Chapter 8

"They say abroad, that there are no children in America--that they are merely little people treated like grown-ups."

"The modern American child is a horror," said Juliet, unconsciously quoting from an article in a recent magazine. "They're ill bred and they don't mind, and there's nobody who wants to make 'em mind except people who have no authority to do it."

"Why is it?" inquired Allison, secretly amused.

"Because spanking has gone out of fashion," she answered, in all seriousness. "It takes so much longer for moral suasion to work. Romie and I never had any 'moral suasion,'--we were brought up right."

Juliet's tone indicated a deep filial respect for her departed parents and there was a faraway look in her blue eyes which filled Allison with tender pity.

"You must be lonely sometimes," he said, kindly.

"Lonely?" repeated Juliet in astonishment; "why, how could I ever be lonely with Romie?"

"Of course you couldn't be lonely when he was there, but you must miss him when he's away from you."

"He's never away," she answered, with a toss of her curly head. "We're most always together, unless he goes to town--or up to your house," she added, as an afterthought.

Allison was about to say that Romeo had never been there before, but wisely kept silent.

"Twins are the most related of anybody," Juliet went on. "An older brother or sister may get ahead of you and be so different that you never catch up, but twins have to trot right along together. It's just the difference between tandem and double harness."

"Suppose Romeo should marry?" queried Allison, carelessly.

"I'd die," replied Juliet, firmly, her cheeks burning as with flame.

"Or suppose you married?"

"Then Romie would die," she answered, with conviction. "We've both promised not to get married and we always keep our promises to each other."

"And to other people, too?"

"Not always. Sometimes it's necessary to break a promise, or to lie, but never to each other. If Romie asks me anything I don't want to tell him, I just say 'King's X,' and if I ask him anything, he says 'it's none of your business,' and it's all right. Twins have to be square with each other."

"Don't you ever quarrel?"

"We may differ, and of course we have fought sometimes, but it doesn't last long. We can always arbitrate. Say, do you know Isabel Ross?"

"I have that pleasure. She's coming to dinner to-night, with Aunt Francesca and Miss Rose."

"Oh," said Juliet, in astonishment. "If I'd known that, I'd have dressed up more. I thought it was just us."

"It is 'just us,'" he assured her, kindly; "a very small and select party composed of our most charming neighbours, and believe me, my dear Miss Juliet, that nobody could possibly be 'dressed up more.'"

Juliet bloomed with pleasure and her eyes sparkled. "Isabel came out to see us," she continued, "and I don't think she had a good time. We showed her all our fishing rods, and let her help us make fudges, and we did stunts for her on the trapeze in the attic, and Romie told her she could have any one of our dogs, but she said she didn't want it, and she wouldn't stay to supper. I guess she thought I couldn't cook just because she can't. Romie said if I'd make another chocolate cake like the one I made the day after she was there, he'd take it up to her and show her whether I could cook or not."

"I believe he would," returned Allison, with a trace of sarcasm which Juliet entirely missed. Then he laughed at the vision of Romeo bearing the proof of his twin's culinary skill into Madame Bernard's living room.

"You come out and see us," urged Juliet, hospitably.

"I will, indeed. May I have a dog?"

"They're Romie's and I can't give 'em away, but I guess he could spare you one. Would you rather have a puppy or a full-grown dog?"

"I'd have to see 'em first," he replied, tactfully steering away from the danger of a choice. He had not felt the need of a dog and was merely trying to be pleasant.

"There's plenty to see," she went on, with a winning smile. "I like dogs myself but we fought once because I thought we had too many. We've named 'em all out of an old book we found in the attic. There's Achilles, and Hector, and Persephone, and Minerva, and Circe and Juno, and Priam, and Eurydice, and goodness knows how many more. Romie knows all their names, but I don't."

Hearing the sound of wheels outside, Colonel Kent, with a certain old- fashioned hospitality to which our generation might happily return, went to open the door himself for his expected guests. Juliet went hastily to the mirror to make sure that her turbulent curls were in order, and Romeo intercepted Allison on his way to the door.

