Chapter V: Book II: I (2)

“I didn’t come here to be murdered,” he ejaculated. “It’s the last place I’d have come to if I’d known what I was doing. But I tell you that if I don’t have a drink of whisky I’ll be a dead man in an hour.”

“I can’t give you that,” said Mrs. Blair, desperately. “And you know you only think you need it, anyhow. We try to make men overcome their terrible weakness; we don’t encourage them.”

“That’s all right, but you can’t reform a man when his inside is on fire and feels as if it were dropping out—but my God! I can’t argue with you, damn you. Give it to me.”

“I’m of the opinion that he ought to have it,” said Patience.

The man turned to her eagerly. “Bless you,” he said. “It’s not the taste of it I’m craving, miss; it’s relief from this awful agony. If you give it to me, I swear I’ll try never to touch a drop again after I get over this spree. It’ll be bad enough to break off then, but it’s death now.”

Mrs. Blair looked at him with pity, but shook her head.

“I’ve been here seven years,” she said to Patience, “and the ladies have yet to find one fault with me. I don’t dare give it to him. Besides, I don’t believe in it. How can what’s killing him cure him? And it’s a sin. Even if the ladies excused me—which they wouldn’t—I’d never forgive myself.”

“I’ll take the responsibility,” said Patience. “I believe that man will die if he doesn’t have whisky.”

The man groaned and tossed his arms. “Oh, my God!” he cried.

Mrs. Blair shuddered. “Oh, I don’t know, miss. If you will take the responsibility—I can’t give it to him—where could you get it?”

“At a drug store.”

“They won’t sell it to you—we’ve got a law passed, you know.”

“Then I’ll go to a saloon.”

“Oh, my! my!” cried Mrs. Blair, “you’d never do that?”

“The man is in agony. Can’t you see? I’m going this minute.”

The door opened, and Miss Beale entered. She looked warm and tired, but came forward with active step, and stood beside the bed. A spasm of disgust crossed her face. “What is the matter, my man?” she asked. “I am sorry to see you here.”

“Give me whisky,” groaned the man.

Miss Beale turned away with twitching mouth.

“The man is dying. Nothing but whisky can save him,” said Patience. “If you called a doctor he would tell you the same thing.”

“What?” said Miss Beale, coldly, “do you suppose that he can have whisky in Temperance Hall? Is that what we are here for? You must be crazy.”

“But you don’t want him to die on your hands, do you?” exclaimed Patience, who was losing her temper.

“My God!” screeched the man, “I am in Hell.”

“My good man,” said Miss Beale, gently, “it is for us to save you from Hell, not to send you there.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” His voice died to an inarticulate murmur; but he writhed, and doubled, and twisted, as men may have done when fanatics tortured in the name of religion.

“Good heavens, Miss Beale,” cried Patience, excitedly, “you can’t set yourself up in opposition to nature. That man must have whisky. If he were younger and stronger it wouldn’t matter so much; but can’t you see he hasn’t strength to resist the terrible strain? The torture is killing him, eating out his life—”

“Oh, it is terrible!” exclaimed the matron. “Perhaps it is best—”

“Mrs. Blair!” Miss Beale turned upon her in consternation. Then she bent over the man.

“You can’t have whisky,” she said gently; “not if I thought you were really dying would I give it to you. If it is the Lord’s will that you are to die here you must abide by it. I shall not permit you to further imperil your soul. Nor could that which has not the blessing of God on it be of benefit to you. Alcohol is a destroyer, both of soul and of body—not a medicine.”

The man’s knees suddenly shot up to his chest; but he raised his head and darted at her a glance of implacable hate.

“Damn you,” he stuttered. “Murderer—” Then he extended rigid arms and clutched the bed clothes, his body twitching uncontrollably.

Miss Beale looked upon him with deep compassion. “Poor thing,” she exclaimed, “is not this enough to warn all men from that fiend?” She laid her hand on the man’s head, but he shook it off with an oath.

“Whisky,” he cried. “O my God! Have these women—_women!_—no pity?”

“I’m going for whisky—” said Patience.

Miss Beale stepped swiftly to the door, locked it, and slipped the key into her pocket.

“You will buy no whisky,” she said sternly. “I will save you from that sin.” Suddenly her face lit up. “I will pray,” she said solemnly, “I will pray that this poor lost creature may recover, and lead a better life—”

“I swear I’ll never touch another drop after I’m out of this if you’ll give it to me now—”

“If it be the Lord’s will that you shall live you will not die,” said Miss Beale. “I will pray, and in His mercy He may let you live to repent.”

She fell upon her knees by the bed, and clasping her hands, prayed aloud; while the man reared and plunged and groaned and cursed, his voice and body momentarily weaker. Miss Beale’s prayers were always very long and very fervid. She was not eloquent, but her deep tear-voiced earnestness was most impressive; and never more so than to-day, when she flung herself before the throne of Grace with a lost soul in her hand. A light like a halo played upon her spiritualised face, her voice became ineffably sweet. Gradually, in her ecstatic communion with, her intimate nearness to her God, she forgot the man on the bed, forgot the flesh which prisoned her soaring soul, was conscious only of the divine light pouring through her, the almost palpable touch of her lover’s hand.

Suddenly Patience exclaimed brutally: “The man is dead.”

