Part 13

"Why? Because I wanted to make some money--quite a lot of money--and that was the only way I knew of doing it--my only wage earning asset," she smiled.

But Tom still looked bewildered. Just why should Lois have suddenly acquired her zeal for money? She had never been luxurious in her tastes, turning always preferably to simplicity of living, as those of the aristocracy of brains usually do. Therefore he awaited enlightenment. It was twilight and they were sitting together in the dusk, but he could see her eyes shining with a sort of wistful tenderness as they lifted themselves to his.

"You don't ask why I wanted the money? Is it because you know that I wanted it to give to you?" She pushed the publisher's letter across the table to him. "It is yours, dear,--my gift to the hospital. I haven't been able to show I cared for what you were working for. Perhaps I haven't really cared, though I think I have learned a little about it this winter, while I've been working myself. I've had a little light--a crack of it, anyway." She smiled at him in the grayness. "But I've always cared for you, Tom, even when maybe I haven't shown it, and I want to give this--piece of me to your hospital because I do love you and your big vision. Will you take it? It isn't much, but it comes straight from my heart."

"Not much!" cried Tom Daly. "Lois, it is everything."

And in a moment his arms were around her and there was nothing else in all the world but they two, mystically one in the fullness of their love each for the other.

So Spring brought with it quickened life and love to Tom Daly and Lois as it had done to Suzanne Morrison and her mother.

Spring, too, brought back Gus Nichols from his concert tour, a little thinner and tired looking as if the fire of his music had burned rather deep but with a new poise and dignity and manhood, along with his old boyish charm.

Mr. McIntosh was as happy as a child with a new toy at having the boy back, or rather as a child with an old toy, beloved and rediscovered. It was pleasant to see the two together, old man and lad, so different racially and temperamentally, yet so bound together by the ties of affection.

"Best job you ever did in your life, Sylvia Arden," Mr. McIntosh had observed one Sunday when he and Gus were taking dinner at the Hall. "Best job you ever did, when you persuaded me to adopt the boy. I can see you now, impertinent little witch that you were, sitting up and giving me advice like a grandmother. But it was good advice. I grant you that. You knew what you were talking about and talked to some purpose. See here, Sylvia--" The old man lowered his voice a little, though the others--Gus and Felicia and Doctor Daly--were engaged in conversation and could not hear, "do you think there is anything the matter with the lad? He doesn't look just happy to me. You don't think there can be a girl or any nonsense like that?"

Romance had always seemed more or less nonsense to Angus McIntosh, probably would unto the end, though years and affection had somewhat tempered his aversion for sentiment.

Sylvia looked up a little startled, remembering suddenly what she had almost forgotten--that unspoken thing she had read in the boy's eyes that night after his first concert. Gus, too, looked up at the moment, and as their gaze met Sylvia saw that the boy's had the fire and dew of a Galahad in them, the look of one who sees the Grail afar off. Her own eyes fell. She could not bear that shining, reverent look. It blinded her, shook her, quickened her, filled her with humility and compassion and envy. She perceived that Gus had found this thing which she herself seemed forever seeking with vain quest. In giving he had gained, in losing he had found.

"Well?" challenged Angus McIntosh at her side.

Sylvia shook her head.

"No, Gus looks to me--very happy," she said.

"I'm glad you think so." The old man's tone was relieved, as if a burden had been lifted from his mind. He had the greatest respect for Sylvia's judgment and understanding. "Glad you think so. He seems all right, but I wasn't sure. Thought I'd see what you thought, that's all."

Later Sylvia played accompaniments for her guest's violin. And if his eyes had not already conveyed the truth to her, his violin would have done so. Sylvia could hardly keep the tears out of her eyes as she played. Not that the music was sad. It was jubilant, at times almost triumphant. It throbbed and welled and exulted. It disdained pity as a crowned monarch might have disclaimed it. It proclaimed itself inviolate, consecrate, perfected. "I rejoice! I conquer! I love!" it sang.

