Part 7

So did she; but Virginia was a brave woman. She could not help seeing his face, and, being a woman, she knew. She could shape the whole story easily now. She had heard rumors of Mr. Carter’s wrath at Fanchon’s dance, and she knew what William must have felt. The talk must have reached him. This was the recoil. She loved him, and she understood. It would have tempted another woman; it frightened Virginia. She tried to think of something to say, but she could not.

They sat silently, the shade of the horse-chestnut stretching over them. Beyond them the sun shone on the old lawns and flower-beds. They were so motionless that a robin, searching for worms, came almost up to their feet.

“Do you mind my sitting around here?” he asked again in a low voice. “It’s the most restful place I’ve found.”

She steadied her voice.

“It is a restful place. Once we thought we’d have to give it up, but some stocks paid in, and we saved it. I’m so glad!”

William straightened himself.

“I didn’t know that.”

She was startled. She had not thought that he would take it in this way. Everything led them into the shoals, it seemed. She smiled, but her lips shook.

“I don’t think any one knew it but Dan,” she replied gently. “Dan helped us save it.”

“Dan?” He turned and looked at her, plainly startled, too, by another thought. “Dan?”

She met his look steadily this time.

“Yes, Dan. He’s so good to us. I think he’s very noble.”

William stared at her, paling again. A kind of fury came into his look, and she saw it. He was jealous of Dan! She understood now. That poor girl, his wife, had been a wild fancy, an episode, no more, and he was waking up.

She rose slowly to her feet.

“Come,” she said. “I’m going in. Grandpa is there, and you must come in and see him.”

She turned as she spoke, and William got to his feet, still white and haggard, his eyes following her. But Virginia stopped abruptly. Before them on the lawn, unheard and unseen in her approach, stood a small, white-clad figure in a daring scarlet hat, pale and piquant.

“I don’t think you heard me,” said Fanchon softly, her dark eyes flashing from one to the other. “You weren’t listening!” And she laughed shrilly.

William crimsoned, but Virginia was calm.

“No, we didn’t,” she replied simply; “but I’m glad to see you. We were just going into the house--will you come, too?”

Fanchon lifted her fawn-like eyes slowly to the other girl’s face. There was something noble in it, too noble for the retort that was on the end of her sharp tongue. She colored angrily.

“Of course! I came to call,” she said lightly. “William got ahead of me, I see.”

Virginia did not reply to this. She was already at the piazza steps.

“Please come this way,” she said lightly.

But Fanchon did not answer her. She had approached her husband, her large eyes mocking him, her lips parted. A strange look, half elfish, half fond, was on her face.

“You needn’t be in such a hurry to hide that ring,” she said below her breath. “I know about it. There was one letter you forgot to burn, _mon ami_!”

He turned from red to white. His only comfort was Virginia’s noble, unconscious look as she led the way into the house.

XI

COLONEL DENBIGH accompanied his guests to the door, and, after the farewells were sufficiently prolonged to suit his old-fashioned ways, he stood on the piazza and watched them to the gate. Fanchon turned there, a small, graceful creature, and kissed her hand to him. The colonel waved. William raised his hat, and the two figures turned off into the street.

As they grew smaller in the distance, Virginia came out and stood beside her grandfather.

“A pretty creature,” said the colonel thoughtfully. “Claws in velvet! What do you think of her, Jinny?”

“I don’t know,” Virginia replied honestly. “She’s pretty--but there’s something I can’t describe. She’s like a wild bird just put in a gilt cage. It’s a terribly trite simile, but it fits her. She’s beating her wings.”

“That’s poetry, Jinny,” said the colonel, chuckling. “It’s because she’s young and pretty. If she’d been a man, with that kind of an eye, we would have said something about beating his hoofs--I mean cloven ones. She sings like a bird, dances like a fairy, and behaves--well, I remember that Mrs. Payson called her something in French. What was it, eh? Maybe it takes French to express her.”

Virginia flushed.

“She called her a little _étourdie_. Of course she does queer things; she’s not well-bred, and she seems like a bundle of impulsive whims, but she’s rather captivating in all of them, and fascinating in some.”

“Humph!” The colonel pulled his mustache thoughtfully. “I see you’re determined to like her, Jinny.”

“I want to--yes.”

“You can’t,” said the colonel gently, laying his hand on her shoulder. “It’s a case of sugar and salt, you can’t mix ’em. Don’t try too hard, Jinny. Leave her alone.”

Something in his tone made Virginia look up quickly.

“Why, sir?”

Colonel Denbigh hesitated; then he blushed like a girl.

