1

"man--you're glad she's coming?"

"if her coming means that she is on our side; yes."

it was ten o'clock of a great july day. from outside, through the low foliaged casement of honeysuckle cottage, sounded the drone of a bee, the whine and splash of the well-bucket, and caroline staley's loud-voiced chaffering with a fisherman. within, the lovers faced each other across the debris of a gargantuan breakfast.

seen, white-frocked, in the sun-moted coolth of that low whitewashed room, aliette looked utterly the girl. happiness had wiped clean the slate of her desolate years. her cheeks, her eyes, her whole personality glowed with the sheer joy of matehood. sunlight and sea-light had goldened--ever so faintly--the luster of her bared arms, the bared nape under her vivid hair.

ronnie, too, had youthened. gone, or almost gone from his face, was the semi-monastic seriousness. constantly, now, smiles played about his full lips; constantly, his light-blue eyes held the semblance of a twinkle. one hardly noticed the gray in his hair for the tawn of it. lean still, to-day his leanness was that of an athlete in training. under his browned skin, when they bathed together, the muscles rippled like a panther's. as he rose, flanneled, from the table, it seemed almost as though happiness had added the proverbial cubit to his stature.

he came over to her and kissed the palm of her outstretched hand, her wrist, the curls at her temple.

"this afternoon," he said, "our honeymoon ends."

she laughed--but there was something of sadness in the laughter. "man, don't be immoral. honeymoons are legal. this hasn't been legal. it's been----"

"heaven," he suggested.

"yes." she took his hand. "all that--and more. but all the same, we're outcasts. we've got to realize that the world, our world, won't forgive us for having been in heaven."

sotto voce, he consigned the world to perdition. aloud, he answered, "they'll forgive us all right. as soon as h. b. makes up his mind to do the right thing. i expect that's what's at the bottom of the mater's wire."

"do you?" intimacy had made this great difference in their relationship: that they could talk of hector dispassionately enough. "do you? i wish i were sure. he's a peculiar man. very obstinate and rather cruel. he may make--difficulties."

"he'll make no difficulties."

aliette changed the topic. for a week past, the vague possibility of hector's abiding by his threat had been frightening her. once, even, she had precisely perceived the social ostracism such a course might entail. but in the sunshine and sea-shine of chilworth cove, social ostracism seemed a very tiny price to pay for happiness so great as theirs.

the first fine madness, the glamor of the grand passion was still on her, still on them both. julia's telegram, which--cycle-forwarded across eight miles of common-land from chilton junction--threw the tiny port into a state of seething curiosity, excited its recipients hardly at all. selfish with the sublime selfishness of mating-time, they regarded the threatened irruption of a mundane personality into paradise as the merest episode.

nevertheless, as she watched the innkeeper's pony-cart, ronnie at its reins, rattle away between the pink-washed cottages, slow to a walk up the white road, and disappear among the heathery ridges at sky-line, aliette grew conscious of a deep abiding joy that--whatever else of harm she might bring into her lover's life--at least she had not separated him from his mother.

and all morning, all afternoon, busied with caroline staley in preparation for their guest, that joy warded every apprehension from her mind.

2

but in the heart of ronald cavendish, setting out alone on his eight-mile journey for the station, was no joy. to him, it seemed as though he were definitely abandoning happiness, definitely leaving it behind. mentally and physically obsessed with aliette, he could anticipate no pleasure in again seeing his mother. indeed, he could hardly visualize his mother at all.

gradually, though, as the brown pony ambled its uneager way along the white and empty track among the heather, the image of julia's face, the sound of julia's voice came back to him; and he, too, knew joy at the prospect of reconciliation.

looking back on their quarrel, it appeared to him that he had been rather brutal. "after all," he thought, "one could hardly have expected her to understand. i'm glad alie insisted on my writing that letter. i wonder if the mater'll be looking well. i hope she'll like alie. she's sure to like alie."

then, from thinking of his mother and the woman he loved, he glided into thought of the world in which they must all three live till brunton's decree had been obtained and made absolute. it would be--he mused--a bit difficult, rather a rough time.

aliette's "funny idea" that brunton might try "the dog-in-the-manger trick," aliette's lover dismissed--much in the way that jimmy wilberforce had dismissed it--as "not on the cards." all the same, the lawyer in him did begin to find it curious that brunton's solicitors should have dilly-dallied so long in communicating through benjamin bunce that the citations were ready for service.

