The Magpies Nest (7 page)

He looked puzzled.

"But college?" he asked finally.

"Were you thinking of that, three years ago?"

"Yes," he nodded. "You might have been started by now. I've thought of you often since then. When I went back there, I asked for you. But you seemed to have disappeared. Still, I thought I'd find you again, before now. It's pretty hard to miss anyone out here." That was quite true. There were but three towns—not cities—of any size in all Alberta then, and to walk down Main Street in any of the three was to be seen of all men. Two people, town dwellers, both living in the Province, could not fail of crossing each other ultimately.

"Oh," she said, surprised, "I had no friends there. How nice of you to remember. To think of you caring!" It gave her a warm, quick emotion.

"Yes," he returned, "I do care." She was oblivious, hugging her knees; he flushed darkly, unobserved. "Will you go?"

"Mary's been to college," she said, with seeming irrelevance. And Mary, like herself, was stranded here, high out of the tide rise of the world's real activities. Naturally, the connecting chain of ideas was lost to him. He only stared at her anxiously.

"Let me think awhile," she begged him once again.

"I'll be here six weeks," he said. "Take your time Tell me when you've decided."

They turned homeward presently. She talked less, feeling slightly overwhelmed by his generosity, and shy. He, too, was guarding himself. A betrayal of his curiously mixed feelings would have seemed grossly unfair to her.

No, with all his clear and naturally kindly mind he desired to set her rather in a straight path, though it led her, gay and elusive, always away from him. In that wish half his heart concurred. The other half struggled to voice wilder impulses, to catch at the skirts of her youth and hold her. She represented lost and impossible things to him, things too sweet and strange to be ever quite forgotten, desires fed on husks and still hungering.

At her own gate he dismounted with her and followed her into the screened porch. Then the spark of rebellion in his heart flamed up. But he was as awkward as a boy.

"Oh," she said, crossly, "don't be..."

"Ridiculous," was the word that died on her tongue. The sight of his abashment made her feel too keen an edge on it for utterance.

"All right," he muttered. It reminded her of Allen Kirby, waiting no more than twenty feet away in the car, and she choked on a giggle. "I'm sorry." He took her hand, and the pressure of his pained her. "Good night. Do you think you might come again?"

"Why not?" she said carelessly. "Good night." And as he turned away, she put her hand on his sleeve She was sorry she had laughed at him—twice, now "Thank you," she said gravely, and held up her cheek.

He touched it with his lips, hastily, clumsily, feeling his very ears burn. The door closed on her decisively.

Allen nodded assent, his smooth face positively sleepy with immobility, at the brusque direction. The car moved away. Edgerton sat and studied his chauffeur's back gloomily—and envied him.

CHAPTER VII

HOPE was dressing for the Tennis dance, fresh-faced and sleepy-eyed. She had been out half the night before, and had taken cat-naps through dinner time to atone for it. Now she brushed her hair, drinking a glass of milk and reading, all at the same time. Her ears did not burn, though they should have. They were only delicately pink.

Mary Dark and Mrs. Patten were discussing her. Rather, Mrs. Patten talked and Mary listened, her sorrowful grey eyes veiled, her mouth curled at the corner.

"You ought to have some influence with her," mourned Mrs. Patten. "She's getting herself talked about."

"Yes, we're proving that," remarked Mary, in a detached manner. "What do you want me to do?"

"Give her a hint," said Mrs. Patten, distinctly irritated. "Eleanor Travers asked me about it only today. She was
seen
in Mr. Edgerton's automobile last week."

"She shouldn't have been seen," agreed Mary gravely. "I'll tell her so."

Mrs. Patten opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, and a tide of painful colour flowed into her face. Mary saw it, through her eyelashes, and dropped them lower.

"I will, really, try to," said Mary, her tones subtly altered. "Of course she's a little fool. That's why we like her."

"Oh, yes, I know," said Mrs. Patten thoughtfully, for she was not a fool, though she might act like one on occasion. "You mean she's herself; she's different. But one has to pretend." She flushed again. "Of course I told Eleanor it was all a mistake."

