Part 4

“Yes. But you see I’m home so seldom she can’t bear to have me down on the children the only time I’m with them. You see, a man doesn’t think much whether he likes to travel or not—it’s just something that’s got to be done, if you’re in the business—but it’s hard on a woman. Some women seem to get used to it, though.”

“Ah,” murmured Mrs. Brenner, “when we married I said to my husband: ‘When I get over caring for you, then I’ll get over minding your leaving me—and not before.’”

“Why, that’s what my wife says!” said Prescott. He laughed, with a rising colour, and shook his head. “You women—you’re all alike. You don’t know what lots of good it’s done me to be here and talk to you to-night; it’s most as good as being home—not quite, though.”

“Can’t you stop travelling?” said Mrs. Brenner, going with penetrative instinct to the thought she felt. She added, after a pause: “Are you sure you can’t?”

He looked at her uncertainly. “How did you know that? No, I’m not sure I can’t—but I’m not sure I can. And I’m not so young as I was.”

“Think of it.” Her hand gave his a warm clasp; through her eyes he saw his wife. “_Think_ of it.”

“God knows I do,” said Prescott huskily. His hand wrenched hers in its farewell, before he put on the overcoat Brenner brought him from the back hall.

All the way back to the hotel he was thinking over things. It all depended on that few hundred dollars extra, so absolutely necessary that, without it, he could not provide a shelter for his family. More than a living he no longer planned for. He looked at the future with the eye of the man who, whatever his abilities, has come to learn that, either from early training, or environment, or the iron bands of need, more than a careful living can never be his. He could have enjoyed riches as well and more than many another man, but they were so out of all calculation that what they could buy no longer aroused in him any particular interest. He would never even be able to indulge in that pathetically ludicrous dream of the business man of retiring to a green and placid land and raising catalogue produce from theory. He would be able to save little, after educating his children, but the money to pay the insurance that would keep his wife from penury when he died. For all his days he must work in harness, and take no holiday but that which Death gives to the great rank and file.

Yet, in spite of these limitations, for all that he tacitly renounced, he had good measure. He had the freedom of spirit which belongs to him who, given a competence, envies not any man his wealth or his opportunity. He had gained a capacity for getting great and far-reaching happiness from the exquisite little joys of life. If he had a little of the inner sadness that comes of foregoing the ambitions natural to a man, it was not the sadness of defeat, but rather the thoughtful weighing of the loss as the least—all things considered—that he could have had. In the silent times of those long journeyings by day and night over the earth, the pricelessness of the common blessing of a home had sunk deeper and deeper into his soul. And the spring of all this was in the love he and his wife had for each other, a love that was too much of a vital power to be consciously dwelt upon; it was rather an enlarging and enriching of the whole nature because they two were one in the possession of a country which it is given to but few of the married to see even afar off. Below all trouble lay ever a secret joy; whither he went, she companied him. In all the years of separation, they were less apart than many whose hands meet daily; there could be no real separation between them even after death.

But now—but now—she was getting tired. Her small face with its pure outlines, the sweet, nervous mouth and the loving eyes came before him—her low controlled voice, her quick motions, her rapid adjustment of all domestic problems that his brief stay at home might be bright and restful, the children at their best, the meals most home-like, and she herself dressed prettily, with the work so ordered that she might not lose a minute of his society. If callers came on one of those precious afternoons, she rebelled as if at a calamity. She had always been so brave, so helpful, but she was not so strong as she had been, and the boy was too much for her. If he could but see his way a little clearer! He had the cautiousness of methods new to him that comes of the inexperience of manhood, far more frustrating than the inexperience of the boy.

Brenner came around the next day just before train time.

“Mame sent me,” he explained. “She’s been talking to me ever since you left. She’s got a brother in New York who’s in the line you’re looking up, and she has an idea you can fix up something with him in connection with the position you were telling me of. If you can carry some of his business with you I don’t see but it would help you out mighty well. He’s a good man—and he’ll do anything for Mame, if he _can_ do it. She’s written him a letter, and here’s one for you.”

“I’m much obliged, I’m sure,” said Prescott politely. He did not speak with enthusiasm; he had a rooted distaste for a woman’s intervention in business matters, and by daylight his evening confidences rather annoyed him. Still——

“A telegram for you, sir,” said a boy, coming up.

