CHAPTER XXIII.
“Even if it turns out happily, Harriet, I will always feel that she did an unwomanly thing.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett and Gertrude Van Vleck were seated en tête-à-tête in the drawing-room, talking of a quiet wedding that had taken place recently in the inner circle. This matrimonial event had possessed peculiar features. It was rumored, on evidence more conclusive than gossip often enjoys, that the bride had done the larger part of the wooing and had actually proposed to the man of her choice. What the circumstances were that had led to this reversal of ancient custom on the part of people to whom time-honored precedents are especially dear nobody but the high contracting parties knew; but it was well understood that the woman had taken the initiative, and had been successful in her egotistic match-making. There were a good many spinsters in society who approved of her course, but Gertrude Van Vleck was not among them.
“But,” argued Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, “I thought, Gertrude, that you were progressive. You seem to accept many of the new ideas, but reject others. I am sure I can’t see why she did an unwomanly thing. In these days there is hardly anything that can be called unwomanly—if it is done gracefully.”
Gertrude smiled sadly as she looked into her friend’s sympathetic eyes. They both realized that the problem they were discussing was not an abstract question, but that, on the contrary, it possessed a concrete and vital significance for one of them.
“I’m afraid, Harriet,” said Gertrude musingly, “that I cannot keep up with women who are determined to be in the front ranks of the new movement. I have too many conservative characteristics in my make-up, inherited from my father.”
She looked about her with restless eyes, her glance seeming to appeal to the spirit of the room in which they sat for strength and comfort. There are many drawing-rooms in New York that combine luxury with taste. Not a few are actually regal in their magnificence. But a drawing-room that indicates ancestral glories, that seems to rejoice in the fact that it is the storehouse of patrician memories, is a rarity. The Van Vlecks’ drawing-room was a shrine sacred to the cult of true American aristocracy. You might pooh-pooh the Van Vlecks’ coat-of-arms, their family livery, or other outward manifestations of ancestral pride, but only an iconoclast deluded by delirium could enter that drawing-room without feeling the subtle influence that it exerted in opposition to the image-breakers of to-day.
Suddenly Mrs. Percy-Bartlett broke the silence that had followed Gertrude’s last remark.
“You sail Wednesday. You do not expect to see him before you go?”
“No. Why should I? He will not come to me again.”
“Tell me, Gertrude, how you know,” said Mrs. Percy-Bartlett gently, taking the girl’s cold hand in hers.
“It is hard to explain,” remarked Gertrude wearily. “I understand him so well, Harriet. He is very proud, and has such queer ideas! He—he—don’t think me awfully conceited, Harriet—he—I’m sure he likes me. But I never expect to see him again.”
There was the suspicion of a sob in her voice. Mrs. Percy-Bartlett gazed earnestly into her friend’s eyes.
“Tell me, Gertrude,” she said beseechingly, “what has happened. You are concealing something from me.”
“Nothing, truly,” exclaimed Gertrude, a frank smile on her lips. “There has been absolutely nothing between Mr. Fenton and myself that you do not know about, Harriet.”
“But why, my dear, do you say that you never expect to see him again? I can’t understand it.”
“I hardly know how to explain it to you, Harriet. I am not in the habit of placing too much confidence in intuition and inexplicable impressions, but I feel certain that he will never come to me again—unless I send for him.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett was silent for a time. Things seemed so fatally wrong in the world at that moment. She felt confused, discontented, wholly unfit to give comfort or advice to her unhappy friend. And yet why should she not urge her to take a step that might lead to happiness? Why should pride and precedent be permitted to stand between John Fenton and Gertrude Van Vleck when the very spirit of the age was teaching men and women to be broad-minded and reasonable, and, perhaps, more natural? Impulsively she turned to Gertrude and bent very close to her.
“My dear girl, you are doing him and yourself a great wrong. You should write to him and ask him to come to you. It is the only way.”
“And when he comes?” asked Gertrude in a whisper.
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett bent and kissed the pale cheek of the trembling girl.
“Tell him that you love him, Gertrude.”
A flush overspread Gertrude’s face and her eyes flashed. She arose and looked down at her friend.
“I cannot, Harriet. When you put it into words, it scares me. It is horrible to talk of such a thing. I am sorry—so sorry, that you said it.” She reseated herself and looked into the sad, brown eyes that gazed at her almost reproachfully.
“I know that you meant it for the best, Harriet, but it can never be. And, now, promise me that you will never refer to this again. You know my secret. Let us go on as though I had never told you.”
They were silent for a time, their cold hands clasped in a contact that expressed more than words. After a time Gertrude spoke,—
“I am so sorry to go away from you just now, Harriet. I never needed you so much before.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett sighed wearily.
“I am so tired, Gertrude. When you are gone I don’t know what I shall do. Life is such a weird and wearisome affair. I am young, and the world has given me everything that I ought to ask of it—but—but”—
She hesitated. Gertrude bent toward her.
“I think I understand, my dear. I am so sorry.”
There was a note of sympathetic pity in her voice that was sweet and soothing in her hearer’s ear. They were both tasting the bitter cup that every man and woman must sometime hold to the lips, and in the moment of their sorrow their friendship for each other became more precious than it had ever been. It was hard to part at the greatest crisis in their lives, to say farewell when they needed from each other the inspiration that the closest intercourse could give.
Cornelius Van Vleck and Percy-Bartlett entered the drawing-room.
“I have great news for you both,” cried the former as he came forward, his phlegmatic face more animated than usual.
They looked up at him inquiringly.
“Your husband and I have a secret, Mrs. Percy-Bartlett,” he went on playfully. “Are you not curious to know what it is?”
“Of course I am, Mr. Van Vleck. Am I not a woman?”
The glimpse she caught of her husband’s face startled her. There was an unnatural flush in his cheeks, and his eyes were feverishly bright.
“What is it, dear?” she exclaimed, rising and putting her hand on his arm. Percy-Bartlett smiled reassuringly.
“Nothing serious,” he answered. “I disobeyed the doctor and smoked one of Mr. Van Vleck’s cigars. Furthermore,” and he looked at his host knowingly, “I fear that I am threatened with an attack of mal-de-mer.”
Gertrude Van Vleck sprang up in excitement.
“Do you mean it?” she cried. “O Harriet! don’t you understand? You are going with us. Am I not right, papa?”
Cornelius Van Vleck smiled benignantly.
“I have become your husband’s medical adviser,” he remarked, turning to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, “and have ordered him to take a sea-voyage for his health.”
“And you have agreed?” asked Mrs. Percy-Bartlett of her husband, her voice cold, almost harsh, from the excitement that she restrained.
“If you wish,” he answered, seating himself wearily, and looking up at his wife with an affectionate gleam in his eyes.
“It is almost too good to be true,” cried Gertrude Van Vleck, trying to meet Harriet’s averted gaze. “I am so happy.”
“Is it not charming, Gertrude?” said Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, seating herself by her husband’s side and speaking with as much enthusiasm as she could summon to her aid. But she was not an actress, and to her husband and her confidante there seemed to be an unconvincing note in her voice, a suggestion that she was accepting the inevitable with a protest that vainly craved expression.