"the mater's sure to have some news," he thought; and by the time his pony topped the ridge from which one sees, three miles away at the foot of the slope, the red roofs and shining rails of chilton junction, he felt quite excited about her arrival.

always strong in the every-day relationship of man to man, but never--until now--decisive in his dealings with woman, ronnie knew himself rather anxious for julia's advice. socially, the period between divorce and remarriage must have many drawbacks. "the mater's" guidance, at such a time, might be most useful.

of the heart-searchings, of the contest between her love and her beliefs, which even now (as the slow train jolted her, maidless, uncomfortable, in her crowded first-class compartment, out of andover) still nagged at the intellect of julia cavendish, her son had never an inkling. from his point of view, their quarrel--for his share in which he had already apologized by letter--appeared infinitely more important than "the mater's silly prejudice about divorce." most important, of course, would be "how the mater would hit it off with aliette."

ronnie drove on till he made the chilton arms; and there, stabling his pony, ordered himself an early luncheon.

the luncheon--solitary cold beef and lukewarm beer--made him realize that it was more than six weeks since he had mealed alone; and from that realization thought traveled--almost automatically--to his rooms in jermyn street, to pump court, to the past which had been london and the future which must still be london. smoking, he began to consider the various problems of return.

where, how, and on what were he and aliette to live?

of aliette's finances, beyond one confided fact that "she had never taken an allowance from "h.," her lover knew nothing whatever. she might, for all he cared, possess five hundred a year or ten thousand. but his own professional income, excluding the four hundred a year from his mother, barely touched the former figure; and since he was by no means the kind of creature who could consent to live on a woman's money, however desperately he might be in love with her, the housing problem alone--moses moffatt, officially, sheltered only bachelors--would need more than a little solving.

consideration of this, and other mundane factors in their somewhat bizarre situation, fretted ronnie's mind. he could not help feeling, as he drove slowly to the station, how much wiser it would have been if he and alie had talked these things over before he started. his mother, who liked practical women, might not understand that alie and he had been too madly happy to bother about every-day affairs. "but by jove!" he said to himself; "by jove, we have been happy."

he hitched the brown pony to the railings and strode through the waiting-room. that afternoon chilton junction seemed less of a junction than ever. a few rustics, a few milk-cans, two porters, and the miniature of a bookstall occupied its "down" platform; its "up" showed as a stretch of deserted gravel, from either end of which the hot rails ran straight into pasture.

looking londonward along those narrowing rails, remembering how, six weeks since, they had carried him into paradise, ronald cavendish understood--for the merest fraction of a second--his mother's sacrifice.

"damn decent of the old lady to come down," he thought, seeing, still far away across the pastures, the leisured smoke-plume of her train.

3

julia cavendish--having ascertained from her latest vis-à-vis, a burly cattle-dealer in brown leggings and a black bowler hat, that her journey at last neared its destination--closed the novel she had been pretending to read, straightened her hat, and prepared to meet both culprits with stern victorian condescension.

that aliette would not accompany ronnie to the station did not cross his mother's mind. all the way down from waterloo she had been apprehensive, doubtful of her own rectitude, conscious of a growing antagonism toward "that woman." "that woman," of course, would be furious at the interruption of her amour.

even the prospect of seeing ronnie once more could not lighten the cloud of jealousy and self-distrust which julia felt hovering--like evil birds--about her head. viewed in retrospect, the five hours of journeying were a nightmare. viewed prospectively, arrival would be the ugliest of awakenings. she felt ill; ill and old and out-of-date.

but the first glimpse of her son sent all julia's evil birds flying. as the train steamed in, she saw him craning his eyes at its windows; saw that he was alone, that he was sun-bronzed, flanneled like a schoolboy. her heart thumped--painfully, joyfully--at the knowledge that he had espied her, that he was loping along after her carriage, just as she remembered him loping along the platform at winchester, in his cricket-flannels, twenty years ago. then the train stopped; and he swung the carriage door open, handed her out.