Prescott took it and opened it mechanically. He stood for a moment with his eyes glued to the paper, and when he looked up Brenner cried in horror:

“Not your _wife_, man!”

“No,” said Prescott thickly. “It’s little Margaret.” He consulted the paper. “She’s not dead—yet. She’s been run over. She may not be so badly hurt as they fear. My God! I can’t get there for two days!”

“Thank heaven the east-bound train’s on time,” said Brenner devoutly, and went home to be cheered by his Mame.

* * * * *

“Papa is to carry little Margaret up-stairs—think of it!—dear papa to carry her—such a treat! His arms are so much stronger than mamma’s.” It was a week since the day of the telegram.

“Mamma jiggles,” said the child roguishly, looking backward from the shelter of her father’s arms to the slender figure toiling up laboriously with shawls and pillows. “Mamma carries Marget all slippy.”

“Poor mamma,” said the father; “she has to do everything when I’m not here.” He pressed his lips to the soft baby cheek of the little girl who was getting well, but his thought was with the mother. “Now what on earth are you lugging all those things up for, Annie? Didn’t I tell you to call Martin to take them? You know you’re all worn out.”

“He’s reading, and I thought I wouldn’t disturb him.”

“Where’s that magazine I had? _There_ you go again! Why _don’t_ you let the children wait on you?”

“I knew _just_ where it was,” said the wife with eager excuse.

“Well, it’s their business to know where things are,” said Prescott severely; “they don’t help you half enough. When I go away to-morrow——”

The joy in his wife’s face went out as the light is snuffed out in a candle.

That evening, as they sat alone together in the cozy library after the children were in bed, she broke into the conversation with a tone that showed the effort. “I haven’t asked you yet what time you want breakfast to-morrow morning. I hope you don’t have to take the six-fifty, it’s so very dark and early, and you never really eat anything, no matter what I get for you.”

Prescott looked at the pure outline of her cheek and brow, and the stricken cheerfulness of her eyes. He hardly seemed to hear her words for a minute, and then answered absently:

“No; I’m not going so early to-morrow. Hark, is that somebody coming up our steps?”

“Oh, I _hope_ it’s no one to call! It would be dreadful when it’s our last evening together. No, thank goodness! It’s next door.”

“When I’ve been home five whole days that you didn’t count on, you oughtn’t to stand out for such a little thing as the last evening. It was well I could come—wasn’t it? When I got that telegram——”

He broke off with a shudder, and their hands clasped. Their minds traversed the past week with its terror and anxiety, and its later joy—the great happiness which comes from no new phase, but from the blessed continuance of the unnoticed daily good.

“You have been in town so much of the time,” she murmured half-jealously.

“Yes, I know. It was necessary.”

“You haven’t told me yet what time you want your breakfast.”

“Oh, any old time. I don’t think I’ll go in the morning.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” She looked at him reproachfully. “Then I would have hired Maria for the day. Now I’ll have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen when I’ll want to be with you.”

“How would you behave if I were to stay home all the time?”

“How would I behave?” She gleamed at him with sudden sweet tremulous humour through the mistiness of her eyes. “I’d never come near you. I’d make calls and belong to all the societies in the place and not get back until after dinner-time. I’d go next door in the evening and leave you home reading. I’d behave the way other women do whose husbands come home every night. I expect I’d get tired of seeing you around. Don’t you believe it?” The gaiety in her tone flickered and went out, as if she were very, very tired. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know you’ve been considering that offer—_you_ didn’t tell me of it—and you’ve refused it. I’ve been watching you. And I don’t see how I’m going to let you go this time.”

“Annie!”

“Oh, forgive, forgive me! I’ll be brave again, I will indeed. But I’ve been through so much lately that just now—it gets so hard—so hard”—her voice was almost inaudible—“harder and harder. I’ve been praying—and _praying_.”

“Annie, dear, you’re all wrong. I’m not going to-morrow or Tuesday either. Can’t you guess?”

She lifted her head from his shoulder and pushed him from her. “How queer you act! What do you _mean_?”

He tried to bend a jovial gaze upon her.

