“ONLY THREE WORDS”
As the weeks went by and Mahala settled down to real work, she found
that she had not boasted in vain. She was capable of doing as much work
in a day as any other woman. She was capable of doing tasteful work,
becoming to her customers to such a degree, that no one else in the town
ever had even approached. With Jemima’s help she was slowly beginning
the foundation of a sum of savings that meant for them a better home in
the future; and then one day she was called to the office of Albert Rich
and told that in the settlement of her father’s estate he had found a
small, abandoned farm, with a ramshackle house standing upon it, wholly
unencumbered. He had kept this find a secret until Martin Moreland had
filed his last claim and taken over property sufficient to discharge all
indebtedness, at a very low appraisement.
Mahala hurried back to Jemima and to her mother with the glad news that
they really had a small inheritance.
The following Sunday, her mother feeling unusually well and being able
to sit propped in her bed for an hour, Mahala took the lunch Jemima had
prepared for her and started to the country on foot to see if she could
find the property from the descriptions given her by Albert Rich. She
wanted to see whether, by any possibility, the house could be utilized
for a home, or whether it could be sold for enough to buy a small town
house for them. She felt that if she owned a roof, the question of
clothing and food would be easy. Those were the days when more goods
could be bought for less money than ever before in the history of the
world. They were the days when the country was cleared and developed to
such a degree that gardens, orchards, vineyards, and farm lands were
pouring out a wealth of fruitfulness. They were the days before the
forests had been cut and land had been cleared to such a degree that the
heat and drought that attacked a following generation were unknown.
Factories all over the country were turning out lavish quantities of a
high grade of goods. People were rapidly advancing to a degree of luxury
and comfort that the country had never known.
With the furnishings from their former home, with the amount of fresh
food that could be secured in the days when milk was four cents a quart,
cream six, and a substantial pair of shoes could be had for a dollar and
a half, while the finest silk and satin dress material might be
purchased for from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half a yard, if
she but owned a roof, the remainder of her problem would be easy.
She had learned to her surprise that she liked to work; that she took
pride in ripping up the old hats that were brought to her and making of
them something so fresh, so dainty, constructed so becomingly to the
face and figure of the wearer, that it was joy to do the work. She was
learning that lesson which all the world was later to learn—that the
greatest happiness that was possible to be experienced by any mortal
came through the performance of work which was loved and which was
beneficial to one’s fellow man.
She had been careful from the start not to overwork. When she had sat
for a certain length of time with her needle, she laid it down, squared
her shoulders, and went for a few minutes to walk over the grasses of
the front yard, through the garden where Jemima worked when she had no
other employment.
This morning she went down the road, her head erect, her nostrils
distended, hearing the bird songs above her, sensing the waves of sound
sweeping through the air around her, absorbing with her eyes and her
ears the rhythms of life that flowed in streams as she passed. She was
trying to gauge the quality and the value of the land through which she
had been accustomed to driving all her life in her father’s surrey.
She was following what was known as the River Road. She paused on the
bridge, looking up and down the length of the Ashwater, her heart and
soul alive to the beauty of the lazily flowing water, the great
sycamores, the big maples and elms which bordered it, to the gold shoots
of the willows with their long, graceful leaves and the red of the
cornels. She smiled down at the big, delicate pink mallows blushing at
the beauty of their own reflections in the clear water. Her heart was
weighted with grief over the loss of her father, with pity and regret
for her mother. It was filled with anger against Martin Moreland and
Junior.
She conceded her father’s weakness in having gone on keeping up a
business he could not afford and allowing himself to become so heavily
involved. At the same time, she was certain that Martin Moreland had
deceived him, had deliberately enmeshed him, had not mentioned notes
that were overdue, had conducted business in a loose and unbusiness-like
manner for the express purpose of accomplishing the downfall of a man
whose popularity and place in the community had always been an offence
to him.
That morning she tried to put these things out of her mind. She tried to
think that in some way, whatever happened to her might work out for the
best. She tried deliberately to fill her mind with the ripple of water,
with the flush of the mallow, with the lark song over the adjacent
clover fields.
When, finally, she aroused herself and went forward hunting for the
inheritance that was vastly welcome no matter how small, she was almost
shocked with the realization for the first time that ultimately peace
would return to her heart; never would she relinquish her old pride in
blood and breeding. Her father had been foolish, but he had not been
wicked. He had misplaced his confidence. He had lost his money; but he
had not involved other men. His name was clear. He might be blamed with
the tongue of envy or of jealousy, but he never could be defamed with
the tongue of slander.