"my luggage----" began julia; but got no further with the sentence; because ronnie, her ronnie, who had never, even as a boy, caressed his mother in public, just put an arm round her shoulders and, kissing her, whispered: "by jingo, mater, it is ripping to see you."

a porter got her trunk and her handbag out of the train. another porter put them into the pony-cart. julia, for once in her life, forgot to thank them. tears, tears she dared not shed, twitched her wrinkled eyelids; her mouth had dried up; her thin knees tottered. she could only cling, cling with all the strength of one weak arm, to ronnie. he was her son, her only son--and she, in her stupid pride, had thought to let prejudice come between them. her jealousy of "that woman" disappeared. the happiness, the health, the rejuvenation of ronnie were sufficient justification, in her eyes, for aliette. no worthless woman could have put those sunny words into her boy's mouth, that sun-bronze on his cheeks!

ronnie, too, was moved almost to tears. the first sight of his mother, reacting on the emotions of the past weeks, struck him to consciousness of his love for her. she needed his protection more than ever before. she looked so frail, so suffering. she had suffered--because of him, because of aliette. his heart went out to both women--in pity, in self-condemnation.

he helped her into the trap (it no longer surprised her to find they were alone) and said: "i'm afraid it's not very comfortable. that cushion's for your back. we'll have some tea at the arms before we start."

she managed to answer: "yes, dear. i think i would like some tea." to herself she said: "i wonder which of them thought about giving me tea, about bringing this cushion."

ronnie clambered up; took the reins; and tipped the porters. in silence, they drove to the inn.

there the hot tea and the hot buttered toast, which he coaxed her to eat, brought back a little of julia's courage; but the waitress, popping--eager-faced at sight of strangers--in and out of the coffee-room, made free speech impossible. perforce they confined conversation to generalities. he, she said, "looked extraordinarily well." she, he said, "looked the least bit tired." the lunch on the train, she told him, had been "execrable." the drive to the cove, he told her, was a "good eight miles" and they would have to "take things easy" because of the luggage. ought they, he asked, to have ordered her a car? oh, no--she smiled, she preferred the trap: it would give them more time to talk.

"i rather expected you'd bring smithers," mentioned ronnie.

"i didn't think a maid--advisable," declared julia.

he paid for her tea, and they set off again--each silently uncertain of the other, each silently and socially constrained. but at last, as they drew clear of the town, julia conquered constraint.

"and how is aliette?" she asked quietly.

all the way down in the train she had intended to speak both to and of "that woman" as "mrs. brunton"; but since seeing ronnie she knew that she could never even think in terms of "mrs. brunton" or of "that woman" again. sinner in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the mother whose boy she had made so happy, hector brunton's guilty wife was already a saint.

"quite well." his quietness matched her own.

"i'm glad."

and suddenly, impetuously, he burst out:

"mater, she's so wonderful."

now mother and son were alone in a world of sky and heather; and the brown pony, as though aware of impending confidences, slowed to a walk. she put a tremulous hand on his driving arm.

