CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I
It took a countless number of small details finally to arouse distrust in Mr. Petersen.
In the beginning, there was the roast chicken. Mrs. Hansen, who once more ruled the kitchen, came to him in great distress.
“Mr. Petersen!” she cried, “It’s gone! The whole thing! A beautiful whole roast chicken I put into the ice chest with my own hands this very morning.”
“Tramps,” he suggested, “or Michael. Don’t worry. Go and buy another.”
And that marked the beginning. After that she missed something almost every day, and it nearly made her insane. She never talked of anything else; to Mr. Petersen, to Mrs. Petersen, to her own husband, or even to Sandra.
“It isn’t tramps,” she insisted. “There I’ve never stirred out of my kitchen the whole morning, and that loaf of bread’s gone!”
She could not make anyone realise the magnitude of it, the hair-raising mystery. Minnie took the attitude that Mrs. Hansen must be and was mistaken; Mr. Petersen suspected Michael. The poor woman was desperate.
“All the years I’ve been here!” she moaned, “and never a bit of trouble like this!”
She was not superstitious, but the mystery began to terrify her; bread, meat, fruit, all sorts of things, vanished utterly, and with regularity. She considered Minnie grossly careless to take so little interest; the more she saw of her, the more she despised her, anyway. On her return, Minnie had turned everything over to her, never so much as ordered a meal. She offended further by always sitting upstairs, just rocking or embroidering there in the bedroom, in a bedraggled wrapper, with her hair in an untidy knot, until late in the afternoon, when she made a supreme effort, dressed herself and went out for a walk.
Her appearance shocked Mrs. Hansen immeasurably, her brazen disregard for her “condition,” her unsuitable clothes. Her treatment of Sandra, too. Such unwisdom she had never seen. The child was ailing half the time with colds and coughs; she was forever getting her poor little feet wet, and going about for hours in that way; she ate nothing, she moped, she was badly dressed, her hair was never taken care of, but fell over her face in a silky tangle, she didn’t get nearly enough sleep. Mrs. Hansen did what she could for her, incurring Minnie’s relentless hatred.
“I can’t see how you stood that odious, interfering woman so long,” she said to Petersen. “As soon as I’m well, she’ll go, I can promise you!”
He tried to defend Mrs. Hansen, but with no success. And she, on her part, made as many veiled insinuations against her mistress as she dared. Mr. Petersen was not comfortable.
One evening he was sitting reading in his library while Minnie lay on the sofa with closed eyes and little Sandra was playing at his feet, talking in a low voice to her dolls. It was after nine; Mrs. Hansen had long ago cleared up and gone home to the new cottage—one of Mr. Petersen’s—which her husband had bought upon Minnie’s arrival. The house was quiet; there was for the moment a little peace, and Mr. Petersen was enjoying it. Then came a rap at the back door. He was surprised to see Hansen.
“Could I have maybe one, two minutes?” he asked solemnly.
“Of course!” said Mr. Petersen. “Come in! We’ll sit down in the kitchen, not to disturb Mrs. Petersen. Now! What’s wrong?”
Hansen took a chair in a manner combining Socialistic equality with the politeness due to a much richer man.
“It’s this way,” he said, “my wife she is badly upset about this business.”
“What business?” Mr. Petersen enquired with a sinking heart, surmising another miserable disturbance between the two women, an unusually bad one if their men had to be dragged into it.
“Losing all these things. She thinks maybe you begin to suspect her.”
Mr. Petersen’s face flushed.
“Nonsense, Hansen!”
“Nonsense all right,” said Hansen, with slow obstinacy. “But that’s what she thinks. First one thing, then another is every day going.”
His English grew more and more halting, but he wouldn’t for worlds have used his and Mr. Petersen’s native tongue. They must under all circumstances preserve the illusion of being Americans.
“For ten, twelve years you know us now, Mr. Petersen,” he went on. “All the same, this is a queer business and my old woman she doesn’t like it. She thinks maybe very soon you begin to suspect her.”
“But I tell you I’d never suspect her,” Mr. Petersen insisted.
“The Missis could.”
“Nonsense!” he said again, but he made no impression upon the stolid Swede—nor upon himself.
“Anyway, Mr. Petersen, I want to pay you any time you are thinking my wife is taking something. Any time you would think she got a chicken or what, you just tell me, Mr. Petersen, and I pay you.”
“But I tell you I’d never think so.”
“Maybe sometime you could, Mr. Petersen.”
Mr. Petersen understood what he meant.
“Here you are with a new wife, and what she thinks you’re going to think before long,” was what Hansen’s tone implied, and he resented the implication. They talked a long time about it; neither gave an inch. Hansen’s parting words were:
“Remember, I pay you any time, Mr. Petersen!”
And Mr. Petersen’s:
“Nonsense!”
Nevertheless, he felt obliged now to consider this thing seriously. He sat alone in the kitchen and reflected until bed time, but couldn’t reach any sort of conclusion. Mrs. Hansen was absolutely above suspicion, unless she had suddenly gone mad, and that he couldn’t accept. Sandra never wanted food, and anyway, she would have been discovered. Michael had no opportunities, tramps couldn’t remain invisible, stray dogs wouldn’t rifle the apple barrel, wouldn’t and couldn’t be so nicely discriminating. His mind dwelt upon Minnie, he remembered things he had read or heard about morbid cravings for certain things to eat, about temporary mental derangements.... But that idea filled him with such alarm and uneasiness that he refused to consider it. He evolved a diabolic dog, actually invented excuses for it....
II
The very next day he found out, quite by accident. He was going to lunch at the Eagle House with a rather important client and he hurried home to put on a clean collar and his cherished white flannel trousers, worn only on semi-official occasions. Minnie was taking a bath, so he didn’t even call out to ask her where his things were. She wouldn’t have known anyway. He was accustomed to searching patiently for every article when it was required.
He went through his own bureau drawers and his own closet in vain; then he went to look in Minnie’s appalling wardrobe.
On the shelf there, lying on a piece of newspaper, behind her best hat, lay half a cold leg of lamb.
A corpse could scarcely have terrified him more. In a panic he seized his cap and rushed out of the house as he was; and Minnie never knew he had been home at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I
It may be said with perfect truth that Mr. Petersen was haunted by the leg of lamb; it gave him sleepless nights. He couldn’t imagine why it was there. He would stop in the middle of serious work in his office, and contemplate the mystery. Could it be connected with her peculiar efforts at economy? Or a plot against Mrs. Hansen? Or absolute madness?
