Part 20 (1/2)

”As I told you yesterday after she went away, she's just what you'd expect from such a girl, certainly no better and possibly a little worse. She's a mousey little thing, with a veneer of modesty; but 'mercenary' isn't the word. It's just a question of money, Bradley; and if you'll leave it to me to deal with-”

”Leave it to you to deal with-to the tune of twenty-five thousand dollars,” he said, morosely, pulling his coat into shape round his shoulders as he looked into the long gla.s.s.

”Well, that's only half what it might have been. I thought at one time that we might have to make it fifty thousand-”

He was not sure, but he thought she finished with the word ”again.” If so it was uttered too softly for him to be obliged to take note of it, so that he merely picked up a hairbrush and put another touch to his hair.

She was now at work on the great string of pearls which, to keep them alive, she wore even in domestic privacy. Her object was to get the famous Roehampton pearl, from the late Lady Roehampton's collection, which had been the seal of her reconciliation with Bradley fifteen years earlier-to get this jewel right in the center of her person, to make the string symmetric.

”My point in bringing it up now,” she said, speaking into her chin as her eyes inspected the long oval of the necklet, ”is to remind you that you don't know anything. You haven't seen Bob for nearly a week, and after Monday you won't see him for two or three months at least. Don't let him suspect that you've anything on your mind. As a matter of fact, you haven't, except what I tell you-and I may not tell you everything.”

”And that may be what I complain of.”

”You can't complain of it when I give you the results-now can you? You don't complain of Mr. Bickley, or ask him for all the reasons he has for saying this or that. You leave him a free hand, and are ruled by him-you've often said it-even when your own preference would be to do something else, as it was in the case of this man Follett. Now I only claim to be the Mr. Bickley of the family.”

That he had rights as father Collingham was aware, though he was shy of putting them forward. Having left them so much in abeyance, it would have been as ridiculous to emphasize them now as to dispute Bickley as efficiency expert at the bank. Moreover, the uneasiness which seizes on a man when his chickens come home to roost inclined him still further to pa.s.sivity. If Bob was ”knocking about town,” as he seemed to be, he might know about his father what Junia did not-or presumably did not-that the woman who received the fifty thousand dollars had had her successors, and that even now the line was not extinct. While he knew of amusing incidents of fathers and sons meeting on this ground, any such _contretemps_ in his own case would have shocked him profoundly. Junia might go beyond her powers in prescribing his course, and yet, for a mult.i.tude of reasons too subtle for him to phrase, it seemed wise to follow what Junia prescribed.

So the family dined and spent the evening together as tourists walk across the Solfatara crater. The ground was hot beneath their tread, and here and there a whiff of sulphuric vapor poured through a fissure in the crust; but only Max and Dauphin sensed the volcanic fire.

Later in the evening, Junia knelt at her _prie-dieu_ with the armorial books of devotion.

”And, O heavenly Father,” she added, to her usual prayer, ”have mercy upon that poor erring girl and help her to repent. Grant that my son may extricate himself from the toils in which he is entangled. Enable my daughter to see that her duty lies in the station of life to which thou hast been pleased to call her. Give my husband the wisdom to seek advice and to follow it. Lead me with thy counsel so that I may do what is best for all my dear ones, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Amen.”

Having thus poured out her heart, she rose feeling stronger and more comforted.

CHAPTER XI

It should be said for Jennie Follett that, in the matter of her course toward Bob Collingham, she had few of those convictions of sin and righteousness which restrain a proportion of mankind. As with the other members of her family, her conduct followed certain lines ”because she couldn't help it.” That is as far as her a.n.a.lysis would have carried her, though a.n.a.lysis didn't give her much concern. Having so much to do to get food and clothes, the higher laws were outside her sphere of interest. Her chief law was Necessity, and it covered so much ground that there was little place for any other law.

It may be well to state here that the Folletts belonged to that vast American contingent who have practically no religion. They had had a religion in Canada, where they had attended the church of a local G.o.d who seemed to hold no sway over the United States. They never found that church in the suburbs of New York, or, if they found it nominally, it didn't, in their opinion, ”seem the same.” There were no local suasions and compulsions to bring them to its doors, and so, after a few spasmodic efforts to re-establish the connection, they gave up the attempt.

Perhaps this failure was due to the fact that, in the depths of her strong, proud heart, Lizzie didn't believe in G.o.d. Josiah did-or, at least, he had believed in him up to the time of being thrown upon the sc.r.a.p heap. But Lizzie's faith in G.o.d had died with the dying of her faith in man. She had never said so, because she kept her deeper thoughts to herself; but along these lines her influence on her children had been negative.

So Jennie had missed those counsels to do right which sometimes form a part of domestic education. With so little lat.i.tude for doing anything, there was not-apart from the grosser vices-much lat.i.tude in the Follett family even for doing wrong. They did what they ”couldn't help” doing, and there was an end of it. A kind of inborn rect.i.tude kept them from offenses of which the public would have taken note, but behind it there was little in the way of principle.

Jennie went to her farewell meeting with Bob untroubled by qualms of conscience. Even if scruples had worried her, they would have been allayed by the knowledge, imparted by Bob's own mother, that he had done her a great injury. He made the same kind of love to every girl he had known for an hour, and forgot her the next day. ”One of these days,” the mother had said, ”some girl would catch him, and then he would be sorry.” A girl hadn't caught him in this case, but he had caught a girl, and didn't know what to do with her. Having compelled her to go through a form of marriage-it was no more than a form-he was sailing off to the ends of the world, leaving her not so much as the protection of his name. She owed him nothing; and only the goodness of his angel mother was making up for what he owed to her.

And, on his side, Bob was so carried away by his romance as to have no conception of Jennie's att.i.tude toward him. Seeing himself as a knight riding to the relief of a damsel in distress, it did not occur to him that the damsel could have a preference as to her deliverer. It was a matter of course that, from the window of the tower in which she was a prisoner, she would drop into his arms.

In other words, Bob had his own view of the advantages of being a Collingham. They were great advantages, since they gave him the opportunity of being generous. He was in love with Jennie largely because she was an exquisite object on which to spend himself. She was a gem, not in the rough, and yet in need of polis.h.i.+ng, and though his own refinement was not so very great, he could throw refinement in her way.

That is to say, love for Bob was very much a matter of giving himself out. Girls who could have brought him everything-and they were not scarce at Marillo Park-didn't interest him. They left no place for the selflessness which was the basis of his character. He couldn't precisely be called kind, since kindness implies some deliberation of the will. As the impulse of a fountain is to pour itself out, so Bob's impulse was to give, while Jennie was a crystal chalice wide open to receive.

”I want you to have everything in the world, Jennie darling,” he declared, bending above her as lovingly as a bench in the park would permit. ”I can't give it to you right off the bat, worse luck, but sooner or later I'll be able to dope you out every little wish. Good Lord! How I'll enjoy it.”

”What do you mean by sooner or later?” Jennie asked, with eyes downcast.

”When I get the family broken to the bit. I can't tell you in dates or time. They'll be hard in the mouth at first; and mother pulls like the devil.”

At this false witness, Jennie was revolted. No one knew better than herself the bigness of that maternal heart which, as early as next week, would give liberal proof of its sincerity, when Bob's promises would still be in the air.