"tell me--the whole story," said julia.

his fingers loosed the reins; and that afternoon, as the brown pony ambled toward the sea, he told her the full tale of his love for aliette, of his love for both of them: till, listening, it seemed to julia cavendish as though never before had she understood the heart of her son.

and that afternoon, for the first time in all her sixty years, she--whose lifelong struggle had been to cramp life in the bonds of formal religion--saw that formal religion at its very highest could only be a code for slaves, for the weak and the ignorant. for the soul of a free individual, for the strong and the wise of the earth, no formalities--whether of religion, of law, or of social observances--could exist.

the individual souls of the wise and the strong brooked no earthly master. lonely arbiters of heaven and of hell, their own gods, their own priests and lawgivers, only love could control them, only conscience guide.

ignorantly, blindly, she, julia cavendish, had sought to fetter the free souls, the wise and the strong. and behold! in the very person of her own son they had broken loose from her fetters. ronnie, her own dearly-beloved son, was of the free! all that her formal religion had preached him wrong, love had shown him to be right; and with love had come both strength and wisdom, so that he had followed his conscience into the freedom which her ignorance would have denied him.

for that ronnie's conscience was as clear, as limpid-clear of sin as it had been in boyhood, julia--listening to him--could not doubt. nor, hugging that certainty, could she doubt aliette. love was justified of both by the sheer test of happiness. as well accuse the birds of deadly sin as these two who, moved by an impulse so overwhelming that to deny it would have been a denial of their very natures, had--mated.

4

aliette, shading her eyes from the sun, watched the pony-cart top sky-line, and crawl leisurely down-hill. at sight of it, her heart misgave her. every tradition in which she had been reared, all her social sense and all her love for ronnie warned her that the meeting with ronnie's mother would be, at its best, awkward--and its worst, disastrous.

in chilworth cove, with only caroline staley for confidante of their secret (and caroline, from the first, had been definitely partizan, loyalty itself), she had grown so accustomed to thinking of herself as ronnie's wife, that it was quite a shock to perceive, with the approach of a being from her own world (a woman who, however much she might pretend sympathy, must be, in her heart, hostile), their exact relationship.

"i'm her son's mistress," thought aliette; and suddenly seeing herself and her lover through the eyes of the ordinary world, realized the tragedy of those who, knowing themselves not guilty at the bar of their own consciences, can nevertheless sympathize with the many who condemn them. which is perhaps the heaviest cross that any woman can be forced to carry!

ponto, darting hot-foot out of honeysuckle cottage at the sound of wheels, banished further introspection. aliette just had time to grab the great hound by the collar as the brown pony, eager for his evening hay, came trotting up; and was still holding him, her bared forearm tense with the effort, when the trap drew to the door. so that--as it happened--the exact greeting of the "harpy" to the mother whose boy she had stolen was, "i do hope you're not frightened of dogs, mrs. cavendish," and the mother's to the harpy, "not in the very least. that's ponto, i presume. ronnie's told me about him."

there is, after all, something to be said for a social code which enables people to carry off difficult situations with an air of complete insouciance! julia cavendish stepped down from the dilapidated conveyance; shook hands; admitted that she would like to get tidy; and followed her hostess's lithe figure down a whitewashed passage, up one flight of rather crazy staircase, into a low-ceiled bedroom, obviously scrubbed out that day. the room was very plainly furnished, yet it had about it the particular atmosphere which indicates, as between one woman and another: "we expected you. we made preparations for you."

"i'm afraid it isn't up to much," said aliette shyly. "but we've put a writing-table under the window--just in case."

julia cavendish looked at the table, at the pens and the ink-pot and the jar of flowers on the table; julia cavendish looked at the little shy woman, so gorgeous in her mating beauty, so socially correct in her shyness; and the "mrs. brunton, this is a very serious position" with which--ten hours since--she had firmly made up her mind to open their conversation, vanished into the limbo of unuttered sentences.

"i'm afraid," said julia cavendish, "that this visit is rather--an intrusion."

"it is i who am the intruder," answered aliette simply; and then, seeing that julia, who had seated herself on the side of the bed, was fumbling at the unaccustomed task of removing her own hat: "can't i help?"

"thank you, my dear," said julia.

caroline staley, bringing hot water, knocked; deposited her copper jug by the washhand-stand; and departed with the unspoken thought, "better leave they two alone for a while."

and, for a while, "they two" scrutinized one another in silence--the elder woman still seated; the younger, diffident, very uncertain of what next to say, upright beside her.

at last the younger woman said, "you must be tired after your journey. you'd like to change into a tea-gown, wouldn't you? caroline is quite a good maid. i'll send her and your box up." she made a movement to go, but the elder woman restrained her.