As she chose her path beside the dusty highway, lifting her skirts and
taking care of her shoes as best she might, she found that she was
fervently thanking God for these things. Friends who did not stand by in
such a case were not friends. She would forget them and gradually life
would bring to her friends that were worth while.
When finally she reached the place that she had set out to find, she
realized why her father never had mentioned it. He had not considered it
worth mentioning. It probably had come into his hands with some other
deal and had remained there because he was unable to dispose of it.
Mahala did not know how to measure land by sight. She did not know where
the forty acres surrounding the house began or ended. The house itself
stood close to the road. It was so old that the roof was falling in. The
front door stood slightly ajar. Surveying the place from the road,
Mahala slowly shook her head. No one had lived there for years. The rank
grass falling over the board laid from the gate to the stoop for a walk,
proved it. The tangle of flowers and weeds growing across the front of
the house and on either hand, proved it. The myriad sprouts springing up
around the cherry and pear trees surrounding the house bespoke years of
negligence.
Mahala tested the broad front stoop and the veranda carefully before she
bore her full weight upon them. She pushed open the front door and used
the same care with the floors. There were places where she trembled lest
she should break through. In many spots the plastering had fallen and
the bare laths grinned at her. Wind-blown limbs had broken in the
windows and pieces of brick and stone testified that wanton children had
deliberately smashed the glass in many places.
She looked at the littered hearth of flagging and wondered who had
warmed their hearts before the fireplace. She counted the rooms and was
dejected over their smallness—a living room, two bedrooms, a dining
room, a lean-to kitchen, no upstairs, the roof and floors useless. The
framework seemed sound. The chimney stood straight.
She walked around the house and found at the back a neglected old
orchard of apple and other fruit trees and a stable slowly inclining
southward with the burden of years and its own dejection. On a trip
around the outside of the house, she found a wild sweet briar clambering
up and covering one whole end, and looking closer she could see the
siding boards that had outlined the dimensions of three-foot flower beds
surrounding the building. Peering among the dry leaves and weeds, she
saw that earlier in the season tulips, hyacinths, and star flowers had
bloomed there. There were seed pods ripening on the spindling peonies
and purple and white phlox were in bloom.
Instinctively, Mahala dropped to her knees and began to pull the weeds
from among the flowers. Suddenly she sat back on her heels and looking
up at the old building she smiled to it. Then she said to it: “So you
were once a home. Some one loved living in you. Some one grew a wreath
of flowers around you to make you pretty. Never you mind, you’re my home
now and as soon as I earn some money I’ll come here to live—that’s a
promise—and I’ll make you blooming and beautiful again.”
When Mahala heard her own voice saying these words, she realized the
pull on her heart of possession. This was a wretchedly poor thing, but
it was her own, her all. Every weed seemed to point an accusing finger
at her. The old apple trees reached pitiful arms, begging to be denuded
of suckers, to have their feet freed of encumbering growth, for their
soil to be fertilized. The old house needed a new roof, floors, and
plaster. The greater its needs, the stronger the appeal it made to
Mahala in the day of her own need. Here was something to fight for. Here
was something tangible to love and to live for, for after all, soil is
soil, and forty acres of it is not to be discarded because of neglect,
when it lies in a fertile valley near a river.
Finally Mahala arose. She returned to the back of the house and managed
to raise some water at the old pump. She washed her hands, and then
going back to the front, she sat down on the stoop, lightly screened by
sun-flecked shadows, and spread beside her the lunch Jemima had
prepared. She sat and ate her food very slowly, because her ears were
busy with the birds, her eyes were on the sky, among the bushes
outlining the indolent old fence sliding down of sheer inanition. She
noticed a distant figure trudging down the road, a figure that moved
toward her with a tired step actuated by unwavering purpose, a figure
that one could recognize as far as it could be seen as the plodding form
of a human following a hard road under the lash of duty. Mahala’s
perceptions were quickened in this case by the fact that the oncoming
figure was accentuated by a shimmering gleam of snowy white bobbing in
the rear. She looked intently, and then slowly one hand reached out
beside her and began dividing in halves the lunch that she had brought.
