Part 6

In thought she surrendered for an instant, then broke away from him, shuddering. "Don't," she gasped. "Don't make it so hard for me to do what is right. I won't be dishonourable, I won't be disloyal, I won't be untrue. Happiness that comes from wrong doing is always brief, but, oh, dear lad, I love you with a love nobody ever had before, or ever will have again. I'm not taking anything away from anybody else to give to you, so it isn't dishonourable--it can't be. Tell me it isn't!" she cried. "Oh, tell me."

"It isn't," he assured her. "You couldn't be dishonourable if you tried. You're the bravest, finest woman I've ever known."

From within came the notes of a violin muted. The piano, mercifully softened, followed the melody with the full rich accompaniment which even miserable playing can never wholly spoil.

"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them o'er, every one apart-- My rosary! My rosary!"

"The pearls mean tears," she whispered brokenly. "Our rosary is made of tears!"

The lady from Memphis clattered past them on the balcony, singing the words apparently to herself, but really with an eye to dramatic--and impertinent--effect.

* * * * *

For a week they had been together, the gayest of the gay crowd. That day all plans had mysteriously fallen through. Miss Ward's chaperon had been called home by a telegram. A letter had caused another unexpected departure, a forgotten engagement loomed up before another, a sick headache laid low a fourth, and only they two were left--the "tattered remnant of the old guard," she laughingly said that morning when they met in the palm-room after breakfast, as usual, to discuss the program of the day.

"Then," he retorted, "the old guard will make the best of it!"

So they had spent the day together in public places, mindful of the proprieties. A long talk in the afternoon, full of intimate and searching details, had paved the way for the dazzling revelation made by an accidental touching of hands. In an instant, the world was changed.

"Suppose," she said, "that you had been obliged to go away this afternoon, before everything was fully acknowledged between us? Oh, don't you see what we have? We've got one whole day--a little laughter, and a great deal of love and pain, crystallised by parting and denial, into something sweet to keep in our hearts for always. Nothing can take to-day away from us--it's ours beyond the reach of estrangement or change. To-night we'll shut the door upon it and steal away, as from a casket enshrining the dead."

"Not dead," he flashed bitterly, "but buried alive!"

"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."

The last echo died away, the violin rattled into its case, the piano was closed. The musicians went home, and there was a general movement toward the doors. A far clock chimed twelve and she rose wearily from her chair. "Good night," she faltered, her hand fluttering toward his; "I cannot say good-bye, but we must never see each other again."

How it happened they never knew, but he took her into his arms, unresisting, and kissed her fully, passionately, upon the lips.

All the joy and pain of the world seemed crowded into the instant they stood there, locked in each other's arms. Then the high, bird-like voice of the lady from Memphis broke on their ears in a grating staccato.

"She was out here, when I saw her last, flirting dreadfully with the war correspondent. I guess she didn't know you were coming on that late train."

Eagerly, happily, the Other Man rushed out on the balcony, crying boyishly, "Mabel! Are you here?"

The words died on his lips. The man who held her in his arms kissed her again, slowly, hungrily; then reluctantly released her. She steadied herself against the railing of the balcony. In the moonlight her face was ghastly. The scent of the orange blossoms seemed overpowering her with deadly fragrance.

"Didn't I tell you?" asked the lady from Memphis gleefully. From the open window she was enjoying the situation to the full.

The Other Man was bewildered.

"Mabel," he said enquiringly, "I don't quite understand. Didn't you get my wire?"

The war correspondent stepped forward. He had faced the guns of the enemy before and was not afraid now. A single commanding glance, mingled with scorn, sent the lady from Memphis scurrying back into the palm-room.

"I know who you are," he said to the Other Man, "and I owe you an explanation. I love Miss Ward and I have been trying all day to induce her to break her engagement with you and marry me instead."

The Other Man laughed. He went to the balcony rail, where the girl stood, half fainting, and put his arm around her. "I don't doubt it," he said. "Isn't she the finest, sweetest, truest woman the Lord ever made? Any man who doesn't love her is a chump. You and I will be good friends--we have a great deal in common."

