GUILE
I CHILLY WISDOM
“Guile,” said John Estover, savagely, to his wife, “is as communicable as—as—tuberculosis!”
“Yes, John,” sighed his wife.
“And when there is a predisposition to it—segregation is absolutely imperative.”
“Yes—yes! But I confessed my frivolities before the Great Meeting, and they prayed for me in our silent fashion—and said: Go in peace! Does thee remember?”
Estover’s face relaxed a trifle.
“I meant our child.”
“We were bride and groom then, John,” his little wife whispered, on seeing his softening.
She did not see, though, that he had at once forbidden the softness to his face, and went on.
“You didn’t care then that I was French and had a most unquakerish name—”
“Say ‘thee,’ please, Ann (her name was Jeanne), and when thee thinks ‘Quaker’ say Friend.”
“Yes, John.”
It is true that the smiles the thought of her bridehood brought had gone from her face with the sigh which followed. But another smile was there—for him. For she knew perfectly what was beneath this ecclesiastical chill. The very man who had been her bridegroom, and had never been anything else.
“Some people blame it on heredity—their poor parents; some upon temperament. But it is neither thee nor me now. I think it is nothing but temptation—the getting into contact with evil—just as that is necessary to contract tuberculosis.”
“But, John,” smiled the wife, “I was a wicked little girl when thee found me in Paris—”
“And saved thee!” thundered John.
“Yes, John. Wasn’t it queer that I should like thee with no collar on thy coat? At first I think it was because thee was so different—so very strong thee seemed.”
“It proves,” said John, with chilly wisdom, “that if evil is communicable, goodness, also, is, and that it is stronger than evil.”
“But what, then, brought thee to the theatre, where I danced? I had never before seen a Quaker there—I had never before seen one anywhere.”
She laughed happily.
“I had heard of thee—thy grace and beauty—and I desired to know if God permitted such gifts to be so sadly used.”
“And then?”
“After I saw thee I wished to save thee.”
“Thank thee, my dear, dear John.”
“I think, Ann,” said John Estover, reflectively, “that I am not telling the exact truth. There is such a thing, thee knows, as telling the truth without exactness.”
“Oh, yes,” admitted his wife with an alacrity which would have alarmed any one less good than her husband.
“I have often supposed that the exact truth is, that, travelling to cure an illness becomes, when the illness is cured, a travelling for pleasure. This, I fear, was my sinful state when I reached wicked but beautiful Paris. I was, therefore, the prey of all temptation. And no temptation, we are told, is so potent as woman. Observe the matter of Adam and Eve, then Rahab and Jezebel—and, indeed, countless instances, where good men have fallen by the way at the beckoning of a woman. I think, Ann dear, that perhaps the world, the flesh, and the devil had an undue grip upon my soul there in Paris, and that I was saved by suddenly seeing what it had made of thee. It was an example I shall never forget. Nor shall I ever cease to return thanks for its outcome.”
“Nor I, John dear,” laughed his little wife, with an incontinent embrace.
“There, there,” said John, putting her off tenderly. “Yet—it all remains to us in this one greatest difficulty of our lives—this keeping from our child the history of thy life. But I am convinced that it is best. A daughter must respect and look up to her mother. She must seem to her to have always been immaculate. And this could not be if she knew all about thee. She would not understand how well thee has redeemed thyself. She would despise thee, and thy precepts would be of little avail. Yet must thou continue thy exhortations to good.”
Ann smiled. The unwisdom of husbands kept him from the knowledge that these exhortations were made in each other’s arms. This the mother not only thought likely to be most effective, but much more lovely than any other way.
She threatened a caress.
“Yes—yes,” said John, suppressing a suspicious movement of the arms toward her. “But it is of Mary Ann. She is of an age. And she is as pretty as thee—in that day thee speaks of. Therefore watch that she enter not into any temptation.”
“Such as thee was to me?” laughed his wife. “Oh, John!”
And this time John did not resist her.
“I meant our child,” said he softly, “not thee.”
Now all of this might have been said concerning one Doctor John Rem, of whom they had never heard. And John Estover might have added that, when two people predisposed to what he had called guile met, one as tempter, one willing to be tempted, the danger was excessive.
Nay, had he known this Doctor Rem, he would have taken every precaution that he and his daughter Mary Ann should not meet. For Rem had left behind at college an example for the emulation of sophomore hoodlums.
And now, just returned from college, filled with really valuable learning concerning disease, but having no practice at all and much idleness, it was exceedingly dull and he exceedingly ready for amorous experiment. And you may be sure that if it should happen to come in the shape of a pretty Quaker, it would be only a little more piquant.
