Part 2

Lynn Thayer's and Agatha Ladilaw's mothers had been sisters and both had been beauties. Lynn, however, as her maternal relatives were fond of remarking, had "taken after her father." Though her face was pleasing it was rather plain; plain, not ugly; for its plainness consisted rather in lack of positive beauty than in any particular defect. Her hair was brown and abundant, her eyes deep-set and giving the effect of brown to the casual observer, although, as a matter of fact, they were a dark greyish green. Her skin was colourless, her mouth, large and thin-lipped, her nose, ordinary. However, her figure was excellent of its kind, tall, straight, flat-backed, and, while delicately proportioned, giving the effect of considerable reserve strength. Her movements, too, were graceful, but graceful somewhat as a young boy's are graceful, alert, easy, noiseless and entirely lacking in effort or self-consciousness. Perhaps her only positive beauty consisted in her teeth which, though not dainty like Agatha's, were white and regular. It would hardly be fair to say that her face lacked expression, but it was not a mobile face; habits of self-control and repression had stamped themselves too deeply in her nature not to show elsewhere. Her bearing was dignified and even distinguished and her voice well-modulated and soft. As a whole, she was the sort of girl whom one might meet any day in any city of the continent; a girl who was no longer young, yet showed no signs of age; a girl who could never be pretty, yet would hardly be considered ugly; a girl who wore dark coloured tailor-made costumes and looked like a lady in them; a girl who closely resembled scores of other girls the world over.

Lynn Thayer occupied a somewhat unusual position in Montreal. Her mother had been a pretty woman of fashion, her father a well-to-do man. However, her father dying shortly after his marriage and her mother losing all her money in a way which shall be explained elsewhere, Lynn had been left penniless. Her father's only living brother had offered her a home and a dress allowance; but she had refused the latter, had qualified as a public school teacher, and was earning a regular salary in one of the Board Schools. As both her father's and her mother's relatives were people of some wealth and much social standing, she occupied an anomalous position in what is known as "society." As a young girl she had "gone out" quite a little; now for reasons which shall presently develop, she went only to the homes of intimate friends and was seldom seen in public.

Oddly enough Lynn Thayer possessed a considerable fascination for both sexes. All men and most women liked her. She had never been pretty and was no longer a young girl, but her attraction had rather augmented than diminished as time went by. Debutantes, secure in the possession of unimpeachable gowns and rosy cheeks, often looked with amazement at the alacrity with which their partners left them for a dance with Miss Thayer. Probably these same partners would have found it difficult to explain why, themselves. Lynn always created the impression that she was a nice girl; a positive "nice girl," not a negative "nice girl." People liked her. Children "took to her" at once, dogs followed her; cats jumped on her knee without waiting for an invitation. Beyond an admirable figure and a pretty wit she possessed no surface charms; but something about her attracted and inspired confidence and trust. It is difficult to say why one excellent person is universally liked, another excellent person universally detested, another excellent person universally respected and shunned. Lynn Thayer belonged to the first class, that was all.

Certainly no two girls could resemble one another less than the cousins. Lynn was at best "a nice-looking girl," Agatha was "a dream." She showed to excellent advantage, too, in her mother's house where everything had been planned with an eye to the petted daughter as the central figure.

It was a very pretty sitting-room where Agatha Ladilaw sat, this cold January day. Without, the sharp air cut like a knife; within, all was comfort, warmth, cosiness. It would be difficult to imagine Agatha in anything but elegant and graceful surroundings. She was like a lovely, white, Persian kitten who had fed on cream and lain on cushions all her life; and, someway, one always knew that she would continue to feed on cream and lie on silk even if she lost her fur and her teeth in the course of time. If certain natures carry within themselves the elements of tragedy, others carry within themselves not only the desire for the soft things of life but the capacity for obtaining them. To the latter class Agatha undoubtedly belonged. Her beautiful aunt, Lynn's mother, had made rather a mess of her life, in spite of the fact that she had had all and more than Agatha possessed in the way of beauty and fascination. One knew instinctively that Agatha would never fall into her mistakes. In the first place she would not wait till twenty-five before marrying; in the second place she would never dislike any man who fed and clothed her sumptuously; in the third place she would never be carried away by any indiscreet and expensive infatuation. In short Agatha was quite the most correct thing in young ladies, eminently satisfactory and desirable.

