CHAPTER XI.
Sara Harden on her return to town was genuinely glad to see Margaret Ruysdale again. She had become attached to the lonely young girl who had grown to womanhood without a mother or a sister and with next to no feminine influence in her life, her father and his friends having always been her most intimate associates. It was to this fact that Sara Harden attributed the serious character of her friend. "If I ever have a daughter," she had said, "I shall bring her up just as Margaret has been brought up. She shall never speak to a woman if I can help it. Women make one another silly. We drop in to see each other, and spend the morning wasting each other's time in talking gossip and ball-dresses, servants and teething-babies. We don't dare to talk to men like that; they would n't stand it. We discuss things worth thinking about with them. But with our sisters we feel bound to limit ourselves to the useful sphere of domesticity, and it does n't do us any good. Do you think I would use white sugar instead of brown to put up my sweet-pickles, because every time I see my next-door neighbor she advises me to do so, and has advised me to for the last five years? In house-keeping, as in every other matter in life, you can only learn by burning your fingers. I think women were never meant to associate with each other. They are too narrow; and they go on making each other smaller and smaller, instead of getting broader and stronger by contact with great coarse-grained men. Go to! I do not consider them advantageous or proper associates. I might have amounted to something myself if I had n't been blighted early in life by five sisters and four aunts."
"But Sara," objected her friend, "see how differently men treat you! They all fall in love with you, and you can twist them around your little finger,—even papa. You can make him do whatever you like. I don't know how to manage them at all, though I have lived among them all my life. It 's a penalty you would not like to pay to have men treat you as if you were one of themselves."
"O thou littlest humbug! How about certain young Creoles with big eyes, not to mention my own ewe-lamb Philip, which thou hast calmly taken from me without even a 'by your leave'? Lies, all lies!"
Margaret had passed her childhood and early youth in Woodbridge, the quiet New England town where the Ruysdales had lived, father and son, ever since the old original Ruysdale left the Dutch colony of Manhattan and took to himself a daughter of the Puritans, a century and a half ago. When Margaret was barely sixteen her father had taken her to Europe, where, for the next four years of her life, she had devoted herself—it would be nearer the truth to say that she had been devoted—to her art. Her artistic education had begun when she was scarcely out of her babyhood. She had worked so arduously that there had been little time in her life for society; and so it had come about that though she had been thrown almost exclusively with men, her relations with them had had little personality. Flirtation—that rock on which many an American girl's heart and life are splintered into a myriad pieces—was known to her by observation only. The hours and years, the talents and force, which so many of our young girls evaporate in that futile and unsatisfactory pursuit, had been devoted by Margaret to her art. It is not likely that this singleness of purpose could have developed itself so early in her had it not been for the strong influence of her father, who had wellnigh absorbed her life in his own. He had treated her, ever since she could remember, as his comrade and equal, talking and reading with her on the subjects which interested him, and on which he willed that she should concentrate her own powers of thought. He had thus robbed his child of her childhood,—a grave error, and not an uncommon one with fathers. A boy's boyhood is too vigorous a thing to be balked of its bent; but the nature of a little girl is a wonderfully pliable and soft material, out of which a self-centred man may easily shape a careful child-woman for his companion. Margaret had not been without suitors, for the comfortable fortune she had inherited from her mother had more than once given her the opportunity of making an advantageous European match. She had not been without admirers, for her charm of manner, her grace, her fresh sweet face, and her lithe strong figure were attractions which had not failed to make themselves felt. But of lovers she was as ignorant as of the inhabitants of Mars. She knew quite well how to make men welcome at her father's table, how to put them at their ease if they happened to be shy, how to make her drawing-room pleasant and homelike to the homeless ones; but here her knowledge of them stopped.
Mrs. Sara Harden was in all respects the opposite of her young friend, and had borne the reputation of being a flirt of the most dangerous character before her marriage. Since that time she had somewhat kept up the appearance of the same thing with men whose relations to her were of the most innocent and friendly nature. It was another of those bad European notions of hers, that a woman must have many admirers if she desires to keep alive her husband's devotion to her. They interested each other, Margaret and Mrs. Harden, because their lives and experiences had been so entirely unlike; and so they kissed at meeting after Mrs. Harden's long absence, and the kiss, so often a foolish form between women, expressed a cordial good-will and pleasure at seeing one another again. Margaret and her father had come to Mrs. Harden's house and had found that good lady sitting in her garden, watching a game of lawn-tennis between her husband and Robert Feuardent.
