My Lady Valentine

THE fourteenth of February had come. The windows of candy shops were stacked high with heart shaped boxes. The girls behind the counters of sweets took orders with lightning rapidity. The florists were hurrying off bouquets of violets and roses which must be delivered before the day died, without fail. Little boys tip-toed up steps, rang bells and ran away, leaving embossed envelopes on the stoops. From the news stands Better Every Week, in its new dress, cried to the world in bold, black letters that the Valentine Special was on the market. From its cover, Cupid in a biplane winged a world with his arrows.

“Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” Radding suggested to the young editor, as they paused for a fleeting moment in the subway to ask the girl behind the news stand how the edition was going.

“Yes, Rad, it does. I worked hard on it. Funny, isn’t it, that I should have edited a valentine number, when I have neither sent nor received a valentine in my life?”

“How did that happen?” asked Radding, as they found seats in the train.

“You know my boyhood. An orphan on my uncle’s farm, small chance I had of receiving or sending sentimental offerings.”

“Caley,” said Radding whimsically, “say the word and I’ll send you a tribute to-day. Which shall it be,—violets or mixed chocolates?”

Radding’s foolery made Whitman smile at his own expense. “The new magazine is valentine enough for me, Rad,” he said; “I’m feeling pretty good over it.”

He suddenly noticed that a man beside him was lost in the pages of the number. “Funny, isn’t it, Rad,” he whispered, indicating the reader, “that a bullet headed chap like that likes sentiment as well as a girl? I never get over it.”

At this moment, the man took out his knife and cut something from a column of the magazine, which he folded into his bill case before he flung the “Special” down and left the car. Whitman reached for the paper.

“I’m curious to see what caught his fancy,” he said.

“Yes,” Rad drawled, “when a writer’s stuff gets into vest pockets and shopping bags, an editor had better hold onto him.”

He watched with interest as Whitman turned the pages to see what was missing.

“What was it?” he asked, as Whitman gazed at the hole the knife had made.

“Nothing.” The words came stiffly. “Just”—Whitman turned his eyes heavily toward his friend. “Just Nancy’s poem. You know,—Lady Valentine.”

He looked steadily in front of him for a long moment, without a word.

Radding watched him narrowly. It was the first time either of them had mentioned the girl in Deep Harbor since that day last September when Whitman had come back, looking worn and haggard. “Don’t chaff me, Rad, please. I can’t stand it,” was all he had said in response to his friend’s badinage over his unexpected return. And Radding had respected that request. The subject had been dropped. Now, however, Radding seized the chance to say something that had long been in his mind.

“Caley,” he began gently, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you that I felt pretty bad over the outcome of our fun. I’ve never ceased to blame myself for fanning your interest in that girl; for teasing you to go up there.”

“You didn’t know—You thought it was the Captain who wrote the letters.”

Radding shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I can’t excuse myself that way.”

“Then why—”

“I wanted to get you out of the bachelor’s rut you were falling into from my bad example.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference, Rad. I’d have gone anyway. I was taken with her from the first.”

“Are you sure,” Radding began carefully, “that there was no mistake? Are you sure that she didn’t feel the same way about you?”

Whitman’s laugh was bitter. “I’m certain,” he said.

“Did she tell you so? Forgive my persistence.”

“She didn’t have to. There was—another man.”

“How do you know?”

“I learned it accidentally.”

“Have you ever heard from her since?”

“Early in the year I had a letter from Luffkin—the real Luffkin—corroborating all my fears. A week ago, I had one from her, asking me not to publish her poem, written as usual under the Captain’s name. The poem was already in press and had to go through, of course. I wrote a line telling her so, and that’s the end of it all.”

“Let me see the Captain’s letter some time, if you haven’t destroyed it,” Radding suggested.

Whitman promptly produced it from his pocket. “I saved it,” he said, “to keep me from indulging in any more foolish hopes.”

Rad pinched on his glasses and read:

“Was the sergeant the fellow?” asked Radding, when he had come to the Captain’s carefully lettered signature.

Whitman nodded, his face set.

Further comment was impossible, for at this moment the train pulled into Radding’s station.

