Part 21

For a long time after he heard the voices cease Hayward Graham waited in Mr. Phillips' outer office to learn his fate. He had caught some of the excited discussion--enough to be convinced of his father-in-law's opposition; but he could not be sure of the details. A servant had come in to say that Mrs. Phillips could not come to the office, and had knocked softly on the inner door several times while the discussion was at its warmest. Failing to get an answer, he had left his message with Hayward and retired. When the voices were quiet and the inner room became silent Hayward was on the _qui vive_ for developments; and stood facing the door in a fever of expectation.... His fever, however, had time to burn itself out.... In that long silence President Phillips fought his greatest battle.... The issue was predestined, of course. In his heart there was no passion at all comparable to his love for Helen, and that love won over all obstacles.... He saw clearly in what measure he was responsible for her undoing; and he came squarely to the mark with a courage that would face _all_ odds for his little girl--that would face a frowning world, a laughing, a mocking world--that would face his own soul even to the death--that her gentle heart might not be troubled.... He held her while her sobs shook themselves out, and then on and on he held her, close and warm, as if he would never again let her out of his sheltering arms,--while he gazed over her bowed head into the dying fire, and fixed and fortified his resolution.

At last Graham summoned courage to knock upon the door. President Phillips started as from a reverie.

"Come in," he said, rising unsteadily and placing Helen gently on her feet, his arm still about her.

"Why, certainly, Hayward, come in,"--and then he added after a short pause: "Helen has told me all about it, and, while I can't approve of the clandestine marriage, I shall do what I can to make my little girl happy--yes, I'll do what I can to make her happy.... And since this has been such an--unusual--evening I'll ask you to go now and come back to-morrow morning."

Hayward delivered the belated message from Mrs. Phillips, stood for a moment uncertain whether Helen would speak to him, and then turned to go.

"And do not wear your livery in the morning, Hayward," said Mr. Phillips.

"Very well, sir," said Hayward, as he withdrew.

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

When President Phillips came out of his office after dismissing Hayward, he found a score of reporters and newspaper correspondents fighting for places at the great front door. They were awaiting with what patience they could Mr. Phillips' pleasure in giving to the public an authoritative statement of his daughter's marriage.

The President, after he had obtained from Helen the details of time and place, and other items of interest, gave the press men the story. He customarily had his secretary to make statements to the newspaper people, but he chose to do this for himself: in his infinite loyalty to his little girl he was taking the situation by the horns. There was no elation in his manner, but there certainly was nothing to indicate his slightest objection to Helen's marriage, nor to Hayward Graham as his son-in-law. He gave a short sketch of that young man's life and excellences. He stated that he had not known Graham was either his footman or his daughter's husband when he had nominated him for a lieutenancy in the cavalry. He did not state that Graham had carried him off the battlefield at Valencia.

When he had finished with the men of the pencil Mr. Phillips went back to his office for Helen, and they sought the mother's room together. With another flood of tears Helen dropped on her knees by her mother's bed.

This scene was hardly less a trial for the father than had been the travail of his own soul. Here also must he win if he would save his child's happiness: and so, amid the tears and the sobs of the mother and daughters, and with misgivings and dread in his own heart, at first unflinchingly, then more zealously, and at last of necessity reserving nothing, he excused, and upheld, and vindicated, Helen.

Mrs. Phillips was too heart-broken to utter a word in opposition or condemnation, and Elise did not open her lips to speak. It was against accusing silence, therefore, and upbraiding tears, that the father made his desperate defence.... Such a debate can never be brought to any real finish; and it was at last only in exhaustion, Helen of nerves, her father of words, and Elise and her mother of lamentation, that the distressed family found peace--enough at least to permit of dispersal to their rooms for the night.

Elise was bowed down in grief for Helen, and for Helen she wept upon her pillow till the fountain of tears was dry: but even then there was no sleep for her. Her mind was painfully alive to her own personal problems, and her brain was awake the night long although weariness held her scalded eyelids down. The incident of the evening, like an electric storm, had clarified the haze of uncertainty for her heart--but only to plunge it into a more intense perplexity.