"We are very glad you have come back, Mrs. Harden, for we are thinking of flitting north ward in these days, are we not, Margaret?" said the General, watching his daughter as he spoke.
"Are we, papa?" Margaret answered, with an unsuccessful effort to appear indifferent. "I did not know it. I should be sorry to go just now; it is so beautiful here."
"Yes; but the intense heat may begin any day, may it not, Mrs. Harden? Look at that flock of cranes flying northwards. Should we not take warning by them?"
Margaret looked in the direction indicated by her father. A vast letter V was outlined in the sky by a flight of cranes, which looked as small from their great distance as those on a Japanese fan, although their curious harsh cry was distinctly audible.
"No, it will not be hot for some time to come," said Mrs. Harden, "it will be as it is to-day for a month longer; you must not think of leaving us just yet, General." This with a tender, deprecating smile, which warmed up the harmless vanity of the unwary General to a melting-point.
The game of tennis being ended, Robert Feuardent leaped over the net, and, racket in hand, seated himself at Margaret's feet at a little distance from the others. He had denied himself the sight of her since that morning in the garden, through some idea of atonement to Philip. All the glad blood rushed to his face as he looked into her eyes and saw that she was still friendly and glad to see him.
"When may I come again to you? It is a lifetime since I have seen you. I have missed you so terribly. Do you know what it is to miss a person as I have missed you?" he said.
"How can I tell? I have certainly wanted to see you very much. I have not done any work while you have stayed away, and now my father speaks of going home; I fear I shall never finish my Milanion."
"You only wanted your model, then; you did not care to see me?"
"But you are my model."
"Yes, and something else besides. Shall I tell you what?"
The twilight had fallen on them, and through the open door of the drawing-room streamed a bright light, showing the face of a man who at that moment advanced toward Mrs. Harden. It was Philip Rondelet.
"I am so glad you have come, Dr. Rondelet," said Sara, rising to greet him; "I have been wanting to see you ever since my return. Here are some friends of yours,—Margaret, Mr. Feuardent. General Ruysdale and Darius have just gone inside."
Margaret, grown white and trembling, rose, and in the dimness either did not or feigned not to see the hand Philip held out to her. Bowing slightly to Feuardent, he took his place at Mrs. Harden's side.
"You have seen Miss Ruysdale, of course, since you got back," she whispered.
"I have not had the good fortune to find her at home," answered Philip.
"And has this sort of thing been going on?"
"Evidently."
"And you have not spoken?" said Mrs. Harden. "You carry your Quixotic ideas too far. Thank Heaven! I am a woman, and will not sit still and see a crying shame like this. Honor! I believe in honor only where it is due."
"There would be little of it in the world, madam," answered Philip, "if we all felt as you say you do."
"Shall we go inside? This is more than flesh and blood can endure. I am going to insult that man in my own house,—a thing I have never done in all my life before."
Mrs. Harden rose, and with a heightened color and in freezing tones said, "Mr. Feuardent, you will excuse me, I am sure; but these friends of mine are going to do me the honor of dining with me, and as we are going out afterward—"
"Madam," said Robert, starting to his feet, "it is I who should apologize for intruding so long upon your hospitality. I wish you good evening."
He was gone, and Sara Harden was left to get through her dinner-party as best she could. "It was not what might be called a cheering repast," as Mrs. Harden afterward remarked to her husband, "with Margaret as stiff and cool as one of her own marbles, and Philip all good manners, and his eyes flashing like blue-steel cimeters. But we got through it somehow, thank Janus! Good-breeding is a bridge that can span the most fearful social chasms. Your rich vulgarian thinks he can afford to laugh at it. Bah! it 's a virtue which I have sometimes seen rise to the height of heroism."
Robert Feuardent strode down Esplanade Street flushed and angry, with a sick, choking feeling in his throat which grew and grew as he gradually left his resentment behind him. He had not failed to see Margaret's slight of Philip Rondelet, his life-long friend, and he knew that he was responsible for the misapprehension under which the young girl had acted. The sting of Mrs. Harden's hardly veiled insult was soon forgotten in the pain of a deeper wound. He took his way to the garden where he had so often walked with Margaret; and seeking a dark corner, flung himself upon the grass among the flowers. His great form trembled with passion, and at last a sob broke from his lips, a torrent of tears and sighs burst from his overburdened heart and were lost in the murmuring grass. Tears, welcome and rest-giving to women, scorch and sear the eyes of men like drops of molten metal.
