Lynda

“ And somehow Lynda thought of Burke Lawson! Burke, who had done his strong best, and still could not keep himself in control because of—lil’ Ann! The helpless baby was—oh! yes, yes—it was Truedale’s responsibility. If she, Lynda, were to keep her life—her sacred love—she, too, must do a “big thing”—perhaps the biggest a woman is ever called upon to do—to prove her faith. ”

“ Clearly he recalled Lynda’s reason. “If a father and a mother cannot conceive and carry out the needs of a nursery, they do not deserve one. I could never bring myself to intrude there.”
“What does this mean?” Truedale bent closer. The table had been painted white to serve as a floor for the dainty setting, and now, as he looked he saw stains—dark, tell-tale stains on the shining surface.
They were tear-stains; Lynda, who so joyously put her heart and soul in the ideals for other homes, had wept over the nursery of another woman’s child! ”

“ It was Lynda’s magnificent steadfastness that now appealed to Truedale. With the passing of his own season of madness, he looked upon this calm serenity of her character with deepest admiration.
“The best any man should hope for,” he admitted—turning, as he thought, his back upon his yearning—“any man who has played the fool as I have, is the sympathetic friendship of a good woman. What right has a man to fall from what he knows a woman holds highest, and then look to her to change her ideals to fit his pattern?” ”

“ She, God bless her, is not like others. Faithful, pure, she could not forgive the truth!”
Truedale, thinking so of Lynda Kendall, owned to his best self that because the woman who now filled his life held to her high ideals—would never lower them—he could honour and reverence her. If she, like him, could change, and accept selfishly that which she would scorn in another, she would not be the splendid creature she was. And yet—without conceit or vanity—Truedale believed that Lynda felt for him what he felt for her. ”

“ This was a new phase and Lynda bent across the dog at her knee and put her hand on the arm of the chair. She was frightened, aroused. Truedale saw this and laughed a dry, mirthless laugh.
“Oh! a chair that can roll the length of this house can roll the distance I desire to go. Money can pay for anything—anything! Thank God, I have money, plenty of it. It means power—even to such a thing as I am. Power, Lynda, power! It can snarl and unsnarl lives; it can buy favour and cause terror. ”

“ Lynda deplored this, but Truedale explained:
“You see, Lyn, when I began to carve the thing out—the play, you know—I had no idea how to handle the tools; like many fools with a touch of talent, I thought I could manage without preparation. I’ve learned better. You cannot get a thing over to people unless you know something of life—speak the language. I’m learning, and when I feel that I cannot help writing—I’ll write.” ”

“ Once in the early days of her secured self-support, William Truedale had said to her:
“You give too much attention, girl, to your tailor and too little to your dressmaker.”
Lynda had laughingly called her friend frivolous and defended her wardrobe.
“One cannot doll up for business, Uncle William.”
“Is business your whole life, Lynda? If so you had better reform it. If women are going to pattern their lives after men’s they must go the whole way. A sensible man recognizes the need of shutting the office door sometimes and putting on his dress suit.” ”

“ It is one thing for two proud, sensitive natures to enter upon a deliberate course, and quite another for them to abandon it when the supposed need is past. There was now no doubt in Truedale’s heart concerning Lynda’s motive for marrying him; nor did Lynda for one moment question Truedale’s deep affection for her. ”

“ Lynda would say, struggling to overcome the unworthy resentment that occasionally got the better of her when the child too fervently appropriated Conning.
But this trait of Ann’s flattered and delighted Truedale; often he was amused, but he knew that it was the one thing above all else in the little girl that endeared her to him.
“What a darling she is!” he often said to Lynda when they were alone together. “Is she ever naughty?”
“Yes, often—the monkey!”
“I’m glad to hear it. I hate a flabby youngster. Does she ever speak of her little past, Lyn?” ”