It was significant—more so than he realised—that he didn’t dare to ask Minnie about it. At the bottom of his heart, in spite of his affection and admiration for her, he was perfectly aware that Minnie was a woman capable of anything and everything. There was nothing she wouldn’t do. He went about for days, with the leg of lamb on his conscience, miserably imagining that he had in some way wronged Minnie by finding it.
The losses continued. But he never looked in the closet again. Imagination balked at the prospect. When Mrs. Hansen reported a dish of apple sauce and three pork chops missing, a dreadful vision of them behind Minnie’s hat flashed across his brain. He tried his best to mollify Mrs. Hansen, to assure her that he knew she had no hand in the business. He felt intolerably guilty before that honest woman. He was a changed man, and he knew it. He had fallen into a sort of daze of astonishment, like a man who has undeniably seen a ghost.
An impossible situation, and ended by a still more incredible revelation. Quite by accident he learned where the leg of lamb and all its associates had gone.
Minnie’s health was causing him a great deal of anxiety. She was in a perpetual state of exhaustion and worry, and refused to be relieved. It was one of her most sacred principles that it was not only meritorious but absolutely a duty for a domestic house-loving woman to tire herself out every day. In addition to doing a great many tasks which Mrs. Hansen had plenty of time and ability to do, she would take a walk every afternoon, even if it rained. The doctor said it was too much for her, advised her resting more, but although she listened to him sweetly, she said afterward to Mr. Petersen that she knew what was good for herself better than all the doctors on earth. She wouldn’t even take Sandra with her on these walks; she said she had to be alone, for her nerves. Mr. Petersen warned her of rough characters from the brick yards and solemnly cautioned her to guard against being frightened; certain roads she was never to take, and she said she wouldn’t.
So that he was alarmed and annoyed one day to see her crossing the railway tracks and starting off down the very worst of all the forbidden ways. He had happened to go over in that direction himself to see one of the comrades who wanted to build a house. At first he didn’t believe his eyes; it couldn’t be Minnie, in the dusk of a raw October day, deliberately and unnecessarily walking through that wretched quarter of drunken Slavs. But it was surely her hat ...! He hurried after her. She was a long way in advance, and before he had caught her up she had turned off the main road where the wretched hovels were, and entered a little wood.
It was quite dark there, under the trees, and very still; there was a faintly marked path, which the workmen sometimes used as a short cut to the brickyards in summer, but quite deserted at this time of the year. A mat of sodden leaves underfoot, and a damp reek of decay. He was really angry at her morbid folly; such a place might well be dangerous. But just as he was on the point of speaking to her, gently, so that she shouldn’t be startled, she rushed up to the dim form of a man who had materialised from the twilight. She kissed him several times.
Mr. Petersen was near enough to hear every word, although he could not distinguish the man. It was Minnie’s voice which most astounded him—it was not her voice; it had tones he had never before heard, never imagined; it was gay, tender, full of a beautiful bravery.
“My darling boy!” she said, “I’ve only an instant. Is your cold clearing up at all?”
“How’s Sandra?” he asked curtly. His voice was hoarse and weak.
“Splendid! I’ve brought you a little something to eat, dear. You must do all you can to keep up your strength. For just a little while longer.”
“Oh, my God! Minnie!” he groaned, “I wish I were dead! And you too. And Sandra. It’s too much for me——”
“Don’t, don’t, my dearest! Just a little while longer. I ought to go now, really.... But I can’t leave you like this. Say one word to comfort me, dear. Tell me you’ll be brave, just a little while longer.”
“I am brave,” he answered grimly. “If I weren’t, I shouldn’t be here.”
Once more she kissed him.
“Good-bye, my dearest!” she said. “Keep up your courage! God bless you! I’ll see you to-morrow as usual. And eat that nice beef, won’t you? You need it so!”
She turned away and retraced her steps, through the wood and through the settlement. She was hurrying and breathing painfully, and Mr. Petersen heard a gasping little sob now and then.
He was afraid of startling her too much by speaking just then. He waited until she was slowly climbing the hill above the tracks before he came up with her.
“Minnie!” he said as gently as possible, “Who was that?”
She looked at him wildly; her eyes made him think of a terrified horse, and she quivered like one.
“Chris!” she cried. “You didn’t——!” And abruptly and mechanically began to scream, shriek after shriek.
“Stop! Stop!” he implored, in dreadful anxiety. “Calm yourself! Never mind! Don’t tell me; only stop! Stop! Please, Minnie!”
She couldn’t now. There in the road, where the Slav colony could hear her and coming rushing to witness, she had a frightful hysterical attack. Mr. Petersen sent someone after one of the old station hacks, and got her home at last. He was dripping with perspiration and altogether in a bad state when the doctor came; he was sure he had killed Minnie.
She was not allowed to talk that night; a trained nurse came and took charge of her, and kept Petersen out of the room. He didn’t go to bed at all; he sat in his study, in dreadful anguish.
In the morning the nurse came down and told him he might see his wife for a few minutes. He tried to compose himself; he soaked his great yellow head in cold water until his hair lay sleek as a seal; he swallowed a glass of brandy, but nothing helped him. He so dreaded what he might hear.
Minnie loved that man. No matter what she said, she couldn’t make him doubt that. Her words, above all, her voice.... She must have been meeting that incredible, that unimaginable lover for weeks, feeding him.... He was not in the least angry at her. On the contrary he felt very, very sorry for her. But he did not want to see her, or to hear what she was going to say. If it were only possible for her to be restored to health and then to vanish!
He couldn’t speak. He went over to her bedside and stood looking down at her. She was worn, pale, more troubled than ever. But she met his glance; she had not the look of a guilty woman.
“You’ll have to be told now,” she said. “I wanted to wait—but I suppose you wouldn’t consent——?”
“You needn’t tell me anything——” he began.
She closed her eyes wearily.
“You’d never trust me.... He’s my brother. We’ve never spoken of him ... he’s caused us a great deal of sorrow—disgrace, poor fellow. Through drinking. Father wouldn’t let us see him, or mention him. And Grandma was just as harsh. Even Frankie turned against him....”
She paused a moment and feebly wiped the tears from her closed eyes.
“But I’ve always seen so much good in him. I’ve always been so fond of him, poor fellow!... So much good—going to waste!”
“But, Minnie, if you’d only spoken to me——”
“I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair to him. He’s very proud, in his way.”
