"Oh," interrupted Mrs. Frostwinch. "Then it is Mr. Wynne. But I thought"--
"He isn"t a priest any more," Berenice struck in, replying to the unspoken doubt as if it had been in her own mind. "I heard yesterday that he has left the Clergy House for good, and is staying with Mrs.
Staggchase."
"Have you seen him lately?"
"He overtook me on the street yesterday."
Mrs. Frostwinch put out her hand with a loving gesture.
"Bee," said she tenderly, "I want you to be happy. You"ve been like a daughter to me ever since your mother died, and I"ve thought of you almost as if you were my own child. If this is the man to make you happy"--
But Bee stooped forward and stopped the words with kisses.
"I can"t talk of him," she said, "and he will never be anything to me.
He is angry, and he has a right to be. He"--
The entrance of the nurse interrupted them, and Berenice made haste to get away before there was opportunity for further question. In her anxiety to know something more of Mr. Wynne, Mrs. Frostwinch sent for Mrs. Staggchase, who came in the next day.
Mrs. Staggchase found her friend weak and frightfully changed. The high-bred face was haggard, the nostrils thin, while beneath the eyes were heavy purple shadows. A ghost of the old smile lighted her face, making it more ghastly yet, like the gleaming of a candle through a death-mask. The hand extended to the visitor was so transparent that it might almost have belonged to a spirit.
"My dear Anna," Mrs. Staggchase exclaimed, "I hadn"t an idea"--
"That I was so near dying, my dear," interrupted the other. "I am worse than that, I am dead, really; but it doesn"t matter. I want to talk to you about Bee."
"About Bee?" echoed the other, seating herself beside the bed. "What about her?"
"I should have said that I want to ask you about Mr. Wynne. Do you know anything about his relations to her?"
"The only relation that he has is that of a perfectly desperate adorer.
He worships the ground she walks on, but he doesn"t cherish anything that could be decently called hope."
"Then he does care for her?"
"My dear Anna, it almost makes me weep for my lost youth to see him. He has so wrought upon my glands of sentiment that this morning I actually examined my husband"s wardrobe to see if the maid darns his stockings properly. Fred would be perfectly amazed if he knew how sentimental I feel. I even thought of sitting up last night to welcome him home from the club, but about half past one I came to the end of my novel and felt sleepy, so I gave that up."
Mrs. Frostwinch smiled with the air of one who understands that the visitor is endeavoring to furnish a diversion from the dull sadness of the sick chamber.
"But Bee said he was angry with her."
"The anger of lovers, my dear, is legitimate fuel for the flame. That"s nothing. She"s been amusing herself with him, and if she thinks he resents it, so much the better for him."
"But is he"--
She hesitated as if not knowing how best to frame her question.
"He is a handsome creature, as you know if you remember him," the visitor said, taking up the word. "He is well born, he is well bred, if a little countrified. He"s been shut up with monks and other mouldy things, and needs a little knocking about in the world; but I am very fond of him."
"Then you think"--
"I think that whoever gets Bee will get a treasure; but I am not sure that she is any too good for my cousin. He hasn"t much money, unless he gets a little fortune that ought to have been his, and which he has some hope of. I mean to give him something myself one of these days, if he behaves himself; but of course he hasn"t any idea of that."
"Bee will have all the Canton money, and can do as she likes."
Mrs. Staggchase looked down at the carpet as if studying the pattern.
"Perhaps," she returned.
"What do you mean by that?"
"If I know Maurice Wynne, the fact that she has money will make him very slow to speak. Besides, he has a silly crotchet in his head now.
He thinks that if he tried to marry her it would look as if he had given up his religion for her."
"Did he?"
"Bless you, no. He was simply led into the Clergy House by being fond of a friend; one of those men that young men and old women fall in love with. Maurice never belonged there at all. I saw that the first day he came to stay with me at the beginning of the winter. I was abroad while he was in college, so I never knew him except most casually before."
"But if he really cares for her he"ll get over those obstacles."
"If she cares for him, he must be made to."
"I am convinced that she does," Mrs. Frostwinch said. "I am so glad you speak well of him. I do so want Bee to be happy."
There was a long silence in the chamber. The two friends sat wrapped in thought. They had seen so much of life, they had had so many blessings of fortune, culture, position, wealth, that there was a grim irony in their sitting here helpless in the face of coming death. To their reverie, moreover, the mention of love could not but give color. No woman has ever come to speak of love entirely unmoved, though her heart may have been deadened or crushed beyond the power of thrilling or quickening at any other thought. These two, who had led lives so happy, so protected, so rich, sat there silent before the possibilities which lay in the love of a girl; until at last both sighed, whether with regret or tenderness perhaps they could not themselves have told.
Perhaps both remembered their youthful days; remembered how one had lost her first love by death and the other parted from hers in anger, making a marriage which seemed more a matter of affronting the man discarded than of affection for the man she chose. They knew each other"s history so completely that there could be no disguise between them. Their eyes met, and for an instant there was a suspicion of wistfulness in the glance. Then Mrs. Frostwinch shook her head, and smiled sadly.
"At least," she said, "I shall be spared the pain of growing old."
"After all," the other responded, "the bitterness of growing old is to feel that one has never completely been young."
The sick woman regarded her with burning eyes.
"But we have been young, Di," she said eagerly. "Surely we had all that there was."
"Anna," Mrs. Staggchase murmured, leaning toward her, "we know each other too well not to say things that most women are afraid to say. We both married well, and we have cared for our husbands and been happy.
But we both know that there was deep down a memory"--
"No, no, Di," her friend interrupted excitedly, "you shall not make me think of that! I have forgotten all that; and I am dying comfortably.
You shall not make me think of him! Only, dear Di, I want you to help Bee to marry the man she loves with her whole heart; that she loves as we might have loved if"--
Mrs. Staggchase kissed her solemnly.
"I promise, Anna."
Then she rose, her whole manner changing.
"Do you know, my dear," she observed, in a tone gayly satirical, "that I believe that Elsie Wilson is going to be beaten in her bishop steeplechase?"
"Do you mean that Father Frontford won"t be elected?"