Part 6

“I can’t see why you think it noble to be merely a politician,” she persisted.

“Am I?” his amused eyes met hers.

“Yes!” she retorted, “a statesman is above his party, before it; he guides, moves, sways it. You like to call yourself part of a machine! You don’t vote against a bill which concerns the party--that’s being a politician!”

“But I can’t betray my party,” he objected, unmoved.

“You should be independent of it.”

“You can’t judge,” he argued, with his teasing laugh, “your coat is of another color.”

“Well, at least it isn’t Joseph’s!” she exclaimed vexed.

“You think I can’t be trusted?” He pursued the subject with a boyish enjoyment of her red cheek and kindling eye.

“I didn’t mean that--of course party men can be honest, but I don’t call it the highest honesty to vote against your own convictions for any party.”

“Yet that is what I did on a bill the other day,” mused Fox, “because the party opposed it.”

“Was it a good bill?”

“Excellent.”

“And you voted against it when you believed in it?” indignantly.

“I’m the guilty creature,” he replied, laughter in his eyes but his face sober.

Rose bit her lip.

“You see it’s a bad moment to make a split in the party; next year is the Presidential campaign,” he continued provokingly.

She could not restrain her indignation. “Aren’t you ashamed to go against your own conscience for that?” she cried; “it isn’t worthy of you.”

“Then you think better things of me?” he argued softly, “you see a chance for my redemption?”

She looked up and met his glance fully but with a sudden feeling of confusion. “It is because you are meant for so much greater things that I speak,” she said finally; “I think you will be a greater man than you are now at last.”

His manner softened at once, with that subtle gentleness which no man knew better how to use. “Your belief should make me so!” he said gravely; “a man might accomplish much to justify your belief in him!”

She averted her face, her lip trembling. Around her the woodland seemed suddenly transfigured, the tumult of the stream, breaking here in little cataracts, scarcely leaped more wildly than her pulses; before them the long road narrowed in a beautiful perspective where trailing branches locked their spectral arms and the evergreen honeysuckle hung on gray rocks.

Fox leaned forward in his saddle, trying to meet her eyes, but seeing only the soft curve of her cheek and throat. “Will you try to believe in me?” he asked, with that new sweetness of tone which took the sting out of his jests.

But she had touched her horse lightly and he shot ahead, trotting down the long road, his rider swaying and bending slightly to avoid an occasional sweeping bough. Fox followed quickly, and overtaking her, the two horses galloped together while their riders relapsed for a while into a significant silence.

“Did you know that my portrait is nearly finished?” Rose said at last; “I think that Robert has painted it out and in again just five times.”

“It isn’t in the least like you,” retorted Fox sharply, “he has made a failure.”

“Oh, no, every one likes it!” protested Rose.

“Not at all,” said Fox; more calmly; “I don’t--neither does Allestree.”

“He has too high a standard for his work,” she replied laughing, “but I hoped you liked it.”

“No picture of you could ever please me,” he retorted significantly; “when I shut my eyes I can still see your face. Allestree’s wits have been wool-gathering; he has made an image, nothing more--he--”

Rose interrupted laughing. “Please don’t tell father; he likes it, and Mrs. Vermilion was so pleased that she and Mr. Vermilion have ordered life-sized portraits of the entire family, _en masse_ and singly; Robert’s fortune is made.”

“The Vermilions are parvenus,” said Fox, with a shrug; “poor Bob!”

“And why poor Bob?” she objected lightly; “it seems to me the greatest good fortune.”

“Does it?” Fox looked down at the creek musingly; “and yet I say, ‘poor Bob.’”

She colored, scarcely conscious of the cause of her blush, unless Fox’s dreamy sympathy for Allestree touched a responsive chord in her own bosom when she remembered how lightly she had thought of him and his unspoken but candid devotion to her; a little thing, a word, a gesture reproached her with ingratitude, for how easily she had passed over all those years and forgotten Allestree in the charm of his cousin’s presence! Then she remembered all the stories she had heard of Fox’s love for Margaret Ward before she married White; steadily as she had tried to forget them, to cease to think of his past where it touched another woman’s life, the stories suddenly took tangible shape and it seemed to her that Margaret was concerned with his existence and she--a mere intruder. Rose, whose heart had been hitherto as untouched as a child’s, shrank with infinite shyness and reluctance from those old dead leaves of passion which had never yet sullied the whiteness of her soul.

