Part 48

As he mounted the steps, she glanced up with a mendacious air of surprise, and rose, smiling, very polite, but still queenly.

“Oh, Mr. Rhodes!” she said. “This is very nice! Sit down, won’t you?”

He did so, and Miss Carter began her campaign. She said she was sorry Maude wasn’t at home, but nothing could induce that girl to miss her Sunday school class.

“She’s so conscientious!” Miss Carter said, and told him several anecdotes about Maude’s conscientiousness.

Then she told him how devoted the children in the class were to Maude. There was no pretense about Miss Carter now. She was speaking from her heart, telling him what she knew to be the truth about her dear girl, pleading Maude’s cause with dignity and sincerity. This man, this wooden Indian, must be made to realize what Maude was!

Miss Carter watched him pretty closely, but it did her no good, for it was impossible to tell from his face what impression she was making. He just listened. She waited for him to ask questions about Maude, but he did not. After awhile she grew indignant, and spoke no more. He, too, fell silent, and there they sat.

He was one of those persons to whom the sunshine is becoming. In spite of his age and his exasperating silence and his shocking lack of curiosity, Miss Carter was obliged, in justice, to admit that she liked his face. It was honest and keen and strong. She remembered, too, that when he had talked about his ships he had been really interesting. Well, he wasn’t going to talk about ships this time. He had been brought here to be taught appreciation of Maude, and taught he should be.

“Your garden--” he began.

“Maude’s making a little rock garden,” Miss Carter said. “She had the prettiest violets this spring!”

“I like those bright-colored things that grow in the sun better,” said he, with a gesture toward the glowing bed of pinks and phlox and verbena. “My mother used to have those things in her garden.”

Miss Carter didn’t say that she wasn’t interested in his mother’s garden, but she looked it, and he seemed a little taken aback. He glanced at her anxiously. He felt that somehow he had said the wrong thing, and that he had better start another topic.

“I’m going up home next week,” he observed.

Miss Carter made no sort of reply to this. She could not. Going home, was he? Going away? She thought of Maude’s pale, grave young face, of the odd little note in her voice when she had said that she was afraid Mr. Rhodes didn’t think she was very interesting.

“He’s a--a selfish beast!” thought Miss Carter.

This thought, too, was reflected in her honest face, and Mr. Rhodes saw that once more he had said the wrong thing.

“You see,” he explained, still more anxiously, “I’m obliged to go there. My business--”

Miss Carter raised her eyebrows with a toplofty expression never before seen upon her face.

“Indeed!” she said.

The unhappy man could not imagine in what way he had offended her, but he had no doubt that she was offended. He felt that he must go on explaining.

“You see,” he said, “it’s this.”

From the pocket of his coat he brought out an advertisement. Miss Carter glanced at it, and saw that on the 8th of July, at Rhodes’s dock, two schooners were to be sold “as is where is.”

“Indeed!” she said again.

He gave up then, and relapsed into total silence.

“Very well!” said Miss Carter, but not aloud. “Go home, then, and stay there! I wish you’d never left your home! Maude was happy before you came. Oh, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

She looked at him, and to save her life she couldn’t help feeling just a little sorry for him. He had such a bewildered and miserable air.

“After all,” she thought, “he’s a guest.”

So she went into the kitchen, took six doughnuts out of a stone crock, put them on a plate, and brought them out to the veranda.

“Maybe you’d like one,” she said.

It was a mistake. While the man was eating a doughnut, he did not look in the least old, or like a wooden Indian. Indeed, his enjoyment was positively boyish, and Miss Carter could not help feeling a little touched. She invited him to take another and another.

“Did you make them?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” replied Miss Carter, with modest pride.

“I never tasted anything like them--never!” he declared.

“Well, I like to cook,” said Miss Carter.

“You know,” he went on, “your niece told me a good deal about you, and--”

“Maude makes the most delicious soda biscuits!” cried Miss Carter, suddenly recalled to her duty.

