Chapter 18

Yes, Mr. James Thornton's offer was certainly tempting. It meant that everything in the world for which she most cared would be hers except--but that was singularly out-of-date. Nobody really married for that any more. To be sure, her sisters had, but she could not see that they were glaringly happy. And Mr. James Thornton was a good soul--everybody admitted that. And yet--for an instant the gray stone building in the distance, bathed in the golden radiance of the setting sun, grew misty and blurred. She saw another sunset, all pink and green and soft, indefinite violet, and above the deep, sweet, ceaseless sound of a wondrously opalescent sea she heard a man's voice ring clear and true with a love as eternal as that same changeless sea. She felt again that strange, sweet, unearthly happiness that comes to a woman once and once only. She buried her face in her hands to shut out the sight of that gray stone house on the hill, bathed in the significant, mocking, golden radiance of the setting sun. She heard again that man's voice, crushed and broken with a dull, hopeless despair. She saw his face grow pale as death as he heard her words of cruel, worldly wisdom. She felt again that same bitter ache at the heart, that horrible, gnawing sense of irreparable loss, as she had voluntarily put out of her life "the only good in the world."

"But we were too poor," she cried, passionately, jumping to her feet and throwing her head back defiantly. "It would have been madness--for me." She looked out of the window again at the gray stone house on the hill, and laughed mirthlessly.

Then she walked slowly away from the window, and stood irresolute for a moment, in the center of the room.

"This horrid, beastly poverty!" she burst out vehemently. "I'm sick of it all--of our wretched, miserable makeshifts. I'm tired, so tired, of everything. It will be such a rest." She rushed excitedly to the door, and ran, with the air of one who knows delay is fraught with danger, downstairs to her mother's room.

"Mother"--Mrs. Warren looked up fearfully, as she heard her daughter's voice--"I have thought it all over."

"Yes?" said Mrs. Warren, weakly. The reaction was almost too much for her after the half hour of sickening suspense.

"You must see Mr. Thornton when he comes to-night, for I have a splitting headache and I'm going to bed." Her mother stared at her blankly. Was this the end of all her hopes? "To-day is Tuesday--tell him that I will give him my answer Friday night. And, mother"--her voice dropped in a half-ashamed way--"the answer will be yes."

"My darling child"--Mrs. Warren took her daughter in her arms--"this is the very proudest and happiest moment of my life."

"Yes, mother, I know," Nancy freed herself from the clinging embrace. "I'm happy, awfully happy, too"--she said it as one would speak of the weather or some other deadly commonplace. "I think Mr. Thornton will make a model husband. And--and it's an end to all our nasty little economies!"

"Anne, don't be so material," Mrs. Warren interrupted, in a shocked voice.

"I'm not, mother; only think"--Nancy's eyes glistened--"no more velveteen masquerading as velvet, no more bargain-counter shoes and gloves, no more percaline petticoats with silk flounces, no more _plain_ dresses because shirring and tucking take a few more yards; no more summers spent in close, cooped-up hall bedrooms in twelve-dollar-a-week hotels; grape-fruit every morning, and cream always!" She laughed half hysterically. "And Mr. Thornton is _so_ good! It's wonderful to be so happy, isn't it, Marmee?"

Mrs. Warren looked at her apprehensively for a moment. "You're sure," she faltered--"you're sure you're doing it all without a regret for--for anybody, Nancy?"

Nancy's nails went deep into the palms of her hands. "Without a regret, Marmee," she smiled, brightly.

"And that you think you will be perfectly happy with James?"

"Perfectly," said Nancy, evenly.

Mrs. Warren, reassured, was radiant. "My darling child," she breathed, softly, "this means everything to me."

"You'll explain about the headache, won't you, Marmee?" Nancy asked, moving hurriedly toward the door. She knew that she should scream if she stayed a moment longer in her mother's presence.

"Yes, indeed, and I'm so sorry about the pain." Her mother followed her to the door. "Take some----"

"I have everything upstairs, thank you, mother. Good-night."

"Good-night, my darling child." Those kisses were the fondest her mother had ever given her. "How I wish that your poor dear father could know of our perfect happiness!"

