Part 8

It was very late, but sleep was impossible, and picking up his hat and stick he whistled to Sandy and the two went out into the almost deserted streets. The dog leaped about him with quick, joyous barks, rejoicing in the unexpected outing, and Fox turned his face northward, walking steadily along the brilliantly lighted and strangely quiet avenue which led him through the heart of the northwest section and up on the hill. The tumult of his mind found relief in the physical exercise and the fresh cold air of an early April night.

In spite of that central egotism of his, which was capable of much when unkindly stirred, Fox believed that he possessed strong convictions on the nicer points of honor. If he had drifted often to White’s house and been much in Margaret’s society it was with no intention of offending against his host. His indolence, his carelessness of what was mere gossip and tittle-tattle, had made him indifferent to the conclusions of others, but he was not unaware of the talk and the surmises of his enemies; he was not unaware that Margaret stood on delicate ground and that, if she separated from White, there would be a wild burst of excited comment--the comment which costs a woman her good name. Such being the case she had suddenly thrown herself upon his sympathy, she had torn away the thin veil of conventionality which had saved them, and it was for him to desert her or to defend her when the supreme moment came.

That moment would involve not only his own happiness but--he paused in his thoughts with a shock of feeling which flooded his consciousness with a lucidity, an insight, which appalled him. Was he mistaken, or did it also involve the happiness of the young and innocent girl whom he loved? At the thought of Rose his heart sank; he felt instinctively her abhorrence, her complete lack of understanding of his peculiar situation. To Rose’s mind, doubtless, he would appear in the likeness of Mephistopheles!

Good God, what would she think of him? he thought; but yesterday he had held her hand, looked into her pure, young eyes, almost spoken the final words which would have laid bare his very soul--and now! He seemed to feel the heated, perfumed atmosphere, the pressure of Margaret’s fingers on his arm, her wild, sweet smile when she proclaimed her love for him without shame--how vividly he saw it! And her absolute belief in his unchanged love for her! Infatuation, madness, self-deception, it might be all these and more, but she was a woman--and she had flung herself upon his mercy!

As yet that other aspect of the affair, the blighting of his public career which such a scandal might in a measure effect, had not thrust itself upon him; his only thought was for Rose. In that hour he learned how profoundly he loved her; it was part of his nature that the very denial of a gift increased his desire to obtain it.

He walked long and far; the night was lightly clouded; but once the moon broke through a rift and flooded the upper sky with light. As he turned on the heights the city lay at his feet, dark and slumbering save for the lighted streets. A policeman tramping past glanced keenly at him. The air had a crispness that was not wintry, and once or twice the sweetness of hyacinths reached him from some flower-studded lawn. Sandy trailed at his heels, faithful but anxious; the way was new and the hour strange.

They walked on; it was toward morning when the man and the dog returned and, when they entered his rooms again, Fox’s face was white, his eyes and mouth were haggard, with the look of a man who has passed through a great crisis with much agony of soul. For he had found but one solution, and that sealed his lips.

If his careless preference for her, for her gayety and her wit, if his thoughtless seeking of her society, if the coupling of his name with hers, had led her to this breaking of her life, then there was no question, there could be no question--he thrust the thought deep down out of sight but it remained there, coiled like the serpent, ready to strike at the heart of his happiness.

XII

IT was ten o’clock in the morning, and Rose was clipping the dead leaves from her flowers in the bow-window of the library, while Judge Temple still read the morning paper in his great high-backed chair; a shaft of sunlight stealing through the open carving touched his scanty white hair and showed the crumpled lines of the blue veins on his temples. He was an old man; he had married late in life and Rose, the youngest born and only survivor of five children, was proportionately dear to him. There was a warm sympathy between them and a companionship beautiful to see.

“There’s some trouble in the Cabinet,” he observed, as he turned his paper; “there are hints here about Wicklow White.”

Rose looked thoughtful but continued to arrange her flowers. “Margaret seems very unhappy and very gay, as usual,” she remarked softly.

“Too gay, my dear,” the judge commented; “old-fashioned fogies like myself get easily shocked. Never go to her dressmaker!”

Rose laughed, her scissors sparkling in the sun. “Why, father, people rave about her and copy her everywhere.”

“Let them,” said the judge dryly, “let them--but not my daughter! Rose, I’d--I’d whip you!”

“You never did that in your life,” she smiled, “I’m almost tempted to try it and see.”

“Better not,” he retorted grimly, taking off his spectacles and putting them into his pocket; “you’d get a lesson!”

“Poor Margaret!” Rose colored a little; she had caught the glance which Margaret had bestowed on her and Fox.

“Poor fiddlesticks!” replied the judge, rising and folding his paper; “she’s made her bed, child, and she must lie on it; that’s the law of life; we reap as we sow.”

