As a rule, the instant the season closed Aline Proctor sailed on the
first steamer for London, where awaited her many friends, both English
and American--and to Paris, where she selected those gowns that on and
off the stage helped to make her famous. But this particular summer
she had spent with the Endicotts at Bar Harbor, and it was at their
house Herbert Nelson met her. After Herbert met her very few other men
enjoyed that privilege. This was her wish as well as his.
They behaved disgracefully. Every morning after breakfast they
disappeared and spent the day at opposite ends of a canoe. She,
knowing nothing of a canoe, was happy in stabbing the waters with her
paddle while he told her how he loved her and at the same time, with
anxious eyes on his own paddle, skilfully frustrated her efforts to
drown them both. While the affair lasted it was ideal and beautiful,
but unfortunately it lasted only two months.
Then Lord Albany, temporarily in America as honorary attache to the
British embassy, his adoring glances, his accent, and the way he
brushed his hair, proved too much for the susceptible heart of Aline,
and she chucked Herbert and asked herself how a woman of her age could
have seriously considered marrying a youth just out of Harvard! At that
time she was a woman of nineteen; but, as she had been before the
public ever since she was eleven, the women declared she was not a day
under twenty-six; and the men knew she could not possibly be over
sixteen!
Aline's own idea of herself was that without some one in love with her
she could not exist--that, unless she knew some man cared for her and
for her alone, she would wither and die. As a matter of fact, whether
any one loved her or not did not in the least interest her. There were
several dozen men who could testify to that. They knew! What she
really wanted was to be head over ears in love--to adore some one, to
worship him, to imagine herself starving for him and making sacrifice
hits for him; but when the moment came to make the sacrifice hit and
marry the man, she invariably found that a greater, truer love had
arisen--for some one else.
This greater and truer love always made her behave abominably to the
youth she had just jilted. She wasted no time on post-mortems. She was
so eager to show her absolute loyalty to the new monarch that she
grudged every thought she ever had given the one she had cast into
exile. She resented him bitterly. She could not forgive him for
having allowed her to be desperately in love with him. He should have
known he was not worthy of such a love as hers. He should have known
that the real prince was waiting only just round the corner.
As a rule the rejected ones behaved well. Each decided Aline was much
too wonderful a creature for him, and continued to love her cautiously
and from a distance. None of them ever spoke or thought ill of her and
would gladly have punched any one who did. It was only the women whose
young men Aline had temporarily confiscated, and then returned saddened
and chastened, who were spiteful. And they dared say no more than that
Aline would probably have known her mind better if she had had a mother
to look after her. This, coming to the ears of Aline, caused her to
reply that a girl who could not keep straight herself, but needed a
mother to help her, would not keep straight had she a dozen mothers.
As she put it cheerfully, a girl who goes wrong and then pleads "no
mother to guide her" is like a jockey who pulls a race and then blames
the horse.
Each of the young men Aline rejected married some one else and, except
when the name of Aline Proctor in the theatrical advertisements or in
electric lights on Broadway gave him a start, forgot that for a month
her name and his own had been linked together from Portland to San
Francisco. But the girl he married did not forget. She never
understood what the public saw in Aline Proctor. That Aline was the
queen of musical comedy she attributed to the fact that Aline knew the
right people and got herself written about in the right way. But that
she could sing, dance, act; that she possessed compelling charm; that
she "got across" not only to the tired business man, the wine agent,
the college boy, but also to the children and the old ladies, was to
her never apparent.
Just as Aline could not forgive the rejected suitor for allowing her to
love him, so the girl he married never forgave Aline for having loved
her husband. Least of all could Sally Winthrop, who two years after
the summer at Bar Harbor married Herbert Nelson, forgive her. And she
let Herbert know it. Herbert was properly in love with Sally Winthrop,
but he liked to think that his engagement to Aline, though brief and
abruptly terminated, had proved him to be a man fatally attractive to
all women. And though he was hypnotizing himself into believing that
his feeling for Aline had been the grand passion, the truth was that
all that kept her in his thoughts was his own vanity. He was not
discontented with his lot--his lot being Sally Winthrop, her millions,
and her estate of three hundred acres near Westbury. Nor was he still
longing for Aline. It was only that his vanity was flattered by the
recollection that one of the young women most beloved by the public had
once loved him.
