The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| A FALLING STAR | 1 |
| II | 7 |
| III | 13 |
| IV | 19 |
| V | 24 |
| VI | 30 |
| VII | 36 |
| VIII | 41 |
| IX | 46 |
| X | 52 |
| XI | 58 |
| XII | 64 |
| XIII | 70 |
| XIV | 76 |
| XV | 82 |
| XVI | 89 |
| XVII | 95 |
| XVIII | 100 |
| XIX | 106 |
| XX | 113 |
| XXI | 119 |
| XXII | 125 |
| XXIII | 131 |
| XXIV | 138 |
| THE END | 144 |
[Illustration: Musical Notation]
The last hushed chord died into silence, but the woman lingered, dreaming over the keys. Firelight from the end of the room brought red-gold gleams into the dusky softness of her hair and shadowed her profile upon the opposite wall. No answering flash of jewels met the questioning light—there was only a mellow glow from the necklace of tourmalines, quaintly set, that lay upon the white lace of her gown.
She turned her face toward the fire as a flower seeks the sun, but her deep eyes looked beyond it, into the fires of Life itself. A haunting sense of unfulfilment stirred her to vague resentment, and she sighed as she rose and moved restlessly about the room. She lighted the tall candles that stood upon the mantel-shelf, straightened a rug, moved a chair, and gathered up a handful of fallen rose-petals on her way to the window. She was about to draw down the shade, but, instead, her hand dropped slowly to her side, her fingers unclasped, and the crushed crimson petals fluttered to the floor.
Outside, the purple dusk of Winter twilight lay soft upon the snow. Through an opening in the evergreens the far horizon, grey as mother-of-pearl, bent down to touch the plain in a misty line that was definite yet not clear. At the left were the mountains, cold and calm, veiled by distances dim with frost.
There was a step upon the stair, but the strong, straight figure in white lace did not turn away from the window, even when the door opened. The stillness was broken only by the cheerful crackle of the fire until a sweet voice asked:
“Are you dreaming, Rose?”
Rose turned away from the window then, with a laugh. “Why, I must have been. Will you have this chair, Aunt Francesca?”
She turned a high-backed rocker toward the fire and Madame Bernard leaned back luxuriously, stretching her tiny feet to the blaze. She wore grey satin slippers with high French heels and silver buckles. A bit of grey silk stocking was visible between the buckle and the hem of her grey gown.
Rose smiled at her in affectionate appreciation. The little old lady seemed like a bit of Dresden china; she was so dainty and so frail. Her hair was lustreless, snowy white, and beautifully, though simply, dressed in a bygone fashion. Her blue eyes were so deep in colour as to seem almost purple in certain lights, and the years had been kind to her, leaving few lines. Her hands, resting on the arms of her chair, had not lost their youthful contour, but around her eyes and the corners of her mouth were the faint prints of many smiles.
“Rose,” said Madame Bernard, suddenly, “you are very lovely to-night.”
“I was thinking the same of you,” responded the younger woman, flushing. “Shall we organise ourselves into a mutual admiration society?”
“We might as well, I think. There seems to be nobody else.”
Suddenly, across the purple darkness between the pale stars, flamed a meteor—an uncharted voyager through infinite seas of space. It left a trail of fire across the heavens, fading at last into luminous mist, the colour of the stars. When the light had quite died out, Madame Bernard spoke.
“A passing soul,” she sighed.
“A kiss,” breathed Rose, dreamily.
“Star-dust!” laughed Isabel.
WELCOME HOME
“Great news, my dears, great news!” cried Madame Bernard, gaily waving an open letter as she came into the room where Rose was sewing and Isabel experimenting with a new coiffure. “I’ll give you three guesses!”
“Somebody coming for a visit?” asked Isabel.
“Wrong!”
“Somebody coming, but not for a visit?” queried Rose.
“You’re getting warmer.”
“How can anybody come, if not for a visit?” inquired Isabel, mildly perplexed. “That is, unless it’s a messenger?”
“The old Kent house is to be opened,” said Madame, “and we’re to open it. At last we shall have neighbours!”
“How exciting,” Rose answered. She did not wholly share the old lady’s pleasure, and wondered with a guilty consciousness of the long hours she spent at her music, whether Aunt Francesca had been lonely.
“Listen, girls!” Madame’s cheeks were pink with excitement as she sat down with the letter, which had been written in Paris.
“My dear Madame Francesca:
“’At last we are coming home—Allison and I. The boy has a fancy to see Spring come again on his native heath, so we shall sail earlier than we had otherwise planned.
“’I wonder, my dear friend, if I dare ask you to open the house for us? I am so tired of hotels that I want to go straight back. You have the keys and if you will engage the proper number of servants and see that the place is made habitable, I shall be more than ever your debtor. I will cable you when we start.
“’Trusting that all is well with you and yours and with many thanks, believe me, my dear Madame,
“’Most faithfully yours,
“‘Richard Kent.’”
“How like a man,” smiled Rose. “That house has been closed for over ten years, and he thinks there is nothing to be done but to unlock the front door and engage two or three servants who may or may not be trustworthy.”
“What an imposition!” Isabel said. “Aunt Francesca, didn’t I meet Allison Kent when I was here before?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“Don’t you remember? Mother brought me here once when I was a little tot. We stayed about a week and the roses were all in bloom. I can see the garden now. Allison used to come over sometimes and tell me fairy stories. He told me that the long, slender gold-trimmed bottles filled with attar of roses came from the roots of the rose bushes—don’t you remember? And I pulled up rose bushes all over the garden to find out.”
“Jean Bernard!” Isabel repeated, curiously. “Who was he?”
“Aunt Francesca’s husband,” answered Rose, with a little catch in her voice, “and my uncle. He died in the War.”
“Oh,” said Isabel, unmoved. “He was nice looking, wasn’t he? Shall we take this to Aunt Francesca?”
“You forget that it isn’t ours to take,” Rose reminded her. “And, by the way, Isabel, you must never speak to Aunt Francesca of her husband. She cannot bear it.”
“All right,” assented the girl. “What is this?”
From the back of the drawer she took out a bronze medal, with a faded ribbon of red, white, and blue attached to it. She took it to the light, rubbed it with her handkerchief, and slowly made out the words: “Awarded to Colonel Richard Kent, for conspicuous bravery in action at Gettysburg.”
“Put the things back,” Rose suggested, gently. This tiny, secret drawer, Colonel Kent’s holy of holies, symbolised and epitomised the best of a man’s life. The medal for military service, the miniature of his wife, the picture of his friend, and the bit of knitting work that comprehended a world of love and anguish and bereavement—these were the hidden chambers of his heart.
Isabel took up the miniature again before she closed the drawer. “Do you suppose those are diamonds?”
“No; only brilliants.”
“I thought so. If they’d been diamonds, he would never have left them here.”
“On the contrary,” answered Rose, “I’m very sure he would.” She had met Colonel Kent only a few times, years ago, during the Summer he had spent at home while Allison was still abroad, but she knew him now, nevertheless.
They went on through the house, making notes of what was needed, while their footsteps echoed and re-echoed through the empty rooms. “I’m glad there are no carpets, except on the stairs,” said Rose, “for rugs are much easier to clean. It resolves itself simply into three C’s—coal, curtains, and cleaning. It won’t take long, if we can get enough people to work at it.”