Rose looked across at him affectionately, but she was wondering what he thought of William Fox; she had never dared to ask. “It’s a hard law, father,” she said gently, “we all want to be happy.”

“You will be--just in proportion to your right to be,” he retorted calmly; “it’s a matter of the heart anyway, Rose, and not of external matters.”

“I suppose so,” she replied, with a slight sigh; “but one would like to have externals and internals agree, don’t you think?”

The old man laughed pleasantly. “Most of us would,” he admitted, “but we never have our way in this world, not in my observation.”

As he spoke there was a stir in the hall, and a young girl appeared at the drawing-room door.

“It’s Gertrude English,” Rose said; “don’t go yet, father, I’ll take her away.”

But it appeared that the judge had to go to court, and he went out, patting little Miss English on the shoulder as he passed. “We children grow,” he said laughing.

“I wish I’d grown more,” she retorted ruefully; “everybody calls me ‘a little thing,’ and I’m not, really, I’m five feet four.”

“Napoleon was small,” remarked the judge teasingly, “and William Third and Louis Fourteenth.”

“I know what you think of two of those!” objected Gertrude; “we remember our history lessons here, don’t we, Rose?”

“Well--but when a rogue’s famous!” said the judge, and went out smiling at his own jest.

Miss English walked over to the window and watched Rose water her plants and turn them religiously to the sun.

“Take off your hat, Gertrude,” she said pleasantly; “you really look tired; can’t you stay awhile?”

Gertrude shook her head. “No,” she said firmly; “I’ve got about a million notes to write for Margaret and the lunch cards to get ready for to-morrow; to-night she dines the President. I’m tired of it; I wish I could make money cracking stones!”

“Poor Gerty!” Rose looked at her with gentle concern; “you’re very pale, you look as if you hadn’t slept.”

“I haven’t,” said Miss English flatly, “not a wink.”

“I hope Margaret doesn’t make you work late,” Rose murmured, beginning to search again for dead leaves.

“Margaret?” the little secretary sat down and leaned her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands; “Rose, I’m so sorry for her!”

“She seems gay enough,” Rose observed quietly.

“I should say so! I was there very late last night; it was one of her entertainments, and little Ward was sick. I sat with him. You know she treats the children sometimes like playthings, and again--like rats! I was in the nursery watching him and helping the nurse until all the guests went. Then I went down stairs; I wanted to tell Margaret what I’d done, and I went to the ballroom door. She didn’t hear me call to her, and I went back up stairs feeling like a sneak. She was there with Mr. Fox and she was crying dreadfully when I saw her.”

Rose’s scissors clipped sharply and a fresh young twig fell unnoticed to the floor. There was a long pause. Miss English had mechanically taken off her gloves and she was drawing them through her fingers, her face full of honest trouble.

“After awhile she came up stairs,” she continued, “and came into the room where I was--”

“Gertrude,” interrupted Rose suddenly, “ought you to tell me this?”

“Every one will know soon,” said Gertrude dryly; “she came over and looked at the child and said she was glad he was better--he was asleep then and the nurse had gone out of the room for some extra milk. Margaret’s face was white, and her eyes--I never saw her eyes so wonderful. Suddenly she flung her arms around my neck and began to cry, softly so as not to wake the child. She told me--she’s going to get a divorce!”

Rose put aside her scissors and sat down, looking across at Gertrude with a strange expression, but she said nothing.

Miss English sighed, folding her gloves again. “Of course I know how bad it’s been,” she said; “he’s a brute to her sometimes and swears at her before everybody but, well, Rose, don’t you think you’d swear at Margaret if you had to live with her?”

Rose smiled a little, her lips pale. “I don’t know, Gerty,” she said, “I never did--in my life.”

“Didn’t you?” Miss English sighed again; “well,” she said, “when you’re poor, downright, disgustingly poor, you just have to say ‘damn’ once in awhile, if you didn’t you’d kill somebody!”

“But White isn’t poor,” objected Rose, “he’s only vulgar.”

“Well, of course there’s Lily Osborne,” Gertrude shrugged her shoulders; “there won’t be any trouble about the divorce in the State of New York or anywhere else, I fancy! I wonder if she means to go to Omaha.”

“Do you believe it’s really settled?” Rose asked, with a strong feeling of self-abasement; she thought herself a scandal-monger, an unworthy creature, but her heart quaked within her with an unspoken dread, and Miss English’s next remarks drove it home.

“Without doubt,” she said; “I know it is and,”--she colored a little and looked out of the window at the April sunshine on the garden wall--“Rose, do you believe she’ll marry William Fox?” she whispered.

Rose sat regarding her and said nothing. What could she say, poor child? That vividly pictured scene of Margaret weeping and Fox as her comforter was burning deep, and Rose had been brought up by an Old Testament Christian!