“She told me all you’d done for her,” he continued. “I--I wanted to meet you. I”--he paused--“I knew you’d be--like this!”

It was Miss Carter’s intention to greet this statement with an amused, indulgent smile; but she could not. There was something in the man’s straightforward glance, in his quiet voice, that filled her with confusion. She turned her head aside, feeling her cheeks grow hot.

“You don’t know what I’m really like, Mr. Rhodes,” she said.

“Yes, I do,” said he. “When I came this afternoon, you didn’t see me, at first, but I--I saw you.” His face had grown red, but he went on sturdily. “You--you don’t know how you looked, sitting there--in your own home!”

Miss Carter understood his speech only too well. She understood, by a sort of instinct, that he was one of those men who see all the romance and glamour of the world about the head of a woman in her own home. She understood, too, that he was very lonely and very homesick; and she made another mistake.

“Tell me about your home,” she said. “Your mother’s garden--”

He was silent for a moment.

“Well, you see,” he said, “when my father died, my elder brother got the old place; and he and his wife--well, they’ve made a good many changes.”

Miss Carter felt a sudden and most unreasonable indignation against Mr. Rhodes’s brother and sister-in-law.

“I hate changes!” she said. Then, feeling that she had been too vehement, she smiled. “That’s a sign of growing old,” she said. “I’m--”

“Old!” he cried. “You!”

Now this was the sort of thing almost any chivalrous man would have said in the circumstances, but the way he said it--the way he looked at her--

A most curious thing happened. Suddenly Miss Carter saw the Miss Carter that _he_ saw--not the practical, brisk, busy woman who was simply Maude’s aunt and a good housekeeper, but the woman who had bidden farewell to romance fifteen years ago, when the man she was to have married died. No--this Miss Carter was a charming and gracious woman, and a pretty one. She positively felt the lovely color in her cheeks, the soft tendrils of her brown hair about her temples, and even the clear blueness of her eyes; and all her heart was filled with an innocent and beautiful joy that it should be so.

She sat very still, almost afraid to breathe, for fear of breaking the enchantment. She was so happy!

The garden gate clicked, and, looking up, she saw Maude.

IV

Miss Carter was a wonderful hostess that evening. Maude was amazed. Never in her life had she seen her aunt so lively and amusing, with such a fine color on her cheeks and such a light in her eyes. She herself was a serious and quiet young creature, as a rule, but this evening Miss Carter made her talk and made her laugh--and Mr. Rhodes, too.

There they sat at the table, a most cheerful little party, with a most delectable tea set before them--a cold baked ham, a salad of tomatoes stuffed with celery, corn muffins, little custards baked in brown cups, strawberries and cream, and a superb three-layer chocolate cake; but Miss Carter didn’t seem to be very hungry. It was all dust and ashes to her. Every minute was a penance to her, and every smile she gave was a little stab of pain.

“Maude!” she cried, in her heart. “Oh, Maude, my dear, beautiful girl, talk to him! Laugh, my darling! Talk to him, and make him see! I do truly believe he is a good man--almost good enough for you! Oh, Maude, my darling, laugh, and talk, and be young! Make him see your beautiful, blessed youngness!”

Poor serious Maude was always trying to turn the conversation toward business, always bringing up charters, and marine insurance policies, and so on; and Miss Carter was forever turning her skillfully aside from these dangers, making her talk about dances and picnics and frivolous and entertaining episodes from her college days. Miss Carter understood the man, and Maude didn’t. Miss Carter knew only too well what things pleased and touched him, and she was fiercely determined that he should discover all those things in Maude.

It was very hard, though. Every time she got a chance, Maude began again about business. Her interest in shipping matters was prodigious.

“Do you think those two schooners you’re going to sell will bring--” she began, but again Miss Carter intervened.

“I saw the advertisement,” she said. “For sale ‘as is where is’--that’s a pretty high and mighty way to do business, I must say! Here they are--take ’em or leave ’em!”

“Well, you see--” Maude began again.