“Wait for me at your office,” he said, as he rose. “I’ll be there about five.”

“It’s a half holiday,” Whitman reminded him.

“Better yet. Make it two, then. We’ll do something together.” And Radding was gone.

It was a quarter after two by the office clock. Whitman was about to close his desk and give Radding up, when the janitor, a draggled individual with the discouraged slant of a worn out broom, appeared in the door and croaked: “Party outside asking for a Mr. Radding. There’s no such person here, is there?”

“He’ll be here any minute,” Whitman replied. “Show the visitor in. I’ll talk to him.”

The janitor ambled down the long hall in the direction of the waiting room. Whitman once more took up the proofs of his novel, which he had laid aside preparatory to leaving. The visitor’s coming gave him fresh hope that Radding would finally appear. Engrossed in his work, Whitman had forgotten the invitation he had sent by the janitor, when he was aroused by a timid knock on the door. It was followed, upon his giving permission to enter, by the turning of the knob, the soft rustle of a woman’s garments, and an exclamation that was stifled almost before it escaped.

The young man raised his eyes. In the doorway stood a girl, in a fur hat and sable furs upon which the snow had frozen in glistening crystals. At the sight of Whitman, her face blanched beneath her veil.

“Nancy!” Whitman breathed, doubting the evidence of his eyes.

It was some moments before she attempted to speak. Then her lips moved stiffly:

“Who are you?” she said. “Why are you here?”

Whitman got to his feet. He did not move toward her, but steadying himself by a hand that found his desk, he spoke, the length of the room between them:

“I’m the Editor of Better Every Week, Nancy.”

“You deceived me, then. If I’d known—”

The young man finished the sentence for her, bitterly:

“You mean if you’d known that, you wouldn’t have come?”

“No, I would not have come.”

“Are you sorry, Nancy, to find me here?”

“I’m sorry that the old man in whom you let me believe is not a reality. I liked to think that I had a friend.”

“You surely know that I am your friend, Nancy; a thousand fold more sincerely your friend than he could ever have been—had he existed. I was your friend from the beginning. I am your friend now.”

To these protestations she made no answer.

“If Mr. Radding is not here,” she said at last, with an effort to control her voice, “I think that I must go.”

The dignity inherited from a long line of gentlewomen showed in the slight inclination of her head in his direction.

“He’ll be here,” Whitman promised, recklessly, feeling anything was more bearable than her going. “What did you want of him, Nancy?”

“I wanted to buy back some heirlooms I sold him when I was in trouble. Bob won’t hear of anything else, now that our necessity is over.”

“Is Bob—Sergeant Wilson?”

“He was; but the War Department has allowed him to change his name.”

“Is he with you?”

“Yes. He came to get measured for some new uniforms, and I came with him. He’s to call here for me and take me back to the hotel.”

“Nancy,” Whitman pleaded, looking down at her averted eyes, “tell me, are you happy? I can bear anything if you are.”

“I have everything to make me happy,” Nancy evaded him. “Aunt Roxana is radiant.” She smiled faintly. “She is going to give a ball to the whole regiment. She is so happy she has even forgiven me about the poem.”

“The poem?”

“The one you bought.”

“What was there to forgive?”

“It was her heart’s secret. She had written it when she was a girl like me. I did not know that, of course, when I sent it to you. I found it in a secret drawer. I thought some one long dead had written it.”

It was Whitman’s turn to be silent. When he spoke his voice trembled. “You can’t realize, Nancy, what it means to me to learn that those verses were not yours. I seem to have lost my last illusion.”

“You mean it was wicked to sell them? That’s what Aunt said until she learned what I wanted to do with the money.”

“Of course I don’t mean any such thing,” Whitman protested, indignantly. “I mean that I loved to think that it was your heart that waited there ‘Like violets under snow.’”

Nancy shook her head. “I didn’t write them, but I loved them. They taught me something that has helped me to go on.”

“What did they teach you, Nancy?”

“They taught me that love is always answered by love, at last. Aunt Roxana never had a lover, but Bob came, and filled her heart. Perhaps,” the sweet voice quavered, “it will be Bob’s son who will fill mine.”

Whitman’s voice was so tense it sounded hard.

