Nona

“ Nona knew that this attitude was not caused by lack of physical courage. Had Pauline been a pioneer's wife, and seen her family stricken down by disease in the wilderness, she would have nursed them fearlessly; but all her life she had been used to buying off suffering with money, or denying its existence with words, and her moral muscles had become so atrophied that only some great shock would restore their natural strength. . .
"Great shock! People like mother never have great shocks," Nona mused, looking at the dauntless profile, the crisply waving hair, reflected in the toilet-mirror. ”

“ She faced Manford as she entered, and Nona saw her father's expression change. It was like those funny old portraits in the picture-restorers' windows, with a veil of age and dust removed from one half to show the real surface underneath. Lita's entrance did not make him look either younger or happier; it simply removed from his face the soul-disguising veil which life interposes between a man's daily world and himself. He looked stripped—exposed ... exposed ... that was it. Nona glanced at Lita, not to surprise her off her guard, but simply to look away from her father. ”

“ Nona forced her pale lips into a smile.
"I am, dear. If I do a thing at all I like to do it well. That's always been my theory, you know: the best or nothing. And I do believe it was a success. But perhaps I'm tiring you—." Pauline stood up irresolutely. She had never been good at bedsides unless she could play some active and masterful part there. Nona was aware that her mother's moments alone with her had become increasingly difficult as her strength had returned, and there was nothing more to be done for her. It was as well that the Manfords were starting on their journey that evening. ”

“ Nona's powers will develop. I am not at all afraid for that dear girl. She is capable of anything: but sixteen is very young, and the high spirits which seem to you such a disadvantage, I should call quite a blessing. I wish I could look forward as hopefully for Thyrza as for Nona. I do find there a strange hardness, which exists in no other of my children. If you are able to influence her for good, so much the better. But, dear friend, do think over what I have said about my precious Maggie. I have so depended on your loving companionship for her, now in her time of trial and loneliness. ”

“ Nona stood up with a dry laugh. "Thank you, Aggie. Perhaps he would—only we shall never find out."
"Never find out? When I keep telling you—"
"Because even if I've been a coward that's no reason why I should be a cad." Nona was buttoning her coat and clasping her fur about her neck with quick precise movements, as if wrapping herself close against the treacherous sweetness that was be- ginning to creep into her veins. Suddenly she felt she could not remain a moment longer in that stifling room, face to face with that stifling misery.
"The better woman's got him—let her keep him," she said. ”

“ She had on a simple frock of a curious Russian blue, made almost like a monk’s cowl, with a heavy blue cord knotted about her waist.
Nona stared at her friend for a moment in silence. It was curious that whatever costume Sonya Valesky wore seemed to have been created for her. Nona recalled the beauty of her clothes in their first meeting on shipboard, yet they held no greater distinction than this simple dress. Well, perhaps personality is the strongest force in [249] the world and Sonya Valesky’s distinction, whatever her mistakes, lay in this. ”

“ Did anyone ever take the trouble to trace her antecedents?"
"Perhaps you are right," said Nona reluctantly, "but even I seem to feel as if there is something sinister about Black Hill. At night when I gaze off into the shadows of the forest it is not hard for me to imagine that all sorts of weird, fantastic monstrosities are lurking in among those velvet shrouds of blackness. Every night, or almost every night, my father rushes off as if all the terrors of earth are following right at his heels. I wish more than anything else in the world that I had seen the last of Black Hill forever." ”

“ The modern girl was always free, was expected to know how to use her freedom. Nona's independence had been as scrupulously respected as Jim's; she had had her full share of the perpetual modern agitations. Yet Nona was firm as a rock: a man's heart could build on her. If a woman was naturally straight, jazz and night-clubs couldn't make her crooked...
True, in Nona's case there had been Pauline's influence: Pauline who, whatever her faults, was always good-humoured and usually wise with her children. ”