Miss Beale arose with a start. She drew the sheet gently over the distorted face. “It is the Lord’s will,” she said.

After Patience was in her own room and had relieved her feelings by slamming the door, she sat for a long time staring at the pattern of the carpet and pondering upon the problem of Miss Beale.

“Well,” she thought finally, “_she’s_ happy, so I suppose it’s all right. No wonder she’s satisfied with herself when she lives up to her ideals as consistently as that. I think I’ll label all the different forms of selfishness I come across. There seems to be a large variety, but all put together don’t seem to be a patch to having fun with your ideals. Miss Beale would be the most wretched woman in Westchester county if she’d given that man whisky and saved his life.”

VII

The man was buried with Christian service at Miss Beale’s expense, and her serene face wore no shadow. The following day she said to Patience: “I spent nearly all of the last two nights in prayer, and I almost heard the Lord’s voice as He told me I did right.”

“You ought to write a novel,” said Patience, drily, but the sarcasm was lost. In a moment Patience forgot Miss Beale: the postman handed her two letters, and she went up to her room to read them.

The first she opened was from Miss Tremont.

PEELE MANOR, Friday.

Oh my dear darling little girl, how I wish, _how_ I wish I were
with you and my work once more. I ought to be happy because they
are all so kind, but I’m not. I feel as if I were throwing away
one of the few precious weeks I have left to give to the Lord
(arrange for a prayer meeting on Wednesday, the day of my
return, and we’ll have a regular feast of manna). Do you miss
me? I think of you every moment. You should have seen dear
Cousin Honora’s face when I came down to dinner in the black
satin. She didn’t say anything, she just _looked_ at the bow,
and I felt sorry for her. But I know I am right. Hal giggled and
winked at me. (I do love Hal!) Honora Mairs said so sweetly
after Cousin Honora had left the room: “Dear Cousin Harriet, I
think you are so brave and consistent to wear the little white
bow of your cause. It is so _like_ you.” Was not that sweet of
her? Beverly has very heavy eyebrows, and he raised them at my
ribbon, and turned away his head as if it hurt his eyes. He is a
very elegant young gentleman, and his mother says he is a great
stickler for form, whatever that may mean. (They speak a
different language here anyway. I don’t understand half what
they say. Hal talks slang all the time.) I don’t like Beverly as
much as I did, although he’s quite the handsomest young man I
ever saw and very polite; but he smokes cigarettes all the time
and big black cigars. When I told him that five hundred million
dollars were spent annually on tobacco, he got up and went off
in a huff. May is just a talkative child—I never heard any one
talk so much in my life,—and about nothing but gowns and young
men and balls and the opera. Beverly talks about horses all the
time, and Hal thinks a great deal of society, although she
listens to me very sweetly when I talk to her about my work.
Yesterday she said: “Why, Cousin Harriet, you’re a regular steam
engine. It must be jolly good fun to carry a lot of sinners to
heaven on an express train.” I told her it was a freight train,
and it certainly is, as you know, Patience dear. She replied:
“Well, if you get there all the same, a century more or less
doesn’t make any difference. You must be right in it with the
Lord.” That was the only time I’d heard the dear Lord’s name
mentioned since I arrived, so I didn’t scold her. But Patience,
dear, I hope you’ll never use slang. I’ve talked to Hal about
you, and she says she’s coming to see you.

Honora doesn’t use slang. She is very stately and dignified, and
Cousin Honora (it’s very awkward when you’re writing for two
people to have the same name, isn’t it?) holds her up as a model
for the girls. Hal and she _fight_. I can’t call it anything
else, although Honora doesn’t lose her temper and Hal does. Hal
said to me (of Honora) yesterday (I use her own words, although
they’re awful; but if I didn’t I couldn’t give you the same idea
of her): “She’s a d—— hypocrite: and she wants to marry
Beverly, but she won’t,—not if I have to turn matchmaker and
marry him to a variety actress. She makes me wild. I wish she’d
elope with the priest, but she’s too confoundedly clever.” Isn’t
it dreadful—Honora is a Catholic. She became converted last
year. Perhaps that’s the reason I can’t like her. But even the
Catholic religion teaches charity, for she said to me this
morning: “Poor Hal is really a good-hearted child, but she’s
worldly and just a little superficial.”

They haven’t any company this week—how kind of Cousin Honora to
ask me when they are alone! I wish you were here to enjoy the
library. It is a great big room overlooking the river, and the
walls are covered with books—three or four generations of them.
Mr. Peele is intellectual, and so is Honora; but the others
don’t read much, except Hal, who reads dreadful-looking yellow
paper books written in the French language which she says are
“corkers,” whatever that may mean. I do wish the dear child
would read her Bible. I asked her if I gave her a copy if she’d
promise me to read a little every day, and she said she would,
as some of the stories were as good as a French novel. So I
shall buy her one.

We sit in the library every evening. In the morning we sit in
the Tea House on the slope and Honora embroiders Catholic Church
things, Cousin Honora knits (she says it’s all the fashion), May
_talks_, and Hal reads her yellow books and tells May to “let
up.” I sew for my poor, and they don’t seem to mind that as much
as the white ribbon. They say that they always sew for the poor
in Lent. Hal says it is the “swagger thing.” In the afternoon we
drive, and I do think it such a waste of time to be going, going
nowhere for two hours.