“Nancy,” he said sternly, “did you marry without loving?”

“Marry!” A deep flush swept the pale cheeks, to the brim of the little fur hat. “I am not married.”

“Not yet?”

“Certainly not.”

“But you have a lover?”

The ghost of the old Nancy flickered in her uncertain smile. “I’m not sure,” she breathed.

“Please don’t tease me, Nancy.” A hot hand locked over hers. “Once for all, tell me who it was that came to you in the bower, that you kissed, that you let clasp you in his arms.”

“Why, Mr. Whitman,” she laughed on a long sobbing breath, while one little hand stole contritely into his. “Didn’t you know? That was Bob, my brother.”

“Your brother!”

Without waiting for another word; without asking where he stood in her affections, Whitman gathered the slight figure, muffled in furs, tight within his arms. He kissed the beautiful eyes until they laughed up at him once more. He kissed the cheeks until they bloomed. He kissed the mouth until the Cupid’s bow arched in its old, playful smile.

“Why, Caleb,” she gasped between his kisses, “didn’t you really know?”

“Know! Did you suppose if I had known I should have left Deep Harbor without one word, after that last night together? What did you think of me, Nancy? What could you have thought of me?”

The dark head drooped against his shoulder, as if glad to be at rest. “At first I thought all that Aunt had said of men was true. Then I found the moss rose I had given you, in the bower. I knew you must have seen me meet Bob, and I thought you could not have understood. And so, the moment the secret was out and Bob had his commission, I asked Captain Luffkin to write you—and still you did not come. Didn’t you get the letter?”

“Get the letter!” roared Whitman. “Of course I got the letter. It destroyed the last spark of hope within me. The blundering old walrus! He never once mentioned your relationship to the sergeant. If he steered a boat with no more skill than he writes letters, he’d be aground in five minutes.”

Nancy laughed softly. “It’s all over now,” she sighed contentedly. “My troubles and yours have vanished, as well as Bob’s.”

“Did Bob have such heavy troubles, dear?”

“Yes; I forgot you didn’t know. They explain everything. You see, Bob had been in the Academy—West Point, you know—but something happened, and they—dismissed him.”

“That was hard, wasn’t it, Sweetheart?”

“Aunt Roxana wrote him a terrible letter, and told him that he had disgraced his forefathers; that he must never enter our gate again.”

“Poor chap! Pretty rough on him, wasn’t it?”

“I used to think so, but it made a man of him. He enlisted in the ranks under the name of Wilson, and won his commission the very year his class graduated. In all that time Aunt Roxana had not heard one word of his whereabouts. I alone knew the secret. Oh! If you had seen her the day when Bob threw open the garden gate and strode up the walk with his head as high as hers, the straps on his shoulders.”

“She was pleased, was she, darling?”

“Pleased!” Nancy ejaculated, smiling. “She’s never talked of anything else since. She’s never looked at another person. And to think,” she sighed reminiscently, “how near he came to failing. If it hadn’t been for your buying my poem and your telling Mr. Radding, the collector, about my things, Bob might never have got his commission.”

“What had that to do with it, my own?”

“Ah, you don’t know. There was an old debt from Academy days that had to be paid. A cruel creature named Goldstein found out that Bob was in the ranks, and he threatened to tell the commanding officer the whole story, unless he was paid. It was life or death with us at that crucial time, to get the money. Bob raised all that he could—”

“Then my little general took a hand.”

“What sweet things you always say.” Her cheek caressed his sleeve. “I missed you so when you went away. It was winter in the garden and winter in my heart.”

“It’s spring now, beloved, forever and forever.”

A discreet knock on the wall of the corridor, well outside the open door, caused Nancy to retreat from Whitman’s arms and hurriedly put her hat to rights.

“Yes?” shouted Whitman fiercely, peering out to find the intruder.

The janitor coughed and smiled apologetically, “Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Whitman, but this note just came for you.”

Whitman opened it, while his arm again drew Nancy close.

“What does he mean?” asked Nancy, reading the note from the shelter of her lover’s arm.

“He’ll tell you at dinner, Rose of the World, in his own whimsical way.”

THE END