Mrs. Phillips

“ After a little while he was led away to a couch in the library. The deep-voiced doctor was on one side of him and Medora Phillips on the other. Soon he was left alone to recuperate in the dark,—alone, save for one or two brief, fluttery appearances by Mrs. Phillips herself, who allowed the coffee to be passed without any supervision on her own part. ”

“ They are people in the early or middle thirties, I judge, and were probably put in as a connecting link between the two sections of the party. Mrs. Phillips herself is a rich widow of forty-odd—forty-five or six, possibly,—though I am not the very best judge in such matters: no need to tell you that, on such a point, my eye and my general sense are none too acute. The only other middle-aged (or elderly) person present was a Mr. Randolph, who is perhaps fifty, or a little beyond, yet who appears to have his younger moments. ”

“ Phillips. “I little thought I was letting myself in for being the wife of a big pot when Bob Phillips came along in ’is miner’s jacket.”
“You’ll soon get used to it,” Joan told her. “The great thing is not to be afraid of one’s fate, whatever it is; but just to do one’s best.” It was rather like talking to a child.
“You’re the right sort to put ’eart into a body. I’m glad I came up,” said Mrs. Phillips. “I get a bit down in the mouth sometimes when ’e goes off into one of ’is brown studies, and I don’t seem to know what ’e’s thinking about. ”

“ The Phillipses came home in the vessel with me, and are settled in London for good. I think the eldest Miss Melville would be exactly the sort of person they want to superintend the household, for Mrs. Phillips has as little turn for management as ever, and there is a considerable establishment. And, also, she might make Miss Emily and Miss Harriett attend to their lessons, for, though they have masters or some such things, they are too much the mistresses of the house to be controlled by anybody. ”

“ Will Phillips was much more of a person than she had been in Paris. Still, here as there, the woman in her was the first and last fact. She was thirty-seven, and in the very best of health. To one who did not lay exclusive emphasis on mere youth, the first bloom of the fruit, she was much more beautiful than when, as a raw girl from Ottumwa, she had married Willie Phillips. Sensitive, nervous, in the full tide of her physical life, she had what is euphemistically called to-day temperament. To this instinctive side of the woman, the handsome, strong young man had always appealed. ”

“ Miss Jane had thought extremely well of that toilet herself. She had heard how impervious this David Hull, the best catch in the town, was to feminine charm; and she had gone prepared to give battle. But she said dejectedly, "You don't know what a shock you've given me."
"Yes, I do," cried he. "I'm ashamed of myself. But—I love you, Jen! Can't you learn to love me?" ”

“ Phillips had shown unmistakable opposition to the acts of her liege lord. Elise had more than seconded her mother in haughty indignation; though with her superb training in obedience she could not be openly rebellious. When he had brought the quartette into his home Mr. Phillips could not fail to see the pain in his wife's eyes as she asked:
"Was that necessary?"
"Why, can you not see," he replied with some hot feeling in his tones, "that it was the only thing to be done? They are very respectable people, all of them. They are intelligent and well-bred, as you can see. ”

“ She rose to obey—she in the general's purchases of filmy nightgown under a pale-pink silk dressing-gown.
He smiled with that curious noiseless mumbling and smacking of the thin lips. She sat down again.
"Don't keep me waiting. It's chilly," he said, advancing toward her.
"I shall sleep in here to-night—on the couch," said she. She was trembling with fright at her own audacity. She could see a fifty-centime piece and a copper dancing before her eyes. She felt horribly alone and weak, but she had no desire to retract the words with which she had thrown down the gauntlet. ”

“ Phillips shouted:
“Long live the Queen! long live the Queen!”
The Queen, still standing on the bottom step, gave a little cry of delight. The men in the boat sat still, with puzzled grins on their faces. Mr. Phillips bounded down to them, leaping the steps in threes and fours.
“Cheer, you blighters,” he said, “unless you want your silly skulls smashed. Cheer like billy-o. Long live the Queen!” ”