Miss Carter felt sure that the girl wanted to explain to her aunt exactly how schooners were sold.

“Oh, can’t she see?” she thought, almost in despair. “He doesn’t want to talk business! Oh, why can’t she just be young and--silly?”

In the end, for all her gallant efforts, she was defeated. Maude got the conversation where she wanted it, and she and Mr. Rhodes talked gravely about charters.

Miss Carter left them on the veranda, and went into the kitchen to wash the dishes. She wished that there were twice as many. She wished that there were enough dishes to keep her busy all night long, so that she needn’t go to bed and lie there in the dark.

She had failed--she knew it. Mr. Rhodes was very courteous and kindly to Maude, but nothing more. All her youth and loveliness were wasted on him. She was trying so desperately hard to please him, and she couldn’t!

“Oh, it’s so cruel!” cried Miss Carter to herself, alone in the kitchen. “Never mind, my dear little Maude! I’ll sell this house, dear, and we’ll go and live somewhere else, where there are more young people--more life for you. You mustn’t mind--you mustn’t care. Just forget all about him! He’s going away, and we’ll never think about him again--never!”

She heard Maude’s light footstep coming along the hall.

“Auntie,” her niece told her, “Mr. Rhodes is going.”

“Oh, is he?” said Miss Carter.

She dried her hands, took off her apron, and came out to the front door.

“Good night, Mr. Rhodes,” she said.

“Good night,” he answered.

She could not see him. It was dark out there. She hoped she would never see him again, never remember his face, never think of the words that he had not spoken.

The front door closed, and he was gone. Miss Carter and Maude stood alone in the dimly lit hall, and for a time neither of them spoke or stirred.

“Well!” said Miss Carter briskly. “Time we were in bed, child.”

“Yes,” replied Maude, just as briskly. “It’s late.”

Then they looked at each other and smiled. With their arms about each other they went up the stairs and through the dark house, with all its orderly, empty rooms; and at Maude’s door they said good night, both of them still smiling. That was their way.

V

It was the stillest afternoon. The sun blazed on high in a blue sky without a single cloud, and all the growing things stood patient and motionless in the fierce heat. Miss Carter was down on her knees, weeding a flower bed. She wore an immense blue sunbonnet and a gay blue and white calico dress. Grubbing down there among her beloved flowers, she somehow had the air of belonging to them--a sort of flower nurse.

“I don’t know,” she said to herself, “whoever decided which were flowers and which were weeds. Why are the dear little dandelions weeds, when the big, staring sunflowers aren’t? I guess it’s the same with a good many other things. People look at children, and then set to work to weed them--to uproot all sorts of brave little dandelion qualities in them, and water and tend the big, showy sunflower traits.”

Her reflections were interrupted by the sound of the telephone ringing inside the house. She rose, clapped her hands vigorously together to get rid of the clean, warm dirt, and went into the hall to answer the summons.

“Auntie!” said Maude’s voice.

“Well, child?” asked Miss Carter.

“Would it bother you if I brought Jack Rhodes home to dinner?”

Miss Carter did not answer for a moment; but when she did speak, it was with all her usual affectionate heartiness.

“Of course it won’t bother me, my dear!” she said. “Any one you want, any time!”

But when she had hung up the receiver, she stood there in the hall with a great weariness and dismay upon her face. All the peace of the hot, still day was shattered--all the peace that she had won through the long, long week. He was coming back!

It seemed to her that she could not bear it. She could not watch Maude, with her shining eyes and her flushed cheeks, looking at the man who returned only a kindly, grown-up smile--the man who did not find Maude’s sweet youth “interesting,” but turned to herself instead. She remembered how he had looked at her, how his voice had sounded, speaking to her; and that look and that tone should have been for Maude.

“I won’t have it!” cried Miss Carter aloud, in an angry, trembling voice.

She felt a tear warm on her cheek, and she dashed it away, leaving a smudge under her eye.

“There I was,” she said, “all dressed up, sitting on the porch as if--well, it won’t be like that this time! It was that dress--I always hated that dress! Oh, Maude, my dear!”

