Alice Duer Miller

“ Lewis sighed.
"Ah, yes, now, poor child—of course. Don't betray me, Nan. Don't let those two downstairs know that I have a doubt. She's a sweet creature—the plumber's widow—though to me irritating; and she wouldn't doubt anyone in the world, let alone her darling son; and, of course, Letitia does not think it possible that her husband can have killed a man, especially for the sake of another woman." ”

“ No one is ever so candid as I am. What is in your mind?"
"Nothing, mother. It crossed my mind that I might marry some day."
"Marry!" Her mother's tone, given the difference of sex and temperament, was identical with her father's; as if marriage were a crime other people's daughters might commit, but not her lovely child. "What in heaven's name are you talking about, Lita?" ”

“ No, for they had turned out to be more unattractive, more utterably unsuitable to Valentine than she had imagined. It was true that her taste, her sheltered selectiveness—a passion which many well-brought-up women mistake for morality—was outraged at being in the same room with Hermione, but there was a certain satisfaction in finding her to be worse even than Valentine's highly colored descriptions of her. And as for Margaret, she felt no jealousy of her, even though she had been chosen. No one could be jealous of any woman so kind, so old and so badly dressed. ”

“ Aunt Georgy, who was herself an honest person, was aware of an utterly unsuppressed wish that, whatever the facts were, Evie would say that she had never had a dream in her life. Instead the girl, with her blue eyes fixed on Lisburn, was nodding slowly.
"I've begun to dream lately," she said in a low tone.
Norma was delighted.
"I knew it," she said. "I'd have bet on it. It's extraordinary how one gets to know these things. Tell us what your dream is about, Evie."
"Mercy!" exclaimed Aunt Georgy. "Isn't a person allowed more than one dream nowadays?" ”

“ The princess shook her head.
"No," she said, "I shan't be at dinner tonight."
Charlotte looked at her and then broke out into protest: "No, no, you mustn't go. Let Raimundo go, if he must, but not you. Don't desert me, Lisa, because I have the misfortune to be married to a man who does not understand. Oh, to think that anything should have happened in my house that has hurt your feelings! I shall never forgive Dan—never! But don't go—for my sake, Lisa."
"It's for your sake I'm going, my dear." ”

“ Leaning forward on her elbow, in her mauve and silver tea gown, behind her silver tea tray, she looked very charming. Valentine thought that he had never known a woman who combined such perfection of appointments with such simplicity of manner. He had a strong instinct for the best in any art. It struck him that for a certain sort of thing this was the best.
She went on: "Perhaps you will think I should not have sent for you; but what could I do? I am so alone. My husband and I, as you perhaps know, are divorced." ”

“ Southgate's tone protested. "It makes a great deal of difference what it is."
Her sister-in-law felt the reproach.
"I mean, no one will believe it, no one will care—the scandal will be the same."
Doris made gesture with her thin hands as if one couldn't go changing all one's plans for every shred of gossip that drifted across the horizon.
"One only cares what one's friends say," she explained, "and I haven't any friends—except you, Antonia."
"Are you utterly indifferent to the name of an honorable man who was your husband?" ”

“ Hazlitt began to suspect Lita of some such ill-bred passion—most unjustly. The whole subject had had merely a theoretical interest for Lita. She was too practical to be fired by these intangible heroes—dream, dead or dramatic.
But now, even that first Sunday, as she stepped out of the infirmary into the bare March moonlight, she found that real life could hold the same thrill for her that dreams did for these others. ”

“ He wanted to point out to her that she was ruining Hale irretrievably. It was the sort of thing a man could never live down. It would be said that he preferred to live on the dead husband's money rather than to make the widow his wife. He put it as badly as he could, but Doris was unshaken. She nodded her head.
"Yes, I know," she said. "No one will understand. He sacrifices his reputation too—not any more than I do, Mr. Williams, though perhaps not any less. We must learn to live without the world, but we can—we shall have each other." ”

“ You see, sir, ever since I knew anything—ever since I was Lawrence's age—war has been about the most natural thing going. I suppose it's very different for all of you. Coming at the end of a perfectly peaceful life, it must seem like a sort of dirty accident; but even so, it's awfully queer to me the way you and mother have to lash yourselves up to doing anything—"
"Lash ourselves up?" exclaimed Mr. Brougham.
"Yes, with the idea of patriotism and self-sacrifice, when it's so perfectly clear what we all have to do. ”