The room where Agatha liked to sit with embroidery or sewing was long, low, light. The bay-window was filled with plants, and the fragrance of mignonette and jasmine hung about the rose-coloured curtains which draped the alcove and separated it from the rest of the room. The furniture was light and artistic rather than costly; easy chairs upholstered in rose-patterned chintz; mission-wood tables, bookcases and "rockers"; the inevitable "cosy corner," cushioned to the last degree of comfort; a green carpet displaying a border of various-coloured roses; a silver-laden tea-table, a table containing books and magazines--mostly uncut; another containing one beautiful vase of cut flowers. Presently, when dusk arrived, the room would be suffused with rose-coloured lamp-light, but, at present, the winter sun flooding the room and the tiny fire which burned on the hearth gave a sufficient suggestion of cheer.

Agatha in her pink environment sewing on a pink dress gave one a delightful sense of the eternal fitness of things. One forgot, for the time being, the bitter January wind howling outside, the flock of black cares that dog the footsteps of ordinary mortals. Agatha certainly had her place in the scheme of the universe, just as the Persian kitten has. If the kitten were thrust out into the world and told to earn its cream--that would be another story.

Agatha, as has before been stated, would never have to earn her cream, otherwise than by existing and ornamenting. She would always be cheerfully ready to pay for it whenever necessary in the coin with which Nature had so richly endowed her. Therefore it will at once be seen that Agatha was a most satisfactory girl; everything that a young lady ought to be; just the sort of person who could be depended upon to give Society no shocks and her parents no anxiety.

Lynn almost wished that Agatha would not think it necessary to talk; the fire-lit, rose-decorated room and the beautiful little occupant who sat, absorbed in her draperies, were both so eminently satisfactory from an artistic point of view that she would have preferred to lounge idly, and enjoy them. Everything about Agatha was so attractive, so feminine, in such charming taste. The delicate white fingers moving in and out of the pink draperies; the graceful pose of the pretty figure in the easy chair; the absorbed, almost spiritual expression of the great, violet eyes; all charmed Lynn, even while she realized their misleadingness and realized, too, that, by breaking into these absorbed meditations, one was liable to disturb nothing more important than the set of an imaginary train. Soon, however, Agatha spoke; slowly and with something resembling an effort.

"Lynn, what do you think of Harry Shaftan, the General's nephew?"

"He's a nice boy."

"Nicer than Howard Pyle or Jimmy Gresham?"

"I believe I like him better."

"What do you think of the others?"

"Why? Are you engaged to any of them?" asked Lynn, laughing.

"Oh, no! That is--I mean to say--yes. I mean, I'm engaged to them all."

Lynn leaned back and gasped. Agatha continued to embroider.

"And--may I ask which one you intend to marry?"

"I don't know, exactly," confessed Agatha, poising her needle on her pink lip and gazing reflectively heavenward. "They're all nice; but I don't think I'll marry any of them."

"Agatha Ladilaw! What do you mean?"

"Why, lots of engagements are broken," said Agatha, looking surprised. "Lots and lots of them. If I found that I didn't really love any of these men--that the real passion of my life was yet to come--you wouldn't advise me to marry them, would you?" She looked at her cousin with an air of virtuous surprise and Lynn shouted.

"Oh, Agatha, you're a treat!" she exclaimed, with intense enjoyment. "A veritable, living treat!"

"I really don't see why," said Agatha, coldly, proceeding to thread a needle with an offended air. "And if you're going to laugh about serious subjects like love and marriage, why, I won't talk about them, that's all."

This consummation was far from Lynn's desire; and by dint of earnest and respectful entreaties she finally induced her small cousin to continue.

"What made you accept them all in the first place?" she asked with interest.

"Why, they all wanted me," said Agatha, simply. "And it's so hard to say no to a nice man. Even if he isn't nice, it's not easy. And you said yourself that they"--

"But, Agatha?"