Well, Patience, I shall be with you on Wednesday, praise the
Lord. Come to the train and meet me, and be sure to write me
about _everything_. How is Polly Jones, and old Mrs. Murphy, and
Belinda Greggs? Have you read to Maria Twist, and taken the
broth to old Jonas Hobb? Give my love to dear sister Beale, and
tell her I pray for her. With a kiss from your old auntie, God
bless you,

HARRIET TREMONT.

“Dear old soul,” thought Patience. “I think I know them better than she does, already. She is worth the whole selfish crowd; but I should like to know Hal. Beverly must be a chump.”

VIII

The other letter was from Rosita. Patience had not heard from her for a long while. Three months previously, Mr. Foord had written of Mrs. Thrailkill’s death, and mentioned that Rosita had gone to Sacramento to visit Miss Galpin—now Mrs. Trent—until her uncle, who had returned to Kentucky, should send for her.

Oh, Patita! Patita! [the letter began], what do you think? _I am
on the stage._ I had been crazy to go on ever since _that
night_. A theatrical man was in Monterey just before mamma’s
death, and he told me they were always wanting pretty corus
girls at the Tivoli; so after the funeral I told everybody I was
going to stay with Miss Galpin until Uncle Jim sent for me—I
hated to lie, but I had to—and I went up to San Francisco and
went right to the Tivoli. He took me because he said I was
pretty and had a fresh voice. I had to ware tights. You should
have seen me. At first I felt all the time like stooping over to
cover up my legs with my arms. But after a while I got used to
it, and one night we had to dance, and everybody said I was the
most graceful. The manager said I was a born dancer and actress.
The other day what do you think happened? A New York manager was
here and heard me sing,—I had a little part by that time,—and
he told me that if I took lessons I could be a prima donna in
comic opera. He said I not only was going to have a lovely
voice, but that I had a new style (Spanish) and would take in
New York. He offered to send me to Paris for a year and then
bring me out in New York if I’d give him my word—I’m too young
to sign a contract—that I wouldn’t go with any other manager.
At first my manager, who is a good old sole (I didn’t tell you
that I live with him and his wife, and that their awful good to
me and stand the fellers off), wouldn’t have it; but after a
while he gave in—said I’d have to go the pace sooner or later
(whatever that means), and I might as well go it in first class
style. His wife, the good old sole, cried. She said I was the
first corus girl she’d ever taken an interest in, but somehow it
would be on her conscience if I went wrong. But I’m not going
wrong. I don’t care a bit for men. There was a bald-headed old
fool who used to come and sit in the front row every night and
throw kisses to me, and one night he threw me a bouquet with a
bracelet in it. I wore the bracelet, for it was a beauty with a
big diamond in it; but I never looked at him or answered any of
his notes, and Mr. Bell—the manager—wrote him he’d punch his
head if he came near the stage door. No, all I want is to act,
act, act, and sing, sing, sing, and dance, dance, dance, and
have beautiful cloths and jewels and a carriage and two horses.
Mr. Soper has told me ten times since I’ve met him that “virtue
in an actress pays,” and he’s going to send a horrid old woman
with me to Paris, as if I’d bother with the fools anyhow. I’m
sure I can’t see what Mrs. Bell cries about if I’m going to be
famous and make a lot of money. Anyhow, I’m going. I do so want
to see you, Patita dear. Maybe you can come up to the steamer
and see me off. I wonder if you have changed. I’m not so very
tall; but they all say my figure is good. Mr. Soper says it will
be divine in a year or two, but that I may be a cow at thirty,
so I’d better not lose any time. Good-bye. Good-bye. I want to
give you a hundred kisses. How different our lives are! Isn’t
yours dreadfully stupid with that old temprance work? And just
think it was you who taught me to act first! Mr. Soper says I
must cultivate the Spanish racket for all it’s worth, and that
he expects me to be more Spanish in New York than I was in
Monterey. He is going to get an opera written for me with the
part of a Spanish girl in it so I can wear the costume. He says
if I study and do everything he tells me I’ll make a _furore_.
_Hasta luego_—Patita _mia_.

ROSITA ELVIRA FRANCESCA THRAILKILL.

P. S.—I’m to have a Spanish stage name, “La Rosita,” I guess.
Mr. Soper says that Thrailkill is an “anti-climax,” and would
never “go down.”

IX

Patience read this letter with some alarm. All that she had heard and read of the stage made her apprehensive. She feared that Rosita would become fast, would drink and smoke, and not maintain a proper reserve with men. Then the natural independence of her character asserted itself, and she felt pride in Rosita’s courage and promptness of action. She even envied her a little: her life would be so full of variety.

“And after all it’s fate,” she thought philosophically. “She was cut out for the stage if ever a girl was. You might as well try to keep a bird from using its wings, or Miss Beale and auntie from being Temperance. I wonder what my fate is. It’s not the stage, but it’s not this, neither—not much. Shouldn’t wonder if I made a break for Mr. Field some day. But I couldn’t leave auntie. She’s the kind that gets a hold on you.”

