The Undercurrent

by Robert Grant

As thus she mused she heard Loretta stirring. She had arranged as a precaution that they should occupy chambers which opened into each other, and it behooved her now to pay attention to her—to see that she was suitably attired and to supervise her movements. When they were dressed she exhibited to her the large dining-room set with little tables, and afforded her a peep at the guests as they swept in. Later Loretta and she looked down from a small balcony filled with plants on the splendid company assembling in the music-room. Her charge was completely absorbed by the pageant, asking at first eager questions, which Constance answered with mechanical scrupulousness, for to her in spite of the brilliant scene the world seemed far away, and she still dwelt as in a trance. As soon as Loretta recognized Lucille, who in the most stunning of Parisian gowns was assisting her mother to receive, she became nervously agitated, and after surveying her for a few moments she nudged her companion and said, "What did I tell you? Hasn't her marriage turned out all right, and isn't everybody at her feet? You might be down there with the rest of them to-night, if you'd only taken my advice."

The words brought Constance back to her immediate surroundings, but as she became aware that Loretta was thrusting in her face the fact of Lucille's triumphant presence, she realized that it had already been a significant item in her nebulous consciousness. But she laid her hand gently on the offender's arm and said, "Sh! No matter about that now. Remember your promise." Loretta grunted. She paid heed to the extent of changing her tone to a whisper, but murmured by way of having the last word, "It's unjust that you shouldn't be there; it's unjust." Then she became silent; but every little while during the evening she repeated under her breath the same phrase, as though it were a formula.

Constance remembered subsequently that as the evening advanced Loretta ceased to ask questions and grew strangely silent, seeming to follow with her eyes every movement of Mrs. Wilson, who in a costume of maroon-colored velvet set off by superb jewels and a tiara of large diamonds, swept with easy grace hither and thither in her endeavor as hostess to make the blending between the pilgrims and Benham's social leaders an agreeable experience for all.

It was in truth a notable entertainment; the guests appeared pleased and appreciative; there were no hitches; the music evoked enthusiasm, the supper was delicious, and the closing distribution of trinkets by Benham's fairest daughters came as a delightful surprise to the departing seekers after truth. But all save the consciousness that she was facing a gay scene and was fulfilling her responsibilities was lost on Constance. She did not know until the next day that the entertainment had been a great success, for, oblivious to the music, the lights, and the brilliantly dressed assembly, her soul was wrestling once more with the problem which she had supposed solved forever. It was nearly one o'clock when the murmur of voices died away, and she conducted Loretta to their mutual apartment. She was glad that her charge showed no disposition to talk over the events of the evening, but on the contrary undressed in silence, busy with her own reflections. Having seen her safely in bed, Constance straightway sat down at her desk and wrote. It was a short, hasty note, for she was bent on posting it that night before the lights in the house were extinguished. Throwing a cloak about her, she glided downstairs, and, with a word of warning to the butler that he might not lock her out, sought the letter-box which was less than a hundred yards distant. She had not chosen to trust her epistle to any other hands. As she lifted the iron shutter she paused for a moment, then with a joyful little sigh she dropped it in and let go. Fifteen minutes later, like a happy, tired child, and wondering what the morrow would bring, she escaped from reality into the waiting arms of sleep.

But Mrs. Randolph Wilson was in no haste to go to bed. She was in a complacent mood. Everything had gone off as she intended, and it suited her to dwell in retrospect on the incidents of the festivity, and to muse fancy free. Lucille had kissed her good-night and had retired. She had let her maid loosen her dress and had dismissed her for the night. She was inclined to dally; she liked the silence and the sense of calm after the activities of the day.

Seated at her toilet table and looking into her mirror with her cheeks resting upon her hands, she gazed introspectively at herself and destiny. Her tiara of diamonds still crested her forehead. Somehow it pleased her to leave it undisturbed until she was ready to let down her hair. She was conscious that she had reached the age when she preferred to see herself at her best rather than in the garb of nature's disorder. It had been one of the eventful evenings of her life; she felt that by her efforts mind and matter had been drawn closer together without detriment to either. And everybody had been extremely civil to Lucille, at which she could not help rejoicing. Certainly, too, Lucille was acquiring more social charm and was more anxious to please people of cultivation. Then, too, her brother had appeared in his most engaging mood as a consequence of the defeat of the legacy tax bill. No reason for doubting her conclusion that the passage of the measure would have been premature under existing conditions had occurred to her; so it seemed that society had been saved from a mistake. Altogether the immediate present was marred by no unpleasant memory but one. As to that, she felt that she had acted indulgently, and that on the morrow she would make a last effort to rescue the unhappy degenerate. As she surveyed herself in the glass she appreciated that she was well preserved and that her grizzled hair was becoming, but that the romance of life was over. She would never marry again; she was unequivocally middle-aged. Ideas were what she had left; but for this great interest she had many years of strength and activity ahead of her.

Ideas! How absorbing they were, and yet how little the most disinterested individual could accomplish! Truth looked so near, and yet ever seemed to recede as one approached it. Men and women came and went, generations lived and died, but progress, like the march of the glaciers, was to be measured by the centuries. The inequalities of life—how hideous were they still; how far from rectification, in spite of priests and charity! What was the key to the riddle? Where was the open sesame to the social truth which should be universal beauty? She was seeking it with all her soul, but she would never find it. Deep in the womb of time it lay, a magnet, yet inscrutable. Who would unearth it? Would it baffle mankind forever? or would centuries hence some searcher—perhaps a woman like herself—discern and reveal it?

Pensive with her speculation, she turned her eyes, wistful with their yearning to pierce the mysteries of time, full upon the mirror, and started. An apparition, a woman's face, cunning, resentful, demon-like, was there beside her own; a woman's figure crouching, stealthy, about to spring was stealing toward her. Was it a vision, an uncanny creature of the brain? Instinctively she turned, and as she did so a large pair of hands gleamed in her face and reached for her neck. Springing up with a cry of horror, she recoiled from the threatening fingers, but in another instant she was bent backward so that her head pressed against the glass and she felt a powerful clutch upon her throat which took away the power to scream, and made her eyes feel as though they were bursting from their sockets. A voice, exultant, cruel, yet like a revivalist's chant, rang in her ears.

"I've come for you. We'll go together, down to eternity. There you will scrub dirty marble floors for ever and ever."

In the face in the mirror Mrs. Wilson had recognized Loretta, and she divined, as the wild figure threw itself upon her and the strong hands gripped her windpipe, that she was contending with a mad-woman. The import of the strange, accusing words was unmistakable; it was a struggle for life. Powerless to give the alarm save by inarticulate gasps, she realized that only her own strength could avail her, and that this must fail owing to the superior hold which her assailant had established. She strove with all her might to wrench herself free, but in vain. The long hands squeezed like a vise, and she was choking. She felt her senses swim, and that she was about to faint. Then with a rush a third figure intervened; someone else's hands were battling on her side, and in an instant she was free.