 Chapter 20 Claude found it a vivid and curious contrast to die in that evening with the darlings and their sophisticated friends. The friends were even more sophisticated than Claude himself since they had more money, had traveled more, and in general lived in a broader world. But Claude knew that it was in him to reach their standards and to go beyond them. All he needed was the opportunity, and opportunity to a handsome young American of good antecedents like himself is rarely wanting. He never took in that fact so clearly as on this night. He was glad that he had not been placed next to Elsie at table, for the reason that he felt some treachery to Rosie in his being there at all. Conversely, in the light of false judgment, he felt some treachery to Elsie that he should come to her with Rosie's kisses on his lips. Not that he owed her any explanations, from one point of view. Considering the broad latitude of approach and withdrawal allowed to American young people, and the possibility of playing fast and loose with some amount of mutual comprehension, he owed her no explanations whatever. But the fact remained that she was expressing a measure of willingness to be Juliet, to his Romeo, in braving the mutant antagonism that existed between their respective families. As far as that went, he knew he was unwelcome to the darlings. But he knew, too, that Elsie's favour carried over her parents' heads the point of his coming and going. It was conceivable that she might carry over their heads a point more important still, if he were to urge her. To the Claude who was, it seemed lamentable that he couldn't urge her. But to the Claude who might be were higher things than the gratification of fastidious social tastes, and for the moment that Claude had some hope of the Ascendant. It was that Claude who spoke when, after dinner, the men had rejoined the ladies. Your mother doesn't like my coming here. Elsie threw him one of her frank flying glances. Well, she's asked you, hasn't she? He smiled. She only asked me the last minute. I can see some other fellow must have dropped out. You can see it because it's a dinner-party of elderly people to which you naturally wouldn't be invited unless there had been the place to fill. That constantly happens when people entertain as much as we do. But it isn't a slight to be asked to come to the rescue. It's a compliment. You never ask people to do that unless you cut them as real friends. He insisted on his point. I don't suppose it was her idea. You mean it was mine. But even if it was, it comes to the same thing. She asked you. She didn't have done it. He still insisted. She did, but she didn't want to. He added, lowering his voice significantly, and she was right. He forced himself to return her gaze which rested on him with unabashed inquiry. Everything about her was unabashed. She was free from the conventional manners of maidendom, not as one who's been emancipated from them, but as one who has never had them. She might have belonged to a generation that had outgrown the need for them, as perhaps she did. Shinus, Coyness, and emphasized reserve formed no part of her equipment. But on the other hand she was clear. Clear with a kind of crystalline clearness, in eyes, in complexion, and in the staccato quality of her voice. She's right. How? Right, because I'm important to come. I'm not free to come. Do you mean—? She paused, not because she was embarrassed, but only to find the right words. She kept her eyes on his with a candour he could do nothing but reciprocate. Do you mean that you're bound elsewhere? He nodded. That's it. Oh! She withdrew her eyes at last, letting her gaze wander vaguely over the music room about which the other guests were seated. They were lined on gilded satees against the white French-paneled walls, while a young man played Chopin's ballade in a flat on a grand piano in the far corner. Not being in the music room itself, but in the large square hall outside, the two young people could talk in low tones without disturbing the company. If she portrayed emotion, it was only in the nervousness with which she tapped her closed fan against the palm of her left hand. Her eyes came back to his face. I'm glad you've told me," he took a virtuous tone. I think those things ought to be open and above board. Oh! of course! The wonder is that I shouldn't have heard it. One generally does. Oh! well, you wouldn't, in this case. Isn't it anybody about here? It's someone about here, but not anyone you would have heard of. She lives in our village. She's sort of a—well, of a market gardener. How interesting! And you're in love with her? But because of what she saw in his face she went on quickly. No, I won't ask you that. Don't answer. Of course you're in love with her. I think it splendid, a man with your— chances was the word that suggested itself, but she made it future. A man with your future to fall in love with a girl like that? There was a bright glow in her face to which he tried to respond. He said that which, according to his implications, he could not have said to any other girl in the world, but could say to her because of her 20th century freedom from the artificial. Now you see why I shouldn't come. She gave a little assenting nod. Yes, perhaps you'd better not, for a while. Not quite so often, at any rate. By and by, I daresay, we should get everything on another—another basis, and then— She rose, so that he followed her example. But he shook his head. And oh, we shan't. There won't be any more other basis. She took this with her usual sincerity. Well, perhaps not. I don't suppose we can really tell yet. We must just see. When he stops, she added, with scarcely a change of tone, and she moved away from him, to go over and talk to Mrs. Boyce. She likes attentions from young men. What Claude chiefly retained of his brief conversation was the approval of the words, I think it splendid. He thought it splendid himself. He felt positive now that if he had pressed his suit, if he had been free to press it, he might one day have been treading this polished floor, not as guest, but as master. There were no difficulties in the way that couldn't easily be overcome, if he and Elsie had been of a mind to do it. And she would have a good fifty thousand a year. Yes, it was splendid. There was no other word for it. He was giving up this brilliant future for the sake of little Rosie Fay, and counting the world well lost. The sense of self-approval was so strong in him, that as he travelled homeward, he felt the great moment to have come. He must keep his word. He must be a gentleman. He was flattered by the glimpse he had got of Elsie Darling's heart, and yet the fact that she might have come to love him acted on him as an incentive, rather than the contrary, to carrying out his plans. She would see him in a finer, nobler light. As long as she lived, and even when she had married someone else, she would keep her dream of him as the magnificently romantic chap who could love a village maid and be true to her. And he did love a village maid. He knew that now by certain infallible signs. He knew it by the very meagerness of his regret in giving up Elsie Darling and all that the winning of her would have implied. He knew it by the way he thrilled when he thought of Rosie's body trembling against his, as it had trembled that afternoon. He knew it by the wild tingle of his nerves when she shuddered at the name of Thor. That is, he thought she had shuddered, but of course she hadn't. What had she to shudder at? He's brought up against that question every time the unreasoning fear of Thor possessed him. He knew the fear to be unreasoning. However possible it might be to suspect Rosie, and a man was always ready to suspect the woman he loved. To suspect Thor was absurd. Even the matter of Rosie's diary, Thor, was acting clearly. There was an explanation of that cronious which would do him credit. Of that no one who knew Thor could have any question, and at the same time keep his common sense. Claude couldn't deny that he was jealous, but when he came to analyse his passion in that respect he found it nothing but a dread lest his own supineness might allow Rosie to be snatched away from him. He'd been dilly-dallying over what he should have clinched. He'd been afraid of the sacrifice he would be compelled to make without realising, as he realised tonight, that Rosie would be worth it. No later than to-morrow he would buy a licence and a wedding-ring, and if possible, marry her in the evening. Before the fact accomplished, difficulties, and God knew there were a lot of them, would smooth themselves away. As he left the tram-car at the village terminus he was too excited to go home at once, so he passed his own gate and went on towards Thor's. It was not yet late. He could hear Thor's voice reading aloud as the maid admitted him, and could follow the words while he took off his overcoat and silk hat, and gave them carefully on one of the tapestry chairs. He still followed them as he straightened his cravat before the glass, pulled down his white waistcoat, and smoothed his hair. Christ's mission, therefore, Thor read on, was not to relieve poverty, but to do away with it. It was to do away with it, not by abolition, but by evolution. It is clear that to Christ poverty was not a disease, but a symptom—a symptom of a sick body politic. To suppress the symptom without undertaking the cure of the whole body would have been false to the thoroughness of his methods. Court appeared on the threshold. Rosie smiled, Thor looked up. Hello, Claude. Come in. Just wait a minute. Reading via Barts Christ and Poverty. Only a few more lines to the end of the chapter. To the teaching of Christ, Thor continued, belongs the discovery that the causes of poverty are economic only in the second place, a moral in the first. Economic conditions are shifting, changing vitally within the space of a generation. Nothing is permanent but the moral, as nothing is effectual. Thou shalt love the law thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. On these two commandments hangs also the solution of the problems of poverty, seeing that a race that obeys them finds no such problems confronting it. In proportion to the spread of moral obedience these problems tend to disappear, they were never so near to disappearing as now, when the moral sense has become alive to them. Claude smoked a cigar while they sat and talked. It was talk in which he personally took little share, from which he sought to learn whether or not Thor was satisfied with what he'd done. If there was any ariere pensée, he thought he might be detected by looking on. It was a pleasant scene, Lois with her sewing, Thor with his book. The library had that characteristic of American libraries in general, of being the most cheerful room in the house. What I complain of in all this, foresaid tossing the book on the table, is the intermediary suffering. It does no good to the starving of today to know that in another thousand years men will have so have grasped the principles of Christ that want will be abolished. Lois