"I once was a king in Babylon," he used to misquote to himself, "and
she was a Christian slave."
He was as young as that.
Had he been content in secret to assure himself that he once had been a
reigning monarch, his vanity would have harmed no one; but,
unfortunately, he possessed certain documentary evidence to that fact.
And he was sufficiently foolish not to wish to destroy it. The
evidence consisted of a dozen photographs he had snapped of Aline
during the happy days at Bar Harbor, and on which she had written
phrases somewhat exuberant and sentimental.
From these photographs Nelson was loath to part--especially with one
that showed Aline seated on a rock that ran into the waters of the
harbor, and on which she had written: "As long as this rock lasts!"
Each time she was in love Aline believed it would last. That in the
past it never had lasted did not discourage her.
What to do with these photographs that so vividly recalled the most
tumultuous period of his life Nelson could not decide. If he hid them
away and Sally found them, he knew she would make his life miserable.
If he died and Sally then found them, when he no longer was able to
explain that they meant nothing to him, she would believe he always had
loved the other woman, and it would make her miserable. He felt he
could not safely keep them in his own house; his vanity did not permit
him to burn them, and, accordingly, he decided to unload them on some
one else.
The young man to whom he confided his collection was Charles Cochran.
Cochran was a charming person from the West. He had studied in the
Beaux Arts and on foot had travelled over England and Europe, preparing
himself to try his fortune in New York as an architect. He was now in
the office of the architects Post & Constant, and lived alone in a tiny
farmhouse he had made over for himself near Herbert Nelson, at
Westbury, Long Island.
Post & Constant were a fashionable firm and were responsible for many
of the French chateaux and English country houses that were rising near
Westbury, Hempstead, and Roslyn; and it was Cochran's duty to drive
over that territory in his runabout, keep an eye on the contractors,
and dissuade clients from grafting mansard roofs on Italian villas. He
had built the summer home of the Herbert Nelsons, and Herbert and
Charles were very warm friends. Charles was of the same lack of years
as was Herbert, of an enthusiastic and sentimental nature; and, like
many other young men, the story of his life also was the lovely and
much-desired Aline Proctor. It was this coincidence that had made them
friends and that had led Herbert to select Charles as the custodian of
his treasure. As a custodian and confidant Charles especially appealed
to his new friend, because, except upon the stage and in restaurants,
Charles had never seen Aline Proctor, did not know her--and considered
her so far above him, so unattainable, that he had no wish to seek her
out. Unknown, he preferred to worship at a distance. In this
determination Herbert strongly encouraged him.
When he turned over the pictures to Charles, Herbert could not resist
showing them to him. They were in many ways charming. They presented
the queen of musical comedy in several new roles. In one she was in a
sailor suit, giving an imitation of a girl paddling a canoe. In
another she was in a riding-habit mounted upon a pony of which she
seemed very much afraid.
In some she sat like a siren among the rocks with the waves and seaweed
snatching at her feet, and in another she crouched beneath the wheel of
Herbert's touring car. All of the photographs were unprofessional and
intimate, and the legends scrawled across them were even more intimate.
"'As long as this rock lasts!'" read Herbert. At arm's length he held
the picture for Cochran to see, and laughed bitterly and unmirthfully
as he had heard leading men laugh in problem plays.