It was almost dusk when they went downstairs, but the cold slanting sunbeams of a Winter afternoon came through the grimy windows and illumined the gloomy depths of the open fireplace in the hall. Motes danced in the beam, and the house somehow seemed less despairing, less alone. A portrait of Colonel Kent, in uniform, hung above the great mantel. Rose smiled at it with comprehension, but the painted lips did not answer, nor the unseeing eyes swerve from their steady searching of Beyond.
“How was it?” asked Madame, when they reached home. “Dirty and bad?”
“Rather soiled,” admitted Rose.
“And colder than Greenland,” Isabel continued, warming her hands at the open fire.
“We’ll soon change all that,” Madame said. “I’ve ordered coal and engaged people to do the cleaning since you’ve been gone, and I have my eye upon two permanent retainers, provided their references are satisfactory.”
When the door closed, Rose gathered up the music he had forgotten, and put it away. Isabel came to her contritely. “Cousin Rose, I’m so sorry I said that! I didn’t think!”
“Don’t bother about it,” Rose replied, kindly. “It was nothing at all, and, besides, it’s true.”
“‘Tell the truth and shame the—family,’” misquoted Madame Bernard. “Age and false hair are not things to be flaunted, Isabel, remember that.”
Isabel flushed at the rebuke, and her cheeks were still burning when she went to her room.
“I don’t care,” she said to herself, with a swift change of mood. “I’m glad I told him. They’d never have done it, and it’s just as well for him to know.”
Madame Bernard and Rose soon followed her example, but Rose could not sleep. Through the night the voice of the violin sounded through her consciousness, calling, calling, calling—heedless of the answer that thrilled her to the depths of her soul.
THE CROSBY TWINS
The Crosby twins were making a formal call upon Isabel. They had been skating and still carried their skates, but Juliet wore white gloves and had pinned her unruly hair into some semblance of order while they waited at the door. She wore a red tam-o’-shanter on her brown curls and a white sweater under her dark green skating costume, which was short enough to show the heavy little boots, just now filling the room with the unpleasant odour of damp leather.
“Won’t you take off your coat?” asked Isabel. “You’ll catch cold when you go out, if you don’t take it off.”
“Thanks,” responded Juliet, somewhat stiffly. Then she stretched out both hands to her hostess, laughing as she did so. “Look!” The sweater sleeves had crept up to her elbows, displaying several inches of bare, red arm between the sleeves and the short white gloves.
“That’s just like us,” remarked Romeo. “If we try to be elegant, something always happens.”
The twins looked very much alike. They were quite tall and still retained the dear awkwardness of youth, in spite of the near approach of their twenty-first birthday. They had light brown curly hair, frank blue eyes that met the world with interest and delight, well-shaped mouths, not too small, and stubborn little chins. A high colour bloomed on their cheeks and they fairly radiated the joy of living.
“Can you skate?” inquired Romeo.
“No,” smiled Isabel.
“Juliet can. She can skate as far as I can, and almost as fast.”
“Romie taught me,” observed Juliet, with becoming modesty.
“Do you play hockey? No, of course you don’t, if you don’t skate,” he went on, answering his own question. “Can you swim?”
“No,” responded Isabel, sweetly.
“Jule’s a fine swimmer. She saved a man’s life once, two Summers ago.”
“Romie taught me,” said Juliet, beaming at her brother.
“All right—I will,” he said, grudgingly. “But I hope Uncle appreciates what we’re doing for him.”
“That’s settled, then,” she responded, cheerfully. “Then, on our second ride, we’ll take somebody with us. Who shall we invite?”
“Oughtn’t she to go with us the first time?”
“She? Who’s ’she’?”
“Miss Ross—Isabel. She suggested it, you know. We might not have thought of it for years.”
Juliet pondered. “I don’t believe she ought to go the first time, because the day that Uncle died doesn’t mean anything to her, and it’s everything to us. But we’ll take her on the second trip. Shall I write to her now and invite her?”
“I don’t believe,” Romeo responded, dryly, “that I’d stop to write an invitation to somebody to go out four months from now in an automobile that isn’t bought yet.”
“But it’s as good as bought,” objected Juliet, “because our minds are made up. We may forget to ask her.”
“Put it on the slate,” suggested Romeo.
In the hall, near the door, was a large slate suspended by a wire. The pencil was tied to it. Here they put down vagrant memoranda and things they planned to acquire in the near future.
Juliet observed that there was only one entry on the slate: “Military hair brushes for R.” Underneath she wrote: “Yellow automobile, four-seated. Name it ‘The Yellow Peril.’ Brown leather inside. Get brown clothes to match and trim with yellow. First ride, June thirtieth, for Uncle. Second ride, July first, for ourselves. Invite Isabel Ross.”
“Anything else?” she asked, after reading it aloud.
“Dog biscuit,” yawned Romeo. “They’re eating too much meat.”
It was very late when they went up-stairs. Their rooms were across the hall from each other and they slept with the doors open. The attic had been made into a gymnasium, where they exercised and hardened their muscles when the weather kept them indoors. A trapeze had been recently put up, and Juliet was learning to swing by her feet.
She lifted her face up to his and received a brotherly peck on the lips. “Good-night, Jule.”
“Good-night, Romie. Pleasant dreams.”
It was really morning, but there was no clock to tell them so, for the timepieces in the Crosby mansion were seldom wound.
“Say,” called Romeo.
“What?”
“What do you think of her?”
“Who?”
“Miss—you know. Isabel.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” responded Juliet, sleepily. “I guess she’s kind of a sissy-girl.”
AN AFTERNOON CALL
“Aunt Francesca,” asked Isabel, “is Colonel Kent rich?”
“Very,” responded Madame. She had a fine damask napkin stretched upon embroidery hoops and was darning it with the most exquisite of stitches.
“Then why don’t they live in a better house and have more servants? That place is old and musty.”
“I should say not. How could you be?”
“Then,” Isabel smiled, “I’ll come sometimes, if I may. It’s the only pleasure I have.”
“That’s too bad. Sometime we’ll go into town to the theatre, just you and I. Would you like to go?”
“I’d love to,” she answered, eagerly.
The clock ticked industriously, the fire crackled merrily upon the hearth, and the wind howled outside. In the quiet room, Allison sat and studied Isabel, with the firelight shining upon her face and her white gown. She seemed much younger than her years.
“You’re only a child,” he said, aloud; “a little, helpless child.”
“How long do you think it will be before I’m grown up?”
“I don’t want you to grow up. I can remember now just how you looked the day I told you about the scent bottles. You had on a pink dress, with a sash to match, pink stockings, little white shoes with black buttons, and the most fetching white sunbonnet. Your hair was falling in curls all round your face and it was such a warm day that the curls clung to your neck and annoyed you. You toddled over to me and said: ’Allison, please fix my’s turls.’ Don’t you remember?”
She smiled and said she had forgotten. “But,” she added, truthfully, “I’ve often wondered how I looked when I was dressed up.”
“Then,” he continued, “I told you how the scent bottles grew on the roots of the rose bushes, and, after I went home, you went and pulled up as many as you could. Aunt Francesca was very angry with me.”
“Yes, I remember that. I felt as though you were being punished for my sins. It was years afterward that I saw I’d been sufficiently punished myself. Look!”