smiled over her sewing. You might as well say that it does no good to the people who have to walk today or travel by trains and motors. To know that in a hundred years the common method of getting about will probably be by flying. This writer lays it out as a principle that there's a great feat human progress, and that to know you's expecting man to get on faster than he has the power to go. I don't expect him to get on faster than he has the power to go. I only want him to go faster than he's going. Haven't you seen others who wanted the same thing, dragging people off their feet, with the result that legs or necks were broken? That's absurd, of course, but between that and quickening the stride there's a difference. Exactly which is what Viobard says. His whole argument is that if you wanted to do away with poverty you must begin at the beginning, and neither in the middle nor at the end. People used to begin at the end when they imagined the difficulty they might temporarily supplying once. Now they're beginning in the middle by looking for social and economic readjustments which won't be effective for more than a few years at a time. To begin at the beginning, as I understand him to say, they must get at themselves with a new point of view and a new line of action toward one another. They must try the Christian method which they never have tried or put up with poverty and other inequalities. It futile to expect to do away with them by the means they're using now, and that, she added in defence of the author she was endeavouring to sum up, seems to me perfectly true, without following the line of argument in which he took no interest. Claude spoke out of his knowledge of his brother. Trouble with Thor as he's in too much of a hurry, but with anything take its own pace. That was so like a paraphrase in Claude's language of Uncle Sim's puristic ditty that Thor winced. Take its own pace and stop still, he said scornfully. And then, Lois resumed tranquilly, you've got to remember that Viobot has a spiritual as well as a historical line of argument. The evolution of the human race isn't merely a matter of following out certain principles. It depends on the degree of its conscious association with divine energy. Isn't that what he says? The closer the association, the faster the progress. Where there's no such association, progress is clogged or stopped. You remember Thor, it's in the chapter, fellow workers with God. I couldn't make it out, for some impatient fellow workers with God. I don't see what that means. Then until you do see—apparently she thought better of what she was about to say and suppressed it. The conversation drifted to cognate subjects while Claude became merely an observer. He wanted to be perfectly convinced that Thor was happy, that Lois was happy he could see. Happiness was apparent in every look and line of her features and every movement of her person. She was like another woman. Although used to seem wistful in her and unfulfilled, had resolved itself into radiant contentment. According to Claude, you could see it with half an eye. She'd gained in authority and looks, while she'd developed a power of holding her own against her husband that would probably do him good. As to Thor, he was less sure. He looked older than one might have expected him to look. There was an expression in his face that was hardly to be explained by marriage and a two-month visit to Europe. Claude was not analytical, but he found himself saying, looks like a chap who's been through something—what? Being through something meant more than the experience incidental to a wedding and a honeymoon. With that thought, torture began to gnaw at Claude's soul again, so that when his brother was called to the telephone to answer a radio, as asking what a little boy should take for a certain pain, he sprang the question on Lois. What do you really think of Thor? You don't suppose he has anything on his mind, do you? No, it's for startled. Do you? I asked first. Well, what made you? Oh, I don't know. Two or three things. I just wondered if you noticed it. Her face clouded. I haven't noticed that he had anything on his mind. I knew already. He told me before we were married that there was something about which he wasn't quite happy. I dare say you know what it is. He took his head. Don't you? Well, neither do I. He may tell me some day until then, but I thought he was better lately, more cheerful. Hasn't he been cheerful? Oh, yes, quite, as a rule. But, of course, I've seen— They were interrupted by Thor's return, after which Claude took his departure. He woke in the morning with a frenzy that astonished himself to put into execution what he had resolved. With his nervous volatility he had half expected to feel less intensely on the subject after having slept on it, but everything that could be called a desire in his nature had focused itself now into the passion to make Rosie his own. That first, on all else afterward. That first. But he could neither see beyond it, nor did he want to see. The excitement he had been tempted to ascribe on the previous evening to his talk with Elsie Darling, and perhaps in some degree to a glass or two of champagne, having become intensified, it was a proof that it was being the real thing. He was sure now that it was not only the real thing, but that it would be lasting. There was no spasmodic breath through his aeolian harp, but the breath and life of his being. He came to this conclusion as he packed a bag that he could send for toward evening, and made a few other preparations for a temporary absence from his father's house. Putting one thing with another, he had reason to feel sure that he and Rosie would be back there together before long, forgiven and received, so that he was relieved of the necessity of taking her farewell. I think it splendid, rang in his heart like a cheer. Anyone would think it splendid who knew what he was going to do and what he was renouncing. It was annoying that on reaching the spot where he took the electric car to go to town, old Jasper Faye should be waiting there. It was still more annoying that among the other intending passengers there should be no one whom Claude knew. To drop into conversation with a friend would have kept Faye at a distance. Just now his appearance, neat, shabby, pathetic, the superior working man in his long-preserved threadbare Sunday clothes, introduced disturbing notes into the swelling hymenial chant to which Claude felt himself to be marching. There were practical reasons, too, why he should have preferred to hold no intercourse with Faye till after he had crossed his Rubicon. He nodded absently, therefore, and, passing to the far end of the little straggling line, prayed that the car would quicken its speed in coming. Through the turn of his eye he could see Faye detach himself from the patient group of watchers and shamble in his direction. What it to be now, Claude said to himself, but he stood his ground. He stood his ground without turning or recognising Faye's approach. He leaned nonchalantly on his stick, looking wearily up the line for rescue, till he heard a nervous cough. The nervous cough was followed by the words, huskily spoken, Mr. Claude. He was obliged to look around, though something about Faye that was at once mild and hostile, truculent and apologetic. He spoke respectfully, and yet with a kind of anger in the gleam of his starry eyes. Mr. Claude, I wish he wouldn't hang round my place any more. He don't do any one any good. Claude was weighing the advantages of evying himself plainly on the spot, when Faye went on, One experience of that kind has been about enough in one year. Claude's heart seemed to stop beating. One experience of what kind? You're all mastermen's together, Faye declared bitterly. I don't trust any of you. You're both your father's sons. Claude cried to himself. Allowed, he said, with no display of emotion. I don't understand you. I don't know what you mean. Faye merely repeated hoarsely. I don't want either of you coming any more. Claude took a tone he considered crafty. Oh, come now, Mr. Faye, even if you don't want me, I shouldn't think you'd object to my brother's thought. Your brother's thought, even nice brother's thought. Why, what's he done? Ask my little girl. No, you needn't ask her. She wouldn't tell you. She won't tell me. All I know is what I've seen. If it hadn't been for the decencies and the people standing by, Claude could have sprung on the old man and clutched his throat. All he could do, however, was to say peacefully, And what have you seen? Faye looked around to ensure himself that no one was with him ear-shot. The car was bearing down on them with a crashing buzz, Said that he was obliged to speak rapidly. I've seen him creeping to my hot-house, where my little girl was at work, Under cover of the night, and I've seen him steal away. When I've looked in after he was gone, she was crying for it to kill herself. What made you wait till he went away? Claude asked fiercely. Why didn't you go in after him and see what they were up to? The old man's face expressed the helplessness of the average American parent In conflict with the child. Oh, she wouldn't let me. She wouldn't have none of my interference. She says she knows what she's about. But I don't know what you're about, Mr. Claude, And so I'm begging you to keep away. No good will come of your actions. I don't trust any masterman that lives. The car had stopped and emptied itself. The people were getting in. Faye climbed the high steps laboriously, Dropping a five-cent piece into a slot as he rounded a little barrier. Claude sprang up after him, dropping in a similar piece of money. It tinkled as it fell, shivered through his nerves, With the excruciating sharpness of a knife-thrust. End of Chapter 20 Claude went on to the office as a matter of routine. But when his father appeared, he begged to be allowed to go home again. I am not well, father, he complained, his pallor bearing out his statement. Masterman's expression was compassionate. He was very gentle with his son, Since the latter had been going so often to the darlings. All right, my boy, do go home. Better drop in on Thor, give you something to put you to rights. But Claude didn't drop in on Thor. He climbed to the hill north of the pond, Taking the direction with which he was more familiar in the loaming. In the morning sunlight he hardly recognized his surroundings, Nor did he know where to look for Rosie at this unusual time of day. He was about to turn into the conservatory in which he was accustomed to find her, When an Italian with beady eyes and a knowing grin, Who was raking a bed that had been prepared for early planting, Pointed to the last hot-house in the row. Claude loathed the man for divining what he wanted, but obeyed him. It was a cucumber-house. That is, where two or three months earlier there had been lettuce, There were now cucumber vines running on lines of twine, And already six feet high. It was like going into a vineyard, But a vineyard closer, denser, and more regular, Than any that ever grew in