“ It was impossible for any one to see into the living-rooms, for the house was built upon a slope and the front door was approached by a flight of steps. Just as Phillips was turning away a man emerged from behind a belt of shrubs, followed by a truculent-looking bull-terrier. He looked like a gardener, though there was in his appearance that faint, intangible something which suggested a close familiarity with the turf. He eyed Phillips sourly and suspiciously, and none too politely requested to know his business. ”

“ Phillips, thrust ever between them, against the background of that hideous furniture, of those bilious wall papers—the loneliness that would ever walk with her, sit down beside her in the crowded restaurant, steal up the staircase with her, creep step by step with her from room to room—the ever unsatisfied yearning for a tender word, a kindly touch. ”

“ Phillips was a lover. He was also a young man. He reverenced the lady who was mistress of his heart and queen. He also, as is the way of lovers very much in love, suffered from a conviction that she ought to be guarded and protected. It seemed to him wrong that she, with no other companion than Kalliope, should sleep in a great lonely house on an island where strange people lived. Thus young men, the best of them, show contempt for the courage and ability of the women they admire. The Queen herself laughed at his fears. ”

“ Margaret collapsed despairingly upon her table. "I wish to marry, Heaven knows! Only—only—" She raised herself; her lip quivered—"Good God, Grandmother, I CAN'T give myself to a man who repels me! You make me hate men—marriage—everything of that kind. Sometimes I long to hide in a convent!"
"You can indulge that longing after the end of this season," said her grandmother. "You'll certainly hardly dare show yourself in Washington, where you have become noted for your dress.... That's what exasperates me against you! No girl appreciates refinement and luxury more than you do. ”

“ The other is Phillips, the hunter.”
“Phillips! Phillips, did you say? Why, as much as he has been at our house, he has never dropt a word from which one could infer that you were not a perfect stranger to him.”
“I did not suppose he had. Phillips is a peaceable, close-mouthed fellow; pretends not to know any thing about anybody, when he thinks the parties concerned would rather have him ignorant; keeps a secret by never letting anybody know he has one; and never means to cross another man’s path. ”

“ Never, never had Margaret seen such unconcealed satisfaction in her grandmother's face. The stern, piercing eyes softened and beamed affection upon the girl; all the affection she had deemed it wise to show theretofore always was tempered with sternness. "What a pity he hasn't money," said she. "Still, it can be managed, after a fashion."
"We MUST have money," pursued the girl. "Life with him, without it, would be intolerable. Poor people are thrown so closely together. He is too much for my nerves—often."
"He's your property now," Madam Bowker reminded her. ”

“ Phillips argued, after a pause. "Diane is a married woman; she, too, is fighting a battle; she is restrained by every convention, every sense of right, every instinct of wifehood and womanhood. Now, then, you must sweep all that aside; your own fire must set her ablaze despite—"
"I? I must do all this?" mocked the other, furiously. "Why must I do it all? Make Norma play up to me. She underplays me all the time; she's not in my key. ”

“ It was my mother's dying boast that no man, nor no woman, had ever seen her, a grown woman, except fully dressed."
"Really?" said Margaret absently. She stood up, surveyed herself in the triple mirror—back, front, sides. "So many women never look at themselves in the back," observed she, "or know how their skirts hang about the feet. I believe in dressing for all points of view."
"You certainly are just perfect," said the adoring Selina, not the least part of her admiring satisfaction due to the fact that the toilette was largely the creation of her own hands. ”

“ Jane Hastings shuddered. "Thank heaven, I don't have to marry!" Her eyes flashed. "But I wouldn't, even if I were poor. I'd rather go to work. Why shouldn't a woman work, anyhow?"
"At what?" inquired Hull. "Except the men who do manual labor, there are precious few men who can make a living honestly and self-respectingly. It's fortunate the women can hold aloof and remain pure."
Jane laughed unpleasantly. "I'm not so sure that the women who live with men just for shelter are pure," said she.
"Jen," the young man burst out, "you're ambitious—aren't you?" ”