"I heard what she said," Romeo remarked, in a low tone, "about my having been up here, but I didn't tell her I was here. I don't lie to Jule, but I'm responsible only for what I say, not for what she thinks."

Allison smiled with full understanding of the situation. "We men have to be careful what we say to women," he replied, with an air of caution and comradeship that made his young guest feel like a full-fledged man of the world.

"Sure," assented Romeo, with a broad grin and a movement of one eyelid which was almost--but not quite--a wink.

Presently the three other guests came in, followed by the Colonel. Madame Francesca was in white silk over which violets had been scattered with a lavish hand, then woven into the shining fabric. She wore violets in her hair and at her belt, and a single amethyst at her throat. Isabel was in white, with flounces of spangled lace, and Rose was unusually lovely in a gown of old gold satin and a necklace of palest topaz. In her dark hair was a single yellow rose.

Juliet was for the moment aghast at so much magnificence and painfully conscious of her own white muslin gown. Madame Francesca, reading her thought, drew the girl's tall head down and kissed her. "What a clover blossom you are," she said, "all in freshest white, with pink cheeks and sunshiny curls!"

Thus fortified, Juliet did not mind Isabel's instinctive careful appraisement of her gown, and she missed, happily, the evident admiration with which Romeo's eyes followed Isabel's every movement.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Allison was asking Rose, "so I could have ransacked the town for golden roses?"

"I've repeatedly done it myself," laughed Rose, "without success. I usually save my yellow gowns for June when all the yellow rose bushes in the garden may lavish their wealth upon me."

"Happy rose," Allison returned, lightly, "to die in so glorious a cause."

The twins were almost at the point of starvation when dinner was announced, though they had partaken liberally of bread and butter and jam just before leaving home. Romeo had complained a little but had not been sufficiently Spartan to refuse the offered refreshment.

"I don't see why you want to feed me now and spoil my dinner," he grumbled, as he reached out for a second slice.

"I don't want to spoil your dinner," Juliet had answered, with her mouth full. "Can't you see I'm eating, too? We don't want to be impolite when we're invited out, and eat too much."

"You've been reading the etiquette book," remarked Romeo, with unusual insight, "and there's more foolish things in that book than in any other we've got. When we're invited out to eat, why shouldn't we eat? They may have been cooking for days just to get ready for us and they won't like it if we only pick at things."

"Maybe they want some left," Juliet replied, brushing aside the crumbs. "I remember how mad Mamma was once when the minister ate two pieces of pie and she had to make another the next day or divide one piece between you and me."

"I'll bet she made another. She always fed us, and I remember that the kids around the corner couldn't even have bread and molasses between meals."

On the way to the dining-room, Juliet drew her brother aside and whispered to him: "watch the others, then you'll be sure of getting the right fork."

"Huh!" he returned, resentfully, having been accustomed to only one fork since he and Juliet began to keep house for themselves.

When he saw the array of silver at his plate, however, he blessed her for the hint. As the dinner progressed by small portions of oysters, soup, and fish, he gratefully remembered the bread and jam. The twins noted that the others always left a little on their plates, but proudly disdained the subterfuge for themselves.

Madame Francesca sat opposite the Colonel and Rose was at his right. Romeo sat next to her and across from them was Allison, between Isabel and Juliet.

Somewhat subdued by the unfamiliar situation, the twins said very little during dinner. Juliet took careful note of the appointments of the table and dining-room, and of the gowns the other women wore. When Romeo was not occupied with his dinner and the various forks, he watched Isabel with frank admiration, and wondered what made the difference between her and Juliet.

Everybody tried to produce general conversation, but could extract only polite monosyllables from the twins. Questions addressed directly to them were briefly answered by "yes" or "no," or "I don't know," or, more often, by a winning smile which included them all.