"That is what she wrote," he mocked--"but how long did it last? Until
she saw that little red-headed Albany playing polo. That lasted until
his mother heard of it. She thought her precious lamb was in the
clutches of a designing actress, and made the Foreign Office cable him
home. Then Aline took up one of those army aviators, and chucked him
for that fellow who painted her portrait, and threw him over for the
lawn-tennis champion. Now she's engaged to Chester Griswold, and
Heaven pity her! Of course he's the greatest catch in America; but he's
a prig and a snob, and he's so generous with his money that he'll give
you five pennies for a nickel any time you ask him. He's got a heart
like the metre of a taxicab, and he's jealous as a cat. Aline will
have a fine time with Chester! I knew him at St. Paul's and at Harvard,
and he's got as much red blood in him as an eel!"
Cochran sprang to the defense of the lady of his dreams.
"There must be some good in the man," he protested, "or Miss Proctor-"
"Oh, those solemn snobs," declared Herbert, "impress women by just
keeping still. Griswold pretends the reason he doesn't speak to you is
because he's too superior, but the real reason is that he knows
whenever he opens his mouth he shows he is an ass."
Reluctantly Herbert turned over to Charles the precious pictures. "It
would be a sin to destroy them, wouldn't it?" he prompted.
Cochran agreed heartily.
"You might even," suggested Herbert, "leave one or two of them about.
You have so many of Aline already that one more wouldn't be noticed.
Then when I drop in I could see it." He smiled ingratiatingly.
"But those I have I bought," Cochran pointed out. "Anybody can buy
them, but yours are personal. And they're signed."
"No one will notice that but me," protested Herbert. "Just one or
two," he coaxed-"stuck round among the others. They'd give me a heap
of melancholy pleasure."
Charles shook his head doubtfully.
"Your wife often comes here with you," he said. "I don't believe
they'd give her melancholy pleasure. The question is, are you married
to Sally or to Aline Proctor?"
"Oh, of course," exclaimed Herbert--"if you refuse!"
With suspicious haste Charles surrendered.
"I don't refuse," he explained; "I only ask if it's wise. Sally knows
you were once very fond of Miss Proctor--knows you were engaged to her."
"But," protested Herbert, "Sally sees your photographs of Aline. What
difference can a few more make? After she's seen a dozen she gets used
to them."
No sooner had Herbert left him than the custodian of the treasure
himself selected the photographs he would display. In them the young
woman he had--from the front row of the orchestra--so ardently admired
appeared in a new light. To Cochran they seemed at once to render her
more kindly, more approachable; to show her as she really was, the sort
of girl any youth would find it extremely difficult not to love.
Cochran found it extremely easy. The photographs gave his imagination
all the room it wanted. He believed they also gave him an insight into
her real character that was denied to anybody else. He had always
credited her with all the virtues; he now endowed her with every charm
of mind and body. In a week to the two photographs he had selected
from the loan collection for purposes of display and to give Herbert
melancholy pleasure he had added three more. In two weeks there were
half a dozen. In a month, nobly framed in silver, in leather of red,
green, and blue, the entire collection smiled upon him from every part
of his bedroom. For he now kept them where no one but himself could
see them. No longer was he of a mind to share his borrowed treasure
with others--not even with the rightful owner.
Chester Griswold, spurred on by Aline Proctor, who wanted to build a
summer home on Long Island, was motoring with Post, of Post & Constant,
in the neighborhood of Westbury. Post had pointed out several houses
designed by his firm, which he hoped might assist Griswold in making up
his mind as to the kind of house he wanted; but none they had seen had
satisfied his client.
"What I want is a cheap house," explained the young millionaire. "I
don't really want a house at all," he complained. "It's Miss Proctor's
idea. When we are married I intend to move into my mother's town
house, but Miss Proctor wants one for herself in the country. I've
agreed to that; but it must be small and it must be cheap."
"Cheap" was a word that the clients of Post & Constant never used; but
Post knew the weaknesses of some of the truly rich, and he knew also
that no house ever built cost only what the architect said it would
cost.
"I know the very house you want!" he exclaimed. "One of our young men
owns it. He made it over from an old farmhouse. It's very well
arranged; we've used his ground-plan several times and it works out
splendidly. If he's not at home, I'll show you over the place myself.
And if you like the house he's the man to build you one."