As Rebecca approached the gate, Mahala could see that she was covered
with dust, that she looked more worn and tired than she ever had seen
her. Whatever the thing might have been that inspired Rebecca’s endless
search, it had this time led her to far counties over rough roads. There
were times when she had been reported as having been seen beyond the
confines of the state.
Mahala, with the help of her foot, pushed wide the sagging gate, and
with the best smile she could summon, held her hand to Rebecca. The
lonely pilgrim on the long road paused and looked at her intently. She
strode toward her and began her customary speech: “Behold the White
Flag.” Mahala listened respectfully, the smile fading from her face. In
her heart there was a passion of painful emotion. There were reasons as
to why she folded her hands tightly over her aching heart and passed
under the flag in a spirit of deep reverence.
Then she pointed to the food on the stoop and asked Rebecca to come in,
to sit down and rest, to share with her. Rebecca asked for water. They
went back to the old well where the traveller manipulated the pump
handle and Mahala, holding her cupped hands tightly together, caught the
water and Rebecca drank from them. When she had quenched her thirst,
Rebecca’s hands—slender, delicate hands—closed together over Mahala’s.
Suddenly she bent her head and kissed the wet fingers she was holding.
“‘Cold water in His name,’” she murmured.
Mahala was deeply moved. She took one of Rebecca’s hands and started
toward the front of the house. She noticed that Rebecca’s footsteps
lagged, her eyes were searching everywhere. She withdrew her hand, and
going to the back door, pushed it open and peered inside.
After the words were spoken, Mahala was almost terrified to realize that
she had asked: “Becky, what is it that you spend your life hunting?”
Instantly, Rebecca’s figure grew rigid. Her face became a grayish white.
The dark lights that Mahala feared gathered in her eyes; her lips began
to tremble and her hands to shake. Terrified, Mahala again laid her hand
on Rebecca’s arm.
“Come,” she said soothingly, “come, and eat your food and then I’ll help
you. We’ll search together.”
Rebecca stood still. Now she was looking intently at Mahala. Then she
leaned her head and whispered: “No one ever offered to help me before.
It’s a secret. It’s a dreadful secret. Terrible things will happen if I
tell. My soul will be eternally damned.”
Mahala returned Rebecca’s steady look with eyes of frank honesty. “I
wouldn’t tell your secret, Becky,” she said.
“You will swear it?” cried Rebecca.
“I will swear it,” repeated Mahala.
Rebecca brought her lips close to Mahala’s ear and whispered three
words. Mahala drew back, staring at her with pitiful eyes.
“Oh, Becky!” she cried, “is _that_ what you search for? I will help you!
Truly I will! Come, now, and have something to eat. You’re so tired.”
They went back to the front stoop together. Because Mahala untied and
slipped it back with gentle hands, Rebecca spared her bonnet, and for
the first time, Mahala had the chance really to study her features, her
hair, the set of her head upon the column of her throat, and the figure
concealed by the unbecoming dress. She could see that in her youth
Rebecca must have been a beautiful girl. Under the grime of travel and
the nerve strain of fatigue, she was still beautiful.
Mahala made a pretence of eating after that. Surreptitiously, she pushed
all of the food she had under Rebecca’s fingers. When they had finished,
Mahala discovered that Rebecca was studying her intently. Then she
looked over the neglected dooryard, at the old house, and back to
Mahala.
“Little angel lady,” she said, “you are kind to me in Ashwater. Why are
you here?”
A sudden tremor quivered across Mahala’s face.
“Becky, dear,” she said, “this is my _home_ now. It’s the only place to
live, that I have left. You know that my father went to Heaven and I
lost my beautiful home, so now this is the only home I have. I’m coming
here to live, to see if I can cure my mother’s broken heart.”
Rebecca listened, her face full of intelligence.
Suddenly she leaned again and in a low voice she whispered: “Who broke
your mother’s heart?”
Mahala, to ease her own fear and because she credited Rebecca with
little more mentality than a child, answered truly: “Martin Moreland
broke her heart, Becky; broke it recklessly and deliberately; broke it
with malice and through long-pursued purpose.”
At the mention of that name, Rebecca stiffened. A look of deep
concentration came into her eyes. Again she seemed on the verge of going
into a violent attack. Her brow began to cloud, to draw down in
threatening darkness.
She muttered ominously: “Martin Moreland, Martin Moreland, breaker of
women’s hearts, and the hearts that he breaks never can be mended!”