Robert Feuardent, lying writhing in the dark corner, with clenched hands striking at his breast, his head, the senseless earth beneath him, suffered mortally as the hot drops sprang from his eyes. In his agony he called upon the name of a man who had been dead many weeks, with a passionate remorse and tenderness; and mingled with these scarce intelligible words of entreaty was his own father's name and that of some woman spoken harshly and reproachfully. It was a grievous sight, this strong man laid low in his pride of youth and beauty, a sight which would have touched the heart of any of God's creatures capable of pity; but in the woman who had followed him, and was now standing near by hidden in the shrubbery, there was no pity, only a savage exultation at his pain. She too called upon the name of a dead man in whispered tones,—the name of her dead lover; but it was with a cruel glee that she conjured him to look from his grave and see her vengeance. The young man rose to his knees now, and prayed aloud that he might die, that the burden of sorrow might be lifted from him; he could not bear it longer. His own sin, the sin of him to whom he owed his life, the sins of that lost woman,—all were weighing upon him and pressing him down, down into a depth of despair blacker than any hell!
"Fernand, the time has come for me to strike!" whispered the hidden witness of his agony; and with the spring of a tigress she was upon him as he raised his hands above his head, dumbly asking for comfort. She caught him by the throat, and he saw the gleam of a knife flashing between himself and the moonlight. Before she could strike, the weapon was wrenched from her hand and sent whirling into the shrubbery. He held her for a moment closely pinioned, looking down into her white face, which had lost all trace of womanhood in its look of rage and baffled desire. When he spoke at last, it was in a low voice, more sorrowful than angry,—
"Therese, has there not been enough shame and sin and blood between us two without this? Remember who it is that you would kill, and thank your God that you were spared this crime."
She struggled to undo his hands, but he held her firmly.
"You must listen to what I have to tell you. I have money for you when you need it, and I think you need it now. I will send you back to Spain, to your convent, or where you will. There is nothing for you in this country but more sin, more shame, more madness; for I believe that you are mad to-night. Go back to the land where you have friends,—friends who never need suspect who and what you are. Do you know that I could imprison you for your whole miserable life for what you have tried to do to-night; that if others had seen your act I could not have saved you from the living death of a jail?"
"Let me go," she muttered; "you need not fear, I have no other weapon."
He freed her hands.
"Now listen to me," she continued. "I will never leave this place while I can injure you. I have an account to settle with you that is of longer standing than either of our lives, and I believe that I shall live to pay it. Wrong for wrong, blood for blood! I have sworn it."
She stood for a moment motionless in the moonlight, one arm lifted above her head like the figure of an avenging fury; and then fled from him into the darkness.
He stood where she had left him, thinking deeply for some minutes. His brain, which just now had seemed on fire, had grown clear, and he thought with an intensity which only comes in moments of great excitement. His pulses, which had throbbed so violently, had slackened, and the fever of mind and body was gone, chilled by the cold glint of that jewelled dagger which had gleamed so close to him. The passion had gone out of him, and there remained only a cold sense of a danger averted for the moment, but still hanging over him. Therese had meant to kill him, still meant to do so. Life, which a half hour ago had seemed so hard a thing, now looked full of golden possibilities, of sweet realities. The world which held Margaret Ruysdale was dearer to him than any heaven of angels. He would not die; he would baffle that mad creature who had sworn to take his life, and send her away beyond reach of him. Yet how could he accomplish this? It is not more difficult to chain running water than to balk a wilful woman of her way. The bond between this wretched creature and himself still held him, though she had lifted her hand against him murderously. He could not give her over to the officers of the law. If she had succeeded, if that sharp steel had found his heart, what would Margaret have felt,—Margaret, whom he had left so pale and still in the moonlight with Philip Rondelet; Philip, his friend, the man he had wronged so grievously? If he had died without speaking, Margaret might never have known that Philip was innocent; Philip would never know how grievously he had repented his breach of faith! It was but a chance that had saved him. An other time he might not escape so fortunately. He struck his hands together at the thought and said aloud, "Now, while there is yet time, I must speak;" and so passed out of the garden with a slow step and a quiet, pale face.
