Pamela began to laugh hysterically. She got up from the tea-table and
walked to the opposite window. She reflected that it was impossible to
argue with Lottie Prynne; she had no sense of humor. But the sting of
the situation was this gossip of the Billops. They were related to Paul
but Sidney was making it intolerable by circulating some story about
the Astrys and the Belhavens. As yet Pamela only half knew it; she had
forbidden Mrs. Billop to repeat it to her, but not even her prohibition
would silence Sidney's foolish tongue, and, to make matters worse, he
had accepted an invitation from Astry for Thursday night. They were
all bidden there to dinner, and Pamela wondered if Charter would go. A
woman's sixth sense told her that he loved Rachel and that there were
shoals ahead. Pamela, who was happily married, found John's misery
absorbingly interesting.
"Pamela, your back's charming," said Dr. Macclesfield, from the
tea-table, "but Mrs. Prynne and I feel obscured without the light of
your countenance."
Pamela turned, laughing. "Are you going to dine at the Astrys' Thursday
night, Doctor?"
"My dear, I wouldn't miss it for the world; I want to see the parrots."
"I'm afraid of Astry," Lottie Prynne said; "he looks straight through
you with those cold eyes of his. And I hate that den with the skulls
and the toads and the old warming-pans."
Dr. Macclesfield choked violently. "No, no, no water!" he gasped to
Pamela, "it was a crumb of macaroon."
"I don't know what to do," she said, "but I read somewhere that you
ought to stand people on their heads for choking."
"How in the world could you do it?" objected Mrs. Prynne; "if they
didn't balance themselves with their hands they'd topple over and choke
worse than ever."
"Pamela's a mental acrobat," gasped the doctor, wiping his eyes, "you
can't follow her, Mrs. Prynne."
"Here comes Paul now with Colonel Sedley and Sidney," announced Pamela,
looking out of the window.
"Are Sidney's ears red?" asked the doctor maliciously.
Pamela caught his eye and laughed reluctantly, just as the three men
came in. Colonel Sedley made his way to a chair by Mrs. Prynne and Paul
walked over to shake hands with the doctor. Sidney, with his lank,
blond hair carefully parted and a redness to his eyelids, occupied the
center of the stage. He took a rare old chair and creaked in it, to
Pamela's secret despair.
"I've just heard an awfully jolly conundrum," he said, looking a little
more vacant than usual. "Why is an elephant like a brickbat?"
"Both good to kill fools, I reckon," said Colonel Sedley viciously.
Dr. Macclesfield tittered shamelessly.
"Neither of them can climb a tree," Sidney cried triumphantly.
"I hope you didn't invent that, Billop," said Van Citters languidly.
"If you did, don't allow yourself many like it in one day."
"One before meals, Sidney, with a little pepsin," suggested Dr.
Macclesfield.
"You know I think it's awfully good," said Sidney candidly. "One
wouldn't guess it quickly; that's the main point."
"I thought my answer as good as yours," said Colonel Sedley.
"Oh, we don't expect soldiers to discover anything but projectiles,"
said Pamela. "Where have you men been this morning?" she added,
measuring some fresh tea from the little caddy at her elbow.
"Playing billiards with Astry," Sidney replied promptly. "By Jove, I
pity that man!"
"What do you mean, Billop?" exclaimed Sedley bluntly. "Johnstone
Astry's worth five million and a half and--"
"Hush!" said Pamela suddenly, holding up her finger.
The footman pushed aside the portière and everybody looked around.
Rachel Belhaven came in alone, dressed in simple gray cloth, a sable
boa on her shoulders and a large, halo-like, black hat throwing the
delicate oval of her face into keen relief. She greeted them all easily.
"I only stopped for a moment," she explained. "Eva 'phoned me to
make sure you were all coming on Thursday; she says Johnstone was so
informal she was afraid there might be a misunderstanding."
Paul turned very red. "We'll be delighted," he said sheepishly,
thinking of Sidney's iniquities.
"We may all get stalled in the snow," said Sidney. "They're predicting
a blizzard."
"It's clear as a bell," snapped Van Citters.
"Sidney has an inherited dread of accidents," chuckled Dr.
Macclesfield. "Addie would never go to church picnics because she said
there might be snakes."
Meanwhile Pamela was begging Rachel to take off her hat and stay to
dinner. "I'll 'phone for Belhaven," she urged.
Rachel colored; she could never conquer her inward start at the
intimate association of Belhaven's name with hers. She stood in
continued amazement at the miracle of their outward union and their
actual aloofness. She evaded Mrs. Van Citters' urgency, however,
and made her way at last to the door. Here she had to dismiss Paul
with difficulty. She wanted to be alone, yet it was hard to escape
an escort, especially now that it was dusk. However, she got away at
last and walked swiftly out the long avenue to the suburbs. She felt
an actual physical need of the long, hard climb; the exercise, the
keen, cold air, the busy life of the thoroughfare, served to break
the tension of her mood. She had scarcely seen her sister lately; Eva
had withdrawn herself from her reach. She evaded her and refused to
see her, pleading nerves, headaches, any indisposition, to escape,
and Rachel felt that she understood and began herself to dread the
resumption of any intimacy. Since her talk with Belhaven she had
excused her sister less; she had not doubted her actual guiltlessness
but she did doubt her innocence of treachery, in heart at least, to
Astry. Between the actual crime and the guilt in thought there was
a horrible propinquity which made Rachel shudder. She was aware of
helping Eva to avoid her, but this condition of things could not last.