He offered his hand but the war correspondent bowed and swerved aside. "Good night," he said thickly. "I have played and lost. I lay down my hand." He went through the window hastily, leaving the two alone.

"Mabel, dear Mabel!" said the Other Man softly. "You've been through something that is almost too much for you. Sit down and rest--you're tired!"

The words, calm and tender, brought back to her tortured soul a hint of the old peace. In a pitiless flash of insight she saw before her two women, either of which she might become. One was serene and content, deeply and faithfully loved, sheltered from everything love could shield her from, watched, taken care of in all the countless little ways that mean so much. The other was to know Life to its uttermost, all its rage, jealousy and despair, to be shaken in body and soul by fierce elemental passions, to face eclipsing miseries alone, and drain the cup to the lees. The difference was precisely that between a pleasure craft, anchored in a sunny harbour, and the toiling ship that breasts the tempestuous seas.

She sat down and suffered him to take her hand. He stroked her wrist silently, in the old comforting way he had when she was nervous or tired. His face was troubled--hers was working piteously. The lights had died down in the palm-room and the last of the revellers went away. The house detective paced through the long rooms twice and made a careful survey of the balcony.

"Darling," said the Other Man, "you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to--you know that; but wouldn't it make you feel better? You've always told me things, and I'm the best friend you've got. Surely you're not afraid now?"

His voice failed at the end, and the girl drew a quick shuddering breath but she did not answer.

"He was kissing you, wasn't he?" asked the Other Man, "when I came?"

"Yes," she said dully, "he was kissing me, but it was for good-bye. He told me he loved me, and I had told him I loved him. I've known him only a week. He never so much as touched my hand until to-day, but it was only my own personal honour that kept me from marrying him to-morrow, as he begged me to do. I've told you the worst now. Believe what you like--do what you will."

The Other Man sighed. His mouth was boyish and for the moment unsteady, but his eyes sought hers as honestly and clearly as the war correspondent's, who had unusual eyes--for a man.

"I think I understand," he said brokenly. "I don't blame any man for loving you, dear--I'm prepared for that--and we've been separated so long, and the moonlight and the palms and the roses and all, and you were used to being loved--I think that's why. You were lonesome, wer'n't you, sweetheart? Didn't you want me?"

Infinite love and infinite pain surged together in her heart, blending into unspeakable tenderness. "Yes, I wanted you," she whispered--"I always want you. I'm--I'm a bit upset just now, but I haven't taken anything away from you to give to anybody else. It's only an undiscovered country--a big one, that he found to-day. I haven't been intentionally dishonourable. I fought but it was no use--he simply swept me off my feet. Forgive me if you can!"

"Hush! There'll never be any need of that word between you and me. I've forgiven you long ago, for everything you've ever done or ever can do. It's an unlimited fund to draw upon--that and my love. You know," he went on in another tone, "that if it were for your happiness, I could give you up, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. You'd never be as happy with anybody you'd only known a week, as you would with me, because I've loved you for years. You have my whole heart, Mabel,--there's never been another woman with even a hint of a claim. I know all your little moods and tenses and you don't have to explain things to me. I know you can't ride backward and you don't like to walk when you have high-heeled shoes on, and a thousand other things that are infinitely dear just because they are you. I was thinking of them all the way down here, and loving them--every one."

"I don't deserve it," she answered, and then broke into a wild sobbing.

The Other Man moved his chair closer and drew her head to his shoulder. "There," he said, slipping a handkerchief into the hand that covered her eyes; "cry if you want to. You're tired--my little girl is tired."

He held her so until the storm had spent itself. He kept his face against her hair, soft and silky, and fragrant with orris--forgetting himself utterly in his loving pity for her. At last she moved away from him. Her tear-stained face in the moonlight, filled him with tenderness so great that his love was pain.