Had it not been for Madame Francesca, gallantly assisted by the Colonel, the abnormal silence of the younger guests might have reacted unfavourably upon the entertainment, for Isabel was as quiet as she usually was, in the presence of her aunt and cousin, Allison became unable to think of topics of general interest, and Rose's efforts to talk pleasantly while her heart was aching were no more successful than such efforts usually are.

But Madame Francesca, putting aside the burden of her seventy years, laughed and talked and told stories with all the zest of a girl. Inspired by her shining example, the Colonel dragged forth a few musty old anecdotes and offered them for inspection. They were new to the younger generation, and Madame affected to find them new also.

Rose wondered at her, as often, envying her the gift of detachment. The fear that had come upon Rose at midnight was with her still, haunting her, waking or sleeping, like some evil thing. Proudly she said to herself that she would seek no man, though her heart should break for love of him; that though her soul writhed in anguish, neither he nor the woman who took him from her should ever even suspect she cared.

She forced herself to meet Allison's eyes with a smile, to answer his questions, and to put in a word, now and then, when Madame or the Colonel paused. Yet, with every sense at its keenest, she noted Isabel's downcast eyes, the self-conscious air with which Allison spoke to her, and the exaggerated consideration of Juliet which he instinctively adopted as a shield. She saw, too, that Isabel was secretly annoyed whenever Allison spoke to Juliet, and easily translated the encouraging air with which Isabel met Romeo's admiring glances. Once, when he happened to turn quickly enough to see, a shadow crossed Allison's face, and he bit his lips.

"How civilised the world has become," Madame was saying, lightly. "The mere breaking of bread together precludes all open hostility. Bitter enemies may meet calmly at the dinner table of a mutual friend, and I understand that, in the higher circles in which we do not care to move, a man may escort his divorced wife out to dinner, and, without bitterness, congratulate her upon her approaching marriage."

"I've often thought," returned the Colonel, more seriously, "that the modern marriage service should be changed to read 'until death or divorce do us part.' It's highly inconsistent as it stands."

"'Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,'" she quoted. "Inconsistency goes as far toward making life attractive as its pleasures do toward spoiling it."

"What do you call pleasure?" queried Allison.

"The unsought joy. If you go out to hunt for it, you don't often get it. When you do, you've earned it and are entitled to it. True pleasure is a free gift of the gods, like a sense of humour."

By some oblique and unsuspected way, the words brought a certain comfort to Rose. Without bitterness, she remembered that Allison had once said: "In any true mating, they both know." Over and over again she said to herself, stubbornly: "I will have nothing that is not true--nothing that is not true."

It was a wise hostess who discovered the fact that changing rooms may change moods; that many a successful dinner has an aftermath in the drawing-room as cold and dismal as a party call. Madame Francesca had once characterised the hour after dinner as "the stick of a sky-rocket, which never fails to return and bring disillusion with it." Hence she postponed it as long as she could, but the Colonel himself gave the signal by moving back his chair.

An awkward pause followed, which lasted until Rose went to the piano of her own accord and began to play. At length she drifted into the running chords of a familiar accompaniment and Allison took his violin and joined in. As he stood by Rose, the mere fact of his nearness brought her a strange peace. Had she looked up, she would have seen that though he stood so near her, he had eyes only for Isabel and was playing to her alone.

Isabel did not seem to care. She sat with her hands folded idly in her lap, occasionally glancing at the twins who sat together on a sofa across the room. Madame Bernard and the Colonel had gone out on the balcony that opened off of the library.

The night was cool, yet had in it the softness of May. Every wandering wind brought a subtle, exquisite fragrance from orchards blooming afar. High in the heavens swung the pale gold moon of Spring.

"What a night," said Madame, almost in a whisper. "It seems almost as if there never had been another Spring."

"And as if there never would be another."

"That may be true, for one or both of us," she replied, with unwonted sadness.

"My work is done," sighed the Colonel. "I have only to wait now."

