CHAPTER II
The chair car was well filled when Louise somewhat misty-eyed fromparting with the doleful group of school intimates who convoyed her tothe little station, walked down the aisle just as the train began tomove. Not in the least sorry because she was finally leaving school, shewas affected by the glumness of the girls who had insisted upon biddingher goodbye at the train; but she had not actually wept at any stage ofthe parting. Perhaps the tear-reddened eyes and noses of her schoolfriends had slightly touched her risibles; for her by no means latentsense of humor invariably struggled to the surface when she foundherself figuring in anything of the nature of a "scene." She was notlacking in what the iron-jowled dowagers call "becoming sensibilities;"but she was habitually self-contained, and tears were unusual with her.Nevertheless, she found difficulty in properly discerning objects, evenat close range, as she searched for her place; and it was due to herfilmed vision that she took a chair that did not correspond to thenumber on her Pullman ticket.
Women as well as men pivoted about in their chairs for a second glanceat Louise. Her unusual height was emphasized by the loose-fittingfur-lined cloth coat which fell straight from her shoulders to herskirt's hem. When she removed the coat her simple one-piece gown of bluecloth caused cogitating men in surrounding chairs to marvel as to howshe had ever contrived to get into it, and, worse, how she wouldpossibly manage to get out of it. The guimpe of the dress was of acreamy embroidery that dissolved bafflingly into the whiteness of herneck.
Louise might have reminded an imaginative traveler, had there been suchin the car, of a freshly-blown, firm-petalled chrysanthemum. There arewomen in whom you first discern an utter, convincing wholesomeness;later you become aware of their beauty. Their wholesomeness, you thinkupon your first comprehensive glance, is like that of an early vernalbreeze, of dew upon clean grass; then the contributing elements of theirbeauty emerge upon your consciousness as through a succession of liftedveils. Louise Treharne was of this type. Unusually tall, she had none ofthe raw-boned angularities of the over-trained young woman who makes afad of gymnasium or out-of-doors activities and who thoughtlesslysacrifices the beauty of contour on the profitless altar ofover-athleticism. Slender, yet well rounded, the fine amplitude of herproportions caused her to look several years older than her age. Herface contributed to this effect. It was a face such as the imaginaryimaginative traveller might vaguely have associated with the faces ofwomen stamped upon Roman coins. There is a sort of creamy, vivid pallorthat, equally with ruddiness, denotes perfect health and vigor. This wasLouise's; and the uncommon regularity of her features was tempered andsoftened by varying phases of expression that spoke of an habitualserenity and a searching common sense. Her hair, of the darkest shade oflustrous auburn, waved back loosely and often a bit rebelliously to thegreat knotted coil in which it was caught at the back of herfinely-lathed head. Her eyes, the corners of which had an almostindistinguishable slant that only became agreeably noticeable when shesmiled, were wide and full, and of so dark a brown that, at night or inshadowed rooms, they were often supposed to be black.
She had barely settled herself, chin in palm, to gaze out of the windowat the blurred landscape of ice-crusted snow, before she became somewhatconfusedly conscious of a loomful figure standing patiently in the aislebeside her. When she suddenly turned her head and surveyed him withcalm, questioning eyes, he pulled off his cap of plaid a bit awkwardlyand smiled. She mentally observed that his mouth was a trifleover-large; but his smile, for all of that, she thought, was the smileof a man. With the woman's mystifying ability mentally to absorbinnumerable details at a mere glance, she noticed (without in the leastseeming to notice) that he was of unusual stature and of the type calledby women, in their between-themselves appraisals, "delightfullyscrubbed-looking;" that he was perhaps a little above thirty; that hehad a closely-shaven rugged jaw and somewhat jutting chin, huge,well-cared-for hands, rather closely-cropped brown hair slightly greyingat the sides, candid grey eyes with tiny lines of humor and experiencerunning away from their corners. She noticed, too, that he was notwearing gloves, which was satisfying. All of the other men in theover-warm car were wearing their heavy cold-weather gloves, and she wasslightly contemptuous of this as an unmasculine affectation. Finally, inthe same single glance, she perceived his visible embarrassment....
