"What a nasty thing Lottie Wright is!" exclaimed Ruth to her cousin.
"She has a mean tongue," admitted Susan, tall and slim and straight, with glorious dark hair and a skin healthily pallid and as smooth as clear. "But she"s got a good heart. She gives a lot away to poor people."
"Because she likes to patronize and be kowtowed to," retorted Ruth. "She"s mean, I tell you." Then, with a vicious gleam in the blue eyes that hinted a deeper and less presentable motive for the telling, she added: "Why, she"s not going to ask you to her party."
Susan was obviously unmoved. "She has the right to ask whom she pleases. And"--she laughed--"if I were giving a party I"d not want to ask her--though I might do it for fear she"d feel left out."
"Don"t you feel--left out?"
Susan shook her head. "I seem not to care much about going to parties lately. The boys don"t like to dance with me, and I get tired of sitting the dances out."
This touched Ruth"s impulsively generous heart and woman"s easy tears filled her eyes; her cousin"s remark was so pathetic, the more pathetic because its pathos was absolutely unconscious.
Ruth shot a pitying glance at Susan, but the instant she saw the loveliness of the features upon which that expression of unconsciousness lay like innocence upon a bed of roses, the pity vanished from her eyes to be replaced by a disfiguring envy as hateful as an evil emotion can be at nineteen. Susan still lacked nearly a month of seventeen, but she seemed older than Ruth because her mind and her body had developed beyond her years--or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say beyond the average of growth at seventeen. Also, her personality was stronger, far more definite. Ruth tried to believe herself the cleverer and the more beautiful, at times with a certain success. But as she happened to be a shrewd young person--an inheritance from the Warhams--she was haunted by misgivings--and worse. Those whose vanity never suffers from these torments will, of course, condemn her; but whoever has known the pain of having to concede superiority to someone with whom she or he--is constantly contrasted will not be altogether without sympathy for Ruth in her struggles, often vain struggles, against the mortal sin of jealousy.
The truth is, Susan was beyond question the beauty of Sutherland. Her eyes, very dark at birth, had changed to a soft, dreamy violet-gray. Hair and coloring, lashes and eyebrows remained dark; thus her eyes and the intense red of her lips had that vicinage of contrast which is necessary to distinction. To look at her was to be at once fascinated by those violet-gray eyes--by their color, by their clearness, by their regard of calm, grave inquiry, by their mystery not untouched by a certain sadness. She had a thick abundance of wavy hair, not so long as Ruth"s golden braids, but growing beautifully instead of thinly about her low brow, about her delicately modeled ears, and at the back of her exquisite neck. Her slim nose departed enough from the cla.s.sic line to prevent the suggestion of monotony that is in all purely cla.s.sic faces. Her nostrils had the sensitiveness that more than any other outward sign indicates the imaginative temperament. Her chin and throat--to look at them was to know where her lover would choose to kiss her first.
When she smiled her large even teeth were dazzling. And the smile itself was exceedingly sweet and winning, with the violet-gray eyes casting over it that seriousness verging on sadness which is the natural outlook of a highly intelligent nature. For while stupid vain people are suspicious and easily offended, only the intelligent are truly sensitive--keenly susceptible to all sensations. The dull ear is suspicious; the acute ear is sensitive.
The intense red of her lips, at times so vivid that it seemed artificial, and their sinuous, sensitive curve indicated a temperament that was frankly proclaimed in her figure--sensuous, graceful, slender--the figure of girlhood in its perfection and of perfect womanhood, too--like those tropical flowers that look innocent and young and fresh, yet stir in the beholder pa.s.sionate longings and visions. Her walk was worthy of face and figure--free and firm and graceful, the small head carried proudly without haughtiness.
This physical beauty had as an aureole to illuminate it and to set it off a manner that was wholly devoid of mannerisms--of those that men and women think out and exhibit to give added charm to themselves--tricks of cuteness, as lisp and baby stare; tricks of dignity, as grave brow and body always carried rigidly erect; tricks of sweetness and kindliness, as the ever ready smile and the warm handclasp. Susan, the interested in the world about her, Susan, the self-unconscious, had none of these tricks. She was at all times her own self. Beauty is anything but rare, likewise intelligence. But this quality of naturalness is the greatest of all qualities. It made Susan Lenox unique.
It was not strange--nor inexcusable that the girls and their parents had begun to pity Susan as soon as this beauty developed and this personality had begun to exhale its delicious perfume.