"She's known Edgerton since she was a baby, almost," said Mary, twisting the truth to the comforting effect of a lie.

"Yes, we understand," said Mrs. Patten.

"Perfectly," said Mary, who did.

"It would be such a pity," said Mrs. Patten. "People would like her, if she'd give them a chance. But she can't afford to do that sort of thing."

"That's it," agreed Mary again, with unperceived irony.

"Mr. Edgerton is so conspicuous. What is he like? Mrs Shane told me..."

"He snubbed Cora Shane. She tried to add him to her collection. I can fancy what she told you. He's not bad. An overgrown boy. Shrewd. Kind. Selfish. Simple. Very simple. He doesn't like women who swear, and tell smoking-room stories. So Cora----"

"Of course," said Mrs. Patten, with an inflection of malice. "Is it true that he doesn't live with his wife?"

"Not quite yet," said Mary, allowing that to be interpreted as it might chance. The possible, though remote, significance of the remark in that context did not escape her. She laughed quietly. "Oh, yes, it might happen. In that case Hope could afford to."

Mrs. Patten was silent, thoughtful.

"But," added Mary meanly, "it's really the chauffeur Hope is flirting with," again making a half-truth serve.

It served. Mrs. Patten almost turned pale.

"Oh, that's impossible," she gasped.

"Or the car," said Mary dreamily. "Getting down to essentials. Hope is rather direct, you know."

"It was Ned mentioned it to me," said Mrs. Patten, truly distressed. "He wouldn't believe it, of course."

"She must have snubbed Ned," said Mary profoundly, forgetting her audience.

Mrs. Patten winced. They sat awhile in silence. Mary was thinking of the curious friendship between Hope and Edgerton.

It had all been under her eyes; she watched it with a certain pity, but no desire to interfere. She knew the uselessness of attempting to deflect from any course such a secretive, yet straightforward nature as had Hope. She would go through or under or over an obstacle, softly and silently and as if unaware of opposition. There was nothing meanly obstinate about her, but in certain ways there was no approach to her either. She would do no harm, probably; but certainly, having been born, not under a star that danced but under a little faint wandering comet, she would never fall in tune with the world to the extent of establishing a fixed orbit. One must take or leave her. Which of these the world would do depended, Mary justly reflected, largely on her luck.

Mary had come to know Edgerton well. To him she was only a quizzical smile, a clever brain, deft hands. He trusted her. Sometimes he sent word to Hope through her. Little notes, punctiliously unsealed. She had been unwilling at first; but he could easily reach Hope, and it was better this way than through another, less her friend. Mary, sitting at her desk in his own office, fancied she could tell when he was thinking of Hope, and at such times, when he caught her eyes on him, he would redden slightly and pore over his letters and estimates again. Squared up to his big mahogany desk, which failed to dwarf his solid proportions, absorbed in files and legal papers, he would look the very embodiment of common sense and well-rewarded shrewdness. And presently he would give her a small white envelope, addressed to Hope, and, putting on his hat, go out suddenly, without looking at her.

Later, Hope would take the note, read it with quick carelessness, nod, and speak of other things. Or she might telephone to Allen Kirby, and tell him she could not see him that evening. Then Mary would laugh, and Hope would join her very gaily. Sometimes she merely tore up the missive and said, "Oh, bother!"

The day before, she had said, as if to herself, "All right," and sat awhile thinking. Mary went away. She was not a mind-reader, or she might have remained to remonstrate. Later, she imagined Hope tearing through the night in the black and brassy eighty-horse power monster with Allen Kirby gravely at the wheel and Edgerton tangling himself up in meaningless words, trying to explain to Hope things about them both which neither understood. In reality that young lady was curled up cross-legged on the deep-red carpeted floor of Edgerton's rooms, beside an open suit-case, neatly folding an assortment of cheerful neckties and carrying on a desultory conversation with the owner of them.

"Did anyone see you coming?" had been his first apprehensive question as he closed the door sharply behind her.

"No, I guess not," she replied carelessly. "Do you mind?"

"I?" he said, and stared at her. But he was aware of the extraordinary recklessness of women. "I don't think I should have let you come here."

