"Well, I hate strings of milk in my coffee," said Eddy, bending over his sister to put a perfunctory kiss upon her brow, "and as I observe one in that cup I hope it"s not intended for me. Imogen, why won"t you use the strainer?"
With admirable patience, as if humoring two spoiled children, Imogen filled another cup with greater care.
"Mama feels just as I do about strings in coffee," said Eddy, bearing away his cup. "We are both of us very highly organized."
"You mustn"t be over-sensitive, you know," said Imogen, "else you will unfit yourself for life. There are so many strings in one"s coffee in life."
"The fit avoid them," said Eddy, "as I do."
"You inherit that, too, from mama," said Imogen, "the avoidance of difficulties. Do try some of our pop-overs, Miss Boc.o.c.k; it"s a national dish."
"What are you going to do this morning, Imogen?" Jack asked, and she felt that his eye braved hers. "It"s your Girls" Club morning, isn"t it? That will do beautifully for you, Miss Boc.o.c.k. I"ve been telling Miss Boc.o.c.k about it; she is very much interested."
"Very much indeed. I am on the committee of such a club in England," said Miss Boc.o.c.k; "I should like to go over it with you."
Imogen smiled a.s.sent, while inwardly she muttered "Snake!" Her morning, already, was done for, unless, indeed, she could annex Sir Basil as a third to the party and, with him, evade Miss Boc.o.c.k for a few brief moments. But brief moments could do nothing for them. They needed long sunny or moonlit solitudes.
"We must be alone together, under the stars, for our souls to _see_,"
Imogen said to herself, while she poured the coffee, while she met Jack"s eye, while, beneath this highest thought, the lesser comment of "Snake!"
made itself heard.
"What"s become of that interesting girl who had the rival club, Imogen?"
Rose asked. "The one you squashed."
"We make her very welcome when she comes to ours." Imogen did not descend to self-exculpation. She spoke gently and gravely, casting only a glance at Sir Basil, as if calling him to witness her pained magnanimity.
"It would be fun, you know, to help her to start a new one," said Rose;--"something rebellious and anarchic. Will you help me if I do, Eddy?
Come, let"s sow discord in Imogen"s Eden, like a couple of serpents."
Reptilian a.n.a.logies seemed uppermost this morning; Imogen felt their fitness while, smiling on, she answered: "I don"t think that mere rebellion--not only against Eden but against the Tree of Knowledge as well--would carry you far, Rose. Your membership would be of three--Mattie and the two serpents."
Sir Basil laughed out at the retort.
"You evidently don"t know the club and all those delightful young women,"
he said to Rose.
"Oh, yes, indeed I do. Every one sees Imogen"s clubs. I don"t think them delightful. Women in crowds are always horrid. We are only tolerable in isolation."
"You hand over to us, then,"--it was Jack who spoke, and with his usual impatience when bending to Rose"s folly,--"all the civic virtues, all the virtues of fraternity?"
"With pleasure; they are becoming to n.o.body, for that matter. But I"m quite sure that men are brothers. Women never are sisters, however, unless, sometimes, we are sisters to you," Rose added demurely, at which Sir Basil gave a loud laugh.
Imogen, though incensed, was willing that on this low ground of silly flippancy Rose should make her little triumphs. She kept her smile. "I don"t think that those of us who are capable of another sisterhood will agree with you," and her smile turned on Mary another coal of fire, for she suspected Mary of apostasy. "I don"t think that the women whose aim in life is--well--to make brothers of men in Rose"s sense, can understand sisterhood at all, as, for instance, Mary and I do."
"Oh, you and Mary!"--Rose tapped her eggsh.e.l.l and salted her egg. "That"s not sisterhood;--that"s prophetess and proselyte. You"re an anarchist to the bone, Imogen, like the rest of us;--you couldn"t bear to share anything--It"s like children playing games:--If I can"t be the driver, I won"t play horses."
"Oh, Rose!" came in distressed tones from Mary; but Imogen did not flinch from her serenity.
Outside on the veranda, where they all wandered after breakfast, her moment came at last. Jack had walked away with Mary; Miss Boc.o.c.k, with a newspaper, stood in the shade at a little distance. Rose and Eddy were wandering among the flowers.
Imogen knew, as she found herself alone with Sir Basil, that the impulse that rose in her was the crude one of simply s.n.a.t.c.hing. She controlled its demonstration so that only a certain breathlessness was in her voice, a certain brilliancy in her eye, as she said to him, rapidly:--
"He will never let you see me! Never!"