“I’m not going to travel any more, Annie, ever. You were all wrong; I’ve taken the offer. I went to see Mrs. Brenner’s brother in town. I tell you that little woman in Wisconsin did you a mighty good turn! And I’ve taken the chances. I’ve figured it all out.” He tried to gather her to him, but she drew back. “Why, Annie, aren’t you glad? What makes you shake so?”

“You are going to stay _now_?”

“Yes, always. I’m going to look after my children and my—sweet—wife. Why _Annie_! Oh, you poor, _poor_ girl, has it been as bad as _that_?”

He tried once more to draw her to him, but she eluded his grasp and was gone. He heard her light footfall above and then there was only silence.

He sat there by the table for a few minutes with a book before him, as he smoked, but he did not read. Once he went to the door and called “Annie!” softly, that little Margaret might not be wakened, and yet again, “Annie! Come down; I want to read to you,” but there was no response.

He lingered a moment hesitatingly, and then went up the stairs himself, his feet pausing half-reluctantly on the steps. Thrice he halted, and then went on again into the room where she was a kneeling figure by the bed, her arms spread out upon it, and her hair falling over her shoulders. She raised her head momentarily with a backward glance of rapt joy at him before burying it again in the coverlet, and as his footfalls stopped on the threshold she held out one arm appealingly as if to encircle him beside her.

“No—no!” he said painfully. “No, Annie! I—I can’t—it wouldn’t be right. Annie, you don’t want _me_, dear; you don’t want—— _No!_”

Her white hand still mutely pleaded. Even at the very gate of heaven she could not be satisfied without him. He drew nearer, and a little nearer. Then, somehow, he had stumbled down awkwardly into the warm enclosure of her arm, and hid his face within her bosom.

The Hinge

The Hinge

“Mrs. Ranney is going away to-morrow with the children to visit her mother; did you hear that? It will be a nice change for her, she’s alone so much, with Mr. Ranney nearly every evening at the Rowing Club or at that old hotel. Goodness knows how late he’ll stay out after she’s gone! I shouldn’t think she’d like it _at all_.”

The four women who were neighbours on the Ridge were coming back from a meeting of the Vittoria Colonna Club, picking their way in gala attire over the puddles left by a shower, with the aid of the two parallel see-sawing boards that made the suburban sidewalk. Mrs. Stone, who had spoken, was tall and large-featured; she wore a startlingly wide, high-plumed hat that seemed to have no connection with her head, rearing into strange shapes with the wind that blew from the sea.

“Perhaps she’s glad to have him out of the house,” suggested the fair, prettily garbed little Mrs. Spicer, who talked very fast. “Not that he’s dissipated at all, I don’t mean that, but I think he’s one of those horrid domineering men you’d hate to have around. I don’t believe he ever gives her a cent of money—_he_ is always so well-dressed, but she hasn’t had a new thing since she came here a year ago. I’d like to see Ernest Spicer treat me that way!”

“Mrs. Ranney says she likes him to take a walk after dinner; that he’s used to it,” interpolated the handsome, brown-eyed Mrs. Laurence, with a characteristic lift of her white chin. “He often asks her to go with him.”

“Oh, yes, so she says!” Mrs. Stone made a clutch for her hat. “Of course she _acts_ satisfied; you can’t tell anything by that. She’s a dear little woman, but I don’t believe there’s much to her; he’s a great deal above her as far as brains go, that’s evident. Keep over this side, Mrs. Spicer, that maple is just dripping. But there’s very little warmth or cordiality in Mrs. Ranney as far as I can see; she doesn’t respond as you’d think she would. I ran over the other day when she happened to be out and Ann let me see her preserve-closet. When I spoke to her the next day about the number of jars she had, she almost made me feel as if I had been intrusive. Some people have that unvarying manner, always pleasant but nothing more. It wears on _me_, I know, and I shouldn’t wonder if it did on Mr. Ranney; I think he feels a lack in her.”