Nancy passed out into the hall, closed the door behind her, and leaned for a moment against the wall. Mrs. Warren's idea of perfect happiness would have received a severe shock, could she have heard Nancy murmur, brokenly: "Dear old dad! Pray Heaven you _don't_ know that your little Nance is a miserable, mercenary coward!"

* * * * *

There is a certain sense of relief that follows the consummation of a long-delayed decision, no matter how inherently distasteful that decision may be, and Nancy's first feeling when she awoke on the following morning was one of thankfulness that the preliminary step had been taken.

All burdens seem lighter, everything takes a different hue, in the morning when the sun is shining and the birds are singing, and after the months of sickening indecision Nancy experienced such a delightful sense of rest, such a freedom from suspense, that she actually laughed aloud as she said to herself: "Oh, I guess perhaps it's not going to be so bad, after all!"

By the time that Mr. James Thornton's daily offering of violets and orchids had arrived, she had about decided that she was a rather levelheaded young woman, and when, an hour after that, she found herself seated beside the devoted James, in his glaringly resplendent automobile, skimming along at an exhilarating pace over a fine stretch of country road, she had come to the conclusion that that arch-type of female foolishness, the Virgin with the Unfilled Lamp, was wisdom incarnate compared to the woman who deliberately throws aside the goods the gods provide her. Oh, yes, Nancy was fast becoming the more worthy daughter of a worthy mother!

James Thornton, reassured by what Mrs. Warren had delicately hinted to him the evening before, exulted in Nancy's buoyant spirits. He had never seen her so attractive. She chattered away merrily, laughed at his weighty jokes and his more or less pointless stories, and even forgot to be angry when for one brief, fleeting instant his massive hand closed over her slim, aristocratic one. It seemed too good to be true that this fascinating bit of femininity was soon to be his.

When they finally returned to the Warrens' modest house, the wily chauffeur, looking after them as they walked along the nasturtium-bordered path that led to the porch, winked the wink of one on the inside, and smiled broadly as he murmured: "She's a crackajack! And if there ain't somethin' doin' _this_ time, I'll eat my goggles!"

* * * * *

"Don't you think, mother," said Nancy, an hour or so later--they were sitting in Nancy's room, Mrs. Warren, with unusual condescension, having come up for a little chat--"that it would have been rather nicer to have had dinner here Friday night, the eventful Friday night"--a queer little tremor ran over her--"instead of at Mr. Thornton's?"

"Why, no," said Mrs. Warren, complacently; "I think it will make everything easier for James if we are up there. You know he is inclined to be diffident, Nancy. A man always appears to better advantage in his own house."

"And of course that is the only thing to be considered." Nancy smiled half bitterly. She had lost a little of the buoyancy of a few hours before.

"Why, of course, my dear," Mrs. Warren began, hastily, "if you prefer to----?"

"Oh, no, let it go at that," returned Nancy, carelessly. "It will be all the same at the end of a lifetime." She shrugged her shoulders as she spoke. "What shall I wear, mother?" she asked the next moment, with an entire change of manner. "My white, virginal simplicity and all that sort of rot; my shabby little yellow, or the scarlet? Those are my 'devilish all,' you know."

"The white, by _all_ means, Nancy." Mrs. Warren's tone was impressive; and for reasons of her own she chose to ignore the slang.

"Pink rose in the hair, I suppose, a _Janice Meredith_ curl, bobbing on my neck and nearly scratching the life out of me, a few _visibly invisible_ little pink ribbons, and any other 'parlor tricks' I happen to know----"

"Anne!" Her mother frowned angrily.

"Then be led into the conservatory"--Nancy paid no attention to the interruption--"have the moonlight turned on. Horrors, think of that artificial moonlight!" Nancy shuddered. "And then say yes! Heavens! I hope I shan't say yes until it's time. It would be awful to miscue at that stage of the game!"

Mrs. Warren rose abruptly from her chair, and without a word started for the door, quivering with indignation.

"There! I've been a brute again," cried Nancy, penitently, dashing after her mother.

"Yes, I think you have," blazed Mrs. Warren.

