THEY HAD ALREADY SPOILED HER!
Gail faltered when, after bidding good-night to her uncle and to
Allison, she turned and met the look in Howard Clemmens’ eyes. She knew
that the inevitable moment had arrived. He walked straight up to her,
and there was a new dignity in him, a new strength, a new resolve. For a
moment, as he advanced, she thought that he was about to put his arms
around her, but he did not. Instead, he took her hand, in his old
characteristic way, and led her into the library, and seated her on the
couch, and sat beside her.
“Gail, come home with me,” he said, authoritative but kind. He had been
her recognised suitor from childhood. He had shut out all the other
boys.
She withdrew her hand, but without deliberate intent. She had felt the
instinctive and imperative need of touching her two hands together in
her lap.
“You’re asking something impossible, Howard,” she returned, quietly. Her
voice was low, and her beautiful brown eyes, half veiled by their long
lashes, were watching the play of light in a ruby on one of her fingers.
She was deep in abstracted thought, struggling vaguely with problems
which he could not know, and of which she herself was as yet but dimly
conscious.
“Come home, and marry me.” Perfectly patient, perfectly confident,
perfectly gentle. He reached for her hand again, and took them both,
still clasped, in his own. “Gail, we’ve waited quite long enough. It’s
not doing either one of us any good for you to be here. The best thing
is for us to be married right now.”
For the first time she turned her eyes full upon him.
“You are taking a great deal for granted, Howard,” and she wore a calm
decision which he had not before seen in her. “There has never been any
agreement between us.”
“There has been an understanding,” he retorted, releasing her
unresponsive hands and looking her squarely in the eyes, with a slight
frown on his brow.
“Never,” she incisively reminded him, and her piquant chin pointed
upwards. “I’ve always told you that I could make no promises.”
That came as a shock and a surprise. It could not be possible that she
did not care for him!
“Why, Gail dear, I love you!” he suddenly told her, with more fervour
than she had ever heard in his tone. He slipped from the edge of the
couch to his knee on the floor, where he could look up into her downcast
eyes. He put his arm around her, and drew her closer. He clasped her
hands in his own strong palm. “Listen, Gail dear; we grew up together.”
He was tender now, tender and pleading, and his voice had in it ranges
of modulation which it had never developed before this night. “You were
my very first sweetheart; and the only one. Even as a boy in school,
when you were only a little kiddie, I made up my mind to marry you, and
I’ve never given up that dream. All my life I’ve loved you, stronger and
deeper as the years went on, until now the love that is in me sways
every thought, every action, every emotion. I love you, Gail dear! All
my heart and all my soul is in it.”
She had not drawn away from his embrace, she had not removed her hands
from his clasp; instead, she had yielded somewhat towards this old
friend.
“I can’t do without you any longer, Gail!” he impetuously went on,
detecting that yielding in her. “You must marry me! Tell me that you
will!”
She disengaged herself from him very gently.
“I can’t, Howard.” Her voice was so low that he could scarcely catch the
words, and her face was filled with sorrow.
He held tense and rigid where she had left him.
“You can’t,” he repeated, numbly.
“It is impossible,” and her face cleared of all its perplexity. She was
grave, and serious, and saddened; but still sure. “For the first time I
know my own mind clearly, and I know that I do not now, and never can,
care for you in the way you wish.”
He rose abruptly and stood before her. His brows were knotted, and there
was a hard look on his face.
“I came too late!” he bitterly charged. “They’ve already spoiled you!”
Gail sprang from the couch, and a round red spot flashed into each
cheek. She had never looked so beautiful as when she stood before him,
her tiny fists clenched and her eyes blazing. She almost replied to him,
then she rang the bell for the butler, and hurried upstairs. Wild as was
her tumult, she stood with her hand on the knob of her dressing-room
until she heard the front door open and close; then she ran in and threw
herself downward on the chintz-covered divan, and cried!
She sat up presently, and remembered that the dove-coloured gown was her
pet. With a quite characteristic ability of self-segregation, she put
out of her mind, except for the dull ache of it, the tangled vortex of
distress until she had changed her garments and let down her waving
hair, and, disdaining the help of her maid, performed all the little
nightly duties, to the putting away of her clothing. Then, in a
perfectly neat and orderly boudoir, she sat down to take herself
seriously in hand.
First of all, there was Howard. She must cleanse her conscience of him
for all time to come. In just how far had she encouraged him; in how far
was he justified in assuming there to be an “understanding” between
them? It was true that they had grown up together. It was true that,
from the first moment she had begun to be entertained by young men, she
had permitted him to be her most frequent escort. She had liked him
better than all the others; had trusted him, relied on him, commanded
him. Perhaps she had been selfish in that; but no, she had given at
least as much pleasure as she had received in that companionship. More;
for as her beauty had ripened with her years, Howard had been more and
more exacting in his jealousy, in his claims upon her for the rights and
the rewards of past service. Had she been guilty in submitting to this
mild form of dictatorship, and, by permitting it, had she vested in him
the right to expect it? Possibly. She set that weakness to one side, as
a mark against her.