"Pray don't disturb yourself," he said, fumbling his cap with bothhands. ("Why don't all men talk basso?" thought Louise.) "I can reach itwithout your moving at all, if you will permit me. My bag, you know.There are some papers in it that I want to go over, and----"
He stopped dead and looked quite wretched when Louise came to her feet.
"I am in your chair," she said, as he stooped to pick up a bag that,she now noticed for the first time, was wedged by the seat she hadunwittingly taken. She was about to remove her coat to the back of thechair in front--her rightful place, as she quickly remembered when shesaw the number on the panel--when he put out a determinedly detaininghand.
"Don't make me feel such a disgraceful nuisance, I beg of you," he saidwith an earnestness that was out of keeping with his twinkling eyes."One chair is as good as another--better, in fact, when one already haspossession of it. This bag is my only gear. You'll keep the seat, won'tyou? That's immensely kind of you," as Louise resumed the chair. "Iwouldn't have had you move for----"
"Of course," she interrupted him with a quietly frank laugh, "I hadn'tthe slightest intention of moving. It is more than good of you tosuppose that I meant to be so agreeable."
"That," he pronounced, again with his liberal smile, "is probably aneat, quickly-conceived way of letting me down easily, for which I amnevertheless grateful;" and, bowing, he took the chair in front of her,dug into his bag and quickly became immersed in a batch of formidablelooking documents. Louise, again leaning back in her chair, decided thatthe rear of his head was decidedly shapely.
The excessive warmth of the car was making her sleepy, and she closedher eyes and surrendered herself to dozing reflections. She was dubiousas to the reception her mother would give her. She had not heard fromher mother since writing the letter in which she had calmly announced,as something settled and therefore not open to debate, that she wasthrough with school and would not return to Miss Mayhew's after theholidays. Laura had been only partly right as to Louise's reason forquitting school. Louise, it was true, was glad enough to escape thenightmare of "commencement exercises" by leaving half a year in advanceof her graduation. But she had a far deeper reason for quitting theschool without consultation with her mother. She wanted to be at home;any sort of a home. She had no very pleasurable recollections of theplaces--there had been many of them, and they had not been homes--inwhich she had lived with her mother before being sent to the finishingschool in central New York. Her young girlhood had been a period ofaimless drifting, at seashore and mountain resorts in summer, and intiny but by no means snug apartments in New York in the winter; hermother's restlessness and her frequently expressed dislike of "smugdomesticity" had combined against her ever establishing anything evenapproximating a genuine home for herself and her daughter. Louise onlyvaguely remembered her father; the separation, followed by a divorce,had taken place when she was only nine years old. At fifteen she hadbeen trundled off to the up-State finishing school; and the school hadbeen the only home she had known for close upon four years. Her motherhad visited her twice a year, taking her to the seaside for a week or soduring the summer vacation and to Lakewood for a brief stay during theholidays. Her mother had always been provided with some sort of anexcuse for not taking Louise to her home--Louise knew that she must havesome sort of a home--in New York. The place was being overhauled, guestshad unexpectedly swooped upon her, she was about to start upon ajourney; Louise had listened, mystified, so often to these reasons hermother gave for not having her daughter with her in the city at timeswhen nearly all the other girls were leaving the school for home visitsthat she at length came to believe that her mother was treating her withsomewhat humiliating
disingenuousness. This feeling, however, arousedless resentment in the girl than it did a feeling of distress; she couldnot avoid, as she grew older, the conviction that she was beingneglected. The feeling became intensified when, year after year, she wasshunted, as she considered, on visits to the homes of her schoolgirlfriends. It was natural enough, when she observed how cherished theother girls were in their homes, how the arms of strong affectionconstantly were thrown around them, that she should compare her ownthrust-aside state with theirs and that she should develop the intenselonging of a normal, affectionate young woman for similar love andprotection.
She had no sense of resentment against her mother; it was rather afeeling of regret that the curious aloofness between them, which she hadno possible way of understanding, had ever risen. She hoped thatperhaps, after all, her mother might really need her as sorely as shefelt that she herself needed a mother and a home. She was returning toher mother with an open mind; no longer a child to be shunted andevaded, but a woman to be treated with frankness. There were some pointsin connection with her mother's affairs that she did not understand butas to which she had no undue curiosity. But she was intensely glad to beat least on her way home--on her way to her mother, at any rate--forgood and all; and she formed plans for drawing nearer to her mother,wistfully hoping that the plans would have the fruition she longed for.