Mr. Petersen sat down beside her, and tried, in a long silence, to adjust himself to this. He was conscious of a great relief, a terrible burden being lifted from him. And a feeling of guilt in the presence of the poor little woman. How could he for an instant have suspected Minnie, respectable, conscientious, maternal Minnie, of having a lover! Filthy, vile, preposterous idea!
“We’ll find a way to help your brother, my dear,” he said.
She reached out a calloused and hot little hand and put it into his.
“Chris,” she said, “what I want is to have him here. Under my eye. Where I can look after him. May I?”
“Of course, my dear.”
“But, Chris, I want you to understand it all. It’s such a difficult situation. For a man like him—brought up in the best schools in England——”
“In England!” exclaimed Mr. Petersen.
“Yes; Father liked the English schools best for boys. Alec’s lived in England for years,” she explained, a little impatient at the interruption. “He’s quite an Englishman. But, listen carefully, Chris, please. It’s going to be very hard to get him here.”
“Why? Can’t——?”
“You see, I didn’t tell him I was married. He wouldn’t have taken anything from me if he hadn’t believed it was all mine. I told him I had a position.... It will be a great shock to him, and he’s far from well. If you’ll only promise to do just exactly as I tell you, please, Chris!”
He was rather amused at her solemnity.
“Whatever you think is necessary,” he said, indulgently.
“It is—very necessary. I’ve written a note, and I want you to take it to him in that same place in the wood this afternoon at five. And, Chris, don’t talk to him, don’t tell him anything—any single thing—until he’s read it. Not anything. It’s very important for him to learn it all from me—from the note. Promise!”
“Very well, my dear.”
“You see, I know just how to manage him, so that he won’t be too much shocked. And you’d better take your pocket flashlight, or you’ll be giving the letter to the wrong person.”
II
Privately Mr. Petersen considered it a preposterous errand. He set off at half-past four with the note and made his way through the windy twilight to the wood. At first he couldn’t find the fellow; at last he discovered him sitting on a fallen log a few feet from the path, sunk in apathy.
“Is your name Defoe?” he asked.
The man jumped up.
“What is it?” he asked. “Have you a message from her?”
Mr. Petersen handed him the note and the flashlight by which to read it, and with no little curiosity, tried to study his appearance in the little spot of light. But couldn’t; could see no more than a thin, long hand clutching the letter. It seemed a long one.
Presently the flashlight was extinguished and the little wood was very dark, and still. Mr. Petersen respected the feelings of the sensitive brother for a long time, but he couldn’t wait there all night.
“Shall we be getting along?” he said, pleasantly.
Out of the dark came that hoarse and pitiful voice.
“Who are you?” it asked.
“Petersen,” he answered.
“The man—the man that Minnie——?”
“Her husband; yes. Are you ready?”
The man came abreast of him, and began walking by his side with weary and heavy steps.
“Is she so very ill?” he asked.
“No-oo,” said Petersen. “Not very. Can’t look for perfect health, I suppose, in her condition.”
“There’s a baby coming in a few weeks, you know.”
He was surprised her brother hadn’t noticed; then reflected that he had only seen her in the dark.
“The doctor tells me there’s no cause for worry,” he went on. He was curiously anxious to reassure the fellow; he was moved by a great pity for him which he could not have explained. Simply that his voice, his manner, the very atmosphere about him, seemed tragic and terrible.
They went on toward the house, Petersen talking cheerfully, neither exacting nor expecting replies from his companion. They entered the hall, and he turned, for the first time, to look at him.
Like a madman, like a ghost, so deadly pale and haggard and ruined.... He couldn’t bear to look at him. He turned away, but found the image still in his eyes, the tall, lean fellow with his fine-featured face, his great grey eyes, so sunken and luminous, his straggling beard, his ruffled hair, all his shabbiness and wretchedness.
He wanted to propose a bath and a shave before going in to Minnie; the poor devil wasn’t a fit object for her gaze. But he divined the morbid sensitiveness of the famished creature, and was afraid of hurting him. As he hesitated, little Sandra came in from the kitchen.
He caught her violently in his arms.
“Sandra!” he cried. “Don’t you know me?”
She looked up into his face.
“No,” she whimpered, frightened. “Put me down!”
III
His interview with Minnie was very brief, for the nurse sent him out without ceremony, and followed him downstairs.
“Mr. Petersen,” she said, “I’m going to telephone for the doctor.”
The two men looked at her in alarm.
“Is she worse?” asked Mr. Petersen.
“She’ll soon be better,” answered the nurse, with a smile.
Mr. Petersen caught her arm as she was going.
“You don’t mean—it’s beginning now?” he asked. “I thought—three weeks more at least——?”
The nurse smiled again.
“I shouldn’t be surprised!” she said.
Mr. Petersen felt utterly frightened and helpless. He looked about in vain for comfort, saw only the very professional nurse, and Alec, more alarmed than himself.
“Will it be—bad?” he asked the nurse, but she went hurrying upstairs again. He followed her, but wasn’t allowed to come into the room.
“You’ll only make her nervous,” the nurse told him, severely. “You must be sensible now, Mr. Petersen, and not worry me. I’ve got my hands full!”
So he went down again and met the doctor coming in. He, too, had the professional cheerfulness so difficult to endure.
“Take a drink,” he advised, “and go out for a walk. We don’t need you!”
He went back into his study once more, and was surprised to see the brother still there. He had forgotten all about him. He poured out a drink for him, too, and sat down, very glad to have someone with him. He became fictitiously cheerful to hide his anguish. And every time he heard a footstep overhead, his heart bounded horribly.
He poured out a second glass of brandy for each of them, and was sorry to see the misery on the face of the other, not to be dispelled by many drinks. He tried to console him, said, after all, it was a perfectly natural thing—a beautiful thing. But didn’t believe it himself. There wasn’t—there couldn’t be beauty in the bestial agony of a poor little woman. It was natural enough, natural as an owl crunching the bones of a rabbit....
Suddenly there was a long, horrible groan from upstairs. Mr. Petersen turned pale, and reached blindly for the brandy.
“My God!” he muttered. “This is——” But was cut short by a frantic clutch at his arm. The brother stood swaying like a reed; suddenly collapsed and fell at his feet unconscious.
IV
He was fully occupied with this other sufferer for a long time. He did all the proper things, threw water over him, slapped his hands, forced brandy down his throat, until he revived. Then he fetched Mrs. Hansen and she made him drink hot soup and eat bread and butter. There wasn’t a sound upstairs. Resolutely Mr. Petersen kept his mind away from Minnie, and clung to Mrs. Hansen, followed her wherever she went. Her calmness, her ordinariness solaced, as well as the fact that she was a woman. He questioned her minutely about Alec and what she thought he needed, without listening to her replies. It was only her reassuring voice he needed.