“Oh, it’s such a great subject!” said little Mrs. Spicer with earnest volubility, “it’s such a great subject, that of being attractive to one’s husband. Miss Liftus spoke so feelingly about it the other day at the Club, she says that women are so engrossed in their own affairs that they neglect to adapt themselves to the husband’s life; she thinks intelligent coöperation in business matters should be the key-note. It’s a lovely idea; I know a woman who is in her husband’s office, and they enjoy it so much, but”—Mrs. Spicer paused wistfully—“it’s very hard to help a man when he’s in stocks, like Ernest Spicer; I _can not_ seem to remember quite what it is when he’s on a margin; I’ve had it explained to me so many times I am ashamed to ask him any more; I seem to understand it just for a minute, and then it goes. I don’t know what’s the reason, but Ernest never wants to talk about business with me.”

“Don’t you think husbands are very different?” asked Mrs. Budd with a slow distinctness, as if she were reading from a primer; her large, unwavering blue eyes pinned your butterfly attention fast in spite of involuntary writhings. “I know my husband and Mr. Ranney are very different, they like such different things for breakfast. I am very particular about Mr. Budd’s meals, and he depends so much on his breakfast. He always begins on——”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” interrupted Mrs. Stone impatiently, she knew Mr. Budd’s _ménu_ by heart. “You can adapt and adapt and they’ll never know it, but they do know when they’re comfortable. Nobody can say that Mr. Stone isn’t comfortable in his own house. When I see a man like Mr. Ranney leaving his home every evening you may be sure there’s a screw loose somewhere. That little woman is making a great mistake, but it’s the kind of thing you’d find it difficult to speak about.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t speak about it for the world!” cried Mrs. Laurence in horror. “As Mrs. Budd says very truly, people are so different.” Yet she found herself wondering afterwards. She was sure that the Ranneys were fond of each other in a way, though she wouldn’t have cared for the way. On what hinge hung Mr. Ranney’s neglect of his wife? A lack in her, as Mrs. Stone had said, selfishness on his part—coldness on hers? Mrs. Laurence herself didn’t need to discuss her attraction for Mr. Laurence—in their case it was something inherent, not an accident of adjustment; it interpenetrated every condition of life. She had put a blue bow in her hair when she dressed, because she had a theory that a woman should look her nicest for her husband, but as a matter of fact she knew that Will thought her beautiful in anything she wore.

Mrs. Ranney always looked nice, there could be no two opinions on that. She was a slight, very young woman, with a heart-shaped, childish face, that wore an expression of gentle, matronly dignity, repelling to familiarity. She had serious, flower-blue eyes, and quantities of waving, chestnut-brown hair coiled back so tightly from a broad, low forehead that you hardly realized at first that when it was let down it formed a beautiful, shimmering cloak around her that nearly touched the floor. Her whole personality was intensely feminine. In any demand of the day her simple gowns became her, yet were never too fine for the work her busy fingers found to do, for Mrs. Ranney was a housewife and a sewer of garments; she even helped vegetables as well as flowers to grow with a quiet inborn capability that showed in whatever she undertook. She was known to be tender-hearted; the suffering of others seemed to hurt her very flesh. When that little bruiser, Herbert Ranney, fell and bumped his head, Mrs. Ranney would fly white and breathless from the house, and clasp him to her breast in a wild effort to fight off this thing that was attacking her child. She couldn’t _stand_ it that a child should suffer.

Yet she had, at unexpected moments, a roguish sense of humour that set her serious blue eyes dancing mischievously; when she got laughing, as had happened, half inaudibly, so that she was helpless to stop herself, she was as provocatively charming as a lovely child. Her husband had been once heard to state that he had never expected to marry, having lived until the age of thirty-six contentedly a bachelor, but that when he met “that rascal there,” she bowled him over on the spot. It certainly was a fact that, though she was so hard to get acquainted with, every man admired Mrs. Ranney.

Women, as a rule, did not care much for Mr. Ranney, perhaps, because he used towards them a gallant deference so evidently given them as a sex that it piqued by ignoring any personal claim to his attention. In appearance he was large and heavily built, smooth-shaven, with fine intellectual features, and hair and brows of blue black; his square chin was almost aggressively assertive. A man of semi-nautical tastes, he had at times almost a quarter-deck manner alike to barking dogs, poaching cows and trivial or unauthorized approach from his fellows. With the men who were his friends he was reputed to be a charming companion, witty, genial, and whole-hearted; the wives took the fact on hearsay, with some suspicion. Mrs. Laurence felt a distinct sense of resentment as, sitting on her piazza after dinner she saw him coming up the steps, natty and immaculate in his blue flannels, pipe in hand—he was actually going to leave his wife alone on the eve of her departure. He doffed the peaked, gold-banded cap of his boating club.

