Part 7 (1/2)

But for a long time after he had gone she sat quietly rocking in her rocking chair in the bay window of the sitting room. It was a familiar att.i.tude of hers, homely, middle-cla.s.s, and in a way symbolic. Had old Anthony Cardew ever visualized so imaginative a thing as a Nemesis, he would probably have summoned a vision of a huddled figure in his stable-yard, dying, and cursing him as he died. Had Jim Doyle, cunningly plotting the overthrow of law and order, been able in his arrogance to conceive of such a thing, it might have been Anthony Cardew he saw. Neither of them, for a moment, dreamed of it as an elderly Scotch Covenanter, a plain little womanly figure, rocking in a cane-seated rocking chair, and making the great sacrifice of her life.

All of which simply explains how, on a March Wednesday evening of the great year of peace after much tribulation, Mr. William Wallace Cameron, now a clerk at the Eagle Pharmacy, after an hour of Politics, and no Economics at all, happened to be taking a walk toward the Cardew house. Such pilgrimages has love taken for many years, small uncertain ramblings where the fancy leads the feet and far outstrips them, and where heart-hunger hides under various flimsy pretexts; a fine night, a paper to be bought, a dog to be exercised.

Not that w.i.l.l.y Cameron made any excuses to himself. He had a sort of idea that if he saw the magnificence that housed her, it would through her sheer remoteness kill the misery in him. But he regarded himself with a sort of humorous pity, and having picked up a stray dog, he addressed it now and then.

”Even a cat can look at a king,” he said once. And again, following some vague train of thought, on a crowded street: ”The People's voice is a queer thing. 'It is, and it is not, the voice of G.o.d.' The people's voice, old man. Only the ones that count haven't got a voice.”

There were, he felt, two Lily Cardews. One lived in an army camp, and wore plain clothes, and got a bath by means of calculation and persistency, and went to the movies on Friday nights, and was quite apt to eat peanuts at those times, carefully putting the sh.e.l.ls in her pocket.

And another one lived inside this great pile of brick,--he was standing across from it, by the park railing, by that time--where motor cars drew up, and a footman with an umbrella against a light rain ushered to their limousines draped women and men in evening clothes, their strong blacks and whites revealed in the light of the street door. And this Lily Cardew lived in state, bowed to by flunkeys in livery, dressed and undressed--his Scotch sense of decorum resented this--by serving women.

This Lily Cardew would wear frivolous ball-gowns, such things as he saw in the shop windows, considered money only as a thing of exchange, and had traveled all over Europe a number of times.

He took his station against the park railings and reflected that it was a good thing he had come, after all. Because it was the first Lily whom he loved, and she was gone, with the camp and the rest, including war.

What had he in common with those lighted windows, with their heavy laces and draperies?

”Nothing at all, old man,” he said cheerfully to the dog, ”nothing at all.”

But although the ache was gone when he turned homeward, the dog still at his heels, he felt strangely lonely without it. He considered that very definitely he had put love out of his life. Hereafter he would travel the trail alone. Or accompanied only by History, Politics, Economics, and various divines on Sunday evenings.

CHAPTER VI

”Well, grandfather,” said Lily Cardew, ”the last of the Cardews is home from the wars.”

”So I presume,” observed old Anthony. ”Owing, however, to your mother's determination to shroud this room in impenetrable gloom, I can only presume. I cannot see you.”

His tone was less unpleasant than his words, however. He was in one of the rare moods of what pa.s.sed with him for geniality. For one thing, he had won at the club that afternoon, where every day from four to six he played bridge with his own little group, reactionaries like himself, men who viewed the difficulties of the younger employers of labor with amused contempt. For another, he and Howard had had a difference of opinion, and he had, for a wonder, made Howard angry.

”Well, Lily,” he inquired, ”how does it seem to be at home?”

Lily eyed him almost warily. He was sometimes most dangerous in these moods.

”I'm not sure, grandfather.”

”Not sure about what?”

”Well, I am glad to see everybody, of course. But what am I to do with myself?”

”Tut.” He had an air of benignantly forgiving her. ”You'll find plenty.

What did you do before you went away?”

”That was different, grandfather.”

”I'm blessed,” said old Anthony, truculently, ”if I understand what has come over this country, anyhow. What is different? We've had a war.

We've had other wars, and we didn't think it necessary to change the Const.i.tution after them. But everything that was right before this war is wrong after it. Lot of young idiots coming back and refusing to settle down. Set of young Bolshevists!”

He had always managed to arouse a controversial spirit in the girl.

”Maybe, if it isn't right now, it wasn't right before.” Having said it, Lily immediately believed it. She felt suddenly fired with an intense dislike of anything that her grandfather advocated.