Frederick Orin Bartlett

“ Side by side they strolled through the quaint village of stone houses and to the top of a near-by hill, where they found themselves looking down upon Joigny outlined against the hazy tints of the pink-and-gold horizon.
"Oh, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "It's a fairy world."
"Better; it's a real world," he answered.
"I doubt it, Monte," she disagreed, with a touch of regret. "It's too perfect."
It would not last. It would begin to fade in a moment, even as her fairy prince would fade and become just Monte. She knew from the past. ”

“ Beatrice was still clinging to her hands.
"No," she answered quickly. "He did not blame you. We never blame those we love, do we?"
"But we hurt those we love!"
"Only when we don't understand. You did not know he loved you like that, did you?"
Marjory withdrew her hands.
"He had no right!" she cried.
Beatrice was silent a moment. There was a great deal here that she herself did not understand. But, though she herself had never loved, there was a great deal she did understand. She spoke as if thinking aloud. ”

“ Always she, my princess, is somewhere in the background, when she is not actually by my side. When I saw her before, Covington, I marveled at her eyes—those deep, wonderful eyes that told you so little and made you dream so much. I saw her hair too, and her straight nose, and her beautiful lips. Those things I see now as I saw them then. I must wait a little while really to see them again. In their place, however, I have now her voice and the sound of her footsteps. To hear her coming, just to hear the light fall of her feet upon the ground, is like music. ”

“ She thought all those things called for the sacrifice of her freedom."
"What freedom?" he demanded again. "It's when we're alone that we're slaves—slaves to ourselves. A woman alone, a man alone, living to himself alone—what is there for him? He can only go around and around in a pitifully small circle—a circle that grows smaller and smaller with every year. Between twenty and thirty a man can exhaust all there is in life for himself alone. He has eaten and slept and traveled and played until his senses have become dull. Perhaps a woman lasts a little longer, but not much longer. ”

“ It only proved again what Monte had always maintained—that excesses of any kind, whether of rum or ambition or—or love—drove men stark mad. Blind as a bat from overwork, Noyes still asked the question.
"Look here," said Monte, with a frown. "Before the big events the coach used to take us one side and make us believe that the one thing in life we wanted was that game. He used to make us as hungry for it as a starved dog for a bone. He used to make us ache for it. So we used to wade in and tear ourselves all to pieces to get it." ”

“ He had looked forward to having breakfast with her in the morning. He must give up that. He must keep himself in the background while he was here, and then, at the right moment, get out altogether.
Technically, he must desert her. He must make that supreme sacrifice. At the moment when he stood ready to challenge the world for her—at the moment when his heart within him burned to face for her all the dangers from which he had run—at that point he must relinquish even this privilege, and with smiling lips pose before the world and before her as a quitter. ”

“ Peter had not had those weeks in Paris in which to get to know her; he had not had that wonderful ride through sunny France with Marjory by his side; and Peter had had nothing approaching such a day as this.
Monte turned to look at her. They had passed through Villefranche, and were now taking the up grade. The exercise had flushed her cheeks, giving her back the color she had lacked in the last few weeks. Her eyes were upon the ground, as if she did not dare raise them. Her face always seemed younger when one did not see the eyes. Asleep, she could not have looked over twenty. ”

“ Through half-closed eyes she looks out upon a world of sunshine and flowers, untroubled as the fairy folk. Every one does her homage, and she in her turn smiles graciously, and there is nought else for her to do except to rest and be amused.
For a moment, here in the twilight, this princess returned to Marjory. As she sat before the mirror, doing over her hair, she held her chin a little higher at the thought and smiled at herself contentedly. She used to do just this—and feel ashamed of herself afterward—long, long ago, after she first met Monte at the Warrens'. ”

“ It was as if she were looking into his dark, earnest eyes. Peter had always been so intensely in earnest about everything. In college he had worked himself thin to lead his class. In the law school he had graduated among the first five, though he came out almost half blind. His record, however, had won for him a place with a leading law firm in New York, where in his earnest way he was already making himself felt. It was just this quality that had frightened her. He had made love to her with his lips set as if love were some great responsibility. ”

