The cable

THAT night Cis took the pins out of her hair and let it fall around her, like a screen of molten metal which miraculously could envelop and not sear her. It shone above her white petticoat and over her bare arms and shoulders so resplendent that it was a pity that there was none to see it, though Cis felt no such regret. She did not consciously see herself as she stood before her mirror, letting down her Brünhilde-like tresses; her mind was filled with other thoughts, and she turned from the glass to switch off the electric light the better to follow out these thoughts and their conclusions.

She went over to the window and seated herself in a low chair, her right foot boyishly resting on her left knee that she might easily remove its shoe, but having removed it she absent-mindedly let it drop on the floor and stroked her silk-stockinged instep, forgetful that normally one takes off its mate when one shoe has been removed.

Cis was reliving her outing with Rodney that afternoon; it gave her food for new and serious thought. Rodney had definite and adverse views in regard to religion from her views and, apparently, he was especially adverse to hers, to the Old Faith. This surprised her. She had thought of him as indifferent, with an indifference not greatly unlike her own, the difference being that she was indifferent within her faith, while he was indifferent outside of any faith; the difference between two persons without an appetite, one seated at a table, the other resting in an ante-room. Yet this was an exaggeration of the situation as she had previously conceived it. Cis meant to keep her Faith, somewhat as one keeps a valuable piece of lace, not letting it get lost, but not often getting it out of its storage drawer. Rod, however, had pleaded with her, speaking with impassioned earnestness, not to adhere to the Church, to cast it off as a shackle. She had been amazed to find that he cared, violently desired to get her to drop out of her Church. Why did he? What difference could it make to him that she held to it, provided that it did not get in the way of their friendship? If she bothered him with it, tried to convince him of its truth, let it come between them in any way, behaved about it as Nan would, for instance, Rod might justly consider it a nuisance, but as it was, why did he mind? He had said that he had once learned catechism. What catechism? Episcopalian? Cis thought that Lutherans, and Presbyterians also, had a catechism, but she was not conversant with the ways of the Protestant sects. It could not have been the Catholic catechism? In that case Rod himself had once been to Mass, had probably been instructed and received the Sacraments as she had. But this was not likely; Cis did not believe that G. Rodney Moore had ever been within the Church. Perhaps poor Cis found it hard to believe that anyone who had ever been actually within her could ever be actually outside of her.

She had promised Rod to go with him out into the country early on Sunday morning, to do which she would omit Mass. A mortal sin? That was what she had been taught, but she had missed Mass before, for less cause. Poor Rod! He had so eagerly begged her to do this for him! He showed such intense feeling about it; it seemed to matter to him beyond the intrinsic importance of taking that special train, going to that particular place on this coming Sunday. Again: why? But how could it be a mortal sin to gratify the dear fellow? She was not going to give up the Church, of course, but it did go rather far in some things, notably in the matter of turning meat-eating on forbidden days, and Mass-omission on commanded days into a mortal sin. She intended to remain a Catholic, but it could hardly be that missing Mass deliberately on a Sunday would shut one out of heaven if she died that night unshriven, uncontrite. She hated to break her promise to Nan for the first time; she would write Nan in the morning and tell her that she should not be at Mass on Sunday, but not to mind; she would go other Sundays. It was fair to let Nan know that she was breaking her promise; letting her know seemed to lessen the breach of faith with nice Nannie. She must also hasten to advise her to marry Joe Hamilton. Funny little Nannie! As though she would not marry him anyway! Nan was fond of him, Cis was sure of that, fond enough of him to predict the marriage happy, but Cis thought that she might have been equally fond of another nice boy; Joe was a nice boy. It was all right for Nannie; Cis recognized in her the woman whose children would be the absorbing devotion of her life, her husband would be sure to drift pleasantly into second place. It was all right for Nan, but it would not do for Cis! If ever she married it would be a man whose presence blinded her to all other creatures; whose life and death included her own; she would worship him, live for him, breathe in him, count nothing costly that contributed to his welfare, even to his pleasure. She would be good to her children, love them, look after them to the best of her ability, but—weigh them in the scale with her husband? Preposterous! She would be first of all what Eve was to Adam, his mate superaboundingly. Why had that handsome, bad-tempered Davenport girl acted as she had acted? She wanted Rod. Why did she? Cis felt a fierce sort of fury toward her, and clutched Rod in her thoughts; she gloated over him and over the thought that the Davenport girl could not take him from her. She had never before been dominated for even an instant by an unreasoning, overpowering hatred for a person, as if she would cut her down as she stood, if she moved hand or foot upon her preserves. Her preserves! What did it mean? Jealous? But what did that mean? Of all things, what did that mean? She, free, frank, comradely Cis Adair, whom all the boys had liked, who had liked them all in return, whose pulses had never quickened at the thought or sight of any one of them, much less her heart contracted as hers did now in thinking of this.