She leaned toward him and showed him a narrow white line on the soft flesh between her forefinger and her thumb, extending back over her hand.
“A thorn,” she said. “I shall carry the scar to my dying day.”
With a little catch in his throat, Allison caught the little hand and pressed it to his lips. “Forgive me!” he said.
THE LIGHT ON THE ALTAR
Colonel Kent had gone away on a short business trip and Allison was spending his evenings, which otherwise would have been lonely, at Madame Bernard’s. After talking for a time with Aunt Francesca and Isabel, it seemed natural for him to take up his violin and suggest, if only by a half-humorous glance, that Rose should go to the piano.
Sometimes they played for their own pleasure and sometimes worked for their own benefit. Neither Madame nor Isabel minded hearing the same thing a dozen times or more in the course of an evening, for, as Madame said, with a twinkle in her blue eyes, it made “a pleasant noise,” and Isabel did not trouble herself to listen.
Both Rose and Allison were among the fortunate ones who find joy in work. Rose was so keenly interested in her music that she took no count of the hours spent at the piano, and Allison fully appreciated her. It had been a most pleasant surprise for him to find a good accompanist so near home.
He had come to see that the world was full of kindness; that through the countless masks of varying personalities, all hearts beat in perfect unison, and that joy, in reality, is immortal, while pain dies in a day.
“And yet,” he thought, “how strange it is that life must be nearly over, before one fully learns to live.”
The fire crackled cheerily on the hearth, the sunbeams danced gaily through the old house, spending gold-dust generously in corners that were usually dark, and the uncut magazine slipped to the floor. Above, the violin sang high and clear. The Colonel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
When Allison came down, he was asleep, with the peace of Heaven upon his face, and so quiet that the young man leaned over him, a little frightened, to wait for the next deep breath. Reassured, he did not wake him, but went for his walk alone.
“The year’s at the spring”
Outside, in the grey darkness, the earth was soft with snow. Upon the illimitable horizon beyond the mountain peaks were straying gleams of dawn, colourless, but none the less surely a promise of daybreak.
Rose had been awake for some time, listening to the ice-clad branches that clattered with every passing breeze. A maple bough, tapping on her window as ghostly fingers might, had first aroused her from a medley of dreams.
She went to the window, shivering a little, and, while she stood there, watching the faint glow in the East, the wind changed in quality, though it was still cool. Hints of warmth and fragrance were indefinably blended with the cold, and Rose laughed as she crept back to bed, for she had chanced upon the mysterious hour when the Weaver of the Seasons changed the pattern upon the loom.
Having raised another window shade, she could see the dawn from where she lay. Tints of gold and amethyst came slowly upon the grey and made the horizon delicately iridescent, like mother-of-pearl. Warm and soft from the Southland, the first wind of Spring danced merrily into Madame Francesca’s sleeping garden, thrilling all the life beneath the sod. With the first beam of sun, the ice began to drip from the imprisoned trees and every fibre of shrub and tree to quiver with aspiration, as though a clod should suddenly find a soul.
In the watcher’s heart, too, had come another Spring, for once in time and tune with the outer world. The heart’s seasons seldom coincide with the calendar. Who among us has not been made desolate beyond all words upon some golden day when the little creatures of the air and meadow were life incarnate, from sheer joy of living? Who among us has not come home, singing, when the streets were almost impassable with snow, or met a friend with a happy, smiling face, in the midst of a pouring rain?
The soul, too, has its own hours of Winter and Spring. Gethsemane and Calvary may come to us in the time of roses and Easter rise upon us in a December night. How shall we know, in our own agony, of another’s gladness, or, on that blessed to-morrow when the struggle is over, help someone else to bear our own forgotten pain?
“Jule,” said Romeo, sternly, “I don’t see what’s the matter with you lately. You act like a sissy girl. Go up into the attic and work on the trapeze for an hour or two, and you’ll feel better. It wouldn’t surprise me now if you got so sissy that you were afraid of mice and snakes.”
Juliet’s anger rose to the point of tears. “I’m not afraid of mice,” she sobbed, “and you know it. And I’ll hold a little green snake by the tail just as long as you will, so there!”
Man-like, Romeo hated tears. “Shut up, Jule,” he said, not unkindly, “and we’ll arbitrate.”
When her sobs ceased and she had washed her face in cold water, they calmly argued the question at issue. Romeo candidly admitted that twenty dogs might well be sufficient for people of simple tastes and Juliet did not deny that only a “sissy girl” would be annoyed by barking. Eventually, Romeo promised not to bring home any more dogs unless the present supply should be depleted by disappearance or accident, and Juliet promised not to chloroform any without his consent. With one accord, they decided to fit out the dogs with brown leather collars trimmed with yellow and to train the herd to follow the automobile.
“They ought to be trained by the thirtieth of June,” observed Romeo. “It would make more of a celebration for Uncle if we took ’em along.”
“Did you order the monogram put on the automobile?”
“Sure. I told ’em to put ‘The Yellow Peril’ on each door and on the back, and the initials, ‘C. T.’ above it everywhere.” The twins had adopted a common monogram, signifying “Crosby Twins.” It adorned their stationery and their seal, but, as they seldom wrote letters, it had not been of much use.
“We might have the initials put on the dogs’ collars, too,” Juliet suggested.
“Sure,” assented Romeo, cordially. “Then, if we lose any of ’em on the road, we can identify ’em when they’re found, and get ’em back.”
Juliet saw that she had made a mistake and hoped Romeo would forget about it, but vainly, for he lounged over and made a memorandum on the slate that hung in the hall.
“I wonder,” continued Romeo, thoughtfully, “if the yard is big enough to train ’em in. We ought not to go out on the road until the thirtieth.”
“That’s easy enough,” Juliet answered, with a superior air.
“How’d you go about it?” he demanded.
“If they were my dogs and I wanted ’em to follow me in an automobile, I’d let ’em fast for a day or two and fill the back seat of the machine with raw meat. They’d follow quick enough and be good and lively about it, too. They wouldn’t need to be trained.”
“Jule,” said Romeo, solemnly, “will you please forgive me for calling you a ’sissy girl’?”
“Sure!” Juliet had learned long before she was twenty, that “forgive me,” from a man’s lips, indicates the uttermost depths of abasement and devotion.
“The fasting won’t hurt ’em,” Romeo continued, eager to change the subject. “They’re all in good condition now.”
“I hardly think so. You remember that Allison hadn’t seen him since he grew up.”
“Shot up, you mean. How rapidly weeds grow!”
“Are the twins weeds?”
“I think so. Still, they’re a wholesome and stimulating sort, even though they have done just as they pleased.”
The fire died down into embers. The stillness would have been unbearable had it not been for the steady ticking of the clock. Madame leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Rose tried to read, but could not concentrate her mind upon the page.
Her thoughts were far away, with the two who had so recently left the house. In fancy she saw the brilliantly lighted streets, the throng of pleasure seekers and pretty women in gay attire. She heard the sound of wheels, the persistent “honk-honk” of motor cars, and, in the playhouse, the crash of cymbals and drums. Somewhere in the happy crowd were Allison and Isabel, while she sat in silence at home.
Madame Francesca stirred in her chair. “I’ve been asleep, I think.”
“You’re not going to wait until they come home, are you?”
