CHAPTER XVII

WHICH DEALS WITH SEVERAL OF OUR PERSONAGES

It is assumed in many fairy tales that the story ends with the engagement, the beginning of which marks the end of trouble. But love, though a solvent of selfishness, works slowly, and the added friction of constant companionship is needed to make its results perfect. Temperament and taste, therefore, during an engagement retain most of their power. Thus it is not surprising that two months were not sufficient to harden Beth Blanchard to the roughness of her lover's embraces; she even found further faults in him.

Of these shadows on his happiness Jim became early aware, and obeying a passion which had not yet lost all its purity or force, he had endeavoured to modify himself to suit the conditions which Beth very gently imposed. He became less anthropophagous, moderating the violence of his kisses; he came very near to estimating the value of her modesty, which formed the essence of her sweetness. But he was already so much of a man that he felt his superiority, and still so much of a boy that he fretted at restraint. To expect him to stay always contented at Beth's side was like asking him to admire Mozart when he had rag-time in his blood. Her dainty harmonies were foreign to him.

One Saturday evening he was at the Blanchards' when Mather came to call. Beth proposed to go into the front parlour and speak to him. Jim objected. "He comes for your sister; and besides, I see enough of him during the week."

But above her friendship for Mather, Beth possessed that spirit of hospitality--old-fashioned, to be sure--which impelled her to greet each visitor that came to the house. Further, she felt that to keep out of sight of all who came, while yet she was within hearing, was not in the best of taste. "But I haven't seen him for a long time," she said. "And--I think we'd better go, Jim, if only for a little while."

"Cut it short, then," he grumbled, and followed her through the curtains.

"Much of a suitor he is!" thought Jim, as he noticed how gladly Mather rose from Judith's side and greeted Beth. Perhaps Judith thought the same. There was a wholesome freshness about Beth which often brought men's eyes to her and kept them there. Jim was usually proud of it; now it irritated him. Moreover, he was left to talk with Judith, and that he had found to be difficult. Therefore, when he had had more than enough of her monosyllables, and felt that he had made a fool of himself in his efforts to entertain her, he tried to break into the talk of the other two. Beth had been speaking of Chebasset.

"A hole!" said Jim, rising and standing by her chair. "An awful hole!"

Mather laughed; Beth gave Jim a distressed little smile. "You did well to get away and leave the work to me," continued Jim, addressing his superior. He tried, successfully, for the effect of the true word spoken in jest. "Winter coming on, too."

Mather laughed again. "Jim," he said, "I went through all that when I was your age, and worked at the machines besides."

"You see, Jim," said Beth, "how much further ahead you are than George."

"Nothing wonderful," he answered, for her remark went wrong. So did his own; Mather exchanged a glance with Judith, and Beth shrank. Jim put his arm around her neck. "Well, well," he went on, "let's not talk business."

Beth removed the arm, gently, as she rose. "Yes, we'll forget all that till Monday," she said, and moved toward the door again. "We just came in to say good-evening, George." She and Jim went away, to begin a struggle of temperaments.

"Why did you stay so long there?" he asked at once.

"But Jim," she explained, "a little more makes no real difference, and is so much more polite."

"It makes a difference to me," he retorted, "when I have to talk with your sister. Darn it, you know she and I never get on."

She winced at his expletive, which seemed to hint of something stronger, and so was just as bad. "Don't," she pleaded. "I--I'm sorry about Judith, Jim."

"I might be allowed to say darn sometimes," he complained. "Most men say something worse."

"It's just--manners, Jim," she answered. "And don't you think the way you spoke to George, when so much depends upon him----"

"Look here, Beth," he interrupted, "am I not a fair judge of my own behaviour?"

"I didn't say that, dear!" she cried.

"He needn't give himself such airs, anyway," Jim went on. "Pease is my boss, not Mather."

"Oh, I think you mistake," she said.

"Pease gave me the place," Jim persisted, "because--you know."

The reference hurt poor Beth, to whom the thought of Pease was distress. "Don't speak of it, dear," she begged.

"It's so," asserted Jim. "But you'd think Mather was my father, from the advice he gave me. Great fun it was, for you to give him another chance at me!"

There was nothing for her except submission. "I'm sorry," she said. But Beth was not meek; she let him see, by tone and manner, that she yielded only because she was overborne. Therefore he gave another thrust to make his conquest sure.

"I'm sorry you don't like my arm about your neck," he said. "Please excuse me for putting it there."

She went close to him. "Only when other people are about," she explained, and put up her face. "You may--kiss me now, Jim, if you want to."

Beth would have been glad even of one of his engulfing embraces, as a sign of reconciliation; but he kissed her gingerly and then sat down, not on the sofa, but on a chair. Next he was surly for a while; then he rose to go.

"I'm tired," he said. "It's been a hard week."

After that lie her sympathy was a reproach. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, caressing him. "If I was cross, forgive me, dear. You do work hard for me." No accusation could have cut deeper; he could scarcely look her in the eyes as he said good-night at the door.