Cis was not stupid; she knew what it meant. With a great wave of terror, of resistance, of joy, of triumph, of profound humility, she laid her head down on her bare white arms, folded on the window sill, and her splendid red hair fell over her as the outward symbol of the royal garment which she had donned, the vestment of her womanhood. For Cicely knew that she had come into the kingdom of her own self, her life’s crisis. Never again should she be the old careless, free, light-hearted Cis. A loss, perhaps, but at what a gain! She lifted her face, wet as the light of the street electricity fell upon it, and pushed back her masses of red-gold hair from her hot cheeks.

“Miss Mass for him! Yes, oh, yes! I’d lose my soul for him, if it would make him happy!” she cried aloud, rising to her full height and stretching her arms upward with a royal gesture, as though she at once renounced and received.

Cis arose early the next morning to carry out her intention to write to Nan. She wrote rapidly, at gossipy length, on a writing case resting on her knee, seated at the window where she had sat long on the night before.

She told Nan all about events in the office; her struggles with the code; about women boarding at Mrs. Wallace’s, whose idiosyncrasies she touched off to the life, with merry ridicule which was keen, yet not unkind. Only at the end of the letter she turned serious. “Nannie, dear,” she wrote, “of course I say marry Joe, though I’m mean enough to be a little sorry to let you marry anyone. If you love him, that is all. You must love him, or you would not consider it at all. He is a lucky fellow, but he is all right himself. You have my blessing. It is everything to love someone with all your heart, but if he loves you, too—Oh, Nannie, you are in luck, my dear! Though I should think a great, tearing love would always be returned; simply melt the other one. I’d never hesitate over anything if I loved a man—you silly little thing! I’ll see you some day, before you’re married, I hope. By the way, speaking of nuptial Masses, I’m going to cut church next Sunday; wanted to tell you I’m breaking my promise this once. I’ve got a fine pal here—I told you about him—he wants me to do something; go off too early Sunday morning to get in Mass, too, and he wants it so badly that it’s right to give him the happiness. I’d do more than that to make him happy. I don’t suppose it really is a damning sin to miss Mass, but I guess I’d go to hell, if it would make things easier for him. So now you can see how I feel about this pal o’ mine! There was one of him made, and then the mold was broken! I’m happy, but I’m not at all sure he’d go as far as purgatory for me. Your loving Cis.”

Cis read her letter over with her cheeks aflame, her eyes wet, her breath short.

“Well, she won’t show the letter, that’s one thing sure, and I never could see why it is anything to be ashamed of that you love someone like mad! You can’t begin to love a man the instant he asks you to! Nan will say: ‘She’s still honest Cis, that’s one sure thing!’ Poor little mouse; she’ll worry her head off; probably think he’s a Jew with a Calvinistic mother, or something!”

