And Sheila had been sure, triumphantly sure. Even then, with the girl's rhapsodies ringing in her ears, Mrs. Caldwell had insisted upon an engagement of six months—"To give the child an opportunity to break it," she had confided to Peter. But the delay had proved unnecessary. At the end of the period imposed Sheila had been as sure as ever, and she was sure still. Ted loved her. Ted needed her. Of course he was the right man for her!
If she had thought to receive more than marriage had given her, the fault was hers, she loyally decided. She had always anticipated miracles. She had always seen life as an enchanting fairy tale, with a marvellous climax hidden somewhere in the chapters yet unread. But life wasn't a fairy tale; it was merely a bit of cheerful realism, with a happy, commonplace climax in accord with realistic standards. It hadn't been fair to demand princes and palaces and winged delights of a bit of realism! She knew now that her expectations had been childish and absurd; that she had asked for more than life had to give; that the joys of this world were simple, home-abiding things, without the wings for heavenly flights. Not even love itself was winged, and it was better so—for thus she need not fear lest it fly away as winged things are wont to do. She had prayed for ecstasy—which, at best, is fleeting. Instead she had been granted a safe and quiet happiness. Was not destiny wiser than she?
But though she reconciled herself to the realities of life and of marriage, she could not reconcile herself to her own unchanged spirit. She had looked to find Sheila Kent a new being, serene, complete—and Sheila Kent was neither.
"I'm just myself!" she admitted at last, when neither faith nor desire had availed to transform the fiber of her soul. "I'm just myself still. Ted used to think me a queer little girl—and I'm the same queer self now. Other married girls are satisfied with their husbands and their houses and—their babies—and I believed I would be, too. But I'm not. Marriage hasn't made me over—and it isn't enough for me. I want something wonderful—I want to do something wonderful. I want—why, I want to write!"
It seemed a solution of her perplexity—the conclusion that she still wanted to write—and she seized upon it with reviving fervor. Her gift, singling her out from other girls, was the explanation of those unconquered spaces in her soul, spaces never destined for the foot of any man, however dear. Genius, she had heard, was always celibate, and her genius, or talent, lived on in her inviolate, a thing yet to be reckoned with, yet to be appeased.
She had not written during her engagement, nor since her marriage. Not that she had deliberately renounced her ambitions, but that her days had been crowded with other things, with things that, for the time, she thought more vital. Peter had remonstrated with her once or twice, but to no avail, and when she went from the flurry of trousseau and wedding to the more serious business of keeping house in the traditional vine-clad cottage—Mrs. Caldwell having persisted in the wisdom of separate establishments—he no longer protested at all. An industrious young housekeeper and a blooming wife was obviously not to be condoled with over thwarted aspirations. So certain unfinished manuscripts lay forgotten in the bottom of Sheila's bridal trunk—forgotten, or at least ignored—until the day when she fixed on them as the reason of her vague discontent. Then she brought them forth with an eagerness that was, perhaps, the best answer to her self-analysis. Of course she had wanted to write; without knowing it, she must have wanted, for months, to write! Oh, life wasn't a bit of dull realism! It was a fairy tale after all—a fairy tale of poems and novels, of gracious publishers and an appreciative public!
She had never talked to Ted about her writing. Somehow she had always been absorbed in his work, his ambitions. He had all the initiative and enterprise that Shadyville, prior to his arrival, had lacked, and his labors and successes had consumed not only his own time and thoughts, but Sheila's as well. She admired his energy; she was dazzled by the juggleries of his mediocre cleverness; she was proud to help him. Like a strong, fresh wind he filled her world—and, incidentally, he was a wind that blew away all the delicate cobwebs, the gossamer filaments of her finer gift.
But now, for the first time since Ted's return to Shadyville, Sheila's individuality rose up within her and claimed something for itself. She had wanted to write—and she would write. There was no reason why she should not. Women, nowadays, were wives and artists also. Married women had "careers" as often as the unmarried. In short, fame was still hers to conquer!
She set about conquering it at once—that was Sheila's way—and when, in the middle of a busy morning, some one tapped imperiously on her closed door, she went to answer the summons with an inky finger and dream-laden eyes. But she opened the door to a vision that dispelled dreams by its more charming substance—a young woman whose smart, slender figure was clothed in a mode that had not yet reached Shadyville, and whose alert and smiling face seemed as unrelated as her garments to the sleepy little provincial town.
"Charlotte!"