“What is the matter, Jane? Has anything happened?”
“Oh, no, I—I don’t feel very well. It’s nothing at all. I’ll be all right to-morrow. But you must go without me. There’s to be supper afterward, isn’t there?”
“Oh, yes.” And then despairingly: “You always have your own way, in the end.”
She kissed the girl coldly on the brow and turned toward the door.
“You must hurry now,” said Jane. “Mr. Van Duyn will be coming soon, and dinner is early. Good night, dear. I won’t be down to-night. I think I’ll lie down for awhile.”
Mrs. Loring turned one more helpless look in Jane’s direction and then went out of the room.
When the door had closed, Jane Loring turned the key in the lock, then sank at full length on the couch, and seemed to be asleep; but her head, though supported by her arms, was rigid and her eyes, wide open, were staring at vacancy. In the hall outside she heard the fall of footsteps, the whisper of servants and the commotion of her mother’s descent to dinner. A hurdy-gurdy around the corner droned a popular air, a distant trolley-bell clanged and an automobile, exhaust open, dashed by the house. These sounds were all familiar here, and yet she heard them all; for they helped to silence the echoes of a voice that still persisted in her ears, a low sonorous voice, whose tones rose and fell like the sighing of Kee-way-din in the pine-trees of the frozen North. Her thoughts flew to that distant spot among the trees, and she saw the shimmer of the leaves in the morning sunlight, heard the call of the birds and the whispering of the stream. It was cold up there now, so bleak and cold. By this time a white brush had painted out the glowing canvas of summer and left no sign of what was beneath. And yet somewhere hidden there, as in her heart, beneath that chill mantle was the dust of a fire—the gray cinders, the ashes of a dead faith, and Kee-way-din moaned above them.
A tiny clock upon the mantle chimed the hour. Miss Loring moved stiffly, and sat suddenly upright. She got up at last and putting on a loose robe, went to her dressing table, her chin high, her eye gleaming coldly at the pale reflection there. The blood of the Gallatins! Did he think the magic of his name could make her forget the brute in him, the beast in him, that kissed and spoke of love while the thin blood of the Gallatins seethed in its poison? What had the blood of the Gallatins to do with her? Honor, virtue, truth? He had spoken of these. What right had he to use them to one who had an indelible record of his infamy? His kisses were hot on her mouth even now—kisses that desecrated, that profaned the words he uttered. Those kisses! The memory of them stifled her. She brushed her bare arm furiously across her lips as she had done a hundred times before. Lying kisses, traitorous kisses, scourging kisses, between which he had dared to speak of love! If he had not done that, she might even have forgiven him the physical contact that had defamed her womanhood. And yet to-night he had spoken those same words again, repeated them with a show of warmth, that his depravity might have some palliation and excuse. He could, it seemed, be as insolent as he was brutal.
Determined to think of him no more, she rang for her maid and ordered dinner. Then, book in hand, she went down stairs. Mr. Van Duyn, she was relieved to think, had departed with Mrs. Loring, and she smiled almost gaily at the thought that this evening at least was her own. As she passed into the library, she saw that a bright light was burning in her father’s study, and she peeped in at the door.
It was not a large room, the smallest one, in fact, upon the lower floor, but unlike most of the other rooms, it had a distinct personality. The furniture—chairs, desks, and bookcases—was massive, almost too heavy to make for architectural accordance, and this defect was made more conspicuous by the delicacy and minuteness of the ornaments. There were two glass cases on a heavy table filled with the most exquisite ivories, most of them Japanese, an Ormolu case with a glass top enclosing snuff-boxes and miniatures. Three Tanagra figures graced one bookcase and upon another were several microscopes of different sizes. The pictures on the walls, each of them furnished with a light-reflector, were small with elaborately carved gold frames—a few of them landscapes, but most of them “genre” paintings, with many small figures.