Re-creations

by Grace Livingston Hill

The subtle fragrance, the dashing script, the old familiar turn of sentence, reached into his consciousness and gripped him for a second in spite of his being on his guard. Something thrilling and tragic seemed to emanate from the very paper in his hand, from the royal purple of the lining of the expensive envelope. For an instant he felt the old lure, the charm, the tragedy of his life which he was seeking to outlive, which he had supposed was already outlived.

In his senior year in college Arthur Maxwell had become acquainted with Evadne Chantry at a house party where both had been guests. They had been thrown together during the two days of their stay, whether by the hostess’ planning or at the lady’s request is not known, but Arthur, at first not much attracted by her type, found himself growing more and more interested.

Evadne was a slender, dark, sophisticated little thing with dreamy eyes and a naïve appeal. His chivalry was challenged, and when it further appeared that she was just from England, and was of the old family of Chantrys whom his mother knew and visited, he got down from his distance and capitulated. They became close friends, in spite of the fact that Evadne’s ways were not the ways in which he had been brought up, and in which his young manhood had chosen to walk. But he had found himself excusing her. She had not been taught as he had. She had lived abroad where standards were different. She had been in boarding schools and convents, and then travelled. He felt she could be brought to change her ways.

It appeared that she was going to be for sometime in the city where his college was located, and the friendship ripened rapidly, taking Arthur Maxwell into a social group as utterly foreign to his own as one could imagine, in fact one which he did not really enjoy, yet he went for Evadne’s sake.

When he came to the point of telling his mother of the friendship, about which it had been strangely hard to write, he found that it was no easy matter. In the light of her clear eyes there were matters which could not be so easily set aside as his own conscience had been soothed to do. He suddenly realized what a shock it would be to his conservative mother to see Evadne smoking, to watch her in her sinuous attitudes, to know that her son was deeply interested in a young woman who had plucked eyebrows and used a lip stick freely. When he came to think of it some of her costumes might be exceedingly startling to his mother. Yet he believed in his mother so thoroughly that he felt she could be made to understand how much this girl had suffered from lack of a mother, and how much she was in need of just such a friend as his mother could be.

When the time arrived that Mrs. Maxwell had to learn these things her son was even more startled than herself to find out how much she really was shocked at his choice of a girl. The stricken look that came into her eyes the first time they met told him without further words from her lips. In that moment he might be said to have grown up as he suddenly looked upon the girl whom he thought he loved beyond all women, through the eyes of his mother.

His mother had been wonderful even though she carried the stricken look through the entire interview. She had perhaps not exactly taken Evadne into her arms quite as he had hoped, but she had been gently sweet and polite. His mother would always be that. She had been quiet, so quiet, and watchful, as if she were gravely considering some threatened catastrophe and meeting it bravely.

Afterwards, she had met his eyes with a brave, sad smile, without a hint of rebuke, not a suggestion that he should have told her sooner, only an acceptance of the fact that the girl was here in their lives and must be dealt with fairly. She listened to his story of Evadne’s life, considered his suggestion that she might help the girl, heard how they had met and his reasons for feeling that she was the one and only girl. As he told it all he was conscious of something searching in her sweet, grave eyes that turned a knife in his heart, yet he was full of hope that she would eventually understand and come under Evadne’s spell with himself.

Only once she questioned about the girl. How did he know she belonged to the Chantrys she knew? What relationship did she bear to them? Was she Paul Chantry’s sister? Cousin? She did not remember that there had been a daughter.

Evadne had not taken kindly to his mother. She wept when Arthur talked with her alone after their meeting, and said she was sure his mother did not love her. But the days passed on and Mrs. Maxwell kept her own counsel, and invited the girl to her home, doing all the little gracious social things that might be expected of her, yet with a heavy heart, till one day when it seemed that an announcement of the engagement should be the next thing in order, there came a letter from England in answer to one Mrs. Maxwell had written, disclaiming any relationship between Evadne and the distinguished old family who were her friends.