Louise's reflections gradually, with the purring movement of the train,became merged into dreams. She awoke with a start when the train came toa grinding stop at a station. She began cutting the pages of a magazinewhen, glancing up, she saw the man with whom she had held the littlecolloquy a while before striding down the aisle of the car. In his handwas an unopened telegram. She noticed that he was looking at her as heapproached her seat, and that he was knitting his brow in a puzzled,serious sort of way.
He stopped when he came to her chair and held out the telegram.
"The boy paged the dining car, where I happened to be," he said to her,"and, thinking that you might still be asleep, I took the liberty ofsigning for your telegram."
The telegram was addressed to "Miss Louise Treharne." It was from one ofLouise's girl friends at the school, telling her that a piece ofhand-baggage that Louise had absent-mindedly left at the station wasbeing forwarded.
Louise scarcely glanced at the contents of the telegram, so great washer astonishment over its method of reaching her.
"You grant, of course, that I have reason to be puzzled," she said tohim, unconstrainedly but entirely in earnest. She noticed that he wasfar from being unconstrained, and that a certain seriousness sat uponhis strong features which she had not before observed. "It is plain thatyou knew this telegram was for me."
"Otherwise, of course," he replied, a little huskily, "I should nothave presumed to sign for it. I should not have signed for it in anycase had I not supposed you to be asleep. I feared, you see, that youmight miss it."
"But you do not in the least appease my curiosity," said Louise, smilingsomewhat nervously. "If you knew me--as it seems of course you do--Icannot understand why you did not reveal yourself when we had our littleconversation a while ago."
"But I did not know--I should say I did not recall you then," he said,plainly flustered.
"You only add to the mystery," said Louise. "You will enlighten me, ofcourse?"
He whirled his chair about so that, sitting back on the arm of it, hecould face her.
"It is simple enough," he explained, with a hesitancy which Louise didnot fail to note. "When the lad with the telegram came through thedining car, calling out your name, I could not fail, with that startlingreminder, to remember----" He broke off as if reluctant to proceed.
"Yes?" put in Louise, a bit proddingly.
"Well, I could not fail to remember your father's daughter," he said ina low tone, obviously striving to regain some ease of manner.
"You know my father?" said Louise, her sense of the mystery of it allincreasing rather than abating.
"Yes," he replied, still struggling, as Louise could see, to conquer atrouble that was visible on his features. "I am your father's attorney.I know your mother quite well, too. But this is the first time I haveseen you since you were a little girl in pigtails and highly-starchedskirts." He strove to make his laugh sound natural and easy, but it wasa failure. Some worry, as to the nature of which Louise could of coursenot even guess, was in his voice as well as on his face.
Louise impulsively held out her hand.
"The mystery is cleared," she said, brightly, "and it is delightful tomeet so old a friend, no matter how oddly. Won't you sit down and tellme all about my father and my mother and myself and yourself and--andeverybody? Or is it permissible for one to cross-examine so solemn andcautious a person as an attorney?"
He sat down in the chair facing hers and studied, constrainedly, thepattern of the cap which he held out before him. Then he glanced at hiswatch.
"I am leaving the train at Peekskill," he said, "so there is not muchtime. You are to be home for the holidays?"
"For the holidays and for all time," she replied with a certaineagerness. "You have visited my mother's home? Because, you know, Inever have." She had not meant to say that so baldly, and she was sorryfor the slip as soon as the words were out. "It is on Riverside Drive.Therefore it must be lovely; the view, at any rate. It is lovely, isn'tit?"
He deliberately evaded the question.
"You are not returning to school at all?" he pointedlycounter-questioned her instead. "Does your mother know this? I hope Idon't seem inquisitive. But I am really interested in knowing."
"You trap me into a confession," replied Louise, smiling. "I simplyannounced to my mother that I was through with school, and here I am onmy way home. I am hoping that she will not be excessively angry with me.Do you think she will be?"
Louise was finding him decidedly difficult, in spite of her efforts toput him at his ease. He became so immersed in cogitations which Louisecould see were of the troubled sort that he seemed scarcely to listen towhat she was saying.
"You have not answered my question, you know, Mr.--Mr.--you see I do noteven know your name," said Louise, after a pause, pretending to beaggrieved.