“ But such reasoning eventually shamed Truedale, and he acknowledged that there was something superb in a woman who, while still loving a man, was able to withhold herself from him until both he and she had sounded the depths of their natures.
In this state of mind Truedale devoted himself to business, and Lynda, with a fresh power that surprised even herself, resumed her own tasks.
“And this is love,” she often thought to herself, “it is the real thing. Some women think they have love when love has them. ”

“ Lynda’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because,” she faltered, “since she could not have come to you without dishonour—she sent me! Her confidence has been the sacredest thing in my life and I have tried to do as she desired. I—I have failed sadly—lately, but try to forgive me for—my mother’s sake!”
“And you—have”—the voice trembled pitifully in spite of the effort Truedale made to steady it—“kept silence—since she went; why? Oh! youth is so ignorant, so cruel!” This was said more to himself than to the girl by his knee upon whose bowed head his shrivelled hand unconsciously rested. ”

“ In the extension room over William Truedale’s bedchamber Lynda carried on her designing and her study; her office, uptown, was reserved for interviews and outside business. Her home workshop had the feminine touch that the other lacked. There were her tea table by the hearth, work bags of dainty silk, and flowers in glass vases. The dog and the cats were welcome in the pleasant room and sedately slept or rolled about while the mistress worked. ”

“ Truedale’s eyes grew gloomy. “I’m afraid, Lyn, I’m constructed on the modelling plan—added to, built up. Some fellows are chiselled out. I wonder—about little Billy.”
“Somehow”—Lynda gave a little contented smile—“I am not afraid for Billy. But I would not take the glory of conflict from him—no! not for all Uncle William’s money! He must do his part in the world and find his place—not the place others may choose for him.”
“You’re going to be sterner with him than you are with Ann, aren’t you, Lyn?” Truedale meant this lightly, but Lynda looked serious. ”

“ Having agreed upon this period of probation both Lynda and Truedale entered upon it with characteristic determination. There were times when Conning dejectedly believed that no woman could act as Lynda was doing, if she loved a man. No, it was not in woman’s power to forego all Lynda was foregoing if she loved deeply. ”

“ He’ll do the forgiving—since I’ve given up lil’ Ann; and if he doubts—there’s Miss Lois Ann. She’s mighty powerful with men—when it’s women that matters.”
“It’s very wonderful!” murmured Lynda. “More wonderful than I can understand.” And yet as she spoke she knew that she did understand. Between her and Burke Lawson, a man she was never to know, there was a common tie—a deep comprehension.
Late that afternoon Lynda drove to Betty’s with little Ann sitting rigidly on the seat beside her. ”

“ Woman was in arms for woman. The loyalty that few men admit confronted Truedale now. It seemed to glorify the darkness about him. He had no further fear for Nella-Rose and he bowed his head before Lynda’s blazing eyes. ”

“ Lynda’s clear eyes clouded, “that your uncle’s house would be your home at last. It is big enough for us all—we need not run against each other.”
“Keep my room under the roof, Lyn.” Truedale looked at her yearningly and she—misunderstood! “I shall often come to that—to you and Brace—but humour me in this fancy of mine.”
So she humoured him—working early and late—putting more of her own heart in it than he was ever to know, for she believed—poor girl—that he would offer it to her some day and then—when he found out about the money—how exactly like a fairy tale it all would be! ”

“ Brace shook the ashes from his pipe upon the hearth—he felt now that he could trust himself.
“For the future,” Lynda’s calm voice almost startled the two men by its practicability and purpose, “this is home—in the truest, biggest sense. No one shall even enter here and feel—friendless. This is my trust; it shall be as he wished it, and I mean to have my own life, too! Why, the house is big enough for us all to live our lives and not interfere with each other. I mean to bring my private business here in the rooms over the extension. I’ll keep the uptown office for interviews. ”

“ They existed, not joyously, but persistently. A Russian hound, white as snow, lay before the fire; his soft, mournful eyes were fixed upon Lynda, but he did not stir or announce the intrusion. A cat and two kittens, also white, were rolled like snowballs on a crimson cushion near the hearth; Lynda wondered whether they ever played. Alone, like a dead thing amid the still life, William Truedale, helpless—death ever creeping nearer and nearer to his bitter heart—passed his weary days. ”