It was but natural that they should start the whole town to "being kind to the poor thing." And it was equally the matter of course that they should have achieved their object--should have impressed the conventional masculine mind of the town with such a sense of the "poor thing"s" social isolation and "impossibility" that the boys ceased to be her eagerly admiring friends, were afraid to be alone with her, to ask her to dance.
Women are conventional as a business; but with men conventionality is a groveling superst.i.tion. The youths of Sutherland longed for, sighed for the alluring, sweet, bright Susan; but they dared not, with all the women saying "Poor thing! What a pity a nice man can"t afford to have anything to do with her!" It was an interesting typical example of the profound sn.o.bbishness of the male character. Rarely, after Susan was sixteen, did any of the boys venture to ask her to dance and so give himself the joy of encircling that lovely form of hers; yet from babyhood her fascination for the male s.e.x, regardless of age or temperament, had been uncanny--"naturally, she being a love-child," said the old women. And from fourteen on, it grew steadily.
It would be difficult for one who has not lived in a small town to understand exactly the kind of isolation to which Sutherland consigned the girl without her realizing it, without their fully realizing it themselves. Everyone was friendly with her. A stranger would not have noticed any difference in the treatment of her and of her cousin Ruth. Yet not one of the young men would have thought of marrying her, would have regarded her as his equal or the equal of his sisters. She went to all the general entertainments. She was invited to all the houses when failure to invite her would have seemed pointed--but only then.
She did not think much about herself; she was fond of study--fonder of reading--fondest, perhaps, of making dresses and hats, especially for Ruth, whom she thought much prettier than herself. Thus, she was only vaguely, subconsciously conscious of there being something peculiar and mysterious in her lot.
This isolation, rather than her dominant quality of self-effacing consideration for others, was the chief cause of the extraordinary innocence of her mind. No servant, no girl, no audacious boy ever ventured to raise with her any question remotely touching on s.e.x. All those questions seemed to Puritan Sutherland in any circ.u.mstances highly indelicate; in relation to Susan they seemed worse than indelicate, dreadful though the thought was that there could be anything worse than indelicacy.
At fifteen she remained as unaware of even the existence of the mysteries of s.e.x as she had been at birth. Nothing definite enough to arouse her curiosity had ever been said in her hearing; and such references to those matters as she found in her reading pa.s.sed her by, as any matter of which he has not the beginnings of knowledge will fail to arrest the attention of any reader. It was generally a.s.sumed that she knew all about her origin, that someone had, some time or other, told her. Even her Aunt f.a.n.n.y thought so, thought she was hiding the knowledge deep in her heart, explained in that way her content with the solitude of books and sewing.
Susan was the worst possible influence in Ruth"s life. Our character is ourself, is born with us, clings to us as the flesh to our bones, persists unchanged until we die. But upon the circ.u.mstances that surround us depends what part of our character shall show itself. Ruth was born with perhaps something more than the normal tendency to be envious and petty.
But these qualities might never have shown themselves conspicuously had there been no Susan for her to envy. The very qualities that made Susan lovable reacted upon the pretty, pert blond cousin to make her the more unlovable. Again and again, when she and Susan were about to start out together, and Susan would appear in beauty and grace of person and dress, Ruth would excuse herself, would fly to her room to lock herself in and weep and rage and hate. And at the high school, when Susan scored in a recitation or in some dramatic entertainment, Ruth would sit with bitten lip and surging bosom, pale with jealousy.
Susan"s isolation, the way the boys avoided having with her the friendly relations that spring up naturally among young people these gave Ruth a partial revenge. But Susan, seemingly unconscious, rising sweetly and serenely above all pettiness--
Ruth"s hatred deepened, though she hid it from everyone, almost from herself. And she depended more and more utterly upon Susan to select her clothes for her, to dress her, to make her look well; for Susan had taste and Ruth had not.
On that bright June morning as the cousins went up Main Street together, Susan gave herself over to the delight of sun and air and of the flowering gardens before the attractive houses they were pa.s.sing; Ruth, with the day quite dark for her, all its joys gone, was fighting against a hatred of her cousin so vicious that it made her afraid. "I"ll have no chance at all,"
her angry heart was saying, "so long as Susie"s around, keeping everybody reminded of the family shame." And that was a truth she could not downface, mean and ungenerous though thinking it might be. The worst of all was that Susan, in a simple white dress and an almost untrimmed white straw hat with a graceful curve to its brim and set at the right angle upon that wavy dark hair, was making the beauty of her short blond cousin dim and somehow common.