“There now!” she exclaimed. “Mr. Petersen, the doctor’s coming down.”
“She’s dead!” he thought.
But the doctor was smiling.
“A fine boy!” he said.
V
Presently, as dawn was breaking, the nurse came running downstairs to Mr. Petersen.
“You may go in for just a minute!” she said.
She was looking worn and jaded, and, for the first time, not immaculately neat. She was human now.
Mr. Petersen took it upon himself to invite Alec to come with him.
“It will do you good, my boy,” he said.
So they entered the room together, together had their first glimpse of the newly-born little man. He was asleep, his red, wizened little face screwed up into a look of comical misery, his tiny dark-red claws stretched up. The nurse assured them that he was large and that he was healthy.
Minnie was lying flat on her back, with a long braid of hair over each shoulder, framing a very pale and grave face. She was exhausted and ill, but proudly victorious, aware that she had accomplished a masterly thing. Thus had she replied to all doubts or questions whatever that might arise within Mr. Petersen. She was the mother of his son; she had established a claim upon his heart and upon his conscience which he could never deny. He not only loved her, he reverenced her. A deep conviction, belonging to a somewhat old-fashioned brand of Socialism, of the “sacredness of motherhood,” lay in him. Minnie had heard a great deal of it from him. It made her more than ever conscious of what a remarkable and praiseworthy thing she had accomplished. She looked at the two men with a worn yet sublime smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I
The days that followed were the golden days of Mr. Petersen’s life, the happiest he was ever to have.
Minnie was angelic. Her worry, her preoccupied air had gone; she was gentle, gay, affectionate. She didn’t get well very fast and had to stay in bed for some weeks, but that was no burden; she liked it. With her tiny son beside her and little Sandra quietly playing nearby, she was contented and blissful for hour after hour.
She developed a great fondness for being read aloud to; all evening and part of the afternoon one of the two men could be seen sitting by the bed with a book. Her taste was astoundingly catholic; as a matter of fact, she didn’t care in the least what was read, or pay much heed to it, so long as she could secure the uninterrupted companionship of one of her men. She only wanted to see them there, safe and happy.
Mrs. Hansen managed the house and Sandra to perfection. There wasn’t a bother or an annoyance from one day’s end to another. Except that Mr. Petersen felt a bit disturbed about the brother’s state of health. He had taken a great liking to the fellow, and he hated to see him so despondent.
Theirs was a most curious companionship. He realised how curious some time later. Mr. Petersen had never before met a man of this class and type; he had been wont to despise them, to look upon them as hindrances to the Socialist scheme, and useless from any point of view. Now he revised his ideas, in his open-minded fashion. Alec’s education he couldn’t admire; he really knew nothing at all, nor was he particularly intelligent. But his ideas were fine. They were not personal to him, they were nothing more than traditions, and yet Mr. Petersen was forced to admit that such traditions were quite as good, if not a great deal better, than anything which most men would have been able to work out originally. Principles of honour, of fidelity, of endurance. No matter that he didn’t live up to his principles very well; who did, anyway? Mr. Petersen himself was aware of many betrayals of his own faith. The thing was to aspire.
What is more, he liked the personality of the fellow; his simplicity, his infinite gentleness with Sandra. Certainly he would have liked to see him more cheerful, still, he could very well understand this depression in a man well over thirty who had failed to make a living for himself. He proposed looking about for some opening for him, but Alec said, no thanks, he was going away in a day or so. He was reserved to the point of mysteriousness. Mr. Petersen used to discuss him with Minnie and ask her advice.
“You know him better than I do,” he said. “What do you think would suit him?”
Minnie, as always incapable of answering a question, would say:
“But let’s keep him here, anyway, Chris. It’s the best place for him.”
She had the greatest devotion for her brother, a devotion which Mr. Petersen fancied was not quite appreciated. He was so formal with the affectionate little soul. If she succeeded in kissing him good-night or good-morning, he would turn scarlet and actually frown at her. He never returned a caress, never spoke a tender word to her. He seemed rather to avoid her. He was willing enough to read aloud, but if she interrupted him, and wanted to chat a bit, he lost his temper.
“Do you want me to read or not?” he would ask, menacingly.
Sombre and inscrutable, he withdrew into himself, disregarding even Mr. Petersen’s always renewed offers of friendship. He treated Mr. Petersen with a respectful deference which would have been grotesque if he had not been so obviously sincere.
Sandra he loved passionately. It surprised Mr. Petersen to hear him upbraiding Minnie for her carelessness with the child. Her food, her clothes, her manners. He was always saying that she should be taken to church, and taught what he called “decent ideas,” and Minnie always promised to comply when she grew stronger. She was invariably propitiating toward her brother, as toward someone she had wronged....
II
The War broke out. With very little effect upon Brownsville Landing. “Let them fight it out,” was the prevailing opinion; it was also stated positively that none of the nations had any clear idea of its aims or why it was involved. Even the Belgians were fools, who had rushed into war for no reason. There was a certain amount of awfully sentimental sympathy for the “Belgian babies,” but it wasn’t very effective. The Brownsville Landing natives looked upon the whole affair as a colossal folly, in which all the participants were equally guilty; the British perhaps a bit more reprehensible than the others. The old families, brought up on flamboyant traditions of “1776,” looked upon the British with scorn and dislike, the Irish element with positive hatred, and the great mass of aliens, with their obscure and vague affiliations, swallowed docilely the German propaganda fed to them. There was a wide-spread conviction that the Germans were invincible, if not superhuman, with amazing scientific devices impossible to resist. A sort of laboratory witchcraft, “secrets” and “discoveries” without limit. France was degenerate and vitiated; England gross, slothful, devoid of patriotism, Russia a farce; the whole affair wouldn’t last long.
To Mr. Petersen, the European, the outbreak was of immense significance; it was the falling of Damocles’ sword. He read the papers avidly. He was not partisan; he felt nothing but the passionate interest of an onlooker observing a mortal struggle between equally unpleasant adversaries. A struggle among capitalists. With the poor man dying, bleeding, suffering, whether victor or conqueror. He shook his head over the fate of the Continent.