“I don’t talk scandal, Jinny, you know that, but I hear some. Let her alone.”

“Oh, that dance--”

He shook his head.

“No, not the dance. That only unloosed tongues. You spoke of that man, Caraffi’s manager--what was his name?”

“Corwin. A horrid creature,” said Virginia, suddenly recalling Fanchon’s face when she saw him in the waiting-room of the hall.

The colonel nodded.

“Corwin--that’s the name. Well, William’s wife knows him, she’s been seen walking with him. There’s talk about it. It may be all false, but I’d rather you kept away.”

Virginia had grown very thoughtful.

“I remember now, grandfather. She seemed afraid of him, poor girl. He’s a terrible creature, I’m sure--I wonder if he isn’t doing it on purpose? Starting the talk, I mean.”

“Very likely,” said the colonel dryly; “but he’d have to have something to start on. When there’s so much smoke, there’s some fire. I don’t like her, and yet”--he smiled--“what a pretty creature!”

“She’s not twenty, I’m sure. I think it’s wicked to talk so about her.” Virginia flushed generously. “Why are people so cruel?”

The colonel smiled.

“Jinny,” he said gently, “that little woman wouldn’t raise her finger to save you from the gallows.”

Virginia’s blush deepened.

“That doesn’t matter, grandfather!”

The old man looked at her proudly. She was standing beside him, her tall young head nearly level with his own, and her charming profile toward him. She had a look that was better in his eyes than mere beauty--a look of noble purity. He had never known her, even in childhood, to tell a falsehood. He patted her shoulder.

“I leave it to you, Jinny. I reckon I can trust you. But there’s one thing I want to say.” He hesitated, then he finished firmly: “That boy, William, disappoints me. He’s lost his grip. He’s been keeping gay company, I reckon, and he looks as if he’d been drinking. If it wasn’t for his lameness, Daniel’s twice the man!”

Virginia said nothing. She couldn’t; her heart was beating in her throat. She remembered William’s face when she returned the ring.

The colonel kept his hand on her shoulder, and they stood together, looking out across the close-cut lawn. Lucas, having put up the horses, was running a lawn-mower near the gate. It was that hour when the shadows begin to lengthen and one perceives the fragrance of the honeysuckle. It seemed to penetrate the late, warm afternoon, and to gather bees.

“Jinny, who’s that man--the fat man with a bald head?” the colonel asked presently. “He’s either a real-estate man or a lunatic. He wants to buy the place, I reckon. See him?”

Virginia, who had been in a trance, roused herself. Her eyes fell on a stout figure advancing toward the piazza, hat in hand.

“He wants to tune the piano, grandpa, or to varnish the mahogany tables.” She laughed softly, and fled lightly toward the door. “I’m going. You can send him away. I refuse to be varnished!”

The colonel heard her flight to the stairs; but he stood his ground and waited, a twinkle in his eye. The stout man approached steadily, with an expression of genial politeness. He had an air of feeling his own importance, but being willing to condescend. He wore a finely-tailored suit, a sport necktie with a diamond pin, and in the sunshine, his bald head looked like a piece of polished pink coral set in Florida moss.

“Colonel Denbigh, I believe?” he said suavely.

The colonel bowed politely.

“That’s my name, sir.”

Mr. Bernstein presented his card.

“I’d like a word with you, colonel. Strictly business--important, confidential business.”

The colonel regarded him a moment with the same twinkle in his eyes; then he descended the piazza steps.

“Come this way, Mr. Bernstein. I like to sit out of doors. Have a cigar?”

Mr. Bernstein accepted. They had reached the back of the house now, and he stopped short.

“Gee, what a view! Ain’t that about three thousand feet out there? Finest three-reel picture I ever got in a bird’s-eye view! Only wants a little life in it, colonel--a cow and a rough-rider, and maybe a couple of bandits. It’s just the set--with them mountains behind.”

The colonel, who had reached his favorite seat under the horse-chestnut, looked startled.

“I reckon you’re a movie man, aren’t you?” he inquired mildly.

“Had ’em before?” Mr. Bernstein looked anxious.

“One or two. This place seems to appeal to them. Sit down, Mr. Bernstein, you’ll find that seat comfortable. I always take this one--I’m getting old and set in my ways. I suppose it’s the place you’re interested in?”

Mr. Bernstein edged his chair closer to the wicker table and leaned across it.

