Part 51 (2/2)

”Bee will have all the Canton money, and can do as she likes.”

Mrs. Staggchase looked down at the carpet as if studying the pattern.

”Perhaps,” she returned.

”What do you mean by that?”

”If I know Maurice Wynne, the fact that she has money will make him very slow to speak. Besides, he has a silly crotchet in his head now.

He thinks that if he tried to marry her it would look as if he had given up his religion for her.”

”Did he?”

”Bless you, no. He was simply led into the Clergy House by being fond of a friend; one of those men that young men and old women fall in love with. Maurice never belonged there at all. I saw that the first day he came to stay with me at the beginning of the winter. I was abroad while he was in college, so I never knew him except most casually before.”

”But if he really cares for her he'll get over those obstacles.”

”If she cares for him, he must be made to.”

”I am convinced that she does,” Mrs. Frostwinch said. ”I am so glad you speak well of him. I do so want Bee to be happy.”

There was a long silence in the chamber. The two friends sat wrapped in thought. They had seen so much of life, they had had so many blessings of fortune, culture, position, wealth, that there was a grim irony in their sitting here helpless in the face of coming death. To their reverie, moreover, the mention of love could not but give color. No woman has ever come to speak of love entirely unmoved, though her heart may have been deadened or crushed beyond the power of thrilling or quickening at any other thought. These two, who had led lives so happy, so protected, so rich, sat there silent before the possibilities which lay in the love of a girl; until at last both sighed, whether with regret or tenderness perhaps they could not themselves have told.

Perhaps both remembered their youthful days; remembered how one had lost her first love by death and the other parted from hers in anger, making a marriage which seemed more a matter of affronting the man discarded than of affection for the man she chose. They knew each other's history so completely that there could be no disguise between them. Their eyes met, and for an instant there was a suspicion of wistfulness in the glance. Then Mrs. Frostwinch shook her head, and smiled sadly.

”At least,” she said, ”I shall be spared the pain of growing old.”

”After all,” the other responded, ”the bitterness of growing old is to feel that one has never completely been young.”

The sick woman regarded her with burning eyes.

”But we have been young, Di,” she said eagerly. ”Surely we had all that there was.”

”Anna,” Mrs. Staggchase murmured, leaning toward her, ”we know each other too well not to say things that most women are afraid to say. We both married well, and we have cared for our husbands and been happy.

But we both know that there was deep down a memory”--

”No, no, Di,” her friend interrupted excitedly, ”you shall not make me think of that! I have forgotten all that; and I am dying comfortably.

You shall not make me think of him! Only, dear Di, I want you to help Bee to marry the man she loves with her whole heart; that she loves as we might have loved if”--

Mrs. Staggchase kissed her solemnly.

”I promise, Anna.”

Then she rose, her whole manner changing.

”Do you know, my dear,” she observed, in a tone gayly satirical, ”that I believe that Elsie Wilson is going to be beaten in her bishop steeplechase?”

”Do you mean that Father Frontford won't be elected?”

<script>