No, she could not solve the riddle; she could never have understood that, because the praise had not been extorted, it was doubly precious, or that one who lauded Sybil—magnified him.
"Yes," the girl said to herself, as she sat there, "he has crowned me, but—" She sighed, and turned the ruby to catch the light. "I wonder what your message is? One word, he says; perhaps it's faith. And yet, no! that would be satirical. What is there to be faithful to—no churchly vows! no!" she bit her lip to silence.
She missed Dorothy very greatly, now, in the lull that always follows the hurry and excitement of preparing for a production, for an irregular love is a great isolation—of necessity.
Dorothy, now two years a wife, had become so precious that she might no more be permitted to pass through that tunnel than to kneel before the car of the Juggernaut. Indeed, Leslie challenged the right of the very winds of heaven to blow too harshly on her face, and if any sweet folly of exaggerated care escaped him John Lawton was on hand to bring it to his attention.
"Ja!" said Lena, who was herself preparing for marriage to her "Mickle," her "mash-man." "Ja, my Miss Lady, I youst hav' ter make of der lies to der Herr Galts und der Herr Boss in der fron' uf der house, und keep der' tentions, vile der Miss Dorrie-Galts com' by der back porch und find out uf she's got any feet on der legs. Youst vat I tell you—der Herr Mens vatch her like der two pig cats, und, ven she get der chance, she laf und say, 'Lena! com' take me out uf der cottin'-battin, quvick! und let's see den uf I break ven I cross der room!"
When the news had reached Sybil first, she had lain across her bed and sobbed and wept the night away. But next day, when she had repeated it to Thrall, she had withstood the piercing inquiry of his searching eyes, until she heard the sigh of relief that told her he had seen no sign of pain. And she had had hard work to convince him that the splendor of the gift he wished her to send the happy, expectant young mother would not be consistent with her supposed salary, and that Leslie would not be as innocently unobservant as Dorothy.
So now she had not the dear pleasure of her sister's occasional visits. Her face was unutterably sad. Suddenly she stretched her arms above her head, in the same passionate gesture which she had used that night at the old White house, under the starry sky, and now as then she cried out against the bondage that held her! Then it had been poverty—now it was sin! She wore her crown; she lived in luxurious comfort; Stewart's loyalty was complete, beyond question, but—"Love and the world well lost!" she quoted, and laughed aloud—such a woful little laugh. For now, with tear-washed, experienced eyes, she saw the awful error she had made, when in ignorant young passion she had declared "that love was enough"!
A certain austere power of endurance had developed in her during these crowded years. She neither whimpered nor complained, only to her own soul she admitted that lawful, virtuous living was better than love alone; that one could not depart from rectitude and morality without sorrow, tears, and much bitterness of spirit. Just at first the wild sweetness of the forbidden fruit enthralled her—the romance of secret love, the thrill of stolen caresses, of fingers pressed under cover of a stage direction, of kisses swiftly given upon the little "scolding" lock of hair upon her neck, as he deftly and gallantly tied her veil after rehearsal, the precious rare half-days stolen from task-mistress and the world, and spent with her among the palms and poinsettias. Then all the levity fell from him, and he was at his fascinating best—witty, gracious, tender, sympathetic, wholly free from the smell of the footlights that some actors carry about with them all their days. The tiny notes pressed into warm palms, the code of signals—had all been so deliciously mysterious that she had felt herself a real heroine of romance.
"Poor little fool!" she murmured, contemptuously now, for she recalled that for a time in her infatuation she had felt how ineffably superior was her own romantic, secret, self-sacrificing love to the dull, commonplace, strictly legalized affection of Dorothy and Leslie. But since then—oh, since then! she had had time to wake from her beautiful dream, she had had time to think and to suffer. She knew now that the beautiful temple of love must stand on a foundation of legality, or it would tremble dangerously under every wind that blew! She no longer found anything to deride in the word "propriety," since she had come in bitterness of spirit to realize its meaning: "What ought to be—what should be." And dear Dorothy's life was what it should be, and she had peace and security and had never known humiliation. "Humiliation!" Sybil twisted her hands and gasped aloud, "God! oh, God!" at the recollections that came to her. For Stewart Thrall's wife had kept her word and stood at his side, and shared his popularity, and applauded him from her box, and called him "dear" before all men on all possible occasions. And suspecting that Sunday evenings might not be spent with "the boys," she had inaugurated small "at homes," to give her dear Stewart a chance to gather his valued friends about him in his own home. And he who had never disregarded public opinion felt compelled to dance attendance upon his wife in name, who held him to his bond for her vanity and convenience. The trite endearments necessity forced from his lips were torture to Sybil when she chanced to hear them; and oh, the agony of a woman, who is secretly loved, when she sees the man who is hers—for whom she has paid with her pride and honor and self-respect—held to the side of another woman, by her legitimate rights! Just as maddening pain will sometimes drive a sufferer to press upon the torturing wound, so Sybil would cry to herself: "She is his true wife, and I am a—caprice!"