"It's late," she said, "it must be after one o'clock. I must go up-stairs." She started toward the open window, but still he held her back gently. "Dear," he said softly, "we've been away from each other four weeks and three days, and I've come two thousand miles to see you. You haven't kissed me yet. Don't you want to? You don't need to if you'd rather not, but if you could----"

His voice vibrated with passionate appeal. She lifted her white face to his and kissed him mechanically. "To-morrow," she breathed, "I'll be more like myself; I'll try to make up for to-night, but if you love me, let me go now!"

He went with her to the elevator, and watched until she was lifted out of his sight, smiling at her until the last--the old loving smile. He went out to the balcony again, and sat down with his arms thrown over the back of the chair that had so recently held her. His brow was wrinkled with deep thought, but his boyish mouth still smiled.

Presently there was a step behind him and he turned--to look into the face of the war correspondent who spoke first.

"I've come back," he said, "to shake hands with you, if you don't mind."

The Other Man's hand met his, more than half-way.

"And," continued the war correspondent, "I want to apologise. I've been all kinds of a brute, but what I said was the truth. I love her as no man ever before loved a woman. That's my only excuse."

"You're not to blame for loving her," returned the Other Man generously; "nobody is. And as for her loving you, that's all right too. She's got a lot of temperament and she's used to being loved, and you're not a bad sort, you know--not at all." And he concluded fondly, "my little girl was lonesome without me."

The war correspondent went away quietly. In the moonlight he could see the boyish face of the Other Man, radiant with an all-believing, all-forgiving love.

"Yes," said the Other Man again, after an interval, and not realising that he was alone, "that was it. My little girl was lonesome without me."

The Roses and the Song

The Roses and the Song

There had been a lover's quarrel and she had given him back his ring. He thrust it into his pocket and said, unconcernedly, that there were other girls who would be glad to wear it.

Her face flushed, whether in anger or pain he did not know, but she made no reply. And he left her exulting in the thought that the old love was dead.

As the days went by, he began to miss her. First, when his chum died in a far-off country, with no friend near. He remembered with a pang how sweetly comforting she had always been, never asking questions, but soothing his irritation and trouble with her gentle womanly sympathy.

He knew just what she would do if he could tell her that Tom was dead. She would put her soft cheek against his own rough one, and say: "I am so sorry dear. I'm not much, I know, but you've got me, and nothing, not even death can change that."

"Not even death"--yes, it was quite true. Death changes nothing.--It is only life that separates utterly.

He began to miss the afternoon walks, the lingering in book store and art galleries, and the quiet evenings at home over the blazing fire, when he sat with his arm around her and told her how he had spent the time since they last met. Every thought was in some way of her, and the emptiness of his heart without her seemed strange in connection with the fact that the old love was dead.

He saw by a morning paper that there was to be a concert for the benefit of some charitable institution, and on the program, printed beneath the announcement, was her name. He smiled grimly. How often he had gone with her when she sang in public! He remembered every little detail of every evening. He always waited behind the scenes, because she said she could sing better when he was near her. And whatever the critics might say, she was sure of his praise.

It was on the way home from one of these affairs that he had first told her that he loved her. Through the rose-leaf rain that fell from her hair and bosom at his touch he had kissed her for the first time, and the thrill of her sweet lips was with him still. How short the ride had been that night and why was the coachman in such an unreasonable hurry to get home?

He made up his mind that he would not go to the concert that night, but somehow, he bought a ticket and was there before the doors opened. So he went out to walk around a little. People who went to concerts early were his especial detestation.

In a florist's window he saw some unusually beautiful roses. He had always sent her roses before, to match her gown, and it seemed queer not to buy them for her now.

Perhaps he really ought to send her some to show her that he cherished no resentment. Anyone could send her flowers over the footlights. The other men that she knew would undoubtedly remember her, and he didn't want to seem unfriendly.

So he went in. "Four dozen La France roses," he said, and the clerk speedily made the selection. He took a card out of his pocket, and chewed the end of his pencil meditatively.

