lucy was still to eloise harper the stenographer of frederick towne. out of place, of course, in this fine country house, with its formal gardens, its great stables, its retinue of servants.
“what do you do with yourselves?” she asked her hostess, as she came down, ready for dinner, in revealing apricot draperies and found lucy crisp in white organdie with a band of black velvet around her throat.
“do?” lucy’s smile was ingenuous. “we are very busy, del and i. we feed the pigs.”
“pigs?” eloise stared. she had assumed that a girl of lucy’s type would affect an elaborate attitude of leisure. and here she was, instead, fashionably energetic.
they fed the pigs, it seemed, actually. “of course not the big ones. but the little ones have their bottles. there are ten and their mother died. you should see del and me. he carries the bottle in a metal holder—round,”—lucy’s hand described the shape,—“and when they see him coming they all squeal, and it’s adorable.”
lucy’s air was demure. she was very happy.[317] she was a woman of strong spirit. already she had interested her weak husband beyond anything he had ever known in his drifting days of bachelorhood. “after dinner,” she told eloise, “i’ll show you del’s roses. they are quite marvellous. i think his collection will be beyond anything in this part of the country.”
delafield, coming up, said, “they are lucy’s roses, but she says i am to do the work.”
“but why not have a gardener?” eloise demanded.
“oh, we have. but i should hate to have our garden a mere matter of—mechanics. del has some splendid ideas. we are going to work for the flower shows. prizes and all that.”
delafield purred like a pussy-cat. “i shall name my first rose the ‘little lucy logan.’”
edith, locking arms with jane, a little later, as they strolled under a wisteria-hung trellis towards the fountain, said, “lucy’s making a man of him because she loves him. and i would have laughed at him. we would have bored each other to death.”
“they will never be bored,” jane decided, “with their roses and their little pigs.”
they had reached the fountain. it was an old-fashioned one, with thin streams of water spouting up from the bill of a bronzed crane. there were goldfish in the pool, and a big green frog leaped from a lily pad. beyond the fountain the wisteria roofed a path of pale light. a peacock walked[318] slowly towards them, its long tail sweeping the ground in burnished beauty.
“think of this,” said jane, “and lucy’s days at the office.”
“and yet,” edith pondered, “she told me if he had not had a penny she would have been happy with him.”
“i believe it. with a cottage, one pig, and a rose-bush, they would find bliss. it is like that with them.”
the two women sat down on the marble coping of the fountain. the peacock trailed by them, its jewels all ablaze under the sun.
“that peacock makes me think of adelaide.” edith swept her hand through the water, scaring the little fishes.
“why?”
“in that dress she had on to-night—bronze and blue and green tulle. i will say this for adelaide, she knows how to dress.”
“does she ever think of anything else but clothes?”
“men,” succinctly.
“oh.”
“women like adelaide,” edith elucidated, “want to look well, and to be admired. they live for it. they wake up in the morning and go to bed with that one idea. and the men fall for it.”
“do they?”
“yes. adelaide knows how to play on the keys[319] of their vanity. you and i don’t—or won’t. when our youth goes, jane, we’ll have to be loved for our virtues. adelaide will be loved for the part she plays, and she plays it well.”
she laughed and stood up. “i am afraid your announcement to-morrow will hurt her feelings, jane.”
“she knows,” jane said quietly. “mr. towne told her.”
“really?” edith stopped, and went on in a lower tone, “speaking of angels—here she comes.”
adelaide, in her burnished tulle, tall, slender, graceful as a willow, was swinging along beneath the trellis. the peacock had turned and walked beside her. “what a picture baldy could make of that,” edith said, “‘the proud lady.’”
“do you know,” jane’s voice was also lowered, “when i look at her, i feel that it is she who should marry your uncle.”
edith was frank. “i should hate her. and so would he in a month. she’s artificial, and you are so adorably natural, jane.”
adelaide had reached the circle of light that surrounded the fountain. “the men have come and have gone up to dress,” she said. “all except your uncle, edith. he telephoned that he can’t get here until after dinner. he has an important conference.”
“he said he might be late. benny came, of course?”
[320]“yes, and eloise is happy. he had brought her all the town gossip. that’s why i left. i hate gossip.”
edith knew that pose. no one could talk more devastatingly than adelaide of her neighbor’s affairs. but she did it, subtly, with an effect of charity. “i am very fond of her,” was her way of prefacing a ruthless revelation.
“i thought your brother would be down,” adelaide looked at jane, poised on the rim of the fountain, like a blue butterfly,—“but he wasn’t with the rest.”
“baldy can’t be here until to-morrow noon. he had to be in the office.”
“what are you going to do with yourself in the meantime, edith?” adelaide was in a mood to make people uncomfortable. she was uncomfortable herself. jane, in billowing heavenly blue with rose ribbons floating at her girdle, was youth incarnate. and it was her youth that had attracted towne.
the three women walked towards the house together. as they came out from under the arbor, they were aware of black clouds stretched across the horizon. “i hope it won’t rain,” edith said. “lucy is planning to serve dinner on the terrace.”
adelaide was irritable. “i wish she wouldn’t. there’ll be bugs and things.”
jane liked the idea of an out-of-door dinner. she thought that the maids in their pink linen were like[321] rose-leaves blown across the lawn. there was a great umbrella over the table, rose-striped. “how gay it is,” she said; “i hope the rain won’t spoil it.”
when they reached the wide-pillared piazza, no one was there. the wind was blowing steadily from the bank of clouds. edith went in to get a scarf.
and so jane and adelaide were left alone.
adelaide sat in a big chair with a back like a spreading fan; she was statuesque, and knew it, but she would have exchanged at the moment every classic line for the effect that jane gave of unpremeditated grace and beauty. the child had flung a cushion on the marble step, and had dropped down upon it. the wind caught up her ruffles, so that she seemed to float in a cloud.
she laughed, and tucked her whirling draperies about her. “i love the wind, don’t you?”
adelaide did not love the wind. it rumpled her hair. she felt spitefully ready to hurt jane.