She did her duty by Hog Heights during Miss Tremont’s brief holiday, but did it as concisely as was practicable. She found it impossible to sympathise with people that were content to let others support them, giving nothing in return. Her strong independent nature despised voluntary weakness. It was her private opinion that these useless creatures with only the animal instinct to live, and not an ounce of grey matter in their skulls, encumbered the earth, and should be quietly chloroformed.

Despite her love for Miss Tremont, she breathed more freely in her absence. She was surfeited with religion, and at times possessed with a very flood of revolt and the desire to let it loose upon every church worker in Mariaville. But affection and gratitude restrained her.

X

Miss Tremont returned on Wednesday morning. She stepped off the train with a bag under one arm, a bundle under the other, and both arms full of flowers.

“Oh, you darling, you darling!” she cried as she fell upon Patience. “How it does my heart good to see you! These are for you. Hal picked them, and sent her love. Aren’t they sweet?”

“Lovely,” said Patience, crushing the flowers as she hugged and kissed Miss Tremont. “Here, give me the bag.”

Miss Tremont would go to Temperance Hall first, then to call upon Miss Beale, but was finally guided to her home. The trunk had preceded them. Patience unpacked the despised gowns, while listening to a passionate dissertation upon the heavy trial they had been to their owner.

“I think you had a good time all the same,” she said. “You look as if you’d had, at any rate. You’ve not looked so well since I came. That sort of thing agrees with you better than tramping over Hog Heights—”

“It does not!” cried Miss Tremont. “And I am so glad to get back to my work and my little girl.”

“And the Lord,” supplemented Patience.

“Oh, He was with me even there. Only He didn’t feel so near.” She sighed reminiscently. “But I’ve brought pictures of the children to show you. Let us go down to the parlour where it’s cooler, and then we’ll stand them in a row on the mantel. They’re the first pictures I’ve had of them in years.” She caught a package from the tray of her trunk, in her usual abrupt fashion, and hurried downstairs, Patience at her heels.

Miss Tremont seated herself in her favourite upright chair, put on her spectacles, and opened the package. “This is Hal,” she said, handing one of the photographs to Patience. “I must show you her first, for she’s my pet.”

Patience examined the photograph eagerly. It was a half length of a girl with a straight tilted nose, a small mouth with a downward droop at the corners, large rather prominent eyes, and sleek hair which was in keeping with her generally well-groomed appearance. She wore a tailor frock. Her slender erect figure was beautifully poised. In one hand she carried a lorgnette. She was not pretty, but her expression was frank and graceful, and she had much distinction.

“I like her. Any one could see she was a swell. What colour hair has she?”

“Oh, a kind of brown. Her eyes are a sort of grey. Here is May. She always has her photographs coloured.”

“Oh, she’s a beauty!” The girl even in photograph showed an exquisite bit of flesh and blood. The large blue eyes were young and appealing under soft fall of lash. The mouth was small and red, the nose small and straight. Chestnut hair curled about the small head and oval face. The skin was like tinted jade. It was the face of the American aftermath. She wore a ball gown revealing a slender girlish neck and a throat of tender curves.

“She is a real beauty,” said Miss Tremont. “Poor Hal says, ‘she can’t wear her neck because she hasn’t got any.’ Did you ever hear such an expression?”

“Hal looks as if she had a good figure.”

Miss Tremont shook her head. “I don’t approve of all Hal does—she pads. She doesn’t seem to care much who knows it, for when the weather’s very warm she takes them out, right before your eyes, so it isn’t so bad as if she were deceitful about it. Here is Beverly.”

Patience looked long at the young man’s face. This face too was oval, with a high intellectual forehead, broad black brows, and very regular features. The mouth appeared to pout beneath the drooping moustache. The expression of the eyes was very sweet. It was a strong handsome face, high-bred like the others, but with a certain nobility lacking in the women.

“He is said to be the handsomest young man in Westchester County, and he’s quite dark,” said Miss Tremont. “What do you think of him?”

“He is rather handsome. Where is Honora?”

“She never has pictures taken. But, dear me, I must go out and see Ellen.”

Patience disposed the photographs on the mantel, then, leaning on her elbows, gazed upon Beverly Peele. The Composite, Byron, the Stranger, rattled their bones unheard. She concluded that no knight of olden time could ever have been so wholly satisfactory as this young man. Romance, who had been boxed about the ears, and sent to sleep, crept to her old throne with a sly and meaning smile. Patience began at once to imagine her meeting with Beverly Peele. She would be in a runaway carriage, and he would rescue her. She would be skating and fall in a hole, and he would pull her out. He would be riding to hounds in his beautiful pink coat (which was red) and run over her.

She pictured his face with a variety of expressions. She was sure that he had the courage of a lion and the tenderness of some women. Unquestionably he had read his ancestors’ entire library—“with that forehead,”—and he probably had the high and mighty air of her favourite heroes of fiction. In one of her letters Miss Tremont had remarked that he loved children and animals; therefore he had a beautiful character and a kind heart. And she was glad to have heard that he also had a temper: it saved him from being a prig. Altogether, Patience, with the wisdom of sixteen and three quarters, was quite convinced that she had found her ideal, and overlooked its extreme unlikeness to the Composite, which was the only ideal she had ever created. A woman’s ideal is the man she is in love with for the time being.