“Say,” he began with a glow of enthusiasm, “this place and that servant and you! It would be great. I says to Greenfield--he’s my best director--I says to him before I came up here, ‘Now what we want is one of them old-time, sort of before-the-war Southern aristocrats.’ When I saw you, colonel, I--gee, sir, I says to myself: ‘Sammy Bernstein, there’s your man!’ It ain’t your clothes, colonel, it’s the way you look. Say, I’ve got a fellow at the studio--dress him up in a silk hat and white tie and patent-leather pumps, and he looks like a duke. But you put that guy into his every-days, and, bless your soul, you wouldn’t know him from a tin-peddler! Now, it ain’t so with you. You’d look the part in your shirt-sleeves. When I saw you, I says to myself: ‘Sam Bernstein, there’s the real article--ain’t any near-seal about that, either!’”

“Mr. Bernstein, say no more,” said the colonel. “I’m a modest man!”

Bernstein expanded, smiling.

“Sir, I’ll make it two thousand dollars for this place, that old negro, and you in one five-reeler. Two thousand dollars down! Isn’t any work in it. You just stand and look natural.”

This time the colonel’s eyes did more than twinkle; he laughed heartily.

“Mr. Bernstein, I never looked natural before a camera in my life. I’m afraid we can’t come to an agreement. I’m too old for the movies, sir. I’ll have to decline.”

Bernstein’s face fell.

“You don’t mean it, colonel; you can’t mean that!”

The colonel nodded, then he pulled a moment at his cigar.

“I’m afraid I do mean it. Perhaps Plato--that’s my man--might be interested. I’ll ask him.”

Bernstein held up his hands.

“Not without you, colonel!” He sat and stared for a moment at the old man opposite, a look of hopeless commiseration on his face. “Say,” he groaned at last, “you people down here haven’t got any enterprise! This is my second experience. I’m surprised, colonel; I’m pained. This town--it’s perfect, sir, for the part, it’s kind of dead-and-alive and shady, and there’s the pickaninnies. You could do any amount of close-ups and cut-backs on ’em. Gee, it’s too bad!” He shook his head regretfully.

“I reckon you could get the pickaninnies all right,” remarked the colonel comfortingly. “Tried it?”

Mr. Bernstein shook his head.

“No, sir! I’ve been after Mrs. William Carter. Know her?”

The colonel, a little startled, took the cigar from between his teeth.

“I have that honor, sir.”

The motion-picture manager turned his head slowly and gave him a cryptic look. Then he knocked the ashes from his cigar, stuck it in the other corner of his mouth, and resumed sadly:

“It was that dance of hers. That’s what took me! At the church sociable, colonel. Believe me, I was never so thrilled in my life. I was doin’ the town, looking for a place”--Mr. Bernstein waved his hand with a melancholy air--“for this place, sir. Well, I was goin’ down Main Street, an’ I see them headlights. ‘Something doing here,’ thinks I, ‘an’ I’ll have a look.’ Didn’t expect anything; but somehow I went in, an’ the very first thing I see is that dance. Gee whiz! I says to myself: ‘Sammy Bernstein, this is your lucky day; this is a find!’”

Colonel Denbigh laid down the stump of his cigar and pulled his mustache.

“I suppose you’ve asked her?”

“I did. And I’ll say right now that I don’t think--what’s his name?--Mr. William Henry Carter’s got any horse-sense. He took on as if I’d insulted him when I was offerin’ his wife five hundred dollars a week. That’s what I offered, Colonel Denbigh--five hundred dollars a week, good money.”

The colonel looked reflective.

“I’m afraid we’re behind the times down here, Mr. Bernstein. I reckon Mr. Carter doesn’t like publicity. We’re quiet, backwoods people, sir,” he added with a twinkle. “I know the lady. She’s mighty pretty, and I agree with you she’d make a mighty fine picture. Just the style you want, too.”

“No, sir, not my style. The public--well, it’s this way. They like ’em small, an’ this lady’s just the pattern--a cute, dark little thing. Personally”--Mr. Bernstein sighed--“I like ’em large. Now there’s Rosamond Silvertree--you know her, of course, colonel?”

Again the colonel smoothed his mustache thoughtfully.

“Can’t say that I do, sir,” he replied gently. “Pretty name, though?”

“Don’t know Rosamond Silvertree?” Mr. Bernstein struck the table with the palm of his hand. “Sir, you’re behind your times! She’s a motion-picture star, sir! She’s my ideal woman, Colonel Denbigh. She’s five feet eleven inches, and she weighs one hundred and eighty-seven pounds. She’s a peach, sir! Got those blue eyes that go to the heart, and her hair’s the color of butter--makes you think of good butter in spring-time! I have her on the screen all the time. The poor girl’s nearly worn out. The only trouble is you can’t always get men to play opposite to her. Greenfield comes up one day last month. ‘Sammy,’ says he, ‘I can’t put Rosy in “The Dream of the Harem.”’ ‘What in thunder d’you mean by that?’ says I. ‘Can’t do it,’ says he. ‘Jack Pickling’--that’s our leading man--‘Jack Pickling looks like a shrimp beside of her!’ What d’you think I did, Colonel Denbigh?”