“It would be a great pity,” Miss English observed, after a long silence; “it would ruin Mr. Fox--people would say _everything_.”

Rose colored painfully. “People say very cruel things, Gerty,” she said slowly, “and, perhaps, we’re as bad as any just now.”

Gertrude shook her head vigorously, her pleasant round face flushing a little too. “I don’t mean to be,” she said, “of course it’s a great temptation; we secretaries know everything, it’s like turning a dress inside out and finding the lining’s only paper-cambric with a silk facing; it’s all a big sham, we’re on the inside and know! But, goodness, it would ruin Fox, and I know, Rose, I know she’s in love with him.”

Rose looked steadily away; she, too, saw the ivy leaves fluttering gently in the sunshine as the light breeze rippled across them.

Miss English sighed. “Well,” she said, “I don’t care; Margaret’s so unhappy, it seems as if she ought to try over again, only there are the children. I forgot though, Rose, you’re very stiff-necked; I suppose you hate divorces?”

Rose shook her head. “I don’t believe in marriage after divorce,” she said; she was very young and she had rigid standards, like a great many people who have never had to test them in their hearts’ blood.

Gertrude English opened her mild blue eyes. “Don’t you?” she said, “I didn’t, either, until I saw Margaret; then I began to think it was awful to have to live out a mistake; and there’s White too; really he’s had his trials. I don’t know whether it would be wicked or not for her to marry again.”

“It isn’t Scriptural,” said Rose firmly, her face colorless now.

Miss English rose and began to put on her gloves. “Well, there isn’t any marrying or giving in marriage in heaven,” she remarked, “so I suppose most of us have got to do it all here. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t find any rush for a poor girl. It’s amazing to me that the male creatures can’t see the advantages of the habit of economy!” she added, with a good humored laugh.

“I wish you’d stay to lunch,” said Rose mechanically; she had not Gerty’s keen sense of humor, and her heart felt like lead in her bosom.

“I can’t!” the little secretary went to the mirror and adjusted her hat-pins; “I’ve got to go and write notes. Margaret has no head, and she’s probably in bed now. You know she really has heart trouble; I shouldn’t wonder if she died in one of her fandangoes.”

“And she’s talking of divorce and marriage!” Rose looked gravely into the other girl’s troubled face.

“Of course; isn’t it like her?” Miss English moved slowly to the door, buttoning her gloves, and Rose followed.

In the hall she turned. “After all, who’s to blame?” she said stoutly; “Margaret’s awfully unhappy, and Fox--goodness, he used to almost live there, he was there to everything until that row with White over the Cabinet business. I’d like to know what you think of him, Miss Moralist, a man who flirts with a married woman!”

“I try not to think of it,” Rose replied quietly.

Miss English had opened the door and the sunlight streamed in. “Oh, good gracious!” she exclaimed; “why, Rose, what’s the matter? You’re as white as a sheet!”

“I’ve--I’ve got a headache,” Rose faltered, the fib lodging in her throat, for she had been reared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“And I’ve been teasing you! I’m a brute. Go and lie down, you poor dear!” Gertrude kissed her affectionately and penitently; “try phospho-caffein; your hands are like ice!”

“Oh, it’s nothing--only a headache,” fibbed Rose, more easily the second time; she realized it with a shudder. The way of the transgressor is not always hard, the road is wide, also it is agreeable--but she had not discovered that yet!

“I’ll stop by to-night and inquire,” said Gertrude.

But Rose shivered at the thought of continued deception. “Oh, I’ll be all right,” she called after her visitor, then she closed the door and laid her head against it; everything turned dark for a minute and swam around her.

She went back to the library and picking up her scissors put them away, and quite mechanically arranged her father’s chair and his footrest and looked up the book he would want in the evening. She tried not to let her mind dwell too much on what Miss English had told her, but her lips tightened and her eyes darkened with controlled emotion. She had led, hitherto, a happy, sheltered life, she had never suffered much, and her capacity for suffering was very great. Her character, which was just emerging from the malleable sweetness of girlhood, had begun to feel the impress of her father’s stern morality. With Rose right was right, and wrong was wrong; there was no middle course. She had an exalted conception of duty and the sacrifices that one should be ready to make for a principle. She had never tested any of these admirable theories in the fiery furnace of temptation, but she had a shadowy notion that if she had lived in the age of Nero she should have offered her body to be burned to save her soul alive. It is unfortunate for some of the modern Christian martyrs that they did not live at that time; a diet of prepared breakfast foods and French entrées is not conducive to the production of heroes.

Rose had been so happy the day before, the birth of a new and beautiful emotion had so transfigured her young soul, that this sudden and dreadful revelation was in the nature of a thunderbolt from a clear sky; her heart shrivelled and shrank within her. Yet to question Fox, to doubt him was, to her simple, loyal nature a hideous possibility.