The hours that must pass before that early train started from Beaconhite on Sunday morning sped fast for Cis, in spite of her eagerness for the time to come. The feeble undercurrent of regret for her choice of man instead of God, for her broken promise to Nan, she stifled; indeed it hardly needed her attention, so eager was she now for a whole day with Rodney, so sure that he was going to take her into pleasant and beautiful places, show her how to grow ever happier with him.

She arose much earlier than was necessary, dressed carefully in the golden brown tailored suit, with its accompanying smart, small hat of golden brown beaver, a bright wing of henna-orange laid on its brim its sole trimming, the new suit which was her pride and which Rod had said made her look “like the twin sister of Phoebus Apollo.”

Cis went out of the house and ate a hasty breakfast at a restaurant because she was leaving before Mrs. Wallace’s regular breakfast hour. She hurried so fast that she had considerable spare time on her hands and walked to the station to fill it in; Rod had asked her to meet him there because there was risk of missing their train if he came to fetch her from her boarding place.

Cis was surprised to see that there was a look of relief, as well as great joy on his face when she appeared; he was already waiting for her.

“Ah, my Autumn Maiden!” he cried, seizing her hand tightly. “I don’t know why, because you’re a girl of your word, but somehow I was afraid you’d get cold feet at the last minute and not turn up! Awful glad you didn’t, Holly! You’re a Maple Tree Symphony in that rig! My, but you’re stunning, Holly!”

“Nonsense, Rod! As though I didn’t know I wasn’t pretty!” cried Cis, her whole face spilling over rapture.

“Pretty? Perhaps not; I said stunning! You don’t give a fellow time to consider whether you’re pretty or not,” rejoined Rodney. “You’re mighty easy to look at! No, you’re not, by jiminy! It’s hard afterward, anyway!”

“If you talk stuff to me, Rory O’Moore, I’ll turn around and go home,” cried Cis.

“Then I won’t, not till the train gets to pulling fast! Had anything to eat? It’s a beastly time to ask you to turn out, but I’m not regulating this railroad!” Rodney said.

“Had my breakfast outside, not to bother Mrs. Wallace,” Cis told him. “Ate oodles.”

“Doubt it. Never can trust a girl to feed herself when she’s got anything better to do,” Rod corrected her. “I’ve provender in that basket you see at my feet; some pretty nifty sandwiches, fruit, candy, iced coffee, in a cold thermos. It will hold you alive till we get dinner. We’ll have one dinner, that I promise you! Ever hear of Pioneer Falls? They’re seventy miles from here, through as pretty a country as you’d ask for, and the falls are as good as they’re advertised to be. But the main consideration is that there’s a hotel there which sets up the best dinner I ever ate anywhere, and let me tell you I’ve knocked around some, and I’m a connoozer of food! So don’t you worry, Holly, that you’ll wither and fade away in my hands!”

“Not a worry, Rod! I’m not afraid of what will happen to me in your hands,” Cis assured him with a gay little laugh, but her eyes expressed something remote from laughter.

“By all that’s truthful, Cicely, if anything unhappy, or unfortunate ever came to you at my hands it would be because you would not let my hands work freely for your good,” Rodney said, with such emphasis that Cis looked startled, but he immediately added: “Our train’s made up, Holly: Let’s get our places; better than standing here.”

He led her through the gates, his tickets ready in hand; selected seats on the shaded side, luckily the one which gave the better view of the country which they were to traverse; arranged her coat on a hook; had the porter bring a footstool to lay before her chair; settled himself; swung his own chair full in front of hers and sank back to gaze at her with eyes which needed no tongue to interpret them.

Cis knew that the intimacy of this early journey, with all the world excluded from their consciousness, with its inevitable suggestion of other journeys, always together, especially of one other journey which this almost might be, so fast, so blissfully her heart was beating, Cis knew that it was to Rodney, as to herself, a new rapture, poignant, almost unbearably delicious in its present, and in its future promise. She knew as well as if he had spoken, that Rodney Moore loved her and intended to tell her so; to ask her to go with him on all his ways till death.