"I was only fooling, dearie; it's all going to be lovely, and I'm going into that conservatory just as valiantly as the Rough Riders charged up old San Juan! Only, Marmee, don't ask me to wear white--that would be _too_ absurd! Frankly, I'm susceptible to color. You've heard about the little boy who whistled in the dark to keep his courage up?" Mrs. Warren smiled through her tears. "Well, I'm going to wear my red--red is cheerful, and not _too_ innocent, and--and courageous--I mean," Nancy explained, hastily, as she caught her mother's look of wonder. "It always requires _some_ courage for a girl to say she will marry a man, even when the circumstances are as--as happy as they are in this case. Didn't you feel just a little bit queer when you told dad you'd marry him?"

"Why, yes, I suppose I did," said Mrs. Warren, half doubtfully.

"Well, then," said Nancy, logically, "you can understand just what I mean. I've a scrap of lace"--reverting to the burning question--"that I'm going to hunt up, that will freshen the red a lot, and some day, Marmee"--she took her mother's face between her cool, slim hands, and laughed with a fine assumption of gayety--"we'll have such closetfuls of dainty, bewitching 'creations' that we'll quite forget we ever envied Mother Eve because she didn't have to rack her brains about what to wear."

Mrs. Warren laughed. Her indignation had vanished. Nancy had a winsome way with her when she chose that was irresistible to the older woman.

"Now you go take a nice little nap, Marmee"--she kissed her mother lightly on the forehead--"while the future Mrs. James Thornton ferrets out the scrap of lace which is to be the _piece de resistance_ of _Juliet's_ costume when she goes to meet her portly _Romeo!_" She laughed merrily, and with a sweeping courtesy ushered her mother out of the room.

As soon as the door had closed behind Mrs. Warren, Nancy, singing lustily, yet with a certain nervousness, as if to drown all power of thought, bustled about the room, peering into topsy-turvy bureau drawers and ransacking inconsequent-looking boxes, with a half-feverish energy, as though upon the unearthing of that particular piece of lace depended her hopes of heaven.

It seemed to be an elusive commodity, that scrap of rose-point; for twenty minutes' patient search failed utterly to bring it to the light of day.

Suddenly, Nancy espied a big, important-looking black walnut box on the floor of her closet, half hidden by a well-worn party coat which depended from the hook just above it. It was a mysterious-looking box, delightfully suggestive of old love letters and tender fooleries of that sort, or _would_ have been, had it not been the property of an up-to-date, worldly-wise young woman who knew better than to save from the flames such sources of delicious torment, such instruments of exquisite torture.

In an instant Nancy had dragged the box to the door of the closet, and was down on her knees in front of it, going through its contents with ferret-like eagerness.

Yes! Her search was at last rewarded! For there, down under a pair of white satin dancing slippers, in provokingly easy view, lay the much desired finery.

She put her hand under the slippers to draw it from its resting place, and as she felt the lace slip easily as though across some smooth surface, looked with idle curiosity down into the box. Instantly a sharp little cry rang through the room, and she withdrew her hand as swiftly as though she had unearthed a nest of rattlers. Her face was ashen, her breath came quick and short.

"Oh, I didn't know it was there!" she gasped. "I had forgotten all about it. I thought it had been destroyed with all the rest. Why is it left to torment me now, now, _now_?" she cried, angrily. Then, with a swift revulsion of feeling, she murmured, brokenly: "Oh, Boy, Boy, is there no escaping you? No forgetting you just when I am trying to so hard?"

She sat very still for a moment. Then she put her hand into the box again and drew out, not the precious scrap of rose-point--that, to her, was as though it had never been--not a blurred, tear-stained love letter, not a bunch of faded violets, but a little, fat, bright blue pitcher, with great, flaming vermilion roses on either side, the most grotesquely and uncompromisingly ugly bit of crockery that one would find from Dan to Beersheba.

Have you never noticed that it is often the most whimsically inconsequent, the most utterly ordinary, the most intrinsically prosaic of inanimate things that, with a sudden and overwhelming rush, will call into being memories the tenderest, the deepest, the saddest? It may be a worthless little book, a withered flower ghastly in its brown grave clothes, a cheap, tawdry trinket; it may be something as intangible as a few bars of a hackneyed song ground out on a wheezy, asthmatic hand organ. But just so surely as one has lived--and therefore loved--one knows the inherent power to sting and wound in things the most pitiably commonplace. De Musset speaks of the "little pebble":

But when upon your fated way you meet Some dumb memorial of a passion dead, That little pebble stops you, and you dread To bruise your tender feet.