"i think i'd rather talk first. we've got a good many things to talk about, haven't we? won't you sit down?" julia patted the clean counterpane in further invitation.

"you're very kind, mrs. cavendish." aliette, still standing, shook her head ever so slightly, as one refusing a gift. "too kind. and i'm glad you've forgiven ronnie. but you needn't, really you needn't forgive me. you came to see your son, not your son's"--she hesitated--"lady-love. i'm quite willing to--to efface myself as long as you're here." she smiled proudly. "though, as it's rather a tiny cottage, you mustn't mind seeing me occasionally."

her favorite word "rubbish!" rose to julia's lips; but was instantly repressed. proud herself, she could both respect and sympathize with the pride in the other.

"i'm wondering," she said after a pause, "just how much my son's lady-love loves my son."

at that, aliette's eyes suffused. but she could make no reply, and julia went on:

"my dear, do you think i don't know how much you care for him? do you think i don't realize that you have made him happy? happier than i ever did. won't you make me happy too? won't you try and care, just a little, for me--for ronnie's mother?"

"don't, please don't." the proud lips trembled. "it hurts me that you--that you----" and suddenly, impulsively, aliette was on her knees--her head bowed, her shoulders shaking to the sobs that had broken pride.

"i love him"--the words, tear-choked, were scarcely audible--"i adore him. i'd kill myself to-morrow if i thought it would be for ronnie's good. i never meant, i never meant to come between you and him. i never intended that you"--the brown head lifted, the brown eyes gazed up into julia's blue--"that you should have to know me until--until things were put right. you needn't--after this. i'll be quite content--if you'll let him come to me--sometimes--to take a little house--to wait for him. i don't want you to be--mixed up in things you hate. i don't want to--to flaunt myself with your son."

said julia cavendish, speaking stiffly lest the tears blind her: "you haven't answered my question, aliette. i may call you aliette, mayn't i? you haven't yet told me whether you could care for--ronnie's mother?"

for answer, aliette took one of the old hands between her two youthful ones; and, bowing her head again, kissed it.

"you oughtn't to forgive me. you oughtn't to call me aliette," whispered "that woman."

"ronnie will be so furious with me if he thinks i've made you cry," whispered back ronnie's mother; and leaning forward, took "that woman" in her arms.

what those two said to one another, in the hushed half-hour while ronnie waited for them in the tiny garden and caroline staley busied herself over the kitchen fire, only the bees, droning ceaselessly round the clematis, overheard.

5

it was very late for chilworth cove: past ten o'clock of a dull heavy night: the stars veiled: the purr of a torpid sea coming faint down the ghyll. one by one the lights in the village windows had been extinguished. but light still poured from the windows of honeysuckle cottage; and through the light-motes, the smoke of a man's cigar outcurled in blue seashell whorls that hung long-time--meditative as the man--in the windless quiet.

ronald cavendish threw the butt of his cigar after the smoke-whorls, and turned to the two women in the room.

"the mater's right," he said. "we must make some move. but it's no earthly use writing to jimmy. jimmy can't help us. the only thing to be done is for me to go up to town and see h. b. myself."

ever since caroline had cleared away dinner, they had been discussing the problem of brunton's inactivity. to aliette, pride-bound, feeling herself--despite the new alliance with julia cavendish--still guilty, still the interloper, it seemed best that they should wait. silently resenting, yet chiding herself all the while for her resentment, the whole discussion, she had held herself, whenever possible, aloof from it.

but now she could hold aloof no longer. no coward in her own love; willing, for herself, to take any and all risks; the suggested meeting filled her with apprehension for ronnie.

"i beg you not to do that," she said.

"why not?" ronnie laughed. "he can't eat me."