“Good-evening, Mrs. Laurence. Is Laurence anywhere around?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, he’s never far off when I’m here,” returned Mrs. Laurence incautiously, with what she felt was almost too much meaning for politeness; she saw Mr. Ranney’s left eyebrow go up a little with quizzical effect; it made her feel hot. “Your wife leaves to-morrow, I believe. How is she to-night after all her packing?”

“Mrs. Ranney is quite well, I think,” said Mr. Ranney in a tone that in spite of its apparent politeness placed a wedge between himself and his personal affairs, though Mrs. Laurence still persevered.

“You will miss her dreadfully after she goes.”

“Oh, Minda will look after me,” said Mr. Ranney coolly. Minda was a capable old coloured woman who worked for the neighbourhood. “Hello, Laurence!” His voice changed to one of good fellowship. “Want to walk down with me and take a look at Harker’s boat?”

“No, I think I’d better not,” said Mr. Laurence lingeringly, his long figure coming into view in the semi-darkness of the summer evening. He really did not care to go, “the boys” bored him; an uncut magazine, with his wife for audience had been pleasantly ahead of him after the work of the day; yet such is the power of attraction from man to man, so much greater than that from woman to woman, that he almost felt as if he wanted to be Ranney’s companion if Ranney wanted him. It was the Call of the Wild. Past experience warned him clear of those mistakenly jocular words, “my wife won’t let me”—he put his hand caressingly on the back of her chair as he said: “I don’t think I’ll leave Anna this evening, we’re finishing a serial together.”

“Oh, very well,” responded Mr. Ranney. He put on his cap as he went down the steps again, lit his pipe, and walked off with that air of jaunty and masterful freedom that in its way was an offense to the marital traditions of the street; it subtly discredited his wife, it seemed to undermine the generous, dual obligations of a home. And to-night——

“_Pig!_” said Mrs. Laurence, with an indignation that hurled the adjective after him like a stone. “If you didn’t consider me any more than that, Will—— Wait a moment.” She ran impulsively over to the next house, quickly forestalling the invitation she saw on Mrs. Ranney’s lips, as the latter came to the door in her white gown, a book in her hand.

“No, I thank you, I can’t come in—Mr. Laurence is waiting for me at home. How tired you look! _Won’t_ you come over and sit with us a while? We’d love so much to have you—and I’ll make some lemonade. We feel that we won’t see anything of you for so long.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Mrs. Ranney. She looked surprised. “You’re very kind, but I think I’ll stay here and rest, if you don’t mind; I thought I’d just read a little before I went to bed; you see I have everything packed, and we don’t go until after lunch to-morrow.” She seemed to cast around for something more to say. “I read a good deal in the evenings when Mr. Ranney is out; I haven’t any time during the day.”

“It takes a great deal of time to keep up with the magazines,” sympathized Mrs. Laurence.

“I don’t know much about the magazines—Mr. Ranney doesn’t care for them. I’ve been reading the Bible through this year, I always intended to when I had a chance,” said Mrs. Ranney simply. “I found it very interesting. Mr. Ranney thinks a good deal of Homer, too; I’ve just finished the ‘Odyssey.’ _Won’t_ you come in?”

“No, no, I can’t,” returned Mrs. Laurence hastily. “Is that the ‘Iliad’ you have there?”

“No,” said Mrs. Ranney. Her eyes gleamed dancingly with sudden mischief; she leaned forward with roguish defiance. “I’ll tell you what this is—it’s the ‘Thompson Street Poker Club!’” She relapsed into one of her lovely, helpless fits of half-inaudible laughter in which Mrs. Laurence joined perforce, and the two women held on to each other for mutual support, in feminine fashion.

Mrs. Ranney went away the next day at one o’clock, trim and pretty in her blue travelling suit; the women who flocked to bid her good-bye were profuse in offers of caring for Mr. Ranney, but she only thanked them with gentle unresponsiveness, and said that Minda would look after him quite well.