As Sylvia rose from the piano she almost feared to meet the gaze of the listeners. She thought they must all have heard the message of the violin as she had heard it. But no one seemed to have done so. They had felt the power and the beauty of the thing, but its soul had been concealed from them all except Sylvia herself.

And then Sylvia saw that Jack was in the room. He had come in while they had been playing and stood silent, waiting until the violin ceased. She went to him, her eyes still full of the music, and noticed that he was a little white and very grave, with something of his boyishness stricken out of him.

"I didn't know you were back from New York," she said, though that wasn't at all what she seemed to care about saying. The ordinary, conventional words rise to our lips when the real things hide unsaid.

"Let's get out of here a moment," he whispered, under cover of greeting, "I've something to tell you."

Sylvia stepped out into the hall and he followed.

"Sylvia, there's been an accident. Phil's hurt--dying, maybe."

He put out his arm quickly, for Sylvia swayed toward him with eyes that told him what perhaps he had known in his heart all the time.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*UNTO THE FOREST*

Sylvia did not faint. Indeed it seemed to her as if she had never in all her life been so quick in every fiber as she was at the moment she heard Jack's voice saying those fearful illuminating words, "Phil--dying, they think." It was as if a great clean wave swept over her leaving her purged of misunderstanding and doubt and weakness and compromise. With one blinding flash of light she saw clear. She drew away from Jack's arms.

"Tell me about it. No, I am all right. Tell me."

There was little to tell. A crowded street, a heedless chauffeur, a toddling Italian baby escaped from its mother's fruit stand. These were the details. There was nothing unusual about them. Such accidents happen daily in great cities. One scarcely hears of them they are so frequent of occurrence. The wonder is there are not more of them when human life teems so thick and is held so cheap. But, unfortunately, clear-witted, quick-moving, strong-limbed young ex-football heroes are not always at hand as in this case. The baby was happily unhurt, but Phil Lorrimer lay in the hospital at the point of death.

Instead of keeping a luncheon engagement with his friend, Jack Amidon had been called upon to take charge of a grave situation. Finally, there being nothing left to do, he had come back to Greendale to tell Mrs. Lorrimer--Mrs. Lorrimer and Sylvia.

"I thought it would be better to tell his mother myself," he said to Sylvia. "Telegrams knock you out so. She is a wonder, though. Not a whimper. She's going up on the five o'clock from Baltimore. I'm taking her in, in the car."

"I am going, too," said Sylvia.

For a moment the two stared at each other, then Jack understood and acquiesced.

"All right. That is for you to say," he responded quietly. "Go and get ready. I'll tell the rest."

Even in her distress, Sylvia smiled wanly at Jack. It was so like him to understand, to spare her, to see at a flash the helpful, kindly thing to do. Jack was always so "dear." She tried to express her gratitude but he cut her short by stooping to kiss her, not on the lips as usual, but on the forehead.

"Don't bother about me, sweetheart. I don't count," and he strode away from her toward the living-room where he had promised to "tell the rest."

Sylvia ran up the stairs to her own room, dazed and dry-eyed, with a strange lightness about her, as if she had suddenly shed her body and become all spirit. In a few moments Felicia joined her, quiet, helpful, unquestioning. There was never any need of explaining things to Felicia. She did not ask why Sylvia, engaged to one man, should be rushing with anguish-stricken eyes to the sick-bed of another. Perhaps she understood that better than she had understood the engagement in the first place.

It was a strange journey--first, the swift almost silent automobile ride to the city; Jack's stern, white face as he kissed her good-by so unlike the sunny lover she was used to, whom she had loved "by the light and beat of drums," a look so different it had haunted her all the way to New York; beside her the quiet countenance and grief-filled eyes of Phil's mother. Feeling scarcely worthy to dwell in the sanctuary of her own grief, Sylvia's heart went out to the older woman in her silent agony. Perhaps never in her life before had the girl realized what it meant to be a mother--how mothers gave and gave and gave, and suffered and suffered and suffered, and loved and loved and loved, unto the end. What was going on in the mind and heart of the other woman she could only conjecture. Dimly she perceived that the mother loved the son for the baby he had been, the boy and youth he had been, the man he was, the man he was to be--all in one. How could she bear it? Sylvia wondered.

