"Don"t be so hard on yourself, Nellie. I am sure it can be no great wrong you have done. Girls like you are too apt to be morbid. No doubt we all do it, whatever it is. I"m sure I shall not blame you when you tell me. Perhaps I shall say you are quite right--that is, if there is any right and wrong to it, and provided I know which is which, after I hear the whole story--as most likely I shall not. Right--"
And here the elder woman smiled a little satirically, and looked out of the window with a far-away gaze, as if she were retravelling through vast s.p.a.ces of time and experience far beyond anything her friend could comprehend.
The evening shadows had gathered, and cast, as they will, a spell of gravity and exchange of confidences over the two.
Presently the older woman began speaking again:
"Do you know, Nell, I was always a little surprised that Lord Byron, of all people, should have put it that way:
"I know the right, and I approve it too; Condemn the wrong--and yet the wrong pursue.
"_The_ right "--why, it is like a woman to say that. As if there were but one "right," and it were dressed in purple and fine linen, and seated on a throne in sight of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude! "_The right._"
indeed! Yes, it sounds like a woman--and a very young woman at that, Nellie."
The girl looked with large, troubled, pa.s.sionate eyes at her friend, and then broke out into hot, indignant words--words that would have offended many a woman; but Florence Campbell only laughed, a light, queer little peal; tipped her chair a trifle farther back, put her daintily slippered feet on the satin cushion of the low window-seat, and looked at her friend, through the gathering darkness, from under half-closed eyelids.
Presently--this woman was always deliberate in her conversation; long silences were a part of her power in interesting and keeping the full attention of her listeners--presently she said:
"Of course you think so. Why shouldn"t you? So did I--once. And do you know, Nellie, that sort of sentiment dies hard--_very_ hard--in a woman.
At your age--" Florence Campbell always spoke as if she were very old, although to look at her one would say that she was not twenty-eight.
These delicately formed Dresden-china women often carry their age with such an easy grace--it sits upon them so lightly--in spite of ill-health, mental storms, and moral defeats, that while their more robust sisters grow haggard and worn, and hard of feature and tone, under weights less terrible and with feelings less intense, they keep their grace and gentleness of tone in the teeth of every blast.
"At your age, dear, I would have scorned a woman who talked as I do now; and more than that, I would have suspected her, as you do not suspect me, of being a very dangerous and not unlikely a very bad person indeed--simply from choice. While you--you generous little soul--think that I am better than I talk."
She laughed again, and shifted her position as if she were not wholly comfortable under the troubled gaze of the great eyes she knew were fastened upon her.
"You think I am better than my opinions. I know exactly what you tell yourself about me when you are having it out with yourself upstairs.
Oh, I know! You excuse me for saying this on the theory that it was not deliberate--was an oversight. You account for that by the belief that I am not well--my nerves are shaken. You are perfectly certain that _I_ am all right, no matter what I do, or say, or think." She took her little friend"s soft hand as it twisted nervously a ribbon in her lap, and held the back of it against her cheek, as she often did. "But just suppose it were some one else--some other woman, Nellie, you would suspect her (no doubt quite unfairly) of all the crimes in the statute-books. Oh, I know, I know, child! I did--at your age--and, sad to relate, _I_ had no Florence Campbell to soften my judgments on even one of my s.e.x."
She had grown serious as she talked, and her voice almost trembled. The instant she recognized this herself, she laughed again, and said gayly:
"Oh, I was a very severe judge--once--I do a.s.sure you, though you may not think so now." She dropped her voice to a tone of mocking solemnity, not uncommon with her, and added: "If you won"t tell on me, I"ll make a little confession to you, dear;" and she took both of the girl"s hands firmly in her own and waited until the promise was given.
"I wouldn"t have it get out for the world, but the fact is, Nell, I sometimes strongly suspect that, at your age, I was--a most unmitigated, self-righteous little prig."
Nellie"s hands gave a disappointed little jerk: but her friend held them firmly, laughed gayly at her discomfiture--for she recognized fully that the girl was attuned to tragedy--buried her face in them! for an instant, and then deliberately kissed in turn each pink little palm--not omitting her own. Then she dropped those of her friend, and leaned back against her cushions and sighed.
Nellie was puzzled and annoyed. She was on the verge of tears.
"Florence, darling," she said presently, "if I did not know you to be the best woman in the world, I shouldn"t know what to make of your dark hints, and of--and of you. You are always a riddle to me--a beautiful riddle, with a good answer, if only I could guess it. You talk like a fiend, sometimes, and you act like--an angel, always."