"Oh, pardon the rudeness, won't you?" he said, hastily. "Blythe is myname--John Blythe. And forgive me for not having caught your question,Miss Treharne. You don't mind asking it again?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Louise, appeased, but still curious as tothe cause of the perturbation he had exhibited ever since he had broughther the telegram, and which had become more pronounced since she hadtold him that she was on her way to her mother's home to remain there.She had not failed to notice his quite manifest unwillingness to speakof her mother. Not of a prying nature, she concluded, without framingthe thought in words, that, if he had a reason for that unwillingness,it was decidedly his privilege to keep the reason to himself. But hercuriosity as to her father was not so easily repressed. She had notheard him spoken of--her mother forbade the subject--for many years, norhad he ever communicated with her directly; but her childishrecollections of him were very sweet. She could not resist thetemptation to speak of him to this newly-revealed friend. Why should shenot, she thought, since he seemed to be so well acquainted with herparents--and was her father's attorney besides?
"Mr. Blythe," she found herself saying in a tone of unusual hesitationfor her, a young woman of perfect frankness, "I feel that I may ask youabout my father, seeing that you know--well, everything concerning himand my mother and--myself. It has been so many, many years since I haveeven heard him mentioned. Where is he? When did you see him last?"
"He lives in Hawaii, Miss Treharne--I saw him in Honolulu a few yearsago," replied Blythe, promptly enough.
Louise pondered. There was nothing specific she wanted to ask about herfather. But she considered that Blythe had not told her very much.
"Is he--well, nice?" she asked him.
Blythe, disturbed as he was, could not help but smile at the naivequestion. But he sobered
before he replied.
"He is almost, if not quite, the finest man I ever knew," he said. "Ihope to be allowed to tell you all about him some time. I shall bewriting to him presently. Tut! Here is Peekskill. I am dropping off herefor a few hours," and he thrust his arms into his overcoat.
"You will send my love to my father in your letter?" said Louise, hereyes slightly filmed, touching him upon the sleeve. He looked gravelydown upon her; her words touched him keenly.
"I am glad you have asked me to do that, Miss Treharne," he said. "Andhe will be more than glad--depend upon that. Goodbye--not for very long,I hope. I am overjoyed to have come upon you again--especially at thistime," and he took her two hands in his huge palms for an instant andwas gone.
"'Especially at this time'--I wonder what he meant by that?" thoughtLouise. He waved at her as he passed beneath her car window. She wasconscious that his smile in doing so was slightly forced; an instantbefore he caught sight of her through the window she had noticed thathis face was clouded with worry.
* * * * *
An hour later Louise was weaving her way through the rushing,holiday-chattering crowd toward the exit gate at the Grand Centralstation. Peering toward the gate, and able, with her unusual height, tosee over the heads of the hurrying women and most of the men, she espiedher mother, looking somewhat petitely stodgy beside the stately Laura,gazing rather wearily through the iron lattice. "I think I see myselfbeing sent to bed without any supper," whimsically thought Louise,considering, as she drew nearer, her mother's bored expression. Louisewas glad Laura was with her mother; when a mere growing girl she hadbecome gratefully familiar with Laura's self-styled "amelioratingknack." She had become very fond of her mother's handsome,superbly-capricious but sunny-natured friend before being packed off toschool; and now her eyes became slightly blurred at the thought thatLaura had remembered her and had thought enough of her to be with hermother at her home-coming.
"Here is our blossomy, bronze-haired Boadicea!" Louise heard Laura sayas she was taken into the older woman's arms and heartily kissed. ThenLaura thrust her away with assumed annoyance. "But, minx, you are tallerthan I am; a full inch, maybe two, taller! How do you ever expect me toforgive you that, child?" and she smiled, drawing Louise toward heragain, and hugged her once more.
Louise's mother brushed the girl's cheek with her lips, her daughterbending toward her.
"You _are_ grotesquely tall, aren't you, dear?" said Mrs. Treharne, notvery good-naturedly. Her petulance over Louise's return was by no meansallayed; and her masseuse had told her that evening that she had gainedtwo pounds in a week! "You will have to get clothes that will reduceyour shocking stature." Then, swept by a momentary compunction, "You arewell, dear? You are looking excessively well."