Then the vision widened. How could all those women over in Europe bear it? To give up their sons--the very fruit of their bodies, those for whom they had undergone the agonies of death! It was horrible. Phil was only one, and he had offered life for life. That was natural. But those other strong young men, over there--they were giving life for more death. That was the unthinkable, hideous part of it. The sorrows of all the world seemed pressing down upon her, crystallized, made real by her own poignant, personal grief. Phil became the mangled young life of the world.

Suddenly Sylvia felt she could bear it no longer alone. She put out her hand and let it rest upon the hand of Phil's mother. Mrs. Lorrimer turned with a faint little smile.

"Pray, Sylvia, pray," she said softly. "Try to help me say 'Thy will be done.' I am trying to say it. But it is hard--so very hard."

"I can't," Sylvia's young voice flung back, hard, almost fierce, in its hurt. "I can only keep saying, 'Don't take him. Don't take him. I can't bear it.'"

But Mrs. Lorrimer shook her head and pressed the girl's hand.

"We can bear anything, Sylvia--anything. We are never asked to bear too much."

"I am," cried Sylvia passionately. "I can't bear his dying--without knowing. He must know."

"He will know, dear."

Sylvia took comfort from the quiet assurance. She believed Mrs. Lorrimer meant she felt sure that Phil was still living, would live. She did not know the mother meant that her son might already be where there could be no misunderstanding, no longer any seeing as through a glass darkly, but face to face with infinite realities. Alice Lorrimer was not young like Sylvia. She knew from sad experience how many paths of human life lead straight to the Garden of Gethsemane.'

Presently Sylvia spoke again.

"Mrs. Lorrimer, how do you suppose I could have been so blind--not to know--I cared--this way?" Sylvia's phrases came out in quick, uneven gasps, as if every word hurt. "I didn't know--I never knew until Jack told me just now--about Phil. I didn't know," she moaned.

"Maybe Phil was blind too, dear. I think he was. He put an unreal thing ahead of a real one, I am afraid, just because he cared so much. You needn't look surprised, child. Mothers know so much more than any one ever tells them. Of course I don't know what happened in New York, but I have always suspected my boy hurt you, and it was the hurt which made you shut your eyes so tight."

"It was something like that," admitted Sylvia. "It is so horribly easy to get all muddled and twisted up in life."

"It is," agreed Mrs. Lorrimer. "Sometimes it takes a great grief to remove the bandages from our eyes."

"I know. When Jack told me--first everything went black and then it was all white and shining. I felt as if I had never really seen clear in all my life before, except maybe just once, last September out in the woods at sunset. I think Phil and I both knew then. Oh, Mrs. Lorrimer, why didn't he speak? What difference could my money possibly make? Money and love haven't anything to do with each other. They are in different kingdoms like animal, vegetable, mineral, only there must be a fourth kingdom--the love kingdom." Sylvia's eyes smiled a little, like stars through mist.

"Men do not always understand, little daughter. Perhaps they never understand quite. You must not blame Philip too much."

"Blame! Oh, I don't. The blame was mine. I shouldn't have rushed like a mad thing into the fire to save my pride. I wasn't true to love or Phil or myself or Jack. Maybe I was untruest of all to Jack. He will never tell me, but I know I have hurt him dreadfully. Sometimes I think women are the cruellest things in the world. We don't mean to be but we are."

"I am afraid we are sometimes."

"I didn't mean to be cruel. I've always wanted to be kind. Maybe that is the trouble. I've been too kind. I let myself believe I loved Jack because it pleased me to make him happy. And I haven't made him happy. That is the worst of it. I believe he has been miserable all along because he knew I was giving him counterfeit gold instead of the real thing. It was only I who did not know, and even I suspected, sometimes. That was why I wanted to keep so dreadfully busy all the time, so I wouldn't have time to think. Mother Lorrimer," in sudden contrition, "you are so tired and I have chattered and chattered until I almost feel better because I've talked. As if I mattered--beside you."

