This great problem at the end of life always interested her more than all those to be solved on the journey. If death be an open door to larger activities and happier conditions, then we should bear with courage whatever comes upon us here, and go smiling on, indifferent to pain and disappointment; but if all our striving and longing, sorrowing and suffering and loving reach a finality in the grave, then—no words are strong enough and bitter enough to tell the tragic story of the cheat.
Cartice had always marveled that many could see their nearest and dearest pass into that dread silence, and yet put the thought of what it is out of their minds, and go on pursuing their foolish little pleasures exactly as though the riddle was not for them also to solve.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BUTTERFLY.
Well, may there not be butterflies
That lift with weary wings the air;
That loathe the foreign sun, which lies
On all their colors like despair;
That glitter, homesick for the form
And lost sleep of the worm?
—S. M. B. Piatt.
In these trying days the neighbor who came closest in friendship and loving service, oddly enough, was the Butterfly of the house, Mrs. Layton. She and her husband had a richly furnished suite of rooms near that of the Dorings. They received many calls, went out frequently, and appeared to find life well worth living. Mrs. Layton was pretty, was always arrayed as the lilies of the field, and all male humanity bent the knee before her.
Cartice’s illness had revealed the unsuspected fact that the Butterfly had a heart as well as a pair of gorgeous wings. She had been astonishingly faithful and kind in her attentions, and astonishingly efficient too, so that now, in the dull days of convalescence the two had become close friends, the formal wall between them having fallen under the pressure of suffering and sympathy.
It was the Butterfly who had sent for the doctor when Cartice was found unconscious on the floor, helped him when he came, and kept a watchful eye on his patient afterward. Nothing makes such close friends as to help and be helped in suffering. We learn to love those to whom we do good.
Cartice had always found a strange enjoyment in looking at the Butterfly since she first saw her, she knew not why. Was she beautiful? Yes, she had beauty worthy of a higher order of being than a butterfly. That was the marvel of it, that she could be a butterfly with a classic profile and the eyes of a mystic—eyes that could see through all masks.
Now that Cartice knew her so well the strange attraction increased, though she could not determine wherein lay her remarkable power to charm. This power, however, was acknowledged on all sides, and many fell under its influence. Even on the street, women as well as men turned to look after her, though if asked the reason could not have told it. The inexplicable quality we call magnetism belonged to her to an extraordinary degree; but who can explain what that is? It attracts; it compels planets as well as persons to follow after it; but that is all we know about it.
“Mrs. Doring,” said the Butterfly, one day, “you must cheer up or you will die. Worse than that, you will make yourself old long before your time. I know it isn’t a polite thing to say, but you look five years older than when you came to this house.”