"And I really think," went on Mrs. Polhemus, smiling sweetly, with her eyes on you, "that if you were as thoroughly honest with us as, a moment ago, you were insistent on the world"s being, you would confess to a _tendresse_ still felt for that particular form of obliquity."
I shall recall the moment which followed that speech if it shall ever fall to me to sit in the jury-box and pa.s.s judgment on a murderer, for I know that had I been armed, and my mother a man, I should have killed her; and it taught me that murder is in every man"s heart. Yet I was not out of my head, but was curiously clear-minded. Though allusion to my shame had hitherto always made me dumb, I was able to speak now without the slightest difficulty; I imagine because the thought of your pain made me forget my own.
"Which is better, Mrs. Polhemus," I asked, with a calmness I marveled at afterwards, "to love dishonesty or to dishonestly love?"
"Is this a riddle?" she said, though not removing her eyes from you.
"I suppose, since right and wrong are evolutionary," I rejoined, "that every ethical question is more or less of a conundrum. But the thought in my mind was that there is only n.o.bility in a love so great that it can outlast even wrongdoing." Then, in my controlled pa.s.sion, I stabbed her as deeply as I could make words stab. "Compare such a love, for instance, with another of which I have heard,--that of a woman who so valued the world"s opinion that she would not get a divorce from an embezzling husband, because of the social stigma it involved, yet who remarried within a week of hearing of her first husband"s death, because she thought that fact could not be known. Which love is the higher?"
The color blazed up in my mother"s cheeks, as she turned from you to look at me, with eyes that would have killed if they could; and it was her manner, far more than even the implication of my words, which told the rest of the table that my nominally impersonal case was truly a thrust of the knife. A moment"s appalling pause followed, and then, though the fruit was being pa.s.sed, the hostess broke the terrible spell by rising, as if the time had come for the ladies to withdraw.
When, later, the men followed them, Agnes intercepted me at the door, and whispered, "Oh, doctor, it was magnificent! I was so afraid Maizie would break down if--I never dreamed you could do it so splendidly.
You"re almost as much of a love as papa! It will teach the cat to let Maizie alone! Now, do you want to be extra good?"
"So long as you don"t want any more vitriol-throwing," I a.s.sented, smiling. "Remember that a hostess deserves some consideration."
"I told Mrs. Granger that you did it at my request, and there wasn"t a woman in the room who didn"t want to cheer. We all love Maizie, and hate Mrs. Polhemus; and it isn"t a bit because you geese of men think she"s handsome and clever, either. Poor Maizie wanted to be by herself, and went out on the veranda. I think she"s had time enough, and that it"s best for some one to go to her. Won"t you slip out quietly?"
I nodded, and instantly she spoke aloud of the moon, and we went to the French window on the pretense of looking at it, where, after a moment, I left her. At first I could not discover you, the vines so shadowed your retreat; and when I did, it was to find you with bowed head buried in your arms as they rested on the veranda rail. The whole att.i.tude was so suggestive of grief that I did not dare to speak, and moved to go away.
Just as I turned, however, you looked up, as if suddenly conscious of some presence.
"I did not intend to intrude, Miss Walton, and don"t let me disturb you.
I will rejoin"--
"If you came out for the moonlight and quiet, sit down here," you said, making room for me.
I seated myself beside you, but made no reply, thinking your allusion to quiet perhaps voiced your own preference.
"It seems needless," you began, after a slight pause, "to ignore your kindness, even though it was veiled. I never felt so completely in another"s power, and though I tried to--to say something--to strike back--I couldn"t. Did my face so betray me that you knew I needed help?"
"Your face told nothing, it seemed to me."
"But that makes it positively uncanny. Over and over again you appear to divine my thoughts or moods. Do you?"
"Little more than any one can of a person in whom one is interested enough to notice keenly."
"Yet no one else does it with me. And several times, when we have caught each other"s eyes, we have--at least I have felt sure that you were laughing with me, though your face was grave."