It was strange that he should have selected that particular kind, he thought. That other night, after he had gone home, he had found a solitary pink petal clinging to his scarf-pin. He remembered with a flush of tenderness that it had come from one of the roses--his roses--on her breast. He had kissed it passionately and hidden it in a book--a little book which she had given him.

With memory came heartache, his empty life and her wounded love. The words shaped themselves under his pencil:

"You know what the roses mean. Will you wear one when you sing the second time? Forgive me and love me again--my sweetheart."

He tied the card himself into the centre of the bunch, so it was half hidden by the flowers. He gave them to the usher with a queer tremolo note in his voice. "After her first number, understand?"

There was a piano solo, and then she appeared. What she sang he did not know, but her deep contralto, holding heaven in its tones, he both knew and understood. She did not sing as well as usual. Her voice lacked warmth and sincerity and her intonation was faulty. The applause was loud but not spontaneous although many of her friends were there. His were the only flowers she received.

When she came out the second time, he looked at her anxiously, but there was never a sign of a rose. He sank down in his chair with a sigh and covered his face with his hand.

This time she sang as only _she_ could sing. Oh, that glorious contralto! Suggestions of twilight and dawn, of suffering and joy, of love and its renunciation.

There was no mistaking her success and the great house rang with plaudits from basement to roof. He, only, was silent; praying in mute agony for a sign.

She willingly responded to the encore and a hush fell upon the audience with the first notes of Tosti's "Good-Bye."

"_Falling leaf, and fading tree._"

Oh, why should she sing that? He writhed as if in bodily pain, but the beautiful voice went on and on.

"_Good-bye, summer, good-bye, good-bye!_"

How cruel she seemed! Stately, imperious, yet womanly, she held her listeners spellbound, but every word cut into his heart like a knife.

"_All the to-morrows shall be as to-day._"

The tears came and his lips grew white. Then some way into the cruel magnificence of her voice came a hint of pity as she sang:

"_Good-bye to hope, good-bye, good-bye!_"

There was a hush, then she began again:

"_What are we waiting for, Oh, my heart? Kiss me straight on the brows, and part!_"

All the love in her soul surged into her song; the joy of happy love; the agony of despairing love; the pleading cry of doubting love; the dull suffering of hopeless love; and then her whole strength was merged into a passionate prayer for the lost love, as she sang the last words:

"_Good-bye forever, good-bye forever! Good-bye, good-bye, good--bye--!_"

She bowed her acknowledgments again and again, and when the clamour was over, he hastened into the little room behind the stage where she was putting on her wraps. She was alone but her carriage was waiting.

As he entered, she started in surprise, then held out her hand.

"Dear," he said, "if this is the end, won't you let me kiss you _once_ for the sake of our old happiness? We were so much to each other--you and I. Even if you wouldn't wear the rose, won't you let me hold you just a minute as I used to do?"

"Wear the rose," she repeated, "what do you mean?"

"Didn't you see my card?"

"No," she answered, "I couldn't look at them--they are--La--France--you know--and----"

She reached out trembling fingers and found the card. She read the tender message twice--the little message which meant so much, then looked up into his face.

"If I could," she whispered, "I'd pin them all on."

Someway she slipped into her rightful place again, and very little was said as they rolled home. But when he lit the gas in his own room he saw something queer in the mirror, and found, clinging to his scarf-pin, the petal of a La France rose.

A Laggard in Love

A Laggard in Love

"My dear," said Edith judiciously, "I think you're doing wrong."

Marian dabbed her eyes with a very wet handkerchief and said nothing. Edith adjusted the folds of her morning gown and assumed a more comfortable position on the couch.

"They all have to be managed," she went on, "and you'll find that Mr. Thomas Drayton is no exception. I'll venture that when he makes his visits, which are like those of angels, 'few and far between' you tell him how lonesome you've been without him, and how you've thought of him every minute since the last time, and perhaps even cry a little bit! Am I right?"