Afraid of her in violent moments, Mahala began patting her arm. In an
effort to try to distract her attention, she begged her to listen to a
bird of black and gold singing on a knotty old cherry tree, to watch big
butterflies hovering over white phlox, to see the little growing things
being choked by weeds.
After they had finished their lunch and rested for a long time, they
started back toward Ashwater. They made a notable pair, Rebecca with her
round, childish face, the white flag waving with her every step; Mahala,
thinned and whitened with suffering and hard work, her arms filled with
white and purple phlox. Beside the road, whenever they passed Canadian
anemones, cone flowers, or any beautiful wilding, Mahala paused to
gather a few; and when they reached the cemetery, she divided her
fragrant burden in halves, and going in, she knelt beside her father’s
grave and scattered one portion over it, and burying her face above the
spot where she imagined Mahlon Spellman’s heart was resting, she sobbed
as if her own would break.
After a long time, Rebecca’s hand lifted her; she stood up and their
eyes met. Rebecca’s were clear and bright. She smiled at Mahala and then
she said a strange thing: “Oh, the blessing, the beautiful blessing of
tears! Mine all dried up long ago when I was young and pretty like you.
But when you say your prayers to-night, remember to thank God for the
surcease of tears.”
Mahala stood very still. She resolved that when she went home, for the
first time she would probe Jemima’s memory to the depths. These were the
thoughts and the words of a cultured woman. She remembered at that
minute that she never had heard any one say who Rebecca Sampson was, or
where she came from, or why she had no relatives. For herself she
decided in that minute that there were two things that she knew. Rebecca
had been a girl of radiant beauty; she had been cultured and was
accustomed to proper forms of speech and carefully selected, meaningful
words, and it seemed to Mahala, as they went down the road together,
that from things she could recall, sharply accentuated by what she had
been told occurred after her passing into the church the night of
Commencement, that she might be able to point a finger very straightly
toward the source that had wrecked the life of so fair a woman as
Rebecca Sampson.
When Mahala reached home she was hungry and tired. With inborn
fastidiousness she bathed and changed her clothing. She sat beside her
mother’s bed and told her of the day. She tried to paint the desperate
old house and stable as they were, but she found herself saying that the
beams and the partitions were of substantial wood, that the foundations
were solid. When she came to the orchard, she realized that she was
talking more of the bluebirds that twittered through the branches than
she was of the cavities in which they were nesting. She was more
concerned with the hair-like grass carpeting its floor than she was with
the borers burrowing in its branches. She realized, too, that she was
talking more of the many kinds of dear home flowers that marched in
procession, hugging closely to the old house, than she was of the
building itself. She deliberately embedded in her mother’s brain the
thought that here was a refuge, that here was a home that might be made
into a sanctuary for them; that she might end her days among the
bluebirds in the shelter of the pink boughs of the old orchard. For the
first time since disaster had laid violent hands upon her, Elizabeth
Spellman remembered that she was not an old woman. She was scarcely
middle aged. She had been much younger than the husband upon whom she
had leaned so confidently. The thought that there was something in the
world that was really theirs, to which they had a right, was the first
heartening thing that had happened. The hope that she might once again
preside in a home of her own, provided by Mahlon, beautified by even a
few of her former possessions, was such a tonic as nothing else in the
world could have been short of resurrection and complete repossession.
When at last she had composed herself for sleep, Mahala slipped from her
mother’s room and going to her own, threw herself upon her bed, and
without knowing exactly why, for the second time that day, she indulged
in the luxury of unrestrained tears, tears that made her realize that
Rebecca’s words had been true. Tears were a blessing; they were a
relief; they did wash the ache from the heart, ease brain strain, and
encourage the soul. They were a soothing balm devised by a Great Healer
for the comfort of earth’s creatures.
Exhausted, she arose and began undressing, when she heard some one
knocking at the side door. She remembered that Jemima had gone to attend
the evening church services and probably was late visiting with some of
her friends. She tried to think who it might be that was knocking at her
door at that hour. The thought came to her that possibly some of the
friends who had deserted her in her extremity might have regretted it.
Maybe Edith Williams had remembered her and slipped to the side door to
avoid disturbing the invalid. Maybe Susanna had come to extend to her a
few words of love and loyalty.
The knock grew louder, and thinking of her mother, she dried her eyes,
whisked a powdery bit of chamois skin across them, ran a comb through
the waves of her hair, and hastening to the door, she opened it to be
confronted by Junior Moreland.