“ They parted because they quarreled, but now she saw that their quarreling was the expression of their love. Her relations with everyone in the world except Valentine were suave and untroubled. And she was sure there was no one else with whom Valentine enjoyed the struggle for mastery. The mere notion of attempting to master the docile Margaret was comic, and as for Hermione, she was like a dish of blanc mange—you liked it and ate it or else you let it alone. No, it was useless to evade the truth that she, Cora, of all women was to him unique. ”

“ Lita, a little constrained by this display of emotion, said, smiling, "It's nice to know I'm no care, mother." But as an effort at the light touch it was not a success.
Mrs. Hazlitt did not even hear her. She went on: "Now he's ready to charm you and tempt you away so [Pg 26] as to leave me alone again. Oh, never love anyone, Lita, when you grow up! It's all pain. Be like your father; take what you want and go on your own horrible way, leaving destruction behind you." ”

“ But Miss Southgate was too angry to listen to him. She tossed the suggestion aside with the utmost contempt.
"How can you be so innocent?" she exclaimed. "The whole plan is his. Doris would never have the imagination to think of such a thing. She has simply fallen into the hands of a designing man. She has no will of her own. You are utterly mistaken."
Well, perhaps he was; but he wanted to find Hale and have a talk with him; but as he could find no trace of the young man, he was obliged to content himself with an interview with Doris. ”

“ Lita breathed, with all the pearly innocence of young guilt.
"Oh, dear, dear!" said Miss Barton. "So we have nothing on our conscience!"
"I have a great many things," said Lita quietly. She knew just how to talk to her chief—if that would do any good.
"One asks oneself whether girls are worth educating at all if this is the way the more intelligent ones expend their time and energy." And Miss Barton handed Lita the crumpled but familiar letter to Valentine. ”

“ The car stopped at the door of the main school building, and she sprang out, free at last to give her attention to Aurelia. Strangely enough, though she did not love her friend so much as she did her parents, she worried more about her, as one equal about another.
The infirmary, a neat white cottage, was set in a remote corner of the grounds. As Lita bounded up the steps she met Miss Barton coming out.
Every head of a school, perhaps every head of an institution, perhaps everyone in the world, acquires an artificial manner to serve as a method of holding off crises. ”

“ It was the picture of a slender woman with heavy dark hair and long slanting eyes, the cruelty of her high cheek bones softened by the sweet drooping curve of her mouth. A terrible and fascinating woman. Then as the light struck across the surface of the picture she saw it was a glossy print for reproduction. It might mean business—a feature for the syndicate—not love.
She was sitting far away from the desk when, a minute or two later, Valentine entered—Valentine a little thinner than before, but no less vital. ”

“ Other cars were waiting—closed cars full of heavy bald parents. Lita felt a glow of pride. To go out with her father was like going out with a dangerous young man. Fortunately the diversity of tastes between her parents extended to their places of lodging. Her mother always stayed at an old-fashioned inn near the school grounds, whereas her father, who motored the forty miles from New York, and so never spent the night, preferred to eat at the hotel in the nearest town. ”

“ Miss Barton, to whom Sunday was a terrible day, devoted to placating visiting parents, who always had one disagreeable thing to say before they left, had rather mistakenly abandoned the bishop entirely to Mrs. Hazlitt. As Lita approached them she heard her mother saying: "But I think it's so much nicer for wolves to be wolfish and leopards leopardy. I'm sure the heathen are ever so much happier the way they are, sharpening their teeth and eating one another up, poor dears." ”

“ Why, father, I feel just as if I were a policeman, or, no, a fireman—I feel as if I were a fireman and you expected me [Pg 274] to get off something about patriotism and self-sacrifice every time I went to put out a fire. A fireman goes, all right—it's his job; but I dare say he often wishes he could stay in bed. No one says his heart is cold, and no more it is, to my mind. It must be fun to go off in a burst of patriotic enthusiasm. ”

“ Would Carrie be studying Spanish at odd moments so as to know more about her idol's great bull-fighter part—would Doris work so hard at her music—would Aurelia be learning Romeo and Juliet by heart as she did her hair in the morning—Romeo was a part Valentine was always contemplating—if it were not for love? More, would Miss Barton's course in English constitutional history be so interesting if Miss Barton did not feel—as the school had discovered—a romantic passion for Oliver Cromwell? ”