Some intuition, perhaps, of her feeling warned him, for he began to tell her stories of his boyhood and gradually spoke of his home, his dead mother, his father who had been a distinguished jurist, and so, little by little, won her from her mood. His gentleness, his kindling speech, the tenderness of his eyes thrilled her again with that wonderful attraction which was part of the man’s genius and which even his enemies found incontrovertible.

He told her of his mother’s gentleness, her profound religion, her meekness compared with his father’s fierce severity, an Old Testament Christian who beat his boys if they did not go to church three times on Sunday and also to meeting on Thursday nights. “And out of that home I grew up a heathen and a publican,” he said with a smile.

Rose looked steadily before her; far off the road dwindled, and she saw Sandy racing a squirrel to a tree. “How can you?” she said at last, in a low voice.

“Confess it?” He leaned forward and touched her hand; “will you convert me?”

She looked up, their eyes met with the shock of sudden feeling. Her lip trembled like a child’s. “I’m not wise enough,” she replied simply; “you would end by laughing at me!”

His face sobered. “Am I so utterly unworthy?” he demanded.

She was silent; the water rushed and murmured beside them, and the still bright atmosphere seemed to palpitate with some great mystery; were all barriers really disappearing and a new sweet understanding emerging from the challenge of their two opposing temperaments? Her heart trembled and beat fast at the thought; it was so wild, so improbable, so dangerously sweet. Then she made one great effort to master her emotions, to be herself. She schooled herself to meet his eyes again, with that new subtle sweetness of expression in them, that delicate understanding of her mood which frightened her!

“Who am I that I should judge?” she said tremulously, with a charming smile, full of youth, simplicity, unconscious confession.

Something in the very girlishness and purity of her face, and her unguarded mood smote Fox with sudden humility; he felt himself the veriest worldling and sinner compared with her. What right had he to thrust his life into hers? His hand closed over hers with unconscious force. “Who are you?” he repeated passionately, “my guardian angel.”

Rose smiled; there were tears in her eyes but his emotion had the effect of crystallizing hers, she understood her own heart at last, and with a woman’s intuition began to hide it; she withdrew her hand gently and the horses went on.

Neither spoke; both had been deeply moved and there was a new happiness in mere companionship. It was one of those rare moments, in the higher relations between man and woman, when a new situation emerges from the old, a more beautiful understanding is established, and the exquisite gentleness of his mood was a revelation to her of a phase of his character which she had only dimly perceived.

The road had left the creek now and following the rising ground lay through a growth of stunted cedars; the stillness was broken suddenly by the full sweet note of a robin.

Rose turned with kindling eyes. “Hark!” she exclaimed softly; “doesn’t that make you think of apple-blossoms? There must be periwinkles somewhere!”

The spell was broken and he smiled, turning to look back for the singer. At the same moment Sandy stopped and pricked his ears.

There was a full sound in the air, a throbbing and buzz of some machine and a big motor-car swung suddenly around the curve and bore down upon them. The road was narrow and both riders had to turn out on to the short turf beside the cedars. The car came on, and then abruptly slackening its speed it stopped a few yards beyond them and some one called to them.

Rose looked back startled and met Margaret’s eyes. Mrs. White was leaning on the door of the car and beckoning to them, her great crimson hat flaming against the dark background. Meanwhile Louis Berkman had slipped down from the farther side and came up to Rose smiling, hat in hand.

“I feel myself as fortunate as Balaam’s ass,” he said gayly, “since I, too, have met an angel in the way!”

“Never mind, Rose,” interposed Margaret laughing; “Louis is a poet and he’s had a terrible experience, he isn’t quite himself!”