She realized that this day was to be filled to overflowing with that tremulous, delicate bliss which preludes those unspoken words, when both man and woman know that they are to be spoken and how they will be answered, a bliss that almost surpasses the joy of full possession, as anticipation always must surpass fulfilment, the mystery of dawn be lovelier than the full noontide.

“Shall we go to Niagara instead, Holly?” asked Rodney, bending toward her.

“No, indeed! I would rather see Pioneer Falls! Niagara is too big,” Cis said quickly, catching the significance of his allusion to the conventional bridal-tour point, resolved to keep this day under the glamor of what was to follow it, not to let him speak yet. “Besides, I couldn’t get to the office at nine-thirty from Niagara! Rod, I haven’t seen you to tell you! The code straightened out for me yesterday, just as I knew it would, suddenly, sometime! I’ve got the horrid thing so it will eat out of my hand!”

“Good for you! You’re a great one, Holly dear!” Rodney answered, settling back into his chair, following her lead.

The train took them through beautiful scenes of farmland, valleys and hills, beside a peaceful river, through small forests, everything, everywhere glowing with October colors, “like Cis,” as Rodney said. Neither Rodney nor Cis were inclined to talk; it was too beautiful for comment, too sacred for small talk, this lovely setting of their romance, also rapidly nearing its destination.

Pioneer Falls was the name of the station. Rodney picked up his basket and preceded Cis to a small motor car, billeted: “For hire,” which took them to the falls.

Here they climbed steep paths, and descended long, narrow steps, to see the falls from above and below, hushed by the wild and solemn beauty of their setting, chilled by the evaporation of their heavy waters, the dense shade of their surrounding pines and hemlocks.

“It’s not half-bad to get into a dining room after all that, is it, Holly?” asked Rodney when they had seated themselves at a small table tête-à-tête, and the waiter had withdrawn, after sending Cis’s blood to her hair by asking whether “Madame would take lettuce, endive, or salade Romaine?”

“It’s not the smallest fraction bad, Rod,” replied Cis, grateful to him for not taking advantage of the waiter’s mistake. “And I’m ravenous in spite of your lunch!”

Over the demi-tasse at the end of dinner Rodney lighted a cigarette and smoked silently, scrutinizing Cis.

“What?” she asked him, looking up to catch his gaze.

“I was wondering if you didn’t think that it had been better, wiser, more natural, after all, to come off with me, when we like so much to be together, without going to church? Don’t you honestly think, little Holly-Cis, that we hallow this day?” he promptly answered.

“Well, Rod, I’ve been perfectly happy,” Cis answered. “I suppose, maybe, once in a way—” She stopped. “Funny you brought that up,” she went on. “I’ve been thinking ever since that day of what you said. What catechism was it, Rod, that you studied? What are you?”

“The penny catechism, my dear; Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, I believe they said it was. Who made you, et cetera,” replied Rodney.

“Catholic? Are you a Catholic?” cried Cis.

“Now, Holly, do I look it, or act it?” demanded Rodney. “No, my dear; I’m nothing, but they did start me on the same catechism you had; my people are all Catholics.”

“Left the Church?” Cis looked startled.

“You funny child! When you don’t care tuppence about it!” Rodney laughed at her.

“I dropped it; that’s better said. I don’t believe in it. They tried to control me in matters of my personal rights as a man. They would interfere with me now if they could. They will with you, if you let ’em. They’ll ruin your life, my Cicely. All wrong, all wrong! I want you to drop it, too. Cicely, believe me, it will warp you, destroy your God-given instincts and desires; ruin your life, Cis! I am free now to do as seems good to me; I want you to be free with me. I believe there’s a God, though I never heard anyone prove it who tried to, but I believe it. You keep your faith in Him, if you want to, but drop this Church business, with its laws. Cicely, I am afraid, afraid, I tell you, to think of your sticking blindly to all that! Let it go. You needn’t abjure it, do anything formal, but let it go. Go around to lectures, Sundays, or, what’s better, come with me out into clean, still places and we’ll read the poets and philosophers, and have music—I play the violin fairly well, Holly, dear; you haven’t heard me—yet! Drop it, Cis, for both our sakes, I beg of you! This is one of the things I brought you here to-day to say. I’ve studied; I know the thing from top to bottom. Nonsense!”