It surprised him that Minnie’s feelings were so vehement. She was absolutely furious that there should be a war. All those men should have known better. She didn’t know or care what it was about; she declared it was shameful and wicked for so many people to be killed. She went so far as to weep over it. He knew Minnie well enough to guess at something personal in this fervour; an abstract interest was not possible for her.
Sure enough, it was a personal matter. It concerned her adored brother. He had evidently been telling her that he wanted to enlist, for one morning Mr. Petersen heard them at it, taking it up again with incredible obstinacy and indirectness on both sides.
“I won’t let you!” cried Minnie. “I won’t have it!”
“Good God! What do you want to make of me? Can’t you see, even you, that it’s the only way to rehabilitate myself? My only chance. I shan’t lose it, no fear!”
“Don’t you dare!” she cried hysterically. “I’ll die! It would kill me!”
Mr. Petersen entered after Alec had gone out angrily, banging the door.
“Minnie, my dear,” he said, mildly, “don’t you think you’re wrong to try to influence your brother in such a——”
“Oh, do stop!” she interrupted rudely. “You don’t understand.” And suddenly grew angry with him. “I should think you could see he’s not fit for a military life. So thin and sensitive. How can you be so heartless.”
Mr. Petersen remarked that if he weren’t fit for a military life, he wouldn’t be accepted, but Minnie said she knew all about that; they’d take anyone they could get hold of, even in a dying condition.
This marked the end of her period of sweetness. With her characteristic scorn for doctor’s orders, she refused to stay in bed any longer. In a wrapper, thinner, pallid, and untidy, she pervaded the house, for the sole purpose of keeping her eye on Alec. She followed him about, scolding him, crying, tormenting him. He stopped arguing, he absolutely refused to answer her. He would sit, with a cigarette in his mouth, quite unmoved by her tirades.
It was undoubtedly a unique opportunity for the poor fellow to “rehabilitate” himself, as he put it, and Mr. Petersen couldn’t understand why he hesitated. Surely no man owed so immoderate a duty to a sister. If he wanted to go, if he saw it as his duty to go, why in Heaven’s name, didn’t he go, and at once?
All of poor Minnie’s loves were so inordinate. She was to Alec as she was to her children, utterly and blindly devoted, without the least discretion or scruple. He knew that she didn’t love him in that way, but he felt it was because he was independent, didn’t need her so. Her whole life consisted in service for those weaker ones. The most superfluous services, that instead of helping hindered. She annoyed Alec by her futile and insistent attentions, by counting his cigarettes and deploring their number, by bringing him special dishes which were intended to fatten him. She denied Sandra nothing, no matter how injurious and stupid. She served her little son by carrying him in her arms continually, never let him alone in peace. Only to Mr. Petersen she did nothing but her duty, and not always that, though she didn’t realise it.
The old disorder was re-established, on account of trouble with Mrs. Hansen.
Minnie came into his little room one morning, frowning.
“Chris,” she said. “You’ll have to tell that woman to go at once!”
“Who, my dear?”
“You know very well! That Hansen woman! This time she’s surpassed herself. I never heard of such impudence. Never! There she was, the old—creature—snooping round in Alec’s room. Snooping!”
Now Mr. Petersen had long been aware of this sole failing in an otherwise classically lofty character. He knew that Mrs. Hansen snooped. But, having no secrets, her snooping hadn’t particularly disturbed him. He realised, too, that for one of Minnie’s secretive nature, snooping must seem a crime; he knew by this time that she had plenty of things to hide, queer little magpie stores, money she imagined she was saving, clothes she had ruined in the making, bills she didn’t wish seen. He thought it rather humorous.
“That’s too bad,” he said, soothingly. “Still—perhaps if you speak to her——”
“Indeed I shan’t. You engaged her and you can get rid of her. I will not have her in the house. Poking her nose into everyone’s affairs. She’s got to go at once!”
She heard the baby crying and turned to go.
“I never did trust that woman,” she said, turning back at the door. “I always felt there was something queer when we missed all that food last autumn.”
Mr. Petersen was stricken dumb. To accuse poor Mrs. Hansen of that!
And such was the plausibility, the fatal assurance of Minnie’s manner, that he was almost inclined to disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes, to deny the facts known to him, and to put his faith in her words....
She got another servant, a silly young girl, and between them they produced a masterpiece of discomfort and disorder. They quarrelled, too, in a distressing way; but were nevertheless conscious of a sort of bond. Mr. Petersen would hear Minnie in the kitchen preparing food for the baby and talking to Addie with interest, with animation, as she had never talked to Mrs. Hansen, who was so much more worth talking to. And Addie would reply as one woman to another. They used to discuss the war sometimes with deep indignation. Their opinions were identical. Addie’s young man, who was a German with American citizenship, hankered after the Fatherland, and wanted to go home and fight, but Addie had told him firmly that if he did, she was done with him. He could find one of those fat German girls.
Minnie’s housekeeping annoyed her brother very much. In fact, Mr. Petersen thought him unnecessarily fault-finding with the anxious little woman. She used to cry sometimes but she never resented anything he said. She would excuse herself by saying that the baby took up so much of her time. And that was a new cause of offense. He accused her bitterly of favouritism, and even Mr. Petersen was obliged to admit a basis of truth in the accusation. She had an absolutely frantic passion for her little son; she was ready enough to be sharp and unjust to Sandra if she disturbed his inordinate demands for quiet slumber.
It was a beautiful, a wonderful baby, a lusty, blonde little Petersen with serene blue eyes and a sort of debonair quality; a baby no woman could be blamed for adoring. But she was so immoderate, so inordinately proud of having a son anyway. And when, combined with its superior sex, it possessed the attractions of this son, how withstand it? She expected Sandra to worship as she did, and Sandra refused. Sandra was annoyed with this superfluous child. As far as she was concerned it was useless, too young for a playmate and not docile enough for a toy. Moreover it received attentions which properly belonged to her. Uncle Alec alone confined his devotion to her.
He didn’t want the little girl out of his sight. He spent many hours walking through the garden, holding her hand, listening to her, touching her misty hair. He couldn’t play with her or amuse her as Mr. Petersen did, but she was able to love him even more. They had between them a rare and touching sympathy.
Mr. Petersen thought it charming. He often watched the grave little girl, sitting on the sofa beside the wretched man, reading aloud to him from her funny little books, which she knew by heart, sometimes stopping to run her little hand over his cheeks, or his beard, which amused her.
“Isn’t that a nice one?” she would ask, ending some story about bears or wolves or fairies.
“Rather!” he would answer. “You’re a very clever, good kid to read to me like that.”