“I don’t in the least mind being called an angel; I rather like it,” Rose retorted with amusement; “it is only a little startling. What has happened, Mr. Berkman?”

“Nothing of the least importance,” he answered, a trifle stiffly; “only Mrs. White is laughing at me.”

Margaret still leaned on the door of the motor-car, her face as white as paper against her flame-colored hat, but her laugh was light and careless; the fierce pain tugging at her heart demanded a mask and she wore it gayly and well. “He went to the White House last night,” she exclaimed maliciously.

“What new form of insanity overtook you, Berkman?” asked Fox; “went to a crush?--and it wasn’t compulsory either!”

“Oh, I’ve repented,” Berkman retorted, with a harsh laugh; “I’ll never be taken alive again!”

“What happened?” Rose asked, laughing softly, her hand on her saddle and the reins hanging loose while the horse cropped the dry turf and dead leaves.

Margaret’s laugh interrupted again. “Let me tell them, Louis,” she said.

Berkman shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of assent, coloring a little in spite of himself.

“He got an invitation without the cabalistic sign,” Margaret began, her eyes dancing, “and, in the ignorance of his soul, he went. He was an hour and a half getting in,--you know how they come--two and two--like the couples that left the ark. They had to keep on the carpet; he says one of the ushers kept shouting: ‘move on--keep on the carpet, don’t scratch the floors!’ Louis, did you wear hobnails or sabots?”

“I wish I’d worn overshoes!” he retorted disgustedly; “fancy it--I’ve been received at Buckingham Palace and in Berlin and Vienna; it’s the first time I was ever told ‘to keep off the grass!’”

“Your own fault!” laughed Margaret, “you should have come to me. He never got into the Blue Room at all! Tell us what you saw in the East Room, Louis?” she mocked.

“What I saw?” Berkman drew a deep breath of indignation; “a damned lot of goats like myself; the sheep were figuratively roped off in sacred precincts--I saw you going to supper.”

“Served you right!” laughed Fox; “no sane person goes without the open sesame--unless forced to. What will happen when your personality is revealed? You can trust Margaret for that. You’ll be invited to lunch.”

“Sha’n’t go!” said Berkman angrily.

“Hoity-toity! you’ll have to!” cried Margaret teasingly, “it’s in the nature of a police summons, you know!”

“I’ll get out of jurisdiction! I’ll go hang myself,” Berkman retorted, with a reluctant laugh; and then to Rose: “I’ve just seen your portrait, Miss Temple, and it seems Allestree has established his fame; it is beautiful, as it should be.”

“I’m so glad you like it,” she replied; “Mr. Fox has just been abusing it.”

“He’s a notorious unbeliever!” said Berkman; “don’t mind him; it’s inspired. Mrs. Vermilion hopes to look like it!”

“With the immortal bonnet?” said Fox laughing, but with a glance which perceived every detail of Rose’s beautiful young face and figure radiant in the sunshine.

Margaret saw it; a shudder of perception passed over her and she drew back into her corner of the motor-car with a little sigh of agony, dragged from her very heart, but happily unnoticed. Her whole being rebelled against fate, against submission, against loss!

Berkman was still laughing, uncovered, at Rose’s bridle, and Fox sat listening, idly amused. The clear atmosphere cut every detail out,--the low growth of cedars, the sweeping slope of the dun colored hill behind it, the dark ribbon of woods in the hollow where the creek flowed unseen, the long vista of the road which seemed to meet the sky.

Margaret called to them. “Good-bye,” she said, “I’m engaged to receive the _canaille_--as Madame de Caillou calls it--at five. Come, Louis, or else we’ll send you to the East Room again.”

“The gods forbid!” he exclaimed, and ran to the motor amid more gay laughter.

A moment later Margaret’s white face smiled at them as she was whirled away.

IX

MARGARET leaned over the glass show-counter in Daddy Lerwick’s curiosity-shop and looked down at the pathetic medley within.