So to Nancy, coming suddenly and at the psychological moment upon that absurd bit of blue clay cajoled from a friendly waiter at a little, out-of-the-way Bohemian restaurant, one never-to-be-forgotten night, the bottom seemed to have dropped out of the universe. The things of this world seemed suddenly to lose their value, and to grow poor and mean and worthless. And she only knew that she was miserable, and heart-hungry, and soul-sick for one who never came, for one who never again _would_ come, forever and forever.

With the little blue pitcher held tightly in her hand, she walked over to the window and looked up at the big gray stone house that was soon to know her as its mistress. And for the very first time the perfect realization of what it all would mean was borne in upon her. She stood there for several minutes motionless, then with a violent, angry shake of the head she cried out in a high, defiant voice: "No, no, no, not until--not yet, not yet!"

She walked rapidly away from the window, and put the little blue pitcher in a post of honor on the mantelpiece. Then, crossing over to the dressing table, she picked up her purse and carefully counted the money. The result must have been satisfactory, for a half-triumphant smile flitted across her face. After that, from the mysterious depths of that same purse, she unearthed a time-table and studied it earnestly.

Then, sitting at her tiny desk, she nervously scrawled these words:

DEAR MOTHER: I have gone to New York to spend the night with Lilla Browning--made up my mind suddenly, and as I knew you were asleep, didn't want to bother you. Knew you couldn't possibly have any objection, because you are so fond of Lil. Want to do some shopping in the morning, and thought this would be the best way to get an early start. Expect me home to-morrow afternoon on the 5:45. Best regards to Mr. Thornton. Have Maggie press my red dress; tell her to be careful not to scorch it. I found the lace. By-by. NANCY.

"All's fair in love and war," she murmured, softly, rising from her chair, and taking off stock and belt preparatory to a change of costume. She smiled happily as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her eyes were starlike, her whole expression was perfectly radiant.

"And you're responsible for it all, you little imp!" She shook her finger at the fat, bright blue pitcher with flaming vermilion roses on either side, as it stood on the mantelpiece in blissful unconsciousness of its total depravity.

In less than twenty minutes Nancy was dressed for the street and on her way to the railroad station. Ten minutes later two telegrams flashed over the wires. One ran:

MRS. JONATHAN BROWNING, West Seventy-second Street, New York City: Will spend to-night with you. Arrive about ten. Don't meet me. NANCY.

The second one was more brief:

MR. PHILIP PEIRCE. Princeton Club, New York City: Dine with me to-night at Scarlatti's at seven. ANNE WARREN.

Not until Nancy, after dismissing the hansom, found herself solitary and alone on the sidewalk in front of the gayly lighted little Bohemian restaurant, did she realize the foolishness, the craziness, of her undertaking. In fact, she had no very clear idea of what that undertaking was.

She looked after the retreating hansom, and a wretched, half-frightened homesickness swept over her.

Suppose Phil had not received the telegram! Suppose, receiving it, he had refused to come! She couldn't blame him, although he had once said that, no matter what----

And then--in speaking of it afterward, Nancy always declared that it was a positive physiological fact that at that moment her heart was located somewhere in the roof of her mouth--some one caught both her hands in his, some one's glad voice cried "Nance!" and in the twinkling of an eye the homesickness and the memory of the weeks of wretchedness had vanished, and all the misery of the past and all the uncertainty of the future were swallowed up in the joy of the present.

"I'm so sorry to be late." Phil's voice was as remorseful as though he had committed _all_ of the seven deadly sins. "I received your telegram just as I was leaving the club to keep an engagement. Took me ten minutes at the 'phone to break the engagement decently. Jove! but I am glad to see you," he went on, enthusiastically.

"I hoped you would be, but of course I didn't know." It was not at all what Nancy had intended to say, but her heart thumped so furiously that she could scarcely think. She was mortally afraid that Phil would hear it pounding away.

"You know I told you that I should _always_ be glad to see you, Nance." Then, abruptly: "I hope you haven't caught cold standing here waiting. It's not warm to-night. Shall we go inside now?" Nancy nodded, and Phil led the way into Scarlatti's.