She felt other tears in her eyes, but she ignored them.

“It won’t be like that this time!” she repeated with a grim smile. “You’ll see!”

She went out into the back entry and opened the ice box.

“Plenty good enough!” she said. “It won’t take me half an hour to get it ready. Now I’m going to finish that weeding!”

Certainly Mr. Rhodes wouldn’t bother her. He could come if he liked. There was plenty of good, wholesome food in the house for him to eat; but not one extra touch would she give to the dinner, and not one extra touch to her own appearance. She would have to wash her hands and face and put on a clean dress, but not until after he arrived. First he should see her just as she was.

“As is where is!” said Miss Carter.

So, when she thought it was about time for him to be coming, out she went again, and down on her knees by the flower bed. The garden gate clicked, but she did not raise her head until Maude spoke. Then she rose, dusted off her hands, and turned.

“Good after--” she began.

But who was there? Who was that nice boy standing beside Maude, hat in hand, with such an anxious, appealing smile on his young face?

“This is Mr. Jack Rhodes, auntie,” Maude explained.

“Oh!” said Miss Carter.

Then, recovering her senses, she held out a somewhat grimy hand, and the young man seized it in a hearty grasp. His face was scarlet, but his eyes met hers very honestly.

“I--I--it’s--” he said. “I--I hope--”

Miss Carter beamed upon him, to reassure him, but he turned an imploring glance toward Maude. No help did he get from her, however. Never had Miss Carter seen that serious young woman so confused. She actually frowned at the poor fellow.

“I _told_ you auntie wouldn’t mind!” she said reproachfully.

“Yes, I know you did,” said he; “but such short notice--”

Miss Carter could scarcely believe her eyes; for Maude shrugged her shoulders and turned her head away, and upon her face there was an expression very like a pout. Now at last Maude was being young and silly, and it was all most thoroughly appreciated.

“There’s not much use my telling you anything!” she observed.

“You know it isn’t that,” said Jack.

They had both entirely forgotten Miss Carter. Maude looked coldly at the young man. Then her eyes fell, and a faint smile appeared on her lips.

“Yes, I do know,” she said.

Again she looked at him and he looked at her, and it was the most touching and absurd and beautiful look that Miss Carter had ever seen.

“I’ll have to go in and look after the dinner,” she murmured; but they didn’t even hear her.

She was in too much of a hurry, just then, to trouble her head about the mystery of this second Mr. Rhodes. It was enough for her to know that for Maude he was the right and only Mr. Rhodes; and therefore he must have a dinner such as had never been equaled. She flew about the kitchen like a little whirlwind, and presently enchanting odors began to float out from the oven and from the bubbling saucepans. She rushed down into the cellar, and brought up her best preserves. She rushed out to the ice box, and brought in a box of eggs, a crock of butter, a basket of peaches, and a bottle of cream. As she hurried about, she was inventing a dessert that should have freshly baked sponge cake and peaches and strawberry preserves and cream in it.

She had just begun to whip the cream when she was interrupted.

“Isn’t it a pretty hot afternoon for you to be doing all this?” asked a voice from the doorway.

It was the first and original Mr. Rhodes.

“Good gracious!” cried Miss Carter. “What ever are _you_ doing here?”

Suddenly she was aware that she was very hot and tired and flustered, that her hair was untidy, that she was wearing a rumpled and unbecoming calico dress. She also remembered that she was sternly displeased with Mr. Rhodes, and had intended him to see her like this; but she was still more displeased with him because he did so see her.

“If you’ll go out on the veranda,” she said, “I’ll have the dinner ready in a--”

“I want to help you,” he told her.

“Certainly not!” replied Miss Carter. “Please go out on the veranda!”

But he did not go.

“They’re out there,” he said. “They don’t want me.”

Miss Carter faced him squarely.