At the Darius Hardens', dinner had been got through with somehow, General Ruysdale and his host bearing the burden of the conversation. The two ladies had retired as early as possible to the music-room, where they were soon joined by Philip, who came to take leave. Mrs. Harden was at the piano singing the last comic air from the "Folies Bergères" which Bouton de Rose had taught her, and Margaret was standing at the open window pulling the ears of Mrs. Harden's skye-terrier. Philip was about to leave, but Mrs. Harden asked him to turn the pages of her song; and he lingered, not unwilling to be longer in the company of one who, gentle or unkind, was always dear to him. It was pleasant to look at her even while she kept her head so obstinately turned away from him. The twist of soft hair, the curve of her white neck, the slim waist, and delicate outline against the darkness of the open window, were only less beautiful in his sight than her deep eyes and small flower mouth. He was glad that other people found Margaret only "rather pretty," or "sweet-looking;" to him she had a wonderful loveliness,—a loveliness which was not apparent to the first glance of any careless observer, but which grew and grew as one learned the graceful play of her movements, the infinite changefulness of her expression.
To these three people came Robert Feuardent unannounced. The curtain of the door was pushed gently aside, and he who had left them flushed and excited, in haste and resentment, had come back white, quiet, and full of that strange awe which falls upon those who have escaped a great calamity.
Mrs. Harden arose and came to meet him, saying, "What has happened to you? You look so strangely—Philip, a glass of wine." And the pale girl at the window turned and looked at him, and twisted the dog's ears till it howled and licked her hand deprecatingly.
"Thank you, I am quite well,—or shall be soon," said Robert, in a voice that would not be quite firm. "I have come to speak to you, Philip, and it is well that these two witnesses are here to listen to what I have to say. I have done you a great wrong,—a wrong that I have come to set right." He paused a moment and looked at Margaret, as if to gain courage from her face. "On the thirteenth day of December, four months ago this very night, you were summoned from this house hastily and peremptorily. The message brought you was an unusual one, and aroused comment at the time. The next day the world knew that a man,"—his lips trembled and his voice came so low that the two women moved nearer to him and Rondelet watched the motion of his lips,—"Fernand Thoron, had died suddenly. After a time it was whispered that he had been killed in an affair of"—he hesitated—"in a duel; and again it was breathed that Philip Rondelet knew more of his death than any other man, save the dead man's brother and the physician who had been present, both of whom had left the country immediately after the affair. Then it gradually grew to be believed that the man had fallen by Philip's hand. This came to my ears many weeks ago; and I, who alone knew the truth, kept silent." He paused, as if for want of breath, and there followed a moment of silence, which seemed to his hearers of unendurable length. At last he went on: "I said to myself that I did not speak because the dead man's secret must be kept and the honor of another person whom I was bound to protect, spared. I know now that I lied to myself; that I was silent for fear that the blame should rest where it belonged,—upon the miserable head of the man who had killed one friend and was now betraying another." He looked now at Margaret only; with mournful, pleading eyes he spoke to her alone in a low, broken voice: "I kept silence; but the time has come for me to speak, to declare that Philip Rondelet came only to ease Fernand Thoron's dying hours. The man who killed him, the man who has so long been a false friend, stands before you; deal with him as gently as you can."
There was another space of quiet. Margaret, with her hands clasped above her heart, stood silent, looking down, and Philip, with a troubled face, watched her every movement. She had given one low cry; but whether it was a cry of grief or of joy, he did not know. Mrs. Harden wept silently, and the terrier rubbed himself sympathetically against her slipper.
The self-accused man stood silently looking into the faces of his three judges. For a moment no one moved or spoke; then Philip took his old friend by the hand, and Robert, flinging his arms about him, kissed him on either cheek. Together they left the room, and through the open window Margaret saw them walking arm in arm down Esplanade Street. For a moment everything between the two men was forgotten, save the old affection which had revived at the hand-touch. The jealousy, the suspicion, the wrong inflicted, the wrong endured, were all put aside, and they were as brothers. In the generous emotions of atonement and forgiveness, the deadly wound their friendship had received seemed to be healed. To-night they both believed that not even a scar remained. To-morrow's reflection might show each that a broken friendship, no matter how closely riveted it may be by remorse and forgiveness, can never again be the flawless whole that it was before. The mended vessel will do very well in this life of cemented affections, but it can never ring clear again like the perfect crystal vase of an unbroken trust.