“Why should I? Isabel has a key.”
Rose remembered how Aunt Francesca had invariably waited for her, when some gallant cavalier had escorted her to opera or play, and was foolishly glad, for no discoverable reason.
“I was dreaming,” Madame went on, drowsily, “of the little house where Love lived.”
“Where was it?” asked Rose gently.
“You know. I’ve told you of the little house in the woods where I went as a bride, when I was no older than Isabel. When we turned the key and went away, we must have left some of our love there. I’ve never been back, but I like to think that some of the old-time sweetness is still in the house, shut away like a jewel of great price, safe from meddling hands.”
Only once before, in the fifteen years they had lived together, had Madame Bernard spoken of her brief marriage, yet Rose knew, by a thousand little betrayals, that the past was not dead, but vitally alive.
“I can bear it,” said Madame, half to herself, “because I have been his wife. If he had been taken away before we were married, I should have gone, too. But now I have only to wait until God brings us together again.”
Outwardly, Rose was calm and unperturbed; inwardly, tense and unstrung. She wondered if, at last, the sorrow had been healed enough for speech. Upstairs there was a room that was always locked. No one but Aunt Francesca ever entered it, and she but rarely. Once or twice, Rose had chanced to see her coming through the open door, transfigured by some spiritual exaltation too great for words. For days afterward there was about her a certain uplift of soul, fading gradually into her usual serenity.
Mr. Boffin stalked in, jumped into Madame’s lap, and began to purr industriously. She laughed as she stroked his tawny head and the purr increased rapidly in speed and volume.
“I didn’t know you could talk so well,” he observed, with evident admiration.
Isabel flushed with pleasure—not guilt. She had no thought of sailing under false colours, but reflected the life about her as innocently as a mirror might, if conveniently placed.
Repeated curtain calls for the leading woman, at the end of the third act, delayed the final curtain by the few minutes that would have enabled them to catch the earlier of the two theatre trains. Allison was not wholly displeased, though he feared that Aunt Francesca and Rose might be unduly anxious about Isabel. As they had more than an hour and a half to wait, before the last train, he suggested going to a popular restaurant.
Thrilled with pleasure and excitement, she eagerly consented. Fortunately, she did not have to talk much, for the chatter of the gay crowd, and the hard-working orchestra made conversation difficult, if not impossible.
“I’ve never been in a place like this before,” she ventured. “So late, I mean.”
“But you enjoy it, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes! So much!” The dark eyes that turned to his were full of happy eagerness, like a child’s.
Allison’s pulses quickened, with man’s insatiable love of Youth. “We’ll do it again,” he said, “if you’ll come with me.”
“I will, if Aunt Francesca will let me.”
“She’s willing to trust you with me, I think. She’s known me ever since I was born and she helped father bring me up. Aunt Francesca has been like a mother to me.”
“She says she doesn’t care for the theatre,” resumed Isabel, who did not care to talk about Aunt Francesca, “but I love it. I believe I could go every night.”
“Don’t make the mistake of going too often to see what pleases you, for you might tire of it. Perhaps plays ’keep best in a cool, dry atmosphere,’ as you say men do.”
“You’re laughing at me,” she said, reproachfully.
“Indeed I’m not. I knew a man once who fell desperately in love with a woman, and, as soon as he found that she cared for him, he started for the uttermost ends of the earth.”
“What for?”
“That they might not risk losing their love for each other, through satiety. You know it’s said to die more often of indigestion than starvation.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” she murmured with downcast eyes.
“You will, though, before long. Some awkward, half-baked young man about twenty will come to you, bearing the divine fire.”
“I don’t know any,” she answered.
“How about the pleasing child who called upon you the other night, with the imported bonbons?” Allison’s tone was not wholly kind, for he had just discovered that he did not like Romeo Crosby.
Isabel became fairly radiant with smiles.
“Wasn’t he too funny?”
“He’s all right,” returned Allison, generously, “I’m afraid, however, that he’ll be taking you out so much that I won’t have a chance.”
“Good-night,” he said. “We’ll go again soon.”
“All right. Good-night, and thank you ever so much.”
The sound of the key in the lock had wakened Rose from her uneasy sleep. She heard their laughter, though she could not distinguish what they said, and recognised a new tone in Allison’s voice. She heard the door close, the carriage roll away, and, after a little, Isabel’s hushed footsteps on the stairs. Then another door closed softly and a light glimmered afar into the garden until the shade was drawn.
Wide-eyed and fearful, she slept no more, for the brimming Cup of Joy, that had seemed within her reach, was surely beyond it now. Oppressed with loss and pain, her heart beat slowly, as though it were weary of living. Until daybreak she wondered if he, too, was keeping the night watch, from a wholly different point of view.
But, man-like, Allison had long ago gone to sleep, in the big Colonial house beyond the turn in the road, idly humming to himself:
Come and kiss me, Sweet-and-Twenty;
Youth’s a stuff will not endure!
KEEPING THE FAITH
Colonel Kent and Allison critically surveyed the table, where covers were laid for seven. “Someway it lacks the ‘grand air’ of Madame Bernard’s,” commented the Colonel, “yet I can’t see anything wrong, can you?”
“Not a thing,” Allison returned. “The ‘grand air’ you allude to comes, I think, from Aunt Francesca herself. When she takes her place opposite you, I’m sure we shall compare very favourably with our neighbours.”
The Crosby twins arrived first, having chartered the station hack for the evening. As the minds of both were above such minor details as clothes, their attire was of the nondescript variety, but their exuberant youth and high spirits gallantly concealed all defects and the tact of their hosts quickly set them both at their ease.
Romeo somewhat ostentatiously left their card upon the mantel, so placed that all who came near might read in fashionable script: “The Crosby Twins.” Having made this concession to the conventionalities, he lapsed at once into an agreeable informality that amused the Colonel very much.
Soon the Colonel was describing some of the great battles in which he had taken part, and Romeo listened with an eager interest which was all the more flattering because it was so evidently sincere. In the library, meanwhile, Allison was renewing his old acquaintance with Juliet.
“You used to be a perfect little devil,” he smiled.
“I am yet,” Juliet admitted, with a frank laugh. “At least people say so. Romie and I aren’t popular with our neighbours.”
“That doesn’t speak well for the neighbours. Were they never young themselves?”
“I don’t believe so. I’ve thought, sometimes, that lots of people were born grown-up.”
“He never doubted me, not for an instant,” mused the Colonel, “but it’s just as well that I’m going. She could probably manage it, if we lived in the same house, so that I’d have to tell at least one lie a day, and I’m not an expert. Perfection might come with practice—I’ve known it to—but I’m too old to begin.”
He was deeply grateful to Francesca for her solution of the problem that confronted him. It had appeared and been duly solved in the space of half an hour. She had been his good angel for more than thirty years. It might be very pleasant to live there, after he became accustomed to the change, and with Allison so near—why, he couldn’t be half as lonely as he was now. So his thoughts drifted into a happier channel and he was actually humming an old song to himself when he heard Allison’s step, almost at midnight, on the road just beyond the gate.
He went in quietly, closed the door, and was in his own room when Allison’s latch-key rattled in the lock. The Colonel took pains not to be heard moving about, but it was unnecessary, for Allison’s heart was beating in time with its own music, and surging with the nameless rapture that comes but once.