“Who is that young man?” she demanded. “I can’t understand--”

“He’s my nephew,” said Mr. Rhodes. “Perhaps I can explain. You see, he’s in Lawrence’s office--doing very well, too; and your niece--well, the first time I saw them together, I knew how the land lay.”

“Nonsense!” said Miss Carter.

“No,” he insisted. “It’s not. It’s the real thing.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“I’m fond of the boy,” he went on; “and--of course I saw what sort of girl she was, but I wanted to see _you_.” He smiled. “It was a pretty mean trick,” he said. “She telephoned to Lawrence’s office and asked for Mr. Rhodes, and I happened to be there. I knew she meant Jack, but I answered; and when she asked if Mr. Rhodes would like to come to dinner, I said yes. We arranged to meet at the station, and”--he smiled again--“there I was! Poor little thing, she made the best of it, but--”

“I see!” said Miss Carter.

She took up the egg beater and began to turn it vigorously, so that the noise of it drowned whatever the man was saying. She didn’t want to hear, anyhow. A strange and unreasonable alarm filled her. If this man wasn’t Maude’s Mr. Rhodes--no, she wouldn’t think about that. She wouldn’t think at all, but would simply turn that egg beater with a prodigious clatter in the earthenware bowl.

A large, strong hand was laid upon the handle of the thing, and the noise ceased abruptly, leaving the kitchen amazingly quiet.

“Miss Carter!” said Mr. Rhodes.

“No!” said she, though she couldn’t have explained just what she meant.

“You know you wrote and asked me to come last Sunday.”

“That,” said Miss Carter, “was due to a misunderstanding.”

“I know it was, but I thought--well, you see, I came again. I--I wanted to see you.”

Miss Carter left the egg beater and faced him squarely. She stood where the golden light of the setting sun fell upon her soft, untidy hair. She stood there, in her unbecoming dress, with her flushed, tired face, and defied Mr. Rhodes. She thought that when he really looked at her, when he realized what the true Miss Carter was like, a great change would come over him.

“I couldn’t go away until I’d seen you,” he said. “And now--”

And now that he had seen her “as is,” of course he would never want to see her again!

“Now it’s harder than ever to go away,” he said. “Now I never want to go away. You don’t know how you look--how--how lovely!”

“Lovely?” she cried.

“Yes!” said he. “You do! I mean it.”

His steady eyes were fixed upon her face, but Miss Carter would not look at him--not she! It was very well for Maude and that young man to stand and stare at each other, but she wasn’t young, and she wasn’t going to be silly.

“If you really do want to help me--” she began briskly.

“That’s what I want more than anything else in the world!” he told her.

Then she did look at him, and she gave a smile which she believed to be a very sensible, noncommittal, grown-up smile; but it didn’t seem like that to him.

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY, 1926 Vol. LXXXVI NUMBER 4

That’s Not Love

SERENA PAGE’S COUNTRY PLACE WAS A HOUSE OF MIRTH, BUT MERRIMENT AND TRAGEDY ARE OFTEN CLOSE TOGETHER

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

A gay world, that summer morning! The sprinkler on the lawn flung a rainbow mist into the air, and left tiny diamonds shining on the grass blades. Everything was astir--the leaves rustling on the trees, gay flowers swaying on their stalks. Curtains fluttered at the open windows, and through the cool, bright house voices came floating, light as butterflies. Serena Page had arisen.

To be sure, she had told her house guests the night before that just because she had to get up was no reason why any one else should be disturbed at the outrageous hour of half past eight; but somehow everybody was disturbed. Somehow her getting up made confusion all through the house; for that was Serena’s especial talent--to create an exciting sort of bustle about her, without herself doing anything at all. Serena! Never was a woman so misnamed!

She came down the stairs, her filmy black negligee floating out behind her, so that she seemed, as always, to be coming in a breeze--an artificial breeze, though, perfumed and enervating, bringing no health or color. She was without make-up at this early hour. Her handsome, haggard face was pale, her eyes were heavy.

She entered the breakfast room, and there was the Moriarty girl, standing by the window.