Chapter 7

"Of course!" cried Kate. "A person may have some right to ill-treat himself, but he never has any right to ill-treat another."

"If we hitched her up to a plough," went on Fulham, not heeding, "we shouldn't be overtaxing her physical strength any more than she overtaxes her mental strength when she tries--the ordinary woman, I mean, like Miss Vroom--to keep up to the pace set by men of first-rate caliber."

He went up to bed on this, still disturbed, and Honora and Kate, much depressed, talked the matter over. But they reached no conclusion. They wanted to go around the next morning and help Lena,--get her breakfast and see that she was properly dressed,--but they knew they would be unwelcome. Later they heard that she had come through the ordeal after a fashion. She had given indications of tremendous research. But her eyes, Wickersham told Kate privately, looked like diseased oysters, and it was easy to see that she was on the point of collapse.

Kate saw nothing of her until the day of convocation, though she tried several times to get into communication with her. There must have been quite two hundred figures in the line that wound before the President and the other dignitaries to receive their diplomas; and the great hall was thronged with interested spectators. Kate could have thrilled with pride of her _alma mater_ had not her heart been torn with sympathy for her friend whose emaciated figure looked more pathetic than ever before. Now and then a spasmodic movement shook her, causing her head to quiver like one with the palsy and her hands to make futile gestures. And although she was the most touching and the least joyous of those who went forward to victory, she was not, after all, so very exceptional.

Kate could not help noticing how jaded and how spent were many of the candidates for the higher degrees. They seemed to move in a tense dream, their eyes turning neither to right nor left, and the whole of them bent on the one idea of their dear achievement. Although there were some stirring figures among them,--men and women who seemed to have come into the noble heritage which had been awaiting them,--there were more who looked depleted and unfit. It grew on Kate, how superfluous scholarship was when superimposed on a feeble personality. The colleges could not make a man, try as they might. They could add to the capacity of an endowed and adventurous individual, but for the inept, the diffident, their learning availed nothing. They could cram bewildered heads with facts and theories, but they could not hold the mediocre back from their inevitable anticlimax.

"A learned derelict is no better than any other kind," mused Kate compassionately. She resolved that now, at last, she would command Lena's obedience. She would compel her to take a vacation,--would find out what kind of a future she had planned. She would surround her with small, friendly offices; would help her to fit herself out in new garments, and would talk over ways and means with her.

She went the next day to the room where Lena's compassionate professors had found her that night of dread and terror before her examination. But she had disappeared again, and the landlady could give no information concerning her.

IX

The day was set. Marna was to sing. It seemed to the little group of friends as if the whole city palpitated with the fact. At any rate, the Caravansary did so. They talked of little else, and Mary Morrison wept for envy. Not that it was mean envy. Her weeping was a sort of tribute, and Marna felt it to be so.

"You're going to be wonderful," Mary sobbed. "The rest of us are merely young, or just women, or men. We can't be anything more no matter how hard we try, though we keep feeling as if we were something more. But you're going to SING! Oh, Marna!"

Time wore on, and Marna grew hectic with anticipation. Her lips were too red, her breath came too quickly; she intensified herself; and she practiced her quivering, fitful, passionate songs with religious devotion. So many things centered around the girl that it was no wonder that she began to feel a disproportionate sense of responsibility. All of her friends were taking it for granted that she would make a success.

Mrs. Barsaloux was giving a supper at the Blackstone after the performance. The opera people were coming and a number of other distinguished ones; and Marna was having a frock made of the color of a gold-of-Ophir rose satin which was to clothe her like sunshine. Honora brought out a necklace of yellow opals whimsically fashioned.

"I no longer use such things, child," she said with a touch of emotion. "And I want you to wear them with your yellow dress."

"Why, they're like drops of water with the sun in them!" cried Marna. "How good you all are to me! I can't imagine why."

