IV
At five o’clock the following afternoon, while Madelaine was dressing for dinner, Gracia entered her room and passed through to her daughter’s. She dismissed the maid and closed the door.
“I’ve just had an answer to my cable,” she announced. “Amos and Margaret are not coming back until spring. Amos is asking as a special favor that I keep Gordon here and look after him until he gets back and can deal with him.”
“But what of that, mother? I’m sure——”
“I’m sure that young barbarian will succeed in ingratiating himself into your sympathies, Madelaine. Make you believe he’s not the thing he emphatically is. I can’t very well deny Margaret’s boy the shelter of my home. But I can and shall deny him propinquity with my daughter. Madelaine, please take it kindly and believe it hurts me far more than it does yourself. But I’m going to send you away—to school.”
It was the girl’s turn to struggle with self for a moment. Then in even voice she replied quietly:
“Of course, I’ll do whatever pleases you, mother dear. For after all, you know, I’m indebted to you more than I can ever repay.”
Mrs. Theddon uttered a little cry.
“No, no! Madelaine! Don’t take it that way! You’re not a helpless mercenary—you weren’t bought——”
She stopped. The misery on the girl’s face was unmistakable.
“Wasn’t I, mother dear? I thought I was—for a thousand dollars——”
“Madelaine! How did you know? Who told you——?”
“I happened to be hiding, unintentionally, in Miss Howland’s office that day. I heard everything. And there’s not been one day since, when I’ve heard you tear a check from your check book, but what I’ve remembered why and how I’m—here! Why did you do it? Oh, mother dear? Why did you?”
“My God!” cried the woman. “Madelaine, I never dreamed you knew! Or if you did, I thought you too little for it to make any difference. Sometimes I’ve wondered if you’re not really a woman even older and wiser than myself—merely using a young girl’s body.”
“Why did you, mother dear? You really didn’t have to do it!”
“And has that been bothering you, dear?”
“Ever since the day I came!”
The woman’s face and posture remained wooden for a moment. Then she relaxed.
“You poor dear, parentless lamb! Don’t you know—don’t you understand—can’t you see why? I did it because of my love!”
“Your love!”
“Exactly. Maybe I’ve been trained and molded these last few years, Madelaine, to think of value as money. I can’t help that. A thousand people would have termed my payment to the Howland woman absurd and ridiculous. Of course it was. And yet I had a purpose in it. Dear heart—I wanted to feel you had cost me something. Something I had paid for so I had the right to bona fide ownership!”
The girl’s calm eyes searched the woman’s face. They read the truth.
“Cost you something?” she exclaimed.
“I couldn’t go through the pain of giving you birth, dear girl. Yet I felt myself cheapening you and cheapening myself to get you for nothing. I wanted to pay—pay something ridiculous—and I did!” The woman’s voice cracked. “It wasn’t the Howland person getting money to which she had no right—it was my parting with it that counted! Can’t you understand?”
“You might have given it to the Orphanage, instead of Miss Howland who really didn’t——”
“Child, child! You’ll never know how much I have given to the Orphanage since you arrived to make my life worth while!”