No longer unchoosing, her heart had spoken its choice. It were better had it never spoken at all; but there could be no mistaking its decree--she loved Evans Rutledge. As she had looked upon the three men who loved her in that brief time when Helen proclaimed her husband, _she had known_: and she had known that not for her was the man who in the fleetest moment could smile while her heart was breaking; nor for her that other, who, with his alien point of view, was untouched with her distress, and who with his perfect breeding--she resented it--could be so contained, so unmoved, in a situation which brought anguish to her. In the throes of that anguish her soul had turned, unerring, to its affinity in suffering, to _the heart that understood_ and wept, not in a ready sympathy for her pain, but in the pains of a common grief.

In such manner Elise accounted for the reading of her heart's message. She believed that it had been undecipherable, confused, until that evening. Yet in all her distress then, and in the heartaches afterward resulting from its choosing, she was strangely happy because her heart had been true to the fancy of its earlier years, had been faithful to its first girlish inclination to love, had not misled her, had not been fickle in any degree, or false. She told herself with a tremor of rapturous, prideful humility that one man had been the master of her love from the beginning.

Thinking on it as she lay unsleeping through the night, she more than once forgot her tears and was lost in the transport of loving. She petted and caressed her heart for its constancy. She made excuses for its indecision in that long time when the man's love had seemed unworthy. She murmured tender things to it because it had prevailed, even though with a hesitating loyalty, against her head's capricious disapproval.

In her wanderings back and forth through the desert of her miseries on that night, she straggled back many times to this oasis of her love and stopped to soothe her troubled heart with its upspringing freshnesses.... And yet a wildness of perplexity was set about her, and she could not find a way out. She knew that Rutledge loved her--had loved her from the time he declared it on the flood-beaten rock in the St. Lawrence till the moment of his tender unspoken good-night three hours ago. That his love could not be shaken by any act not her own, she verily believed. But would he have loved her?--would he have dared to love her?--could he, with his blood-deep, immutable ideas, _could_ he have loved her?--if he had known that his love would bring him to this unspeakable extremity, to this heart-breaking dilemma, where he must be traitor to himself and to her--or become brother-in-law to a negro?

Yes, he would have _loved_ her--her of all women--despite the slings and arrows of the most outrageous fortune, her heart told her: but, with prescience of such calamity, would he have _spoken_ his love?--would he have asked for that interview for to-morrow evening that he might tell it to her again? Was he not even now regretting that appointment? Was he not even now _pitying_ his love for her? She must know. But how could she know? By what means could she learn _the truth_? ... Way there was none: and yet she _must know_. Doubt, uncertainty, here would be unendurable--and implacable for she could no longer find peace in indifference. She loved Evans Rutledge, and her love would fight, was fighting, desperately for its own.... But again, her own must be worthy, without compulsion, or she would repudiate it. Her heart's tenderness, virgin, single, measureless, she held too precious to barter for a love, withal sincere and beautiful, which were weighted with a minim of regret or limitation. Rather would she crush back its fragrance eternally in her own bosom, than dishonour it by exchange for less than the highest.... Yes, she must know.... And she could _not_ know.... And the morning came, bringing no relief for heart or brain....

Mr. Phillips was at some pains to intimate to his wife and Elise what he thought a proper pride demanded in the way of the "front" they should show to the public. Queer that he should have thought it necessary: but, unhappy man, he spoke out of his fears for his own steadiness. Elise, at least, had no need for his admonitions. Her pride was the pride of youth: the pride which finds all sufficiency in itself, and needs not the prop of outward circumstance which age requires to hold its chin in air.