France. Except for one long, straight aisle, No wider than the shoulders of a man, It was like a solid mass of greenery, Thicker than a jungle, And oppressive from the evenness of its altitude. Claude felt smothered, not only by the heat, But by this compact luxuriance that dwarfed him, And which was climbing, climbing still. It was prodigious. In its way was grotesque. It was like something grown by magic. But a few weeks previous there had been nothing here, But the smooth green pavement of cheerful little plants, That at a distance looked like jade or malachite. Now, all of a sudden, as it were, There was this forest of rank verdure, Sprung with a kind of hideous rapidity, Stifling, overpowering, productive, With a teeming incredible fecundity. Low down near the earth, the full-grown fruit, Green with the faintest tip of gold, Hung heavy, indignant, luscious, Derisively cool to touch and taste In this semi-tropical heat. The gherkin a few inches above it, Defied the eye to detect the swelling and lengthening That were taking place as a man looked on. Tendrils crept and curled and twisted and interlocked From vine to vine, like queer, blind, living things, Feeling after one another. Pale blossoms of the very colour of the sunlight Made the sunlight sunnier, While bees boomed from flower to flower, Bearing the pollen from the males, Shallow, cup-like, richly stamen, To the females growing daintily From the end of the embryo cucumber, As from a pinched, wisened stem. Advancing a few paces into this gigantic vine-ery, Claude found the one main aisle intersected By numerous cross aisles in any of which Rosie might be working. He pushed his way slowly, partly because The warm air headed with pollen made him faint, And partly because this close pressure Of façade-triumphant nature had on his nerves A suggestion of the menacing. On the pathway of soft, dark loam His steps fell noiselessly. When he came upon Rosie, she was buried in the depths Of an almost imperceptible cross aisle And at the end, remote from the centre. As her back was toward him, and she had not heard his approach, He watched her for a minute in silence. His quick eye noticed that she wore a blue-green cotton stuff, With leaf-green belt and collar, That made the living element of her background, And that her movements and attitudes Were of the kind to display the exquisite lines of her body. She was picking delicately the pale little blossoms And letting them flutter to the ground. Her way was strewn with the frail yellow things Already beginning to wither and shrivel, Adding their portion of earth unto earth, To be transmuted to life unto life With the next rotation implanting. Rosie, what are you doing? He expected her to be startled, But he was not prepared for the look of terror With which she turned. He couldn't know the degree to which all her thoughts Were concentrated on him, nor the fears by which each of her Waking minutes was accompanied. She would have been startled if he had come at one of his Customary hours to ward night, But it was as a death in her heart to see him like this In the middle of the forenoon. The emotion was the greater on both sides, Because the long, narrow perspective focused the eyes Of each on the face of the other, With no possibility of misreading. Lord remained where he was. Rosie clung for support to the feeble aid of the nearest vine. She began to speak rapidly, Not because she thought he wanted his question answered, But because he gave her something to say. It was like the effort to keep up by splashing about Before going down. She was picking off the superfluous female flowers, She said, in order that the strength of the plant Might go into the remaining ones, One had to do that, otherwise— He broke in abruptly. Rosie, what are you doing? He broke in abruptly. Rosie, why did you tell me Thor never said anything About you and me being married? Oh, what's he been saying? She clasped her hands on her breast, With a sudden beseeching alarm. It's not a matter of what he's been saying, It's only a matter of what you say, And I want you to tell me why he's paying me for marrying you. He spoke brutally, Not only because his suffering nerves made him brutally inclined, But in the hope of ringing from her some cry of indignation, But she only said, I didn't know he was doing that. But you knew he was going to do something. It seemed useless to poor Rosie to keep anything back now. She could only injure her cause by hedging. I knew he was going to do something, But he didn't tell me what it would be. Why should he do anything at all? What has it to do with him? She rung her hands. Oh, Claude, I don't know. He came to me. He took me. He took me by surprise. I never thought of anything like that. I never dreamt it. Claude drew a bow at a venture. You mean that you never thought of anything like that when he said— He was obliged to wet his lips with his tongue before he could get the words out. When he said he was in love with you. She nodded. I know, Claude, I didn't mean it. I swear to you, I didn't mean it. I knew he'd tell you. I was always afraid of him. But I just thought it then, just for a minute. I couldn't have done it. He had but the dimmest suspicion of what she meant. But he felt it well to say— You could have done it, Rosie, and you would. You're that kind. She took one timid step toward him, clasping her hands more passionately. Oh, Claude, have mercy on me, if you knew what it is to be me. Even if I had done it, it would have been because I loved you, any the less. It would have been for Father, and Mother, and Mat and—and everything. The way in which the words of Renter made him the more cruel. They made him the more cruel because they rent him, too. That doesn't make any difference, Rosie. You would have done it just the same. As it is, you were false to me. Only that once, Claude. And if you want me to have mercy on you, you'll have to tell me everything that happened, the very worst. The worst that happened was then. Then? When? There were so many times. But the other times he didn't say anything at all. He just came. I never dreamt. But if you had dreamt, you would have played another sort of hand, and I wouldn't you. So what if you only knew? If you could only imagine what it is to have nothing at all, to have to live, and fight, and scrimp, and save, and no one to help you, and your brother in jail, and coming out, coming out at Claude, and no one to help him, and everything on you. That's got nothing to do with it, Rosie. It has got something to do with it. It's got everything to do with it. If it hadn't, you think that I'd have said that I'd marry him? Claude felt like a man who knows he's been shot, but as yet is unconscious of the wound. He spoke quietly. I think I wouldn't have said that I'd married two men at the same time, and play one off against the other. There was exasperation in her voice as she cried. But how could I help it, Claude? Can't you see it wasn't him? I can see that well enough. But do you think it makes it any better? It makes it better if I never would have done it, unless I'd been obliged to. But you'd have done it. No, Claude, I wouldn't, not when it came to the point. But why didn't it come to the point, since you told me you were willing to marry him? Why, she important him. Oh, what's the use of asking me that if he's told you already? It's this use, Rosie, that I wanted to hear it from yourself. You've told me one lie. Oh, Claude, and I want to see if you'll tell me any more. I didn't mean it to be a lie, Claude, but what could I say? When we don't mean a thing to be a lie, Rosie, we tell the truth. But how could I? Well, perhaps you couldn't, but you can now. You can tell me just what happened, and why more didn't happen, since you were willing that it should. She began with difficulty wringing her hands. It was last January, I think it was January. Yes, it was. One evening I was in the other hot house making out bills, and he came all of a sudden, and he asked me— he asked me— Yes, yes, go on. He asked me if I loved you, and I said I did. And he asked me how much I loved you, and I said— I said I'd die for you. And so I would, Claude. I'd do it gladly. You could believe me or not. That's all right. What I want to know is what happened after that. And then he said he'd help us. I didn't understand how he meant to help us, and I didn't quite believe him. You see, Claude, even if he is your brother, I never really liked him or trusted him, not really. There was always something about him I couldn't make out, and now I see what it is. I knew he'd tell, and he made me promise I wouldn't. He made you promise you wouldn't tell what? What he said to me, he said he might go and marry someone else, and then he wouldn't want what he said to me to be known, because it would make trouble. But what did he say? Don't you know what he said? It doesn't matter whether I know or not, Rosie, it's for you to tell me. She wrestled with herself. Oh, Claude, I don't want, I wish she wouldn't make me. Go on, Rosie, go on. He said he was in love with me himself, and that if I hadn't been in love with you, he's able to help her out, that he'd have married you. She nodded piteously. And you said? Oh, Claude, what's the use? She gathered her forces together. I didn't say anything, not then. But you told him afterward that you were willing to marry him, whether you were in love with me or not? No, not like that. I really didn't say anything at all. You just let him see it. Again, she nodded. He said it himself. He could see how I felt that it was like a temptation to me, that it was like bread and water held out to a starving man. That is, that the money was. She beat one hand against the other, as she pressed them against her breast. Don't you see? It had to be that way. I couldn't see all that money come right into sight, and not wish just for that minute that I could have it. Could I now? No, I don't suppose you could, Rosie, being what you are. But you see, I thought you were something else. Oh, no, Claude, you didn't. You've known all along. You mean I thought I knew all along? But I find I didn't. I find that you're only willing to marry me because Thor wouldn't take you. He couldn't take me after I said I'd die for you. How could he? And how can I, after you said you were willing? He tried his arms with a gesture. Oh, Rosie, what do you think I feel? She crept a little nearer. I should think you'd feel pity, Claude. Say, I do, for myself. One that was sorry for a fool. But you haven't told me everything yet. You haven't told me what he said about me. She tried to recollect herself. About you, Claude? Oh, yes. He asked me what our relation was to each other, and I said I didn't know. And then he asked me if you were going to marry me, and I said I didn't know that, either. And then he said not to be afraid, because—because— Because he'd make? No, he didn't say that. I asked him if he'd make you, and he said he wouldn't have to, because you'd do it whether or not. Or something like that. I don't just remember what. He didn't say I'd do it because he'd give me