K Part 49

But this was different. Marriage, that had been but a vision then, loomed large, almost menacing. She had learned the law of compensation: that for every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went down into the valley of death for their children. One must love and be loved very tenderly to pay for that. The scale must balance.

And there were other things. Women grew old, and age was not always lovely. This very maternity--was it not fatal to beauty? Visions of child-bearing women in the hospitals, with sagging b.r.e.a.s.t.s and relaxed bodies, came to her. That was a part of the price.

Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her moving about with flat, inelastic steps.

That was the alternative. One married, happily or not as the case might be, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing a little hard, exchanging slimness for leanness and austerity of figure, flat-chested, thin-voiced. One blossomed and withered, then, or one shriveled up without having flowered. All at once it seemed very terrible to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorable hand that had closed about her.

Harriet found her a little later, face down on her mother's bed, crying as if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly.

"You've been overworking," she said. "You've been getting thinner. Your measurements for that suit showed it. I have never approved of this hospital training, and after last January--"

She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with weeping, told her of her engagement.

"But I don't understand. If you care for him and he has asked you to marry him, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?"

"I do care. I don't know why I cried. It just came over me, all at once, that I--It was just foolishness. I am very happy, Aunt Harriet."

Harriet thought she understood. The girl needed her mother, and she, Harriet, was a hard, middle-aged woman and a poor subst.i.tute. She patted Sidney's moist hand.

"I guess I understand," she said. "I'll attend to your wedding things, Sidney. We'll show this street that even Christine Lorenz can be outdone." And, as an afterthought: "I hope Max Wilson will settle down now. He's been none too steady."

K. had taken Christine to see Tillie that Sunday afternoon. Palmer had the car out--had, indeed, not been home since the morning of the previous day. He played golf every Sat.u.r.day afternoon and Sunday at the Country Club, and invariably spent the night there. So K. and Christine walked from the end of the trolley line, saying little, but under K.'s keen direction finding bright birds in the hedgerows, hidden field flowers, a dozen wonders of the country that Christine had never dreamed of.

The interview with Tillie had been a disappointment to K. Christine, with the best and kindliest intentions, struck a wrong note. In her endeavor to cover the fact that everything in Tillie's world was wrong, she fell into the error of pretending that everything was right.

Tillie, grotesque of figure and tragic-eyed, listened to her patiently, while K. stood, uneasy and uncomfortable, in the wide door of the hay-barn and watched automobiles turning in from the road. When Christine rose to leave, she confessed her failure frankly.

"I've meant well, Tillie," she said. "I'm afraid I've said exactly what I shouldn't. I can only think that, no matter what is wrong, two wonderful pieces of luck have come to you. Your husband--that is, Mr.

Schwitter--cares for you,--you admit that,--and you are going to have a child."

Tillie's pale eyes filled.

"I used to be a good woman, Mrs. Howe," she said simply. "Now I'm not.

When I look in that gla.s.s at myself, and call myself what I am, I'd give a good bit to be back on the Street again."

She found opportunity for a word with K. while Christine went ahead of him out of the barn.

"I've been wanting to speak to you, Mr. Le Moyne." She lowered her voice. "Joe Drummond's been coming out here pretty regular. Schwitter says he's drinking a little. He don't like him loafing around here: he sent him home last Sunday. What's come over the boy?"

"I'll talk to him."

"The barkeeper says he carries a revolver around, and talks wild. I thought maybe Sidney Page could do something with him."

"I think he'd not like her to know. I'll do what I can."

K.'s face was thoughtful as he followed Christine to the road.

Christine was very silent, on the way back to the city. More than once K. found her eyes fixed on him, and it puzzled him. Poor Christine was only trying to fit him into the world she knew--a world whose men were strong but seldom tender, who gave up their Sundays to golf, not to visiting unhappy outcasts in the country. How masculine he was, and yet how gentle! It gave her a choking feeling in her throat. She took advantage of a steep bit of road to stop and stand a moment, her fingers on his shabby gray sleeve.

It was late when they got home. Sidney was sitting on the low step, waiting for them.

Wilson had come across at seven, impatient because he must see a case that evening, and promising an early return. In the little hall he had drawn her to him and kissed her, this time not on the lips, but on the forehead and on each of her white eyelids.

"Little wife-to-be!" he had said, and was rather ashamed of his own emotion. From across the Street, as he got into his car, he had waved his hand to her.

Christine went to her room, and, with a long breath of content, K.

folded up his long length on the step below Sidney.

"Well, dear ministering angel," he said, "how goes the world?"

"Things have been happening, K."

He sat erect and looked at her. Perhaps because she had a woman's instinct for making the most of a piece of news, perhaps--more likely, indeed--because she divined that the announcement would not be entirely agreeable, she delayed it, played with it.

"I have gone into the operating-room."

"Fine!"

"The costume is ugly. I look hideous in it."

"Doubtless."

He smiled up at her. There was relief in his eyes, and still a question.

"Is that all the news?"

"There is something else, K."

It was a moment before he spoke. He sat looking ahead, his face set.

Apparently he did not wish to hear her say it; for when, after a moment, he spoke, it was to forestall her, after all.

"I think I know what it is, Sidney."

"You expected it, didn't you?"

"I--it's not an entire surprise."

"Aren't you going to wish me happiness?"

"If my wis.h.i.+ng could bring anything good to you, you would have everything in the world."

His voice was not entirely steady, but his eyes smiled into hers.

"Am I--are we going to lose you soon?"

"I shall finish my training. I made that a condition."

Then, in a burst of confidence:--