III
Mr. Petersen came home one day at noon, and found no trace of lunch. Addie was not in the kitchen, nor Minnie. The latter he could always trace by means of his son’s voice, and he went up to the bedroom, to find her lying on the bed, exhausted, sobbing, while Addie bathed her forehead with cold water while she dandled the baby.
“Well, well!” he asked. “What’s wrong now?”
“He will enlist!” cried Minnie wildly. “You’ve got to stop him! I won’t have it. I’ll die!”
“Pshaw!” said Mr. Petersen mildly. “This won’t do!”
He was a little annoyed.
“You must let a man do as he thinks right,” he said.
“Right!” cried Minnie. “He’s not thinking of that! He wants to get away—— He’s made up his mind to get away from me!”
“Come, come! This isn’t very sensible, my dear!”
“Neither are you!” she answered, unexpectedly. “You’re the biggest fool in the world, Christian Petersen!” And began to laugh.
In the course of time she was calmed, and Mr. Petersen went downstairs to look for a bite to eat. He discovered Alec in the kitchen with Sandra, boiling eggs.
“Minnie been at you?” he asked.
Mr. Petersen admitted that she had.
“She’ll have to get over it, that’s all,” said Alec. “I’m going! About Sandra—I’ve got something ... a small income.... It isn’t clear now; I’ve drawn against it for some time to come ... but what there is, is for her. I.... You’ll look out for her, won’t you, in case I——? She’s—Minnie doesn’t altogether understand her. Not so well as you do.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Mr. Petersen, who was too kindly even to hint that he didn’t need to be shown his duty toward Sandra by this poor failure. “You’ve really made up your mind then?”
“All the mind she’s left in me!” he answered with sudden passion. “Good God! What does the woman want! She wants to own a man, body and soul. Wants me to hang about here a disgraced, ruined man, not even trying to—stand alone—— The most disgusting, despicable object under the sun—so that she won’t be separated from me. Good God! If I’d ever thought I’d come to this, Petersen ...!”
“Now then, my boy,” said Mr. Petersen gently, “don’t blame your sister too harshly. She’s too much a woman to understand these things. And don’t be bitter. You’re a young man yet. You can——”
“No!” said Alec, “It’s too late. You’ve only to look at me to see I’m done for. In every way. Physical as well as—moral. No good. Rotten all the way through. My only chance is to get into the army. If they won’t have me, I’m finished.”
He was so obviously excited that Mr. Petersen did not remonstrate.
“If I can help you,” he said, “with your outfit, for instance, let me know. I’d be very glad. Or ... if you need ready money——?”
Alec looked at him sombrely.
“Petersen,” he said, “some day you’ll understand. And I hope you’ll—— But I can’t expect it.... Only, before I go, I’d like you to know that—I’m not so bad as I seem.—I—I realise.... I hope I’m going to be killed. Perhaps that’ll wipe out—this. You might—in that case—not judge me so—you might—have mercy....”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I
Mr. Petersen was thankful to escape from the house the next morning. After what a night! No sleep for anyone; even the baby had been awake and crying half a dozen times.
Minnie had opened her attack on Alec. Mr. Petersen heard her, hour after hour, raging, crying, pleading with him in his room. Time after time he had tried to go out, but she would spring in front of him and bar the door.
“You’ve got to listen to me!” she shrieked.
At last, very reluctantly, Mr. Petersen felt obliged to intervene. He knocked on the door two or three times unheard, for the storm was raging wildly. Then he turned the knob and walked in. Minnie was on her knees, clasping Alexander tightly, while he stood, white and cold, not even looking at her.
Mr. Petersen was shocked and for the first time angry at Minnie.
“Get up!” he commanded. “This is disgusting!”
She turned her face, blistered with tears, to him.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t let him go!” she cried, “Chris, for Heaven’s sake——!”
He made the fatal mistake of trying to argue with her. He was quiet and reasonable, and she aped his manner to perfection. Argued with him, the distorted and plausible arguments of a madwoman, became quiet, scornful. She involved him in a maze, bewildered and confounded him, and made it more and more difficult for him to keep his temper.
Alec gave him sound advice.
“It’s no use talking to her,” he said. “She never listens.”
They all became violent and rude. Sandra waked up and came running in, barefooted, wide-eyed, pale, stood listening for a long time. Then the baby began to cry again and Minnie hurried to it, but when Alec tried to escape downstairs, she flew after him, baby in arms, and again barred his way.
An awful night! Mr. Petersen unlocked his office and sat down with a great sigh. Never suspecting the far more awful night that was drawing in upon him. The climax, which so strangely and regularly occurs in human affairs, the definite point of departure, of division between the old days and the new, was approaching. His doom drew near.
He had just begun to lose himself in his business papers when there was a rap at the door. It was too early for Miss Layne; he was rather surprised; he called out “Come in!” and the instrument of fate entered.
It was Frances.
He was astonished and pleased. He had always admired Frances. He brought forward a chair.
“Miss Defoe!” he exclaimed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you!”
“Five years, nearly,” she answered with a sigh and a smile. “But you haven’t changed a bit!”
She had, he thought; she had improved. She looked older; no longer a girl, but straighter, more vigorous, more nobly honest than ever. Her face was a little cold in its severe, composed beauty, but not at all hard. A woman who expected a great deal, but who also forgave a great deal. She was dressed very plainly but with distinction, with pride. He could see no sort of resemblance to Minnie.
“And where have you been all the while?” he asked.
“Out on the Coast. I went out as a doctor’s secretary. Then I helped him with some research work. He recommended me to other doctors, so I set up a little office of my own. For very special sort of work. Only medical. Compiling and revising and translating books and articles doctors wrote. I was doing very well. I’d got quite a reputation in my line.”
He admired her modest pride, her simple assumption of his interest in her affairs. He praised her enterprise.
“I like it. It’s been very interesting. And profitable. And I’ve learned a great deal. I’ve watched operations. I’ve even helped doctors in an unofficial way. Especially with children. And now I’ve come East again to see if I can’t get into the war somehow. I’m not a nurse, but I could train for special work. I’ve lots of letters to all sorts of people. I think I could be useful somewhere.”
“I should think so,” he said, thinking to himself that such a woman would be useful in any place. Their eyes met in a glance almost affectionate, a regard made up of memories of the old days of faithful work together, of their old respect and esteem.