If this were true, if he had all the while loved a married woman--

Rose knelt down by her father’s vacant chair and laid her head on her arms. She tried to thrust the thought away, but it haunted her and that verse--she had been brought up on the Scriptures, she knew them by heart, their denunciations had frightened her when she was a little girl, they chilled her still--_For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all._ She shuddered; what should she do? O God, would it be very hard? She caught herself pleading; was she begging off? The stern conscience in her made her start up from her knees with a sob.

XIII

IT fell out--most unseasonably for the Vermilions--that Mrs. O’Neal had planned her annual reception for the same night as their fancy-ball. All the world was sure to go to Mrs. O’Neal’s sooner or later, and it broke up the mask-ball at an unusual hour, just before the champagne began to take effect, which was, on the whole, rather a mercy to the Vermilions, though they knew it not and suffered some keen pangs of anger and jealousy. Mrs. O’Neal had, of course, done it on purpose, Cynthia Vermilion said, and, perhaps she had! Mrs. O’Neal was a thoroughly worldly old person who would have driven her social chariot over a hundred Vermilions, figuratively speaking, and felt a grim pleasure in doing it. The world is not precisely the place for the cultivation of the more tender feelings, or an undue love for your neighbor, and Martha O’Neal had long since forgotten that there might be really serious reasons for considering any one but herself.

So she gave her famous annual ball on that beautiful spring evening when the scent of the lilacs in her garden came in through the open windows. She had the house decorated with Easter lilies--it was Eastertide--and she had made her offering from the front pew in the most fashionable church in town, wearing her new bonnet while her head vibrated sufficiently to make the roses dance in weird mockery on its brim. She had remembered to mention, too, that she gave a thousand dollars a year to the church, because it is quite useless to hide your light under a bushel. Having done all these things she gave her ball on the Vermilions’ evening, and it was a very beautiful, a very select and a very famous affair, made more famous in the end by an incident which she had not foreseen.

Those poor Vermilions! They had spent many thousands, and yet people hurried away or came late, only to eat the supper; old Vermilion was a magnificent provider. Of course there were some who never went to the Vermilion’s at all, but always to Mrs. O’Neal’s; among these were the Temples and old Mrs. Allestree, who made a point to be present at Martha’s house, for she and Martha had been schoolmates and were still good friends, although nothing could have been more amusing than the contrast; the one in her old-fashioned dress with her placid face and her kindly smile, and the other, tight-laced, over-burdened with satin and jewels, her old head wagging and quivering under its high white pompadour and its jewelled _aigrette_.

Her rooms were thronged; the dark polished floors, the old mahogany furniture, the glittering mirrors, the bewildering array of candles, tall candles and short candles, huge seven-armed silver candelabra, short, stout silver candlesticks, the masses of white lilies, the sweet, heavy odor of them; what a beautiful, dazzling, fanciful scene it was, when the lovely women in their rich dresses began to throng every room and corridor and even lingered laughing and talking on the wide stairs and in the gallery above which commanded the lower hall and the ballroom, where the fluted pillars were festooned with vines and crowned with capitals of roses. The old, old woman, with her white head and her false teeth and her gorgeous gown, receiving her guests, chattering and smiling and proud; truly the ruling passion is strong in death. She stood there nobly, heroically, cheerfully, though her tight satin shoes pinched her poor, old feet, and the draughts from the door sent a shiver of rheumatic pain across her poor, old, bare, shrivelled shoulders; and the wide expanse of her ample neck and bosom, clad in jewels and the imagination, felt the breeze too.

After awhile the guests from the fancy-ball began to drift in, a few at first in costume, and then more and more, until the ballroom took on the look of a harlequin show, and there was much gay laughter and criticism of each new arrival from those who had disdained the Vermilion ball or who had never been asked.

Mrs. Osborne came, beautiful and striking, dressed as an Eastern sorceress, and almost at once she had a circle around her in the corner of the conservatory, and was telling fortunes and interpreting dreams with all the arts of a charlatan and the charm of a lovely woman. The crimson tunic, the dark blue petticoat worked with gold, the shapely ankles with broad gold bracelets, the glittering scarfs which draped her shoulders and revealed her white arms, the dull gold band on her forehead, binding back the masses of glossy auburn hair, all combined to make her a charming and seductive picture. She told fortunes well; it is an alluring art, it shows pretty hands and delicate wrists, and the downward sweep of soft eyelashes, the arch of a white brow, besides that swift glance upward from bewilderingly lovely eyes--

The women looked at her over their shoulders and stiffened, while the men all had their fortunes told and found the lines on their palms of sudden and absorbing interest. One or two elderly women, the mothers of grown boys and girls, were seized with a sudden desire to go home, but it was no easy matter because the elderly gentlemen belonging to them, and also the fathers of grown boys and girls, found that corner too attractive to leave.