Part 38 (1/2)
”Nothing. I was just thinking out loud. Go on please.”
But she had broken the thread of his talk. He attempted to take it up again, but he was still trying for a lead when Alice saw Mrs. Van Tyle and Beauchamp coming toward them.
She rose. Her eyes were the brightest Jeff had ever seen. They were filled with an ardent tenderness. It was as if she were wrapped in a spiritual exaltation.
”Thank you. Thank you. I can't tell you what you've done for me.”
She turned and walked quickly away. To be dragged back to the commonplace at once was more than she could bear. First she must get alone with herself, must take stock of this new emotion that ran like wine through her blood. A pulse throbbed in her throat, for she was in a pa.s.sionate glow of altruism.
”I'm glad of life--glad of it--glad of it!” she murmured through the veil she had lowered to screen her face from observation.
It had come to her as a revelation straight from Heaven that there can be no salvation without service. And the motive back of service must be love. Love! That was what Jesus had come to teach the world, and all these years it had warped and mystified his message.
She felt that life could never again be gray or colorless. For there was work waiting that she could do, service that she could give. And surely there could be no greater happiness than to find her work and do it gladly.
CHAPTER 17
All sorts of absurd a.s.sumptions pa.s.s current as fixed and non-debatable standards. We might be free, and we tie ourselves to the slavery of rutted convention. Afraid of ideas, we come to no definite philosophy of life that is the result of clear and pellucid thinking.
We must get rid of our bonds, but only in order to take on new ones. For our convictions will shackle us. The difference is that then we shall be servants of Truth and not of dead Tradition.--From the Note Book of a Dreamer.
THE CHAPERONE EXPLAINS THAT THE REBEL IS IMPOSSIBLE AND THE CHAPERONED BEGS LEAVE TO DIFFER
Part 1
”And why mustn't I?” Alice demanded vigorously.
Her cousin regarded her with indolent amus.e.m.e.nt. ”My dear, you are positively the most energetic person I know. It is refres.h.i.+ng to see with what interest you enter into a discussion.”
Miss Frome, very erect and ready for argument, watched her steadily from the piano stool of their joint sitting room. ”Well?”
”I didn't say you mustn't, my dear. I know better than to deal in imperatives with Miss Alice. What I did was mildly to suggest that you are going rather far. It's all very well to be civil, but--” Mrs. Van Tyle shrugged her shoulders and let it go at that. She was leaning back in an easychair and across its arm her wrist hung. Between the fingers, polished like old ivory to the tapering pink nails, was a lighted cigarette.
”Why shouldn't I be--pleasant to him? I like him.” Her color deepened, but the eyes of the girl did not give way. There was in them a little flare of defiance.
”Be pleasant to him if you like, and if it amuses you. But--” Again Valencia stopped, but after a puff or two at her cigarette she added presently: ”Don't get too interested in him.”
”I'm not likely to,” Alice returned with a touch of scorn. ”Can't I like a man and admire him without wanting to marry him? I think that's a hateful way to look at it.”
”It's your interpretation, not mine,” Mrs. Van Tyle answered with perfect good humor. ”Of course you couldn't want to marry him under any circ.u.mstances. His station in life--his anarchistic ideas--his reputation as a confirmed libertine--all of them make the thought of such a thing impossible.”
Miss Frome's mind seized on only one of the charges. ”I don't believe it. I don't believe a word of it. Anybody can throw mud--and some of it is bound to stick. He's a good man. You can see that in his face.”
”You can perhaps. I can't.” Valencia studied her beneath a droop of eyelids behind which she was very alert. ”Those things aren't said about a man unless they are true. Moreover, it happens we don't have to depend on hearsay.”
”What do you mean?”
”Do you remember that night we saw the Russian dancers?”