Her figure, in its usual elaborate elegance, was in sharp contrast to the dingy surroundings. The fine camel’s-hair shawls hung up behind her, the old velvet curtain with its tapestry border, the moth-eaten furs, the tarnished Mexican sombrero, the ancient horse-pistols, the innumerable curious articles which heaped every corner of the room, down to the chintz curtain, screening the rear end of the shop in a weak-minded and fluttering way, formed a patchwork background.

In the case was an ivory fan of antique workmanship which had drifted here at last, carrying with it a history which might frame many a tale, and with it a tortoise-shell comb, with a top eight inches high, some gold link cuff buttons, a string of pearls that had clasped the throat of a beauty in 1776, but lay now, pale and lustreless and forgotten, the price, perhaps, of a week’s lodging or of a grave, God knows!

But Margaret was interested in a bracelet set with topaz, still beautiful, still radiant, still warm with a life’s history. She passed the stones to and fro between her slender fingers, pricing them with careless indifference. The romance and the sorrow of it would have touched Rose Temple and sent her shuddering from the purchase. To Margaret they signified nothing but jewels and the value of jewels, for her life of selfish ease, of social prominence, her endless quest for pleasure, had nearly atrophied those finer and more tender emotions of sympathy and love for her fellow creatures.

Daddy Lerwick himself waited on her. He was a short, thickset man with the face of an underdone pudding, his gray whiskers attached like wings below the ears. His small dull eyes seemed to observe little, but he was notorious for driving a shrewd bargain and nothing really escaped him.

“The stones are good stones,” he commented, clasping his fat creased hands on the case in an attitude which displayed the solitaire on his little finger, “and the price very low, madam.”

Margaret laughed, her eyes haggard again. “You get them second-hand,” she observed carelessly; “who brought these?”

He looked at her without surprise and unclasped his hands. “I have the name,” he said; “the law requires that we take the name, but I don’t think they ever give the right one, and we don’t tell it--usually. It was a young girl, madam, quite a young girl.”

“Never mind!” Margaret dropped the chain, her mood changing. “I really didn’t want to know,” she said with a shrug, “why should I? I don’t know why I asked. I’ll take the gold cigarette-case, if you can get the monogram off, and the tea-pot. Bring them over and I’ll send the check.”

The man bowed and rubbed his hands. He knew Margaret very well and profited largely by her careless and profuse use of money. Knowing the world too, as he did, and the people in it, he thought her more wretched than the girl who had traded the bracelet, or the owner of the gold cigarette-case who, he happened to know, had since shot himself and now lay in an unmarked grave. Daddy Lerwick, indeed, knew more than was good for him but, perhaps, not more than many others who stand thus at the gateway between the upper stratum of gilded pleasure and the lower stratum of sordid misery, and receive the tolls!

Meanwhile, unconscious of his eyes and certainly proudly disdainful of his thoughts, the society beauty, the Cabinet minister’s wife, trailed through the dingy shop and passed out by the side door, which Lerwick opened for her, to the stairs of Allestree’s studio. As she ascended, the cloud which had rested on her face slightly cleared and her expression grew more decisive; the desolate misery of her heart had taken a more concrete form, she had arrived at last at a resolution. She had reached a point where she must resist or die. Her bruised heart throbbed with continuous pain and she was proudly aware that she was losing all--losing it, too, without an apparent struggle. She, Margaret, who had always borne herself proudly and defiantly to the world, was she to be a mendicant asking the alms of love and asking it in vain?

She swept on, crossed the landing under Aunt Hannah’s accustomed window, and thrusting aside the portière entered upon a tableau of the artist and his two new clients, Mrs. and Miss Vermilion, and her enemy, Mrs. Wingfield. The two older women stout, tightly laced, gorgeously over-dressed, the younger, slender and well done by the best French art and with that indescribable air of disdain which, commonly assumed by the parvenu to be the sign manual of birth and breeding, might be called the bar sinister of society. At the sight of Margaret, however, she unbent with an alacrity which was as amazing as it was sudden.

“Dear Mrs. White,” she chirped, “do come and advise me; mamma wants me painted, and really I can’t choose a pose! I saw a picture of the Duchess of Leinster which was lovely, but Mr. Allestree says he never copies even attitudes! Isn’t it confusing?”