She took the whole room in at a glance, and breathed a sigh of contentment so long, so deep, that it must have come from the tips of her toes.

There was the same absurd little orchestra in their same absurd "monkey clothes," the same motley crowd of half foreign, wholly happy men and women, the same indescribable odor of un-American cooking--she even rejoiced in _that_--and, best of all, on the long shelf that ran around the four sides of the room were the same little, fat, bright blue pitchers with great naming vermilion roses on either side. To be sure, she knew that one was missing, but that was mere detail.

"Phil," Nancy whispered, eagerly, pulling his coat sleeve violently as the waiter, with much bowing and scraping, started to lead the way in another direction, "_our_ table is empty. Right over there--the tenth from the door. We always had that one, you know, under the picture of 'The Girl with the Laughing Eyes.' I always remembered that it was the tenth."

"Surely, we'll have the tenth, by all means." Phil tapped the waiter on the back, and motioned in the direction of the empty table.

"I thought perhaps you'd rather not," he whispered to Nancy, as they slipped into the old, familiar places. Evidently Phil had a memory for numbers, too. So often it is only the woman who can _count ten_.

"Now," began Phil, as soon as the dinner had been ordered and other preliminaries attended to, "tell me how on earth you and I happen to be here together? Did you drop straight from the clouds? Or aren't you here at all? Are you just a bit from a wildly improbable dream?"

"No," said Nancy, glibly, her equilibrium restored; "I'm spending the night with Lilla Browning, and it suddenly occurred to me that it would be fun for us to have dinner together." She paused a moment. "Once more," she added, watching Phil's face closely. "And isn't it just like that other time--the last time we were here together?" Phil looked at her curiously. "The people, and the soft lights, and the funny little musicians, and my meeting you----"

"Oh-h!" said Phil, quietly.

"And---and everything," finished Nancy, lamely.

"Don't you remember?" she went on. "The paper had sent you off on some pesky assignment, and you were just a wee bit late. And we had a sort of a tiff about it until I happened to look up at the picture over the table, and 'The Girl with the Laughing Eyes' was looking straight down at us? And then, somehow, I had to laugh, too, and we made up. Don't you remember?"

Phil nodded. Did he not remember everything? Had he not _been_ remembering ever since? That was the pity of it all!

"We were pretty happy that night, weren't we, Phil?"

"Don't, Nance." Phil's bright eyes had a curious, unusual brightness at that moment.

"And I made you--simply _made_ you, you didn't want to--get me one of those foolish little pitchers." She pursued her theme relentlessly. "The waiter was so funny!" Nancy laughed merrily as at some droll recollection, "Phil, that was a whole year ago."

"Nonsense!" said Phil, indignantly. "It's ten years ago, if it's a day! Before you grew to be a worldly-wise old lady, and before I had become a cynical old man."

"You don't look very old, Phil."

"Well, I am; I'm as old as the hills. Do you know it has all been an awful pity, Nance?"

"What?" she asked, very softly, smiling adorably.

"Oh, everything----" He stopped short, the smile had escaped him. "Come," he said, abruptly, "let's talk about the weather, the--the--what a terrible winter it has been, hasn't it? Did you have lots of skating up in the country?"

"Yes, lots--about two months too much of it, and it has been the worst winter I ever hope to live through; but really, Phil, I didn't come to New York to talk about the weather." The laughter died out of Nancy's blue eyes. "I--I think I came to New York to ask your advice about something."

"My advice?" echoed Phil, wonderingly.

"Yes, I _think_ so. Phil, suppose there, was a girl whose father had lost all his money and then had gone to work and died, and had left her and her mother just this side of the poorhouse. And suppose she and her mother had had to pinch and scrimp to keep their heads above the water, until they were sick of the whole business. And suppose a man with shoals of money--a fat, sort of elderly man, who wore diamond rings, and said 'you was,' and did lots of other things you and I don't like, yet was very kind and good--suppose this man wanted to marry this girl. Now, what would you advise her to do, if her mother were secretly crazy to have her marry him?"

"And she didn't care for anyone else?" Philip's tone was coldly judicial.