Margaret watched Philip and Feuardent as long as she could see them from the window, and then turned and looked at Mrs. Harden, whose blue eyes had grown very dim with tears. The young girl was dry-eyed and silent.
"Margaret, you look so bewildered; did n't you understand it all?" said Mrs Harden, with a little sob.
"Yes, I think I understand," answered Margaret.
"What a cold, heartless thing you are," Mrs. Harden continued, "to see those two beautiful dears standing there, like two knights-errant of old, just adoring you, and telling you so with eyes plainer than I am speaking now,—and you like a little prudish statue without a word or look or blush for either of them. I don't believe you have got any heart at all,—indeed I don't."
"I don't know, dear; perhaps I have not," answered Margaret, her hands still tightly pressed to the spot where the organ whose existence her friend denied is usually supposed to have its place.
"I am sure I don't know which one loves you the best! And then their reconciliation,—just like Damon and Pythias, you know; only I forget if they ever quarrelled. I knew it all the time, so did Philip, that Feuardent had shot young Thoron; and yet Philip never said one word to clear himself. I call it angelic of him; and his face when he stretched out his hand to Robert was just like a saint out of heaven giving his forgiveness and blessing to an erring sinner."
Margaret nodded, and picked up the dog again.
Mrs. Harden went on: "As to Robert Feuardent, I never liked him half so well before in my life; he was so splendidly unsparing in his self-denunciation that he made one feel he had n't been so very bad after all. How handsome and black he looked,—just like Erebus, or Pluto, or some of those dark creatures. I wonder what they fought about. There was a woman mixed up in it somehow—an anomalous creature who some people insist is a lady, while others declare that she is a vulgar colored woman. I don't believe she was on the other side of Colorado, as we call it; Feuardent never could have stooped so low. But I must n't talk about such things before your innocence; forgive me! Tell me, Margaret, which do you like the best? You have n't any business to let them both go on loving you so,—it's really immoral."
Margaret smiled a little absently, and began to braid the long hair on the skye's forehead.
"Don't do that; he can't bear the light in his eyes," said Mrs. Harden.
Margaret put the dog down, and took up a skein of wool to wind.
"You are spoiling my best iced worsted; don't wind it so tight. I never saw such a girl; you are really nervous, I believe, and want to keep your hands busy at something, no matter how disastrous the results may be."
Margaret threw the skein back into the work-basket, and going to the piano played a few bars of a waltz. It was the music to which she had danced with Robert Feuardent on the day of the fête. As soon as she recognized it, she struck a few chords of a new galop, and then closed the instrument, and went and looked at herself in the glass; she unclasped her necklace, and twisted it twice about her arm.
"Does n't that make a pretty bracelet, Sara?"
"Oh, yes, of course," answered that lady pettishly, "and the hand is still prettier. I suppose that 's what you want me to say. Which of them shall you bestow it on? I must know."
"And if neither of them has asked for it, how shall I answer you?"
"But you know."
"I don't know. I know nothing about love, about men, about women, about myself even. It was terrible for me to believe that Philip Rondelet was a murderer, the hero of an ignoble intrigue, he seemed so refined, so pure-minded; but it is almost worse to find that Robert Feuardent's frank face and simple manner should mask a libertine and a Cain. I have seen too much of your men. I have gone below the surface of good manners and courtliness, and have found vice a thousand times uglier because it lies beneath so pleasant an exterior."
"Ah, my dear, you take these things too seriously. Men are the same all the world over,—north and south, east and west," Mrs. Harden commented.
"Then no more of them for me! Better, far better, the old quiet, colorless life."
"That can never come back to you, Margaret. It is past, even as your childhood is past. You can never be a child again; you can never go back to your marbles and be satisfied. The shadow of love is upon you, and life will never be the same to you again, my poor child."
The elder woman spoke seriously and gently, as Margaret had never heard her speak before, as she touched the young girl's forehead with her lips. Then Margaret lost her composure, the tears trembled to her eyes, and the two women wept together; but whether Margaret's tears flowed for Philip Rondelet or for Robert Feuardent, her friend could not tell. It may be that she herself did not know; for to an untried heart love and friendship often masquerade each in the other's shape.