"He? Who?--What do you mean?" Sir Basil, startled, stared at her.
"Jack! Jack! Haven"t you noticed?"
"Oh, I see. Yes, I see." His glance became illuminated. In a voice as low as her own he asked: "What does it mean?--I never can get a word with you. He"s always there. He"s very devoted to you, I know; but, I supposed that--well, that his chance was over."
His hesitation, the appeal of his glance, were lightning-flashes of a.s.surance for Imogen, opening her path for her.
"It is over;--it is over;--but it"s false that he is devoted to me," she whispered. "He hates me. He is my enemy."
"Oh, I say!" gasped Sir Basil.
"And since he failed to win me--Don"t you see--It"s through sheer spite--sheer hatred."
Her brilliant eyes were on him and a further "Oh!" came from Sir Basil as he received this long ray of illumination. And it was so dazzling, although Imogen, after her speech, had cast down her eyes, revealing nothing more, that he murmured hastily:--"Can"t I see you, Imogen, alone;--can"t you arrange it in some way?"
Imogen"s eyes were still cast down, while, the purpose that was like a possession, once attained, her thoughts rushed in, accused, exculpated, a wild confusion that, in another moment had built for her self-respect the shelter of a theory that, really, quite solidly sustained the statement so astounding to herself when it had risen to her lips. Hatred, spite; yes, these were motives, too, in Jack"s treachery; she hadn"t spoken falsely, though it had been with the blindness of the overmastering purpose. And her dignity was untarnished in Sir Basil"s eyes, for, she had seen it at last, her path was open; she had only to enter it.
Her heart seemed to flutter in her throat as she said on the lowest, most incisive note: "Yes,--I, too, want to see you, Sir Basil. I am so lonely;--you are the only one who cares, who understands, who is near me.
There must be real truth between us. This morning--he has prevented that.
But to-night, after we have all gone up-stairs, come out again, by the little door at the back, and meet me--meet me--" her voice wavered a little, "at the rustic bench, up in the woods, where we went last night. There we can talk." And catching suddenly at all the n.o.bility, so threatened in her own eyes, remembering her love for him, her great love, and his need, his great need, of her, she smiled deeply, proudly at him and said:
"We will see each other, at last, and each other"s truth, under G.o.d"s stars."
XXVI
Jack had drawn Mary aside, around the sunny veranda, and, out of ear-shot of everybody, a curious intentness in his demeanor, he asked her to run up to Mrs. Upton"s room and ask her if she wouldn"t take a drive with him that morning. Since the Uptons" impoverishment their little stable was, perforce, empty; and it was Jack who ordered the buggy from the village and treated the company in turn to daily drives.
Mary departed on her errand, hearing Jack telephoning to the livery-stable as she went up-stairs.
She had to own to herself that the charm had grown on her, and the fact of her increasing fondness for Imogen"s mother made the clearer to her all the new, vague pain in regard to Imogen. Imogen, to Mary"s delicate perception of moral atmosphere, was different; she had felt it from the moment of her arrival. No one had as yet enlightened her as to the Potts"s catastrophe, but even by its interpretation she would have found the change hard to understand. Perhaps it was merely that she, Mary, was selfish and felt herself to be of less importance to Imogen. Mary was always conscious of relief when she could fix responsibility upon herself, and she was adjusting all sorts of burdens on her conscience as she knocked at Mrs.
Upton"s door.
The post had just arrived, and Valerie, standing near her dressing-table, was reading her letters as Mary came in. Mary had never so helplessly felt the sense of charm as this morning.
She wore a long white dressing-gown, of frilled lawn, tied with black ribbons at throat and wrists. Her abundant chestnut hair, delicately veined with white, was braided into two broad plaits that hung below her waist, and her face, curiously childlike so seen, was framed in the banded ma.s.ses.
Mary could suddenly see what she had looked like as a little girl. So moved was she by the charm that, Puritan as she was, she found herself involuntarily saying:--"Oh, Mrs. Upton, what beautiful hair you have."
"It is nice, isn"t it?" said Valerie, looking more than ever like a child, a pleased child; "I love my hair."
Mary had taken one braid and was crunching it softly, like spun silk, in her hand. She couldn"t help laughing out at the happy acceptance of her admiring speech; the charm was about her; she understood; it wasn"t vanity, but something flower-like.