Eleanor H. Porter

“ With a tense biting of her lip Betty reproached herself bitterly for being so free to tell of her own small affairs. She ought to have known that any interest a man like that could show was bound to be superficial and insincere. What a pity she should lose, for once, her reserve! Well, at least she had learned her lesson. Never again would she be guilty of making a confidant of Mr. Burke Denby, no matter how suave and human-like he might elect to become for some other brief week in the future! ”

“ Gowing, she—dear old soul—just sat and frankly cried. And the merrier I sang, the faster the tears rolled down her face—but it was for joy. I could see that. And once I heard her mutter: 'To think that ever again I should hear music and laughter—here!' Dr. Gleason, did Mr. Denby ever love somebody once, and do I look like her?"
Taken utterly by surprise, the doctor, for one awful minute, floundered in appalled confusion. It was Helen this time who came to the rescue.
"I shall tell the doctor he needn't answer that question, Betty," she said, with just a shade of reproval in her voice. ”

“ Burke was surprised, annoyed, and dismayed. Being unaccustomed to disappointments he did not know how to take them gracefully. This being married was not proving to be at all the sort of thing he had pictured to himself. He had supposed that life, married life, was to be a new wonder every day; an increasing delight every hour. It was neither. Living now was a matter of never-ending adjustment, self-sacrifice, and economy. And he hated them all. In spite of himself he was getting into debt, and he hated debt. It made a fellow feel cheap and mean.
Even Helen was not what he had thought she was. ”

“ There were a dismayed cry from Helen, half a-dozen angry spats on a tiny hand, a series of shrieks from Dorothy Elizabeth, and a rapidly spreading inky pall over baby, dress, table, rug, and Helen's new frock.
At that moment Burke appeared in the door.
With wrathful eyes he swept the scene before him, losing not one detail of scolding woman, shrieking child, dinnerless table, and inky chaos. Then he strode into the room.
"Well, by George!" he snapped. "Nice restful place for a tired man to come to, isn't it? This is your idea of a happy home, I suppose!" ”

“ But he did not stop to think of anything except that for the first time in his life he was going home from work to Helen, his wife.
Burke Denby never forgot the shock of that first home-going. He opened the door of his apartment—and confronted chaos: a surly janitor struggling with a curtain pole, a confusion of trunks, chairs, a stepladder, and a floor-pail, a disorder of dishes on a coverless table, a smell of burned milk, and a cross, tired, untidy wife who flung herself into his arms with a storm of sobs. ”

“ At an unmistakable something in her mother's voice Betty looked up in surprise.
"Why, mother, that sounded exactly as if you were glad he was unhappy!" she exclaimed.
Helen, secretly dismayed and terrified, boldly flaunted the flag of courage.
"Did I? Oh, no," she laughed easily. "Still, I'm not so sure but I am a little glad: if he's unhappy, all the more chance for you to make yourself indispensable by helping him and making him happy. See?"
"Happy!" scoffed Betty with superb disdain; "why, the man doesn't know what the word means." ”

“ Burke was feeling really quite keenly these days the solemnity and responsibility of fatherhood. He had called into being a new soul. A little life was in his hands to train. By and by this tiny pink roll of humanity would be a prattling child, a little girl, a young lady. And all the way she would be turning to him for companionship and guidance. It behooved him, indeed, to look well to himself, that he should be in all ways a fit pattern. ”

“ I can tell you, Frank, this attempting to teach the intangible, evanescent thing I'm trying to teach Helen Denby isn't very easy. If you think it is, you try it yourself."
"Heaven forbid!" shrugged the man. "But I'll risk you, Edith. But, tell me—does she help you any, in any way? Do you think you can—keep her, for a while?"
"Keep her? Of course I shall keep her! Do you suppose I'd turn that child adrift now? Besides, she's a real help to me with the children. And I know—and she knows—that in helping me she is helping herself, and helping Dorothy Elizabeth—'Betty' she calls her now. ”

“ Stories of her beauty, charm, and goodness filled many an hour of intimate talk. She was the one flawless woman born into the world—so said Burke's father to his son.
Burke was nearly twenty-one, and half through college, when he saw Helen Barnet. She was sitting in the big west window in the library, with the afternoon sun turning her wonderful hair to gold. In her arms she held a sleeping two-year-old boy. With the marvelous light on her face, and the crimson velvet draperies behind her, she looked not unlike a pictured Madonna. ”

“ Unlimited frosted cakes and shotguns had not taught Burke Denby to accept no for an answer—especially for an answer to something he had so set his heart upon as he had this winning of Helen Barnet for his wife. [Pg 20]
Burke Denby did not know anything about love. He had never sung odes to the moon, or read Tennyson to pretty girls on secluded verandas. He had not been looking for love to meet him around the bend of the next street. Love had come now as an Event, capitalized. Love was Life, and Life was Heaven—if it might be passed with Helen Barnet at his side. ”