"i'd so much rather you didn't. perhaps he's only waiting because of some difficulty, some legal difficulty. wouldn't it be better if i wrote to him again, if we both wrote to him? after all, we mustn't forget that"--she stumbled over the phrase--"we're in the wrong."

"writing won't do any good," pronounced julia. "ninety-nine letters out of every hundred are perfectly futile. the hundredth--is usually an irrevocable mistake."

the novelist, rather pleased with the epigram, sat back in her basketwork chair. for the first time since her quarrel with ronnie, she had regained that peculiar power of mental detachment--of seeing real personalities, her own included, as characters in a book--which is the exclusive property of the literary temperament.

"all the same," she went on, "i can't help feeling that a personal interview would be risky. it might only exacerbate the position."

"risky or not," said a determined ronnie, "it's the only possible thing to be done. unless h. b. files his petition at once, we shall have to wait the best part of a year before we can get married. and remember, we haven't only ourselves to consider--there's aliette's family. they'll have to be told sooner or later. think how much easier it would be if we could tell them that everything was properly arranged."

julia's newly-regained detachment deserted her. turning to aliette, she asked nervously:

"but don't your parents know? haven't you written to them?"

"not yet." beyond the lamplight, the younger woman's face showed scarcely an emotion. "it seemed so useless. you see, i'm not an only child. there'll be no forgiveness--on their side. mollie may stand by me. but eva won't. mother and andrew will take eva's advice. they only cared for my brothers. when my brothers were killed, it was just as if everything had gone out of their lives." and she added--pathetically, thought julia cavendish, who, loving her own son more than anything in the world, always found difficulty in realizing how frail is the average tie between parents and grown-up daughters: "mother's rather fond of eva's children."

"still, we have to consider them," interrupted aliette's, lover. "we don't want them to hear the news from--the other side. i think you should write to them, alie. mollie i'll go and see myself. jimmy's sure to know her address. i wonder if she and jimmy are engaged----"

"your friend wilberforce," interrupted julia, "may be an excellent solicitor; but he's an extremely selfish young man."

"what makes you say that?" asked aliette; and as julia did not reply, "has he spoken to you--about my sister?"

"he has." julia's voice was rather grim.

"and is--what we've done--going to make any difference?"

"i think not. but if it does," the suspicion of a twinkle gleamed in the blue eyes, "if it does, my dear, your sister will owe you a great debt of gratitude for--running away with my son. that kind of man," definitely, "is no use."

"i've been rather worried about mollie," began aliette, whose decision not to await her sister's return had been the most difficult of all the decisions she took in those few hours before she bolted from lancaster gate. "that letter of mine----"

she broke off the sentence, divining nevertheless that her letter--meant as a precise document--must have been incoherent to the last degree; divining how impossible a situation her selfishness must have created for mollie. "i am selfish," she said to herself. "utterly selfish! i deserve no consideration. and yet these two consider only me."

"never mind about mollie." stubbornly--for now that his mother had joined forces with them it seemed more than ever necessary that they should bring brunton swiftly to reason--ronald cavendish returned to his point. "the question is: when do i go up to town? in my opinion, the sooner the better. once i have seen h. b., we shall at least know where we stand."

"and suppose," faltered aliette, "suppose he refuses to see you?"

"he won't."

"suppose he refuses to do anything?"

"you needn't be afraid of that. a man in his position is bound to take action. if he doesn't----"

"if he doesn't," broke in julia, "we must fight him. we three." she rose from the creaky chair; and aliette, seeing the determination, the courage in those old eyes, felt suddenly ashamed of her own weakness. "meanwhile, i think i'll go to bed. your maid promised to wait up for me."

kissing "that woman" good night, ronnie's mother whispered: "don't try to overpersuade him. if he feels it is right--he must be allowed to go."

6

very early next morning, before dawn lightened to palest rose behind the clematis blossoms, the woman who had left her husband, waking with her lover's arms about her, prayed voicelessly to that god whose priests would henceforth bar her from his communion, that ronnie's love might endure to the end.

for now, aliette was afraid.