"Who was uncannily mind-reading then?"
"An adequate _tu quoque_," you said, laughing; then you went on seriously; "Still, to be frank, as now I think we can be, I have never made any pretense that I wasn"t very much interested in you--while you--well--till very lately, I haven"t been able to make up my mind that you did not actually--no, not dislike--for I knew that you--I could not be unconscious of the genuine esteem you have made so evident--yet there has always been, until the last two weeks, an indefinable barrier, of your making, as it appeared to me, and from that I could only infer some--I can give it no name."
"Were there no natural barriers to a friendship between a struggling writer and Miss Walton?"
"Surely you are above that!" you exclaimed. "You have not let such a distinction--Oh no, for it has not stood in the way of friendship with the Blodgetts."
A moment"s silence ensued, and then you spoke again: "Perhaps there was a motive that explains it. Please don"t reply, if it is a question I ought not to put, but after your confidence of last week I feel as if you had given me the privilege to ask it. I have always thought--or rather hoped--that you cared for Agnes? If"--
"And so you married me to her in the novel," I interrupted, in an effort to change the subject, dreading to what it might lead.
You laughed merrily as you said, "Oh, I"m so glad you spoke of that. I have often wondered if you recognized the attempted portrait,--which now I know is not a bit of a likeness,--and have longed to ask you. I never should have dared to sketch it, but I thought my pen name would conceal my criminality; and then what a fatality for you to read it! I never suspected you were the publisher"s reader. What have you thought of me?"
"That you drew a very pleasant picture of my supposed mental and moral attainments, at the expense of my ambition and will. My true sympathy, however, went out to the girl whom you offered up as a heart-restorer for my earlier attachment."
"I"m thankful we are in the shadow," you laughed, "so that my red cheeks don"t show. You are taking a most thoroughgoing revenge."
"That was the last thought in my mind."
"Then, my woman"s curiosity having been appeased, be doubly generous and spare my absurd blushes. I don"t know when I have been made to feel so young and foolish."
"Clearly you are no hardened criminal, Miss Walton. Usually matchmakers glory in their shame."
"Perhaps I should if I had not been detected, or if I had succeeded better."
"You took, I fear, a difficult subject for what may truly be called your maiden experiment."
"Did I not? And yet--You see I recognized potentialities for loving in you. You can--Ah, you have suggested to me a revenge for your jokes. Did you--were you the man who coined the phrase that my eyes were too dressy for the daytime?"
"Yes," I confessed guiltily, "but"--
"No, don"t dare to try to explain it away," you ordered. "How could you say it? We can never be friends, after all."
Though you spoke in evident gayety, I answered gravely: "You will forgive me when I tell you that it was to parry a thrust of Mrs.
Polhemus"s at you, and I made a joke of it only because I did not choose to treat her gibe seriously. I hoped it would not come back to you."
"Every friend I have has quoted it, not once, but a dozen times, in my presence. If you knew how I have been persecuted and teased with that remark! You are twice the criminal that I have been, for at least my libel was never published. Yet you are unblushing."
We both sat silent for a little while, and then you began: "You interrupted a question of mine just now. Was it a chance or a purposed diversion? You see," you added hastily, "I am presuming that henceforth we are to be candid."
"I confess to an intention in the dodging, not because I feared the question, for a simple negative was all it needed, but I was afraid of what might follow."
"I hoped, after the trust of the other day--You do not want to tell me your story?"
"Are there not some things that cannot be put into words, Miss Walton?
Could you tell me your story?"
"But mine is no mystery," you replied. "It has been the world"s property for years. Why, your very help to-night proves that it is known to you,--that you know, indeed, facts that were unknown to me."
"Facts, yes; feelings, no."
"Do you appreciate the subtilty of the compliment? You really care for such valueless and indefinable things as feelings?"
"Yes."
"A bargain, then, while you are in this mood of giving something for nothing. Question for question, if you choose."
"You can tell your secrets?"