“Why do you care so much, Rod? You look half wild when you speak of it. Why do you care? What difference would it make to you if I kept on in my half-way Catholicity?” Cis asked more puzzled than impressed by his plea.

“Why do I care?” Rodney burst out, then checked himself. “Oh, Cicely, because it separates us! Child, you don’t know; I do! As sure as the sun rises and sets it will break your heart and plunge me into wretchedness and despair if you continue, even in your half-way, as you call it. There is no half-way. Either you are a Roman Catholic, or you’re not. You may be a cold one, or a hot one, but one you are, unless you drop it wholly. It is a barrier between us.”

“Rod, what foolishness!” cried Cis. “We shall be—friends—whether I’m in or out of the Church. Am I narrow-minded; are you? And if I were good you might come back!”

“Not I! Never!” cried Rodney. “Cis, my Holly, my bright, hope-giving, joy-giving Christmas Holly, you’ve done for me what I never thought could be done! I was wretched, and you have healed me. Will you plunge me down again?”

“No, Rod; I couldn’t do that,” Cis said simply, softly. “I don’t see how being a Catholic could do that, but if it did—”

“You’d give it up?” Rodney eagerly interrupted her.

“I don’t say that,” Cis spoke with slow consideration, weighing her words. “I don’t see how I’d ever be able—But I couldn’t hurt you either, Rod! Can’t it just go on? I’m not one bit pious; I don’t see how it could bother you if I went to Mass Sundays, and once in a long while to confession?”

Rodney looked at her long without speaking. “It’s up to me, I see,” he said at last, and Cis accepted what seemed to be a concession to her, although she had no conception of its terms.

And then there happened one of those trifling things which so often sway human decisions and actions. Two shabby, dirty little Italians had been looking in at the door, unnoticed by Rodney and Cis. Now there came the landlord, blustering, to chase them away with harsh words, and the children turned to go, the little girl bursting into frightened tears, the boy muttering something, helplessly fierce.

Instantly Rodney sprang up and hurried to the door.

“Here, come back here! Wait!” he cried.

He turned to the landlord. “What harm were the little scraps doing? They may be hungry. Get them a half a pie apiece, and a lot of cake, and nuts, chestnuts! They’d be sure to like chestnuts! And coffee, big cups, plenty of milk and sugar, and some oranges, and put it on my bill,” he ordered.

“I won’t have dirty children in here,” cried the landlord.

“Dirty! Dirty! Weren’t you ever dirty when you were a small boy? But who asked you to have them in here? There’s room outside on the grass. Good gracious, you have enough left over every meal to feed half a dozen kids. Set ’em up on me!” Rodney ordered impatiently, and soon he and Cis had the satisfaction of seeing each child blissfully struggling to circumvent the contents of the juicy half of an apple pie from attaining its release, backward from the crust, as it was deeply bitten.

It was a small thing, yet it set Cicely’s heart glowing with tender, admiring love for this big-hearted, gallant Rodney, who flew to the rescue of the helpless, and gave food and happiness to God’s little ones. Illogically, it seemed to prove Rod right in saying that the Church and fidelity to it did not matter. Had he not left it, and yet he shared with beggars, like a modern version of St. Martin of Tours?

“You are great, Rod!” Cis said proudly as she stood with her eyes on the children outside the window, and Rod, helping her on with her coat, watched them also, over her shoulder.

He had an uncanny way of reading her thoughts. Now he whispered into her ear, though there was no one near to hear:

“You may give up the practices of religion, yet not give up true religion, my Holly! I’m not all bad, though I don’t confess my sins!”