"SHE'S ALL THE WORLD."
Excellent neighborhood, St. Mary street, and Prytania was even better.
Everybody was very retired though, it seemed. Almost every house
standing in the midst of its shady garden,--sunny gardens are a newer
fashion of the town,--a bell-knob on the gate-post, and the gate locked.
But the Richlings cared nothing for this; not even what they should have
cared. Nor was there any unpleasantness in another fact.
"Do you let this window stand wide this way when you are at work here,
all day?" asked the husband. The opening alluded to was on Prytania
street, and looked across the way to where the asylumed widows of "St
Anna's" could glance down into it over their poor little window-gardens.
"Why, yes, dear!" Mary looked up from her little cane rocker with that
thoughtful contraction at the outer corners of her eyes and that
illuminated smile that between them made half her beauty. And then,
somewhat more gravely and persuasively: "Don't you suppose they like it?
They must like it. I think we can do that much for them. Would you
rather I'd shut it?"
For answer John laid his hand on her head and gazed into her eyes.
"Take care," she whispered; "they'll see you."
He let his arm drop in amused despair.
"Why, what's the window open for? And, anyhow, they're all abed and
asleep these two hours."
They did like it, those aged widows. It fed their hearts' hunger to
see the pretty unknown passing and repassing that open window in the
performance of her morning duties, or sitting down near it with her
needle, still crooning her soft morning song,--poor, almost as poor as
they, in this world's glitter; but rich in hope and courage, and rich
beyond all count in the content of one who finds herself queen of ever
so little a house, where love is.
"Love is enough!" said the widows.
And certainly she made it seem so. The open window brought, now and
then, a moisture to the aged eyes, yet they liked it open.
But, without warning one day, there was a change. It was the day after
Dr. Sevier had noticed that queer street quarrel. The window was not
closed, but it sent out no more light. The song was not heard, and many
small, faint signs gave indication that anxiety had come to be a guest
in the little house. At evening the wife was seen in her front door and
about its steps, watching in a new, restless way for her husband's
coming; and when he came it could be seen, all the way from those upper
windows, where one or two faces appeared now and then, that he was
troubled and care-worn. There were two more days like this one; but at
the end of the fourth the wife read good tidings in her husband's
countenance. He handed her a newspaper, and pointed to a list of
departing passengers.
"They're gone!" she exclaimed.
He nodded, and laid off his hat. She cast her arms about his neck, and
buried her head in his bosom. You could almost have seen Anxiety flying
out at the window. By morning the widows knew of a certainty that the
cloud had melted away.
In the counting-room one evening, as Richling said good-night with
noticeable alacrity, one of his employers, sitting with his legs crossed
over the top of a desk, said to his partner:--
"Richling works for his wages."
"That's all," replied the other; "he don't see his interests in ours any
more than a tinsmith would, who comes to mend the roof."
The first one took a meditative puff or two from his cigar, tipped off
its ashes, and responded:--
"Common fault. He completely overlooks his immense indebtedness to the
world at large, and his dependence on it. He's a good fellow, and
bright; but he actually thinks that he and the world are starting even."
"His wife's his world," said the other, and opened the Bills Payable
book. Who will say it is not well to sail in an ocean of love? But the
Richlings were becalmed in theirs, and, not knowing it, were satisfied.
Day in, day out, the little wife sat at her window, and drove her
needle. Omnibuses rumbled by; an occasional wagon or cart set the dust
a-flying; the street venders passed, crying the praises of their goods
and wares; the blue sky grew more and more intense as weeks piled up
upon weeks; but the empty repetitions, and the isolation, and, worst of
all, the escape of time,--she smiled at all, and sewed on and crooned
on, in the sufficient thought that John would come, each time, when only
hours enough had passed away forever.
Once she saw Dr. Sevier's carriage. She bowed brightly, but he--what
could it mean?--he lifted his hat with such austere gravity. Dr. Sevier
was angry. He had no definite charge to make, but that did not lessen
his displeasure. After long, unpleasant wondering, and long trusting to
see Richling some day on the street, he had at length driven by this
way purposely to see if they had indeed left town, as they had been so
imperiously commanded to do.
This incident, trivial as it was, roused Mary to thought; and all the
rest of the day the thought worked with energy to dislodge the frame of
mind that she had acquired from her husband.
When John came home that night and pressed her to his bosom she was
silent. And when he held her off a little and looked into her eyes, and
she tried to better her smile, those eyes stood full to the lashes and
she looked down.
"What's the matter?" asked he, quickly.
"Nothing!" She looked up again, with a little laugh.
He took a chair and drew her down upon his lap.
"What's the matter with my girl?"
"I don't know."
"How,--you don't know?"
"Why, I simply don't. I can't make out what it is. If I could I'd tell
you; but I don't know at all." After they had sat silent a few
moments:--
"I wonder"--she began.
"You wonder what?" asked he, in a rallying tone.
"I wonder if there's such a thing as being too contented."
Richling began to hum, with a playful manner:--
"'And she's all the world to me.'
Is that being too"--
"Stop!" said Mary. "That's it." She laid her hand upon his shoulder.
"You've said it. That's what I ought not to be!"
"Why, Mary, what on earth"-- His face flamed up "John, I'm willing to
be _more_ than all the rest of the world to you. I always must be
that. I'm going to be that forever. And you"--she kissed him
passionately--"you're all the world to me! But I've no right to be _all_
the world to _you_. And you mustn't allow it. It's making it too small!"
"Mary, what are you saying?"
"Don't, John. Don't speak that way. I'm not saying anything. I'm only
trying to say something, I don't know what."
"Neither do I," was the mock-rueful answer.
"I only know," replied Mary, the vision of Dr. Sevier's carriage
passing before her abstracted eyes, and of the Doctor's pale face bowing
austerely within it, "that if you don't take any part or interest in the
outside world it'll take none in you; do you think it will?"
"And who cares if it doesn't?" cried John, clasping her to his bosom.
"I do," she replied. "Yes, I do. I've no right to steal you from the
rest of the world, or from the place in it that you ought to fill.
John"--
"That's my name."
"Why can't I do something to help you?"
John lifted his head unnecessarily.
"No!"
"Well, then, let's think of something we can do, without just waiting
for the wind to blow us along,--I mean," she added appeasingly, "I mean
without waiting to be employed by others."
"Oh, yes; but that takes capital!"
"Yes, I know; but why don't you think up something,--some new enterprise
or something,--and get somebody with capital to go in with you?"
He shook his head.
"You're out of your depth. And that wouldn't make so much difference,
but you're out of mine. It isn't enough to think of something; you must
know how to do it. And what do I know how to do? Nothing! Nothing that's
worth doing!"
"I know one thing you could do."
"What's that?"
"You could be a professor in a college."
John smiled bitterly.
"Without antecedents?" he asked.
Their eyes met; hers dropped, and both voices were silent. Mary drew a
soft sigh. She thought their talk had been unprofitable. But it had not.
John laid hold of work from that day on in a better and wiser spirit.