"Yes?"

"Doesn't it seem queer to--well, to let three men kiss you at the same time?"

"The idea!" said Agatha, haughtily. "Of course they don't all do it at once. I very seldom see more than one of them in the same evening."

"Oh, don't be silly, Agatha; you must know what I mean. Doesn't it seem--isn't it a little hard to"--

"Why, no," said Agatha, staring, "it's the easiest thing in the world."

"Dear me! You don't feel at all sneaky or confused about it?"

"Confused? Why, no. You see, I've always been engaged to two or three people more or less ever since I was fifteen; of course before that it wasn't really necessary."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, to be engaged, you know! one didn't have to be. But after you're fifteen, it seems rather fast, somehow, to let people kiss you that you're not engaged to."

"I had no idea you were so particular," murmured Lynn, bending down to hide a smile.

"Oh, I always think a girl can't be too particular about those things," said Agatha, firmly. "Because suppose someone happened to see you! All you have to do then is to say, 'To tell you the truth, I'm engaged to Mr. ----,' whichever one it was. And there you are!"

"And suppose the same person found you with one of the others--what then?"

"Oh, that would be very unlucky. I don't believe I would ever be so unlucky as that. And, Lynn, now that I have taken you into my confidence and told you things, won't you make a friend of me? and let me give you a little advice?"

"Why, yes," said Lynn, smiling.

"It's about Mr. Lighton. You know he is so eligible and it would be so dreadful if, by any mismanagement, you let him slip through your fingers."

"Oh!"

"Yes, indeed; and men are so deceitful," continued Agatha, piously, "you can't tell a thing about them, you really can't. Now there was a case I knew; it was something like yours only not so disappointing, for the man had only two thousand a year. But he kept running after this girl, just the way Lighton does after you, and everybody thought he meant something. People kept expecting to hear the engagement announced; but it never came off."

"What was the trouble?"

"Why, you know, it was the queerest thing! he kept calling and calling and every time you'd think he was going to propose; but _he never did_. So the girl got mad. She said she simply wasn't going to stand it a moment longer, so she packed her trunk and went off to stay with some people in Toronto. She was not going to have any such nonsense. But it didn't do any good, for he married some one else."

"What a sad story!"

"Isn't it?" agreed Agatha, oblivious of sarcasm. "But she was very lucky, for she met someone who had quite six hundred a year more than the first man had, and he proposed to her quite quickly, and so then of course they were married, and I sent them a centrepiece that I had embroidered, myself. It was a very handsome one but you see Toronto is a nice place to stay in."

"Oh, I quite see why you sent it. I also see why you told me the story. It has a moral. If the man who is rushing you doesn't propose after a reasonable space of time--go to Toronto! Isn't that the idea?"

"You are so clever," said Agatha with an apologetic smile, "that sometimes I don't quite understand you. But if you mean that you think that I am advising you to go to Toronto, that isn't right, because any other place would do as well. Except that, of course, there are quite a good many men in Toronto."

"And you think that one of them might be induced to accept me?"

"Why not?" said Agatha, encouragingly. "But, of course, you wouldn't be at all likely to make another match like Mr. Lighton. So that is why I want you to be so particularly careful. You don't take these things seriously enough, Lynn, you know you don't. You must remember that you are getting on."

"Every year brings me nearer the grave, but no nearer matrimony," commented Lynn, assuming an appropriately funereal aspect.

"Oh, don't say that!" cried Agatha, looking genuinely shocked. "Please don't! It sounds so dreadfully as if it might be-- And I am sure Mr. Lighton is most attentive and Mr. Amherst and two or three others call pretty often, don't they?"

"Yet," said her cousin, solemnly, "I think myself, Agatha, that there is just one little thing which is going to effectually prevent Mr. Lighton from marrying me. You mark my words! as sure as I stand here just so surely will I never be Mrs. Lighton. This one little obstacle is going to stand in the way."

"Why, what can it be?" queried Agatha, with intense interest.

"You have no idea?"

"Why, no."

"I thought that you wouldn't have," returned Lynn, very gravely.