Louise was not hurt by the tone of her mother's greeting. She was wellacquainted with her parent's irritableness, and even more familiar withher indurated indifference. The main thing was that she was back withher mother, and with a chance to strive for a better understanding.
"But aren't you a mite thinner, mother?" Louise asked, thoroughlymeaning it; for there wasn't an ounce of sycophancy in Louise's make-up,and she noticed her mother's hollowness of eye and generally distraughtair and so concluded that she was losing in weight.
Mrs. Treharne flared instantly.
"You are not to make game of me, my dear, whatever else you do," shesaid, icily, to her astonished daughter. Laura laughed outright andcaught Louise's arm in her own as they started through the station.
"Don't be absurd, Antoinette--the dear is not making game of you, as youcall it," said Laura. "You know she is incapable of that."
"But I am all at sea," said Louise, still mystified over her mother'sinexplicable outbreak. "What is it? What did I say that was wrong?"
Her mother looked at her and saw that the girl was wholly innocent ofthe sarcasm she had hastily attributed to her.
"You know very well, Louise," she said, in a tone meant to be appeasing,"that I am hideously, scandalously, shockingly fat; and you cannotexpect me to be cheerful when you begin to taunt me with it before youhave had more than one glance at me."
"But you are anything but stout, mother dear, and I really meant what Isaid," put in Louise. "Why, it perfectly stuns me to think you couldsuppose that I----"
"Tut-tut--can't we find something more engaging to talk about than whatthe weighing scales do or do not tell us?" broke in Laura, gaily."Antoinette, dear, won't you see if you can attract that taxicab man'sattention?"
When Mrs. Treharne walked over to the curb to summon the chauffeur ofthe taxicab Laura seized the moment to say to Louise in a low tone.
"Some things have occurred to disturb your mother, dear; so don't mindif she seems a bit _difficile_ tonight, will you? She is a littleannoyed over your intention not to return to the school; but I shallhelp you out there. I am going home with you now for a little while.You'll depend upon your old friend Laura?"
Louise, watching her mother, furtively pressed Laura's hand.
"You know how I always loved you as a little girl?" she said simply.Laura's eyes became suddenly suffused with tears. She knew the girl'sneed of affection; and she vowed in her heart, then and there, crowdingback the tears when she saw Mrs. Treharne beckoning to them, that shewould stand in the place of the girl's mother if the time ever came--andshe more than dimly apprehended that come it would--when such a thingneed be.
Laura forced the conversation and strove to give to it a note of gayetyas the taxicab sped through the icy streets. Once, in addressing her,Louise called her "Mrs. Stedham." Instantly Laura assumed a mightypretence of annoyed hostility.
"Mrs. Hoity-Toity, child," she said, severely, to Louise. "You are notsupposing, I hope, that I shall permit a woman a full two inches tallerthan I am to call me any such an outlandish name as 'Mrs. Stedham'?Great heaven, am I not old enough as it is? I am Laura to you, dear;flatter me at least, by making me believe that you consider me youngenough to be called by my christened name; the aged have so fewcompensations, you know," and Louise, not without initial difficulty,however--for Laura had always been a woman to her--called her Laurathenceforth and was pleased to imagine that the elder woman was her"big, grown-up" sister.
On the ride to the Riverside Drive house Louise, suddenly remembering,mentioned Blythe. She described the incident through which he had madehimself known to her, but forbore, out of a certain diffidence which shealways felt in her mother's presence, saying anything about Blythe'sallusions to her father. She omitted that part altogether.
"How extraordinary!" commented Laura. "But John Blythe's practice isalways sending him prowling about the country on trains. Everybody whoknows about such things tells me what an enormously important personagehe is becoming in the dry-as-dust legal world. I am sure he doesastonishingly well with my hideously complicated affairs--you know he ismy legal man, Louise. Isn't it odd that you should have met him in sucha way? Didn't you find him rather--well, _distingue_, we'll say,Louise?"
"I thought him very fine and----" Louise strove for a word haltingly.