Mrs. Lorrimer pressed the girl's hand again.

"Nothing matters very much just now," she said, "except God."

"But God is so far off."

"Oh, no, He isn't, Sylvia.

"'Closer is He than breathing And nearer than hands and feet.'

Haven't you ever felt how near He is?"

"Yes," said Sylvia, remembering again that night when she and Phil and the "shadowy third" had been so close to each other that there had not been a breath between them. And then she fell silent, led at last unto the forest where she had not dared to go for many months. And in the forest Sylvia sought God.

It seemed an endless time before they reached the great station in New York but at last they did arrive. There was no one to meet them. It was a very different arrival from the one Sylvia remembered in December. Jeanette had been there then to greet her and Barb and Phil. She had been breathless, exhilarated with happiness. She remembered how almost intoxicated with sheer delight of living she had felt when Phil had helped her into the limousine and recalled also what a queer, deserted, almost lonely feeling she had experienced, immediately after, when she leaned out of the car to wave good-by to Barb and Phil on the curb.

The thought of Barb brought a new current of reflection. For all she knew it was Barb and not herself who had the right to be with Phil now. How did she know but he might have learned to care for Barb in all those months? Wasn't it probable, natural, that he should have done so? Why should she expect him to keep on caring for her while she had given herself to Jack? A panic seized her. All the way to the hospital even Phil's desperate illness, which she had never seemed able to sense, loomed less important than this new specter which had arisen. What if Barb should be there with him? What if they should say "Who is this young person? The woman he loves is there already with him. There is no room for another."

But when they reached the hospital no such questions were raised. Mrs. Lorrimer swept everything aside with her quiet dignity. "I am his mother," she had said. "And this is Miss Arden," quite as if the authorities knew and understood why Miss Arden must be admitted. Perhaps they did understand. The doctor who challenged them shot a quick questioning look at Sylvia and bowed acquiescence. Possibly Sylvia's eyes were the password. The doctor was used to reading human faces. He had admitted many another white-cheeked, tortured-eyed young woman into the chamber of the Shadow ere this. He was gravely sympathetic. He did not expect the young man in there to live twenty-four hours. It would be a miracle, he thought, if he got well.

And so the mother and the girl who loved Philip Lorrimer sat beside him all that still night though he did not know them. Sylvia lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths before the gray dawn came to the quiet room. And who knows what new agonies the mother who bore the lad suffered during those long silent hours? To Sylvia at least, there was something beautiful even in the unspeakable anguish of it all. Even in death Phil would be hers and she his. Love had crowned her as it had crowned Gus. She no longer envied the young musician his Grail ecstasy. She, too, had been anointed.

Sylvia never knew whether she consciously prayed that night. It was rather that she talked with God and He in His beneficence let her share some of His eternal secrets.

And underneath it all she was crying out to Phil, "Don't die. Don't die. Don't die. I love you. I love you. Come back. Come back." And she did not seem to be saying it to the inert form on the high, narrow bed. That was not Phil at all. Phil was all strength and energy and vitality. That was a mere husk of something--what, she did not care. It had nothing to do with Phil or with herself. She was sending out her cry, not from her body to his, but from her spirit to his, wherever the latter was faring. She knew that wherever he was he would hear and almost she knew he would come back.

The strange part of it was he did come back, as if Sylvia's voice had arrested him and brought him back from those far fields to which he had been journeying. Perhaps not so strange, after all. The wisest men of all the ages have not been able to mark the metes and bounds of the power of love. At any rate, whether Sylvia's call had anything to do with it or not, Phil Lorrimer came back. The miracle was achieved.

It was early morning when Phil opened his eyes, blue as ever, though dark-circled and heavy, and the first thing he saw was Sylvia, who had just turned from the window where she had been watching the dawn come up over the city with strange unearthly light and shadow. Something of the same light was on Phil's face as he recognized Sylvia. With one swift light step she was beside him, her face bent over his, her heart in her eyes.