Marian nodded. "If it wasn't for that hateful Perkins girl, I wouldn't care so much. She's neither bright nor pretty, and I'm sure I don't see what Tom sees in her. I think it's more her fault than his."

"The Perkins girl is entirely blameless, Miss Reynolds, though she certainly is unpleasant. It is Tom's fault."

The afflicted Miss Reynolds wiped her eyes again. "Perhaps it's mine. If I were quite what I ought to be, Tom wouldn't seek other society, I'm sure."

Mrs. Bently sat up straight. "Marian Reynolds," she demanded, "have you ever said anything like that to Tom?"

"Something like that," Marian admitted. "What should I have done?"

"Thrown a book at him," responded Mrs. Bently energetically. Then she leaned back among the pillows, and twisted the corners of her handkerchief.

"Don't be horrid, Edith, but tell me what to do," pleaded Marian.

Mrs. Bently looked straight out of the window. "I've been married nearly ten years," she said meditatively, "and I point with pardonable pride to my husband. There hasn't been any of the 'other woman business' since the first days of our engagement. He never forgets the little words of endearment, he brings me flowers, and books, and he's quite as polite to me as he is to other women."

"I know," replied Marian. "I've seen him break away from a crowd in the middle of a sentence to put your rubbers on for you."

"All that," resumed Edith, "is the result of careful training. And what Tom needs is heroic treatment. If you will promise to do exactly as I say, you will have his entire devotion inside of a month."

"I promise," responded Marian hopefully.

"First, then, take off your engagement ring."

Marian's pretty brown head drooped lower and lower, and a brighter diamond fell into her lap. She felt again the passionate tenderness in his voice when he told her how much he loved her, and she remembered how he had kissed each finger-tip separately, then the diamond, just because it was hers.

She looked at her friend with eyes full of tears. "Edith, I can't."

"Take it off."

Marian obeyed, very slowly, then threw herself at the side of the couch sobbing. "Edith, Edith," she cried, "don't be so cross to me! I am so dreadfully unhappy!"

"Marian, dearest, I'm not cross, but I want you to be a sensible girl. The happiness of your whole life is at stake, and I want you to be brave--it is now or never with Mr. Thomas Drayton. If you let him torture you now for his own amusement, he will do it all his life!"

"I'll try, Edith, but you don't know how it hurts."

"Yes, I do know, dear; I've been through it myself. Now listen. First, no more tears or reproaches. Secondly, don't allude to his absence, nor to the Perkins girl. Thirdly, you must find some one else at once."

"That's as bad as what he is doing, isn't it?"

"_Similia similibus curantur_," laughed Edith. "Joe's friend, Jackson, is coming to the city for a month or so, and he'll do nicely. He's awfully handsome, and a perfectly outrageous flirt. He always singles out one girl, however, and devotes himself to her, so we won't have any trouble on that score. People who don't know Jackson, think that he's in deadly earnest, but I don't believe he ever had a serious thought in his life."

"I think I have seen him," said Marian. "Wasn't he at the Charity Ball with you and Mr. Bently last year?"

"Yes, he was there, but only for a few minutes. Now, let's see--to-day is Thursday. Have you seen Tom this week?"

Marian hesitated. "N-no, that is, not since Sunday. But I think he will come this afternoon."

"Very well, my dear, you have an engagement for the rest of the day with me. Run home and put on your prettiest gown. We'll go to the Art Gallery and call on Mrs. Kean later. We both owe her a call, and I'll look for you at two."

Promptly at two o'clock Marian appeared with all traces of tears smoothed away. "You'll do," said Edith. "I believe you're a thoroughbred after all."

At the Art Gallery they met what Mrs. Bently termed "the insufferable Perkins" clad in four different colours and looking for all the world like a poster. She was extremely pleasant, and insisted upon showing them a picture which was "one of Mr. Drayton's favourites."

Miss Reynolds adjusted her lorgnette critically. "Yes, I think this is about the only picture in this exhibit which Tom and I both like. I'm so glad that you approve of our taste, Miss Perkins," and Marian smiled sweetly.