All these sayings are necessary—though, I admit, somewhat dull—that you may understand the doings between this very doctor and this very Quaker maid. For you cannot suppose that I have them both in the same story for any other purpose than such troublous joys as make up that curious thing called love.
II
PATCHOULY
Now it happened that while their discussion was at this point, the subject of it arrived. She did not at all come as a Quaker maiden ought, but like a breeze when the door is let suddenly open. And, indeed, in the coming, she had left the door open.
Her father solemnly closed it.
Meanwhile she had pounced upon her mother and kissed her, and now she attacked her father in the same way.
“Thank thee, daddy,” she laughed, and when he put her off, none too strongly, she ran up the stairs, still laughing, whence she called downward for her mother.
John stopped Ann as she would have gone, and, sniffing stealthily, pointed with his glasses up the stairs, saying ominously:
“Perfume!”
She sniffed and smiled.
“Patchouly!” she murmured. “John, it is my fault. I told her some things about myself the other day. They made us both very happy. I must tell some one. I think I mentioned patchouly. I thought it was extinct. What a time she must have had getting it!”
John frowned.
“Yea, yea—she takes after thee.”
“And is that so bad—as long as it is only kisses and perfume?”
He had sat quite hopelessly in his chair, with his head turned. Before he could resist, her arms were about him and she had kissed him and was gone to the steps. There she paused—on the third step—looking as she had looked long ago—she never seemed to get older—as John thought she ought—and called:
“John!”
Her husband looked. And, looking, he had to smile. No one could have helped doing that.
“John, I love thee, anyhow!”
And she rebelliously and defiantly sniffed the perfume and ran up the stair—precisely as Mary Ann had done.
“Takes after her mother,” he sighed—and smiled.
For another thought had come with the smile.
“Or does her mother take after her?”
At this moment a double laugh came down the stair. And he, down there, answered it. So that you will understand that John Estover, Friend and Overseer, and John Estover, Husband, were very different individuals.
Upstairs it was hard to distinguish one from the other of these two pretty women—which was daughter, which mother—for they were locked in a laughing, weeping embrace, and the one was showing the other a long-necked, old-fashioned bottle, labelled
“PATCHOULY.”
Well, she was like her mother, and so, when I describe the one, you will see the other. The daintiest of retroussé noses, eyes entirely too large for her face, a mouth that would smile her very thoughts—and sometimes, tell them—a curiously deep dimple in her chin. But for her attire no one would have thought her a subdued Quaker. Yet upon that even the little mother insisted.
“First,” she said, “your father wishes it. Second, you will never be so pretty in anything else. Dearie, you make me think of a blush rose hidden in the heart of a lily every time I look into your bonnet. Think what a surprise that will be to your prince that day he comes! To look into the prim, gray bonnet and find—YOU!”
And she kissed what she found there.
“And, oh, my beloved, there are ways and ways! Men must be managed and women must be pretty—and both are possible—even in Quaker garments.”
“My beloved!” cried the one.
“My sweet Marian!” responded the other.
Whereby you will know what even John Estover did not know concerning his wife and child—that they had changed the fearful name he had chosen, to the next best thing they could devise, and keep the faith. For, in her “management” of John Estover and his affairs, the little French woman kept so close to the thing he insisted upon, that when her innovations were discovered, as they sometimes were, they were considered venial instead of criminal—and this is just the difference between wisdom and folly. For, upon one occasion, when he had said:
“What was that—Marian?”
His little wife had answered:
“Mary!—Ann!” making each a staccato note, and adding, “Will I never speak the English?”
She spoke the language perfectly.
III
THE CALYXLIKE BONNET
Now it was into this lily calyx that the unregenerate Doctor John Rem looked one day, with precisely the emotions which the mother of Mary Ann had foretold—though, of course, he had not time to formulate them with such beauty. It was only a moment. And he was bewildered.
And the wonder of it was that he had found her with the wife of his friend Jarn, whom they both called Bell-Bell, for no better reason than that her name was Belle, and that she was the wisest and brightest and best of young wives and comrades—even though that does sound like a certain hymn.
“In heaven’s name, Bell-Bell, what does it mean?”
Mrs. Jarn became mysterious.
“Little boys must be seen, not heard.”
“I am not a little boy. Observe the bald spot on my head.”
“Any unmarried man is as a little boy concerning women, be he as old as you. Moral: Get married. And I wish you would hurry. I can’t employ you till you do. And until I employ you, you will have no patients.”
Doctor Rem laughed good-naturedly.
“Well, you know, I have such an awful reputation for being a brute—”
“She has never heard of you. I have been too ashamed.”
“But she will. There’s that horrible story of my having crippled Leggett. Some of the newspapers said I killed him, and that story still survives. She couldn’t miss that!”