"And with an air about him--of course you did, my dear; everybody does,"Laura aided her. "If he wasn't such a perfectly wrong-headed,wrapped-up-in-the-law sort of a person he would have fallen in love withme long ago, even if I am old enough to be his grandmother; he isthirty-two, I believe, and I am bordering upon thirty-six; but he barelynotices me in that way," with an acute emphasis on the "that," "thoughwe are no end of first-rate friends; pals, I was going to say; for I'veknown him ever since----"
Laura came to a sudden stop. She had been upon the brink of saying "eversince Blythe had helped her to get her divorce from Rodney Stedham;" butshe recollected in time that that was not exactly the sort of achronological milestone that should be reverted to in the presence of agirl just that day out of school.
"Louise, did you tell Mr. Blythe that you were to remain withme--permanently?" asked Mrs. Treharne, constrainedly, suddenly joiningin the conversation.
Louise reflected a moment before replying.
"Why, yes, mother, I did; he asked me about it, I recall now," she said.
"Did he have any comment to make?" asked her mother in a reduced tone.
"Why, no, dear," said Louise. "In fact, he appeared to be considerablyworried about something, and so----" Louise felt herself being furtivelyprodded by Laura, and she left off suddenly.
Opportunely, the taxicab drew up in front of an ornate house on theDrive.
"Do you live here, mother?" Louise inquired, innocently. "I wonder how Imanaged to form the impression that you were living in an apartment?"
Mrs. Treharne pretended not to have heard her. The door was silentlyopened by a man in livery. Laura was watching Louise keenly as thegirl's eyes took in the splendor of the foyer and hall. The magnificencewas of a Pittsburgesque sort, in which beauty is sacrificed to a mereoverwhelming extravagance; but, for its extravagance alone, not lessthan for its astonishing ornateness, it had a sort of impressiveness.
"Why, how dazzling!" Louise could not refrain from commenting. "Howdelightfully different from what I expected! I am so glad that I amhome--home!" She lingered lovingly upon the word.
It was a difficult moment for Laura. But she was prepared for it. Inaddition to the "ameliorating knack" she had a way of being ready forcontingencies.
"Antoinette," she said, mainly to stop Louise, "I have one of myheadaches coming on. Can't we have some tea in your rooms?"
"I was just about to suggest that," said Mrs. Treharne, drily, andpresently the three women were in her sumptuous sitting room,overlooking the twinkling lights of the Hudson. A butler spread thecloth and brought a fowl and salad and jams, while Louise roamed aboutexclaiming over the beauty of the rooms, and Laura fought desperatelyagainst her inclination to brood.
Laura contributed whatever of merriness there was to the home-comingfeast. Mrs. Treharne confined herself to occasional questions directedat Louise, and the girl saw that her mother was tired and out of sorts;she remembered what Laura had told her at the station of her mother'sstate of mind "over matters," and she made the allowances that she hadbeen accustomed to make for her mother since her earliest years.
The three women were still at the table, beginning to make allusions tobed--Laura had summoned her car by 'phone, for it was close uponeleven--when a great-girthed man, in a sealskin coat that fell almost tohis heels, an opera hat set rakishly on one side of his bald head, andhis turkey-like eyes still more reddened with the libations that hislurching gait made still more obvious, lumbered into the room withoutthe least attempt at knocking on the door.
"Hay-o, folks--having a little party?" said Judd, lurching toward thetable. "Am I in on it?" and he plumped himself drunkenly into a chair.
Laura rose at the first sight of him. Mrs. Treharne kept her seat butgazed at him vitriolically. Louise looked at him quietly enough. She wasintensely mystified, but quite willing to wait for any information as tothe intrusion. No information, however, was forthcoming.
"Your mother will show you to your room, dear," said Laura, placing anarm around Louise's waist and guiding her to the door. Under her breathshe said: "No questions, dear heart. He is an--an adviser of yourmother. We are going to be great cronies, are we not?" She kissed Louiseand went. Her mother conducted Louise to a sleeping room done in whiteand silver, and kissed the girl good night with a sort of belated rushof affection. But she said nothing to her in explanation of Judd.
Toward midnight John Blythe, after striding up and down his solitarybachelor apartment for two hours in lounging robe and slippers, went tothe telephone in his study and called up Laura.
"Is that you, Laura?" he said, quietly, into the transmitter when sheanswered the call. "What time tomorrow forenoon will you be fit to beseen?"
"By noon," Laura's voice came back to him quietly. "I know what you wantto see me about, John."
"Do you? I doubt that."
"It is about Louise Treharne."
"I'll be there by noon. Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
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