She went up to her room, and for the first time in her life critically examined herself in the mirror. With May Peele and one or two beauties of the High School in mind, she decided with a sigh that _she_ was no beauty.

“But who knows,” she thought with true insight, “what I’d be with clothes? Who could be pretty in a calico dress? My nose is as straight as May’s, anyhow, and my upper lip as short. But to be a real beauty you’ve got to have blue eyes and golden or chestnut hair and a little mouth, or else black eyes and hair like Rosita’s. My eyes are only grey, and my hair’s the colour of ashes, as Rosita once remarked. There’s no getting over that, although it certainly has grown a lot since I came here.”

Then she remembered that Rosita had once decorated her with red ribbons and assured her that they were becoming. She ran down to the best spare room, and, divesting a tidy of its scarlet bows, pinned them upon herself before the mirror, which she discovered was more becoming than her own. The brilliant colour was undoubtedly improving—“And, my goodness!” she exclaimed suddenly, “I do believe I haven’t got a freckle left. It must be the climate.”

“What on earth are you doing?” said an abrupt voice from the doorway.

Patience started guiltily, and restored the bows to the tidy.

“Oh, you see,” she stammered, “May is so pretty I wanted to see if I could be a little less homely.” Patience was truthful by nature, but the woman does not live that will not lie under purely feminine provocation. Otherwise she would not be worthy to bear the hallowed name of woman.

“Nonsense,” said Miss Tremont, crossly, “I thought you were above that kind of foolishness. You, must remember that you are as the Lord made you, and be thankful that you were not born a negro or a Chinaman.”

“Oh, I am,” said Patience.

XI

Thereafter, Patience roamed the woods munching chestnuts and dreaming of Beverly Peele. Hugo and Balzac and Goethe were neglected. Her brain wove thrilling romances of its own, especially in the night to the sound of rain. She never emerged from the woods without a shortening of the breath; but even Hal did not pay the promised call; nor did Beverly dash through the streets in a pink coat, a charger clasped between his knees.

“Well, it’s fun to be in love, anyhow,” she thought. “I’ll meet him some time, I know.”

Much to her regret she was not permitted to go to New York to see Rosita off. Miss Tremont had a morbid horror of the stage, and after Patience’s exhibition of vanity was convinced that “actress creatures” would exert a pernicious influence.

And, shortly after, Patience received news which made her forget Rosita and even Beverly Peele for a while. Mr. Foord was dead. Patience had hoarded his twenty dollar gold piece because he had given it to her. She bought a black hat and frock with it, and felt as sad as she could at that age of shifting impressions. A later mail brought word that he had left her John Sparhawk’s library, which could stay in the Custom House until she was able to send for it, and a few hundred dollars which would remain in a savings bank until she was eighteen. He had nothing else to leave except his books, which went to found a town library. All but those few hundreds had been sunken in an annuity. Miss Tremont was quite content to be overlooked in the girl’s favour.

By the time Patience was ready to return to Beverly Peele the new term opened, and the uncompromising methods of the High School left no time for romance. Once more her ambition to excel became paramount, and she studied night and day. She had no temptation to dissipate, for she was not popular with the young people of Mariaville. The Y’s disapproved of her because she would not don the white ribbon; and the church girls, generally, felt that except when perfunctorily assisting Miss Tremont she held herself aloof, even at the frequent sociables. And they were scandalised because she did not join the church, nor the King’s Daughters, nor the Christian Endeavor.

The High School scholars liked her because she was “square,” and cordially admired her cleverness; but there were no recesses in the ordinary sense, and after school Miss Tremont claimed her. Even the boys “had no show,” as they phrased it. Occasionally they lent her a hand on the ice; but like all Californians, she bitterly felt the cold of her second winter, and in her few leisure hours preferred the fire.

Sometimes she looked at Beverly Peele’s picture with a sigh and some resentment. “But never mind,” she would think philosophically, “I can fall in love with him over again next summer.” When vacation came she did in a measure take up the broken threads of her romance, but they had somewhat rotted from disuse.

Rosita wrote every few weeks, reporting hard work and unbounded hope. “The _dueña_,” as she called her companion, “was an old devil,” and never let her go out alone, nor receive a man; but she “didn’t care,” she had no time for nonsense, anyhow. She was learning her part in the Spanish opera, which had been written for her, and it was “lovely.”

“It must be a delightful sensation to have your future assured at seventeen,” thought Patience. “Mine is as problematical as the outcome of the Temperance cause. I have had one unexpected change, and may have more. If it were not for Rosita’s letters I should almost forget those sixteen years in California. I certainly am not the same person. I haven’t lost my temper for a year and a half, and I don’t seem to be disturbed any more by vague yearnings. Life is too practical, I suppose.”

Miss Tremont did not visit the Gardiner Peeles this summer: they spent the season in travel. Late in the fall Rosita returned to America. She wrote the day before she sailed. That was the last letter Patience received from her. Later she sent a large envelope full of clippings descriptive of her triumphal début; thereafter nothing whatever. Patience, supposing herself forgotten, anathematised her old friend wrathfully, but pride forbade her to write and demand an explanation.