Rem sighed hopelessly.
“She doesn’t read the newspaper—it isn’t permitted in Quaker families, you know, until it has been expurgated. Then it has lost all interest for her, and her mind will fix itself only upon the holes where the awful things have been excised. Once or twice I have taken the precaution to let her see what they were in my copy. But not often—not before I myself have been over them. For, say what you please, her Quaker innocence is the loveliest attribute she will ever have—the worldliness I shall teach her is not a half compensation—and she shall not be spoiled—she shall always be a Quaker. Yes, sir—but I shall teach her just enough worldliness to make some one—not you—want her enough to—Oh, I haven’t mentioned you. I have been ashamed to do it. Therefore, she is assailable.”
“Huh! She flew away the moment I came.”
“Fear of your fascinations.”
“Say,—Bell-Bell, was it on my account?”
“It was. But not because of your fascinations. You are a rather rude diamond. It was because we have a deep, dark, deadly secret from you.”
She whispered it, in quite the conspirator fashion.
“Oh!” said Rem, stiffly. “Then I was de trop?”
“Decidedly.”
“All right. When I hear both of you pounding the piano, I won’t come in. She is learning to play.”
“I know perfectly well that the more you hear that piano in the future, the more you will come in.”
“It is dull practising medicine and trying to get a reputation for steadiness. No one thinks it possible for me,” sighed Rem.
“Poor boy! Nothing is so dreadful as reformation. And I will continue to help you. So shall she!”
Rem brightened at once.
“Say, Bell-Bell, will she, though?”
“Aha! Piquant, isn’t it?—an affair with a little dove of a Quaker! Remember that I can protect her. So you may come whenever you hear the piano—just to help you to reform, and we will stop and put on our other clothes and entertain you gravely. Then some day, when you have proved that you are quite respectable, and are received at the bedsides of elderly ladies, we will confess all—what sort of crime we are up to—what sort of clothes we wear at our rehearsals—where and when we met. No, all that must wait until I have her safely married and out of your reach. For, I tell you frankly, she says that she has one reason for liking you—you are tall.”
“Oh!” laughed Doctor Rem. “But, say, I have never made love to a Quaker in my life. However, thanks! I’m willing.”
“You are to be nothing but friends, do you hear? I won’t have her mouth turned down instead of up at the corners!”
Then, as a woman will, she forthwith tempted him to his destruction:
“She’s lovely, John! The very loveliest human being I have ever known! Oh, she and I are old friends. And that is the only reason I permit you and she to become old friends. While you were busy at such nasty things as administering the two parts of a seidlitz powder so that ebullition would take place in the stomach of the poor person at your college dispensary, I was making love to the little Quaker—who would have preferred a man.”
“Of course,” said John Rem.
“Oh, not ‘of course.’ But if you were not what you are, I would let you try to interest her. Nothing would please me better.”
“And, her—be hanged!” cried the young physician, with enthusiasm.
“If you were not what you are—a brute.”
“Yes—she’s a Quaker,” sighed John Rem, regretting for the first time his stormy life.
Bell-Bell, as a woman will, veered the moment he had come to her point of view.
“She is a woman, John, dear, and sometimes a woman likes that in a man—if it is honest—as yours is. Now run away. I have been indiscreet. And married six years, too. Go!”
IV
THE FIDDLING OF FORTUNE
Fortune fiddled favorably for the young physician. The next day it rained, and as he was leisurely getting down from the uptown train, a little exclamation arrested him, and, withal, two hands were planted in the middle of his back and clutched there wildly. Turning quickly John Rem looked again into the calyxlike bonnet.
It was plain that even in the distress of her accident she had recognized him, as well as that she meant to be haughty—in a Quakerish way. She did decline his assistance. But it was really at such moments as this that what was finest in Rem came out.
“You are injured,” he said, with gravity and strength, “and I must help you. I am a doctor.”
Without more ado he carried her to the women’s room in the station, and with the help of the matron attended to her injury—which was slight.
However, she was glad to lean on his arm as he led her to the street car which she insisted upon taking to Bell-Bell’s, and while this had happened to him often before, he did not remember that he had had such interest in the proceeding. While she, when he had left her alone in the car, shook her head at herself accusingly, as she said:
“Entirely too glad—entirely—to be carried!”
And she turned and watched him stalk away.
After a week of unrest, which he blamed upon the dulness of the practice of medicine, he remembered the roll of music which she had carried under her arm, and since it happened to be the same day of the week, to give nepenthe to his dulness he took the train down town which they had both taken that other day. She was there, and he fitted himself into the seat at her side with the utmost assurance of a welcome. She bubbled with laughter.