five thousand dollars a year for the job, did he? She shook her head. She began to look dazed. No, Claude, he didn't say anything like that at all. When he said it to me, and he was going to do it, he thinks he's going to do it still. And isn't he? No, Rosie, I've got better fish to fry than that. If I'm for sale, I shall go high. Oh, Claude, what do you mean? What are you going to do? I'll tell you, Rosie. I'll give you an idea of the chap I am, of what I am willing to renounce of you. I was talking to a girl last night who let me see that she was all ready to marry me. She didn't say it in so many words, of course, but that's what it amounted to. She lives in a big house with ten or twelve servants, and is the only child of one of the richest men in the city. She's what you call an heiress, and she's a pretty girl, too. And what did you say to her, Claude? I told her I couldn't. I told her about you. About me? Oh, Claude, what did she say? She said it was splendid for a chap with my future to fall in love with a girl like you, and be true to her. But you see, Rosie, I thought you were true to me. Oh, but I am, Claude! He laughed. True. Why, Rosie, you don't know the meaning of the word. When Thor whistles for you, as he will, you'll go after him like that. He snapped his fingers. You'll only have to name your price. She paid no attention to these words, nor to the insult they contained. Her arms were crossed on her breast. Her face was turned to him earnestly. Yes, but what about this other girl, Claude? He spoke with apparent carelessness. Oh, about her! He nodded in the direction of the door, the end of the Holt House, and of the world that lay beyond it. I got to marry her. She looked puzzled. Her hair was that of a person who had never heard similar words before. You're going to—what? I got to marry her, Rosie. For a few seconds there was no change in her attitude. She seemed to be taking his statement in. When the meaning came to her, she withdrew her eyes from his face and dropped her arms heavily. More seconds passed while she stood like that. Meek, crushed. Sentenced. Her head partially averted, her eyes downcast. Presently she moved, but it was only to begin again, absently, mechanically, to pick the superfluous female blossoms from the nearest vine, letting the delicate pale gold things flutter to the ground. It was long before she spoke in a childish, unresentful voice. Are you Claude? He answered firmly. Yes, Rosie, I am. She sighed. Oh, very well! He could see that for the moment she had no spirit to say more. Her very movements betrayed lassitude, dejection. Though his heart smote him, he felt constrained to speak on his own behalf. You'll remember that it wasn't my fault. She went on with her picking silently, but with a weary motion of the hands. The resumption of the task compelled her to turn her back to him in the position in which she had found her when he arrived. I'm simply doing what you would have done yourself, and his thought wouldn't let you. She made no response. The picking of the blossoms took her away from him, step by step. He made another effort to let her see things from his point of view. It wouldn't be honourable for me, now, Rosie, to be paid for doing a thing like that. It would be payment to me, though he was going to settle the money on you. Even this last piece of information had no effect on her. She probably didn't understand its terms. Her fingers picked and dropped the blossoms slowly, till she reached the end of her row. He thought that now she would have to turn. If she turned he could probably ring from her the word of dismissal or absolution that alone would satisfy his conscience. He didn't know that she could slip around the dense mass of foliage and be out of sight. When she did so, amazement came to him slowly. Expecting her to reappear he stood irresolute. He could go after her and clasp her in his arms again, or he could steal down the narrow aisle of greenery and pass out of her life for ever. Out of her life. She would be out of his life, and there was much to be said in favour of achieving that condition. There was outraged love in Claude's heart, and also some calculation. It was not all calculation. Neither was it all outraged love. If Rosie had flung in one piteous backward look or held out her hands or sobbed, he might have melted. But she did nothing. She only disappeared. She was lying like a stricken animal behind the thick screen of leaves, but he didn't know it. In any case, he gave the option of coming back. He gave her the option and waited. He waited in the overpowering heat amid the low humming of bees. The minutes passed. There was neither sound among the vines nor footstep beside him. And so, with head bent and eyes streaming and head aching and nerves unstrung and conscience clamouring reproachfully, he turned and went his way. He surprised his father by going back to the bank. Oh, look here, Father, he confessed. I have not done one, and it terribly upset about something. Can't you send me to New York? Isn't there any business? Marshalman looked at him gravely and kindly. He defined what was happening. There's nothing in New York, he said, after a minute's thinking. But there's the wrath matter in Chicago. Why didn't you go there? Mr. Wright was taking it up himself as leaving by the four o'clock train this afternoon. Go and tell him I want you to take his place. He'll explain the thing to you and supply you with funds. And, he added, after another minute's thought, since you've gone that far, why shouldn't you run on to the Pacific coast? Do you good? For for some time past did you use a little change? Take your own time, and all the money you want. Clawb was trying to articulate his thanks when his father cut him short. All right, my boy, I know how you feel. If you're going to take the four o'clock, you've got no time to lose. Goodbye," he continued, holding out his hand heartily. Good luck. God bless you. The young man got himself out of his father's room in order to keep him bursting into tears. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Of The Side of the Angels by Basil King This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers Chapter 22 As Thor and Lois breakfasted on the following Sunday, the former was too busy with the paper to notice that his wife seemed preoccupied. He was made to understand it by her manner of saying, Thor? Dropping the paper, he gave her his attention. Yes? I had been inclined to one side as she trifled with her toast. You know, Thor, that it's an old custom for newly married people to go to church together on the first Sunday there at home. Oh, Lord! she had expected the exclamation. She also expected the half-humorous, half-repentant compliance which ensured. All right, I'll go. It was the sort of yielding that followed on all his bits of resistance to her wishes, a yielding on second thought, a yielding through compunction, as though he were trying to make up to her for something he wasn't giving her. She laughed to herself at that, seeing that he gave her everything. But she meant that if she were not so favoured, she might have harboured the suspicion that on account of something lacking in their lives, he fell back on a form of reparation. As it was, she could only ascribe his peculiarity in this respect to the kindness of a nature that never seemed to think it could be kind enough. It was her term to feel compunction. Don't go, if you'd rather not, it's only a country custom, almost gone out of fashion nowadays. But he persisted. Oh, I'll go, must put on another suit, top hat, of course. The good woman's satisfaction in getting her husband to church if only for once, she said no more in the way of dissuasion. Besides, she hoped that, should he go, he might hear something that would comfort his hidden grief of which she no longer had a doubt, since Claude, too, was aware of it. It was curious how it betrayed itself, neither by act nor word nor manner, nor so much as a sigh, and yet by something indefinable beyond all his watchfulness to conceal from her. She couldn't guess at his trouble even when she tried, but she tried only from inadvertence. When she caught herself doing so, she refrained, respecting his secret, till she thought it well to tell her. She said no more till he again dropped the paper to give his attention to his coffee. Have you been to see the phase yet? He put the cup down without tasting it. He sat quite upright and looked at her strangely. He even flushed. Why, no. The tone appealed to her ear and remained in her memory, though for the moment she had no reason to consider it significant. She merely answered, I thought I might walk up the hill and see Rosy this afternoon. Leaving the subject to there. Thor found the service novel and impressive from his novelty. Except for the few weddings and funerals he had attended, and the service on the day he married Lewis, he could hardly remember when he'd been present as a formal participant at a religious ceremony. He had therefore no preconceived ideas concerning Christian worship, and not much in the way of prejudice. He had dropped in occasionally on the services of foreign cathedrals, but purely as a tourist who made no attempt to understand what was taking place. On this particular morning, however, the pressure of needs and emotions within his soul induced an inquiring frame of mind. On reaching the pew to which Lewis led him, he sat down awkwardly, looking for a place in which to bestow his top hat without ruffling its loss. Lewis herself fell on her knees in prayer. The act took him by surprise. It was new to him. He was aware that she said prayers in private, and had a vague idea of the import of the right. But this public, unabashed devotion gave him a little shock, till he saw that others came in and engaged in it. They entered, and knelt, not in obedience to any preconcerted ceremony, but to each on his own impulse, and rose, looking so it seemed to fore, reassured and stilled. That was his next impression, reassurance and stillness. There was a serenity here that he had never before had occasioned to recognize as part of life. People whom he knew in a commonplace way, as this or that in the village, sat hushed, tranquil, dignified above their ordinary state, raised to a level higher than any that could be reached by their own attainments or personalities. It seemed to him that he had come into a world of new standards, new values. Lewis herself, as she rose from her knees and sat beside him, gained in a quality which he had no capacity to gauge. He belonged to the new scientific school which studies and correlates, but is cherry of affirmations, and cherry are still of denials. Never deny anything, ne niais jamais rien, and be one of the standing bits of advice on the part of old her view, under whom he had spworked at the Institue Pasteur. He kept himself therefore in a non-hostile attitude toward all theories and systems. He had put a hazy idea as to Christian beliefs, but he knew in a general way that they were preposterous. Preposterous as they might be, it was his