“ Rock stared at the curve of her neck, the scarlet twist of her lips, the dark cloud of hair, and a queer breath-taking sensation stirred in him, an almost uncontrollable impulse to draw her up to him. He shook himself. Why the devil should a woman have that effect on a man? And Nona seemed to be unconscious of it—even to be irritated by the manifestation of a feeling she was the factor in arousing. ”

“ They laughed together. Yes, like him! Tybar exactly! Sabre could see him writing the letter. Delighting in saying words that would hurt; delighting in his own whimsicality that would amuse. Splendid; airy, untouched by fear; untouched by thought; fearless, faithless, heedless, graceless. Fortune's darling; invested in her robe of mockery.
Nona's laughter ended in a little catch at her breath. He touched her arm. "Let's walk, Nona." ”

“ Voice and smile were full of praise; yet behind the praise (Nona also knew) lurked the unformulated apprehension: "All this running after sick people and unhappy people—is it going to turn into a vocation?" Nothing could have been more distasteful to Mrs. Manford than the idea that her only daughter should be not only good, but merely good: like poor Aggie Heuston, say... Nona could hear her mother murmuring: "I can't imagine where on earth she got it from," as if alluding to some physical defect unaccountable in the offspring of two superbly sound progenitors. ”

“ Nona explained, wondering if Madame Bonnèt and Berthe were as amazed as she was by Captain Martin’s action, and also wondering how much she betrayed her own confusion.
But, fortunately, Madame Bonnèt and Berthe insisted on returning home immediately, so that Nona could go upstairs to her room alone.
If she had been surprised earlier in the evening, she was the more so now. Captain Martin had written her a letter which one might have believed a poet could have written, never a soldier. Certainly she had misunderstood his character. But then do men and women ever understand each other? ”

“ His name was Sig. But whether it was his first name or his last he refused to say.
"When I went to prison," he said, "I lost my personality. The man I was is dead. There are no threads of existence for me to take up again. The few living relatives I had went back on me. There isn't a soul in the world willing to give me a chance."
His words sounded so hopeless, Nona felt sorry for him at once, despite his uncouthness.
"If you wish," said she, "you can come and work for us; that is, if you are not afraid of Black Hill." ”

“ I say it would be rotten for you to miss it.”
Undoubtedly Nona agreed with him. “You are awfully kind. I accept for us all with pleasure and shall look forward then to tomorrow,” she returned. “Thank you again for tonight, and good-by.” ”

“ Nona answered, trying to appear demure, but in realty rather surprised at the unexpected feeling of friendliness, which this brief conversation with an entire stranger had inspired in her.
[120] It is curious how frequently a man’s profession affects his appearance.
The young man before Nona had a slight stoop to his shoulders, or else it was only that his head was thrust the slightest bit forward, as though his ideas went always a little beyond the movement of his body. ”

“ His life was shattered as completely as that of the Persian in Cass Ledyard's story, who had unfortunately sat in the direct path of the clashing colors. Although no one even suspected it, Sig had begun to think of Nona as his own. He imagined that she too, like him, was a social outcast. He believed eventually she would consent to become his wife. He did not realize the absurdity of the thought, nor did he realize that he was a loathsome monstrosity. It is fortunate that we see only the most pleasing aspect of our faces when we gaze into mirrors. ”

“ Moreover, in the French country there is ever a curious appeal that only a few lands have. It is a sense of intimacy, a sense of nearness to nature, as if she were really the great mother, viewing birth and life and death with a wonderful patience, knowing that within her lie always the seeds and the garden for the new generations to come.
Besides, Nona had brought Duke with her. He seemed to like to walk with her more than with anyone beside his mistress. ”

“ Nona burst out abruptly, "have you never known what it was to have a man give you a jolly good hug, and feel full enough of happiness to scent a whole garden with it?"
Aggie lifted her lids on a glance which was almost one of terror. The image Nona had used seemed to convey nothing to her, but the question evidently struck her with a deadly force.
"A man—what man?"
Nona laughed. "Well, for the sake of argument—Stanley!"
"I can't imagine why you ask such queer questions, Nona. How could we make up when we never quarrelled?"
"Is it queer to ask you if you ever loved your husband?" ”

