V
Even on going into the open air from a warmed room, it would not havestruck you as a cold day. But thermometers marked a number of degreesworse than zero. The sky was bright and blue. Not a breath of windstirred. In the woods the underbrush was hidden by the smoothaccumulations of snow, so that the going was open.
The Adirondack winter climate is such that a man runs less risk ofgetting too cold than of getting too warm. Arthur, moving swiftly in agreat circle so that at some point he should come upon the tracks of hisculprit sisters, shed first his mittens and then his coat. The former hethrust into his trousers pocket, and he hung the latter to a broken limbwhere he could easily find it on his return.
"There would be some sense in running away in summer," he thought. "Itwould take an Indian or a dog to track them then, but in winter--I gavethem credit for more sense."
He came upon the outgoing marks of their snow-shoes presently, justbeyond Phyllis's garden, to the north of the camp. In imagination he sawthe two lithe young beauties striding sturdily and tirelessly over thesnow, and then and there the extreme pinnacles of his anger toppled andfell. There is no occupation to which a maiden may lend herself sovirginal as woodmanship. And he fell to thinking less of his youngsisters' indiscretion than of the extreme and unsophisticated innocencewhich had led them into it. What could girls know of men, anyway? Whatdid his sisters know of him? That he had been extravagant and ratherfast. Had they an inkling of what being rather fast meant? His smoothforehead contracted with painful thoughts. Even Mary's indignation uponthe discovery of the photograph in _The Four Seasons_ had not matchedhis own. She had been angry because she was a gentlewoman, andgentlewomen shun publicity. She had not even guessed at the degradationto which broadcast pictures of beautiful women are subjected. His angerturned from his sisters presently and glowered upon the whole world ofmen; his hands closed to strike, and opened to clutch and choke. ThatLee and Gay had done such a thing was earnest only of innocence coupledwith mischief. They must know that what they had done was wrong, sincethey had fled from any immediate consequences, but how wrong it was theycould never dream, even in nightmares. Nor was it possible for him toexplain. How, then, could any anger which he might visit upon thembenefit? And who was he, when it came to that, to assume theunassailable morality of a parent?
It came to this: That Arthur followed the marks of Lee's and Gay'ssnow-shoes mechanically, and raged, not against them, not against theworld of men, but against himself. He had said once in jest that many anartistic impulse had been crushed by the camera and the pianola. But howpitifully true this had been in his own case! If he had been born intoless indulgence, he might have painted, he might have played. The onlyson in a large family of daughters, his father and mother had worshippedthe ground upon which his infant feet had trod. He had never known whatit was to want anything. He had never been allowed to turn a hand to hisown honest advantage. He was the kind of boy who, under less goldencircumstances, would have saved his pocket-money and built with his ownhands a boat or whatever he needed. There is a song: "I want what I wantwhen I want it." Arthur might have sung: "I get what I'm going to wantand then I don't want it."
His contemporaries had greatly envied him, when, as a mere matter ofjustice, they should have pitied him. All his better impulses had beengnarled by indulgence. He had done things that showed natural ability;but of what use was that? He was too old now to learn to draw. He playedrather delightfully upon the piano, or any other instrument, for thatmatter. To what end? He could not read a note.
There was nothing that Arthur could not have done, if he had been letalone. There were many things that he would have done.
At college he had seen in one smouldering flash of intuition how badlyhe had started in the race of life. When others were admiring his manybrilliancies, he was mourning for the lost years when, under almost anyguidance save that of his beloved father, he might have laid such sturdyfoundations to future achievements--pedestals on which to erect statues.
Self-knowledge had made him hard for a season and cynical. As a tiredsea-gull miscalculates distance and dips his wings into the sea, soArthur, when he thought that he was merely flying low the better to seeand to observe, had alighted without much struggling in a pool ofdissipation and vice.
The memory was more of a weariness to him than a sharp regret. Of whatuse is remorse--after the fact? Let it come before and all will be well.
At last, more by accident than design, he drew out of the muddy waysinto which he had fallen and limped off--not so much toward betterthings as away from worse.
Then it was that Romance had come for him, and carried him on strongwings upward toward the empyrean.
Even now, she was only twenty. She had married a man more than twice herage. He had been her guardian, and she had felt that it was her duty.Her marriage proved desperately unhappy. She and Arthur met, and, asupon a signal, loved.
For a few weeks of one golden summer, they had known the ethereal blissof seeing each other every day. They met as little children, and soparted. They accepted the law and convention which stood between them,not as a barrier to be crossed or circumvented but with childlike faithas a something absolutely impassable--like the space which separates theearth and the moon.
They remained utterly innocent in thought and deed, merely loved andlonged and renounced so very hard that their poor young hearts almostbroke.
Not so the "old man."
It happened, in the autumn of that year, that he brought his wife to NewYork, in whose Wall Street he had intricate interests. He learned thatshe was by way of seeing more of Arthur than a girl of eighteen marriedto a man of nearly fifty ought to see. He did not at once burst intocoarse abuse of her, but, worldly-wise, set detectives to watch her. Hehad, you may say, set his heart upon her guilt. To learn that she wasutterly innocent enraged him. One day he had the following conversationwith a Mr. May, of a private detective bureau:
"You followed them?"
"To the park."
"Well?"
"They bought a bag of peanuts and fed the squirrels."
"Go on."
"Then they rode in a swan-boat. Then they walked up to the reservoir andaround it. Then they came back to the hotel."
"Did they separate in the office?"
"On the sidewalk."
"But last night? She said she was dining with her sister and going tothe play. What did she do last night?"
"She did what she said. Believe me, sir--if I know anything of men andwomen, you're paying me to run fool's errands for you. _They_ don't needany watching."
"You have seen them--kiss?"
"Never."
"Hold hands?"
"I haven't seen any physical demonstration. I guess they like each othera lot. And that's all there is to it."
But the "old man" made a scene with her, just such a scene as he wouldhave made if the detective's report had been, in effect, the opposite ofwhat it was. He assumed that she was guilty; but, for dread of scandal,he would not seek a divorce. He exacted a promise that she would not seeArthur, or write to him, or receive letters from him.
Then, having agreed with certain magnates to go out to China upon thequestion of a great railroad and a great loan, he carried her off withhim, then and there. So that when Arthur called at the hotel, he wastold that they had gone but that there was a note for him. If it wasfrom the wife, the husband had dictated it:
Don't try to see me ever any more. If you do, it will only make my life a hell on earth.
That had been the tangible end of Arthur's romance. But the intangibleends were infinite and not yet. His whole nature had changed. He hadsuffered and could no longer bear to inflict pain.
He lifted his head and looked up a little slope of snow. Near the top,wonderfully rosy and smiling, sat his culprit sisters. He had forgottenwhy he had come. He smiled in his sudden embarrassment.
"Don't shoot, colonel," called Gay, "and we'll come down."
"Promise, then," he said,
"that you'll never be naughty again."
"We promise," they said.
And they trudged back to camp, with jokes and laughter and three verysharp appetites.
The Seven Darlings Page 5