place, however, to observe phenomena, and now that he had an opportunity to do so, he observed them. How did you like it? No, he's ventured timidly, as after service they walked along County Street. I liked it. Why? The answer astonished her. It was big. Big? How? The sweep, the ideas, so high, so universal, makes a tremendous appeal to the imagination. She smiled toward him shyly. It's something, isn't it, to appeal to the imagination? Oh, lots, since imagination rules the world! They were on their way to lunch with Thor's father and stepmother. Now that there were two households in the family, the father insisted on a domestic reunion once a week. It was his way of expressing paternal forbearance under the blow Thor had dealt him in marrying Louis Boulibé. Where's Claude? Thor asked the question on sitting down to table. His father looked at his mother, who replied with some self-consciousness. He's gone west. West? Where? To Chicago first, isn't it, aren't you? Marsome admitted that it was to Chicago first and to the Pacific Coast afterwards. Thor's dismay was such that Lois looked at him in surprise. Why, Thor, what difference can it make to you? Claude's able to travel alone, isn't he? The efforts made by both his parents to carry off the matter likely convinced Thor that there was more in Claude's departure than either business or pleasure would explain. Before Lois, who was not yet in the family secret, he could ask no questions, but it seemed to him that both his father and his mother had uneasiness written on their faces. He could hardly eat. He bolted his food only to put Lois off the scent. The old tumult in his soul, which he was seeking every means to still, was beginning to break out again. If it should prove that he had given up Rosie Faye to Claude, and that with his parents' connivance Claude was trying to abandon her, then by God! But he caught Lois's eye. She was watching him not so much in disquietude as with faint amusement. It seemed to odd to her that Claude's going away for a holiday should vex him so. Poor Lois. He was already afraid on her account. Afraid that if Rosie Faye would have deserted free, and a temptation he couldn't resist were to come to him, Lois would be the one to suffer most. By the middle of the afternoon, when his father had gone off in one direction and Lois in another, he found an opportunity for the word with his stepmother which he'd hung about the house to get. There's nothing behind this, is there? Sheverted her head. How do I know, Thor? I have nothing to do with it. All I know is just what happened. Claude came rushing home last Wednesday and said he had to go right off to Chicago on business. I helped him pack, and he went. Why didn't anyone tell me? Well, you haven't been at the house, and it didn't seem important enough. But it is important, isn't it? Doesn't father think so? She tried to look at him frankly. Your father doesn't know any more about it than I know, and that's nothing at all. Claude came to him and said, But I really wanted to tell you Thor, your father would be annoyed with me. Then it's something that's got to be kept from me. No, not exactly. It's only poor Claude's secret. We didn't try to ring it from him because, oh, Thor, I wish he would let things take their course. I'm sure it would be best. Better let Claude be a scoundrel. Ah, he couldn't be that. I want to be just that girl, but we both know that there are queer things about her. There's that man who's giving her money, and dear knows what there may be besides, and so if they have quarrelled, but Thor rushed away. Having learned all he needed to know on that side, he must hear what was to be said on the other. He had hoped never again to be brought face to face with Rosie till she was his brother's wife. That condition would have dug such a gulf between them that even nature would be changed. But if she was not to be Claude's wife, if Claude was becoming a brute to her, then he must see at least that she had a friend. His heart was so hot within him as he climbed. His heart was so hot within him as he climbed the hill that he forgot that Lois would probably be there before him. As a matter of fact she was talking to Faye in a corner of the yard, standing in the shade of a great magnolia that was a pyramid of bloom. All around it the ground was strewn in a circle with its dead white petals, each with its flush of red. Near the house there were yellow lumps of forecythia, while the hedge of bridal veil to the south of the grass-plot seemed to have just received a fall of snow. Faye confronted him as, snacking his pace, he went toward them. But Lois turned only at his approach. Her expression was troubled. For I wish you'd explained to me what Mr. Faye is saying. He doesn't want me to see Rosie. Why, what's up? Faye's expression told him that something serious was up, for it was ashen. It had grown old and sunken, and the eyes had changed their starry vagueness to a dull animosity. There's this much up, Dr. Thor, Faye said, in that turn of his which was at once mild and hostile. But I don't want any mastermind to have anything to do with me or mine. Faye tried to control the sharpness of his cry. Why not? He ought to know why not, Dr. Thor, and if you don't you've ended to look at my little girl. Or why couldn't you leave her alone? Lois spoke anxiously. Is anything the matter with her? Only that you've killed her between you. Thor allowed Lois to question him. Why, what can you mean? That's what I say, ma'am, that she's done for. Lois grew impatient. But I don't understand, done for? How? She turned to her husband. Oh, Thor, do see her and find out what's the matter? No, ma'am, said Faye firmly. He's seen her once too often as it is. Lois repeated the words. Once too often as it is? What does that mean? Better ask him, ma'am. It's no use asking me, Thor, to tell her, for I've not the slightest idea of what you're driving at. Oh, I know you can play the innocent, Dr. Thor, but it's no use keeping up the game. You took me in at first. You took me in right along. You were going to be a friend to me, and buy the place, and keep me in it to work it, and every sort of palaver like that, when you was only after my little girl. Thor was dumb. It was Lois, who protested. Oh, Mr. Faye, how can you say such things? It's wicked. It may be wicked all right, ma'am, but ask him how I can say them. All I know is what I've seen. If he was going to marry this lady, he went on turning again to Thor. Why couldn't you have kept away from my little girl? You didn't do yourself any good, and you did her a lot of harm. It was to come to Thor's aid, as he stood speechless, that Lois said soothingly. But I had nothing to do with that, Mr. Faye. I never wanted anything of Rosie, but to be her friend. You, ma'am, you're all of a piece. You're all mastermen's together. What had you to do with being a friend to her? Getting her to call, and have tea, and putting notions into her head. The rich and the poor can't be friends any longer. The poor think they can, the more full they. We've been fools in my family, thinking because we were Americans we had rights. There's no rights any more, except the right of the strong to trample on the weak, till someone tramples on them. And someone always does. There's that. We're down to-day, but you'll be down to-morrow. Don't forget it, ma'am. America has that kind of justice when it hasn't any other, that makes everybody take their turn. It's ours now, but you'll get yours as sure as life is life. Lois looked at Thor. Can you make out what he means? I can make out that he's very much mistaken. Mistaken, Dr. Thor? I don't see how you can say that. I wasn't mistaken the night I saw you creeping into that. Hot house over there, where you knew my little girl was at work. I wasn't mistaken when I saw you creep away. Still less was I mistaken when I stood in after you and gone, and found her with her arms on the desk, and her head bowed down on them, and she, crying, fit to kill herself. That was just a few days before you heard you was going to marry this lady, and she'd never been the same child since. Always troubled, always something on her mind. Not once since that night have you darkened these dolls so you'd had a patient here. Have you now? I—I—I didn't come, forced hammered, because Dr. Hillary had done all that was necessary for Mrs. Fay, and I've been away. But if you didn't come, Fay went on, with a mildness that was more forcible than Roth. Someone else did. You'd left a good substitute. He's finished the work that you began. He was here with her an hour last Wednesday morning, just after I warned him off for good and all. Fall started. Let me go to her. But Fay stood in his way. No, sir. To see you would be the finishing touch. She can't hear your name without a shiver going through her from head to foot. We've tried it on her. Between the two of you, brother and you, it's you she's most afraid of. There was silence for a second while he turned his grey face first to the one, and then to the other of his two listeners. Why couldn't you all have let her be? What were you after? What have you got out of it? I can't see. Fay, I swear to you that we never wanted anything but her good. Fall cried, with a passion that made Lois turn her troubled eyes on him, searchingly. If my brother hasn't told you what he meant, I'll do it now. He wanted to marry Rosie. He was to have married her. If there's trouble between them, it's all a mistake. Just let me see her. But Fay dismissed this as idle talk. No, Dr. Thor, stories of that kind don't do any good. Your brother never wanted to marry her or meant to either, nor any more than you. What you did want and what you did mean, God only knows. It's a mystery to me. What is a mystery to me is that we're all done for. Now that she's gone, we've all gone, the lot of us. I've kept up till now. If money will do any good, Fay, Fall began with a catch in his voice. No, Dr. Thor, not now. Money might have helped us once, but I ain't going to take a price for my little girl's unhappiness. But what would do good, Mr. Fay? Lois asked. If you'd only tell us. There, ma'am, I will. It's to let us be. Don't come near me, nor mine any more. None of you. She turned to Thor. Thor, is it true that Thor wanted to marry Rezy? I've never heard of it. Oh, yes, ma'am, you have. Fay broke in with irony. We've all heard of that kind of marriage. It's as old as men and women on the earth. But it don't go down with me. And if I find that my little girl has been taken in by it, then I shall be to blame if—if someone gets what he deserves. The words were uttered in tones so mild that, as he shuffled away, leaving them staring at each other, they scarcely knew that there had been a threat in them. End of CHAPTER XXII It was an incoherent tale that Thor stammered out to Lois as he and she walked homeward. By trying to tell Claude's story without including his own, he was, for the first time since the days of schoolboy escapades, making a deliberate attempt of prevarication. He suppressed certain facts and overemphasized others. He did