"Sylvia." The voice was faint as if the speaker had come back from other worlds, but distinct, wondering, happy.

"Phil!" And as he felt Sylvia's kiss on his cheek, Phil closed his eyes again as if there were now no other bliss to attain in this world or the next.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*AFTERMATH*

Three weeks later and April had surprised even the city and taken it by storm. Buds were beginning to burst in the trees in the park, hyacinths rainbowed here and there, the fountains were released from their winter bondage. The river took on a bluer hue to match the sky, or was it at the hint of the bird who arrived just before Easter giving advance notice of the latest colors in Nature's fashion house, bearing samples on his own back?

In Miss Josephine Murray's little apartment Suzanne and Barb and Sylvia were assembled, one blue and gold afternoon, with tongues flying fast as of old.

"When is Phil going to be able to be moved?" Suzanne was demanding of Sylvia. "And where is he going to move to?"

"Next week, we hope. And he is coming to Arden Hall."

"Bless us! how modern!" teased Suzanne.

Sylvia flushed and shook her head.

"It isn't so specially modern. It is just natural. The doctors say he has to get out of the city. His mother thinks she has to get back to the girls, and she also thinks there is no doctor in the world equal to Doctor Tom and wants him to set his eye on Phil. Of course, he can't go to 'Hester house.' That would be too absurd and he'd hate it anyway--with all those sympathetic females in attendance. There is always plenty of room at the Hall, and it is lovely there in April. So he's coming," she concluded.

"Reasons as plenty as blackberries," jeered Suzanne. "Perfectly well explained. What do you happen to be doing with your fiance in the meantime?"

Sylvia looked up at that, meeting Suzanne's eyes squarely.

"I haven't any," she announced quietly. "Jack has known for three weeks I wasn't going to marry him. In fact, he suggested it himself."

"More and more modern," approved Suzanne. "It is indeed well to be off with the old love before you are on with the new. When are you going to announce your next engagement?"

"Maybe never," said Sylvia so soberly that Suzanne relented and obligingly turned the fire on herself.

"Speaking of being off with the old love, it seems to be the one thing I can't manage. Roger and I have decided we miss quarreling so much when we are separated that it's simpler and more agreeable to get married and quarrel in peace."

At which last Suzannesque paradox Sylvia and Barb laughed and proffered congratulations.

"Better offer Roger condolences instead," advised Suzanne. "I shall lead him a life."

"Is he coming to New York to live?" inquired Barb, remembering her friend's urban preferences.

"He is not. He is having far too much fun stirring things up in Norton, Pa. We are going in for politics. I think I shall let him run for mayor. There will be a lovely row, for all the crocks are afraid of him now, and it isn't a circumstance to what they'll be if they suspect he wants to raise that particular tempest in their cozy, grafty teapot." Suzanne chuckled, scenting battle afar off. A "scrap" was as the elixir of life to her. "I don't want to live in New York, anyway," she continued. "I couldn't bear to be very far off from mother, and it's much more distinguished to draw my royalties and breath on some sacred Parnassian Hill in Norton, Pa. Likewise it is less expensive. I shall come up often, however, if only to see that they do not murder my precious play. Vengeance is mine if they touch one hair--that is, one line--of its blessed substance. Remember my prophecy, sweet friends? I-did-write-a-play." And, lacking a cushion, Suzanne thumped the tea table with her fist until the cups rattled ominously.

"You did," agreed Sylvia. "And here is Barbie here, an ornament to the Cause. Wait until you see her marching in the parade next fall! Wait till you know what she did to the legislators when she bearded them at Albany! She is so modest she will hide her light under a bushel, but I'm all the time hearing things about her. Phil says she's a wonderful speechifier. To the victor--in her own colors!" And Sylvia dropped the yellow jonquils she was wearing in her friend's lap and bent over her to press a butterfly kiss on her forehead.