The Empty Sack Part 48

"I understand now why they couldn't afford to pay your father his forty-five a week. It must cost a great deal of money to keep this establishment going."

"Oh, momma," Gussie pleaded, "don't begin to hang c.r.a.pe just when we're able to enjoy ourselves a little."

Lizzie turned on her daughter her rare and almost forgotten smile.

"Very well, dear; enjoy yourself. Only a world in which enjoyment must be bought at such a price is not a fit world for human beings to live in."

Gladys crept up, snuggling against her mother's shoulder.

"Yes, momma darling; but you won't say that any more till we get home, now will you? It might hurt poor Bob's feelings if you did, and you _can't_ say that he's ever done us any harm."

CHAPTER XXV

On the day after the visit to Collingham Lodge, Bob left for the camp in the Adirondacks. As yet he had no knowledge of the family's att.i.tude toward him more exact than he could infer. He had written to them all since his return, but their replies, even Edith's, had been noncommittal. He guessed that they had decided together not to express themselves fully till they came face to face with him.

Even then, the approach to his own affairs was indirect. An affectionate family reunion, based seemingly on the ground that nothing had happened when so much _had_, blocked the openings for bringing up the subjects he had most at heart. During the early part of that first evening at Sugar Maple Point he couldn't get anyone alone. Not till nearly bedtime did he himself offer a lead by strolling out into the moonlight in the hope that one of the three would follow him.

It was full moonlight, turning Sugar Maple Lake into a sheet of silver and gold laid at the base of a velvety silhouette of mountains. The magic of stillness, the tang of the forest, the repose of the spirit from the girding and striving of the world-these lovelinesses came to Bob Collingham with a peace such as they always brought, but which to-night couldn't find a resting place. It couldn't find a resting place because in this tranquil woodland more than anywhere else he found himself wis.h.i.+ng that Teddy Follett wasn't in a cell.

Sugar Maple Lake is small for the Adirondacks, being no more than three miles long and a mile and a half in width. All its sh.o.r.es are owned by rich men, mostly from New York, who can keep themselves secluded. In seclusion they are able to combine rusticity with the amenities of life, in a wealthy, modern, American version of Marie Antoinette's humble village at Versailles. At a stranger's first glance, the "camps" are but lumbermen's log cabins on a larger scale; but when you come to the conveniences and luxuries of living, they differ little from Marillo Park.

Reaching the thin line of maples and pines fringing the edge of the lake, Bob turned to see if he was followed. At first there was no one.

The light from the windows and doors made a golden splotch on the greenish silvery black of the sloping lawn, but no figure appeared in the glow. Coming to the conclusion that this, too, was "a put-up job,"

he was strolling back again when his mother, cloaked against the night air, stole out and called his name softly.

On reaching him she took his arm, and together they picked their way along a graveled path leading toward the Point.

"I'm so glad you've come," she said, instantly. "I've been having such a terrible time with your father. You know how he is-so stern-so relentless-"

"He's been corking to me."

"You mean the cablegram he sent you to Rio? Oh, well, I made him do that. It's all over now, dear, and you mustn't worry; but at first-that night when we heard that the Follett boy had got into trouble and I had to tell your father of your marriage-well, I don't want to make things out worse than they are, so I sha'n't tell you what he said; but I did manage him. I soothed him and told him how he ought to take it and what he ought to do-with the result that you got that message. You mustn't think it was easy, dear-"

"You've been a brick, old lady!"

"I'm your mother, Bob. It's all summed up in that. Whatever makes for my children's happiness makes for mine. Your father is not a woman, and that's the difference between us. And now I've had all this trouble with him over Edith's engagement; but he's given in at last."

Bob sprang away from her.

"Edith engaged? Who to? Not to Ayling?"

She took his arm again, continuing toward the Point.

"Yes, to Ernest. He was so opposed to it. But I've battled for my child's heart, Bob, and I've won out. Your father is giving her ten thousand a year. It isn't much, but they ought to be able to manage. We didn't write you, partly because it was only settled last week, and it was easier to wait and tell you."

"But I thought you didn't like the match yourself, old girl."

"Oh, me! I have to turn myself every way at once. I've no wishes of my own. To reconcile my children to their father and their father to my children is all I live and work for."

Coming to the little rustic gazebo perched on the tip of the Point, they entered and sat down. There being nothing to obtrude itself here on lake and moon and mountain, it was as if they had left human crudities behind. In the windless air, the fragrance of Bob's cigarette mingled with the aromatic pungency of millions and millions of growing things.

"There was simply nothing else to be done," Junia resumed. "There was Edith eating her heart out and stubborn as a mule-and with the mess you've made of things-not that you could _foresee_-or know the sort of people you were getting in among-"

It was the opening he had been looking for, and he knew that, whatever the outcome, he must use it.

"Exactly what do you mean by that, mother?"

She seemed confused.

"I don't suppose I mean anything-except what's obvious."

Not to press the point at once, he said, "You saw Jennie."

"Yes; I sent for her."

"What did you think of her?"

"Oh, what anyone would think. She's charming-to look at."

"Only to look at?"

"Her manner is charming, too. Of course! I-I don't quite know what you want me to say."

"How much did she tell you that afternoon?"

She looked at him through the moonlight.

"Hasn't she told _you_?"

"She's told me nothing-except that you were lovely."

"Then, Bob dear, I'm afraid I can't add anything. You see, they were _her_ secrets-"

"Oh! Then she told you secrets!"

"Why, of course! What did you think?"

"Any other secret besides that she and I had been married?"

"Bob darling, I don't think it's fair to put me on the witness stand.

She's your wife-and because she's your wife I accept her. What I know is buried here"-she smote her chest-"and if for your sake and hers I try to forget it I think you might let me."

For a few minutes he smoked in a silence broken only by the maniac cry of a loon in the distance.

"Did it occur to you," he asked at last, "that she was a very simple girl who could easily become entangled in her talk when she tried to explain things to a woman of the world?"