it with a sense of humiliation which became acute when he began to suspect that he was not deceiving her. She walked on, saying nothing at all. And I and them, when he ventured to glance at her in profile, she turned to give him a sick, sad smile that seemed to droid sweetness from the futility of his efforts. My God, she knows! were the words actually in his mind when he went floundering on with the explanation of why he couldn't allow Claude to be a cad. And yet, except for those smiles of an elusiveness beyond him, she betrayed no hint of being stricken in the way he was afraid of. On the contrary, she seemed, when she spoke, to be giving her mind entirely to the course of Claude's romance. He won't marry her, he'll marry Elsie, darling. An hour ago the assertion would have angered him. Now he was relieved that she had the spirit to make it at all. He endeavoured to imitate her tone. What makes you think so? I know Claude. She's the sort of girl for him to marry. There's good in him, and she'll bring it out. Unfortunately, it's too late to think of Claude's good when he's pledged to someone else. Would you make him marry her? I'd make him do his duty. She gave him another of those faint smiles of which the real meaning baffled him. I wouldn't lay too much stress on that, if I were you. To marry for the sake of doing one's duty is— she fought at an instant, but recovered herself— is as likely as not to defeat its own ends. He was afraid to pursue the topic lest she speak more plainly. On arriving home he was glad to see her go to her room and shut the door. It grieved him to think that she might be brooding in silence, but even that was better than speech. As Uncle Sirman and cousin Amy Dawes were coming to Sunday night supper, the evening would be safe, and to avoid being face to face with her in the meanwhile, he went out again. Having passed an hour in his office, he strolled up into the wood above the village, his refuge from boyhood onward in any hour of trouble. There was space here, and air, and solitude. It was a diversion that was almost a form of consolation to be in touch with the wood's teeming life. Moreover, the trees, with their stately aloofness from mortal cares, their strifelessness and strength, shed on him a kind of benediction. From long association, from days of birds nesting in spring, and camping in summer, and nutting in autumn and snowshoeing in winter, he knew them as almost individual personalities—the great white oaks, the paper birches, the white pines with knots that were masses of dry resin, the Canada-Balsons with odorous bows, the sugar maples, the silver maples, the beaches, the junipers, the hemlocks, the hack-mack-tacks, with the low-growing hickories, witch hazels and slippery elms. Their green was the green of early May, yellow-green, red-green, bronze-green, brown-green, but nowhere as yet the full, rich hue of summer. Here and there a cheque-cherry in full bloom swayed and shivered like a wreath. In shady places the ferns were unfolding in company with Solomon Seal, Wake Robin, the Lady Slipper, and the painted Trillium. There was an abundance of yellow, sink-foil, crow-foot, rag-wort, bell-wort, and shy patches of gold-colored violets. In the sloping outskirts of the wood he stood still and breathed deeply, a portion of his cares and difficulties slipping from his shoulders. Somewhere within him was the sense of kinship with the wilderness that had become atavistic in Americans of six or eight generations on the soil. It was like skipping two centuries and getting back where life was primitive from necessity. There were few, if any, complications here, nor were there subtleties to consider. As far back as he knew anything of his thawly ancestors, they had hewed and hacked and delved and tilled on and about this hillside, getting their changes from its seasons, their food from its products, their sands from its bird-life and beast-life, their arts and their simples, their dyes and their drinks from its roots and to juices. To the extent that men and the primeval could be one, there had been one with the forest of which nothing but this upland sweep remained, treating it as both friend and enemy. As enemy they had felt it, as friend they had lived its life and loved it, transmitting their love to this sun, who was now bringing his heartaches, as he was accustomed also to bring his joys, where they had brought their own. The advantage of the woods to thaw was that once within its shadows he could, to some degree, stop thinking of the life outside. He could give his first attention to the sounds and phenomena about him. As he stood now, listening to the resonant tapping of a hairy woodpecker on a dead tree-trunk, he could forget that the world held a lois, a rosy and a clawed, each a storm-centre of emotions. It was a respite from emotions, in a measure a respite from himself. He stepped craftily, following the sound of the woodpecker's tap, till he had the satisfaction of seeing a black and white back with a red band across the busily bobbing-head. He stopped again to watch a chipmunk who was more sharply watching him. The little fellow, red-brown and striped, sat cocked on a stone. His forepaws crossed on his white breast, like the hands of a meek saint at prayer. Strolling on again, he paused from time to time, to listen to a robin singing right overhead, or to catch the liquid spiritual chant of a hermit-thrush in some still-a-thicket of the wood, or to watch a bluebird fly directly into its nest, probably an abandoned woodpecker's hole, in a decaying Norway pine. These small happenings soothed him. Sauntering and pausing, he came up to the high treeless ridge he had last visited on the day he asked Lois to marry him. The ridge broke sharply downward to a stretch of undulating farms. Patches of green meadowland were interspersed with the broad red fields in which as yet nothing had begun to grow. Had it not been Sunday, the farmers would have been at work, plowing, sowing, harrowing. As it was, the landscape enjoyed a rich sabbath-piece, broken only by the swooping of birds, out of the invisible, across the line of sight, and on into the invisible again. It was all beauty and promise of beauty, wealth and promise of wealth. The cherry-trees were in bloom, the pear and the apple and the quince would follow soon. Above the farmer-houses, tall elms rose, fan-shaped and garlanded. The very charm of the prospect called up those questions he'd been trying for a minute to shelve. How was it that in a land of milk and honey men were finding it so hard to live? How was it that with conditions in which every man might have enough and to spare, making it his aim to see that his fellow had the same, there could be greed and ingenious oppression and social crime with the menace of things graver still? What's the matter with us? he asked helplessly. Was it something wrong with the American people? Or was it something wrong with the whole human race? Or was it a condition of permanent strife that the human race could never escape from? Was man a being capable of high spiritual attainment, as he had heard in the church that morning? Or was he no better than the ruthless creatures of the woodland where the weasel preyed on the chipmunk and the owl on the mouse and the fox on the rabbit and the shrike on the Phoebe and the Phoebe on the insect in an endless round of ferocity? Had man emerged above this estate? Or was it as foolish to expect him to spare his brother man as to ask a hawk to spare a hen? These questions bore on Thor's immediate thoughts and conduct. They bore on his relations with his father and Lord and Lewis. Through the social web in which he found himself involved, they bore on Rosie Faye. And from the social web they worked out to the great national ideals in which he longed to see his native land a sanctuary for mankind. But could man build a sanctuary? Would he know how to make use of one? Or was he Thor Masterman but repeating the error of that great grandfather who had turned to America for the salvation of the race and died brokenhearted because its people were only looking out for number one? Because he couldn't find answers to these questions for himself, he tried, during supper, to sound Uncle Sim leading up to the subject by an adroit indirectness. Had been to church, he said, after serving cousin Amy Dawes with lobster à la Nuburg. Paul Yeo came from Uncle Sim. Did you? What were you doing there? Thought you were a disciple of old Hillary? Oh, that was a reason. Hillary's idea. Can't go round to the different churches himself, so he sends me. Look in on them all. There's too much sherry in this lobster à la Nuburg, cousin Amy Dawes said sternly. I bet she's put in two table spoonfuls instead of one. Being stone deaf, cousin Amy Dawes took no part in conversation except what she herself could contribute. She was a dignified woman who had the air of being hewn in granite. There was nothing soft about her but three detachable corkscrew curls on each side of an immobile face, and a heart that everyone knew to be as maternal as milk. Dressed in stiff black silk, a heavy gold chain around her neck, and a huge gold brooch at her throat, and wearing fingerless black silk mittens, she might have walked out of an old daguerreotype. I should think, Thor observed dryly, that you'd find your religion growing rather composite. There, till the way round, goes simpler. Get there, co-ordinating principal, competent dominator that goes into them all. That is, Lowes said in the endeavour to be free to think her own thoughts by keeking me on a hobby. You look for their points of contact rather than their differences. You get beyond the differences. Beyond these voices there is peace. Doesn't someone say that? Well, you get there. If you can stand the camera of the voices for a while, you emerge into a kind of still place where they blend into one. Then you find they're all trying to say the same thing, which is also the thing you're trying to say yourself. As he sat back in his chair, twisting his wiring moustache with a handsome sunburnt hand, Thor felt that he had him where he had been hoping to get him. But what do we want to say, Uncle Sim? What do you want to say? And what do I? The old man held his shop pointed beard by the tip, highing his nephew obliquely. That's the great secret, Thor. All right, little babies, from the time they begin to hear language or bursting with the desire to say something, and if they don't know what it is till they learn to speak, then it comes to them. Yes, but what comes to them? Is it what comes to all babies, the instinct to say, Abba, father? Say, Lois, because of Amy Dawes requested in her loud commanding voice, just save me a mite of this cold duck for old Sally Gibbs. It'll be tasty for the poor soul. I'll take it to her as we go up the hill. What do you pay your cook? Without waiting for an answer, she continued like an oracle. I don't believe she's worth it. Four leaned across the table. What I want to know is this. Suppose the instinct to say, Abba, father, does come to us. Is there anything there