Then had come the age of ardour, when a more serious note crept into
their relation. It was the natural end and aim of all girls to become
married, and, as she blossomed into the full flower of her young
womanhood, this end and aim had been constantly borne in on her by all
her friends and relatives, by her parents, her girl chums, and by
Howard. They had convinced her that this was the case, and, in
consequence, the logical candidate was the young man who had expended
all his time and energy in trying to please her. How much of a debt was
that? Well, it was an obligation, she gravely considered, with her
dimpled chin in her hand. An obligation which should be repaid—with
grateful friendship.
She was compelled to admit, being an honest and a just young person,
that at various times she had herself considered Howard Clemmens the
logical candidate. She must be married some time, and Howard was the
most congenial young man of all her acquaintance. He was of an excellent
family, had proved his right to exist by the fact that he had gone into
business when he had plenty of money to live in idleness, was
well-mannered, cheerful, good-natured, self-sacrificing, and an adorer
whose admiration was consistent and unfaltering. Even—she confessed this
to herself with self-resentment for having confessed it—even at the time
she had left for New York, she had been fairly well settled in her mind
that she would come back, and invite all her hosts of friends to see her
marry Howard, and they would build a new house just the way she wanted
it, and entertain, and some day she would be a prominent member of the
Browning Circle.
However, she had never, by any single syllable, hinted to Howard, or any
one else, that this might be the case, and her only fault could lie in
thinking it. Now, just how far could Howard divine this mental attitude,
and just how far might that mental attitude influence her actions and
general bearing toward Howard, so that he might be justified in feeling
that there was an actual understanding between them?
She did not know. She was only sure that she was perfectly miserable.
She had yielded to a fit of impetuous anger, and had sent away her
lifelong friend without a word of good-bye, and he had been a dear, good
fellow who had been ready to bark, or fetch and carry, or lie down and
roll over, at the word of command; and they had been together so much,
and he had always been so kind and considerate and generous, and he was
from back home, and he did really and truly love her very much, and she
was homesick; and she cried again.
She sat upright with a jerk, and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief,
which was composed of one square inch of linen entirely surrounded by
embroidered holes. She had been perfectly right in sending Howard away
without a good-bye. He had insulted her friends and her, most grossly;
he had been nasty and unreasonable; he had been presumptuous and
insolent; his voice was harsh and he had crossed his legs in a fashion
which showed his square-toed shoe at an ugly angle. She had never seen
anybody cross his legs in just that way. “They had spoiled her already!”
Indeed! Why had she not waited long enough to assert herself? Why had
she not told him what a conceited creature he was? Why had she not said
all the hot, bitter, stinging things which had popped into her mind at
the time? There were half a dozen better and more scornful ways in which
she could have sent him away than by merely calling the butler and
running upstairs. She might even have stretched out her hand imperiously
and said “Go!” upon which thought she laughed at herself, and dabbed her
eyes with that absurdity which she called a handkerchief.
There was knock at the door and, on invitation, the tall and stately
Mrs. Helen Davies came in, frilled and ruffled for the night. She found
the dainty, little guest boudoir in green tinted dimness. Gail had
turned down all the lights in the room except the green lamps under the
canopy, and she sat on the divan, with her brown hair rippling about her
shoulders, her knees clasped in her arms, and her dainty little boudoir
slippers peeping from her flowing pink negligee, while the dim green
light, suited to her present sombre reflections, only enhanced the clear
pink of her complexion. Mrs. Davies sat down in front of her.
“Mr. Clemmens proposed to you to-night,” she charged, gleaning that fact
from experienced observation.
Gail nodded her head.
“I hope you did not accept him.”
The brown ripples shook sidewise.
“I was quite certain that you would not,” and the older woman’s tone was
one of distinct relief. “In fact, I did not see how you could. The young
man is in no degree a match for you.”
There was a contemptuous disapproval in her tone which brought Gail’s
head up.
“You don’t know Howard!” she flared. “He is one of the nicest young men
at home. He is perfectly good and kind and dear, and I was hateful to
him!” and Gail’s chin quivered.
Aunt Helen rendered first aid to the injured in the tenderest of
manners. She moved over to the other side of Gail where she could
surround her, and laid the brown head on her shoulder.