Margaret shrugged one shoulder and held out two fingers to the elder women. “Try Aphrodite rising from the sea,” she suggested with a provoking drawl, “I dare say Bobby can do waves, he’s admirable on flesh tints.”

The girl colored furiously and bit her lip. It was impossible to know where to meet Mrs. White, she reflected, without daring to provoke another catastrophe by retaliation.

But Mrs. Wingfield had felt the sting of Margaret’s rudeness too often. She moved to the door with the rustle of silk draperies. “I hear Mr. Fox is to marry Miss Temple,” she said pointedly, looking Margaret full in the face.

“And I heard that Mr. Wingfield was to get the mission to Brazil,” retorted Margaret unmoved.

Mrs. Wingfield’s cheek crimsoned and the feathers on her bonnet trembled. “Nothing of the sort! You don’t mean to tell me you heard that?”

Margaret shrugged her shoulders again. “One hears everything, you know!” she said, with a dangerous smile.

Mrs. Wingfield breathed hard and opened her lips, but Mrs. Vermilion was a wiser if a duller woman; she laid a restraining hand on her arm and propelled her gently but firmly toward the exit.

“You’re coming to my ball next week, Mrs. White?” she ventured with a propitiating smile.

“Oh, is it next week?” drawled Margaret, with elevated brows, “I never know. Little Miss English keeps my books; if she didn’t I should go to the wrong place every night and forget the White House.”

“I thought your memory more accommodating,” Mrs. Wingfield retaliated pointedly; “I remember when you forgot to come to my dinner after you’d accepted.”

Margaret laughed. “Did I?” she said, “I’m evidently a sinner. Tell Mr. Wingfield that I heard who wrote in those corrections in that paragraph of the message--but I really can’t tell.”

Mrs. Wingfield turned away with a red cheek.

“Margaret!” remonstrated Allestree sharply, as the three women withdrew, “how can you? Good Lord, talk about the brutality of men! Women are Malays and North American Indians--you have no mercy! I’m blushing all over now at the thought of it!”

She laughed, her short, even white teeth set close together, her eyes sparkling. “Wasn’t I horrid?” she said, “I haven’t any manners and they hate me.”

“I should think they would!” he replied warmly, “Margaret, why do you do such things? It isn’t like you, it isn’t--”

“Well bred!” she concluded dryly, “I know it. The other night, too, I did something that horrified Wicklow. We were dining at Mrs. O’Neal’s; I knelt, and kissed the cardinal’s ring. Wicklow was wild; he seemed to have an A. P. A. nightmare at once. It was all in the New York papers yesterday,” Margaret laughed again, resting her arms on the back of the carved chair where Rose had sat.

Allestree laid down his brushes; he had been working on a sketch of Margaret herself, and, lighting a cigarette, he passed his case to her. She took one mechanically and lit it at his. As the spark flamed up between them, he caught the hollowness of her eyes, the startling pallor of her face.

“What in the world is it, Margaret?” he asked sharply; “you’re ill.”

She turned and looked over her shoulder into the mirror. “Do I look so?” Something she saw in her own image, in the deeply shadowed eyes, the sharpened curve of the cheeks startled her. “What a fright I grow to be! No wonder that Vermilion girl stared. What an Aphrodite she’d make--in French corsets and a trail!” Margaret laughed silently.

Then catching a look on Allestree’s face which she read too easily. “Were you born proper, Bobby?” she said, knocking the ashes from her cigarette, “or did you achieve it, or was it thrust upon you?”

“I can’t paint you in this mood, Margaret,” he said dryly, “you wouldn’t look like yourself; you’d remind me of a malicious elf.”

She leaned her elbow on the chair back again, resting her chin in the hollow of her hand. “There!” she said, “I told William Fox that you’d make me the imp to Rose’s angel.”

“I’d like to make you what you are, a fascinating, wilful woman with no heart at all!” he retorted.

“No heart!” she laughed, tossing her cigarette away; “that’s true, Bobby, I’ve no heart!”