to respond that will show us a better way? Personally and nationally, I mean, than the rather poor one we are finding for ourselves? Can't give you any guarantees, Thor, if that's what you're after. Just got to say, Abba, father, and see for yourself. Nothing but seeing for oneself is any good when it comes to the personal. And that's for the national. Well, there was a man once who went stalking up the land, crying, O Israel, turn thee to the Lord thy God. And I guess he knew what he was about. It was turn ye, turn ye. Why would he die? They didn't turn, and so they died. Inevitable consequence. Same with this people or any other people. In proportion as it turns to the Lord, it's God, it'll live. And in proportion as it doesn't, it'll get a pot. He vied around to Lois as to one who would agree with him. Ain't that it? She responded with a sweet, absent smile which showed to Thor at least that her thoughts were elsewhere. As a matter of fact, Thor's questions and Uncle Sim's replies, which continued him more or less the same strain, lay in a realm with regard to which she had few misgivings or anxieties. Her heart-searching's being of another nature, she was doing in thought what she had done when in the afternoon she'd gone to her room and shut the door. She was standing before her mirror, contrasting the image reflected there, with rosy face, worn, touching prettiness. How awesome! How incredible that Thor, her great noble Thor, should have let his heart go, perhaps the very best of his heart, to anything so insignificant, so unformed, so unequal to himself. It was this awesomeness, this incredibility that overwhelmed her. Her mind fixed herself on it for the time being, to the exclusion of other considerations. Thor was like meaner men, he could be caught by a pretty face. He was so big in body and soul that she had thought him free from petty failing. And yet here it was. Thor was a kind of shame in it. Weakened him, it lowered him. She had seen it from the minute when he began to tell his halting tale about Claude. It was pitiful the way in which he had betrayed himself. From Faye she got no more than a hint, a hint she'd been quicker to collate with her knowledge of some secret grief on Thor's part. But she hadn't been really sure of the truth, till she saw he was trying to hide it. The Thor should be trying to hide anything, made her burn inwardly with something more poignant than humiliation. She had smiled when he looked so imploringly toward her, but she hardly knew why. Perhaps it was to encourage him to give him heart. For the first time in her life she felt the stronger, the superior. She was sorry for him, even though there was something about this new and unexpected phase in him that she despised. She got no further than that when the guests came and she had to give them her attention. When they left, and Thor was seeing them to the door, she took the opportunity to slip up to her room again. She locked the door behind her, and locked the door that communicated with his dressing-room. Once more she took her stand before the peered lass. Something had come to her. She was sure of it. It had come almost since the afternoon. If it was not beauty, it rendered beauty of no importance. It was a spirit, a fire. The made her a woman who could be proud a woman a man might be proud of. She had come to her own at last. She could see for herself that there was a subdued splendour about her which raised her in the scale of personality. She had little vanity, hitherto she had had little pride. But she knew now with an assurance which it would have been hypocritical to disguise that she was the true mate of the man she had taken Thor to be. She had known it before, dividendly, and apologetically. She knew it now calmly, and as a matter of course, in a manner that did away with any necessity for shrinking or self-deprecation. She moved away from the mirror, taking off the string of small pearls she wore and throwing them on the dressing-table. In the middle of the room she stood with a feeling of helplessness. It was so difficult to see what she ought to do. What was one's duty toward a husband who had practically told her that he married her only because he couldn't marry a woman he loved better? Other questions began to rise within her questions and protests and flashes of indignation. But she beat them back, standing in an attitude of reflection and trying to discern the first steps of her way. She knew that the emotions she was keeping under would assert themselves in time. But just now she wanted only to see what she ought to do during the next half-hour. They came into her mind what Uncle Sim had said at supper. Just got to say, Abba, Father, and See. She shook her head. She couldn't say, Abba, Father, at present. But she didn't know why, but she couldn't. Whatever the passion within her it was nothing she could bring before a throne of grace. It crossed her mind that if she prayed at all that night she would pass through the night. If she prayed at all that night she would pass this whole matter over. And in that case why pray at all? And yet the thought of omitting her prayer has disturbed her. If she did it to-night, why not to-morrow night? And if to-morrow night, where would it end? It was not a convincing argument, but it drew her toward her bedside. Even then she didn't kneel down, but clung to one of the tall, fluted posts that supported a canopy. She couldn't pray. She didn't know what to pray for. Conventional petitions would have had no meaning. And for the moment she had no others to offer up. It was but half-consciously that she found herself stammering, Abba, Father, Abba, Father, her lips moving dumbly to the syllables. It brought her no relief. It gave her another immediate light on her way, nor any new sense of power. She was as dazed as ever, and as an indignant. And yet when she raised herself from the weary clinging to the fluted posts, she went to both the doors she had locked, and unlocked them. The consciousness of something to be suppressed was withlose when she woke. Not yet, not yet, was the warning of her subliminal self whenever resentments and Ignatians endeavored to escape control. With four she kept to subjects that had no personal bearing, clearly to his relief. At breakfast they talked of the Mexican rising under Madero, which was discussed in the papers of that morning. She knew that the question in his mind was, does she really know? But she portrayed nothing that would help him to an answer. When, after having kissed her with a timid apologetic affection which partly touched and partly angered her, he left for the office, she put on a hat, and, taking a parasol, went to see Dr. Hillary. The first parish church, the oldest in the village, stands in a grass-delta where two of the rambling village lanes enter the square. The white, barn-like nave, with its upper and lower rows of small oblong windows, retires discreetly within a grove of elms, while a tall, slim spire grows slimmer through diminishing tears of arches, balconies, and lancet lights till it dwindles away into a high, graceful pinnacle. Behind the church, in the widest section of the delta, the parsonage, a white wooden box dating from the fifties, supporting a smaller box by way of cupola, looks across garden, shrubbery, and lawn to schoolhouse lane, from which nothing but the simplest form of wooden rail protects the enclosure. It was the time for bulbs to be in flower and of the spring perennials. Tulips in a wide, dense mass bordered the brick pavement that led from the gate to the front door. Elsewhere could be seen daffodils, irises, peonies just bursting into bloom, and long, drooping curves of bleeding heart hung with rose and white pendants. By a corner of the house the ground was indigo-dark with a thick little patch of squills. It was a relief to Lois to find the old man himself, bare-headed and in an alpaca house-jacket, rooting out weeds on the lawn, his thin gray locks tossed in the breeze. On seeing her paws and look over the clump of Wigilia, which at this point smothered the rail, he raised himself, dusted the earth from his hands, and went forward. They talked at first just as they stood, with the budding shrubs between them. Oh, Dr. Hillary, I'm so anxious about Rosie Faye. Are you now? As neither age nor gravity could subdue the twinkle in his eyes, so sympathy couldn't quench it. Well, I am myself. I think if I could see her I might be able to help her. Or rather, she went on nervously, I think I ought to see her whether I can help her or not. Have you seen her? I have not, he did lay out with Irish emphasis. The post takes very good care that I shan't, so she does. She's only got to see me coming in the gates to fly off to duck rock. And that, so her mother tells me, is all they see of her till nightfall. It's three days now that she's been struck with a fit of melancholy, or maybe four. Do you know what the trouble is? He vaded the question. Do you? I do partly. And you'll be the one to tackle her, as yet I haven't asked. I prefer to know no more about people than what they tell me themselves. She found it possible to secure his aid on the unexplained ground that there had been a misunderstanding between her husband and herself on the one side, and Jasper Faye on the other. I don't know that I can help her, I daresay I can't. But if I could only see her— Well, then you shall see her. Just wait a minute while I change my court, and I'll go along with you. On the way up the hill knows Creston to him about the Faye's. Did you know much of the boy? Enough to see that he wasn't a thief, not by nature, that is. He's what might have been expected from his parents, the start of out which they make revolutionists and anarchists. He came into the world with desires thwarted, as you might say, and a determination to get even. He didn't steal. He took money. He took money because they needed it at home, and other people had it. He took it more in protest than in greed, if that's any excuse for him. The mother is better, isn't she? She's clothed, and in her right mind, if she'll only stay that way. She gets to one of her old tantrums every now and then. But I'm in hopes that the daughter's trouble will end them. This hope seemed to be partially fulfilled in the welcoming way in which the door was opened to their knock. I brought you my friend and Mrs. Thor Masterman, as the old gentleman's form of introduction. She wants to see Rosie. If Faye makes any trouble, tell him it's my wish. I've really only come to see Rosie, Mrs. Faye, as explained, not without nervousness, when the two women were alone on the doorstep. No, I won't go in, thank you. Not if she's anywhere about the place. I'm really very anxious to have a talk with her. Having feared a hostile reception, she was relieved to be answered with a certain fierce cordiality. I'm sure I hope you'll get it. It's more than her father and I can do. Perhaps she'd talk to me. Girls often will talk to a stranger when they won't to one of their own. Well, you can try. In spite of the coldness of the handsome features, something