The Thirteenth Man

Nothing had happened during those days when Dan Webster had made the two pictures of Eweretta—that is, nothing had happened that either the painter or the model could single out and say that it was important. Yet, to both of them these days stood out from the rest of their lives. They were days neither would ever forget.

Their talk had been commonplace, and Mrs. Le Breton had always been present at the sittings.

Sometimes their eyes had met—met and rested on each other. That was all.

Eweretta’s eyes, being a woman’s, had not failed to read the worship in the eyes of the man.

It was Dan’s which had failed to read the light of newly-awakened pleasure in those of his model.

Perhaps Eweretta’s eyes had so long been sad that even in happiness there was pathos in them.

Anyway, Dan had said good-bye to his Madonna without the slightest knowledge that he had come as a joy into her life, and that his going—mattered.

He had stumbled boyishly in the last words he had spoken to her, holding her hand awkwardly. He recalled his lame utterance afterwards with humiliation and savage regret.

He had wanted to say something that she would remember, something that should tell her that one fortnight of his life had been worth all the rest put together—that her face which he had put on canvas was even more indelibly fixed on his heart. He had not wanted to imply love by his words, but homage. He wanted her to know that she was indeed his Madonna—a thing holy. And all he had said was “I am sorry it is all over!”

Eweretta had met his gaze frankly, with that mystic smile on her lips which he loved, and she had only said “Good-bye.”

But she had watched the stalwart figure pass along the white road past the bungalow with that mystic smile still on her lips, and a strange happiness had possessed her.

Light had somehow invaded the grayness which so long had shrouded her existence.

She asked herself no questions as to the future. She lived now in the moment. She knew herself once more beloved, and to every woman that is joy.

Happiness will not bear dissection and analysis. Eweretta attempted neither.

She had seen the light of dawn in the East, and she watched for the sun to rise.

She remembered that she was young.

The picture Dan had made of her in her ordinary white gown (he had asked for this particular gown because of the soft folds with which it clung to her slim figure), now hung in the dining-room.

Eweretta, standing alone before it, looked at her other self. She noted the deep, rich red of the rose pinned at the bosom, where two soft folds of muslin crossed each other—the only ornament. She noted how Dan had caught that blue shimmer in the black of her hair, where it slightly waved away from her temples.

She saw, too, that the face was different from the old Eweretta’s, it held something more which she could not define.

The difference was that the old, glad Eweretta had never suffered. The merry look was gone, and in its place was a marvellous sweetness.

Eweretta saw that she was indeed very beautiful. She saw it in this picture as she had never seen it in her mirror.

But it was the little picture—the Madonna—that she liked best.

Dan had brought the robe she wore for this picture. It was of blue—a lovely blue of a summer sky. The nun-like head-dress, Dan’s own deft hands had arranged. She recalled that his touch had made her tremble, and that she had been angry with herself for betraying emotion. But she had not really betrayed herself at all. The slight tremor had passed unnoticed by Dan, because he was so much taken up with anxiety to hide his own emotion at such close proximity to his divinity.

Eweretta had uttered solemn warnings to Minnie Pickett in the apple-room. But she uttered no warnings to herself.

She basked in the sunshine of undefined emotions, and Mrs. Le Breton and Thomas Alvin were surprised and delighted at the change in her. She was clearly happy, happy in spite of all she had gone through.

She still looked from her window at night, and saw Philip’s light burning, but now she looked without emotion.

Another Philip, and another Eweretta, had once loved—a long, long time ago, but they were both dead.

Alvin’s idea of buying a horse for her to ride had delighted Eweretta. She had ridden much in the prairie before she had gone with her father to Montreal. She had often ridden alone to a town many miles distant to get the mail and post letters. On these occasions she had carried a revolver, for wolves were plentiful.

Riding here at Hastings would be less exciting, but very, very delightful.

The rides soon put color into her cheeks, and she lost that fragile look which had worried Alvin.

One morning, about a week after Dan’s departure, a box of lovely hot-house flowers arrived for her, and she knew well who was the sender.

The dawn she had seen in the East was growing rosy red.

Alvin and Mrs. Le Breton discussed this box of flowers in secret.

The woman was glad, but Alvin, who had still hopes of reuniting the old lovers—though those hopes had been considerably shaken—was not so pleased. He liked Dan—who did not?—but he wanted to be sure, very sure indeed, that Eweretta’s love for Philip was really dead before he encouraged another suitor.

Alvin was very desirous of seeing Eweretta happily married. He did not believe that Mrs. Le Breton would be a long liver. He himself might “snuff out” at any moment. True, he was hale and hearty, as prairie products are wont to be; but the superstition which had formed so much and marred so much of his life clung to him. “The Thirteenth Man,” to whom ill-luck had ever clung, would never make old bones. Alvin was convinced that his end would be sudden and tragic. He wanted to make sure of Eweretta’s future.

One thing he had already done since his promise to the girl that her identity should not be revealed. He had made a will leaving everything to Aimée Le Breton (which was only giving back to Eweretta what was her own).

Thomas Alvin, in spite of his being for the first time in his life in a good monetary position, was far from happy. Exteriorly he appeared cheerful, but there were times of deep depression, when he always retired to the enclosed wood. He never drank now. In fact, he had only for a little time given way to drink, and that had been at the White House. Drink is not a Canadian vice.

His one idea, when he had treacherously possessed himself of Eweretta’s fortune, had been to get to England and live as a “gentleman.” Now that he was established in a good house, well-furnished, he pined for the free life of the prairie. Often as he lay in his comfortable bed, he would think with longing of the “shake-down” in a “shack” where he had rolled himself in a rug with a saddle for a pillow.

There were times when a wild longing to return to the old life possessed him. Then he would retire to the enclosed wood to fight his battle in solitude.

What lay within the high wall he had built round the clearing no one knew, and no one of his household asked.

If Mrs. Le Breton and Eweretta guessed they kept their knowledge to themselves, not speaking of it even to each other.

Nothing took Alvin so completely out of himself as riding with Eweretta.

They went long distances, spending the whole day sometimes, and lunching at an inn, while the horses rested.

They often went to Winchelsea and to Rye, because Eweretta had shown herself so charmed with these old-world places on their first visit.

It was when Alvin and Eweretta were returning from one of these expeditions that Alvin asked the girl what she had written to Dan in reply to the gift of flowers.

“I did not write myself. I dictated to ‘mother,’ for I thought that Dan might chance to show the letter to Philip, and he would of course recognize my handwriting. I thanked him nicely—that was all.”

“Dan!” She had not said Mr. Webster. That was what Alvin noted.

She herself had spoken the name quite unconsciously. She always thought of him as Dan.

“Of course,” the girl went on, reining in her horse a little that they might talk more easily, “of course, Philip would only think it an extraordinary incident that Aimée and I should write so much alike, but it might put him on the track of the—” she hesitated a second, then added—“fraud. And now, uncle, I would not for anything in the world have Philip know I am alive. Let him marry that little girl—Miss Lane—if he will. But I doubt if he will. I think his ambition is now more than anything to him, and that he will wish to marry a society woman, so that he can entertain and bring himself well to the front.”

There was a shade of bitterness in her tone as she spoke.

“But if he should come to wish to marry you?” he hazarded.

“I would not marry him if he were the only man in the world,” she said.

At the time she believed what she said.