“I know just how you feel,” she soothingly said. “You’ve had to refuse
to marry a good friend, and you are reproaching yourself because you
were compelled to hurt him. Of course you are unfair to yourself, and
you feel perfectly miserable, and you will for a while; but the main
point is that you refused him.”
Gail, whose quick intelligence no intonation escaped, lay comfortably on
Aunt Helen’s shoulder, and a clear little laugh rippled up. She could
not see the smile of satisfaction and relief with which Aunt Helen
Davies received that laugh.
“My dear, I am quite well pleased with you,” went on the older woman.
“If you handle all your affairs so sensibly, you have a brilliant future
before you.”
Gail’s eyelids closed; the long, brown lashes curved down on her cheeks,
revealing just a sparkle of brightness, while the mischievous little
smile twitched at the corners of her lips.
“If you were an ordinary girl, I would urge you, to-night, to make a
selection among the exceptionally excellent matrimonial material of
which you have a choice, but, with your extraordinary talents and
beauty, my advice is just to the contrary. You should delay until you
have had a wider opportunity for judgment. You have not as yet shown any
marked preference, I hope.”
Gail’s quite unreasoning impulse was to giggle, but she clothed her
voice demurely.
“No, Aunt Helen.”
“You are remarkably wise,” complimented Aunt Helen, a bit of
appreciation which quite checked Gail’s impulse to giggle. “In the
meantime, it is just as well to study your opportunities. Of course
there’s Dick Rodley, whom no one considers seriously, and Willis
Cunningham, whose one and only drawback is such questionable health that
he might persistently interfere with your social activities. Houston Van
Ploon, I am frank to say, is the most eligible of all, and to have
attracted his attention is a distinct triumph. Mr. Allison, while rather
advanced in years—”
“Please!” cried Gail. “You’d think I was a horse.”
“I know just how you feel,” stated Aunt Helen, entirely unruffled; “but
you have your future to consider, and I wish to invite your confidence,”
and in her voice there was the quaver of much concern.
“Thank you, Aunt Helen,” said Gail, realising the sincerity of the older
woman’s intentions, and, putting her arms around Mrs. Davies’ neck, she
kissed her. “It is dear of you to take so much interest.”
“I think it’s pride,” confessed Mrs. Davies, naïvely. “I won’t keep you
up a minute longer, Gail. Go to bed, and get all the sleep you can. Only
sleep will keep those roses in your cheeks. Good-night,” and with a
parting caress, she went to her own room, with a sense of a duty well
performed.
Gail smiled retrospectively, and tried the blue light under the canopy
lamp, but turned it out immediately. The green gave a much better effect
of moonlight on the floor.
She called herself back out of the mists of her previous distress. Who
was this Gail, and what was she? There had come a new need in her, a new
awakening. Something seemed to have changed in her, to have
crystallised. Whatever this crystallisation was, it had made her know
that she could not marry Howard Clemmens. It had made her know, too,
that marriage was not to be looked upon as a mere inevitable social
episode. Her thoughts flew back to Aunt Helen. Her eyelashes brushed her
cheeks, and the little smile of sarcasm twitched the corners of her
lips.
Aunt Helen’s list of eligibles. Gail reviewed them now deliberately; not
with the thought of the social advantages they might offer her, but as
men. She reviewed others whom she had met. For the first time in her
life, she was frankly and self-consciously interested in men; curious
about them. She had reached her third stage of development; the fairy
prince age, the “I suppose I shall have to be married one day” age, and
now the age of conscious awakening. She wondered, in some perplexity, as
to what had brought about her nascence; rather, and she knitted her
pretty brows, who had brought it about.
The library clock chimed the hour, and startled her out of her reverie.
She turned on the lights, and sat in front of her mirror to give her
hair one of those extra brushings for which it was so grateful, and
which it repaid with so much beauty. She paused deliberately to study
herself in the glass. Why, this was a new Gail, a more potent Gail. What
was it Allison had said about her potentialities? Allison. Strong,
forceful, aggressive Allison. He was potence itself. A thrill of his
handclasp clung with her yet, and a slight flush crept into her cheeks.
Aunt Grace had worried about Jim’s little cold, and the distant mouse
she thought she heard, and the silver chest, and Lucile’s dangerous
looking new horse, until all these topics had failed, when she detected
the unmistakable click of a switch-button near by. It must be in Gail’s
suite. Hadn’t the child retired yet? She lay quite still pondering that
mighty question for ten minutes, and then, unable to rest any longer,
she slipped out of bed and across the hall. There was no light coming
from under the doors of either the boudoir or the bedroom, so Aunt Grace
peeped into the latter apartment, then she tiptoed softly away. Gail, in
her cascade of pink flufferies, was at the north window, kneeling, with
her earnest face upturned to one bright pale star.