She noticed with spasms of terror that Miss Tremont was failing. The rush and worry of a lifetime had worn the blood white, and the nerve-force down like an old wharf pile. But Miss Tremont would not admit that she had lost an ounce of strength. She arose at the same hour and toiled until late. When Patience begged her to take care of herself, she became almost querulous, and all Patience could do was to anticipate her in every possible way. But when school reopened she had little time for anything but study. She was to finish in June, and the last year’s course was very difficult.

She graduated with flying colours, and Miss Tremont was so proud and excited that she took a day’s vacation. A week later Patience hinted that she thought she should be earning her own living; but Miss Tremont would not even discuss the subject. She fell into a rage every time it was broached, and Patience, who would have rebelled, had Miss Tremont been younger and stronger, submitted: she knew it would not be for long.

XII

Patience was languid all summer, and lay about in the woods, when she could, reading little and thinking much. Her school books put away forever, she felt for the first time that she was a woman, but did not take as much interest in herself as she had thought she should. She speculated a good deal upon her future career as a newspaper woman, and expended two cents every morning upon the New York “Day.” But she forgot to study it in the new interest it created: she had just the order of mind to succumb to the fascination of the newspaper, and she read the “Day’s” report of current history with a keener pleasure than even the great records of the past had induced. She longed for a companion with whom to talk over the significant tendencies of the age, and gazed upon Beverly Peele’s dome-like brow with a sigh.

Once, in the Sunday issue, she came upon a column and a half devoted to Rosita, “The Sweetheart of the Public,” “The Princess Royal of Opera Bouffe.” The description of the young prima donna’s home life, personal characteristics, and footlight triumphs, was further embellished by a painfully _décolleté_ portrait, a lace night gown, a pair of wonderfully embroidered stockings, and a rosary.

Patience read the article twice, wondering why fame realised looked so different from the abstract quality of her imagination.

“Somehow it seems a sort of tin halo,” she thought. Then her thoughts drifted back to Monterey, and recalled it with startling vividness. “Still even if I haven’t forgotten it, it is like the memory of another life. Its only lasting effect has been to make me hate what is coarse and sinful; and dear auntie, even if she hasn’t converted me, has developed all my good.

“I wonder if Rosita has been in love, and if that is the reason she has forgotten me. But she hasn’t married, so perhaps it’s only adulation that has driven everything else out of her head.” And then with her eyes on the river, which under the heavy sky looked like a stream of wrinkling lead from which a coating of silver had worn off in places, she fell to dreaming of Beverly Peele and an ideal existence in which they travelled and read and assured each other of respectful and rarefied affection.

Early in the winter the influenza descended upon America. Mr. Peele, his wife wrote, was one of the first victims, and the entire family took him to Florida. One night, a month later, Miss Tremont returned from Hog Heights and staggered through her door.

“Oh,” she moaned, as Patience rushed forward and caught her in her arms, “I feel so strangely. I have pains all over me, and the queerest feeling in my knees.”

“It’s the grippe,” said Patience, who had read its history in the “Day.” She put Miss Tremont to bed, and sent for the doctor. The old lady was too weak to protest, and swallowed the medicines submissively. She recovered in due course, and one day slipped out and plodded through the snow to Hog Heights. She was brought home unconscious, and that night was gasping with pneumonia.

There was no lack of nurses. Miss Beale and Mrs. Watt, who had helped to care for her during the less serious attack, returned at once, and many others called at intervals during the day and night.

Patience sat constantly by the bed, staring at the face so soon to be covered from all sight. She wanted to cry and scream, but could not. Her heart was like lead in her breast.

At one o’clock on the second night, she and Miss Beale were alone in the sick room. Mrs. Watt was walking softly up and down the hall without.

Miss Tremont was breathing irregularly, and Patience bent over her with white face. Miss Beale began to sob.

“Is it not terrible, terrible,” she ejaculated, “that she should die like this, she whose deathbed should have been so beautiful,—unconscious, drugged—morphine, which is as accursed as whisky—”

“I am glad of it. It would be more horrible to see her suffer.”

“I don’t want to see her suffer—dear, dear Miss Tremont. But she should have died in the full knowledge that she was going to God. Oh! Oh!” she burst out afresh. “How I envy her! It’s my only, only sin, but I can’t help envying those who are going to heaven. I can’t wait. I do so want to see the beautiful green pastures and the still waters—and oh, how I want to talk with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”

Patience flung her head into her lap and burst into a fit of laughter.

XIII

An hour later she went downstairs and turned up all the lights. Mrs. Watt had gone to the next house to telephone for the undertakers. When she returned she went upstairs to Miss Beale. Patience could hear the two women praying. That was the only sound in the terrible stillness. She paced up and down, wringing her hands and gasping occasionally. Her sense of desolation was appalling, although as yet she but half realised her bereavement.

Suddenly she heard the sound of runners on the crisp snow. They stopped before the gate. She ran shuddering to the window. The moon flooded the white earth. Two tall black shadows came down the path. They trod as if on velvet. Even on the steps and porch they made no sound. They knocked as death may knock on a human soul, lightly, meaningly. Patience dragged herself to the door and opened it. The long narrow black men entered and bent their heads solemnly. Patience raised her shaking hand, and pointed to the floor above. The men of death bowed again, and stole upward like black ghosts. In a few moments they stole down again and out and away. Patience rushed frantically through the rooms to the kitchen, where she fell upon Ellen, dozing by the fire, and screamed and laughed until the terrified woman flung a pitcher of water on her, then carried her upstairs and put her to bed.