“I wanted,” she said, with a smile, “to have another look at Brownsville Landing, and Mr. Petersen. I’ve always remembered you. I think, in the old days, I didn’t quite appreciate you, and I wanted—it’s sentimental, isn’t it—but before I went to Europe I wanted to come back and say thank you, for all the many, many kind things you did for us. I don’t think any of us realised—— Only now, after I know the world a little better, I’m able to judge you a little better.”
He turned scarlet with delight and confusion. He had never before heard such words, never received acknowledgment of his generosity.
“I had to tell you,” she went on, “in case I didn’t come back.... I’ve seen a good many people in these last years. I’ve learned what to expect, more or less. And I can see now how rare it was—the way you treated us. There we were, living on your bounty, and turning up our silly noses at you. Silly, shabby little snobs! Only we didn’t know any better. We didn’t know anything at all. We really weren’t able to appreciate——”
“Please stop!” he said, laughing, “I can’t listen.” He was silent for a minute.
“You make me very proud and happy,” he went on, at last. “What I did was nothing. I had a great regard for your family. And I sincerely regretted all your misfortunes. I.... It’s very kind of you to speak to me in this way——”
He held out his hand.
“Thank you again,” he said. “You don’t often find people willing to express a good opinion of one. Bad points—mistakes, they’re mentioned fast enough——”
“Don’t I know!” she cried, grasping his huge paw.
“Now!” said he, still beaming, “You’ll come home with me and see Minnie, won’t you?”
“Minnie! Here?”
“I forgot you didn’t know. I’m married to Minnie.” Frankie’s face turned quite white.
“But—married to Minnie! But ... I thought—Mr. Naylor ...?”
“He died,” said Mr. Petersen. He knew nothing about Frankie’s connection with the dead man, or he wouldn’t have been so unconcerned. As it was, he was distressed at the change that came over her face. It was quite distorted for a minute, with grief, with anguish, with a terrible resentment.
“Died!” she repeated. “I didn’t know!”
He saw that there was something in this unknown to him. He kept silent.
“And then she married you. Soon after, I suppose?”
“I don’t know,” he had to answer. “I never asked her.”
She looked squarely into Mr. Petersen’s eyes.
“I was engaged to him once,” she said, “until Minnie took him away from me.”
She was still for a moment.
“I ought not to talk like this to you,” she went on. “It’s not fair. Only ... I thought I’d got over it ... and all the time, it ... was there. I ... feel so—cheated!”
Her fine mouth quivered.
Mr. Petersen rose.
“Come,” he said, kindly. “Come home with me now and see Minnie. Perhaps she’ll have something to say to you.”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak to Minnie.”
“I’m sure you could,” he answered. “I wish you’d try. Give her a chance to explain. Perhaps there’s a misunderstanding. And even if there isn’t, you’re ... I’m sure you’re able to come. Please!”
She got up with a sigh.
“I might as well,” she said, “one can’t go on forever being cynical. It’s all over, long ago.”
They went out together on to the Main Street, busier, more prosperous now, but still familiar to her. She walked by his side, with her fine, free stride, so very different from Minnie’s anxious bobbing. They passed the Eagle House and turned the corner.
“Oh!” cried Mr. Petersen, suddenly. “There’s a piece of good news too. Your brother is with us.”
“I haven’t any brother,” said Frances.
“Your brother who was in England.”
“But I never had a brother!”
“Your brother Alec!” he said, quite loudly.
“I never knew anyone called Alec in my life.”
Mr. Petersen stopped short and grasped her arm.
“Please, Miss Defoe,” he said, “try to recollect your brother. It—it’s very important!”
She looked at him with a puzzled frown.
“I’m sorry, but I never had a brother. Minnie and I were the only children. What made you——?”
He looked terribly shocked. He couldn’t go on, but remained stock still in the street, wiping his brow with an enormous handkerchief.
“Of course,” he said, in a stunned sort of voice, “it’s some—some kind of—misunderstanding. We’ll soon clear it up. Nothing to worry over.”
But she could see how terribly worried, how filled with dread and horror he was, and she too grew apprehensive.
“I wish you’d explain!” she entreated.
“Wait! We’ll be home in a minute!”
“Was there someone who pretended to be our brother?”
“Minnie said he was.... I ... it will be cleared up in a minute or two now. Nothing to worry over.”
But he was absolutely panting, wiping his streaming face as if in the thick of some tremendous exertion.
They went on down the quiet old street, to Mr. Petersen’s beloved home. It did not look at all as it had in the old days, when Frances used to go there for books; the curtains were dirty, blankets were hanging out of an upstairs window, and a baby’s toys littered the porch.
“Is there a baby?” Frances asked.
“Two,” he answered. “One of—his, and one of mine.”
She smothered a bitter sigh, and went with him through the gate, up the walk and into the house. The sitting-room was empty, and very dirty; no one in the dining-room, where the breakfast dishes still stood.
“They’re in the garden, I dare say,” said Mr. Petersen.
They hurried through the vile kitchen and down the back steps.
“There!” shouted Mr. Petersen, pointing to the end of the grape arbour. “There’s Minnie and your brother!”
Frances gave a shriek that horrified him, that caused the two at the end of the garden to look up suddenly:
“Her brother!” she cried, “Oh, Mr. Petersen! Mr. Petersen! It’s her husband!”
BOOK FOUR: THE DESTRUCTION OF LIONEL
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
One might imagine a sort of allegorical picture of Minnie’s progress. There would be Minnie, in her triumphal chariot, dressed in modern garments for the reason that her rather short and matronly form would in no wise be suited by any classic costume; she would be standing upright, her expression anxious but resolute, driving with careful skill the twin steeds which had carried her so well—Sex and Wilfulness, the latter with a single eye. Before her walk slowly the victims dedicated to sacrifice on her altar, Sandra and little Robert. Their poor little faces bear the shadow of their destiny. Behind her walk Frances, erect as ever, but incurably wounded—the woman robbed of her one love,—and Mr. Petersen, the honest man despoiled of his good repute. And tied to the car itself, dragged stumbling in her wake, stripped to the scornful gaze of the populace, ruined, broken, is Lionel, fastidious ruler of a tiny kingdom forever lost to him, shorn of all his pride and prestige, most pitiable of all her victims.
And she never glances back; her gaze is steadfastly forward, toward the future, where her children will surely suffer and die. She never looks to one side or the other, sees nothing of what she passes, neither the black valleys where lie bleaching bones, or the windy hill tops, bright and beautiful. Never hears a friendly hail or a warning cry, or a call for help.