The colonel shook his head gravely.

“I’ve no idea, sir. Put her on a diet?”

“Diet? Rosy? No, sir! I fired Jack Pickling!”

Bernstein lay back in his chair and smiled. He felt that he had reached the climax, but the climax was lost on Colonel Denbigh.

“If your leading lady is so fine, I shouldn’t think you’d need Mrs. Carter,” he observed mildly.

Mr. Bernstein smiled with a superior air.

“That’s just why I do need her! You see, Rosy won’t do for these little teeny-weeny ingénue parts. She’s too grand! Mrs. Carter’s the kid for those. That’s what I want her for. But this Aristide Corwin”--Mr. Bernstein leaned over the table and touched the colonel’s sleeve with his fat forefinger--“Aristide ain’t behaving like a gentleman, Colonel Denbigh. He knew the lady in France, and he’s got some kind of a pull. I guess he wants her in vaudeville again. She’s been there once, I know. He’s using his methods--they ain’t mine, sir! He’s talkin’ bad, he--”

Colonel Denbigh rose abruptly and stood looking down on Mr. Bernstein from his full height.

“I know the Carters, sir,” he said sternly. “I’ve known Mr. Johnson Carter since I was a young man. His boys played on this place. I have the honor of his daughter-in-law’s acquaintance. You will kindly drop this subject, sir!”

Mr. Bernstein rose also. He was very pale, but the small eyes in the creases of his fat face looked honest. They even looked indignant.

“No offense, colonel,” he said, “no offense. If you’re a friend of the lady, I think you ought to know. Corwin’s been persecuting her before. I’ve heard he drove her out of London. He’s after her again, he means mischief. I know Aristide! If you’re--”

He stopped with his mouth open. The colonel had walked away and left him.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” said Mr. Bernstein, staring after the old man’s erect figure. “I’m darned! Now, Sammy Bernstein, that comes of trying to help a woman. Never again!”

He selected a cigar from the box that Colonel Denbigh had unwittingly left upon the table, and, having lit it with the colonel’s match, he went slowly and thoughtfully away. As he went, he sighed.

“Too bad, too bad!” he muttered. “Take him all around, the lean way he stands--with striped trousers an’ that property coat--he’d make just an ideal close-up! I wonder”--he rubbed his bald head thoughtfully--“I wonder if he’d have dropped if I’d offered him three thousand dollars to play _Uncle Sam_ opposite to Rosy’s _Liberty_?”

XII

MRS. JOHNSON CARTER sat in the old rocker in the library, rocking nervously, her feet tapping the floor. Her usually placid face had of late become as troubled as an inland lake assailed by contrary winds. It was growing full of new puckers and furrows between the eyes.

She crossed and uncrossed her hands in her lap, and glanced absently from time to time toward the window. She happened to be alone in the house except for Miranda. An occasional sound from the region of the kitchen informed her that the colored maid of all work was at the helm; but not even the recklessness of Miranda’s slams and thumps moved Mrs. Carter from her chair. She was waiting for some one to come in--some one to whom she could unbosom herself.

As the time passed and she heard the monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantel, she was seized with a kind of panic. She dreaded Mr. Carter’s arrival. If he came first, she might break down and tell him, and she was afraid to tell him. She wanted Daniel. Unconsciously, in her hour of need, she always turned to Daniel now. William had been her mainstay, but it was obvious that William could not be her mainstay any longer. The old saw about a son marrying a wife held good in his case.

She waited, and the clock ticked tumultuously, as clocks do when you wait. She began to rock violently again, and she nearly upset herself by a tremendous start when the door finally opened. She thought it was Mr. Carter, but it was only Emily with some books under her arm.

Emily came to the door of the library and looked in. She had long ago obeyed her father’s order and washed her face. It was guiltless even of becoming makeup, but she had an unnatural look to her mother for all that.

“What’s the matter, mama?” she asked. “Where’s Fanchon? Has Leigh come in?”

Mrs. Carter shook her head. She had stopped rocking and was staring at her daughter. Emily saw it and retreated.

“I think I’ll go up-stairs,” she said hurriedly. “I passed the exams, mama. Mr. Brinsted says I can go to high school in September.”