“Suppose I had told thee it was taken?”
“Impossible—for you,” he laughed.
“Why?”
“You are a Quaker, and Quakers always tell the truth.”
“I do not,” she said.
“It was really the only vacant seat in the car.”
“I am glad,” she laughed, and knew that there were many others, “that thee does not.”
“Oh! Glad?” But he was not sure. “Then that is not the truth, I suppose?”
“If there had been another seat, thee would have taken it.”
“More prevarication!” he laughed.
“Wouldn’t thee?”
“No,” he said. “If you knew what a villain I am, you would shun me—”
“I have not been permitted to shun thee,” she interrupted.
He persisted.
“I deliberately selected this day and this train to go down town because I knew that you would be on it. Now, then, what is my punishment?”
“I thank thee.”
“What?”
Though it was all persiflage, he could not believe his ears.
She went on gravely, now, in quite a Quakerish fashion:
“I have desired to thank thee for thy assistance to me a week ago to-day. There is no telling where such injuries may end if they do not receive prompt attention at the beginning. On that day—I was so—so—full of pain—that I forgot to thank thee. Now, at last, I do. It was very thoughtless, and I have looked for thee every day with the purpose of thanking thee—I had even thought of writing thee a note.”
Rem laughed with real embarrassment—a new emotion to him.
“I don’t believe that I am awake,” he said.
She turned her head away, and the long bonnet hid her face from him.
“The pain was so great that I forgot—”
In reaching for something—perhaps a handkerchief—Rem did not know where such a thing might be concealed in such a toilette—her hand came in contact with his, and his pounced upon it instinctively. For a moment it struggled and then was regretfully released.
“The pain was—so great—” she was repeating dreamily, and Rem could see a part of one cheek now. It bloomed with the very roses of June. “The—pain—was—so—great—”
“There was no pain,” laughed brutal John Rem. “And it couldn’t have hurt after the first minute.”
She suddenly faced him, and he was altogether bewildered by the smiling happiness in her eyes.
“Then I thank thee for that. It is much better to be thankful that there was no hurt—than that there was—does thee not think so?”
He did.
And he followed that wandering, fluttering, little hand until it again came under the dominion of his, and was again—a trifle more slowly now—withdrawn.
“My hand is not hurt,” she said.
“Heavens! I believe my heart is,” he laughed.
“This is my station,” she said, and ran out of the car.
V
A DANGEROUS TRAIN
There were other meetings on that ten-thirty train, until Doctor Rem showed a very moody face at the house of his friend Jarn, one day.
“Doesn’t she come to pound the piano any more?” asked he of Bell-Bell.
“Certainly.”
“What!”
“Certainly.”
“Then she must take another train!”
“Yes, the ten-twenty.”
“Just to avoid me!”
“I am perfectly amazed at the moral turpitude which you and she have at this moment disclosed. Sir, you have been meeting on the trains!”
“One train, please,” grinned Rem, “the ten-thirty.”
“And you have both kept this a secret from me!”
“Certainly,” said Rem, in his turn. “You were against me from the first. Do you suppose that I am going to put my plans into the hands of my enemies?”
“Plans!” shrieked Bell-Bell. “Plans! About her! A Quaker! Doctor Rem, I demand to know what your plans are!”
“Well, I don’t exactly know myself. I didn’t quite mean to say plans. It slipped out. But I suppose if I were let alone I would do something—very—very foolish,” sighed the physician.
At this point Bell-Bell broke into a long laugh.
“Oh, what babes! You are both under the impression that you have fooled me. Why, you old brute, any one could tell that you were seeing her if by no other way than your gentleness. She has been good for you. She will continue to be good for you. I have long ago seen that that is the solution. You must marry a Quaker. She will both steady you and make you respectable. And if you are hunting a Quaker—well, I shouldn’t wonder if you have found one. For the only reason she gave for changing from the ten-thirty to the ten-twenty was that it was a dangerous train!”
They laughed together.
“And it is, poor girl! Though, I confess, until you told me just now, I thought the danger was in the railroad.”
“Do you really think I was the danger?” asked Rem, happily.
“John, dear,” said Bell-Bell, “you are a very foolish wooer.”
“Who said I was a wooer?” demanded the young physician.
“No one but me, unfortunately,” said Mrs. Jarn.
“Not me, be hanged!”
“No, not you. Therefore, go away and stop bothering me. I have better things to do—and better persons than you to see. After all, she has not saved the brute—only helped the wolf to put on lamb’s clothing. Run along!”
“If you make me angry,” threatened John Rem, “I swear I will come down town on the ten-twenty to-morrow.”
“I will telephone the fact to her.”
“Then I’ll take every train there is.”