“ It's the old New York blood that's so clogged with taboos. Poor father always wants me to behave like a Knight of the Round Table."
Nona lifted her eyebrows with an effort of memory. "How did they behave?"
"They were always hitting some other fellow over the head."
She felt a little catch in her throat. "Who—particularly—does he want you to hit over the head?"
"Oh, we haven't got as far as that yet. It's just the general principle. Anybody who looks too hard at Lita."
"You would have to be hitting about! Everybody looks hard at Lita. How in the world can she help it?" ”

“ You must go. Prepare to set off at dawn tomorrow."
I told Agathemer and he agreed with me that we had best do as Nona said. She was, as she averred, well enough to care for herself and the children. But we lingered next day. By dusk she was frantic, begging, imploring us to depart at dawn. I feared a recurrence of her illness and gave her my promise.
We set off, actually, not at dawn, but about an hour after sunrise, the broad brims of our travelling hats flapping in the wind, our cloaks close about us, our wallets slung over our shoulders, our staffs in our hands. ”

“ Nona laughed, having by this time entirely forgotten that she had ever considered her companion less interesting and less good looking than she did at present. For, of course, she had come to the frequent feminine conclusion that she infinitely preferred a man to be clever and well bred in his appearance than merely conventionally handsome. ”

“ As long as Aggie Heuston, a sort of lay nun, absorbed in High Church practices and the exercise of a bleak but efficient philanthropy, continued to set her face against divorce, Nona would not admit that Heuston had any right to force it upon her. "It's her way of loving him," the girl said to herself for the hundredth time. "She wants to keep him for herself too—though she doesn't know it; but she does above all want to save him. And she thinks that's the way to do it. I rather admire her for thinking that there is a way to save people..." ”

“ But Amilcare had no clear thought of that. For the moment Nona was as peaceful as Forlì, or Rimini, or Pesaro, or Faenza, thanks to him and his "Centaurs"—that famous band of free riders he had levied from the Tuscan hills. Very much at his mercy, safe under the eye of his trusted Secretary, awaiting his return, he fully intended that peace to continue when she fell huddling to him. It would, indeed, be his care; for it was a maxim of Italian politics that no man willingly stirs after dinner. ”

“ Often she would sit for hours with her hands crossed in her lap and her eyes staring out the window, without seeming to see anything in the landscape. One could scarcely imagine her as a woman who had devoted her life to traveling from one land to another, trying to persuade men and women to believe in universal peace.
Yet she was sincerely grateful and appreciative of any attention of affection from the three American girls who were her companions. [238] And after a short time Barbara and Mildred were almost as completely under the spell of this grave woman’s charm, as Nona had grown to be. ”

“ And you know your father has been so wise about that; he's going to persuade her to go to Cedarledge for two or three weeks while Jim's in Georgia."
Nona remained unimpressed. "Lita won't go to Cedarledge alone—you know she won't."
"She won't have to, dear. Your father has thought of that too; he finds time to think of everything."
"Who's going, then?"
"We all are. At least, your father hopes you will; and he's giving up his tarpon-fishing on purpose to join us."
"Father is?" Nona stood up, her gaze suddenly fixed on her mother.
"Your father's wonderful," Pauline triumphed. ”

“ Oh, she always thinks everything's all right. She'd give me a cheque, and tell me to buy Lita a new motor or to let her do over the drawing-room."
Nona pondered this answer, which was no more than the echo of her own thoughts. "All the same, Jim: mother's mother. She's always been awfully good to both of us, and you can't let this go on without her knowing, without consulting her. She has a right to your confidence—she has a right to hear what Lita has to say." ”

“ If Nona had only thought for a moment she would have realized that the world has always thus rewarded its visionaries.
“But Sonya is not content to think in this way alone. She has spent her life in trying to persuade other persons to her view, and has many followers. Once she was a very rich woman and traveled in many lands preaching her universal brotherhood,” the young officer ended his speech with a characteristic shrug of his shoulders, which is the Oriental fashion of announcing that fate is stronger than one’s will. ”