When they reached Cochran's home he was at Garden City playing golf,
but the servant knew Mr. Post, and to him and his client threw open
every room in the house.
"Now, this," exclaimed the architect enthusiastically, "is the master's
bedroom. In your case it would probably be your wife's room and you
would occupy the one adjoining, which Cochran now uses as a guest-room.
As you see, they are entirely cut off from-"
Mr. Griswold did not see. Up to that moment he had given every
appearance of being both bored and sulky. Now his attention was
entirely engaged--but not upon the admirable simplicity of Mr.
Cochran's ground-plan, as Mr. Post had hoped. Instead, the eyes of the
greatest catch in America were intently regarding a display of
photographs that smiled back at him from every corner of the room. Not
only did he regard these photographs with a savage glare, but he
approached them and carefully studied the inscriptions scrawled across
the face of each.
Post himself cast a glance at the nearest photographs, and then hastily
manoeuvred his client into the hall and closed the door.
"We will now," he exclaimed, "visit the butler's pantry, which opens
upon the dining-room and kitchen, thus saving--"
But Griswold did not hear him. Without giving another glance at the
house he stamped out of it and, plumping himself down in the motor-car,
banged the door. Not until Post had driven him well into New York did
he make any comment.
"What did you say," he then demanded, "is the name of the man who owns
that last house we saw?"
Post told him.
"I never heard of him!" said Griswold as though he were delivering
young Cochran's death sentence. "Who is he?"
"He's an architect in our office," said Post. "We think a lot of him.
He'll leave us soon, of course. The best ones always do. His work is
very popular. So is he."
"I never heard of him," repeated Griswold. Then, with sudden heat, he
added savagely: "But I mean to to-night."
When Griswold had first persuaded Aline Proctor to engage herself to
him he had suggested that, to avoid embarrassment, she should tell him
the names of the other men to whom she had been engaged.
"What kind of embarrassment would that avoid?"
"If I am talking to a man," said Griswold, "and he knows the woman I'm
going to marry was engaged to him and I don't know that, he has me at a
disadvantage."
"I don't see that he has," said Aline. "If we suppose, for the sake of
argument, that to marry me is desirable, I would say that the man who
was going to marry me had the advantage over the one I had declined to
marry."
"I want to know who those men are," explained Griswold, "because I want
to avoid them. I don't want to talk to them. I don't want even to
know them."
"I don't see how I can help you," said Aline. "I haven't the slightest
objection to telling you the names of the men I have cared for, if I
can remember them, but I certainly do not intend to tell you the name
of any man who cared for me enough to ask me to marry him. That's his
secret, not mine--certainly not yours."
Griswold thought he was very proud. He really was very vain; and as
jealousy is only vanity in its nastiest development he was extremely
jealous. So he persisted.
"Will you do this?" he demanded. "If I ever ask you, 'Is that one of
the men you cared for?' will you tell me?"
"If you wish it," said Aline; "but I can't see any health in it. It
will only make you uncomfortable. So long as you know I have given you
the greatest and truest love I am capable of, why should you concern
yourself with my mistakes?"
"So that I can avoid meeting what you call your mistakes," said
Griswold--"and being friendly with them."
"I assure you," laughed Aline, "it wouldn't hurt you a bit to be as
friendly with them as they'd let you. Maybe they weren't as proud of
their families as you are, but they made up for that by being a darned
sight prouder of me!"
Later, undismayed by this and unashamed, on two occasions Griswold
actually did demand of Aline if a genial youth she had just greeted
joyfully was one of those for whom she once had cared.
And Aline had replied promptly and truthfully that he was. But in the
case of Charles Cochran, Griswold did not ask Aline if he was one of
those for whom she once had cared. He considered the affair with
Cochran so serious that, in regard to that man, he adopted a different
course.