When the great night came, the audience left something to be desired, both as to numbers and fashion. Although Marna's appearance had been well advertised, it was evident that the public preferred to listen to the great stars. But the house was full enough and enthusiastic enough to awaken in the little Irish girl's breast that form of elation which masks as self-obliteration, and which is the fuel that feeds the fires of art.

Kate had gone with the Fulhams and they, with Blue-eyed Mary and Dr. von Shierbrand, sat together in the box which Mrs. Barsaloux had given them, and where, from time to time, she joined them. But chiefly she hovered around Marna in that dim vast world back of the curtain.

They said of Marna afterward that she was like a spirit. She seemed less and more than a woman, an evanescent essence of feminine delight. Her laughter, her tears, her swift emotions were all as something held for a moment before the eye and snatched away, to leave but the wavering eidolon of their loveliness. She sang with a young Italian who responded exquisitely to the swift, bright, unsubstantial beauty of her acting, and whom she seemed fairly to bathe in the amber loveliness of her voice.

Kate, quivering for her, seeming indefinably to be a part of her, suffering at the hesitancies of the audience and shaken with their approval, was glad when it was all over. She hastened out to be with the crowd and to hear what they were saying. They were warm in their praise, but Kate was dissatisfied. She longed for something more emphatic--some excess of acclaim. She wondered if they were waiting for more authoritative audiences to set the stamp of approval on Marna. It did not occur to her that they had found the performance too opalescent and elusive.

Kate wondered if the girl would feel that anything had been missing, but Marna seemed to be basking in the happiness of the hour. The great German prima donna had kissed her with tears in her eyes; the French baritone had spoken his compliments with convincing ardor; dozens had crowded about her with congratulations; and now, at the head of the glittering table in an opulent room, the little descendant of minstrels sat and smiled upon her friends. A gilded crown of laurel leaves rested on her dark hair; her white neck arose delicately from the yellowed lace and the shining silk; the sunny opals rested upon her shoulders.

"I drink," cried the French baritone, "to a voice of honey and an ivory throat."

"To a great career," supplemented David Fulham.

"And happiness," Kate broke in, standing with the others and forgetting to be abashed by the presence of so many. Then she called to Marna:--

"I was afraid they would leave out happiness."

Kate might have been the belated fairy godmother who brought this gift in the nick of time. Those at the table smiled at her indulgently,--she was so eager, so young, so almost fierce. She had dressed herself in white without frill or decoration, and the clinging folds of her gown draped her like a slender, chaste statue. She wore no jewels,--she had none, indeed,--and her dark coiled hair in no way disguised the shape of her fine head. The elaborate Polish contralto across from her, splendid as a mediaeval queen, threw Kate's simplicity into sharp contrast. Marna turned adoring eyes upon her; Mrs. Barsaloux, that inveterate encourager of genius, grieved that the girl had no specialty for her to foster; the foreigners paid her frank tribute, and there was no question but that the appraisement upon her that night was high.

As for Mama's happiness, for which Kate had put in her stipulation, it was coming post-haste, though by a circuitous road.

Mrs. Dennison, who had received tickets from Marna, and who had begged her nephew, George Fitzgerald, to act as her escort, was, in her fashion, too, wondering about the question of happiness for the girl. She was an old-fashioned creature, mid-Victorian in her sincerity. She had kissed one man and one only, and him had she married, and sorrowing over her childless estate she had become, when she laid her husband in his grave, "a widow indeed." Her abundant affection, disused by this accident of fate, had spent itself in warm friendships, and in her devotion to her dead sister's child. She had worked for him till the silver came into her hair; had sent him through his classical course and through the medical college, and the day when she saw him win his title of doctor of medicine was the richest one of her middle life.

He sat beside her now, strangely pale and disturbed. The opera, she was sorry to note, had not interested him as she had expected it would. He had, oddly enough, been reluctant to accompany her, and, as she was accustomed to his quick devotion, this distressed her not a little. Was he growing tired of her? Was he ashamed to be seen at the opera with a quiet woman in widow's dress, a touch shabby? Was her much-tired heart to have a last cruel blow dealt it? Accustomed to rather somber pathways of thought, she could not escape this one; yet she loyally endeavored to turn from it, and from time to time she stole a look at the stern, pale face beside her to discover, if she could, what had robbed him of his good cheer.