“How busy you will be on that day at least! Run away, boy.”
“And if you make me very mad, I’ll marry her—just to spite you!”
“Poor girl! Please get very mad. No, no, no! I mean don’t. Go away! You are a dog in the manger. Go.”
VI
SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR
Now Doctor Rem thought on these things and in his heart decided that they were true. But though convicted, he was nothing more. Until that night he got Bell-Bell’s wire to go down on the seven-thirty train.
He was going to the Charity Masque in the costume of a Roundhead cavalier, and was as moody as his coat. Yet when he met her, all his moodiness fled. He held her hand in the real forgetfulness of inchoate possession. She drew it away angrily.
“Why—may I sit with you?” he begged in beautiful humility.
“Thee is alone?”
It escaped out of her heart of hearts.
Rem had the misfortune to laugh.
“Oh, that was the cause of your anger!”
“That thee was alone—yes,” she countered with tremendous aplomb. “I am very sorry—for my anger.”
She made the room for him at her side he had begged for.
“Your anger was justified,” said Rem, happily. “No one has any business to be alone in a thing like this—and—therefore—I am going to tempt—you—”
“I feel like a little brown sparrow among you all,” she said with discontent, for the car was crowded with the guests of the Masque.
“Do you suspect how many of these ladies would like to be this little brown sparrow?”
“Not one!” she cried fiercely.
“Rebellion!” laughed he.
“No! Guile! Wickedness! Shame!” she cried, hiding her face with her hands, and so making herself irresistible to the cavalier. “But I cannot help it! One of my ancestors—a very near one—belonged to the corps—and—do you know what I am wishing with all my heart?”
“Yes,” he laughed.
“Thee does not. Of course not. But I will tell thee. I am wishing to go to this Masque! There!”
“I know. It is foreordained.”
“You do not. And it is as bad to wish to be wicked as to be wicked.”
“Therefore it can be no worse for you to go.”
“I dance!”
“Whew!”
“Yes! Like a little demon! Don’t stare so. The people in the rear are looking. They don’t take me for a Quaker at all. They think I am costumed for the ball. I heard them saying so before you came.”
“Listen!”
Even then a young prince on the other side was saying to one Starlight:
“It was an exquisite idea. And the whole costume is fine!”
“It is fate!” tempted Rem.
“Bell-Bell taught me. That is our secret. Thee must keep it with us. No, after all, Bell-Bell only helped a little. My feet were born to it. For, even when I was a child, to hear a waltz and sit perfectly still was impossible. Often my portion was dry bread for it. Yet I did not care. Does thee think one can inherit such wickedness?”
“Yes, thank God, it is a law of nature.”
“Oh, if I could once dance, dance, dance, till I was dizzy—delirious—and wicked as sin itself—la la la—”
She hummed the music of a waltz—
“—till I dropped in my tracks—” she stopped to laugh a trifle piteously at the pretty bit of slang on her tongue—“I think I should be cured. Similia similibus curantur, thee knows.”
She turned upon him where he gazed bewitched and cried with flushed cheeks and flashing, laughing, hungry eyes:
“Thee is a physician. Is not that proper treatment?”
“It is,” he said. “I advise it.”
“Ah, it is easy to—advise! La la la! The music is there! The dancing! I am to keep the children for Bell-Bell.”
“No,” said John Rem. “I said I would tempt you—remember.”
“Yes,” sighed Miss Estover. “The carriage is to meet me at the station. If I would, I could not. Ah, yes, it is fate.”
“As truly as anything that ever happened. You are in costume. I am. I am alone. You are. Bell-Bell does not need you. There is a nurse. Last and least, there is a carriage made ready for us. But one thing remains, a mask for you—and that will take exactly the three minutes it requires to drive to Mousson’s.”
She looked up at him with large, tempted eyes.
“I am your physician. That is my prescription. Come!”
“Oh, oh, oh! Get thee behind me, Satan!” she whispered.
“Your disguise will be absolutely impenetrable! This bonnet—a mask—”
“Ah, doctor, dear,” she whispered wistfully back to him, “will it certainly cure? Will it not—might it not—aggravate the complaint? Oh, thee does not know how a great orchestra gets into my little sinful soul!”
“I am happy to be able to guarantee my treatment,” he said.
“I wish—almost—that I had not met thee—my tall and splendid Satan. And will thee take me to the pinnacle of the temple—oh, the very pinnacle!”
“Yes,” he laughed.
“And show me all the world of joy—then drop me down—down—down—into disgrace and shame?”
“No! by the earth and heaven, I will be your faithful pal in whatever may happen to us.”
“Hush! hush! Swear not at all. And if I should yield to thy tempting—will thee keep my secret always—always—forever and ever?”