XIV

A week later Patience wandered restlessly about the lonely house. The hundreds of people that had thronged it had gone at last, even Miss Beale and Mrs. Watt.

She had cried until she had no tears left, and rebelled until reason would hear no more. Her nerves felt blunt and worn down.

Yesterday Miss Tremont’s lawyer had told her that after a few unimportant bequests she was to have the income of the dead woman’s small estate until she married, after which she would have nothing and the Temperance cause all. She was therefore exempt from the pettiest and severest of life’s trials. Miss Tremont had also left a letter, begging her to devote herself to a life of charity and reform. But Patience had at last revolted. She realised how empty had been her part, how torrential the impulsion of Miss Tremont.

The great world outside of Mariaville pressed upon her imagination, gigantic, rainbow-hued, alluring. It beckoned with a thousand fingers, and all her complex being responded. She longed for a talent with which to add to its beauty, and thought no ill of it.

She had sat up half the night thinking, and this morning she felt doubly restless and lonely. She wanted to go away at once, but as yet she had made no plans; and plans were necessary. She was too tired to go to Mr. Field and apply for work; and she knew that her delicate appearance would not commend itself to his approval. She went to the mirror in the best spare bedroom and regarded herself anxiously. Her black-robed figure seemed very tall and thin, her face white and sharp.

“Even red bows—” she began; then her memory tossed up Rosita. “Oh,” she thought, “if I could only see her,—see some one I care a little for. I believe I’ll go—there may have been some reason—her letters may have miscarried—I must see somebody.”

She ran upstairs, put on her outing things, and walked rapidly to the station. The sharp air electrified her blood. The world was full of youth and hope once more. She forgot her bereavement for the hour. She hoped Rosita would ask her to visit her: the popular young prima donna must have drawn many brilliant people about her.

When she reached New York she inquired her way to “Soper’s Opera House,” obtained Rosita’s address, and took the elevated train up town. She found the great apartment house with little difficulty, and was enraptured with its marble floors and pillars, its liveried servants and luxurious elevator.

“I certainly had rich ancestors,” she thought, “and I am sure they were swells. I have a natural affinity for all this sort of thing.”

She was landed at the very top of the house. The elevator boy directed her attention to a button, then slid down and out of sight, leaving Patience with the delightful sensation of having stepped upon a new stratum, high and away from the vast terrestrial cellar.

A trim French maid opened the door. She stared at Patience, and looked disinclined to admit her. But Patience pushed the door back with determined hand.

“I wish to see La Rosita,” she said in French.

“But madame is not receiving to-day.”

“She will see me, I am sure. Tell her that Miss Sparhawk is here.”

The woman admitted her reluctantly, and left her standing in an anteroom, passing between heavy portières. Patience followed, and entered a large drawing-room furnished with amber satin and ebony: a magnificent room, heavy with the perfume of great baskets of flowers, and filled with costly articles of decoration. The carpet was of amber velvet. Not a sound of street penetrated the heavy satin curtains.

An indefinable sensation stole over Patience’s mind, a ghost whose lineaments were blurred, yet familiar. She felt an impulse to turn and run, then twitched her shoulders impatiently, and approaching other portières, parted them and glanced into the room beyond.

It was evidently a boudoir, a fragrant fairy-like thing of rose and lace.

In a deep chair, clad in a _robe de chambre_ of rose-coloured silk, flowing open over a lace smock and petticoat, lay Rosita. Her dense black hair was twisted carelessly on top of her head and confined with a jewelled dagger. One tiny foot, shod in a high-heeled slipper of rose-coloured silk, was conspicuous on a low _pouf_. The flush of youth was in her cheek, its scarlet in her mouth. The large white lids lay heavily on the languorous eyes. In one hand she held a pink cigarette in a jewelled holder. She spoke in a low tantalising voice to a man who sat before her, leaning eagerly forward.

The maid had evidently not succeeded in gaining her attention. Patience, conquering another impulse to run, pushed the hangings aside and entered. Rosita sprang to her feet, the blood flashing to her hair; but her eyes expanded with pleasure.

“Patita! Patita!” she stammered, then caught Patience in her arms. As both girls looked as if about to weep, the man hurriedly departed.

The girls hugged each other as of old; then Rosita divested Patience of her wraps and told the astonished maid to take them out of sight.

“Now that you are here, you shall stay,” she said, “stay a long, long while. Have you had luncheon?”

“No—but I’m not—yes, I am, though, come to think of it. Get me something to eat. Rosita, how good it is to see you again! Why, why didn’t you write to me?”

“O—h; I will tell you, perhaps; but you must have luncheon first. I take a late breakfast, just after rising, so it will be a few minutes before yours is ready.” She rang a bell and gave an order to the maid, then pushed Patience into the deepest and softest chair in the room.

“Now,” she said, smiling affectionately, “lie back and be comfortable; you look tired. Oh, Patita, I am so glad to see you. Isn’t it like old times?”

With a grace which long practice had made a fine art, she sank upon one end of a divan, and back among a mass of cushions. Her white arms lay along the pillows in such careless wise as to best exhibit their perfection; her head dropped backward slightly, revealing the round throat. The attitude was so natural as to suggest that she had ceased to pose.