Down in the moon-lit, dream-haunted garden, Allison waited for Isabel, as the First Man might have waited for the First Woman, in another garden, countless ages ago. Stars were mirrored in the lily-pool; the waning moon swung low. The roses had gone, except a few of the late-blooming sort, but the memory of their fragrance lingered still in the velvet dusk.
No music came from the quiet house, for Rose had not touched the piano since That Night. It stood out in his remembrance in capitals, as it did in hers, for widely different reasons. Only Isabel, cherishing no foolish sentiment as to dates and places, could have forgotten That Night.
With a lover’s fond fancy, Allison had written a note to Isabel, asking her to meet him in the garden by the lily-pool, at nine, and to wear the silver-spangled gown. It was already past the hour and he had begun to be impatient, though he was sure she had received the note.
A cobweb in the grass at his feet shone faintly afar—like Isabel’s spangles, he thought. A soft-winged wayfarer of the night brushed lightly against his cheek in passing, and he laughed aloud, to think that a grey moth should bring the memory of a kiss. Then, with a swift sinking of the heart, he remembered Isabel’s unvarying coldness. Never for an instant had she answered him as Rose—
“Nonsense,” he muttered to himself, angrily. “What an unspeakable cad I am!”
There was a light step on the path and Isabel appeared out of the shadows. She was holding up her skirts and seemed annoyed. In the first glance Allison noted that she was not wearing the spangled gown.
She submitted to his eager embrace and endured his kiss; even the blindest lover could not have said more. Yet her coldness only thrilled him to the depths with love of her, as has been the way of men since the world began.
“All right,” said Allison, with defiant cheerfulness. “You shall have just exactly what you want, and, to make sure, I’ll take you with me when I go to get it. I’m sorry I made such a mistake.”
There was a flash of blue and silver in the faint light, and a soft splash in the lily-pool. “There,” he went on, “it’s out of your way now.”
“You didn’t need to throw it away,” she said, icily. “I didn’t say I didn’t want it, nor that I wouldn’t wear it. I only said I wanted a diamond.”
“It could be found, I suppose,” he replied, thoughtfully, ashamed of his momentary impulse. “If the pool were drained—”
“That would cost more than the ring is worth,” Isabel interrupted. “Come, let’s go in.”
He was about to explain that a very good-sized pool could be drained for the price of the ring, but fortunately thought better of it, and was bitterly glad, now, that he had thrown it away.
In the house they talked of other things, but the thrust still lingered in his consciousness, unforgotten.
“How’s your father?” inquired Isabel, in a conversational pause, as she could think of nothing else to say.
“All right, I guess. Why?”
“I haven’t seen him lately. He hasn’t been over since the day he called on me.”
“Guess I haven’t thought to ask him to come along. Dad is possessed just at present by a very foolish idea. They’ve told you, haven’t they?”
“No. Told me what?”
“Why, that after we’re carried, he’s to come over here to live with Aunt Francesca and Rose, and give us the house to ourselves.”
“I hadn’t heard,” she replied, indifferently.
“I don’t know when I’ve felt so badly about anything,” Allison resumed. “We’ve always been together and we’ve been more like two chums than father and son. It’s like taking my best friend away from me, but I know he’ll come back to us, if you ask him to.”
“Probably,” she assented, coldly. “I suppose we’ll be in town for the Winters, won’t we, and only live here in the Summer?”
“I don’t know, dear; we’ll see. I’ve got to go to see my manager very soon, and Dad asked me to find out what you wanted for a wedding present. I’m to help him select it.”
“Can I have anything I choose?” she queried, keenly interested now.
“Anything within reason,” he smiled. “I’m sorry we’re not millionaires.”
“Could I have an automobile?”
“Perhaps. What kind?”
“A big red touring car, with room for four or five people in it?”
“I’ll tell him. It would be rather nice to have one, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed it would,” she cried, clapping her hands. “Oh, Allison, do persuade him to get it, won’t you?”
“I won’t have to, if he can. I’ve never had to persuade my father into anything he could do for me.”
When he went home, Isabel kissed him, of her own accord, for the first time. It was a cold little kiss, accompanied with a whispered plea for the red automobile, but it set his heart to thumping wildly, and made him forget the disdained turquoise, that lay at the bottom of the lily-pool.
But, as it happened, they were. After some difficulties at the start, Romeo had engineered “The Yellow Peril” out through a large break in the fence. The twins wore their brown suits with tan leather trimmings, and, as planned long ago, the back seat of the machine was partially filled with raw meat of the sort most liked by Romeo’s canine dependents.
Two yellow flags fluttered from the back of the driver’s seat. One had the initials “C. T.” in black, on the other, in red, was “The Yellow Peril.” The name of the machine and the monogram were strikingly in evidence on the doors and at the back, where a choice cut of roast beef, uncooked, dangled temptingly by a strong cord.
Just before they started, Juliet unfastened the barn door and freed nineteen starving dogs, all in collars suited to the general colour scheme of the automobile, and bearing the initials: “C. T.” When they sniffed the grateful odour borne on the warm June wind, they plunged after the machine with howls and yelps of delight. Only Minerva remained behind, having five new puppies to care for.
“Oh, Romie, Romie!” shouted Juliet, in ecstasy. “They’re coming! See!”
Romeo looked back for the fraction of an instant, saw that they were, indeed, “coming,” and then discovered that he had lost control of the machine. “Sit tight,” he said, to Juliet, between clenched teeth.
“I am,” she screamed, gleefully. “Oh, Romie, if uncle could only see us now!”
“Uncle’s likely to see us very soon,” retorted Romeo grimly, “unless I can keep her on the road.”
But Juliet was absorbed in the joy of the moment and did not hear. A cloud of dust, through which gleamed brass and red, appeared on the road ahead of them, having rounded the curve at high speed. At the same instant, Allison saw just beyond him, the screaming fantasy of colour and sound.
“Jump!” he cried to Isabel. “Jump for your life!”
She immediately obeyed him, falling in a little white heap at the roadside. He rose, headed the machine toward the ditch at the right, and jumped to the left, falling face down in the road with his hands outstretched, Before he could stir, the other machine roared heavily over him, grazing his left hand and crushing it into the deep dust.
There was almost an instant of unbelievable agony, then, mercifully, darkness and oblivion.
“How she will come to me”
The darkness swayed but did not lift. There was a strange rhythm in its movement, as though it were the sea, but there was no sound. Black shadows crept upon him, then slowly ebbed away. At times he was part of the darkness, at others, separate from it, yet lying upon it and wholly sustained by it.
At intervals, the swaying movement changed. His feet sank slowly in distinct pulsations until he stood almost upright, then his head began to sink and his feet to rise. When his head was far down and his feet almost directly above him, the motion changed again and he came back gradually to the horizontal, sinking back with one heart-beat and rising with the next—always a little higher.
“How she will come to me,” he said to himself, feeling, in fancy, her soft arms around him, and her warm lips on his, while the life-current flowed steadily from her to him and made him a man again, not a weakling. His heart beat with a joy that was almost pain, for he could feel her intoxicating nearness even now. Perhaps her sweet eyes would overflow with the greatness of her love and her tears would fall upon his face when she knelt beside him, to lay her head upon his breast.
“How she will come to me!” he breathed, in ecstasy. “Ah, how she will come!”