"Sometimes I think that all of Life is waiting," she went on, with a little catch in her voice, "and yet we never know what we were waiting for, unless--when all is done--"

A warm, friendly hand closed over hers. "Do not question too much, dear friend, for the God who ordained the beginning can safely be trusted with the end, as well as with all that lies between. Do you know," he continued, in a different tone, "a night like this always makes me think of those wonderful lines:

"'The blessed damozel leaned out From the gold bar of Heaven; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand And the stars in her hair were seven.'"

Francesca's eyes filled and the stars swam before her, for she remembered the three white lilies the Colonel had put into the still hands of his boy's mother, just before the casket was closed. "I wonder," she breathed, "if--they--know."

"I wonder, too," he said.

The strains of the violin floated out upon the scented night, vibrant with love and longing, with passion and pain. Something had come into the music that was never there before, but only Rose knew it.

"Richard," said Francesca, suddenly, "if you should go first, and it should be as we hope and pray it may be--if people know each other there, and can speak and be understood, will you tell him that I am keeping the faith; that I have only been waiting since we parted?"

"Yes. And if it should be the other way, will you tell her that I, too, am waiting and keeping the faith, and that I have done well with our boy?"

"I will," she promised.

The last chord of violin and piano died into silence. Colonel Kent bent down and lifted Madame's hand to his lips, then they went in together.

XII

AN ENCHANTED HOUR

The days dragged on so wearily that, to Rose, the hours seemed unending. Allison came to the house frequently, but seldom spoke of his music; for more than a week, he did not ask her to play at all. On the rare occasions when he brought his violin with him, the old harmony seemed entirely gone. The pianist's fingers often stumbled over the keys even though Allison played with new authority and that magical power that goes by the name of "inspiration," for want of a better word.

Once she made a mistake, changing a full chord into a dissonance so harsh and nerve-racking that Allison shuddered, then frowned. When they had finished, he turned to her, saying, kindly: "You're tired, Rose. I've been a selfish brute and let you work too hard."

Quick denial was on her lips, but she stopped in time and followed his lead gracefully. "Yes, and my head aches, too. If all of you will excuse me, I'll go up and rest for a little while."

Evening after evening, she made the same excuse, longing for her own room, with a locked and bolted door between her and the outer world. Lonely and miserable though she was, she had at least the sense of shelter. Pride, too, sustained her, for, looking back to the night they met, months ago, she could remember no word nor act, or even a look of hers that had been out of keeping.

Over and over again she insisted to herself, stubbornly: "I will have nothing that is not true,--nothing that is not true." In the midnight silences, when she lay wide awake, though all the rest of the world slept, the words chimed in with her heart-beats: "Nothing that is not true--nothing--that is--not true."

Madame Francesca, loving Rose dearly, became sorely troubled and perplexed. She could not fail to see and understand, and, at times, feared that Allison and Isabel must see and understand also. She watched Rose faithfully and shielded her at every possible point. When Isabel inquired why Rose was always tired in the evening, Madame explained that she had been working too hard and that she had made her promise to rest.

Rose spent more time than usual at the piano but she neglected her own work in favour of Allison's accompaniments. When she was alone, she could play them creditably, even without the notes, but if, by any chance, he stood beside her, waiting until the prelude was finished, she faltered at the first sound of the violin.

At last she gave it up and kept more and more to her own room. Madame meditated upon the advisability of sending Isabel away, providing it could be done gracefully, or even taking her on some brief journey, thus leaving Rose in full possession of the house.

Yet, in her heart, she knew that it would be only a subterfuge; that it was better to meet the issues of Life squarely than to attempt to hide from them, since inevitably all must be met. She could not bear to see Rose hurt, nor could she endure easily the spectacle of her beloved foster son upon the verge of a lifelong mistake. Several times she thought of talking to Colonel Kent, and, more rarely, of speaking to Allison himself, but she had learned to apply to speech the old maxim referring to letter-writing: "When in doubt, don't."

It happened that Allison came late one afternoon, when Isabel had gone to town in search of new finery and Rose was in her own room. Madame had just risen from her afternoon nap, and, after he had waited a few moments, she came down.

"Where's Isabel?" he asked, as he greeted her.