“ Something comes with love. It is that more than love itself which is the greatest thing in the world. Sitting by her window, watching the shadows pass, Marjory was sensing this. The knowledge was coming slowly, imperceptibly; but it was bringing her strength. It was steadying her nerves. It was preparing her for the supreme test.
Because that very day, toward sunset-time, as she still sat by her window, she saw a shadow that looked like Monte. She smiled a little, because she knew it would soon dissolve. Rapidly the shadow strode along the quay until opposite the hotel. ”

“ The second mad moment had come in the cab, when he had looked down at her lips. As the passion to kill left him, another equally strong passion had taken its place. He had hungered for her lips—the very lips Hamilton, a moment before, had attempted to violate. He who all his life had looked as indifferently upon living lips as upon sculptured lips had suddenly found himself in the clutch of a mighty desire. ”

“ Marjory brought her hand to her face. It did not feel hot, because her hands were equally hot.
"It is nothing but the excitement that brings the color," she informed Marie. "I have been living almost like a nun; and now—to get out all at once takes away one's breath.
"Also being a bride."
"Marie!"
"Eh bien, madame—mademoiselle was married only this morning."
"You do not seem to understand," Marjory explained; "but it is necessary that you should understand. Monsieur Covington is to me only like—like a big brother. ”

“ In part, Monte's own philosophy was so based. If not to care too much were well, then not to care at all should be better. It should leave one utterly and sublimely free. But should it also leave one utterly miserable?
There was something inconsistent in that—something unfair. To be free, and yet to feel like a prisoner bound and gagged; not to care, and yet to feel one's vitals eaten with caring; to obtain one's objective, and then to be marooned there like a forsaken sailor on a desert island—this was unjust. ”

“ He had a right to expect her to be more sensible.
He had put it well last night when he had remarked that for her to go to a chapel to be married was no more serious than to go to an embassy for a passport. She was merely to share with him the freedom that was his as a birthright of his sex. In no other respect whatever was she to be under any obligations to him. With ample means of her own, he was simply giving her an opportunity to enjoy them unmolested—a privilege which the world denied her as long as she remained unmarried. In no way was he to be responsible for her or to her. ”

“ Once or twice, alone in his camp in the Adirondacks, Monte had sensed this fact. With a bit of food to eat, a bit of tobacco to smoke in his old brier, a bit of ground to lie down upon at night, he had marveled that men found so many other things necessary to their comfort. But, after a week or two of that, he had always grown restless, and hurried back to New York and his club and his men servants. In turn he grew restless there, and hurried on to the still finer luxuries of the German liners and the Continent. ”

“ She knew there was a lot to Monte. She had sensed that from the first. He had proved it in the last two weeks. It only needed some one to bring it out, and he would average high. Love might do it—the same white-hot love that had driven Teddy mad.
But that was what he was avoiding, just as she was. Well, what of it? If one did not reach the heights, then one did not sound the depths. After all, it was not within her province to direct Monte's life. ”

“ It is the positive things that count, when a man stands before the judgment-seat; and that is where Monte stood on the night Marjory came back from Cannes by the side of Peter, with her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed as if she had come straight from Eden. ”

“ Also, it is one thing to fret one's self into an unnecessary panic over a problem at night, and another to handle it lightly in the balmy sunshine of a Parisian springtime morning.
Monte had risen early and gone out and bought her violets again. When she came in, he handed them to her, and she buried her face in their dewy fragrance. It was good to have some one think of just such little attentions. Then, too, his boyish enthusiasm swept her off her guard. He was so eager and light-hearted this morning that she found herself breaking into a laugh. ”

“ Peter was gone; Beatrice was gone; and Monte was gone. There was no one else—unless by some chance poor Teddy Hamilton should turn up, which was so unlikely that she did not even consider it. Yet there were moments when, if she had met Teddy, she would have smiled a welcome. She would not have feared him. There was only one person in the world now of whom she stood in fear, and he was somewhere along the English coast, playing a poor game of golf. ”

“ He had been content to observe without accepting the challenges, principally because he lived mostly in the sunshine. To-night, in a clean, decent way, he felt again the old tingle. But this time it came from a different source. When Marjory raised her eyes to his, the lights blazed as brilliantly as if a hundred new ones had been lighted; the music mixed with his blood until his thoughts danced. ”