And so, smiling, he slept, as the first shaft of sun that brought his dear To-Morrow fell full upon his face.
HOW ISABEL CAME
Madame Bernard and Rose were so deeply affected by Allison’s misfortune that they scarcely took note of Isabel’s few bruises, greatly to that young woman’s disgust. She chose to consider herself in the light of a martyr and had calmly received the announcement that Allison’s left hand would probably have to be amputated.
None of them had seen him, though the two older women were ready to go at any hour of the day or night they might be needed or asked for. Isabel affected a sprained ankle and limped badly when anyone was looking. Once or twice she had been seen to walk almost as usual, though she did not know it.
The upper hall, and, occasionally, the other parts of the house, smelled of the various liniments and lotions with which she anointed herself. She scorned the suggestion that she should stay in bed, for she was quite comfortable upon a couch, in her most becoming negligee, with a novel and a box of chocolates to bear her company.
At first, she had taken her meals in her own room, but, finding that it was more pleasant to be downstairs with the others for luncheon and dinner, managed to go up and down the long flight of stairs twice each day.
Placid as she was, the table was not a cheerful place, for the faces of the other two were haggard and drawn, and neither made more than a pretence of eating. Daily bulletins came from the other house as to Allison’s condition, and Madame was in constant communication by telegraph with Colonel Kent. She kept him reassured as much as possible, and did not tell him of Allison’s ineradicable delusion that his father was dead.
Allison’s note was given to Isabel at luncheon the day after it was written, having been delayed in delivery the night before until after she was asleep. With it was a letter from her mother, which had come in the noon mail.
She opened Allison’s note first, read it, and put it back into the envelope. Her mother’s letter was almost equally brief. That, too, she returned to its envelope without comment.
“How is your mother, Isabel?” inquired Madame, having caught a glimpse of the bold, dashing superscription which was familiar, though infrequent.
“And give Allison as much money as we spent on the automobile and for the suits and everything, and pay for fixing up his car,” interrupted Juliet.
“We want to do everything,” Romeo said, with marked emphasis.
“Everything,” echoed Juliet.
“That’s very nice of you,” answered Madame, kindly, “and we all appreciate it.”
The stem young faces of the twins relaxed ever so little. It was a great relief to discover that they were not objects of scorn and loathing, for they had brooded over the accident until they had become morbid.
“Did you say that you had been living upon mush and milk ever since?” asked Madame.
“Ever since,” they answered, together.
“I’m sure that’s long enough,” she said. “I wouldn’t do it any longer. Won’t you stay to dinner with us?”
With one accord the twins rose, impelled by a single impulse toward departure.
“We couldn’t,” said Romeo.
“We mustn’t,” explained Juliet. Then, with belated courtesy, she added: “Thank you, just the same.”
They made their adieux awkwardly and went home, greatly eased in mind. As they trudged along the dusty road, they occasionally sighed in relief, but said little until they reached their ancestral abode, dogless now save for the pups gambolling about the doorstep and Minerva watching them with maternal pride.
“She said we’d lived on mush and milk long enough,” said Romeo, pensively.
“We might fry the mush,” Juliet suggested.
“And have butter and maple syrup on it?”
“Maybe.”
“And drink the milk, and have bread, too?”
“I guess so.”
“And jam?”
“Not while we’re in mourning,” said Juliet, firmly. “We can have syrup on our bread.”
“That’s just as good.”
“If you think so, you ought not to have it.”
“We’ve got to feed ourselves, or we’ll die,” he objected vigorously, “and if we’re dead, we won’t be any good to him or to anybody else, and we can’t ever repent any more.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” said Juliet, with sinister emphasis.
“Nothing will happen to us that we don’t deserve,” Romeo assured her, “so come on and let’s have jam. If it makes us sick, it’s wrong, and if it doesn’t, it’s all right.”
The following day, they voluntarily returned to their mush and milk, for they had eaten too much jam, and, having been very ill in the night, considered it sufficient evidence that their penance was not yet over.
“Less than the dust”
The heat of August shimmered over the land, and still, to every inquiry at the door or telephone, the quiet young woman in blue and white said: “No change.” Allison was listless and apathetic, yet comparatively free from pain.
Life, for him, had ebbed back to the point where the tide must either cease or turn. He knew neither hunger nor thirst nor weariness; only the great pause of soul and body, the sense of the ultimate goal.
“Say,” he began, by way of graceful preliminary, “you look to me as though you had sense.”
“Thank you,” she replied, demurely.
“Sense,” he resumed, “is lamentably scarce, especially the variety misnamed common—or even horse. I’m no mental healer, nor anything of that sort, you know, but it’s reasonable to suppose that if the mind can control the body, after a fashion, when the body is well, it’s entitled to some show when the body isn’t well, don’t you think so?”
Rose assented, though she did not quite grasp what he said. His all pervading breeziness affected her much as it had Allison.
“Now,” he continued, “I’m not unprofessional enough to knock anybody, but I gather that there’s been a procession of undertakers down here making that poor chap upstairs think there’s no chance. I’m not saying that there is, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t trot along until we have to stop. It isn’t necessary to amputate just yet, and until it is necessary, there’s nothing to hinder us from working like the devil to save him from it, is there?”
“Surely not.”
“All right. Are you in on it?”
“I’m ‘in,’” replied Rose, slowly, “on anything and everything that human power can do, day or night, until we come to the last ditch.”
“Good for you. I’ll appoint you first lieutenant. I guess that nurse is all right, though she doesn’t seem to be unduly optimistic.”
“She’s had nothing to make her so. Everything has been discouraging so far.”
“Plenty of discouragement in the world,” he observed, “handed out free of charge, without paying people to bring it into the house when you’re peevish.”
“Very true,” she answered, then her eyes filled. “Oh,” she breathed, with white lips, “if you can—if you only can—”
“We’ll have a try for it,” he said, then continued, kindly: “no salt water upstairs, you know.”
“I know,” she sighed, wiping her eyes.
“Then ‘on with the dance—let joy be unconfined.’”
Rose obediently went back to the piano. The arrival of the trunk and the composition of a hopeful telegram to Colonel Kent occupied the resourceful visitor for ten or fifteen minutes. Then he went back to his patient, who had already begun to miss him.
“You forgot to tell me your name,” Allison suggested.
“Sure enough. Call me Jack, or Doctor Jack, when I’m not here and have to be called.”
“But, as you said yourself a few minutes ago, I can’t begin that way. What’s the rest of it?”
“If you’ll listen,” responded the young man, solemnly, “I will unfold before your eyes the one blot upon the ’scutcheon of my promising career. My full name is Jonathan Ebenezer Middlekauffer.”
“What—how—I mean—excuse me,” stammered Allison.
There was a stir in the next room, and Allison called him, softly.
“Yes?” It was only a word, but the tone, as always, was vibrant with good cheer.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Allison said, “that my heart is over the bar.”
In the dark, the two men’s hands met. “More good business,” commented Doctor Jack. “Just remember what somebody said of Columbus: ’One day, with life and hope and heart, is time enough to find a world.’ Go to sleep now. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“All right,” Allison returned, but he did not sleep, even after certain low sounds usually associated with comfortable slumber came from the doctor’s room. He lay there, waiting happily, while from far, mysterious sources, life streamed into him, as the sap rises into the trees at the call of Spring. Across the despairing darkness, a signal had been flashed to him, and he was answering it, in every fibre of body and soul.