“it is a pity,” she said, after a pause, “that ricky can’t dine with us.”
jane agreed. “mr. towne always seems to be a very busy person.”
adelaide carried a little gauze fan with gold-lacquered sticks. when she spoke she kept her eyes upon the fan. “do you always call him ‘mr. towne’?”
“of course.”
“but not when you’re alone.”
[322]jane flushed. “yes, i do. why not?”
“but, my dear, it is so very formal. and you are going to marry him.”
“he said that he had told you.”
“ricky tells me everything. we are very old friends, you know.”
jane said nothing. there was, indeed, nothing to say. she was not in the least jealous of adelaide. she wondered, of course, why towne should have overlooked this lovely lady to choose a shabby child. but he had chosen the child, and that settled it as far as mrs. laramore was concerned.
but it did not settle it for adelaide. “i think it is distinctly amusing for you to call him ‘mr. towne.’ poor ricky! you mustn’t hold him at arms’ length.”
“why not?”
“well, none of the rest of us have,” said adelaide, deliberately.
jane looked up at her. “the rest of you? what do you mean, mrs. laramore?”
“oh, the women that ricky has loved,” lightly.
the winds fluttered the ribbons of jane’s frock, fluttered her ruffles. the peacock on the lawn uttered a discordant note. jane was subconsciously aware of a kinship between adelaide and the burnished bird. she spoke of the peacock.
“what a disagreeable voice he has.”
adelaide stared. “who?”
“the peacock,” said jane.
[323]then eloise and edith came in, and presently the men, and lucy and del from a trip to the small porkers, and adelaide going out with del to dinner was uncomfortably aware that jane had either artlessly or artfully refused to discuss with her the women who had been loved by frederick towne!
the dinner was delicious. “our farm products,” delafield boasted. even the fish, it seemed, he had caught that morning, motoring over to the river and bringing them back to be split and broiled and served with little new potatoes. there was chicken and asparagus, small cream cheeses with the salad, heaped-up berries in a royal worcester bowl, roses from the garden. “all home-grown,” said the proud new husband.
jane ate with little appetite. she had refused to discuss with adelaide the former heart affairs of her betrothed, but the words rang in her ears, “the women that ricky has loved.”
jane was young. and to youth, love is for the eternities. the thought of herself as one of a succession of dulcineas was degrading. she was restless and unhappy. it was useless to assure herself that towne had chosen her above all the rest. she was not sophisticated enough to assume that it is, perhaps, better to be a man’s last love than his first. that towne had made it possible for any woman to speak of him as adelaide spoke, seemed to jane to drag her own relation to him in the dust.
[324]the strength of the wind increased. the table was sheltered by the house, but at last delafield decided, “we’d better go in. the rain is coming. we can have our coffee in the hall.”
their leaving had the effect of a stampede. big drops splashed into the plates. the men servants and maids scurried to the rescue of china and linen.
the draperies of the women streamed in the wind. adelaide’s tulle was a banner of green and blue. the peacock came swiftly up the walk, crying raucously, and found a sheltered spot beneath the steps.
from the wide hall, they saw the rain in silver sheets. then the doors were shut against the beating wind.
they drank their coffee, and bridge tables were brought in. there were enough without jane to form two tables. and she was glad. she wandered into the living-room and curled herself up in a window-seat. the window opened on the porch. beyond the white pillars she could see the road, and the rain-drenched garden.
after a time the rain stopped, and the world showed clear as crystal against the opal brightness of the western sky. the peacock came out of his hiding-place, and dragged a heavy tail over the sodden lawn.
it was cool and the air was sweet. jane lay with her head against a cushion, looking out. she was lonely and wished that towne would come.[325] perhaps in his presence her doubts would vanish. it grew dark and darker. jane shut her eyes and at last she fell asleep.
she was waked by towne’s voice. he was on the porch. “where is everybody?”
it was adelaide who answered him. “they have motored into alexandria to the movies. eloise would have it. but i stayed—waiting for you, ricky.”
“where’s jane?”
“she went up-stairs early. like a sleepy child.”
jane heard his laugh. “she is a child—a darling child.”
then in the darkness adelaide said, “don’t, ricky.”
“why not?”
“do you remember that once upon a time you called me—a darling child?”
“did i? well, perhaps you were. you are certainly a very charming woman.”
jane, listening breathlessly, assured herself that of course he was polite. he had to be.
adelaide was speaking. “so you are going to announce it to-morrow?”
“who told you?”
“edith.”
“well, it seemed best, adelaide. the wedding day isn’t far off—and the world will have to know it.”
a hushed moment, then, “oh, ricky, ricky!”
[326]“adelaide! don’t take it like that.”
“i can’t help it. you are going out of my life. and you’ve always been so strong, and big, and brave. no other man will ever match you.”
when he spoke, his voice had a new and softer note. “i didn’t dream it would hurt you.”
“you might have known.”
the lightning flickering along the horizon showed adelaide standing beside towne’s chair.
“ricky”—the whispered words reached jane—“kiss me once—to say ‘good-bye.’”