In digging rivals out of the past his jealousy had made him
indefatigable, but in all his researches he never had heard the name of
Charles Cochran. That fact and the added circumstance that Aline
herself never had mentioned the man was in his eyes so suspicious as to
be almost a damning evidence of deception. And he argued that if in
the past Aline had deceived him as to Charles Cochran she would
continue to do so. Accordingly, instead of asking her frankly for the
truth he proceeded to lay traps for it. And if there is one thing
Truth cannot abide, it is being hunted by traps.
That evening Aline and he were invited to a supper in her honor, and as
he drove her from the theatre to the home of their hostess he told her
of his search earlier in the day.
The electric light in the limousine showed Aline's face as clearly as
though it were held in a spotlight, and as he prepared his trap
Griswold regarded her jealously.
"Post tells me," he said, "he has the very man you want for your
architect. He's sure you'll find him most understanding
and--and--sympathetic. He's a young man who is just coming to the
front, and he's very popular, especially with women."
"What's his being popular with women," asked Aline, "got to do with his
carrying out my ideas of a house?"
"That's just it," said Griswold--"it's the woman who generally has the
most to say as to how her house shall be built, and this man
understands woman. I have reasons for believing he will certainly
understand you!"
"If he understands me well enough to give me all the linen-closets I
want," said Aline, "he will be perfectly satisfactory."
Before delivering his blow Griswold sank back into his corner of the
car, drew his hat brim over his forehead, and fixed spying eyes upon
the very lovely face of the girl he had asked to marry him.
"His name," he said in fateful tones, "is Charles Cochran!"
It was supposed to be a body blow; but, to his distress, Aline neither
started nor turned pale. Neither, for trying to trick her, did she
turn upon him in reproof and anger. Instead, with alert eyes, she
continued to peer out of the window at the electric-light
advertisements and her beloved Broadway.
"Well?" demanded Griswold; his tone was hoarse and heavy with meaning.
"Well what?" asked Aline pleasantly.
"How," demanded Griswold, "do you like Charles Cochran for an
architect?"
"How should I know?" asked Aline. "I've not met him yet!"
She had said it! And she had said it without the waver of one of her
lovely eyelashes. No wonder the public already hailed her as a
finished actress! Griswold felt that his worst fears were justified.
She had lied to him. And, as he knew she had never before lied to him,
that now she did so proved beyond hope of doubt that the reason for it
was vital, imperative, and compelling. But of his suspicions Griswold
gave no sign. He would not at once expose her. He had trapped her,
but as yet she must not know that. He would wait until he had still
further entangled her--until she could not escape; and then, with
complete proof of her deceit, he would confront and overwhelm her.
With this amiable purpose in mind he called early the next morning upon
Post & Constant and asked to see Mr. Cochran. He wished, he said, to
consult him about the new house. Post had not yet reached the office,
and of Griswold's visit with Post to his house Cochran was still
ignorant. He received Griswold most courteously. He felt that the man
who was loved by the girl he also had long and hopelessly worshipped
was deserving of the highest consideration. Griswold was less
magnanimous. When he found his rival--for as such he beheld him--was
of charming manners and gallant appearance he considered that fact an
additional injury; but he concealed his resentment, for he was going to
trap Cochran, too.
He found the architect at work leaning over a drawing-board, and as
they talked Cochran continued to stand. He was in his shirt-sleeves,
which were rolled to his shoulders; and the breadth of those shoulders
and the muscles of his sunburned arms were much in evidence. Griswold
considered it a vulgar exhibition.
For over ten minutes they talked solely of the proposed house, but not
once did Griswold expose the fact that he had seen any more of it than
any one might see from the public road. When he rose to take his leave
he said:
"How would it do if I motored out Sunday and showed your house to Miss
Proctor? Sunday is the only day she has off, and if it would not
inconvenience you--"
The tender heart of Cochran leaped in wild tumult; he could not conceal
his delight, nor did he attempt to do so; and his expression made it
entirely unnecessary for him to assure Griswold that such a visit would
be entirely welcome and that they might count on finding him at home.