In fact, I think that when at last she comes to the end of her journey, she will not know at all where she has been.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I
This is the story Lionel would have told, if he could. But, poor devil, he was as incapable of explaining himself as if he had been a creature from another planet. Even the few extenuating circumstances of his case he was never able to bring forward. He had always taken pride in his reticence, in concealing his sentiments. And from having lain ignored so long, they had grown unfamiliar to him, he didn’t know them when they came forth. Didn’t actually recognise his own feelings, past or present. He saw only that he was guilty; he accepted that sentence, not pleading his own weakness even to himself.
Poor devil! Poor devil! He never even knew that he had been the innocent victim of a most cruel seduction.
II
His martyrdom had begun on New Year’s Day, when he had gone to meet Frankie’s train, and Frankie had not come. He had returned for the next, two hours later, in vain, and for all the others, until late at night. He had eaten a wretched little supper in a cheap restaurant nearby and gone home to bed. He was stunned; he couldn’t believe in his misfortune.
Next morning a telegram came.
“Cannot return. Writing. Frankie.”
He hadn’t a penny. He sat in his room all day waiting for the letter, which reached him in the last mail that evening.
“My dearest boy,” she wrote, “the most dreadful thing has happened. My sister has gone away and of course I can’t leave Grandma alone and helpless. I am trying my best to think of some plan, but oh, Lionel, I am so worried about you! I enclose five dollars, which is all I have. I can’t imagine how you will make out. I have written a special delivery to Miss Eppendorfer to send me my salary, and I will forward it to you the instant it comes. My dear old boy! This is so miserable! Minnie has found some sort of place for herself, and says she is going to stay there for a year. I am thinking and thinking what I can do. Take care of yourself, my dear.
Always your
“Frankie.
“P.S. Minnie is at my aunt Mrs. Lounsbury’s, 226 Lenover Street, Brooklyn. You might go to see her and see if you can persuade her to come home. I don’t think it will do the least good, but it won’t do any harm to try.”
He went that very evening, used Frankie’s five dollars for a taxi, in order to make a good impression. It was a raw, wet night, fit for his desperate mood. He was determined to force the beastly, selfish sister to release his Frankie.
The taxi went across the bridge, over the mystical river, shrouded in fog, and turned into an avenue where trolleys crashed by and elevated trains thundered overhead, where fruit stalls did a brisk business with swarthy foreigners; a slum, he called it. He watched from the window in vain to find any place possible for an aunt of Frankie’s to inhabit. Then abruptly the driver swung round a corner, and left the unsavoury turmoil for a dark and quiet street, paved with cobblestones. A wind was blowing from the nearby river, bringing a dreary din of horns and whistles; there was no other sound, no traffic, no footsteps.
“No. 226,” said the driver. “Here you are!”
He got out, paid the fare with his last bill on earth, and climbed the steep flight of steps to the front door. There was an old-fashioned bell to be pulled; he heard it jangle inside. He waited in the wretched drizzle a long time, then rang again. The house was quite dark and the street too; the blurred lamps showed nothing but glistening cobblestones and pavement, and one stealthy cat slinking past. He shivered and sighed.
At last the door was opened and a head peered out cautiously.
“Well?” enquired a feminine voice.
“May I see Miss Defoe?” he asked. “It’s Mr. Naylor.”
“Come in!” said the voice.
He entered a narrow hall, lighted by a “Turkish” lamp, a pierced iron sort of thing, in which a feeble jet of gas burned. His guide turned to the right and lighted another gas jet, revealing a vast drawing-room, all the furniture shrouded in covers.
“Sit down,” she said, pleasantly. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long, but we go to bed very early, and the servants can’t hear the bell, up on the third floor.”
He asked again for Miss Defoe; he had no interest in anything else.
“I’m Miss Defoe,” said she. “What can I do for you?”
He scarcely looked at her.
“I’ve come to see——” he said, “to try to influence you if possible to——”
“I suppose to go back and let Frankie come to the city again,” she interposed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”
“I don’t think you realised what you were doing,” he said. “If you had, you wouldn’t—you couldn’t—have cut us off this way, without any warning. It was—absolutely inhuman. Did you know that your sister and I intended to be married?”
“She mentioned it,” said Minnie.
Her calmness infuriated him.
“Let me tell you!” he cried, “that I won’t submit to this. I’m going out there on Sunday and I shall try to persuade her to marry me at once.”
“She can’t. She can’t leave Grandma.”
“She’s not called upon to sacrifice her entire life to her grandmother, is she?”
“No,” said Minnie slowly.
She was thinking very hard.
Lionel changed his tone.
“I say! Miss Defoe! Please try to realise! You’re—I’m sure you don’t want to separate us—— You don’t want to make your sister suffer. She’s always spoken so affectionately of you. You know she wouldn’t treat you this way. Let her come back and marry me, and as soon as I’m on my feet a bit, I’ll do anything for you—anything you like.”
Minnie did not answer, or raise her eyes. She was still thinking. It was intolerable for her to be looked upon as heartless and selfish by this very nice young man. He pleased, he charmed her; she determined to appear well in his eyes. She was always inordinately sensitive to blame; it was vital to her to be admired by everyone. She didn’t so much intend to lie, as to idealise herself, to show him the Minnie she felt he would respect.
She found her note, with her unerring instinct.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, hesitatingly, “but I must be frank. You see, Mr. Naylor, Frankie’s nothing but a child. She’s so impulsive and unreasoning. She’s not practical like I am. That’s the reason I had to do as I did. I couldn’t stop her any other way.”
“Do you mean you—did this on purpose?”
“Why, of course. She told me ... forgive me for mentioning it ... how very poor you were—and I couldn’t let her make such a marriage. Not that way, so rashly—and a man we’d never seen. She will never listen to reason. I begged her to wait, even a little while; I didn’t want her to throw herself away. The only way was to make her a sort of prisoner, as I did. Aunt Irene had said ages ago that I could come here as her companion any time I wanted, so I packed up my things and went off at once. Then I intended to see you and—find out something about you.”
“Frankie doesn’t know you came for that reason—to prevent her marrying me,” he said, in a crestfallen way.
“I suppose not; she’s very hasty in her judgments. I suppose she puts it all down to selfishness and hard-heartedness. It doesn’t matter though, so long as I’ve saved her.”
He had not a word to say. Minnie had accomplished her favourite piece of magic, had made her opponent feel utterly guilty, had quite put him in the wrong. He was ready to believe that Frankie had been “saved” from a penniless and highly undesirable suitor.