Patience stared at her, wondering if it could be the same Rosita. All the freshness of youth was in that beautiful face and round voluptuous form, but she looked years and years and years older than the Rosita of Monterey. Patience suddenly felt young and foolish and green. The world that had been so great and wonderful to her imagination seemed to have shrunken to a ball, to be tossed from one to the other of those white idle hands.

“What has changed you so?” she asked abruptly.

Rosita gave the low delicious laugh of which Patience had read in the New York “Day.” She relit her cigarette and blew a soft cloud.

“I will tell you after luncheon. You are the only person I would never fib to. I believe those grey eyes of yours are the only honest eyes in the world. Why are you in black?”

Patience told her, and was drawn on to speak of herself and her life. Rosita shuddered once or twice, an adorable little French shudder, and cast upward her glittering hands, whose nails Patience admired even more than their jewels.

“_Dios de mi alma!_” she cried finally. “What an existence!—I cannot call it life. I should have jumped into the river. That life would drive me mad, and I do not believe that it suits you either.”

She spoke with a Spanish accent, and with the affected precision of a foreigner that has carefully learned the English language. Her monotony of inflection was more effective than animation.

“No, it doesn’t,” said Patience, “and I have no intention of pursuing it. I’m going to be a newspaper woman.”

Rosita gave forth a sound that from any other throat would have been a shriek.

“A newspaper woman! And then you will come and interview me. How droll! I shall have to become eccentric, so that I can furnish you with ‘stories,’ as they call them. I have been pumped dry. When the newspaper women have run out of everything else they come to me, and they love me because I am good-natured, and turn my things upside down for them. I never refuse to see them, so they have never written anything horrid about me. Oh, I can tell you I have learned a great many lessons since I left Monterey. But here is your luncheon. While you are eating it I will do something for you that I have never done for any one else off the stage: I will sing to you.”

The maid placed a silver tray on a little table, and while Patience ate of creamed oysters and broiled partridge, Rosita sang as the larks of paradise may sing when angels awake with the dawn. Once Patience glanced hastily upward, half expecting to see the notes falling in a golden shower. When she expressed her admiration, Rosita’s red lips smiled slowly away from the white sharp little teeth.

“Do you like it, Patita _mia_?” she asked with bewitching graciousness. “Yes, I can sing. I have the world at my feet.”

She resumed her languid attitude on the divan. “_Bueno_,” she said, “now I am going to tell you all about it. People are always a little heavy after eating; I waited on purpose. But you must promise not to move until I get through. Will you?”

“Yes,” said Patience, uncomfortably. “I hope it is nothing very dreadful.”

“That all depends upon the way you look at things. It will seem odd to tell it to you. You used to be the one to do what you felt like and tell other people that if they did not like it they could do the other thing; but I suppose you are W. C. T. U’d.”

“No, I’m not. Go on.”

“Well, I will.” She paused and laughed lightly. “Funny world. We do not usually tell this sort of story to a woman, but you and I are different. _Bueno._

“I went to Paris and studied hard. Yes, I am lazy yet, but I had made up my mind to be a great, great, great success. I had what in insane people is called the fixed idea, and the American in me conquered the Spanish. Everybody praised my voice. No one said it was the greatest voice in the world, nor even better than two or three others over there; but I had no discouragement. I attracted a great deal of attention from men, but the _dueña_ never let them get a word with me, and I did not care. I used to wonder at the stories told about some of the other girls, and did not half understand. Two sold themselves; but why? with a fortune in one’s throat. Others fell in love, and talked about the temperament of the artist, but I could not understand that nonsense either.

“_Bueno_, at the end of the time Soper came over and bought me eight trunks full of the most beautiful clothes you ever saw,—mostly for the stage, but lots for the house and street. He said I was a first-class investment, and worth the outlay. When he heard me sing he shook all over. I ought to tell you that I had been kept on short allowance, and had had very dowdy clothes, which broke my heart.

“_Bueno_, we came home. On the steamer, Soper treated me like a father, but never let me talk to a man. Either he or the _dueña_ was at my heels all the time. He is a coarse-looking man, but I really liked him because he had been so good to me, and there was something very attractive about him. When we reached New York the _dueña_ left us. She said she was going straight to Philadelphia to her home. Soper and I got in another cab and drove to an apartment on Broadway. I did not know until the next day that it was his apartment. That was in the evening. The next morning, while I was at a late breakfast, he sent me a note, saying that he would call in an hour and have a business talk with me. I was practising my scales when he came in, and he clapped his hands and offered me a chair. He drew one up for himself, and then said in a perfectly business-like voice:—

“‘When I ran across you I knew that you only needed training to become a queen of opera bouffe, and to make a fortune for some one besides yourself. I also saw that you were going to become a beautiful woman. I made up my mind that I would own both the woman and the artist. Don’t look like a little tigress—still, I’m glad you can look that way,—you may be able to do Carmen yet. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not a villain, merely a practical man with an eye to beauty. I have no idea of letting you get under the influence of any other man,—not even if you weren’t so pretty. Let me console you by telling you that for the sort of woman you are there is no escape. You were made to drive men mad, and for the comic opera stage. That sort of combination might as well get down to business as early in the game as possible: it saves time.