Part 49 (1/2)

I sprang to my feet with my cheeks afire.

”Mother Graham, I have listened to you with respect as long as I can,”

I exclaimed. ”Whatever else you have to say to my husband about me you can say in my absence. If he at any time wishes an explanation of any action of mine he has only to ask me for it.”

White with rage I dashed out of the room, up the stairs and into my own room, locking the door behind me. In a few minutes d.i.c.ky's step came swiftly up the stairs; his knock sounded on my door.

”Madge, let me in,” he commanded, but the note of tenderness in his voice was the influence that hurried my fingers in the turning of the key.

As I opened the door he strode in past me, closed and locked the door again, and, turning, caught me in his arms.

”Don't you dare to cry!” he stormed, kissing my reddened eyelids.

”Aren't you ever going to get used to mother's childish outbursts?

You know she doesn't mean what she says in those tantrums of hers.

She simply works herself up to a point where she's absolutely irresponsible, and she has to explode or burst. You wouldn't like to see a perfectly good mother-in-law strewn in fragment all over the room, simply because she had restrained her temper, would you?” he added, with the quick transition from hot anger to whimsical good nature that I always find so bewildering in him.

I struggled for composure. My mother-in-law's words had been too scathing, her insult too direct for me to look upon it as lightly as d.i.c.ky could, but the knowledge that he had come directly after me, and that he had no part in the resentment his mother showed, made it easy for me to control myself.

”I ought to remember that your mother is an old woman, and an invalid, and not allow myself to get angry at some of the unjust things she says,” I returned, swallowing hard. ”So we'll just forget all about it and pretend it never happened.”

”You darling!” d.i.c.ky exclaimed, drawing me closer, and for a moment or two I rested in his arms, gathering courage for the confession I meant to make to him.

”d.i.c.ky, dear,” I murmured at last, ”there is something I want to tell you about this miserable business, something I ought to have told you before, but I kept putting it off.”

d.i.c.ky held me from him and looked at me quizzically, ”'Confession is good for the soul,'” he quoted, ”so unburden your dreadful secret.”

He drew me to an easy chair and sat down, holding me in his arms as if I were a little child. ”Now for it,” he said, smiling tenderly at me.

”It isn't so very terrible,” I smiled at him rea.s.sured by his tenderness. ”It is only that without telling you a deliberate untruth, that I gave both you and your mother the impression I had never seen Mr. Gordon before that night at the Sydenham.”

”Is that all?” mocked d.i.c.ky. ”Why, I knew that the moment you spoke as you did that night! You're as transparent as a child, my dear, and besides, your elderly friend let the cat out of the bag when he said he feared he had annoyed you by trying to find out your ident.i.ty. I knew you must have seen him somewhere.”

”You don't know all,” I persisted, and then without reservation I told him frankly the whole story of Mr. Gordon's spying upon me. I omitted nothing.

When I had finished, d.i.c.ky's face had lost its quizzical look. He was frowning, not angrily, but as if puzzled.

”Don't think I blame you one bit,” he said slowly; ”but it looks to me as if mother's dope might be right, as if the old guy is smitten with you after all.”

”I cannot hope to make your understand, d.i.c.ky,” I began, ”how confused my emotions are concerning Mr. Gordon. I think perhaps I can tell you best by referring to something about which we have never talked but once--the story I told you before we were married of the tragedy in my mother's life.”

”I believe you told me that neither your mother nor you had ever heard anything of your father since he left.” d.i.c.ky's voice was casual, but there was a note in it that puzzled me.

”That is true,” I answered, and then stopped, for the conviction had suddenly come to me that while I had never seen nor heard from my father since he left us--indeed, I had no recollection of him--yet I was not sure whether or not my mother had ever received any communication from him. I had heard her say that she had no idea whether he was living or dead, and I had received my impression from that. But even as I answered d.i.c.ky's question there came to my mind the memory of an injunction my mother had once laid upon me, an injunction which concerned a locked and sealed box among her belongings.

I felt that I could not speak of it even to d.i.c.ky, so put all thought of it aside until I should be alone.

”I do not think I can make you understand,” I began, ”how torn between two emotions I have always been when I think of my father. Of course, the predominant feeling toward him has always been hatred for the awful suffering he caused my mother. I never heard anything to foster this feeling, however, from my mother. She rarely spoke of him, but when she did it was always to tell me of the adoration he had felt for me as a baby, of the care and money he had lavished on me. But while with one part of me I longed to hear her tell me of those early days, yet the hatred I felt for him always surged so upon me as to make me refuse to listen to any mention of him.