It was this pride which gave Elise some hesitation in deciding what she should do with her promise to see Rutledge that evening. Pride said: "Meet him as if nothing has happened to disturb the serenity of your life. Do not show--to him, of all men--chagrin at this episode _en famille_." But pride said: "No! Recall that engagement. Do not appear to hold him by so much as a hair. His love must be undistrained!"

She wavered between these conflicting demands of a consistent self-respect until the middle afternoon. Then the pride of her love overmastered the pride in her pride: and she wrote Rutledge a short note.

"MY DEAR MR. RUTLEDGE:--I find it necessary to change my plans for this evening. This will prevent my seeing you at Mrs. Hazard's as I promised. I am very sorry.

"Sincerely, "ELISE PHILLIPS."

This was her afternoon at home; and after having dispatched the message to Rutledge Elise gave her mind over as far as might be to receiving her callers. They were more numerous than usual, despite many notable absences, and before they fairly well had begun to crowd in she realized that she was on parade. Oh, the duplicity of women! How they chirruped and chattered about every imaginable thing under heaven, while they listened and looked for only one thing: to find out what Helen's family really thought of her marriage.

This was not Mrs. Phillips' afternoon, nor Helen's and they did not appear--to have done so would have been to overdo composure: and so it was that Elise alone fenced with the dear, dear procession of sensation hunters who passed in and out of her doors. The women came in such flocks that she really did not have time to be embarrassed, for the sympathetic creatures who showed a disposition to sidle up close to her and begin with low-voiced confidences covert attacks upon her reserve were quite regularly bowled over by their oncoming followers before they could get their sly little schemes of investigation well going. It became fascinating to her to watch them defeat each other's plans, and she was somewhat regretful when they stopped coming. They stopped quite suddenly, for the reason that, in eagerness to see for herself, every daughter of Eve among them had made the White House the first stopping-place in her round of visits for the afternoon.

When the women were all come and gone, save two who evidently were trying to sit each other out, Captain Howard was announced. Elise was unfeignedly glad to see him and in a few minutes the two contesting ladies departed and left the Englishman and the girl together.

Captain Howard's coming was very refreshing, and Elise was grateful. He was the only person she had seen that day who did not seem to be conscious of the electric condition of the atmosphere, and she sat down to talk to him with a feeling of genuine relief and pleasure. His conversation began easily and unconstrainedly and ran along the usual lines with all freedom. As chance demanded he spoke of Helen several times in connection with one small matter, and another, and his manner of doing it was positively restful.

Elise felt so comfortable sitting there talking to him that for the first time she was impressed to think that it might be a nice thing to have him always to come and sit beside her and make her forget that things went wrong. The unfluttered ease and peacefulness of his manner and his words appealed very strongly to her distressed heart, and it warmed toward him in simple gratefulness.

Captain Howard was not without knowledge of the tense situation created by the announcement of Helen Phillips' marriage. He read the newspapers and could not but know that a tremendous sensation was a-blow. He was himself excited by the affair--in a steady-going fashion. It was as if a princess of the blood had eloped and married a--say a tradesman--or, maybe, a gentleman--of course it was sensational.

In his amorous state of mind, however, the captain thought kindly of the wealth of love which had inspired the young woman with such a sublime contempt for rank--for that very real and very puissant divinity, Rank. He also had shaken himself sufficiently free from the shackles of provincialism to be able to recognize the effect of democratic ideas in making possible and permissible such an event. Affairs of this sort could not be entirely unlooked for in a genuinely democratic society; and, since the President acquiesced in his daughter's choice and had no regrets, there was no more to be said. Altogether Captain Howard viewed the matter very calmly and philosophically.

Having this attitude, he had no hesitation after a time in speaking directly of Helen's marriage and its dramatic announcement. He was a gentleman in every instinct, was Captain Howard; and there could not be the slightest offence taken by Elise at his natural and sympathetic interest in what he considered a most romantic episode. But while one may not be offended or resentful, one may become nauseated. Captain Howard did not know of the chill of disgust and horror that was creeping over the girl's heart, nor notice the silence to which she was come. Her friendliness had been so graciously simple and so promising that his purpose had been formed and he was moving straight toward it, not noticing her silence further than to be glad she was saying nothing to create a diversion.... Elise felt that if she spoke she would be very, very rude.