As though it were an afterthought, Griswold halted at the door and said:
"I believe you are already acquainted with Miss Proctor."
Cochran, conscious of five years of devotion, found that he was
blushing, and longed to strangle himself. Nor was the blush lost upon
Griswold.
"I'm sorry," said Cochran, "but I've not had that honor. On the stage,
of course--"
He shrugged the broad shoulders deprecatingly, as though to suggest
that not to know Miss Proctor as an artist argues oneself unknown.
Griswold pretended to be puzzled. As though endeavoring to recall a
past conversation he frowned.
"But Aline," he said, "told me she had met you-met you at Bar Harbor."
In the fatal photographs the familiar landfalls of Bar Harbor had been
easily recognized.
The young architect shook his head.
"It must be another Cochran," he suggested. "I have never been in Bar
Harbor."
With the evidence of the photographs before him this last statement was
a verdict of guilty, and Griswold, not with the idea of giving Cochran
a last chance to be honest, but to cause him to dig the pit still
deeper, continued to lead him on. "Maybe she meant York Harbor?"
Again Cochran shook his head and laughed.
"Believe me," he said, "if I'd ever met Miss Proctor anywhere I
wouldn't forget it!"
Ten minutes later Griswold was talking to Aline over the telephone. He
intended to force matters. He would show Aline she could neither
trifle with nor deceive Chester Griswold; but the thought that he had
been deceived was not what most hurt him. What hurt him was to think
that Aline had preferred a man who looked like an advertisement for
ready-made clothes and who worked in his shirt-sleeves.
Griswold took it for granted that any woman would be glad to marry him.
So many had been willing to do so that he was convinced, when one of
them was not, it was not because there was anything wrong with him, but
because the girl herself lacked taste and perception.
That the others had been in any degree moved by his many millions had
never suggested itself. He was convinced each had loved him for
himself alone; and if Aline, after meeting him, would still consider
any one else, it was evident something was very wrong with Aline. He
was determined that she must be chastened--must be brought to a proper
appreciation of her good fortune and of his condescension.
On being called to the telephone at ten in the morning, Aline demanded
to know what could excuse Griswold for rousing her in the middle of the
night!
Griswold replied that, though the day was young, it also was charming;
that on Sunday there might be rain; and that if she desired to see the
house he and Post thought would most suit her, he and his car would be
delighted to convey her to it. They could make the run in an hour,
lunch with friends at Westbury, and return in plenty of time for the
theatre. Aline was delighted at the sudden interest Griswold was
showing in the new house. Without a moment's hesitation she walked into
the trap. She would go, she declared, with pleasure. In an hour he
should call for her.
Exactly an hour later Post arrived at his office. He went directly to
Cochran.
"Charles," he said, "I'm afraid I got you into trouble yesterday. I
took a client to see your house. You have often let us do it before;
but since I was there last you've made some changes. In your
bedroom--" Post stopped.
Cochran's naive habit of blushing told him it was not necessary to
proceed. In tones of rage and mortification Cochran swore explosively;
Post was relieved to find he was swearing at himself.
"I ought to be horsewhipped!" roared Cochran. "I'll never forgive
myself! Who," he demanded, "saw the pictures? Was it a man or a woman?"
Post laughed unhappily.
"It was Chester Griswold."
A remarkable change came over Cochran. Instead of sobering him, as
Post supposed it would, the information made him even more angry--only
now his anger was transferred from himself to Griswold.
"The blankety-blank bounder!" yelled Cochran. "That was what he
wanted! That's why he came here!"
"Here!" demanded Post.
"Not an hour ago," cried Cochran. "He asked me about Bar Harbor. He
saw those pictures were taken at Bar Harbor!"
"I think," said Post soothingly, "he'd a right to ask questions. There
were so many pictures, and they were very--well--very!"
"I'd have answered his questions," roared Cochran, "if he'd asked them
like a man, but he came snooping down here to spy on me. He tried to
trick me. He insulted me! He insulted her!" He emitted a howl of
dismay. "And I told him I'd never been to Bar Harbor--that I'd never
met Aline Proctor!"
