she held out her hand. "how do you do? where is mary this afternoon? sit down and stop staring at me like that. i'm no chinese idol. if i choose to put on a mandarin coat and sit on my front porch, whose business is it but mine!"
"nobody's, madam!" john maxwell bent over and shook miss gibbie's hand vigorously. "you are indeed no chinese idol. but in such gorgeousness you might be twin sister to that fearless lady of long finger-nails and no soul, the do-wagger empress of china, as mrs. mcdougal called her. she was a woman of might and a born boss. i understand you are letting the people of this town know you are living here again. i've come to hear about the parties."
he drew a chair close to miss gibbie's, and took from her lap the turkey-wing fan. "that's a fine coat you've got on. did you wear that yesterday?"
"i did not. too hot. and then annie steele has such poppy eyes they might have fallen in her soup-plate had i put in on, and her husband can't stand any more expense from annie. she's the kind of wife who cries for what it wants, and he's the kind of husband who gives in to tears. but they're happy. neither one has any sense. where's mary?"
"i don't know. seeing something about a party she is going to give the orphan-asylum children on her birthday, i believe. some time off yet, but she's always ahead of time. i went by mrs. moon's this morning, and several of the lunchers came in and told of the war-whoops of the diners. best show i've been to in years. from their reports i thought i'd better come up and see if there were any scraps of you left."
"i'm all here." miss gibbie took the fan from his hand and began to use it; then threw back her head and laughed until the keen gray eyes were full of tears. "wasn't it mean of me? wasn't it mean to invite people to your house and not have for them one single thing worth eating, especially when they had come for the sole purpose of enjoying a good dinner, and finding out whether or not i followed the traditions of my fathers? what does mary think about it?"
john bent over, hands clasped loosely between his knees. "pretty rough. she is particular about who she invites to her house, but, having invited them, she—"
"treats them properly. very correct. mary is young and life is before her. i am old and going to do as i choose."
"but why do you ask people of that kind to your house? if you don't admire them—"
"what nonsense!" miss gibbie's chin tilted and she looked at john with an eye at an angle that only miss gibbie could attain. "when one gives formal dinner-parties people are usually invited for a purpose not pleasure. i have known my guests of last night for many years. 'tis true i've seen little of them for the past twenty, but i'm back here to live, and it was necessary they should understand certain things they didn't seem to be taking in. they're a bunch of bulldozers and imagine others are in awe of them—socially, i mean. in all their heads together there aren't brains enough to make anything but trouble, but empty heads and idle hands are dangerous, and kings can be killed by cats. don't you see this town is dividing itself into factions? already one element is arraying itself against the other, and mary cary is the cause of it. it was time to let the opposing element understand i understood the situation; also that i had heard certain remarks it had pleased them to make; also, again, that i am not as extravagant as they had been told. a good, plain table is what i keep—only last night it wasn't good. you should have seen it!"
miss gibbie leaned back in her chair and fanned with wide, deliberate strokes. "i fixed the flowers. they were sunflowers fringed with honeysuckle in a blue glass pitcher—colonial colors as befitted my ancestried guests. the pitcher was tildy's. my dear"—she tapped john's knee with the tip of her fan—"don't bother about them. you can't make some people mad. as long as they think i have money they won't cut my acquaintance. they'll abuse me, yes. everybody is abused who can't be used; but they'll come to the next party if it's given to a celebrity and there's the promise of champagne. of course last night i couldn't say all the things i wanted to say; that's the disadvantage of being a hostess, but i think they understand mary cary is a friend of mine. mary doesn't approve of my methods. sorry, but methods depend upon the kind of people with whom you have to deal. love is lost on some natures, and certain individuals use weapons she doesn't touch. anybody can stab in the back; it takes an honest person to fight fair, and a strictly honest person is as rare as one with good manners. all mrs. deford wants is the chance to stab. but what about the lunch? was that abused, too?"