* * * * *

"--And your America, Miss Phillips, is assuredly the natural home of Romance. Here every man is a peer in posse, and every woman a princess incognita--and possibility keeps pace with imagination. In England a footman is a footman to the end of his life. Here the footman of yesterday is the President's son-in-law to-day, and may himself be the ruler of his people to-morrow! Can life hold more for a man? The right to aspire and the luck to win!--and to win not only the recognition which his personal merits deserve, but that supreme gift which no man could deserve: your beautiful sister's love! It is almost unthinkable to an outsider like me, but it is glorious! Yes, your America is the Land of Romance!"

This all sounded very well, but Elise's nerves were on the ragged edge. She knew if she spoke it would be to cry out: "Yes, a rank outsider! Oh, why can't you drop that subject before I scream!"

But Captain Howard had only finished the preliminaries. He continued:

"And in this land, Miss Phillips, where a man may hope for anything, I, too, have taken courage to aspire to the highest, and--"

"A note for you, Miss Elise; the messenger is waiting," a servant said.

Excusing herself to Howard, Elise read.

"MY DEAR MISS PHILLIPS:--If I may not see you to-night, may I not see you to-morrow afternoon--or evening? Or day after to-morrow? When?

"Sincerely yours, "EVANS RUTLEDGE."

Elise read this over several times, and gazed idly at the paper for some time longer. She quite forgot the waiting messenger and Captain Howard. At last she thought, "On his own head be the result!" and sat down at a daintily carved desk to write.

"MY DEAR MR. RUTLEDGE:--The disturbance of my programme for the evening seems to have been largely imaginary. I will be very glad to see you at Mrs. Hazard's as at first agreed.

"Sincerely, "ELISE PHILLIPS."

When she had given her answer to the servant Elise came back to Captain Howard with a commonplace question which made for naught all his words up to that point. He realized he must make a new beginning if he would tell her what he wished. Her face and mood had changed and he saw that her thoughts were elsewhere. After several attempts to pull the conversation back into the old channel he gave it up and retired, mentally cursing his luck and hoping for a more auspicious occasion.

* * * * *

Elise awaited Rutledge's coming at Lola Hazard's with some trepidation. She was uncertain of herself. She did not know what she would do. Being assured of what Rutledge would say to her, under ordinary conditions she would have been elusive for a season, and finally have surrendered when overtaken. But with outside circumstance warring against her love, she felt wildly impelled to let herself go, to fling restraint to the winds and give her heart's impulse free rein. Delicious were the tremors of anticipation with which she waited to hear again words of tenderness from him. Overflowing was her heart with tender response. His insistence on the meeting when she had given him an opportunity to avoid it, proved his faith was fast. He had met the supreme test for a Southern white man: he loved her more than his caste. In her own spirit she knew the agony of his trial. How sweet to surrender to such a love! How tenderly she could reward it! She longed to meet it with a frank and blissful confession. So, she was in some trepidation: she was afraid she might not be properly reserved.

Lola Hazard came into the sitting-room and found Elise sitting before the open grate.

"Honey," she said, slipping an arm about the girl's waist, "you look positively glorious to-night. I never saw you half so pretty. What have you done to yourself? Your eyes are brilliants, and your colour is--delicious!"

"I have been looking at the fire," said Elise in explanation.

"The pictures you saw must be very pleasing," Lola answered. "I hope they'll all come true. But before we begin to discuss that, let me tell you that Mr. Rutledge asked to call this evening, and he may be here any moment."

"Yes," said Elise, "I know. He told me last night."

"Oh, he did, did he? Well, I promised him if he came early he might have ten minutes for his very own to talk to you to-night. I hope you--"

"He may have ten minutes--and as many--more--as--he--wants," said Elise brazenly.