“ An odd something leaped to Helen Denby's eyes.
"You mean, what he likes, Burke likes?" she questioned.
"Why, y-yes; you might put it that way, I suppose. But never mind. You'll see for yourself when you see him."
"Yes, I'll see—when I see him." Helen Denby nodded and relaxed in her seat. The odd something was still smouldering in her eyes.
"Then it's all settled, remember," smiled Mrs. Thayer. "You're not to run and hide now when somebody comes. You're to learn to meet people. That's your next lesson."
"My next lesson—my next lesson," repeated Helen Denby, half under her breath. ”

“ If Burke Denby had not been given all the frosted cakes and toy shotguns he wanted at the age of ten, it might not have been so difficult to convince him at the age of twenty that he did not want to marry Helen Barnet.
Mabel, the beautiful and adored wife of John Denby, had died when Burke was four years old; and since that time, life, for Burke, had been victory unseasoned with defeat. ”

“ It is so much easier to say than to do. But nothing in the experience of either Burke Denby or of Helen, his wife, had demonstrated this fact for them. Quite unprepared, therefore, and with confident courage, they proceeded to pass from the saying to the doing.
True, in the uncompromising sunlight of the next morning, the world did look a bit larger, a shade less easily conquerable; and a distinctly unpleasant feeling of helplessness assailed both husband and wife. ”

“ Her mother met her halfway down the stairs.
"Oh, Betty, you—you are here!" she panted. "Now, tell me everything—every single thing," she reiterated, almost dragging the girl into the apartment, in her haste and excitement. "Don't skip anything—not the least little thing; for a little thing might mean so much—to me."
"Why, mother!" exclaimed Betty, her laughing eyes growing vaguely troubled. "Do you really care so much?"
With a sudden tightening of the throat Helen pulled herself up sharply. She gave a light laugh. ”

“ Would she consent? Would she consent even to go to luncheon—she who so seldom went anywhere? It was a wonderful thing—this proposal of Mr. Denby's. It meant, of course,—everything, if they accepted it, a complete metamorphosis of their whole lives and future. It could not help meaning that. But would they be happy there? Could they be happy with a man like Mr. Denby? To be sure, he said he would be willing to be—trained. (Betty's face dimpled into a broad smile somewhat to the mystification of the man she chanced to be meeting at the moment.) ”

“ All their lives they'd had their own dolls and shotguns to do as they pleased with; and when it came to marrying and sharing everything, including their time and their tempers, they flew into bits—both of them."
"Yes, I know," sighed the man, still with a troubled frown.
"Well, they're apart now. Never mind who was to blame for it, or whether it was or wasn't a wise move. It's done. They're apart. They've got a chance to think things over—to stand back and get a perspective, as it were. Helen thinks she can metamorphose herself into the perfect wife that Burke will love. Perhaps she can. ”

“ Reynolds had fallen into Helen's hands.
It was no new thing for Helen to haunt curio-shops and museum-cabinets given over to Babylonian tablets and Egyptian scarabs. Helen had never forgotten the little brown and yellow "soap-cakes" which were so treasured by Burke and his father, and of which she had been so jealous in the old days at Dalton. At every opportunity now she studied them. She wanted to know something about them; but especially she wanted Betty to know about them. Betty must know something about everything—that was of interest to Burke Denby. ”

“ Helen Denby's cheeks were scarlet.
"Yes," nodded Betty, with tranquil superiority. "It isn't good for him, I tell you. He doesn't get anything but worship from every single one of those people around him. Honestly, if he should declare that the earth was flat, I think that ridiculous old butler and that scared cousin housekeeper would bow: 'Just as you say, sir, just as you say.' Humph! He'd better tell me the world is flat, some day."
"Oh, Betty! Betty!" implored Betty's mother. ”

“ Even when, still later (upon their return from their wedding trip and upon her learning of John Denby's decree of banishment) , the vision was necessarily warped and twisted all out of semblance to its original outlines, there yet remained unchanged the basic idea of perfect wifehood.
Helen saw herself now as the martyr wife whose superb courage and self-sacrifice were to be the stepping-stones of a husband's magnificent success. She would be guide, counselor, and friend. (Somewhere she had seen those words. She liked them very much.) Unswervingly she would hold Burke to his high purpose. ”

“ Then together they walked home in the moonlight; and so thrilled and exalted were they that even the cheap little Dale Street living-room looked wonderfully dear. And Helen said that, after all, love was the only thing that mattered—that they just loved each other. And Burke said, "Yes, yes, indeed." ”