Rose stood there with perfect self-possession, very white now and with the chilled look that accompanies difficult resolution. She glanced at Madam Fulton, and the old lady met her gaze eagerly with an unbelieving query.
"For heaven"s sake!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Electra, why don"t you speak?"
"I lived with Tom Fulton as his wife," said Rose, in the same moving voice. She might have been engaged in the rehearsal of a difficult part.
No one looking at her could have said whether she duly weighed what she was announcing. "I called myself his wife because I thought I had a right to. Other people would have called me a disgraced woman."
Billy Stark now, without waiting to find the step, walked off the edge of the veranda and was presently to be seen, if any one had had eyes for him, lighting a cigar in the peaceful garden. Madam Fulton had spoken on the heels of these last words. She brightened into the most cordial animation.
"This is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life," she commented, with relish. "Sit down, my dear, and tell us all about it."
"There is nothing more to tell," said Rose. Her eyes traveled to Electra"s face, and stayed there, though the unfriendly triumph of it shook her resolution. "I had to say this because I must say, too, that I do not want money and I will not take it. I do not want to be known as Tom Fulton"s wife. I was not his wife."
"You wanted it a week ago," said Electra involuntarily. She had made up her mind not to speak, not to be severe, not to be anything that would destroy the picture Markham MacLeod must have of her in his own mind; but the words escaped her.
"That was before--" Rose stopped. She had almost said it was before her father came, but it was borne floodingly in upon her that this was not alone the reason. It was before she had felt this great allegiance to Osmond Grant.
"Your father confirms you," said Electra, yielding to her overpowering curiosity. "He says you were my brother"s wife."
"My father"--Rose held her head higher--"I have nothing to do with that," she concluded. "It is the truth that I was never married."
Electra turned away and went into the house. They heard her step in the neighboring room. She had paused there by the piano, considering, in her desire to be mistress of herself, whether she should not go on with her music as if nothing had happened. But the thought of Rose and her mastery of the keys forbade that, as display, and she turned away and went upstairs, with great dignity, though there was no one by to consider the fashion of it. There she sat down by the window, to watch for Markham MacLeod. Madam Fulton had been regarding Rose with an exceedingly friendly smile. The girl looked tired, though her muscles had relaxed with Electra"s going.
"Come here, my dear, and sit down," said the old lady, indicating a chair. Rose shook her head. Then, as she found herself trembling, she did sit down, and Madam Fulton laid a hand upon her knee. "You are a very interesting child," she said, with an approving emphasis. "Now what in the world made you fall in love with Tom Fulton? Did he seem very nice to you?"
"I can"t talk about him," said Rose. It seemed to her as if now his shadow might be lifted from her. "It is over. He is dead."
"Of course he"s dead. It was the best thing he could do. Well, well, my dear! What made you come over here and play this little comedy for us?"
The girl"s eyes had filled with tears.
"I can"t tell you," she answered. It was easy to defend her cause to Osmond; not to this eager creature who wanted to read her like a curious book. But Madam Fulton was almost whispering. She looked as if she had something of the utmost importance to communicate.
"I ask you, my dear, because I am thoroughly bad myself, and it"s beyond me to understand why it"s so important whether we are bad or good. And I thought maybe if you could tell me--did you know you were bad before you came and Electra found you out?"
Rose was looking kindly into the vivid face.
"No," she said, "I didn"t think I was bad."
"That"s it!" cried the old lady, in high triumph. "We don"t any of us know it till they find us out. My dear, it"s the most awful system--now, isn"t it? You go on as innocent as you please, and suddenly they tell you you"re a criminal. It"s as if you made up your mouth to whistle, walking along the road, and somebody pounces on you and tells you whistling"s against the law and claps you into jail."
Rose was smiling at her now, forgetful, for the moment, of her own coil, Madam Fulton seemed to her so pathetically young and innocent of everything save untamed desires.
"What under heavens does it mean?" Madam Fulton was insisting, with the greatest irritation.
"I must go now," said Rose. "I had to tell you."
Madam Fulton kept the detaining hand upon her knee.
"But where are you going?" she insisted. "Back to France?"
"No, I shall stay in America. I shall sing."
"Do you think anybody"ll want to hear you?"
"They"ll love to hear me!"
Madam Fulton eyed her smilingly.
"You"re a brazen hussy," she said. "But of all things, why did you come here with your little comedy in your hand, if you didn"t mean to play it out?"
"I did mean to play it," said Rose, laying her head back against the high rail of the chair. She closed her eyes, for again she felt the tears coming. "But I--got sick of it."
Madam Fulton nodded confirmingly.
"That"s precisely it," she agreed. "We do get sick of it. We get sick of conduct, good or bad. They don"t, the good ones. They go on clambering, one step after another, up that pyramid, and peering over the edge to see us playing in the sand, and occasionally, if they can get a brick, they heave it at us."
"Who are the good ones?" Rose asked languidly. "Electra?"
"Electra? She"s neither hot nor cold. But she"s of the kind that made the system in the first place."
"Grannie is good," said Rose absently.
"Bessie Grant? Yes, she"s G.o.d"s anointed, if there is a G.o.d. My dear, I love to talk with you, almost as much as with Billy Stark. You come and stay with me next winter."
Rose smiled.
"There"s Electra," she reminded her.
"Bless you, Electra and I don"t live together! I only visit her here half the year, to save my pocketbook. That"s another proof of my general unworthiness. I flout her and mad her all the time. She wouldn"t do that to me, but she"d drive me to drink trying not to. No, I"ve got a little apartment in town, like a hollow tree, and I crawl into it in the winter. You come, too, and I"ll introduce you to all the people I know, and you can make "em listen while you sing."
Rose was looking at her in a moved warmth and wonder.
"How kind you are!" she breathed.
"No! no! Only when you said you were a liar, and worse, I suddenly felt the most extraordinary interest in you. I feel as if you might speak my language. I don"t know that I want to do anything bad, but I don"t want to be kept so nervous trying to decide whether things are bad or not.
You come, my dear--unless I marry Billy Stark. I may do that. I must, if it will plague Electra."
Rose gave her a quick glance, at once withdrawn, and while she allowed the last possibility to sink into the depths of her mind, Madam Fulton was interrogating her again.
"You don"t think it is possible," she was urging, with the insistence of one who sees incredible good fortune, "you don"t suppose you haven"t any moral sense?"
She seemed to hang upon the answer. Rose, in spite of herself and the unhappy moment, laughed.
"I hoped I had," she rejoined, "but I don"t believe I ever thought much about it."
Madam Fulton nodded quite gayly.
"That"s it!" she cried. "Don"t you see you haven"t? When they have it, they"re always thinking about it. It"s like a cinder in the eye. My dear, you"re just as bad as I am, and I thank my stars I"ve met you."