At the corner of Maple Street Ruth"s self-control reached its limit. She halted, took the sample of silk from her glove. There was not a hint of her feelings in her countenance, for shame and the desire to seem to be better than she was were fast making her an adept in hypocrisy. "You go ahead and match it for mamma," said she. "I"ve got to run in and see Bessie Andrews."
"But I promised Uncle George I"d come and help him with the monthly bills," objected Susan.
"You can do both. It"ll take you only a minute. If mother had known you were going uptown, she"d never have trusted _me_." And Ruth had tucked the sample in Susan"s belt and was hurrying out Maple Street. There was nothing for Susan to do but go on alone.
Two squares, and she was pa.s.sing the show place of Sutherland, the home of the Wrights. She paused to regale herself with a glance into the grove of magnificent elms with lawns and bright gardens beyond--for the Wright place filled the entire square between Broad and Myrtle Streets and from Main to Monroe. She was starting on when she saw among the trees a young man in striped flannels. At the same instant he saw her.
"Hel-_lo_, Susie!" he cried. "I was thinking about you."
Susan halted. "When did you get back, Sam?" she asked. "I heard you were going to stay on in the East all summer."
After they had shaken hands across the hedge that came almost to their shoulders, Susan began to move on. Sam kept pace with her on his side of the carefully trimmed boxwood barrier. "I"m going back East in about two weeks," said he. "It"s awfully dull here after Yale. I just blew in--haven"t seen Lottie or father yet.
Coming to Lottie"s party?"
"No," said Susan.
"Why not?"
Susan laughed merrily. "The best reason in the world. Lottie has only invited just so many couples."
"I"ll see about that," cried Sam. "You"ll be asked all right, all right."
"No," said Susan. She was one of those whose way of saying no gives its full meaning and intent. "I"ll not be asked, thank you--and I"ll not go if I am."
By this time they were at the gate. He opened it, came out into the street. He was a tallish, athletic youth, dark, and pleasing enough of feature to be called handsome. He was dressed with a great deal of style of the efflorescent kind called soph.o.m.oric.
He was a Soph.o.m.ore at Yale. But that was not so largely responsible for his self-complacent expression as the deference he had got from babyhood through being heir apparent to the Wright fortune. He had a sophisticated way of inspecting Susan"s charms of figure no less than charms of face that might have made a disagreeable impression upon an experienced onlooker. There is a time for feeling without knowing why one feels; and that period ought not to have been pa.s.sed for young Wright for many a year.
"My, but you"re looking fine, Susie!" exclaimed he. "I haven"t seen anyone that could hold a candle to you even in the East."
Susan laughed and blushed with pleasure. "Go on," said she with raillery. "I love it."
"Come in and sit under the trees and I"ll fill all the time you"ll give me."
This reminded her. "I must hurry uptown," she said. "Good-by."
"Hold on!" cried he. "What have you got to do?" He happened to glance down the street. "Isn"t that Ruth coming?"
"So it is," said Susan. "I guess Bessie Andrews wasn"t at home."
Sam waved at Ruth and called, "h.e.l.lo! Glad to see you."
Ruth was all sweetness and smiles. She and her mother--quite privately and with nothing openly said on either side--had canva.s.sed Sam as a "possibility." There had been keen disappointment at the news that he was not coming home for the long vacation. "How are you, Sam?" said she, as they shook hands. "My, Susie, _doesn"t_ he look New York?"
Sam tried to conceal that he was swelling with pride. "Oh, this is nothing," said he deprecatingly.
Ruth"s heart was a-flutter. The Fisher picture of the Chambers love-maker, thought she, might almost be a photograph of Sam.
She was glad she had obeyed the mysterious impulse to make a toilette of unusual elegance that morning. How get rid of Susan?
"_I_"ll take the sample, Susie," said she. "Then you won"t have to keep father waiting."
Susie gave up the sample. Her face was no longer so bright and interested.
"Oh, drop it," cried Sam. "Come in--both of you. I"ll telephone for Joe Andrews and we"ll take a drive--or anything you like."
He was looking at Susan.
"Can"t do it," replied Susan. "I promised Uncle George."
"Oh, bother!" urged Sam. "Telephone him. It"ll be all right--won"t it, Ruth?"