“ To write and send a letter might be even more difficult. So Truedale reasoned; so he feverishly waited, but he was not idle. He rented a charming little suite of rooms, high up in a new apartment house, and begged Lynda to set them in order at once. Somehow he believed that in the years ahead, after she understood, Lynda would be glad that he had asked this from her.
“But why the hurry, Con?” she naturally questioned; “if people are going to be so spasmodic I’ll have to get a partner. It may be all right, looked at financially, but it’s the ruination of art.” ”

“ But it is Christmas time, and a man and woman, if they have their hearts in the right places, do think of children and trees and all the rest at this season. Still”—and with that Truedale pressed his lips to Lynda’s hair—“I’m selfish, you seem already to fill every chink of my life.” ”

“ Before the possible calamity Brace stood appalled, and both Conning and Lynda realized how true a note the girl was in their lives. She seemed to belong to them in a sense stronger than blood could have made her. They could not imagine life without her sunny companionship. Never were they to forget the grim dreariness of the once cheerful apartment during those days and nights when Death hovered near, weighing the chances. But Betty recovered and came back with a yearning look in her eyes that had never been there before. ”

“ Truedale continued to look at Ann. Like a dying man—or one suddenly born into full life—he gradually understood! As Ann looked at that moment, so had Nella-Rose looked when, in Truedale’s cabin, she turned her eyes to the window and saw his face!
This was Nella-Rose’s child, but why had Lynda—? And with this thought such a wave of emotion swept over Truedale that he feared, strong as he was, that he was going to lose consciousness. For a moment he struggled with sheer physical sensation, but he kept his eyes upon the small, dark face turned trustingly to his. ”

“ She was hiding her misery under a smooth face, as women will. A sudden reflection sent a chill over Lynde; what if she had recognized him that first day at dinner in Geneva and had been playing a part all the while! Then she was the most subtile actress that ever lived, and the leading lady of the Theatre Francais might indeed go and take lessons of her, as Flemming had said. The thought gave Lynde a shock. He would not like to have the woman he loved such an actress as that. Had Ruth revealed everything to the aunt, and was she too playing a part? ”

“ And indeed a great part of that indecision at which Lucinda in those days played so daintily was due to the knowledge, unformulated in her consciousness but none the less exercising constant influence on her moods, that she was less in love with Lynn than in love with being loved by Lynn Summerlad the idolized.
In many ways admirable, a fine animal who kept himself always exquisitely fit, intelligent enough to share or seem to share her every taste and prejudice, Lynn had laid a spell upon her mind no less than on her senses. ”

“ An educated American with no deeper sorrow than Lynde's cannot travel through Europe, for the first time at least, with indifference. Three months in Germany and France began in Lynde a cure which was completed by a winter in Southern Italy. He had regained his former elasticity of spirits and was taking life with a relish, when he went to Geneva; there he fell in with the Denhams in the manner he described to Flemming. An habitual shyness, and perhaps a doubt of Flemming's sympathetic capacity, had prevented Lynde from giving his friend more than an outline of the situation. ”

“ That intellect, as strong and clear as crystal, could never have suffered even a temporary blur. He was beginning to be amazed at the blunder he had committed, when suddenly, one evening, a peculiar note in her voice, accompanied by a certain lifting of the eyelashes—a movement he had noticed for the first time, but which was familiar to him—threw Lynde into great perplexity. ”

“ Pendegrast had been so severe a shock to Lynde that he could not straightway recover his mental balance. The appalling shadow which the doctor's presence had for the moment thrown across him had left Lynde benumbed and chilled despite the reassuring sunshine of the doctor's words. By degrees, however, Lynde warmed to life again; his gloom slipped off and was lost in the restless tides of life which surged about him. It was the hour when Paris sits at small green tables in front of the cafes and sips its absinthe or cassis; when the boulevards are thronged, and the rich equipages come and go. ”