Cochran seized his coat and hat. He shouted to one of the office boys
to telephone the garage for his car.
"What are you--where are you going?" demanded Post.
"I'm going home first," cried Cochran, "to put those pictures in a
safe, as I should have done three months ago. And then I'm going to
find Chester Griswold and tell him he's an ass and a puppy!"
"If you do that," protested Post, "you're likely to lose us a very
valuable client."
"And your client," roared Charles, "is likely to lose some very
valuable teeth!"
As Charles whirled into the country road in which stood his house he
saw drawn up in front of it the long gray car in which, that morning,
Chester Griswold had called at the office. Cochran emitted a howl of
anger. Was his home again to be invaded? And again while he was
absent? To what extreme would Griswold's jealousy next lead him? He
fell out of his own car while it still moved, and leaped up the garden
walk. The front rooms of the house were empty, but from his bedroom he
heard, raised in excited tones, the voice of Griswold. The audacity of
the man was so surprising, and his own delight at catching him
red-handed so satisfying, that no longer was Cochran angry. The Lord
had delivered his enemy into his hands! And, as he advanced toward his
bedroom, not only was he calm, but, at the thought of his revenge,
distinctly jubilant. In the passageway a frightened maid servant, who,
at his unexpected arrival, was now even more frightened, endeavored to
give him an explanation; but he waved her into silence, and, striding
before her, entered his bedroom.
He found confronting him a tall and beautiful young woman. It was not
the Aline Proctor he knew. It was not the well-poised, gracious, and
distinguished beauty he had seen gliding among the tables at Sherry's
or throwing smiles over the footlights. This Aline Proctor was a very
indignant young person, with flashing eyes, tossing head, and a
stamping foot. Extended from her at arm's length, she held a
photograph of herself in a heavy silver frame; and, as though it were a
weapon, she was brandishing it in the face of Chester Griswold. As
Cochran, in amazement, halted in the doorway she was exclaiming:
"I told you I didn't know Charles Cochran! I tell you so now! If you
can't believe me-"
Out of the corner of her flashing eyes the angry lady caught sight of
Cochran in the doorway. She turned upon the intruder as though she
meant forcibly to eject him.
"Who are you?" she demanded. Her manner and tone seemed to add: "And
what the deuce are you doing here?"
Charles answered her tone.
"I am Charles Cochran," he said. "I live here. This is my house!"
These words had no other effect upon Miss Proctor than to switch her
indignation down another track. She now turned upon Charles.
"Then, if this is your house," cried that angry young person, "why have
you filled it with photographs of me that belong to some one else?"
Charles saw that his hour had come. His sin had found him out. He
felt that to prevaricate would be only stupid.
Griswold had tried devious methods--and look where his devious methods
had dumped him! Griswold certainly was in wrong. Charles quickly
determined to adopt a course directly opposite. Griswold had shown an
utter lack of confidence in Aline. Charles decided that he would give
her his entire confidence, would throw himself upon the mercy of the
court.
"I have those photographs in my house, Miss Proctor," he said, "because
I have admired you a long time. They were more like you than those I
could buy. Having them here has helped me a lot, and it hasn't done
you any harm. You know very well you have anonymous admirers all over
this country. I'm only one of them. If I have offended, I have
offended with many, many thousands."
Already it has been related that Cochran was very good to look upon.
At the present moment, as he spoke in respectful, even soulful accents,
meekly and penitently proclaiming his long-concealed admiration, Miss
Proctor found her indignation melting like an icicle in the sun.
Still, she did not hold herself cheaply. She was accustomed to such
open flattery. She would not at once capitulate.
"But these pictures," she protested, "I gave to a man I knew. You have
no right to them. They are not at all the sort of picture I would give
to an utter stranger!" With anxiety the lovely lady paused for a
reply. She hoped that the reply the tall young man with appealing eyes
would make would be such as to make it possible for her to forgive him.