"But it's cold out," she argued. "And I can't have
anyone
where I live. Besides, I wanted to see, Your room looks like you."

It did, being large and substantially comfortable, but without originality. There were no books; she commented on that, roaming about and tossing aside a newspaper or so disdainfully. She tried the big leather chairs, and presently insisted on helping him pack. He was going on the midnight train, to be absent a month or more.

It was characteristic of him to have these expensive rooms. He had furnished them himself; the small, rather shabby hotel annoyed him, and the cost was a matter of indifference to him. But he did think he ought not to have let her come here. He had asked her to appoint a place. Allen told him the car was out of order. She had suggested his office; mere hospitality had prompted this alternative. He felt rather strange when she assented immediately; he didn't know what he felt until she entered, and then he had expressed everything in that first question. He thought of his own daughter. And he made a vow that if ever she needed him he would stand back of her. What else could you do for a girl?

It gave him a wistful delight to see Hope stroll about, half tiptoe, touching this and that. When she came near him once, he put his arms about her timidly, and gave her a clumsy caress. She squirmed away, laughed, and prodded his broad chest with a slim finger.

"Aren't you fat?" she teased irrelevantly. "I daresay you wouldn't feel it if I tried to boat you."

But he did feel it. Good heavens, to be over forty and have sweet and twenty laugh at one! Then she folded his expensive silk shirts and socks, his innumerable ties, his fine linen handkerchiefs, with the care of a child keeping house, and made herself very busy, and said she was sorry he was going. His trunk was enormous; she said she could get into it, and proved the fact. The extent of his wardrobe filled her with frank amazement. People, she reflected, were very interesting, when one saw them thus at first hand, surrounded by the evidences of their own taste and personality. This was so unlike her own room; a bare little cell, with queer sketches of her own on tne walls, one small battered trunk, a highly uncomfortable chair, an imitation couch covered with real cushions, and a pair of Japanese clogs pathetically toeing toward each other in the centre of the room. They were always in the centre of the room, never neatly arranged against the wall. How out of place he would be there. It made her laugh. But he broke in on her thoughts. He had been pacing up and down, lighting and throwing away cigarettes, watching her.

"Are you going to college?" he asked, at last, abruptly.

Her own answer surprised her a little, for she said involuntarily:

"No." And was sorry she felt forced to say it, for he looked generously disappointed.

"Then what can I do for you?" he asked finally.

To that she had no answer.

This refusal had crystallised suddenly in her mind, as the result of long, rather inchoate reflection. Dimly she perceived that college would not give her what she wanted. The end of college would be simply the end of college, not the beginning of anything else. She was seeking her youth, not trying to give it up, to college or anything. What had college given to Mary? She would have read more books. She could read them anyway. She would still have her start to make; the start for that indefinable goal, the heart of life itself.

His disappointment was evident. He lit another cigarette, threw it away, and stood irresolute. She jumped up and ran to him.

"Never mind, never mind," she comforted him. "It was lovely of you. And I have no sense at all," she concluded gravely.

"Not a bit," he agreed. "I think I'll put you in my trunk again, and carry you about, and look after you. Oh, Hope!" He crushed her in his arms, ruffling her hair and temper, smothering her.

She felt cross, and sorry for him, all at once; aware of a conflict within him, but not alarmed. That
beauté du diable
which she still possessed in its freshest bloom drew him powerfully by the double bonds of tenderness and passion, and he suffered more than she could have guessed. It divided his soul and body like a sword, and he did not know himself what shook him so. Before now he had sought refuge from his wife's perverse coldness in the favours of other women, women of the world; had taken carelessly what they had given freely, and forgotten. But he had never experienced anything like this extraordinary recrudescence of half-forgotten boyish emotions.

Nor was it solely her youth that drew him. After all, youth could be bought in the market, like any other commodity.

He never held her but he knew she wished to be free; the inner resistance was there, even while instinct or courtesy kept it from expression. But he did know she did not evade him to enhance her value, like those shrewder creatures who can drive a bargain from the cradle. Like his wife.