"For _her_ peace of mind!"
"Yes."
"Wait! I daren"t trust myself to fill in what you leave unsaid. It"s too--preposterous. Do you mean---- But you can"t mean that you imagine Susan to be in love with--her grandfather?" My heart pounded, suffocating me; with fright, I think.
"No," said Miss Goucher, coldly; "Susan is not in love with her grandfather. She is with you."
I could manage no response but an angry one. "That"s a dangerous statement, Miss Goucher! Whether true or not--it ruins everything. You have made our life here together impossible."
"It is impossible," said Miss Goucher. "It became so last summer. I knew then it could not go on much longer."
"But I question this! I deny that Susan feels for me more than--grat.i.tude and affection."
"Grat.i.tude is rare," said Miss Goucher enigmatically, her eyes fixed upon the fragments of Buddha littering my hearth. "True grat.i.tude," she added, "is a strong emotion. When it pa.s.ses between a man and a woman, it is like flame."
"Very interesting!" I snapped. "But hardly enough to have brought you here to me with this!"
"She feels that you need her," said Miss Goucher.
"I do," was my reply.
"Susan doesn"t need _you_," said Miss Goucher. "I don"t wish to be brutal; but she doesn"t. In spite of this, she can easily stand alone."
"I see. And you think that would be best?"
"Naturally. Don"t you?"
"I"m not so sure."
As I muttered this my eyes, too, fixed themselves on the fragments of Buddha. Would the woman never go! I hated her; it seemed to me now that I had always hated her. What was she after all but a superior kind of servant--presuming in this way! The irritation of these thoughts swung me suddenly round to wound her, if I might, with sarcasm, with implied contempt. But it is impossible to wound the air. With her customary economy of explanation Miss Goucher had, pitilessly, left me to myself.
IV
The evening of this already comfortless day I now recall as one of the most exasperating of my life. Maltby Phar arrived for dinner and the week-end--an exasperation foreseen; Phil came in after dinner--another; but what I did not foresee was that Lucette Arthur would bring her malicious self and her unspeakably tedious husband for a formal call.
Lucette was an old friend of Gertrude, and I always suspected that her occasional evening visits were followed by a detailed report; in fact, I rather encouraged them, and returned them promptly, hoping that they were. In my harmless way of life even Lucette"s talent for snooping could find, I felt, little to feed upon, and it did not wholly displease me that Gertrude should be now and then forced to recognize this.
The coming of Susan had, not unnaturally, for a time, provided Lucette with a wealth of interesting conjecture; she had even gone so far as to intimate that Gertrude felt I was making--the expression is entirely mine--an a.s.s of myself, which neither surprised nor disturbed me, since Gertrude had always had a tendency to feel that my talents lay in that direction. But, on the whole, up to this time--barring the Sonia incident, which had afforded her a good deal of scope, but which, after all, could not be safely misinterpreted--Lucette had found at my house pretty thin pickings for scandal; and I could only wonder at the unwearying patience with which she pursued her quest.
She arrived with poor Doctor Arthur in tow--Dr. Lyman Arthur, who professed Primitive Eschatology in the School of Religion: eschatology being "that branch of theology which treats of the end of the world and man"s condition or state after death"--just upon the heels of Phil, who shot me a despairing glance as we rose to greet them.
But Susan, I thought, welcomed them with undisguised relief. She had been surpa.s.sing herself before the fire, chatting blithely, wittily, even a little recklessly; but there are gayer evenings conceivable than one spent in the presence of three doleful men, two of whom have proposed marriage to you, and one of whom would have done so if he were not married already. Almost anything, even open espionage and covert eschatology, was better than that.
Lucette--the name suggests Parisian vivacity, but she was really large and physically languid and very blonde, scented at once, I felt, a something faintly brimstoneish in the atmosphere of my model home, and forthwith prepared herself for a protracted and pleasant evening. It so happened that the Arthurs had never met Maltby, and Susan carried through the ceremony of introduction with a fine swinging rhythm which settled us as one group before the fire and for some moments at least kept the conversation animated and general.
But Eschatology, brooding in the background, soon put an end to this somewhat hectic social burst. The mere unnoted presence of Dr. Lyman Arthur, peering nearsightedly in at the doorway on a children"s party, has been known, I am told, to slay youngling joy and turn little tots self-conscious, so that they could no longer be induced by agonized mothers to go to Jerusalem, or clap-in clap-out. His presence now, gradually but surely, had much the same effect. Seated at Maltby"s elbow, he pa.s.sed into the silence and drew us, struggling but helpless, after him. For five horrible seconds nothing was heard but the impolite, ironic whispering of little flames on the hearth. Was this man"s condition or state after death? Eschatology had conquered.
