Anna Alice Chapin

“ It doesn't pay, Joan, darling; truly it doesn't pay!”
“It's easy for you to talk!” rejoined Joan, with a laugh that was the least bit forced. “Jim Mercer's ever and ever so rich.”
Jim Mercer's pretty wife sighed almost impatiently.
"I know,” she said; “and I'm not such a fool or hypocrite as to pretend I wish he were poor. But, oh, Jo, take it from me, there's a limit! There's a point where a man has so much money he simply feels a sort of sacred obligation to add to it. ”

“ Yes, it was truly the same face save that the girl in the mirror did not smile. And—yes, there was another, an enormous difference. She looked at the picture long and closely. This other self of hers was exquisitely, elaborately dressed, though in a style a trifle old-fashioned, and she wore quantities of jewels. In her pretty hair—it was much darker, Joan now noticed, than her own—were diamond ornaments that even a somewhat faded photograph could not keep from sparkling. ”

“ Dainty simple clothes, such comforts and luxuries as his wealth and her position as his ward would demand, a limited amount of spending money, but—no gifts.
The library, with its warm-hued walls, rich with those mellowest of all color notes, beautifully bound hooks, its soft lights further blurred by blue cigar smoke, its heavy chairs covered with the sort of leather that all but defies time, its darkly-glowing Persian rugs—suddenly struck the girl who had been familiar with it for fifteen years as a new place. Intuition, premonition, something of that elfin quality of hers was at work. ”

“ If you only knew how I adore jewels!”
Della Mercer glanced at her with smiling curiosity, the while she pinned a chestnut ringlet into place. “Do you really?” she said. “Funny! I never see you wear a thing—not even a pin!”
Joan colored a little and shook her head. “Guardian doesn't approve of jewelry for me,” she said in a voice that she tried to keep from sounding discontented. “Even since I was a kiddie he—he's frowned on many pretties for me. I've never altogether understood why. He's so dear and generous about everything else.” ”

“ I'm awfully glad guardian likes David. Of course,” she added with the slightest hesitation, “David isn't rich.”
Mrs. Mercer shrugged her shoulders. “He has enough, hasn't he?” she said. “Enough to look out for you, I mean? I always think that little old house of his is the dearest thing! I'll expect you to give enchanting parties when you're married!”
“Probably I sha'n't,” said Joan quietly. “David has a small settled income, and he makes enough by his model farming for a few frills, but—he's not the least bit ambitious, you know, Della. He doesn't want any more than he has.” ”

“ Joan laid down the page for a moment, feeling faint and ill. Her head swam giddily as she recalled her ingenuous confession to her guardian that evening. And the letter she held in her hand had already been written.
She read on, steadying herself resolutely:
“At first this passion for jewelry was attributed by her friends to a pretty woman's natural love of being fittingly decorated. But it struck deeper than that. As your father made more money, she spent it recklessly on ornaments she could not afford. They were always extravagant and lived far beyond their income. ”

“ She only turned swiftly and without sound and went out of one of the library windows.
Joan saw that it stood wide open and the morning was full upon the world. Pale rose, dusky mauve, fairy-like gold, the colors were beginning to come. ”

“ If any one ever had been made for jewels it was she, and she knew it and smiled.
Joan turned the little picture over and read in fine, but rather reckless, handwriting, “Isabel Charteris Gurney.” She had always known that her dead father's name had been Gurney, and that her guardian had given her his when he legally adopted her. So the answer was plain. Isabel Gurney, this gay, gem-bedecked girl, who smiled so recklessly from the ghostly past, was her mother. ”

“ Take Joan, old Jack, make her as good and happy as you can, but keep jewels away from her, and keep her out of the world until she's of an age to have to decide for herself whether——”
Joan choked back a dry sob and missed a few lines that followed. Then she saw:
“Best of all, I would have her marry a decent fellow who could support her comfortably, but whose position wouldn't make it necessary to spend a lot of money. She oughtn't to have a lot of money. Ambition is in her blood, and I hope the man she marries won't have any of it.” ”

“ She turned to their host and held out her hand with her most charming smile.
“It's been the nicest sort of evening, Mr. Harmon!” she said cordially. “You can't think what a delightful surprise it's been to every one, having you so suddenly emerge from your twilight life of books and rose-growing, and give a ball. And such a ball! I hope it's broken the spell,” she added with pretty impertinence, “and that you're going to keep it up. Come, Mr. Harmon! Aren't we frivolous mortals at least as amusing as roses and first editions?” ”

“ The people?”
“Ye-es, the people, of course. Lots and lots of beautifully dressed people, ever so many handsome men. You were much the handsomest, guardian!”
He smiled, though gravely. In his clear-cut, severe way he was undeniably good to look at, and his tall, erect figure was at its best in evening dress.
Joan went on, in a sort of gale of warming recollection: “And pretty girls in adorable frocks! And women with jewels and jewels!”
“You liked to see the jewels?” he interrupted quietly.
“Why, of course! I think jewels are the loveliest things in the world! Don't you?” ”

“ He had in fact changed color and expression, but he smiled at her now, and said: “I was perhaps sorry that your girlhood had been so—unhappy—that one gay evening——”
“Guardian, never unhappy!”
“Dull, then. You are young and——
“Not so terrifically young, guardian,” she protested. “This is my first real party, and most girls come out at eighteen,”
"I know. It seemed—wiser—to wait until you were of age. There was so much to consider. Now things are, in a way, solving themselves. David—you love him, Joan?” ”

“ It is possible that, shielded as you have been from the various lures and crazes of social life, you will not understand that there was one and only one thing which could make your mother perfectly happy—the possession of precious stones. ”

“ I believe that in some way now, at this, the crossroads, your twenty-first birthday, the eve of your formal engagement, there will come to you some sign—something which will cause you, wisely or unwisely, to choose what your life will be. ”

“ He was the sort of man to be easily swayed by love. Big, handsome, strong, it was the devotion of a worshipful slave that looked out of his gray eyes. Joan remembered that her guardian was going to let David have the handling of the money ”

“ In a second her vision cleared, and God knows what age-old automatic instinct made her detach the ring, slip it inside her tight white satin girdle, and close the powder box.
Then she trembled from head to foot, for she had actually not thought while she acted. The hiding of the ring about her person had been utterly involuntary, without design or conscious plan. ”

“ But she was never happy, even though her husband was the best on earth, and rapidly becoming more successful in his profession; even though she had you, a tiny bright-haired little maid sweet enough to have satisfied any woman. ”

“ She went back to the dressing table and put the papers back into the envelope. "I have never known the Hour without the Sign.” Mechanically she began to move things she scarcely knew what she was doing. Her powder puff was lying where Della had tossed it. Joan picked it up to put it into the silver powder box where it belonged and—the room grew black for a short moment. ”

“ And so on, and so on. There were accounts of the trial. Mrs. Gurney had appeared very stoical and calm, though she looked very ill and was accompanied by a physician. She was, indeed, reported to be suffering from the effects of some mysterious accident as well as from the shock of her husband's tragic death.
Joan did not read many of the clippings. There was one enclosure left, a letter written in the same fine, hurried handwriting which had signed the back of the photograph. ”