For he had been a happy boy. His high spirits had constituted a large part of his attraction for her. When he had come to her orphaned, it had been with warm gratitude in his heart, and with the expectation of being loved. As he grew older, that policy of life had become accentuated. He was expectant in all that he did. His temperamental friendliness had carried him through college, winning for him a warm group of friends and the genuine regard of his professors. It was helping him to make his way in the place he had chosen for his field of action. He had not gone into the more fashionable part of town, but far over on the West Side, where the slovenliness of the central part of the city shambles into a community of parks and boulevards, crude among their young trees surrounded by neat, self-respecting apartment houses. Such communities are to be found in all American cities; communities which set little store by fashion, which prize education (always providing it does not prove exotic and breed genius or any form of disturbing beauty), live within their incomes and cultivate the manifest virtues. The environment suited George Fitzgerald. He had an honest soul without a bohemian impulse in him. He recognized himself as being middle-class, and he was proud and glad of it. He liked to be among people who kept their feet on the earth--people whose yea was yea and whose nay was nay. What was Celtic in him could do no more for him than lend a touch of almost flaring optimism to the Puritan integrity of his character.

Sundays, as a matter of habit, and occasionally on other days, he was his aunt's guest at the Caravansary. The intellectual coöperatives there liked him, as indeed everybody did, everywhere. Invariably Mrs. Dennison was told after his departure that she was a fortunate woman to have such an adopted son. Yet Fitzgerald knew very well that he was unable to be completely himself among his aunt's patrons. Their conversation was too glancing; they too often said what they did not mean, for mere conversation's sake; they played with ideas, tossing them about like juggler's balls; and they attached importance to matters which seemed to him of little account.

Of late he had been going to his aunt's but seldom, and he had stayed away because he wanted, above all things in the world, to go. It had become an agony to go--an anguish to absent himself. Which being interpreted, means that he was in love. And whom should he love but Marna? Why should any man trouble himself to love another woman when this glancing, flashing, singing bird was winging it through the blue? Were any other lips so tender, so tremulous, so arched, so sweet? The breath that came between them was perfumed with health; the little rows of gleaming teeth were indescribably provocative. Actually, the little red tongue itself seemed to fold itself upward, at the edges, like a tender leaf. As for her nostrils, they were delicately flaring like those of some wood creature, and fashioned for the enjoyment of odorous banquets undreamed of by duller beings. Her eyes, like pools in shade, breathing mystery and dreams, got between him and his sleep and held him intoxicated in his bed.

Yes, that was Marna as she looked to the eye of love. She was made for one man's love and nothing else, yet she was about to become the well-loved of the great world! She was not for him--was not made for a man of his mould. She had flashed from obscurity to something rich and plenteous, obviously the child of Destiny--a little princess waiting for her crown. He had not even talked to her many times, and she had no notion that when she entered the room he trembled; and that when she spoke to him and turned the swimming loveliness of her eyes upon him, he had trouble to keep his own from filling with tears.

And this was the night of her dedication to the world; the world was seating her upon her throne, acclaiming her coronation. There was nothing for him but to go on through an interminably long life, bearing a brave front and hiding his wound.

He loathed the incoherent music; detested the conductor; despised the orchestra; felt murderous toward the Italian tenor; and could have slain the man who wrote the opera, since it made his bright girl a target for praise and blame. He feared his aunt's scrutiny, for she had sharp perceptions, and he could have endured anything better than that she should spy upon his sacred pain. So he sat by her side, passionately solitary amid a crowd and longing to hide himself from the society of all men.

But he must be distrait, indeed, if he could forget the claim his good aunt had upon him. He knew how she loved gayety; and her daily life offered her little save labor and monotony.