When she saw who it was, Mahala planted her figure stiffly in front of
the doorway. Emphatically she shook her head. She said tartly and with
stiff lips: “No Moreland is welcome in this house,” and started to close
the door.
Junior caught it, pushed it open and stepping inside, leaned against it.
He had dressed himself with unusual care. Looking at him with searching
eyes of wonder, Mahala saw that never in her life had he appeared to her
so unusually handsome, so attractive. But when he opened his lips, he
said to her sneeringly: “Had enough yet?”
She stepped back, looking at him in amazement, and then she said
deliberately: “You Morelands tortured my father, for how many years I do
not know, and then murdered him deliberately. You are now engaged in the
process of killing my mother by slow degrees. For all I know you may be
able to do the same thing to me, but you sha’n’t do it under the
pretence of loving me. If you have determined to do it, if you are
strong enough to do it, every one shall know that it is cold blooded.”
This made Junior furious, but he did try to control himself. He said to
her in a voice meant to be conciliatory: “Your father was naturally a
bookworm. He never should have tried to run a business. Every one who
knew him knows that he had no business ability whatever.”
To his surprise Mahala nodded in acquiescence. She said slowly: “I think
you are quite right, else your father would not have been able to
complicate his business matters as he did. But my father was not the
only man to suffer, since the name of Martin Moreland stands for more
distress in Ashwater, and throughout the county, than the names of all
of the remainder of the wicked men put together.”
Before she knew what was coming, Junior had seized her in his arms. He
gathered her to him roughly, repeatedly kissing her, her hair, her
shoulders, the hands she thrust out to push him from her. Finally she
broke from his hold. She stood before him, looking at him in scorn.
“I wish you could realize,” she said at last, “that your touch is
hateful. I feel positively soiled.”
Then Junior lost his self-control. He said to her: “If you won’t marry
me, I’ll teach you what it means to be soiled in reality. I’ll put you
where the dogs won’t bark at you when you pass.”
Terrified at his strength and so dire a threat, Mahala stepped back and
pushed a chair between them. Under cover of this, she lightly ran
through the house, opened the front door, and stepped upon the walk
where she was in full view of the street, so that Junior was forced to
leave the house.
He came near her in passing and said: “Aren’t you afraid to refuse me?”
Mahala studied him intently for several seconds and then she said
deliberately: “What you threatened is consistent with Moreland
character. As I understand it, I realize that, if it is in your power,
you will break me, even as your father broke the heart and the brain of
Becky Sampson when she was young and helpless.”
At that Junior became furious. He advanced upon Mahala threateningly,
his fists doubled, his eyes blazing. “I won’t take that even from you,”
he cried. “You lie! My father never knew Becky Sampson!”
Goaded beyond endurance, Mahala laughed at him.
“I dare you to ask Becky!” she cried.
Forgetting everything else in his rage, Junior once more hurried to his
old refuge. He told his father what had occurred. The elder Moreland
scorned the accusation.
He said to Junior: “I hope that at last you are thoroughly cured, that
hereafter you’ll devote your time to the winning of a girl worth while.
Why spend any more time hanging around an evil-tempered little pauper?”
Junior thought this over; then he agreed; but as he turned from the room
he said to his father: “Pauper? Yes. But the prettiest girl God ever
made, and the prettiest pauper Martin Moreland ever made!”
Martin Moreland was pleased. He rubbed his hands together and laughed in
high glee. Junior stood a few minutes thinking deeply. Then he
disappeared.
The next morning Junior asked his father for the use of their best
carriage for the day and upon its being granted, he took it and
disappeared. In the middle of the afternoon he presented himself at the
Moreland front door having Edith Williams in his arms, and to his
astonished mother he introduced her as his wife. She had consented to go
to Bluffport with him and to marry him while her aunt thought that she
had gone into the country for a drive.
Exactly what had been in the heart of Edith Williams, who had adored
Junior from childhood, when he suddenly appeared in her home and asked
her to marry him, no one ever knew. The nerve strain had been so great
that Edith was in a state of collapse when Junior brought her into his
home. Mrs. Moreland immediately sent for Doctor Grayson and for her
husband.