One should have seen her eyes then.
“I should deserve shooting the moment—”
And he got both the hands and would not let them go.
A moment she thought with drooping head while her hands remained in his. Then she said:
“I have yielded. Oh, I do not know whether it is more to thy tempting than to the tempting of the dance. I yield. Take me. For this evening I am thine. And whatever follies I may commit—oh, I shall not be responsible when the orchestra opens! I shall be mad—abandoned—I feel it—know it—and thee—” she whispered with her head down—“thee—must thee have thy arm about me—to dance?”
“Undoubtedly!” cried John Rem, with savage decision.
“Oh—well—”
She sighed and woke and spoke more lightly:
“Whatever follies I may commit, thee will not desert me—but will be my true knight—and, at the end, I shall require myself of thee less my infirmity—all this does thee swear?”
He kissed the hilt of his sword.
“And afterward,” she went on, “we are never to see or speak to each other—oh, I could not—could not look thee in the face again after such wickedness!”
“Part? Never!” he cried.
“Then I shall not. Thee makes me fear thee.”
“Well—as you wish,” he said.
And at the disappointment in his face a pretty light came to her own. She gave him her hand without his asking—for the first time—and whispered—for the first time, also:
“Forgive me—John.”
Then, shocked at herself, she explained:
“The Quakers use the first name, always, thee knows.”
“I know,” said John Rem, kissing the little thing he held.
VII
THE INEFFABLE WHIRL
And so, in time, they came into temptation worse than his—the surge of the orchestra. He felt her arm tremble in his and drew it very close.
“Yes!” she gasped.
“Are you frightened?”
“I am gone mad!”
It was not yet their time, and he drew her to a nook behind the curtain of jasmines where they were alone.
“Why did thee bring me here?” she asked.
“I want to call you Mary Ann,” he said.
“Mad, too!” she laughed.
“For the first time in my life, I believe,” he said, “I am embarrassed. I feel like he must feel who has gayly stolen something and found it immeasurably precious. But, yet—”
“Hush! Thee is mad, too. Be content. Soon we shall wake and find it all a dream. But, me? Oh, John, John, John, let me dream this one dream and ever after sleep!”
The orchestra, as if answering her wish, opened a waltz. She cried out and put her hands close on her ears. But even then she swayed to the rhythm, she closed her eyes, and slowly moved to the beating of the arch tempting of the violins, as if it were all part of some spell. John Rem put his arm about her waist. She raised her head a moment and looked with a gasp of ecstasy fair into his eyes, then gave him her hands.
And, so, they danced—all the night. There were—yes—other times when they sat there behind the jasmines—but, for her, the vibration—the mad ecstasy never ceased.
Then, at last, it was all over. The orchestra had ceased. And they were once more behind the jasmine pillars, quite bereft of sense of other being than that which had been among the violins.
The touch of the feather of his chapeau on her cheek was enough. She lifted up her face to him. And when he had raised the mask, there was a look such as he had never seen even in his dreams of the fairest woman in the world. Damp tendrils of her hair flowed over her cheeks. Within its calyx of a lily was indeed the rose. And there it blushed and pulsed with the newest and the oldest emotions that have ever stirred a woman’s soul. Her lips begged kisses, hungry, insensible, mad, and were not denied.
But then she shuddered at her deed.
“Take me home!” she cried. “I am an outcast!”
“Yes,” whispered Bell-Bell’s voice behind him, “take her home—you brute!”
In the carriage she shuddered away from him.
“No!” she cried. “I am a monster! And you have let me be one!”
But when he had brought her in and was dejectedly taking his leave, the sudden passion came again as it had come that moment when he kissed her.
“Bell-Bell,” she whispered with large eyes and feverish lips, “ought I to see him—to the door? Just one instant, perhaps? I did not thank him, I was unkind to him. In the carriage I thought I hated him. He ought to have known better. He is of the world and knows. I did not. At the ball he said—he called me his—he—”
She whispered something in her very ear as if to keep the horrid knowledge from her own soul.
Bell-Bell nodded gravely.
“And I let him!”
The happy young wife pushed her toward the door.
“Yes—yes, dear, I know. We cannot help some things.”
“But—I wished him.”
“Is it possible?”
“Bell-Bell, I tempted him! I made my lips so—so! I think I pulled him down!”
“Good heavens! What wickedness!”
“Yes! Now—does thee think I had better let him say good-by—forever and ever?”
“Yes,” said Bell-Bell, with judicial airs, “if you are sure it is forever and ever. Fear not. I will wait right here—inside the door. And if I hear a sound, I’ll be on him like a lion. But only a minute for the brute. Mind!” She turned and bit her lips to keep them in order.