The old relations of life remained, therefore she had immediately
answered Eva's telephone message, and she was going on to her now.
In her heart Rachel hoped that Eva and Astry might yet be drawn
together. She was sorry for Johnstone; it was like her to drop the
thought of personal grievance in the larger considerations of justice
and mercy, and she felt that Johnstone Astry had been hardly used.
Since her talk with Belhaven she could not escape a horrid feeling
of complicity in guilt against Astry; it made a bond between Eva,
Belhaven, and herself, and it weighed heavily on Rachel's conscience.
However, she was continually conscious now that Belhaven loved her;
it seemed rather an increasing, than a decreasing, element in their
relations. He had greatly changed and, in spite of herself, she began
to like him. She saw that he blamed himself profoundly and that he
clung to the thin thread of their friendship, a friendship that had
grown on her side, too, during the weary months of their enforced
companionship. The man was vitally changed; that he was less a coward,
Rachel doubted; that he would ever transgress again she did not
believe, not while his love for her held, and that thought forced home
to her the sudden, unwelcome responsibility for this man's soul. He was
weak; with her help he could stand,--without it? Rachel shivered; she
longed to cry out with Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
At the top of the long hill she stopped and looked back. The city lay
at her feet and she recalled, with keen distress, that night when she
had stood looking out of her window before Eva came to her door. Here
again were the scroll-like mystery of the lights, the long bright vista
of the avenues, the distant, classic dome and the ghostly shaft of the
monument. The frosty air cooled her cheek, the snow crunched under her
feet; above she saw the stars, keen as knife-points in the winter sky.
A feeling of ineffable sorrow and loneliness swept over her; she seemed
such an atom in this vast dark universe, such an atom to possess the
power to rescue that mysterious thing, a human soul. "Am I my brother's
keeper?" A supreme question, deeply and intimately thrust into her
life. She shuddered slightly and turned away, the mystery of her fate
seeming, at the moment, unsolvable.
This thought was still with her when she approached the big, Georgian
house on the hill and entered the hall where she and Astry had stood
together that afternoon before her marriage. She recalled it as she
crossed it and ascended the stairs. She had never been able to quite
discover her brother-in-law's thought through his words; even now she
was not sure. On the wide landing, where she had stood to look into the
conservatory, she met him. He was coming down-stairs, his hands thrust
into the pockets of his smoking-jacket and his head thrown back in
a pose that was easy and characteristic. His sleepy eyelids drooped
over his light eyes, his complexion had the dead whiteness that comes
sometimes with light brown hair.
"Hello, Rachel, you're quite a stranger. Going up to see Eva?"
"Of course I'm going up to see Eva."
"You'll find her as charming as ever."
Rachel looked back over her shoulder, still ascending, and their eyes
met; his look was a challenge. She quickened her step and left him
standing there, the memory of his expression freezing an impulse of
happiness that had risen in her heart.
Eva had taken Rachel's old room and was standing at the window, looking
out into the darkness as her sister entered.
"I delivered your message, Eva, and they're all coming, but you'll have
to excuse me."
Eva had not moved from the window and her figure in its long, loose,
white kimono reminded Rachel painfully of that other dreadful scene in
that same room. But now she turned her head languidly. "And Jim?" she
asked.
"Of course he'll come."
The room was very still again; neither of the sisters moved or spoke;
the little clock on the mantel ticked tumultuously; it raced with
Rachel's heart.
Eva's voice broke the unearthly stillness. "You've been a long time
coming to see us."
"I've been busy."
"Johnstone's just told me--that Charter's come back."
Rachel moved nearer to the big winged chair and laid her hand on the
back. "Yes," she said slowly, "he'll be on duty here all winter."
Eva turned from the window and faced her, clasping her hands tightly
together. She was very pale and her long, beautiful hair fell about her
face and shoulders like a cloud of gold.
"Oh, Rachel," her voice trembled, "how hard it will be for you!"
"Don't let us talk too much about it, Eva."
But Eva came over and sank into the chair, hiding her face in her
hands. "Rachel, I--I asked Belhaven to let you go."
"You asked him--to let me go?" Rachel's heart seemed to stop beating.
"Eva, you don't mean that you still care so much for him?"
"No--no, not that!"
Rachel stood thinking; a sudden horror had filled her soul with agony.
"Eva, I meant to have told you before--I saw you and Belhaven that day
in the wood."
Eva's hands fell in her lap; a deep blush dyed her worn face as she
looked up. "And you thought?"