Part 33 (1/2)

Channing knew himself very thoroughly.

But if he must not offer marriage to the girl, he could at least help her to a career. It flattered his _amour propre_ to realize that the object of his present affections, crude young thing as she was, might be called in a certain sense his equal, a fellow artist, one of the world's chosen. He spoke very often of her career, and Jacqueline listened, dreamily.

Of late she had somewhat lost interest in careers. Or rather, she had another sort of career in view; that of the lady in the tower, to whom her knight brings all his trophies. It seemed to her that this might be the happiest career of all.

She knew very well what she was doing for Channing. In the morning hours, and often after he left her far into the night, the author wrote steadily, with the ease and smoothness of creation that is one of the most satisfying pleasures known to human experience. Daily, when he came to her for refreshment, he brought ma.n.u.script to read, incidents, character sketches, whole chapters in the novel he had started. All of which filled Jacqueline with a new and heady sense of power. If she was not ”writing a book,” as Mag reported, she was at least helping to write one.

And she gave more to her lover than inspiration. He found her criticism unexpectedly valuable. There had been no lack of brains in her family, and the library at Storm was large and excellent. Philip Benoix and James Thorpe had both supplemented the girls' reading with great wisdom, so that Jacqueline's taste was formed upon far better literature than that of the average woman of his acquaintance. She was not easily shocked--Kate boasted that she had never put her girls' brains into petticoats--but now and then, despite Channing's growing care, unconscious product of his new chivalry, matter crept into his pages which made her shake her head in quick distaste.

”People might _do_ things like that,” she said once, of a particularly unsavory episode, ”but they'd never sit around and talk of it afterwards. They'd be ashamed!”

It was a comment on human nature the shrewdness of which he promptly appreciated. Jacqueline came to represent to him that invaluable portion of a writer's public, the average female mind. Under her proud guidance, Channing knew that he was writing the best and by far the cleanest of his novels.

It was at such moments that the thought of marriage came to him, and he reminded himself reluctantly that it would not do. ”He travels fastest who travels alone....”

”I must speak to your mother about your voice,” he said once. ”She will have to let you study in Europe, or at least in New York. You're seventeen, aren't you? There's a long road to travel. No time to be lost.”

”New York? But you live in Boston, don't you?”

”Heaven forbid! I was born in Boston, but one gets over it in time.”

”I'm not sure now that it's worth while taking any more lessons,” she said dreamily.

”You'll never be a singer without them.”

”Well--sometimes I think I don't want to be a singer, Mr. Channing.

Sometimes I think I'd rather be a--housekeeper, for instance.”

”What! Give up fame and fortune for a hypothetical domestic career?”

”Not for a hypothetical one, no.” She gave him a side-wise glance, dimpling. ”But I _would_ love to have a home of my own.”

He humored her, for the sake of watching her rapt and eager face. ”What would you do with a house of your own?”

”Oh, I'd have pink silk curtains at all the windows, and loads of books, and flowers, and a cook who could make things like Mr. Farwell's cook can--and--and a grand piano, and an automobile, and a stable full of thoroughbreds and puppies--” She paused for breath.

”Anything else?”

”Oh, yes. Babies! All ages and sizes of babies, small red wrinkled ones, and trot-abouts, and fat little boys in their first trousers--”

”Help, help!” murmured Channing. ”Would there be any room in that house for a husband?”

”Yes,” she said softly. ”I used to think it was a nuisance, having to have a husband before you could have babies; but now--” she glanced at him shyly, and looked away again.

”But now?” he repeated, leaning toward her.

”I--I've changed my mind,” she murmured, her heart beating very hard.

Was he going to say anything?