He was not given time to reply. With a mocking snort Griswold
interrupted. Aline and Charles had entirely forgotten him.
"An utter stranger!" mimicked Griswold. "Oh, yes; he's an utter
stranger! You're pretty good actors, both of you; but you can't keep
that up long, and you'd better stop it now."
"Stop what?" asked Miss Proctor. Her tone was cold and calm, but in
her eyes was a strange light. It should have warned Griswold that he
would have been safer under the bed.
"Stop pretending!" cried Griswold. "I won't have it!"
"I don't understand," said Miss Proctor. She spoke in the same cold
voice, only now it had dropped several degrees nearer freezing. "I
don't think you understand yourself. You won't have what?"
Griswold now was frightened, and that made him reckless. Instead of
withdrawing he plunged deeper.
"I won't have you two pretending you don't know each other," he
blustered. "I won't stand being fooled! If you're going to deceive me
before we're married, what will you do after we're married?"
Charles emitted a howl. It was made up of disgust, amazement, and
rage. Fiercely he turned upon Miss Proctor.
"Let me have him!" he begged.
"No!" almost shouted Miss Proctor. Her tone was no longer cold--it was
volcanic. Her eyes, flashing beautifully, were fixed upon Griswold.
She made a gesture as though to sweep Charles out of the room. "Please
go!" she demanded. "This does not concern you."
Her tone was one not lightly to be disregarded. Charles disregarded it.
"It does concern me," he said briskly. "Nobody can insult a woman in
my house--you, least of all!" He turned upon the greatest catch in
America. "Griswold," he said, "I never met this lady until I came into
this room; but I know her, understand her, value her better than you'd
understand her if you knew her a thousand years!"
Griswold allowed him to go no farther.
"I know this much," he roared: "she was in love with the man who took
those photographs, and that man was in love with her! And you're that
man!"
"What if I am!" roared back Charles. "Men always have loved her; men
always will--because she's a fine, big, wonderful woman! You can't see
that, and you never will. You insulted her! Now I'll give you time to
apologize for that, and then I'll order you out of this house! And if
Miss Proctor is the sort of girl I think she is, she'll order you out
of it, too!"
Both men swung toward Miss Proctor. Her eyes were now smiling
excitedly. She first turned them upon Charles, blushing most
becomingly.
"Miss Proctor," she said, "hopes she is the sort of girl Mr. Cochran
thinks she is." She then turned upon the greatest catch in America.
"You needn't wait, Chester," she said, "not even to apologize."
Chester Griswold, alone in his car, was driven back to New York. On the
way he invented a story to explain why, at the eleventh hour, he had
jilted Aline Proctor; but when his thoughts reverted to the young man
he had seen working with his sleeves rolled up he decided it would be
safer to let Miss Proctor tell of the broken engagement in her own way.
Charles would not consent to drive his fair guest back to New York
until she had first honored him with her presence at luncheon. It was
served for two, on his veranda, under the climbing honeysuckles.
During the luncheon he told her all.
Miss Proctor, in the light of his five years of devotion, magnanimously
forgave him.
"Such a pretty house!" she exclaimed as they drove away from it. "When
Griswold selected it for our honeymoon he showed his first appreciation
of what I really like."
"It is still at your service!" said Charles.
Miss Proctor's eyes smiled with a strange light, but she did not speak.
It was a happy ride; but when Charles left her at the door of her
apartment-house he regarded sadly and with regret the bundle of
retrieved photographs that she carried away.
"What is it?" she asked kindly.
"I'm thinking of going back to those empty frames," said Charles, and
blushed deeply. Miss Proctor blushed also. With delighted and guilty
eyes she hastily scanned the photographs. Snatching one from the
collection, she gave it to him and then ran up the steps.
In the light of the spring sunset the eyes of Charles devoured the
photograph of which, at last, he was the rightful owner. On it was
written: "As long as this rock lasts!"
As Charles walked to his car his expression was distinctly thoughtful.