Such was the meaning she read into the recent conversation, piecing evidence together into a coherent whole. Never before had she been absolutely certain. Now, as she told herself, she was certain—could safely be so, in that Margaret had admitted the fact, if not in so many words, yet implicitly. Her father's wish and purpose had been that the young man should marry one of his two daughters—Margaret had perceived this. And she, Joanna, was the one he had chosen, thereby justifying all her past efforts and labors, and rehabilitating the poor, cynically denuded family system into the bargain. Was not the whole habit and conduct of her life vindicated, inasmuch as it led to this superb result? The years had not been wasted, but were, on the contrary, the patient seed-time of this welcome harvest. She had been right from the first, right in every particular, so that not upon her or her methods, but upon those who differed from, undervalued, or slighted her rested the onus of proof. And here the intellectual and moral arrogance latent in Joanna Smyrthwaite's nature upheaved itself mightily and stood aggressively erect. Overweening self-esteem, as on giant wings, sustained her. For to such disastrous inflations of pride are introspective persons liable when they fail—as they do so frequently fail—to discriminate between deeds and emotions, between the barren power to feel and the fertile, the life-giving power to act! Of all traps set by Satan for the catching of souls, the trap of "feelings" is perhaps the wiliest and the worst. And into this trap poor Joanna walked, head in air, careless of consequence. She felt deified, lifted above the crawling, common ways of common men, defiant of all opposition, all criticism; since, being the chosen and desired of him whom she so dotingly worshiped, she became an object worthy of worship in and to herself.
And the night—playing into the devil's hands somewhat, as at times the aspects of Nature will—in its windless silence and opaque, hot darkness, appeared queerly reflective of and sympathetic to Joanna's mood of portentous self-exaltation. The planes rather than the forms of all which composed the scene were perceptible. Joanna's eyes detected the slope of the veranda roof immediately beneath the balcony, the flat outspread of the gardens and lawns, and the vertical palisade of lofty trees encircling them; but no single object detached itself—all were fused by and soaked in that thick broth of thunder-smoke. And this heated obscurity she welcomed, because it ministered to the sense of solitude and of aloofness which she craved. Nothing visible interfered to distract her attention from herself and the thought of her high destiny. Only once or twice the sky opened, for the distant storm had moved westward, striking the black canopies of the firs, their stems and many branches, into vivid and instantaneous relief, while behind and above them, midway to the zenith, lightning licked and flickered like some miracle of soundless, sardonic laughter playing over the livid features of a corpse nine days dead.
It was in the moment of one such disquieting celestial display that Margaret Smyrthwaite, stifling an audible yawn, strolled on to the balcony. She had gathered up her magazines and papers again, and tucked them under her arm.
"If you don't intend to come in and talk any more, Nannie," she said, rather irritably, "I may as well go. I'm getting frightfully sleepy, and I've promised Challoner to motor him over to Weymouth to-morrow. We make an early start. Too, Marion's sure to be waiting to hear how my talk with you has gone off, and I've a conscience about keeping her up any longer.—Now, you do quite understand, don't you, that I am going to marry Challoner, and that opposition is absolutely no good? It would look ever so much better, and be so very much more comfortable for every one concerned, if you could only make up your mind to be nice about it. You're always saying how you hate people talking over our affairs. Why give them occasion to talk then by being disagreeable and contrary about a thing which is really no business of yours, and which you are quite powerless to prevent?"
Contemptuously Joanna turned from contemplation of that strangely flickering sky and contemplation of her own—subjective—glory. She resented the intrusion of Margaret, with her perfumes and fashion papers, her complacent utilitarianism, her motor-car and underbred lover; but resented it half-pityingly, as the weakness of an inferior being behaving according to the manner of its kind.
"I may be powerless to prevent your marriage," she said, "still I most deeply object to it. I cannot do otherwise. I consider it unsuitable and most unfortunate. I cannot disguise from myself that it will stand between us in the future and render intercourse difficult. There can be little sympathy between two persons whose aims and interests are as far apart as yours and mine must inevitably be. I feel it my duty to mention this to you, Margaret, although I know that I have ceased to exercise any influence over you. It is all very sad. It is painful to me that you should repudiate our parents' teaching, all the more painful because I never understood as fully as I now do how noble that teaching is, and how much it has done to form my character and tastes, thus preparing me for the position and duties to which I am called."
She drew her breath sharply, raising her hands to her forehead, greatly moved by the thought of that high calling.
"This for us is the parting of the ways, Margaret," she added, a singular effect of dramatic tension in her manner, her pale ungracious face and figure against the red-brick background of the house-front, momentarily illuminated by a swift amazement of lightning rippling and shuddering behind the fir-trees in the west. "The parting of the ways," she repeated. "You go yours, I mine. I deplore your choice. Can I do otherwise, seeing how different my own prospects are? But as, after due consideration, you have made that choice, all further argument must, I fear, be wasted upon you."
"Very well, then—there's an end of the matter."
As she spoke Margaret crossed the balcony, and, leaning upon the balustrade, looked down into the gloom-shrouded garden. The candle-light streaming outward through the open window touched her shapely back and shoulders, and her bright, curled and folded, auburn hair.