"Supper next," he said with forced cheerfulness as they came out of the opera-house together. "I'll do the ordering. You'll enjoy a meal for once which is served independently of you."

He tried to talk about this and that as they made their way on to a glaring below-stairs restaurant, where after-theater folk gathered. The showy company jarred hideously on Fitzgerald, yet gave him a chance to save his face by pretending to watch it. He could tell his aunt who some of the people were, and she would transfer her curiosity from him to them.

"They'll be having a glorious time at Miss Cartan's supper," mused Mrs. Dennison. "How she shines, doesn't she, George? And when you think of her beginnings there on that Wisconsin farm, isn't it astonishing?"

"Those weren't her beginnings, I fancy," George said, venturing to taste of discussion concerning her as a brandy-lover may smell a glass he swears he will not drink. "Her beginnings were very long ago. She's a Celt, and she has the witchery of the Celts. How I'd love to hear her recite some of the new Irish poems!"

"She'd do it beautifully, George. She does everything beautifully. If I'd had a daughter like that, boy, what a different thing my life would be! Or if you were to give me--"

George clicked his ice sharply in his glass. "See," he said, "there's Hackett coming in--Hackett the actor. Handsome devil, isn't he?"

"Don't use that tone, George," said his aunt reprovingly. "Handsome devil, indeed! He's a good-looking man. Can't you say that in a proper way? I don't want you to be sporty in your talk, George. I always tried when you were a little boy to keep you from talking foolishly."

"Oh, there's no danger of my being foolish," he said. "I'm as staid and dull as ever you could wish me to be!"

For the first time in her life she found him bitter, but she had the sense at last to keep silent. His eyes were full of pain, and as he looked about the crowded room with its suggestions of indulgent living, she saw something in his face leap to meet it--something that seemed to repudiate the ideals she had passed on to him. Involuntarily, Anne Dennison reached out her firm warm hand and laid it on the quivering one of her boy.

"A new thought has just come to you!" she said softly. "Before you were through with your boast, lad, your temptation came. I saw it. Are you lonely, George? Are you wanting something that Aunt Anne can give you? Won't you speak out to me?"

He drew his hand away from hers.

"No one in the world can give me what I want," he said painfully. "Forgive me, auntie; and let's talk of other things."

He had pushed her back into that lonely place where the old often must stand, and she shivered a little as if a cold wind blew over her. He saw it and bent toward her contritely.

"You must help me," he said. "I am very unhappy. I suppose almost everybody has been unhappy like this sometime. Just bear with me, Aunt Anne, dear, and help me to forget for an hour or two."

Anne Dennison regarded him understandingly.

"Here comes our lobster," she said, "and while we eat it, I'll tell you the story of the first time I ever ate at a restaurant."

He nodded gratefully. After all, while she lived, he could not be utterly bereft.

X

He had taken her home and was leaving, when a carriage passed him. He could hear the voices of the occupants--the brisk accents of Mrs. Barsaloux, and the slow, honey-rich tones of Marna. He had never dreamed that he could do such a thing, but he ran forward with an almost frantic desire to rest his eyes upon the girl's face, and he was beside the curb when the carriage drew up at the door of the house where Mrs. Barsaloux and Marna lodged. He flung open the door in spite of the protests of the driver, who was not sure of his right to offer such a service, and held out his hand to Mrs. Barsaloux. That lady accepted his politeness graciously, and, weary and abstracted, moved at once toward the house-steps, searching meantime for her key. Fitzgerald had fifteen seconds alone with Marna. She stood half-poised upon the carriage-steps, her hand in his, their eyes almost on a level. Then he said an impossible and insane thing. It was wrung out of his misery, out of his knowledge of her loveliness.

"I've lost you!" he whispered. "Do you know that to-night ended my happiness?"

Mama's lips parted delicately; her eyes widened; her swift Celtic spirit encompassed his grief.

"Oh!" she breathed. "Don't speak so! Don't spoil my beautiful time!"