"Give me up. You can"t guess me. Fact is, I haven"t got any answer,"
laughed Florence.
But the girl went steadily on without seeming to hear her: "Do you know, there are times when I wonder if it would be possible to be insane and vicious, mentally and _verbally_, as it were, and perfectly sane and exaltedly good morally."
Florence Campbell threw herself back on her cushions and laughed gayly, albeit a trifle hysterically. "Photograph taken by an experienced artist!" she exclaimed. "You"ve hit me! Oh, you"ve hit me, Nell." Then sitting suddenly bolt-upright, she looked the girl searchingly in the face, and said slowly: "Do you know, Nellie, that I am sometimes tempted to tell the truth? About myself, I mean--and to _you_. Never on any other subject, nor to anybody else, of course," she added dryly, in comedy tones, strangely contrasting with the almost tragic accents as she went on. "But I can"t. "_The_ truth!" Why, it is like _the_ right; I"m sure I don"t know what it is; and it has been so long--oh, so cruelly long--since I told it, by word or action, that I have lost its very likeness from my mind. I have told lies and acted lies so long--"
Her friend"s eyes grew indignant and she began to protest, but Florence ran on: "I have evaded facts--not only to others, but to myself, until--until I"d have to swear out a search-warrant and have it served on my mental belongings to find out myself what I _do_ think or feel or want on any given subject."
It was characteristic of the woman to use this flippant method of expression, even in her most intense moments.
"I change so, Nell; sometimes suddenly--all in a flash."
There was a long silence. Then she began again, quite seriously:
"There is a theory, you know, that we inherit traits and conditions from our remote ancestors as well as from our immediate ones. I sometimes fancy that they descend to some people with a Time Lock attachment. A child is born"--she held out her hands as if a baby lay on them--"he is like his mother, we will say, gentle, sweet, kind, truthful, for years--let us say seven. Suddenly the Time Lock turns, and the traits of his father (modified, of course, by the acquired habits of seven years) show themselves strongly--take possession, in fact. Another seven years, and the priggishness of a great-uncle, the stinginess of an aunt, or the dullness, in books, of a rural grandfather. Then, in keeping with the next two turns of the Lock, he falls in love with every new face he sees, marries early and indulges himself recklessly in a large family.
He is an exemplary husband and father, as men go, an ideal business man, and a general favorite in society."
She was running on now as if her words had the whip-hand of her.
"Everybody remarks upon the favorable change since his stupid, priggish college days. All this time, through every change, he has been honorable and upright in his dealings with his fellows. Suddenly the Time Lock of a Thievish Ancestor is turned on; he finds temptation too strong for even that greatly under-estimated power--the force of habit of a lifetime--and the trust funds in his keeping disappear with him to Canada. Everybody is surprised, shocked, pained--and he, no doubt, more so than any one else. Emotional insanity is offered as a possible explanation by the charitable; longheaded, calculating, intentional rascality, by the severe or self-righteous. And he? Well, he is wholly unable to account for it at all. He _knows_ that he had not lived all these years as a conscious, self-controlled thief. He _knows_ that the temptations of his past life had never before taken that particular form. He _knows_ that the impulse was sudden, blinding, overwhelming; but he does not know why and how. It was like an awful dream. He seemed to be powerless to overcome it. The Time Lock had turned without his knowledge, and in spite of himself. The unknown, unheard-of Thievish Ancestor took possession, as it were, through force of superior strength and ability--and then it was his hour. The hereditary shadow on the dial had come around to him. The great-uncle"s hour was past. _He_, no doubt, was "turned on" to some other dazed automaton--in Maine or Texas--who had fallen heir to a drop too much of his blood, and she, poor thing, if it happened to be a girl this time, forthwith proceeded to fall in love with her friend"s husband--seeing he was the only man at hand at the time; while the Thievish Ancestor left--in shame and contrition--a small but light-fingered boy in Georgia, to keep his engagement with our respectable, highly honored, and heretofore highly honorable man of affairs in Wall street. The Time Lock of heredity had been set for this hour, and the machinery of circ.u.mstances oiled the wheels and silently moved the dial." There was absolute silence when Florence Camp-bell"s voice ceased. The heavy curtains made the shadows in the struggling moonlight deep and solemn. Two great eyes looked out into the darkness and a shudder pa.s.sed over her frame. She thought her little friend had fallen asleep, she lay so still and quiet on the rug at her feet.