"Oh, you darling!" Lola gave her a squeeze. "No wonder you are beautiful. It will make any woman heavenly, and you are _such a help_ to it!"

"What is _it_?" asked Elise.

"Love," replied Mrs. Hazard.

*CHAPTER XXXIV*

"Come along back to my own little parlour, Mr. Rutledge. Elise has been singing for me, and we'll not let her stop for awhile yet."

Elise was not expecting Rutledge to be brought in there, and was still sitting at the piano idly weaving the chords into soft and improvised harmonies when he spoke. She slipped from the stool quickly, shook hands with him in an embarrassed way, and crossed the room to sit down.

"Oh, no, please do not leave the piano," Rutledge pleaded, "now that I have just discovered you are a musician."

"I am not a musician, Mr. Rutledge; certainly not for the public."

Rutledge drew himself up as if offended.

"I have been called names variously in my time, Miss Phillips, but never till this moment 'the public.' I resent it as an aspersion--I am not 'the public'--and demand an abject apology. Think of all the horrible things 'the public' is--and are!"

"And you a politician!" exclaimed Elise. "You would be lost for ever if those words were quoted against you. Senator Killam would give a thousand dollars for them. See--I hold your fate in my hands--"

Rutledge's eyes leaped to hers with a quick look that confused her, and she hurried to cut off his words.

"--But--oh, mercy, I'm--I'm sorry, and I retract if it was really as bad as that. The public is really awful, I suppose. I humbly apologize for the aspersion."

"Then bring forth fruits meet for repentance by returning at once to that piano stool."

"But I'm such a very amateurish singer, Mr. Rutledge. I fear you will--"

"And I am an amateur listener, the most humbly appreciative, uncritical soul on earth. Please sing. Mrs. Hazard, if you have any influence with this administration will you not use it here?"

"Authority is better than influence," said Lola. "Elise, march to that piano."

Elise complied with an exaggerated air of obedience.

"Since I am singing under orders, I will sing only according to orders. What shall it be?"

"Sing _My Rosary_," said Lola. "That's an old one--and the dearest."

"I commend to you Mrs. Hazard for sentiment, Mr. Rutledge. Her honeymoon is not yet on the wane." Having thus made Lola responsible for the song, Elise sang it without further delay or hesitation.

When she had well begun to sing Rutledge recalled having heard that song a long time before. It had not impressed him.

Elise sang simply. The fullness of her low voice and the clearness of her words, together with the unaffected "heart" in her singing, left her nothing to be desired as a singer of ballads. As Evans listened to the song of sentiment of Mrs. Hazard's choosing he reformed his opinion of it. Always hitherto he had deemed sentiment an effervescence--refreshing at times as apollinaris, but none the less an effervescence--and the words of _My Rosary_ a fair type of it:

"The hours I spent with thee, dear Heart, Are as a string of pearls to me. I count them over, every one apart, My rosary, my rosary.

"Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer To still a heart in absence wrung-- I tell each bead unto the end And there a cross is hung.

"Oh memories that bless and burn, Oh barren gain, and bitter loss. I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross, Sweetheart, To kiss the cross."

But with Elise sitting there before him, a vision of loveliness and grace entirely, appealingly feminine, "the lady" all gone, and the girl--the woman--unaffected, natural, singing of love with such an air of truth and faith: sentiment became a very real thing to Rutledge.... When she finished he was silent. To comment would have been to comment on Elise, and for her every drop of his blood was singing, "I love you, I love you." He felt that if he spoke to her he must crush her in his arms and tell her so.

"That is a song according to my notion," said Lola. "No _mesalliance_ of sentiment and melody there, such as you often see. The words and the music made a love-match--they were born for each other. Who wrote it, Elise?"

"I forget--if I ever knew," said Elise.

"Woman, of course," Lola continued; and Rutledge interpolated "Why?"