Part 33 (1/2)

”I know he looks so, dear, but he isn't.”

”Well, here's your mother. Leave it to her. She will agree with me.”

”Why, what is it, Jinny?” asked Mrs. Pendleton, laying her bundle on the couch (for she had come prepared to spend the night), and regarding Oliver with the indulgent eyes of an older generation.

”Virginia says at the last minute that she won't go with us,” said Oliver, angry, yet caressing as he always was in his manner to his mother-in-law, to whom he was sincerely devoted. ”She's got into her head that there's something wrong with Harry, but you can tell by looking at the child that he is perfectly well.”

”But I was up with him last night, mother. His throat hurts him,” broke in Virginia in a voice that was full of emotion.

”He certainly looks all right,” remarked Mrs. Pendleton, ”and I can take care of him if anything should be wrong.” Then she added very gravely, ”If you can't go, of course Oliver must stay at home, too, Virginia.”

”I can't,” said Oliver; ”not just for a whim, anyway. It would break up the party. Besides, I didn't get a holiday all summer, and I'll blow up that confounded bank unless I take a change.”

In the last quarter of an hour the trip had become of tremendous importance to him. From a trivial incident which he might have relinquished a week ago without regret, the excursion with Abby had attained suddenly the dignity and the power of an event in his life.

Opposition had magnified inclination into desire.

”I don't think it will do for Oliver to go without you, Jinny,” said Mrs. Pendleton, and the gravity of her face showed how carefully she was weighing her words.

”But I can't go, mother. You don't understand,” replied Virginia, while her lips worked convulsively. No one could understand--not even her mother. Of the three of them, it is probable that she alone realized the complete significance of her decision.

”Well, it's too late now, anyway,” remarked Oliver shortly. ”You wouldn't have time to dress and catch the train even if you wanted to.”

Taking up his bag, he kissed her carelessly, shook hands with Mrs.

Pendleton, and throwing a ”Good-bye, General!” to Harry, went out of the door.

As he vanished, Virginia started up quickly, called ”Oliver!” under her breath, and then sat down again, drawing her child closer in her arms.

Her face had grown grey and stricken like the face of an old woman.

Every atom of her quivered with the longing to run after him, to yield to his wish, to promise anything he asked of her. Yet she knew that if he came back, they would only pa.s.s again through the old wearing struggle of wills. She had chosen not as she desired to, but as she must, and already she was learning that life forces one in the end to abide by one's choices.

”Oh, Virginia, I am afraid it was a mistake,” said Mrs. Pendleton in an agonized tone. The horror of a scandal, which was stronger in the women of her generation than even the horror of illness, still darkened her mind.

A s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed through Virginia and left her stiller and graver than before.

”No, it was not a mistake, mother,” she answered quietly. ”I did what I was obliged to do. Oliver could not understand.”

As she uttered the words, she saw Oliver's face turned to Abby with the gay and laughing expression she had seen on it when the two rode down Old Street together, and a wave of pa.s.sionate jealousy swept over her.

She had let him go alone; he was angry with her; and for three days he would be with Abby almost every minute. And suddenly, she heard spoken by a mocking voice at the back of her brain: ”You look at least ten years older than Abby.”

”It does seem as if he might have stayed at home,” remarked Mrs.

Pendleton; ”but he is so used to having his own way that it is harder for him to give it up than for the rest of us. Your father says you have spoiled him.”

She had spoiled him--this she saw clearly now, she who had never seen anything clearly until it was too late for sentimentality to work its harm. From the day of her marriage she had spoiled him because spoiling him had been for her own happiness as well as for his. She had yielded to him since her chief desire had been simply to yield and to satisfy.

Her unselfishness had been merely selfishness cloaked in the familiar aspect of duty. Another vision of him, not as he looked when he was riding with Abby, but as he had appeared to her in the early days of their marriage, floated before her. He had been hers utterly then--hers with his generous impulses, his high ideals, his undisciplined emotions.

And what had she done with him? What were her good intentions--what was her love, even, worth--when her intentions and her love alike had been so lacking in wisdom? It was as if she condemned herself with a judgment which was not her own, as if her life-long habit of seeing only the present instant had suddenly deserted her.

”He has been so nervous and unlike himself ever since the failure of his play, mother,” she said. ”It's hard to understand, but it meant more to him than a woman can realize.”

”I suppose so,” returned Mrs. Pendleton sympathetically. ”Your father says that he spoke to him bitterly the other day about being a failure.