Florence sighed, and thought how quickly youth forgot its troubles and how lightly Care sat on her throne. Then suddenly a pa.s.sionate sobbing broke the silence, and two arms, covered with lace and jewels, flung themselves around the older woman"s knees.
"O my G.o.d! Florence; O my G.o.d! is there no way to stop the wheels?
Must they go blindly on? Can we _never_ know who or what we shall be to-morrow? It is awful, Florence, awful; and--it--is _true!_ O G.o.d! it is _true!_"
Florence Campbell had been very serious when she stopped her little harangue. There had been a quality in her voice which, while it was not wholly new to her friend, _would_ have been unknown to many who thought they knew her well. To them she was a beautiful, fashionable, rather light woman, with a gay nature, who either did not know, or did not care to investigate too closely, the career of her husband, to whom she was devotedly attached.
She had been quite serious, I say, when she stopped her little philosophical speculation; but she was greatly surprised at the storm she had raised in the breast of her little friend.
Florence bent down quickly, and putting her arms about the girl tried to raise her up; but she only sobbed the harder, and clung to her friend"s knees as a desperate, frightened creature might cling to its only refuge.
"Why, Nellie, little kitten," said the older woman, using a term of endearment common with her in talking with the girl--"why, Nellie, little kitten, what in the world is the matter? Did I scare the life out of you with my Time Locks and my gruesome ancestors?" and she tried to laugh a little; but the sound of her voice was not altogether pleasant to the ear. "I"ll ring for a light. I had no business to talk such stuff to you when you were blue and in the dark too. I guess, Nell, that the Time Lock of _my_ remote ancestor, who was a fool, must have been turned on me shortly after sundown to-day, don"t you think?" And this time her laugh lacked the note of bitterness it had held before.
She ran on, still caressing the weeping girl at her feet:
"Yes, undoubtedly, my Remote Ancestor--the fool--has now moved in. Do you think you can stand seven years of him, kitten, if you live with me that long? But you won"t. You"ll go and marry some horrid man, and I shall be so jealous that my hair will curl at sight of him."
But the girl would not laugh. She refused to be cheered, nor would she have a light. She raised herself until her head rested on her friend"s bosom, and clung to her, sobbing as if her heart would break. Florence stroked her hair and sat silent for a while, wondering just what had so shaken the child. She knew full well that it was _not_ what she had hinted of the darkness and her gruesome story. Presently Nellie drew her friend"s face down, and whispered between her sobs:
"Darling, I must have had some dreadful ancestor, a wicked--_wicked_ woman. I--"
Florence Campbell shrieked with laughter. She felt relieved of--she did not know what. She had blamed herself for even unconsciously touching the secret spring of sorrow in the girl"s heart. It was a strange sight, the two women clinging to each other, the one sobbing, the other laughing, each trying in vain to check the other.
At last Nellie said, still almost in a whisper: "But, Florence, you do not know. You do not understand. You are too good to know. It is you who will scorn and hate me when I tell you. O Florence, Florence, I can never _dare_ to tell you!" Her friend, still laughing, made little e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of satirical import as the girl grew more and more hysterical.
"O thou wicked wretch!" laughed she. "No doubt you"ve killed your man, as they say out West. Oh, dear--oh, dear! Nell, this is really quite delicious! Did it step on a bug? Or was it a great big spider? And does it think it ought to be hanged for the crime? A peal of laughter from the one, a shudder from the other, was the only reply to these efforts to break the force of the girl"s self-reproach. Florence clinched her small fist in mock heroics and began again:
"Your crimes have found you out! And mine--_mine_--has been the avenging hand! Really, this is too good, kitten. I shall tell, let me see--I shall tell--_Tom!_"
The girl was on her feet in a flash.
"Not that! _not that_, Florence! Anything but that! I will tell you myself first--_he_ shall not?" Florence grew suddenly silent and grave.
The girl slipped down at her knees again, and clasping her hand, went hoa.r.s.ely on:
"O Florence, darling, I did not mean to wrong you! Truly, truly, I did not--and I do not believe _he_ did--not at--first. We--oh, it was--"
she sank on the floor, at the feet of her astonished friend, and with upstretched arms in the darkness whispered: "Florence, Florence--O my G.o.d! I _cannot_ tell you! I must go away! _I must go away!_" The older woman did not touch the outstretched hands and they sank to the floor, and on them rested a tear-stained, wretched face.