“Yes—oh, yes! I will be sure to be only a minute. And thee shall stand—I have quite forgotten thee all the evening—such is the result of wickedness—thee shall stand right here—inside and—just here—and listen to every word I say—and thee shall call me when the minute is up—unless—I come—before—”
“Yes, yes. Hurry!”
She went out swiftly, calling:
“John—is thee gone? Wait—wait—one minute!”
Bell-Bell went to bed.
VIII
THE LENGTH OF A MINUTE
Well, there, in the vestibule, the tendrils were still on her face, and her eyes were greater and her voice softer than before; and, somehow, without her will her hands went out to him, and without his will his arm disposed itself as it had done for dancing.
“Hush!” she whispered, putting her hand on his mouth to shut out the very words she hungered for, “we have only a minute, and I wished to thank thee and to be forgiven by thee—and—and—to forgive thee—and to never, never meet again—as we agreed—so—so—oh, it was wrong—wrong! But I am so wicked that I am not sorry. No, nor ever shall be! But thee will never tell—and—and when thee is married—everybody has little secrets from his wife—or—husband—my mother has—why, do not tell thy—wife—”
But that word was too much for either of them to endure.
He kissed her so savagely that she lay quiet in his arms.
“Bell-Bell,” murmured the happy and dishevelled Quaker lady to the sleepy lady of the house of Jarn, “I’m sorry. Forgive me. It was more than a minute—wasn’t it?”
“I think it was an hour,” snapped Bell-Bell, with pretended savagery.
“Bib—but thee did not call,” half sobbed the happy one, “and—and I—forgot!”
“God bless you both!” shouted the little wife, and in a moment had the dishevelled head with the damp tendrils of hair on her breast. “I am almost as happy as you.”
“Why?” questioned the Quaker lady.
“Why—didn’t he ask you to marry him?”
“No. I don’t think he would wish to marry a Quaker—especially one as wicked as I am.”
She could hear the fine teeth of Bell-Bell grind.
“Isn’t it funny that one can be so very wicked and so very happy at the same time?”
“No. Go to sleep. I must think.”
“Mi—must I tell thee all that happened in the vestibule?”
“No. I know.”
“Oh! Thi—thee saw us?”
“I went straight to bed.”
“Then, how, Bell-Bell, dear—”
“Look here, I’ve been through all that. There are others besides John Rem. I don’t like him a bit to-night. And I shall tell him so very early in the morning.”
“Not so tall and strong as he, I think, dear Bell-Bell.”
“All right. Go to bed, you wicked little Quaker.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to talk. Bell-Bell, there couldn’t have been any one to hold thee that way—as if thee were never to get away again! And—and kiss thee. That is twice!” she wailed, with the air of a felon confessing his felonies. “Does thee think me irreparably wicked? He does, I know, and will never look at me again.”
“Never fear. They like us to be wicked—a little—you know. Now, off to bed with you!”
“Truly?”
“Truly. To bed!”
IX
AT TEN IN THE MORNING
Until ten o’clock the next morning, at which hour he rose and confided it to his shaving-mirror, John Rem had enjoyed the happiest day of his life. But at precisely that hour he heard his name called out by a newsboy on the street. In a moment more not only his name, but his picture, was before him in the newspaper he had bought. And beside his own was the name and a fair sketch of Miss Estover, Quaker.
In fact, it was all known, and, with marvellous guesses, where fact had failed, it had been printed. It was a piquant story, and so it had the place of honor on the first page and the blackest “heads.” The incident behind the jasmines when he had lifted her mask was given a hideous prominence, and the reporter confessed that it was this “happy accident” which disclosed identities to him, out for a story. The unusual circumstance of a dancing Quaker would have been a sufficient story. But in following the charming Quaker costume for character matter he had been presented with a sight of their unmasked faces, and the sound of a kiss.
The final witticism of the jolly reporter was that the pretty Quaker would undoubtedly be called before the annual meeting, then but three days off, to be dealt with according to her deserts. What these might be he had gathered from several representative Quakers, who made them briefly but sufficiently terrible.
Doctor Rem did not shave that day. For after he had read the part of the paper which he and the Quaker lady occupied, he received a telegram from Mrs. Jarn.
“She is still here. She dare not go home. You have broken her heart. Come at once to consult with me. You are a brute!”
X
BY THE RIGHT OF A HUSBAND
Now, when the Great Meeting came, everything happened precisely as the jolly reporter had foretold—and more. The trembling sinner was arraigned and put upon her defence.