RISEN FROM THE DEAD
Colonel Kent, in a distant structure which, by courtesy, was called “the hotel,” had pushed away his breakfast untasted, save for a small portion of the nondescript fluid the frowsy waitress called “coffee.” He had been delayed, missed his train at the junction point, and, fretting with impatience, had been obliged to pass the night there.
He had wired to Madame Francesca the night before, but, as yet, had received no answer. He had personally consulted every surgeon of prominence in the surrounding country, and all who would not say flatly, without further information than he could give them, that there was no chance, had been asked to go and see for themselves.
One by one, their reports came back to him, unanimously hopeless. Heartsick and discouraged, he rallied from each disappointment, only to face defeat again. He had spent weeks in fruitless journeying, following up every clue that presented itself, waited days at hospitals for chiefs of staff, and made the dreary round of newspaper offices, where knowledge of every conceivable subject is supposedly upon file for the asking.
One enterprising editor, too modern to be swayed by ordinary human instincts, had turned the Colonel over to the star reporter—a young man with eyes like Allison’s. By well-timed questions and sympathetic offers of assistance, he dragged the whole story of his wanderings from the unsuspecting old soldier.
It made a double page in the Sunday edition, including the illustrations—a “human interest” story of unquestionable value, introduced by a screaming headline in red: “Old Soldier on the March to Save Son. Violinist about to Lose Hand.”
When the Colonel saw it, his eyes filled so that he could not see the words that danced through the mist, and the paper trembled from his hands to the floor. He was too nearly heartbroken to be angry, and too deeply hurt to take heed of the last stab.
“Poor kids,” Allison said, with a sigh.
“Tell me about ’em,” pleaded Doctor Jack “Tell me everything you know about ’em, especially Juliet.”
“I don’t know much,” replied the other, “for I came back here only a few months ago, and when I went abroad, they were merely enfants terribles imperfectly controlled by a pair of doting parents.”
However, he gladly told what he knew of the varied exploits of the twins, and his eager listener absorbed every word. At length when Allison could think of no more, and the afternoon shadows grew long, they went in.
Consigning his patient to the care of the nurse, the Doctor went down into the garden, to walk back and forth upon the long paths, gaze, open-mouthed, down the road, and moon, like the veriest schoolboy, over Juliet’s blue eyes.
Her pagan simplicity, her frank boyishness, and her absolute unconsciousness of self, appealed to him irresistibly. “The dear kid,” he said to himself, fondly; “the blessed little kid! Wonder how old she is!”
Then he remembered that Allison had told him the twins were almost twenty-one, but Juliet seemed absurdly young for her years. “The world will take her,” he sighed to himself, “and change her in a little while so even her own brother won’t know her. She’ll lace, and wear high heels and follow the latest fashion whether it suits her or not, and touch up her pretty cheeks with rouge, twist her hair into impossible coiffures, and learn all the wicked ways of the world.”
The wavy masses of tawny hair, the innocent blue eyes, as wide and appealing as a child’s, the clear, rosy skin, and the parted scarlet lips—all these would soon be spoiled by the thousand deceits of fashion.
“And I can’t help it,” he thought, sadly. Then his face brightened. “By George,” he said aloud, “I’m only twenty-eight—wonder if the kid could learn to stand me around the house.” He laughed, from sheer joy. “I’ll have a try for her,” he continued to himself. “Me for Juliet, and, if the gods are kind, Juliet for me!”
His reflections were interrupted by the arrival of the station hack. He instantly surmised that the man who hurried toward the house was Colonel Kent, and, on the veranda, intercepted him.
“Colonel Kent?”
“Yes. Doctor—?
“Middlekauffer, for purposes of introduction. For purposes of conversation, ‘Doctor Jack,’ or just plain ‘Jack.’ Never cared much for handles to names. You got my wire?”
“Yes. Who sent you here?”
“Forbes. Down here on the fifth. Met him out in the next State, at an operation. He told me to come, as my business was the impossible. Told me you’d stand for it, don’t you know, and all that sort of thing?”
“I’m very glad. How is he?”
“Doing very nicely, all things considered.”
“Is there a chance?” the Colonel cried, eagerly; “a real chance?”
“My dear man, until amputation is the only thing to be done, there’s always a chance. Personally, I’m very hopeful, though I’ve been called a dreamer more than once. But we’ve got him chirked up a lot, and he’s getting his nerve back, and this morning I thought I detected a slight improvement, though I was afraid to tell him so. We’ve all got to work for him and work like the devil at that.”
“Remember me to the others, say good-bye for me, and believe me, with all good wishes,
“Your friend always,
“Rose.”
When she sealed and addressed it, she had a queer sense of closing the door, with her own hands, upon all the joy Life might have in store for her in years to come. Yet the past few weeks were secure, beyond the power of change or loss, and her pride was saved.
No one could keep her from loving him, and the thought brought a certain comfort to her sore heart. Wherever he might be and whatever might happen to him, she could still love him from afar, and have, for her very own, the woman’s joy of utmost giving.
When the carriage came, she went down, and, without a word put her note into Aunt Francesca’s faithful hands. Isabel had not appeared, fortunately, and it was not necessary to leave any message—Aunt Francesca would make it right, as she always had with everybody.
When the little old lady lifted her face, saying: “Good-bye, dear, come back to me soon,” Rose’s heart misgave her. “I’ll stay,” she said, brokenly; “I won’t leave you.”
But Madame only smiled, and nodded toward the waiting train. She stood on the platform, waving her little lace-bordered handkerchief, until the last car rounded the curve and the fluttering bit of white that was waved in answer had vanished.
Then Madame sighed, wiped her eyes, and drove home.
A BIRTHDAY PARTY
Allison received the note from Rose at the time he was expecting Rose herself, and was keenly disappointed. “She might at least have stopped long enough to say good-bye,” he said to his father.
“Don’t be selfish, lad,” laughed the Colonel. “We owe her now a debt that we can never hope to pay.”
The young man’s face softened. “What a brick she has been!” Then, to himself, he added: “if she had loved me, she couldn’t have done more.”
Life seemed very good to them both that crisp September morning. Just after breakfast Doctor Jack had announced, definitely, that the crushed hand was saved, unless there should be some unlooked-for complication “But mind you,” he insisted, “I don’t promise any violin-playing, and there’ll be scars, but we’ll make it look as well as we can. Anyhow, you’ll not be helpless.”
Allison smiled happily. “Why can’t I play, if it heals up all right?”
“There may be a nerve or two that won’t work just right, or a twisted muscle, or something. However we’ll keep hoping.”
The heavy weight that had lain so long upon Allison’s heart was slow in lifting. At first he could not believe the good news, greatly to Doctor Jack’s disgust.
“You don’t seem to care much,” he remarked. “I supposed you’d turn at least one somersault. The Colonel is more pleased than you are.”
“Dear old dad,” said Allison, gratefully. “I owe him everything.”
“Of course,” she answered, without grasping his meaning, “but you’re going to be all right again now, and—that’s the same.”
Allison shrugged his shoulders and bit his lips to conceal a smile. “It may be the same for me, but it couldn’t be for you. I couldn’t give you any guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again, you know. I might be run over by a railroad train or a trolley car, or any one of a thousand things might happen to me. There’s always a risk.”
