Temple Bailey

“ So with the desire to preserve a record of these marvellous moments which were crowding into her life, she chose a perfectly new book to be devoted to Derry. And on the first page she pasted, not the faded violet from the basket which had come to her yesterday—oh, day of days!—not the dance program on which Derry's name was most magically scrawled, nor the spring of heather, nor a handful of rose leaves from the offering of the morning—no, the very first thing that went into Jean's memory book was a frayed silken tassel that had been cut from a rose-colored curtain! ”

“ He was still feeling the fineness of the thing she had said about Jean. "But when she is here I am jealous."
"Oh, Daddy."
"And I am never jealous of Hilda. If you had Emily all the time you'd love her better than you do me."
He chuckled at their hot eyes. "If you are teasing," Jean told him, "I'll forgive you. But Emily won't, will you, Emily?"
"No." Emily's voice was gay, and he liked the color in her cheeks. "He doesn't deserve to be forgiven. Some day he is going to be devoured by a green-eyed monster, like a bad little boy in a Sunday School story." ”

“ Jean had seen the painting many times, but now, standing on the upper gallery floor with Derry, it took on new meanings. She saw a girl with hope in her eyes, a young mother with a babe at her breast; homely middle-aged women redeemed from the commonplace by that long gaze ahead of them; old women straining towards that sunset glow. She saw, indeed, the Vision of Brave Women. "If it could only be like that for me, Derry. Do you see—they go with their husbands, those women, and I must stay behind."
"You will go with me, beloved, in spirit—"
They fell into silence before the limitless vista. ”

“ To call a man a coward in the old days was to challenge his physical courage. To know him as a slacker in these modern times is to doubt the quality of his mind and spirit. 'I pray thee have me excused' is the word of one lost to the high meanings of justice—of love and loyalty and liberty—"
Stirring words. The lovers had thrilled to them. Derry's hand had gone out to Jean and her own hand clasped it. Together they saw the vision of his going forth, a shining knight, girded for the battle by a beloved woman—saw it through the glamour of high hopes and youthful ardor! ”

“ The black waiter, who knew Derry, hovered about them. His freedom, too, had been the culmination of a dream.
"Men laugh at the dreamers," Derry said, "then honor them after they are dead."
"That's the cruelty, the sadness of it, isn't it?"
"Not to the dreamer. Do you think that Père Marquette cared for what smaller minds might think, or Frances Willard? They had their vision backed by a great faith in the rightness of things, and so Marquette followed the river and planted the cross, and Frances Willard blazed the way for the thing which has come to pass." ”

“ The picture was old-fashioned, but the painted woman was exquisite, as she had always been, as she would always be in Derry's dreams.
The great house had given to the General's wife her proper setting. She had trailed her satins and silks up and down the marble stairway. Her slender hands, heavy with their rings, had rested on its balustrade, its mirrors had reflected the diamond tiara with which the General had crowned her. In the vast drawing room, the gold and jade and ivory treasures in the cabinets had seemed none too fine for this greatest treasure of them all. ”

“ It was dark when Derry brought Jean home. There had been a sunset and an afterglow, and a twilight, and an evening star to ravish them as they rode, to say nothing of the moon—they came to the Doctor's door quite dizzy with the joy of it.
Derry was loath to leave. "Can't we all go to a play tonight?" he asked Jean's father. "You and Miss Bridges and the two of us?"
"Certainly not. Jean has done enough to-day. She isn't made of iron."
"She is made of fire and dew," Derry flung at him, lightly. ”

“ Thus came white elephants back to Miss Emily's shelves. "It seems almost too good to be true," she said, sniffing the violets and smiling at him.
"Nothing is too good to be true," he told her, "and now I have something to ask. That you will come and see my father."
"With pleasure."
He glanced around the empty shop. "Why not now? There are no customers—and the gray light makes things dreary—. And it is spring in my hothouses—there are a thousand cyclamens for the one you have lost, a thousand violets for every one on the backs of these little elephants—narcissus and daffodils—. Why not?" ”

“ Well, there's this to think of now, Derry, now that you are a man—that life isn't white and black, it isn't sheep and goats—it isn't just good people and bad people with a great wall between. Life is gray and amethyst, it is a touch of dinginess on the fleece of the whole flock, and the men and women whom you meet will be those whose great faults are balanced by great virtues and whose little meannesses are contradicted by unexpected generosities. ”