Then John Rem rose, tall, and, with a dignity no one thought he had, walked over and took his place at the sinner’s side, and begged that he might be permitted to speak for her. And, being asked by what right he claimed to make her defence, he answered sturdily:
“By the right of a husband,” and then went on in a strong and determined voice, “and I hope, sir, that I may take the place—I—”
But at that moment John Rem, notwithstanding his experiences, was suddenly in the midst of the most dramatic situation he had ever known.
Slowly every head of the three thousand in the hall drooped. He looked backward and forward, right and left, and saw not a face. Only bowed heads he saw—and silence. Not a sound. He heard the ticking of his watch. For the first time in his strenuous life something like terror possessed him. His face actually went pale.
“What is it?” he whispered to his wife.
“They are praying,” she whispered back.
“For us?”
“Yes.”
“Shall we go?”
“No. We must wait until they move.”
And so they waited. Five, ten minutes. Yet it seemed an eternity. John Rem had never such need of endurance. The perspiration streamed down his face. The little hand which crept into his grew moist. His watch continued to deafen him.
Then, in the front row, a woman’s skirt rustled. Almost he had cried out, “Thank God!”
Beyond this one another raised her head. Then a little rustle passed over the vast room. No more. John Rem knew now that, had he looked, every mild eye would be upon him, and not with animadversion. In the prayer they had placed him—her—the whole matter before God.
The moderator, facing them, rose and said quietly:
“John Rem, thou and thy wife, go in peace. And the blessing of the God of our fathers go with ye. If ye have sinned, repent.”
And, shamed and trembling, John Rem got himself and his bride out of that place.
On the face of the father of this sudden bride there was a deeper gloom than it bore that day we first saw it in this story. On the face of the gentle proselyte at his side, it must be confessed, there was a fleeting, reminiscent smile.
“There are some things we cannot help, thee knows, John,” she was saying, “and it is our duty to bear these crosses with fortitude.” The reminiscent smile grew broader. “Thee was exactly right in what thee said about guile. But thee was also right in what thee said about goodness being as communicable as guile. This young man has not the highest kind of a reputation for gentleness. But all agree that he is honest. It displeases me very much”—and the smile was almost a laugh now—“that they should make me a mother-in-law, at my age, without my consent. But if I can forgive that, thee can forgive—hem—whatever ails thee. John, my dear husband, let us keep them with us and try that theory of thine which was so successful in my case. Let us see whether we cannot communicate our goodness to them—as they have communicated their guile to each other.”
John Estover sprang upon his wife and embraced her so strongly and so suddenly that she said happily:
“Why, John, it is just as if thee was courting again!”
“Thee is right, Ann! Thee is a better Quaker than I am. Thee adheres to the precepts and does not forget them when they are of use. There is much hope in what thee says.”
“And—and—John—just think of our lovely Marian—Mary Ann—leaving us! It is not to be thought of, is it? I know thee feels as strongly about that as I do. And that poor, misguided young man—”
For she had seen them coming, with fearful faces, for their forgiveness, and he had not.
They were almost at the door now.
“Is it all agreed, John?” she cried.
“Yes,” said John, “it is all agreed. Thee is a better Quaker than I am.”
And that is why they received a welcome which was more hard to bear than the one they expected.
“Now if thee were only one of us,” sighed John Estover to John Rem, as he held his two hands, and liked him at once for a certain big way he had with him.
“What do you mean?” asked the younger man. “I hope that having forgiven us, you will not stop halfway.”
“Ah, yes, that. Look to Ann for that! But if thee was a Friend, we might reclaim thee—”
“I am a Friend,” shouted John Rem, tremendously happy to remember in time what he had not remembered much for years.
“What!”
It came in three voices—and six hands were laid with various expressions of tragedy upon him.
“Not very orthodox,” confessed honest John Rem, “perhaps a confirmed backslider. But I claim my place in the church of my fathers, and I mean to keep it better in the future than in the past—with—with—the help of my—wi—wife!—” he got it out with a gulp—“and you. I am a Friend, sir. My father and my mother were, God bless them! I tried to tell it at the meeting. But they began to pray for us.”
“My dear son John—” said John Estover to John Rem.
Now, do you observe how right Mrs. Estover was in her views and practices concerning the “management” of husbands and fathers, and churches, and other things?
[1]. Copyright, 1905, by The Metropolitan Magazine.
[2]. Copyright, 1904, by The Century Co.
[3]. Copyright, 1904, by Frank Leslie Publishing House.
[4]. Copyright, 1904, by The Century Co.
[5]. Copyright, 1905, by P. F. Collier & Son.
[6]. Copyright, 1905, by The Curtis Publishing Company.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
| Page | Changed from | Changed to |
|---|---|---|
| [212] | shining imprudence of the thing in the midst | shining impudence of the thing in the midst |
- Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
- Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.