Tears filled Isabel’s eyes. “I don’t believe you ever cared very much for me,” she said, her lips quivering.
“I did, Isabel,” he answered, kindly, “but it’s gone now. Even at that, it lasted longer than you cared for me. Come, let’s be friends.”
He offered his hand. She put hers into it for a moment, then quickly took it away. He noted that it was very cold.
“I must be going,” she said, keeping her self-control with difficulty, “Aunt Francesca will miss me.”
“Thank you for coming—and for bringing the violin.”
“You’re welcome. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Silver Girl. I hope you’ll be happy.”
Isabel did not answer, nor turn back. She went out of the gate and out of his life, pride keeping her head high until she had turned the corner. Then, very sorry for herself, she sat down and wept.
“Tears, idle tears”
“Say, Jule,” inquired Romeo, casually, “why is it that you don’t look like a lady?”
“What do you mean?” demanded Juliet, bristling.
“I don’t know just what I mean, but you seem so different from everybody else.”
“I’m clean, ain’t I?”
“Yes,” he admitted, grudgingly.
“And my hair is combed?”
“Sometimes.”
“And my white dress is clean, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t look like—like hers, you know.”
“Her? Who’s ’her’?”
“You know—Isabel.”
Juliet sighed and bit her lips. Her eyes filled with tears and she winked very hard to keep them back. An ominous pain clutched at her loyal little heart.
“What do you want me to do, Romie?” she asked, gently.
“Why, I don’t know. Men never know about such things. Just make yourself like her—that’s all.”
“Huh!” Juliet was scornful now. “I don’t know whether I want to look like her or not,” she remarked, coldly.
“Why not?” he flashed back.
“And I don’t want to be like her, either. She can’t do anything. She can’t cook, or swing on the trapeze, or skate, or fish, or row, or swim, or climb a tree, or ride horseback, or walk, or anything.” “I could teach her,” mused Romeo, half to himself. “I taught you.”
“Yes,” cried Juliet, swallowing the persistent lump in her throat, “and now you’ve done it, you’re ashamed of me!”
“I didn’t say so,” he temporised.
“I say, Isabel,” he began awkwardly. “Would you be willing to marry me?”
Isabel quickly dried her tears. “Why, I don’t know,” she answered, much astonished. Then the practical side of her nature asserted itself. “Have you got money enough?”
Romeo tendered the handful of currency. “All this, and plenty more in the bank.”
“I know, but it was the bank I was talking about. Have you got enough for us to live at a nice hotel and go to the theatre every night?”
“More than that,” Romeo asserted, confidently. “I’ve got loads.”
“I—don’t know,” said Isabel, half to herself. “It would serve them all right. Allison used to be jealous of you,” she added, with a sidelong glance that set his youthful heart to fluttering.
“Juliet is jealous of you,” Romeo responded disloyally. “We had an awful scrap this morning because I asked her why she didn’t try to be a lady, like you.”
“Of course,” replied Isabel, smoothing her gown with a dainty hand, “I’ve always liked Juliet, but I liked you better.”
“Really, Isabel? Did you always like me?”
“Always.”
“Then come on. Let’s skip out now, the way they do in the books. Let’s take the next train.”
“Why not get married here?” objected Isabel, practically, “and take the four-thirty into town? There’s a minister here, and while you’re seeing about it, I can go home and get my coat.”
“All right, but don’t stop for anything else. We’ve got to hustle. Don’t tell anybody.”
“Not even Aunt Francesca?”
“No, she’d make a fuss. And besides, she doesn’t deserve it, if she’s been mean to you.” Romeo leaned over and bestowed a meaningless peck upon the fair cheek of his betrothed.
“I’ll never be mean to you,” he said.
“I know you won’t,” Isabel returned, trustfully. Then she laughed as she rose to her feet. “It will be a good joke on Allison,” she said, gleefully.
“It’ll be a good joke on everybody,” Romeo agreed, happily.
“Listen,” said Isabel. A faint chug-chug was heard in the distance, gradually coming nearer. “It’s my car. I wish you hadn’t been so quick to get rid of it last night. We could have gone away in it now.”
“Never mind, I’ll buy you another.”
They hoped to reach the turn in the road before the car got there, but failed. Doctor Jack came to a dead stop. “Want a lift?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” said Romeo.
“No, thank you,” repeated Isabel, primly. Colonel Kent had greeted her with the most chilling politeness, and she burned to get away.
“Say,” resumed Romeo, “will you do something for me?”
“Sure,” replied the Doctor, cordially. “Anything.”
“Will you take a note out to my sister for me? I shan’t get back for— some time.”
“You bet. Where is it?”
“I haven’t written it yet. Just wait a minute.”
“I don’t know,” remarked Juliet, at the end of an uncomfortable pause, “what to do with myself. I don’t want to stay here alone and I wouldn’t go anywhere near them—not for the world.”
“Where did you say you were going, when I came?”
“To Aunt Francesca’s—Madame Bernard, you know.”
“Good business,” he answered, nodding vigorous approval. “Come on. She seems to be the unfailing refuge of the shipwrecked mariner in this district. If I’m not much mistaken, she’ll take you into her big house and her bigger heart.”
“Oh,” said Juliet, wistfully, “do you think she would take me—and make me into a lady?”
“I think she’ll take you,” he responded, after a brief struggle with himself, “but I don’t want you made over. I want you to stay just exactly as you are. Oh, you dear little kid,” he muttered, “you’ll try to care, won’t you?”
“I’ll try,” she promised, sweetly, as she climbed into the big red machine. “I didn’t think I’d ever be in this car.”
“You can come whenever you like. It’s mine, now.”
Juliet did not seem to hear. The car hummed along the dusty road, making a soothing, purring noise. Pensively she looked across the distant fields, whence came the hum and whir of reaping. There was a far-away look in her face that the man beside her was powerless to understand. She was making swift readjustments as best she might, and, wisely, he left her to herself.
As they approached Madame Bernard’s, Juliet turned to him. “I was just thinking,” she sighed, “how quickly you grow up after you get to be twenty-one.”
He made no answer. He swallowed hard and turned the car into the driveway. Aunt Francesca came out on the veranda, followed by Mr. Boffin, as Juliet jumped out of the car. She had the crumpled note in her cold little hand.
Without a word, she offered it to Madame Bernard and waited. The beautiful face instantly became soft with pity. “My dear child,” she breathed. “My dear little motherless child!”
Juliet went into her open arms as straight as a homing pigeon to its nest. “Oh, Aunt Francesca,” she sobbed, “will you take me and make a lady out of me?”
“You’re already a lady,” laughed the older woman amid her tears. “Come in, Juliet dear—come home!”
THE HOUSE WHERE LOVE LIVED
It was past the middle of October, and Allison’s injured hand was not only free of its bandages, but he had partially regained the use of it. Doctor Jack still lingered, eagerly seizing every excuse that presented itself.
“I suppose I ought to be back looking for another job,” he regretfully observed to Allison, “but I like it here, and besides, I want to hear you play on your fiddle before I go.”
Allison laughed and hospitably urged him to stay as long as he chose. Colonel Kent added, heartily, after an old Southern fashion: “My house is yours.”