"It won't prevent him from proposing, will it?"

"Not a bit of it. It will only prevent him from marrying--that is, from marrying me."

"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Agatha in genuine distress. "And to think of all the men you have refused, Lynn! and I suppose that there isn't one you could get back at a pinch."

"I fear not. The majority are either dead or married and the Grave and the Other Woman do not disburse."

"No, indeed," sighed her mentor. "And it's so necessary for you to marry, Lynn, for if Uncle Horace died to-morrow he would leave Aunt Lucy everything and there would be nothing left for you. Oh, what a pity that your mother's money was all spent."

"Yes, it seems a little unfortunate."

"That dreadful Italian! What a pity Aunt Clara married him after your father died. And didn't they have a son? What has become of him?"

"My dear Agatha, how should I know?" said Lynn, restlessly. "Don't you remember that, when Uncle Horace adopted me, he did it with the distinct understanding that I was to hold no communication with my mother and my little half-brother?"

"Oh, how dreadful! How could you bear to be parted from your own dear mother for ever?"

Lynn surveyed the questioner with a slight smile.

"Oh, I enjoyed the feeling that I brought in six hundred a year. I knew that it would procure my mother more pleasure than my society could, and that, with six hundred a year, her baby boy, and an occasional kiss from the biggest blackguard the Lord ever let loose on earth, she would be as happy as she could ever be. Poor mother! she was pretty, they say, even when she lay dead; her beauty didn't do her much good, but, on the other hand, my ugliness hasn't profited me, greatly. On the whole, I wish I looked like her."

"Aunt Clara was so awfully pretty and that Italian she married was so wonderfully handsome! the boy must have been a perfect little beauty."

"He was." Lynn spoke without enthusiasm.

"Weren't you fond of him?

"Very."

"Wouldn't you like to see him, again?"

"No--yes"--

"I don't believe you cared much about him, really."

Lynn looked at her and smiled.

"I was nine when he was born. My own father had died when I was a baby and my earliest recollections are those of seeing my mother crying half the day because my stepfather was out and laughing and chatting wildly because he was in. She never noticed me. I was an ugly little thing and she worshipped beauty--as I do. Besides, there are certain people who seem to suck the lifeblood of all who care for them, and my stepfather was of these; her love for him was a feverish thing, a thing that absorbed and tortured and finally killed her. Such is the perfect justice of the universe! no good man or woman ever receives that idolatrous love; it is only the vile, the utterly selfish, the heartlessly cruel--oh, here! what am I saying? To return to my story; I had a nurse till we grew too poor, then I looked after myself. Then ... the baby came. The baby! Oh, Agatha, if you had seen him! He was so beautiful, so utterly dear and heavenly, and no one had ever cared for me, and he--the very first time I saw him he put out his tiny hand and the little fingers twined about mine ... oh, my baby, my baby, how could I ever love anything in earth or heaven as I loved you? Well! for three years I was always with him and then--and then Uncle Horace wanted to adopt me, to rescue me, as he called it. And--I went. I was twelve years old at the time--in years--and I realized, in the bitterest moment of my life, that to go meant money and comfort and pleasure for him--my idol! All I could do for him was to leave him--I saw it plainly--and I went without a word. I went. I wonder if any misery in after life can ever compare with the agony of that last hour when I sat, holding him in my arms and rocking him to and fro--and waiting. The carriage came at last to take me to the station and I kissed the wonderful little face and looked into the marvellous baby eyes and went! Oh, my baby, my baby, if I ever have a child of my own, will he, can he, ever be to me what you were, I wonder!--dear me, what a lot of nonsense I'm talking, Agatha! You mustn't mind."

"Not at all," said Agatha, politely, "it's interesting. I had no idea that you were so fond of babies, Lynn. But it seems so queer that you don't know where he is, now. What became of him when your mother died? He was about ten, wasn't he? for I remember you were nineteen."

"Yes, he was ten. Oh, he lived at school and then with his father till the latter died of consumption. That was two years ago."

"And now?"

"Why, now--he is probably living somewhere else. He is a man, you see, and able to take care of himself."