“ There in the Café Riche none of her old dreams had returned. Perhaps it was because all her surroundings there had been too grossly real. That was no setting for a fairy prince, and a fairy prince was, of course, all he had ever been or was now. He was only for the world when the sun was low.
Outside her window she heard a voice:—
"Oh, Marjory."
She started. It was her prince calling. It was bewildering to have dreams suddenly blended with life itself. It was bewildering also to have the thoughts of seventeen suddenly blended with the realities of twenty-seven. ”

“ You won't object to hearing a man rave a little, Covington? If you do, you can tear up this right here. But I know I can't say anything good about Marjory that you won't agree with. Maybe, however, you'd call my present condition abnormal. Perhaps it is; but I wonder if it is n't part of every normal man's life to be abnormal to this extent at least once—to see, for once, this staid old world through the eyes of a prince of the ancient city of Bagdad; to thrill with the magic and gorgeous beauty of it? It shows what might always be, if one were poet enough to sustain the mood. ”

“ All those newly married couples he used to meet on the German liners were afflicted in this same way. Each one of them acted as if the ship were their ship, the ocean their ocean, even the blue sky and the stars at night their sky and their stars. When he was in a good humor, he used to laugh at this; when in a bad humor, it disgusted him.
"Monte," she said, as soon as they were seated, "I was depending upon you this morning." ”

“ Monte, in spite of his ancestry, had jogged along, dodging the responsibilities—the responsibilities that Peter Noyes rushed forward to meet. He had ducked even love, even fatherhood. Like any quitter on the gridiron, instead of tackling low and hard, he had side-stepped. He had seen Chic in agony, and because of that had taken the next boat for Marseilles. He had turned tail and run. He had seen Teddy, and had run to what he thought was safe cover. If he paid the cost after that, whose the fault? The least he could do now was to pay the cost like a man. ”

“ Marjory drew a quick breath.
"Yes; it is like that," she admitted.
Only, she was not thinking of Peter. She was thinking of herself. A week ago she would have smiled at that phrase. Even yesterday she would have smiled a little. Love was something a woman or man undertook or not at will. It was a condition to choose as one chose one's style of living. It was accepted or rejected, as suited one's pleasure. If a woman preferred her freedom, then that was her right. ”

“ What Covington would have honestly liked to do was to congratulate her. Stripping the situation of all sentimentalism, the naked truth remained that she had for ten years given up her life utterly to her aunt—had almost sold herself into slavery. Ostensibly this Aunt Kitty had taken the girl to educate, although she had never forgiven her sister for having married Stockton; had never forgiven her for having had this child, which had cost her life; had never forgiven Stockton for losing in business her sister's share of the Dolliver fortune. ”

“ Eight hours later she dared remember it, like any schoolgirl. Small wonder that she glanced about to make sure the room was empty. It sent her to bed shamefaced.
The fourth day came, with the golden road still unfolding before them and her fairy prince still beside her. Then the fifth day, and that night they stopped within sight of the ocean. It came as a surprise to both of them. It was as if, after all, they had reached a destination, when as a matter of fact they had done nothing of the sort. ”

“ At the end of the day—after seeing them started in the morning, Monte used to go out and walk his legs off till dinner-time—he enjoyed dropping into a chair by the side of Peter. It was wonderful how already Peter had picked up. He had gained not only in weight and color, but a marked mental change was noticeable. He always came back from his ride in high spirits. So completely did he ignore his blindness that Monte, talking with him in the dark, found himself forgetting it—awakening to the fact each time with a shock when it was necessary to offer an assisting arm. ”

“ Marie replied honestly.
"You must learn how. It is necessary. It is necessary even to laugh. Monsieur Covington laughed a great deal this afternoon."
"He—he is a man," observed Marie, as if that were some explanation.
"Eh bien—is it men alone who have the privilege of laughing?"
"I do not know," answered Marie; "but I have noticed that men laugh a great deal more about some things than women."
"Then that is because women are fools," affirmed Marjory petulantly. ”