“ So she left behind her the tiara and the pearl collar with the diamond slides, and the velvet cloak with the ermine collar. Poor Hilda, with her head held high, going out of the shadowed house.
And taking Hilda's place, oh, more than taking her place, was Jean—and this was her wedding day. The little rose-colored drawing room had needed all of its rose to counteract the gray of the world outside, with the snow and Daddy's car standing ready to take him to the station.
But always there had been the thought of Derry to uphold her, and the wonder of their love. Nothing could rob her of that. ”

“ Later, Derry stopped at the door to say that he was going to the theater and might be called there. The General, propped against his pillows and clothed in a gorgeous mandarin coat, looked wrinkled and old. The ruddiness had faded from his cheeks, and he was much thinner.
Hilda, sitting by the little table, showed all the contrast of youth and bloom. Her long hands lay flat on the table. Derry had a fantastic feeling, as if a white cat watched him under the lamp.
"Are you going alone, son?" the General asked.
"Yes."
"Why don't you take a girl?" craftily. ”

“ Quite soberly she got herself into a little nun's frock of gray with collars and cuffs of transparent white, and above it all was the glory of her crinkled hair.
Neither then nor afterwards could she analyze her reasons for the change. Perhaps sub-consciously she was perceiving that this meeting with Derry Drake was to be a serious and stupendous occasion. Throughout the world the emotions of men and women were being quickened to a pace set by a mighty conflict. Never again would Jean McKenzie laugh or cry over little things. ”

“ Jean shuddered. "How can people shut themselves away from the world?"
"They have a world of their own, my dear," said the Doctor, thoughtfully, "and I'm not sure that it isn't as interesting as our own."
"But there isn't love in it," said Jean.
"There's love that carries them above self—and that's something."
"It is something, but it isn't much," said his small daughter, obstinately. "I don't want to love the world, Daddy. I want to love Derry—"
The Doctor groaned. ”

“ None of them were as bad as the first night, but her dreams were of battles and bloodshed, and she waked in the mornings with great heaviness of spirit.
What Derry had told her of Margaret's loss seemed but a confirmation of her fears. It was thus that men went away and never returned—. Oh, how Hilda would have triumphed if she could have looked into Jean's heart with its tremors and terrors! ”

“ So her fame went forth and took on gradually something of the supernatural—her tall, straight slenderness, her steady eyes, her halo of red hair grew to have a sort of sacred significance, like that of some militant young saint.
Then came a day when Derry's regiment marched through the town to the trenches, spent an interval, and came back, awed by what it had seen, but undaunted.
Drusilla, sitting on the doorstep of the stone house, saw a tall figure striding down the street. He stopped to speak to an old woman and doffed his hat, showing a clipped silver-blond head. ”

“ By Jove, Jean-Joan, I never knew before what women meant in the lives of men. Here we are marooned, as it were, on an island of masculinity, yet it isn't what the other fellows think of us that counts, it is what you think who are miles away. Always in the back of our minds is the thought of what you expect of us and demand of us, and added to what we demand and expect of ourselves, it sways us level. ”

“ Jean, taking the bridle path over the hills, had come upon a band of workers. A long-haired and seditious orator was talking to them. Jean had stopped her horse to listen, and before she knew it she was answering the arguments of the speaker. Rising a little in her stirrups, her riding-crop uplifted to emphasize her burning words, her cheeks on fire, her eyes shining, her hair blowing under her three-cornered hat, she had clearly and crisply challenged the patriotism of the speaker, and she had presented to Ralph's appreciative eyes a picture which he was never to forget. ”

“ It has been so hard all of these years when your clear little lad's eyes have looked into mine to feel that some day you might blame—me. Youth is so uncompromising, Derry, dear—and so logical—so demanding of—justice. And life isn't logical—or just—not with the sharp-edged justice which gives cakes to the good little boys and switches to the bad ones. ”

“ The General was out for a ride, the children with him, Margaret and Emily and Jean away, the servants in the back of the house.
Derry, going up the stairs, two steps at a time, stopped on the landing with head uncovered to greet his mother.
Oh, lovely painted lady, is this the little white-faced lad you loved, the big bronzed man, fresh from hardships, strong in the sense of the thing he has to do?
No promise made to you could hold him now. He has weighed your small demands is the balance with the world's great need. ”

“ I wonder how father stands it to be always with people who are sick? I never knew what it meant until now. The General is an old dear—but sometimes when I sit in that queer room of his with its lacquer and gold and see him in his gorgeous dressing gown, I feel afraid. It is rather dreadful to think that he was once young and strong like Derry, and that he will never be young and strong again. ”