Poor Beth laid her forehead against the dull wood, and listened to his footsteps until they were gone. It worried her that Jim was tired, and that she, not understanding, had been hard on him. She wished her perceptions had been quicker; she resolved to study how to please him. Poor, simple Beth!

Jim, grumbling at his crosses, went homeward, but not home. For the Harmon house was by his way; he saw lights in the lower windows, and he loitered. Next, he went and rang the bell. He was shown into the parlour, into a new atmosphere, for Mrs. Harmon rose with evident gladness from her book, and her very greeting changed his mood. The Judge was in his study; should she call him? Jim took his cue from the flash of her eye. "No, no!" he cried, and they laughed together.

And as he sat and looked at her--what a difference! There was fullness of good looks in the face, far more pronounced than Beth's; the shoulder was plump, the arm firm and pink. Beth never showed such attractions as these, having the feeling that modesty became a girl. But though Mrs. Harmon was no longer young, "Gad!" thought Jim, "if girls only knew as much as women!" Mrs. Harmon brought cigarettes; she joked him as a man would. Jolly, this was!

Jim took a cigarette from the case she offered. "You're sure you don't mind the smoke?" he asked.

"I? Mind the smoke?" she returned. "I like it so much that--what do you think of my box?" She closed the cigarette-case and showed him its cover, standing by his side as he sat.

"Swell!" said Jim. "Those Cupids with masks are simply slap! Whose initials, Mrs. Harmon? Yours?" He laughed.

"Why not mine?" she asked.

"L. H.," read Jim. "L. is the Judge's initial, I know."

"My name is Lydia," she said. "And my husband's name is Abiel, Mr. Wayne."

Jim rose hastily. "Then this is really your case, Mrs. Harmon. And do you--will you--smoke with me?"

"Of course I will!" she cried.

Jim felt himself very much indeed like those fellows in New York or Paris. She smoked gracefully; the movements displayed her hand and the long, bare, beautiful arm. The shoulder rounded as she raised the cigarette to her lips; even shoulder-straps would have marred that display. But while he admired, with a sudden movement she cast the cigarette into the fireplace: some one was at the front door.

It was Ellis. "Oh, it's only you, Stephen," she said, when his short form appeared in the doorway. "I needn't have spoiled my smoke, after all."

"You needn't have stopped anything for me," said Ellis, and added: "Just dropped in to inquire for the Judge."

Jim perceived, from Mrs. Harmon's laughter, that this was a byword with her intimates; he offered her the box of cigarettes, and when she chose one, struck a match.

"No, no!" she cried, "your cigarette."

She took it from him, her fingers brushing his; she lighted her own and then offered his again. But when he was about to take it: "No, your mouth!" she ordered, and obediently he opened his mouth to receive it. Then she began to laugh at him, richly and infectiously, so that he laughed with her, but did not miss the spectacle she presented. Standing with her back against the center table, she leaned with her hands upon it; her shoulders became more attractive than ever, and between them rose the swelling throat. He laughed with delight, and letting his eye wander over those charms, he missed the glances, amused and defiant, which passed between Mrs. Harmon and Ellis.

"So you're up to this, Lydia?" he seemed to inquire, but she to respond: "Do not you interfere, sir!"

There is no analysing those processes by which we find our affinities, no theory of chance which will satisfactorily account for the meetings of like states of mind. But here were Jim, once peevish, and Mrs. Harmon, once bored, quite satisfied at last in each other's company, and before long making this so evident that Ellis perceived that he had interrupted. They left him out; Jim spoke to him from time to time, or Mrs. Harmon turned on him that same warning glance. But if they chose to act so, Ellis did not care; in fact, an idea came to him, and he smiled as he watched Jim, like an astronomical body, moving along the line of least resistance.

For Ellis had just parted from Colonel Blanchard, who had called on him. Ellis had received the Colonel in the one room of his mansion which revealed daily occupancy, which no housekeeper might invade with duster or broom. From among many papers in many cases, Ellis drew Blanchard's promissory note, and silently laid it before him.

"You come to redeem this?" he asked. "More than prompt, Colonel Blanchard."

The Colonel did not offer to explain with exactness. Like that person in the fairy tale who sought to recover the lost cheeses by rolling others after them, Blanchard had been throwing his dollars into the bottomless pit of the stock-market and expecting them to return many-fold. But he had broken the ice once with Ellis; it was easier now. He had, he said, been--unfortunate. But if Mr. Ellis would only advance a little more, he had not the slightest doubt of repaying in full, and very soon.

Ellis knew the signs of the gambler; absolute certainty of making good his losses, equal vagueness as to sources of supply. He made out another check; the Colonel signed another note. They parted, but now, here at the Harmons', Wayne seemed to recall the Colonel by his shallow, gentlemanly ways.

Months ago Judith had told Ellis that his way lay through the men. There were only three who in any degree, through any feeling, might influence her in his favour. One was Mather: out of the question. One was the Colonel: he was secure. The third was Wayne, of whom, for her sister's sake, Judith wished to make more of a man. During his stay Ellis was mostly silent, studying this new problem.