"Not I," he retorted sharply, speaking aloud this time. "Far be it from me! Good-bye."

Mrs. Barsaloux heard him vaguely above the jangling of coins and keys and the rushing of a distant train.

"You're not going to leave town, are you, Dr. Fitzgerald?" she inquired casually. "I thought your good-bye had a final accent to it."

She was laughing in her easy way, quite unconscious of what was taking place. She had made an art of laughing, and it carried her and others over many difficult places. But for once it was powerless to lessen the emotional strain. Mysteriously, Fitzgerald and Marna were experiencing a sweet torment in their parting. It was not that she loved him or had thought of him in that way at all. She had seen him often and had liked his hearty ways, his gay spirits, and his fine upstanding figure, but he had been as one who passed by with salutations. Now, suddenly, she was conscious that he was a man to be desired. She saw his wistful eyes, his avid lips, his great shoulders. The woman in her awoke to a knowledge of her needs. Upon such a shoulder might a woman weep, from such eyes might a woman gather dreams; to allay such torment as his might a woman give all she had to give. It was incoherent, mad, but not unmeaning. It had, indeed, the ultimate meaning.

He said nothing more; she spoke no word. Each knew they would meet on the morrow.

The next night, Kate Barrington, making her way swiftly down the Midway in a misty gloom, saw the little figure of Marna Cartan fluttering before her. It was too early for dinner, and Kate guessed that Marna was on her way to pay her a visit--a not rare occurrence these last few weeks. She called to her, and Marna waited, turning her face for a moment to the mist-bearing wind.

"I was going to you," she said breathlessly.

"So I imagined, bright one."

"Are you tired, Kate, mavourneen?"

"A little. It's been a hard day. I don't see why my heart isn't broken, considering the things I see and hear, Marna! I don't so much mind about the grown-ups. If they succeed in making a mess of things, why, they can take the consequences. But the kiddies--they're the ones that torment me. Try as I can to harden myself, and to say that after I've done my utmost my responsibility ends, I can't get them off my mind. But what's on _your_ mind, bright one?"

"Oh, Kate, so much! But wait till we get to the house. It's not a thing to shriek out here on the street."

The wind swept around the corner, buffeting them, and Kate drew Marna's arm in her own and fairly bore the little creature along with her. They entered the silent house, groped through the darkened hall and up the stairs to Kate's own room.

"Honora isn't home, I fancy," she said, in apology for the pervading desolation. "She stays late at the laboratory these nights. She says she's on the verge of a wonderful discovery. It's something she and David have been working out together, but she's been making some experiments in secret, with which she means to surprise David. Of course she'll give all the credit to him--that's her policy. She's his helpmate, she says, nothing more."

"But the babies?" asked Marna with that naïveté characteristic of her. "Where are they?"

"Up in the nursery at the top of the house. It will be light and warm there, I think. Honora had a fireplace put in so that it would be cheerful. I always feel sure it's pleasant up there, however forbidding the rest of the house may look."

"Mary has made a great difference with it since she came, hasn't she? Of course Honora couldn't do the wonderful things she's doing and be fussing around the house all the time. Still, she might train her servants, mightn't she?"

"Well, there aren't really any to train," said Kate. "There's Mrs. Hays, the nurse, a very good woman, but as we take our meals out, and are all so independent, there's no one else required, except occasionally. Honora wouldn't think of such an extravagance as a parlor maid. We're a community of working folk, you see."

Marna had been lighting the candles which Kate usually kept for company; and, moreover, since there was kindling at hand, she laid a fire and touched a match to it.

"I must have it look homey, Kate--for reasons."

"Do whatever it suits you to do, child."

"But can I tell you what it suits me to do, Kate?"

"How do I know? Are you referring to visible things or talking in parables? There's something very eerie about you to-night, Marna. Your eyes look phosphorescent. What's been happening to you? Is it the glory of last night that's over you yet?"

"No, not that. It's--it's a new glory, Kate."

"A new glory, is it? Since last night? Tell me, then."