When Martin Moreland reached home and was made to understand what had
happened, he was delighted. He did not share his wife’s terror that
Edith might die on their hands. He laughed when she suggested the
possibility and shocked her soul into a fuller realization than it ever
before had known concerning the inner workings of his mind when he said
scornfully: “Whatever she does, the marriage is perfectly legal. He is
now her husband, her only heir. Let her die if she wants to!”
While his wife was judging him with the severest judgment she had ever
measured out to him, she came to an abrupt stop as she observed that he
was lavishing every attention upon Edith. He was doing everything in his
power to quiet her, to humour her, to ingratiate himself. Then Mrs.
Moreland thought that possibly he had been unfortunate in expressing
himself. He really did have a tender heart; he really was delighted to
have Junior safely married to a girl they knew. She immediately set
herself to follow her husband’s example. She began doing things to
humour and conciliate Edith, while Edith proved herself to have been
wholly spoiled.
She hated the dark, forbidding house. The home in which she always had
lived had been filled with light and sunshine and beautiful things of
attractive colouring. She thoroughly disliked the sombre Mrs. Moreland
with her sad face, her deep-set eyes, her sallow complexion. Beyond
words, she hated Mr. Moreland. She could not endure his touch. The only
thing in her surroundings she did not dislike was Junior. She had no
hesitation about finding fault and complaining. Nothing pleased her;
nothing was right; but she had no complaint to make concerning Junior.
Both his father and his mother realized that to the furthest extent of
her nature she was in love with Junior. She insisted that he should
carry her to his room in his arms, and this he did. He helped his mother
to put her to bed; he waited upon her like a servant. Junior, who never
had performed for himself even the slightest service he could avoid,
dumbfounded his parents by accepting the rôle Edith laid down for him.
Instantly, he did exactly what she asked until his father remonstrated.
His face bore a look of shock and then of gratification when Junior said
to him: “Can’t you see that I’ve got to? She hates this house. She hates
you and Mother. She’s worth all that stack of money her father left. If
I don’t keep her in a good humour with me, she’s got just three blocks
to walk to go back to her uncle. Until I get her money in my hands,
haven’t I got to keep her pleased with me?”
This was the point at which the elder Moreland smiled—a sardonic smile,
a smile that set upon his face the most agreeable look of which it was
capable. He nodded in confirmation. He rubbed his slender hands in high
glee. He told Junior that he was exactly right, to spare neither money
nor pains to pamper and to please Edith. He set about spending money
upon her himself. He brought her more expensive gifts than either her
father or her uncle ever had given her. Very shortly after the marriage,
he carried to her a book of plans. He told her to look over them at her
leisure and select the kind of house that she would enjoy living in. He
suggested that Junior take her in the carriage, drive slowly over the
town and the immediate surroundings, and let her choose any location she
pleased upon which she would like to live.
This diverted Edith’s attention from herself. She delighted in taking
these drives with Junior. She studied the residential locations of
Ashwater with careful scrutiny, also attractive locations in the
outskirts. Since the elder Moreland was complacent, since he had
promised her a home for her wedding gift from him, she meant to see to
it that she had such a home as would completely overshadow any other
residence in the county. She was looking for an eminence, some place to
set a house carefully planned and built, from which she could look down
upon the remainder of the town. She meant to show every one that she had
the finest, the most attractively furnished and located home among them.
She was never so happy as when she rode beside Junior, or walked with
him upon the streets, and when it was possible, before the eyes of even
the most lowly, her face flamed with gratified pride if she could drop a
handkerchief or a pair of gloves and let people see Junior snatch them
up and return them to her. Her vanity was fed by his solicitude in
public. She pretended to be more helpless than she was because she
adored having the strong, handsome young man wait upon her. Up and down
the length of Ashwater, she metaphorically trailed Junior at her chariot
wheels.
Junior kept his body straight, his head high, and with a prideful
flourish, introduced Edith as his wife everywhere that she was not
known. There were two things of which he could be reasonably proud. The
one was the amount of her fortune which she began transferring to his
hands as speedily as she could get it into her possession, while the
other was her appearance. She was still the frail, delicate girl she
always had been, but having hypnotized herself into the belief that
Junior had been overpowered by her beauty Commencement night, that he
had truly been so attracted by her that he had forgotten Mahala, when he
had asked Edith to become his wife, she had blossomed into the wide-open
rose of love. She was a handsome woman whom any man might have been
proud to be seen with, while Junior was a man to whom anything that he
possessed multiplied immensely in value, merely because it was his
possession.