordis” that made her “heart
dance.” She saw instead the evil that might come to Richard and to
Phœbe if an innocent and proper relationship should be allowed to grow
until Walter might be aroused to some vile deed. They must all be saved
from that! She would warn them both. Oh, it was very necessary that
they should be warned.
And with that decision a tranquil feeling possessed her, which assured
her that she had decided exactly right; so tranquil and inspiriting
that she rose and walked along the ridge for a mile or more until
she came to the spot where she could see the main body of Lake Keuka
spread out wondrously before her. Then she walked briskly home and went
light-heartedly to bed.