Susan, in duty bound as hostess, broke the spell, but it cannot be said she rose to the occasion. "Is it a party in a parlor," she murmured wistfully to the flames, "all silent and all--d.a.m.ned?"
Perceiving that Lucette supposed this to be original sin, I laughed much more loudly than cheerfully, exclaiming "Good old Wordsworth!" as I did so.
Then Maltby"s evil genius laid hold on him.
"By the way," he snorted, "they tell me one of you academic ghouls has discovered that Wordsworth had an illegitimate daughter--whatever _that_ means! Any truth in it? I hope so. It"s the humanest thing I ever heard about the old sheep!"
Doctor Arthur cleared his throat, very cautiously; and it was evident that Maltby had not helped us much. Phil, in another vein, helped us little more.
"I wonder," he asked, "if anyone reads Wordsworth now--except Susan?"
No one, not even Susan, seemed interested in this question; and the little flames chuckled quietly once more.
Something had to be done.
"Doctor," I began, turning toward Eschatology, and knowing no more than my Kazak hearthrug what I was going to say, "is it true that----"
"Undoubtedly," intoned Eschatology, thereby saving me from the pit I was digging for myself. My incomplete question must have chimed with Doctor Arthur"s private reflections, and he seemed to suppose some controversial matter under discussion. "Undoubtedly," he repeated....
"And what is even more important is this----"
But Lucette silenced him with a "Why is it, dear, that you always let your cigar burn down at one side? It does look so untidy." And she leaned to me. "What delightfully daring discussions you must all of you have here together! You"re all so terribly intellectual, aren"t you? But do you never talk of anything but books and art and ideas? I"m sure you must," she added, fixing me with impenetrable blue eyes.
"Often," I smiled back; "even the weather has charms for us. Even food."
Her inquisitive upper lip curled and dismissed me.
"Why is it," she demanded, turning suddenly on Susan, "that I don"t see you round more with the college boys? They"re much more suitable to your age, you know, than Ambrose or Phil. I hope you don"t frighten them off, my dear, by mentioning Wordsworth? Boys dislike bluestockings; and you"re much too charming to wear them anyway. Oh, but you really are! I must take charge of you--get you out more where you belong, away from these dreadful old fogies!" Lucette laughed her languid, purring, dangerous laughter. "I"m serious, Miss Blake. You musn"t let them monopolize you; they will if you"re not careful. They"re just selfish enough to want to keep you to themselves."
The tone was badinage; but the remark struck home and left us speechless. Lucette shifted the tiller slightly and filled her sails.
"Next thing you know, Miss Blake, they"ll be asking you to marry them.
Individually, of course--not collectively. And, of course--not Ambrose!
At least you"re safe there," she hastily added; "aren"t you?"
Maltby, I saw, was furious; bent on brutalities. Before I could check him, "Why?" he growled. "Why, Mrs. Arthur, do you a.s.sume that Susan is safe with Boz?"
"Well," she responded with a slow shrug of her shoulders, "naturally----"
"Unnaturally!" snapped Maltby. "Unless forbidden fruit has ceased to appeal to your s.e.x. I was not aware that it had."
Phil"s eyes were signalling honest distress. Susan unexpectedly rose from her chair. Deep spots of color burned on her cheeks, but she spoke with dignity. "I have never disliked any conversation so much, Mrs.
Arthur. Good night." She walked from the room. Phil jumped up without a word and hurried after her. Then we all rose.
It seemed, however, that apologies were useless. Doctor Arthur had no need for them, since he had not perceived a slight, and was only too happy to find himself released from bondage; as for Lucette, her a.s.sumed frigidity could not conceal her flaming triumph. As a social being, for the sake of the _mores_, she must resent Susan"s snub; but I saw that she would not have had things happen otherwise for a string of matched pearls. At last, at last her patience had been rewarded! I could almost have written for her the report to Gertrude--with nothing explicitly stated, and nothing overlooked.
Maltby, after their departure, continued truculent, and having no one else to rough-house decided to rough-house me. The lengthening absence of Susan and Phil had much to do with his irritation, and something no doubt with mine. For men of mature years we presently developed a very pretty little gutter-snipe quarrel.
"d.a.m.n it, Boz," he summed his grievances, "it comes precisely to this: You"re playing dog in the manger here. By your att.i.tude, by every kind of sneaking suggestion, you poison Susan"s mind against me. Hang it, I"m not vain--but at least I"m presentable, and I"ve been called amusing.
Other women have found me so. And to speak quite frankly, it isn"t every man in my position who would offer marriage to a girl whose father----"
"I"d stop there, Maltby, if I were you!"