"But, oh, Lynn dear, you show so little feeling," said Agatha, with dainty reproach. "Not to care what has become of that boy--when you used to be so fond of him."

"Oh, we forget everybody and everything--in time," returned Lynn, listlessly. "At least," she added in a lower voice, "I hope we do."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Agatha, comfortably. "Lynn, did you ever see anything so sweet as that last rosebud I've just made? And it's given me such a lovely idea. The very next fancy dress ball I'm asked to, I'll go as the Queen of the Roses. Don't you think that will be lovely? Pale pink, you know, with garlands of rosebuds and a rose-wreath. Ring for tea, won't you, please? I'm dying for a cup, and it's getting too dark to work."

*CHAPTER III*

*"FORSAKEN GUTS AND CREEKS"*

"If we have loved but well Under the sun, Let the last morrow tell What we have done." --_Bliss Carman_.

On an exceptionally disreputable Montreal street stood a particularly unsavoury old studio building. Like other unsavoury things it had an interesting history, having, in its palmy days, belonged to an English duke. The duke was now dust and the studio building unpopular with the constabulary. Yet an air of former greatness enveloped it and its large, spacious halls and lofty ceilings bore mute and pathetic testimony to the grandeur of former days.

In an apartment which a duchess had once inhabited rats and spiders revelled, unrebuked, save when, once a week, a wild-eyed slattern clattered noisily in and attacked them with broom and scrubbing-brush. Sometimes the heavy old-fashioned door was locked and she went away rejoicing; sometimes it was merely closed, in which case she entered fearlessly and performed her tasks as expeditiously and abominably as possible. Frequently, during these revels, the lithe form of Mr. Ricossia might have been discerned, stretched upon the studio couch in deep and peaceful slumber. Even the prosaic and work-harrowed drudge of the Chatham was wont to pause occasionally and gaze with something approaching awe at the frail form and beautiful face of the opium-drugged consumptive. A spiritual majesty lay on his brow and his whole being seemed expressive of an unearthly peace and a sombre loveliness. Like some dark, fallen star he lay quiescent in the dim light of the studio; a thing to make one's heart ache when one reflected that he, too, was born of a human mother.

Mr. Ricossia's movements were uncertain, however; and one fine January evening found him sitting at the studio table, smoking and scribbling, busily. Presently the door opened; he looked up, pleasantly, showing no surprise, and bent over his writing.

"Just a minute!" he said, in a low voice.

The visitor nodded, closed the door quietly, and stood as though waiting. Presently she raised a thick veil and fixed her eyes intently on the writer. They were sombre eyes, not over large but somewhat expressive; and as she watched the other occupant of the studio, they dilated and glowed in a way that was almost fierce and wholly human. So might a fire-tortured martyr have regarded in death the symbol of his faith, the cross for which he died.

Presently the woman spoke.

"I can only stay a few minutes, my darling," she said in a low voice, vibrating with painful tenderness. "There is the money."

The boy sprang to his feet and grasped it, his dark eyes aflame with eagerness. Hastily, greedily, he counted it over, then put it in his pocket and turned to the woman with a brilliant smile.

"That is fine," he said, his flute-like voice making melody in the studio and in his hearer's heart. "You must have done well, lately. How much have you sold altogether?"

"A long story to the 'Alhambra,' a funny skit to the 'Woman's Hearth' and an article or two to some smaller concerns. Try to make it last, for I had to spend nearly all my month's salary--oh, Liol, Liol!"

A burst of coughing interrupted her and turned her wind-flushed face white. She stood in silence, knowing that nothing infuriated the dying boy like sympathy, and held her breath, waiting for the paroxysm to pass. So long did it last, however, that she forgot all caution and, rushing to the sick man's side, caught his hand and screamed aloud.

"Oh, Liol, Liol, do you want to kill me? Won't you go to that retreat? and try to live for my sake? Oh try, only try! I can't bear it! I thought I could, but I can't. Oh, for God's sake, go! try it, only try it for a little while"--

He snatched his hand away and flung himself on the couch, shaking with weakness and fury.