A gleam of momentary pleasure shot across Mrs. Carter’s worried face, but she did not withdraw her fixed gaze.

“Emmy, you come here,” she said suddenly. “I want to look at your dress.”

Emily backed.

“Oh, I want to go up-stairs, mama. I’m hot and tired. Mr. Brinsted’s so prosy. Sallie Payson says--”

Mrs. Carter rose and made a dive at the hem of her daughter’s skirt.

“Well, I declare!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t think what made it hang like that! You’ve been taking it in on every seam to make it narrower.”

Emily pulled away, blushing.

“It was just horrid--all out of style, mama!” she cried. “I hate to--to look like a frump!”

Mrs. Carter straightened up from her consideration of the skirt.

“Where did you get those striped silk stockings, Emily Carter?”

Emily, backing toward the door, looked sullen.

“Dan gave me the money,” she answered shortly. “I wanted something like other girls.”

“I never saw such awful stockings in my life!” replied her mother. “Your legs look like barbers’ poles. You take them off, or I’ll have to tell your father.”

Emily grew tearful.

“I--I think you’re real mean, mama. I hate to be a frump!”

“Who called you a frump?” her mother asked severely.

“N-no one--but Fanchon says the people here are all provincials and frumps--all of them!” stormed Emily. “And I think we’re awful frumps ourselves!”

Mrs. Carter gazed at her in a dazed way; then she retreated to her rocking-chair.

“Emily, you go up-stairs and rip those inside bastes out of that skirt. It looks frightful; it hangs all up and down in waves! And listen--”

Emily, still sniffing violently, was half-way to the stairs.

“Listen, Emily, you take off those stockings, too. They’re vulgar. If you don’t, I’ll have to do it myself.”

“I don’t see why I can’t wear them!” Emily stormed. “I’m grown up, I’m sixteen, and Fanchon has a pair like them.”

Mrs. Carter flushed.

“You go up-stairs and take them off!” she cried, with her first dash of anger. “I don’t want my girl to look like Fanchon!”

Emily grasped the banisters and shouted.

“She’s lovely; she’s stylish! I think you and papa are just awful to her. You’re setting Willie against her, too. Leigh thinks so; he says he’d do anything, he’d die for her!”

Mrs. Carter looked a little startled, but she rallied.

“Leigh’s only eighteen,” she observed dryly. “It’s very easy to die for people at eighteen! You’re impertinent to your mother, Emily. Go up-stairs and study for an hour. Mind you take off those stockings!”

Emily began to cry. She cried easily, large tears rolling out of her light-blue eyes. She went up-stairs looking like Niobe, and she cried all the time she was taking off her stockings.

Mrs. Carter stopped rocking and thought. She thought deeply. Emily’s outburst and Leigh’s devotion were such obvious things, and yet--

She lifted her handkerchief and pressed it against her trembling lips. Was William really being set against his wife? Mrs. Carter was a good woman, and the thought distressed her.

She did not resume her rocking, she sat motionless, looking straight ahead of her, her face red. She was still sitting there when Daniel, returning early from court, stopped at the door and looked in.

“What’s the matter, mother?” he asked pleasantly. “You look out of sorts.”

“Oh, Dan, please come in here a moment; I want to talk to you.”

Daniel looked a little surprised, but he came in obediently, putting a pile of law-books and papers on the table as he sat down to listen. His mother saw the papers.

“Did you win that case, Dan?”

His face lit up.

“Yes. Just heard the verdict. We’ve got it, mother!”

She flushed with pleasure.

“Dan, the judge says you’ll be a great man some day. You’re a born orator!”

“Nonsense!” said Daniel, but he blushed.

It seemed to his mother’s anxious eyes that he was less worn and tired than usual; but her mind was full of other things.

“Dan,” she began in a low, horrified voice, “have you seen anything? I mean--Fanchon and that--that man?”

Daniel shook his head.

“I’m too busy, mother.”

Mrs. Carter sank back in her rocking-chair and looked weak.

“I saw them this morning. I’d been to market. Mrs. Payson came along in her new limousine, and she stopped and picked me up. I don’t know why it had to happen so, but the chauffeur took the short cut for this house--you know, the little lane behind the Methodist church.”

She paused for breath, and Daniel nodded. He was very grave now.

“As we turned the corner we both saw them--I mean Mrs. Payson and I--and of course the chauffeur did, too, come to think of it. Fanchon was talking to that man--I think his name’s Corwin.”

“Well, mother, if she knows him, perhaps she had to speak to him.”