"Shopping," smiled Madame.

"I know, but I thought she'd be at home by this time. She told me she was coming out on the earlier train."

"She may have met someone and gone to the matinee. It's Wednesday."

"She didn't need to do that. I'll take her whenever she wants to go and she knows it."

"I didn't say she had gone--I only said she might have gone. She may be waiting for the trimming of a hat to be changed, or for an appointment with tailor or dressmaker or manicure, or any one of a thousand other things. When you see her, she can doubtless give a clear account of herself."

"Did Rose go with her?" he asked, after a brief pause.

"No, she's asleep," sighed Madame. "Allison, I'm worried about Rose and have been for some time. She isn't well."

"I thought something was wrong," he replied, without interest. "She can't seem to play even the simplest accompaniment any more, and she used to do wonders, even with heavy work."

"I think," ventured Madame, cautiously, "that she needs to get out more. If someone would take her for a walk or a drive every day, it would do her good."

"Probably," assented Allison, with a faraway look in his eyes. "If you want to borrow our horses at any time, Aunt Francesca, when yours are not available, I hope you'll feel free to telephone for them. They're almost eating their heads off and the exercise would do them good."

"Thank you," she answered, shortly. Allison noted the veiled sharpness of her tone and wondered why anyone should take even slight offence at the friendly offer of a coach and pair.

"It must be nearly time for the next train," he resumed. "Is there anyone at the station to meet Isabel?"

"Nobody but the coachman and the carriage," returned Madame, dryly. "I'm not in the habit of being asked whether or not I have made proper provision for my guests."

"I beg your pardon, Aunt Francesca. I would have known, of course, if I had stopped to think."

"How is your father?" she put in, abruptly.

"All right, I guess. He's making a garden and the whole front yard is torn up as though sewer pipes were about to be put in."

Madame's heart softened with pity, for she knew that only loneliness would have set the Colonel to gardening. "I must go over and see it," she said, in a different tone. "My valuable advice hasn't been asked, but I think I could help a little."

"Undoubtedly. Your own garden is one of the loveliest I have ever seen. Isn't that the train?"

"I think so. If Isabel comes, I believe I'll leave you to entertain her while I drive over to inspect the new garden."

She was oppressed, as never before, by the necessity of speech, and, of all those around her, Colonel Kent was the only one to whom it would be possible for her to say a word. She did not stop to consider what she could accomplish by it, for in her heart, she knew that she was helpless--also that a great deal of the trouble in the world has not been caused by silence.

Allison drummed on the arm of his chair until he heard the rumble of wheels, then went to the window. "It's Isabel," he announced, joyously. "I'll go down and help her out--she may have parcels."

Presently they came in together, laughing. Isabel's face was flushed and Allison was heavily laden with packages, both small and large. "I feel like Santa Claus," he cried, gaily, to Madame, as she passed them on the way out.

She smiled, but did not take the trouble to speak. "Colonel Kent's," she called to the driver, as she closed the carriage door with a resounding bang, "and please hurry."

The Colonel was on the veranda when she arrived, superintending the gardening operations from there. He greeted her with surprise, for it was not her way to drive over there alone. "I am deeply honoured," he said, as he assisted her up the steps. "May I order tea?"

"No, thank you," she answered, somewhat primly. It was evident that she was ill at ease. "I understood from Allison that you were doing all this yourself. Instead, I find you sitting on the veranda like a landed proprietor, in command of an army of slaves."

"Two Irishmen don't make an army," he laughed, "though I'll admit that, if angry, they would make a formidable force. I helped to dig for a while this morning, but it didn't seem to agree with me, so I quit. My work seems to be done," he continued, with a sigh.

"No, it isn't," she returned, sharply. "There's work to be done, but whether you or I or both together can do it, is extremely doubtful."

"What do you mean, Francesca?"

Madame leaned toward him confidentially. "Richard," she said, in a low tone, "has it ever occurred to you that Allison might marry?"

A shadow crossed his face, then vanished in a smile. "Yes. Why?"