“ But he seemed dispirited, and Grandmother, who had sharp eyes and ears as well as a warm heart, and who had guessed something of Phil’s unhappy afternoon, looked from the drooping little figure on the steps to the red-rimmed eyes of her own Susan.
“Susan,” said she briskly, “it’s a long while to supper-time. You run over and ask Mrs. Vane to let Philip come back here with you. Tell her I have a little treat for you two. I hope I won’t give them bad dreams,” Grandmother added to herself, as Susan gladly sped over the garden wall and across the green lawn on her pleasant errand. ”

“ Had Phillips been older and wiser he would not have yielded so readily to despair; experience would have taught him that a woman's "No" is not a refusal; wisdom would have told him that the absolute does not exist. ”

“ I laughed—nervously watching her mind dart from woman to woman of those we knew.
“Ah—you can’t deceive me!” she cried. “Mary Kirkwood! She has been stealing you away from me. And you, a fool like all men where women are concerned, can’t see through her.” Edna laughed wildly. “But she has me to reckon with now. I’ll show her!”
“Mrs. Kirkwood is engaged to Hartley Beechman,” said I.
“A nobody of a novelist,” said Edna. “That’s a mere blind. She’s after you. After my husband—the man I love! We’ll see!” ”

“ There stood her grandmother—ebon staff in gloved hand—erect, spare body in rustling silk—gray-white hair massed before a sort of turban—steel-blue eyes flashing, delicate nostrils dilating with the breath of battle.
"Ah—Margaret!" said she, and her sharp, quarrel-seeking voice tortured the girl's nerves like the point of a lancet. "They tell me you have a headache." She lifted her lorgnon and scrutinized the pale, angry face of her granddaughter. "I see they were telling me the truth. You are haggard and drawn and distressingly yellow." ”

“ Slowly, with his ludicrously pompous strut, he marched to the drawing-room door. She had not felt like smiling, but if there had been any such inclination it would have fled before the countenance that turned upon her at the threshold. It was the lean, little face with the funny toupee and needle-like mustache and imperial, but behind it lay a personality like the dull, cold, yellow eyes of the devil-fish ambushed in the hazy mass of dun-colored formlessness of collapsed body and tentacles. He said:
"You'd best be careful how you conduct yourself. ”

“ For an instant this, spoken in a voice I had long given up hope of ever hearing from her, staggered my cynical conviction. But—“Possibly she thinks she is sincere,” reasoned my head with my heart; “even the sincerest women, brought up as was she, always have the calculator underneath; they deny it, they don't know it often, but there it is; with them, calculation is as involuntary and automatic as their pulse.” So, I said to her, mockingly: “Doubtless your opinion of me has been improving steadily ever since you heard that Mrs. Langdon had recovered her husband.” ”

“ But Miss Liza took one more look round at the sky and made up her mind once for all.
“You must go right along,” she decided, “and hurry, too. I shan’t have an easy moment till I think you are safe at home. Here are your hats and slippers. Miss Lunette is napping, now, so I will say good-bye for you. Hurry right along, children, and don’t stop to play by the way.”
And all in a twinkling Susan and Phil found themselves walking down the village street, with Miss Liza at the gate, waving good-bye with one hand and motioning them along with the other. ”

“ And—get me a couple of new rugs, thick, soft ones, the best you can find; and—oh! cushions; get a dozen or so cushions, satin and velvet; down pillows, you understand. What's the matter?"
The man whom he called Phillips was looking at him in a kind of terror that sent the dwarf into a sudden fit of laughter. He gave way to it for a few minutes, then restrained himself, and wiped his eyes with a fine handkerchief, like the one he had given the child. "Phillips, you certainly have the gift of amusing," he murmured. "I am not mad, my dear man; never was saner in my life, I assure you. ”

“ Jane was hugely amused. Her father watched her laughter—the dazzling display of fine teeth—with delighted eyes. "You've got mighty good teeth, Jenny," observed he. "Take care of 'em. You'll never know what misery is till you've got no teeth—or next to none." He looked disgustedly into his bowl. "Crackers and milk!" grunted he. "No teeth and no digestion. The only pleasure a man of my age can have left is eating, and I'm cheated out of that."
"So, you wouldn't approve of my marrying Davy?" ”