in the nature of a new life, a new softening humanity, was struggling to assert itself. We can't get a word out of her. She'll either speak, nor sleep, nor eat, nor do her hands turn. It's the work that bothers me most. Not so much that it needs to be done, is it, because it'd be a relief to her. She added, with a shy wistfulness that contrasted oddly with the heart of Linton her eyes. I find that out myself. Have you any idea where she is? She pointed toward Duck Rock. Oh, I suppose she's over there. She was to have picked the cucumber this morning, but I see she hasn't done it. Has Mr. Fay told you what the trouble is? Well, he has, but then he's so romantic. Always was. Landsake. I don't pay any attention to young people's goings-on. Seen too much of it in my own day. I don't say that the young father hasn't been foolish, and I don't say, excuse me, that Rosie ain't just as good as he is, even though he is Archie Masterman's son. Oh, oh, no, nor I. Lois hastened to interpose. But there's nothing wrong. I've asked her, and I know. I'm sure of it. Lois spoke eagerly. Oh, yes, sir, my. So there's that. She went on with the touch of her old haughtiness of spirit. And she's every might as good as he is. It's all nonsense-faced talking as if it was some young Lord who's jilted a girl beneath him. Young Lord, indeed. I'll young Lord him if he ever comes my way. I tell Rosie not to demean herself to grieve for them that are no better than herself. It's nothing but romantics, she explained further. I've no patience with Faye talking as if someone ought to shoot someone or commit murder. That's the way Matt began. Faye ought to know better at his time of life. I declare he has no more sense than Rosie. Lois had not expected to be called upon to defend Faye. But he said, I suppose he naturally feels indignant when he sees there's a desperate streak in Faye, the woman broke in uneasily, and Rosie takes after him. For the matter of that, she takes after us both, for I'm sure I've been gloomy enough. There's been something lacking in us all, like cooking without salt. I see that now as plain as plain, though I can't get Faye to believe me. He might as well talk to a stone wall as talk to Faye when he's got his nose stuck into a book. I hate the very name of that Carlyle, and that Darwin, he's another. There is Bible, I tell him, and he don't half understand what they mean. It's Duck Rock, she went on, with a quiver of her fine lips, while her hands worked nervously at the corner of her apron. It's Duck Rock that I'm most afraid of. It's kind of haunted me all the time I was sick. And it kind of haunts Rosie. Then I'll go and see if she's there, Lois said, as she turned away, leaving the austere figure to stare after her, with eyes that might have been those of the woman delivered from the Seven Devils. It was an easy matter for Lois to find her way among the old apple trees, of which one was showing an early blossom or two on the sunny side, to the boulevard below, and then to the wood running up the bluff. Though she had not been here since the very picking days of childhood, she knew the spot in which Rosie was likely to be found. As a matter of fact, having climbed the path that ran beneath oaks and threw patches of brakes, spleenwork, and lady ferns, she was astonished to hear a faint plaintive singing, and stopped to listen. The voice was poignantly thin and sweet, with a frail melancholy sound she'd heard from distant shepherd's pipes in Switzerland. Had she not, after a few seconds, recognized the air, she would have been unable to detect the words. Ha! dinner ye mine, Lord Gregory, by Bonnie Irvin's side, where first I owned the virgin love I long, long had denied. Though the singer was invisible, Lois knew she could not be far away, since the voice was too weak to carry. She was about to go forward when the faint melody began again. An exile from my father's air, an hour for loving thee, at least be pity to me, shown, if love it may nay be. Placing the voice now is near the great oak tree, circled by a seat, just below the point where the ascending bluff broke fifty feet to the pond beneath. Lois went rapidly up the last few yards of the ascent. Rosie was seated with her back to the gnarled trunk, while she looked out over the half-mile of dancing blue wavelet, to where, on the other side, the brown wooden houses of the thorny estate swept down to the shore. She rose on seeing the visitor approach, showing a startled disposition to run away. This, she might have done, had not Lois caught her by the hand and detained her. I know all about everything, Rosie, about everything. She meant that she understood the situation, not only as regard one brother, but as regarding both. Rosie's response was without interest or curiosity. Do you? Yes, Rosie, and I wanted to talk to you about it. Let us sit down. Still holding the girl's hand in a manner that compelled her to recede herself, she examined the little face for the charm that had thrown such a spell on four. With a pang, she owned to herself that she found it. No one could look at Thor with that expression of entreaty, without reaching all that was most tender in his soul. For the moment, however, that point must be allowed to pass. Not yet, not yet! Something cried to the passion that was trying to get to control of her. She went on earnestly, almost beseechingly. I know just what happened, Rosie dear, and how hard it's been for you, and I want you to let me help you. There was no light in Rosie's chrysopraise coloured eyes. Her voice was listless. What can you do? Put to her in that point blank way, Lois found the question difficult. She could only answer, I can be with you, Rosie. We can be side by side. There wouldn't be any good in that. I'd rather be left alone. Hope that there would be good. We should strengthen each other. I—I need help too. I should find it partly if I could do anything for you. Rosie's evade her friend, not coldly, but with dull detachment. Do you think Claude will come back to me? What do you think yourself? I don't think he will. She added with a catch in her breath like that produced by a sudden darting pain. I know he won't. Would you be happy with him if he did? I shouldn't care whether I was happy or not, if he come. Lois thought it the part of wisdom to hold out no hope. Then, since we believe he won't come, isn't it better to face it with— I don't see any use in facing it. You might as well ask a plant to face it when it's pulled up by the roots and thrown out into the sun. There's nothing left to face. But you're not pulled up by the roots, Rosie. Your roots are still in the soil. You've people who need you. Rosie made a little gesture with palms outward. I've given them all I had. I'm—I'm empty. Yes, you feel so now. That's natural. We do feel empty of anything more to give when there's been a great drain on us. But somehow it's the people who've given most to always have the power to go on giving, after a little while, with time. The girl interrupted not impatiently, but with fake and indifference. What's the good of time when it's going to be always the same? The good of time is that it brings comfort. I don't want comfort. I'd rather be as I am. That's perfectly natural for now. But time passes whether we will or know, and whether we will or know it softens. Time can't pass if you won't let it. Why—why, what do you mean? I mean just that. Those clasped the girl's hands desperately. But Rosie, you must live. Life has a great deal in store for you still. Perhaps a great deal of happiness. They say that life never takes anything from us for which it isn't prepared to give us compensation if we'd only accept it in the right way. Rosie shook her head. I don't want it. Noes tried to reach the dulled spirit by another channel. But we all have disappointments and sorrows, Rosie. I have mine. I've great ones. The aloofness in Rosie's gaze seemed to put miles between them. That doesn't make any difference to me. If you want to be sorry for them, I'm not. I can't be sorry for anyone. In her desire to touch the frozen springs of the girl's emotions, Noes said what she would have supposed herself incapable of saying. Not when you know what they are. When you know what one of them is at any rate. When you know what one of them must be. You're the only person in the world except myself who can know. Rosie's voice was as lifeless as before. I can't be sorry. I don't know why, but I can't be. Do you mean that you're glad I have to suffer? No. No, I'm not glad, especially. I just don't care. Noes was baffled. The impenetrable iciness was more difficult to deal with than active grief. She made her supreme appeal. And when Rosie then there's God. Rosie looked vaguely over the lake and said nothing. If she fixed her eyes on anything, it was on the quivering balance of a kingfisher in the air. When with a flash of silver and blue he swooped, and without seeming to have touched the water, when skimming away with a fish in his bill, her eyes wandered slowly back in her companion's direction. Noes made another attempt. You believe in God, don't you? There was a second hesitation. I don't know as I do. The older woman spoke with the pleading of distress, but there is a God, Rosie. That was the same brief hesitation. I don't care whether there is or not. Though Louise could get no further, it hurt her to see the look of relief in the little creature's face when she rose and said, You'd rather I go away, wouldn't you? Then I will go, but it won't be for long. I'm not going to leave you to yourself. I'm coming back soon. I shall come back again today. If you're not at home, I'll follow you up here. She waited for some sign of protest, but Rosie sat silent and impassive. Though Curtis had kept her dumb, it couldn't conceal the air of resigned impatience with which she awaited her visitor's departure. Noes looked down at her helplessly. In sheer incapacity to affect the larger issues, she took refuge in the smaller. Isn't it near your dinner time? I'm going your way. We could go along together. I don't want any dinner. I'll go home by-and-by. Louise felt herself dismissed. Very well, Rosie. I'll say good-bye for now, but it would only be for a little while. You understand that, don't you? I'm not going to let you throw me off. I'm going to cling to you. I've got the right to do it because the very thing that makes you unhappy makes me. In the eyes that Rosie lifted obliquely, Louise read such unutterable things that she turned away. She carried that look with her as she went down the hill, beneath the oaks, and between the sunlit patches of breaks, spleen-wort, and lady ferns. What scenes? What memories had called it up? What part in those scenes and memories have been played by Thor? What had been the actual experience between this girl and him? Would she ever know? Had she better know? What should she do if she were to know? Once more, the questions she'd been trying to repress urged themselves for answer. But once more she controlled herself through the counsel of the inner voice. Not yet. Not yet. End of Chapter 24