"not on your life! didn't you say you had some cigars around here?
i've used all of mine and can't get your kind in town." he got up
and started indoors. "as i order the kind you keep for company,
i don't mind smoking them. may i have one?"
she waved her fan. "in the library behind the brittanica. keep them there to save jackson from the sin of smoking them. best darky on earth, but helping himself isn't stealing, of course. what did they say about the lunch?"
john lighted his cigar and took a good whiff. "you're a sensible woman, miss gibbie, to let a fellow smoke a thing like that. it begets love and charity. what did they say about the lunch? let me see: most beautiful thing ever seen in yorkburg, most delicious things to eat, most of them never tasted or heard of before; perfect service, exquisite lace table-cloth or lace something, patriarchal silver, ancestral china, french food, table a picture, you another. said you looked like a duchess in that old-fashioned gray satin gown. mrs. tate declared anybody could tell you were a lady the minute they saw your feet, even if they didn't know who you were, but mrs. burnham thought it was your hands that gave you away. your hands are rather remarkable."
john patted the latter, then flicked the ashes from his cigar. "i didn't tell them, but i could have done so, that it wasn't an idiosyncrasy, but sense, that made you wear elbow sleeves all the time. an arm and wrist and hand like yours have no right to be hidden."
"nonsense, nonsense!" again the fan was waved, but miss gibbie's lips twitched. "vanity in a woman of my age is past pardon. i don't like anything to touch my wrist, and sleeves are in the way. tell me"—she leaned toward him—"is mary worried with me?"
"not that i know of. i have scarcely seen her for two days. she's been having so many committee meetings, and so many people have been after her for this and for that, and some sick child at the asylum had to be visited so often, that except in the evenings i have hardly had time to speak to her. and then she is so tired i don't like to keep her up. she can't stand this sort of thing, miss gibbie. it will wear her out, and it ought to be stopped." he got out of his chair and began to walk up and down the porch, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his cigar. "it's got to be stopped."
"who is going to stop it?"
"i know who'd like to stop it." he stood in front of her. "aren't you going to help me, miss gibbie?"
"i am not." she looked up into the strong face now suddenly serious. "i mean in the way you mean. i am going to keep her from wearing herself out, but she is not doing that. hedwig takes care of her and sees that she gets proper food and rest and is spared a thousand things other women have to contend with. and it doesn't hurt anybody to be busy. if you don't think about something else you think about yourself, and the most ruinous of all germs is the ego germ. she isn't likely to be attacked, for she has good resistance, but it's in the air, and i don't want her to get it. she is very happy."
"is she?"
"why not? isn't she leading the life she wants to lead? she has a passion for service. she has a home of her own, simple, but complete; is earning an income sufficient to take care of herself, and has besides, a little money, every cent of which she gives away, however; and, above all, she has the power of making people love her. what more could a girl want?"
"is it enough?"
"quite enough!" miss gibbie's eyes flashed into john maxwell's. "why not enough? she has work to do, a place to fill, is needed, and is bringing cheer and sunshine to others. there is a great deal to be done for yorkburg, and being that rare thing, a leader, she has already started much that will make great changes later on. sit down and stop looking at me that way! she has quite enough."
john threw his cigar away and took the chair she pushed toward him. "i don't believe we do understand each other as well as we thought," he said, again leaning forward and clasping his hands together. "i know what mary is to you. i saw it that first day i joined you at windemere, and during the weeks we were together i saw also it wasn't mary alone i'd have to win, but there'd be you to fight as well. i told you in the beginning just where i stood. i've kept nothing from you and i'm fighting fair, but neither you nor anybody else on god's earth can keep me from trying to make her my wife. life is before us—"
"and behind me."
he flushed. "i didn't mean that. i mean that mary is not to sacrifice herself to an idea, to a condition, if i can help it. i'm with her in all this work for the old place. i love it. i've tried to prove it in more than words, and i would not ask her to give it up entirely. a home can always be kept here, but another sort of home is meant for mary. and it's the one i want to make for her."
"your mother's?"
john's steady eyes looked in the stormy ones. "no—not my mother's. when mary is my wife she goes to the home of which she is to be the mistress. like you, my mother—"
"objects to matrimony. i understand mrs. maxwell is as much opposed to your marriage as i am to mary's. that should be a stimulus to both of you. opposition is a great incentive, but in this case the trouble is with mary herself. would you marry her, anyhow?"
"i would." he smiled. "i'd take mary any way i could get her. oh, i used to have theories of my own about such things, but love knocks theories into nothingness. it makes us do things we never thought we would, doesn't it?"
miss gibbie turned her head away from his understanding eyes, and tapped the porch impatiently with her foot.
"it makes fools of most people. but as long as we've mentioned it we might as well have this out, mary doesn't want to marry anybody. she is happy, and you are not to be coming down here trying to make her change her mind, trying to take her away!"
