“I sent for you to cheer me up, Gertrude, but, really, you’re the most
depressing creature I’ve seen in a long time. You’re not like yourself
at all. What is the matter?”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett and Gertrude Van Vleck were spending an afternoon
together, indulging in what the former called “boudoir repentance.”
Lent had come, and the reaction from social gayety had caused society
to sit down for a time and try to think. Sackcloth and ashes were
very becoming to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett; for she had never looked more
attractive to the eyes of Gertrude Van Vleck than she did at that
moment, as she drew her chair close to her friend’s side, and, taking
her hand, smiled up into her troubled face questioningly.
“You have something on your mind, Gertrude; I am sure of it. Tell me
what it is.”
Gertrude Van Vleck’s clear-cut face was paler than its wont, and there
were dark circles under her eyes.
“You are mistaken, Harriet,” she answered evasively. “I always feel
a certain depression when Lent begins. I suppose that that is very
becoming on my part. Lent means more to us, whose days are nearly all
Easters, than to people who spend their whole lives in the shadow of
self-sacrifice and denial. Do you know, Harriet, I sometimes feel a
great pity for the worried and overworked world that lies outside our
set. It seems so unjust that a few of us should have all the good
things of the earth, while the millions are obliged to toil and sicken
and die in the mere effort to get enough to eat and wear.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett looked at Gertrude with undisguised astonishment in
her eyes.
“What queer ideas you are getting into your head, Gertrude! I am glad
you are going to Europe so soon. The change will do you good.”
“I hope it will, Harriet,” said Gertrude earnestly, “for I am really
wofully out of sorts. I have often thought, don’t you know, that it
was a glorious thing that we women of to-day are not contented to take
everything for granted, and are inclined to do a little reading and
thinking for ourselves. But we pay the penalty for our intellectual
emancipation in various ways. Isn’t it Byron who says that ‘knowledge
is sorrow, and he who knows the most must mourn the most.’”
“What a curious girl you are, Gertrude! I didn’t know that anybody ever
quoted Byron in these days. He’s so old-fashioned, is he not? But,
Gertrude, I am really worried about you. Surely it isn’t our fault if
the world is all wrong. What can we do to set things right? Absolutely
nothing, my dear. We might as well feel sorry that the Japanese have
killed a lot of Chinamen, as to worry about the poverty and distress on
the East Side--or is it the West Side--of this great city. I’m sorry,
Gertrude, that you aren’t literary, or musical, or something of that
kind. It’s a wonderful thing to have an outlet for just such moods as
you are in. If it wasn’t for my music, I don’t know what I’d do at
times. Something reckless, I’m afraid.”
“No,” said Gertrude sadly, “I haven’t anything of that kind to help
me out. I sometimes wish that I could write a great novel. I know, of
course, that that sounds absurd, but I do so want to do something worth
doing.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett smiled amusedly at her companion.
“I hope,” she said, “that you won’t give way to the temptation, my
dear. But, seriously, Gertrude, I want you to make me a promise, a
solemn promise, for the sake of your own happiness.”
“What is it?” asked Gertrude, a sad smile on her face. “I am in the
mood to promise almost anything.”
“Then, Gertrude,” said Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, gently stroking her
friend’s hand, “then, I want you to promise me that you will fall in
love.”
Gertrude laughed, almost merrily.
“What a strange request, Harriet! I don’t see what my word given to
you would be worth in such a case.” Then her face took on a look
of sadness. “I wonder,” she said musingly, “if I ought to tell you
something. I should like to so much, Harriet, but it doesn’t seem to be
quite fair.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett threw her arm around Gertrude’s neck, and drew her
close to her side.
“You can trust me, Gertrude. Don’t you know you can? I knew that you
had something to tell me. Whisper it, my dear. What is it?”
Gertrude bent her head close to her confidante’s ear.
“Buchanan Budd proposed to me last night, Harriet.”
“And you”--
“And I refused him,” answered Gertrude, a hysterical break in her voice.
“I am so sorry,” said Mrs. Percy-Bartlett caressingly, as she gently
stroked Gertrude’s luxuriant hair.
The girl’s eyes met hers questioningly.
“Sorry, Harriet; sorry that I refused him?”
“No, no, my dear; not that at all. I’m sorry that you had to go
through such an ordeal. But, Gertrude, you have something more to tell
me--something more important.”
Gertrude Van Vleck drew herself up and looked at her friend searchingly.
“You are so hard to satisfy, Harriet,” she exclaimed at length. “Is it
not enough that I have confessed to you that a man proposed to me last
night, and that I rejected him. Really, my dear, you must check your
awful appetite for gossip.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett arose, a hurt look on her face.
“I don’t wonder, Gertrude, that a good many people fear you. You say
very cutting things at times.”
“Forgive me, Harriet,” cried Gertrude impulsively. “Come, sit down
here. I didn’t mean to be sarcastic, my dear. That’s nice of you. Come
close to me. Don’t you know, Harriet, that the penitent never tells
quite all that is on her soul, at the confessional? You mustn’t expect
too much of me. I’m only human, you know, my dear. What would a woman
be without her secret? You must let me have mine, Harriet, and I will
not ask for yours.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett flushed slightly as her eyes met Gertrude’s.
“Perhaps I was too exacting, Gertrude,” she said softly. “But I am so
anxious to see you perfectly happy, that I let my wishes get the better
of my discretion. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”
“Anxious to see me perfectly happy,” repeated Gertrude musingly. “And
that seems to mean, Harriet, that you would like to have me married.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett laughed nervously.
“It does appear illogical,” she remarked in a voice that sounded cold
and hard, even to herself. “It is curious how marriage seems to make
every woman a match-maker. I’m sure that I, for one, can’t understand
it.”
There was silence in the room for several moments. Gertrude and
Harriet understood each other perfectly; but there is always a
well-defined limit to frankness between two women, especially when one
is married and the other not.
With studied composure, Gertrude asked indifferently, as she rose to
go:--
“Have you seen Mr. Stoughton recently, Harriet?”
“Yes, he has called several times.”
“And you like him?”
“Very much. He is coming to-night, I believe. We are very good friends.”
With an impulsiveness that was not habitual with her, Gertrude bent and
kissed her friend on the lips.
“Be careful, Harriet. Be careful,” she whispered, and then turned and
left the room.