"who is going to stop it?"
they were her words, and at remembrance of them her face changed and over it swept sudden understanding, and her hand went helplessly toward him.
"john," she said, "i'm an old woman and she's all i've got. don't take her from me! don't take her away!"
he frowned slightly, but he took the hand which he had never before seen tremble, and smoothed it gently. "not from you, miss gibbie. i wouldn't take her out of your life. she would let nothing or nobody do that, but for years i have been waiting—"
"how old are you?"
"twenty-seven in october."
she sat suddenly upright. "an infant! she will be twenty-three in june. and i—i am sixty-five. your life, as you said, is before you, yours and hers. mine is behind, but in the little of mine left i need her. will you hold off for a while? listen! she doesn't know she loves you. doesn't know the reason she has never loved any one else is because there is but one man in her life, and that is you. i didn't want to tell you this, didn't want you to know it, don't want her to know it—yet. she is a child still, though so verily a woman in much. she has owned you since that first visit you made to michigan, a big, awkward, red-faced boy of seventeen, with the same fearless eyes you've got now and the same determined mouth. you've told me about it and she's told me about it and how all you said at first was 'how'd do, mary? i'm here.' and you've been 'here' ever since. don't you see she takes you for granted? the best of women will do that and never guess how rare a thing is a strong man's love. for you there's but one woman in the world, but a woman is the strangest thing god's made yet, and there are no rules by which to understand her. and you don't understand mary. until she does what it is in her heart to do here—gets rid of some of the regulations that use to enrage her as a child, starts flowers where are weeds, and opens eyes that are shut—she couldn't be happy. but listen! i am going to tell you what for cold, hard years i pretended not to believe. a woman's heart never ceases to long for the love that makes her first in life, and after a while mary will know her arms were meant to hold children of her own."
for a moment there was silence, and then miss gibbie spoke again.
"let her alone, john. let her find for herself that the best community mother should be the woman who has borne children and knows the depths of human experience are needed to reach its heights. she has her own ideas of service; so have i. mine are that most people you try to help are piggy and grunt if you happen to step on their toes. she says they grunt only when the stepping is not by accident, and the pigginess is often with the people who help. as benefactors they want to own the benefactored. perhaps they do. she knows much more of the behind-the-scenes of life than i do. but i know some things she doesn't, and a good many you don't. if i didn't like you, boy, i wouldn't tell you what i'm going to tell you, and that is, stay away and let her miss you. i'd tell you to keep on and nag her to death, and make her despise you for your weakness. she'll never marry a man she doesn't respect, even if she loved him, and love is by no means dependent on respect."
miss gibbie nibbled the tip of her turkey-wing fan for a moment of stillness, unbroken save for the twitter of birds in the trees near by, then turned once more to the man by her side.
"i'll be honest with you. i don't want her to marry you or anybody else. i want to keep her with me; but i'll be square. it will be hands off until she decides for herself. if you will say nothing to her for a year i will say nothing before her against marriage in general, and i've said a great deal in the past. and, moreover, i will wrap my blessing up to-day and hand it out a year hence if you deserve it, even if the handing breaks my heart." she held out her hand. "is it a bargain?"
"i don't know whether it is or not." he interlocked his fingers and looked down on the floor of the porch. the ridges in his forehead stood out heavily, and his teeth bit into his under lip. "it is asking a good deal, and i don't like to make a promise i might not be able to fulfil. a year is a long time. she might need me. something might happen."
"about your only chance. don't you see she needs something to wake her up? i'm not going to wake her. i want her to sleep on. i'm selfish and don't deny it. but, of course, do as you choose." she waved her fan with a wash-my-hands-of-you air, and settled herself back in her chair. "i've been a fool to talk as i have, perhaps, but i couldn't see a dog hit his tail on a fence and not tell him it was barbed if i knew it and he didn't. being a man, you must think it over, i suppose, and take a week to find out what a woman could tell you in the wink of an eye. a man's head is no better than a cocoanut where his heart is concerned."
"if i should do this," he said, presently, "and anything should happen in which she needed me, and you did not let me know, did not send for me, i—"
"don't be tragic, /mon enfant/. and in the mean time i don't mind telling you she is coming down the street. i wouldn't turn my head, if i were you, though that big hat she's got on, with the wreath of wild roses, is very becoming. she ought always to wear white. she is inside the gate now." his hand was given a quick warm grasp. "boy—boy—i've been young. if she needs you i will let you know."
