Was It Right to Forgive? Part 29

"Still, we like to have the invitations."

"If you do go, Yanna, dress as Mrs. Harry Filmer ought to dress."

"Certainly, Harry, I will." And then with renewed hope she made her preparations. They were so successful that her face was radiant with delight when she pressed her cousin's large, capable hand and whispered:

"Harry said I was the most beautiful creature he had seen this season."

"You are," answered Miss Alida, looking with pride at the stately woman robed in white satin and lace, and sparkling with jewels.

Fortunately, she had Professor Snowdon for a companion; and he brought out the brightest and sweetest traits of her nature, so that she recaptured all that old charm of presence which had once made her irresistible. So swiftly grew her confidence in her own powers again that she was easily persuaded to take a share in the music that followed the dinner; and when Harry came to escort her home he found her standing by the piano, and singing to its wandering, penetrating melody, with a delightful voice:

"Love in her sunny eyes doth basking play; Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair; Love does on both her lips forever stray, And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there."

And as she sang, she caught Harry's beaming glance; and so she sang to him, thrilling his heart with the pa.s.sionate melody till a love like that of his first betrothal swayed it.

When she went away, Miss Alida put her face under the pretty pink hood, and whispered: "Good night, Yanna! You have done everything I wished and hoped. Harry is saved!"

But Miss Alida knew only the probable ways of men and women. This exquisite Adriana clothed in satin, and gemmed with sapphires, seemed to her the proper angel of the recreant husband. But the wisdom of The All Wise had ordained a very different woman; even one of those poor souls expected by theologians to be d.a.m.ned, but intended by G.o.d to be an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

CHAPTER IX

One afternoon towards the end of March, Adriana was riding down Broadway. At Twenty-third Street there was some obstruction and delay, and she saw Duval and Rose together. They were coming up Fifth Avenue, and their walk was lingering and absorbed, Duval's att.i.tude being specially earnest and lover-like. Rose was listening with a faint smile, and Adriana noticed that she was dressed with great care, and that she had flowers both at her breast and in her hands. Adriana's first thought was to alight and join the pair; but her second thought was a reproof of her suspicion--"Charity thinketh no evil," she mused, "and Rose may have simply met the man and permitted him to walk at her side."

Then she reflected that she had never heard Rose name Duval since her marriage; and that the man had been conspicuously absent from the Van Hoosen entertainments. She knew also that Rose was vain and sentimental, and that one of her dear, dangerous pleasures was to make every man think "it might have been." But she did not know that on the subject of Mr. Duval Rose and her husband had a pa.s.sionate, intermitting quarrel, that Rose put Duval's name on every list of her guests, and that Antony always crossed it off, with peremptory positiveness, and that consequently there was in Rose's heart a secret partisans.h.i.+p which had a dangerous romance about it. For it was impossible for Antony to prevent Rose from meeting the man in the houses of friends, in the crowded foyers of the theatre or opera, on the street, on the drive in the park; and on all such occasions a glance, a word, a lingering hand clasp, conveyed to Rose a meaning she ought not to have understood, and won from her in return an interest or sympathy she ought not to have given.

For once that this secret understanding was established, she found it hard to escape from its influence; gradually, almost unconsciously, the intimacy grew; and Rose, feeling sure in her heart that she meant nothing wrong, was quite off her guard, and only sensible of the pleasure that the secret, silent romance gave her. Love, however, that believes itself favored, is not long satisfied with such results, and Duval had grown more bold, more exacting, more dangerous, with every meeting. For he was actuated by motives not to be easily dashed, and he was resolved to carry his point. First, he admired Rose; second, he was poor, and Rose had at least $10,000 a year entirely at her own disposal; third, he hated Antony; and for these reasons, to induce Rose to leave Antony had become the pa.s.sion of his life--a pa.s.sion so eager, earnest, and pervading, that Rose was frightened at its strength. The man had gained a point at which he could both coax and threaten, and the poor weak woman--really loving her husband and adoring her child--was led, and ordered, and pleased, and tormented, by the whimsies of this sentimental affair, which she thought was driving Duval either to ruin or to death.

Of this condition Adriana, as well as all others who loved Rose, was entirely ignorant. Yet the sight of the couple, and their absorbed manner, forced itself again and again on Adriana's consciousness; and she resolved to name the circ.u.mstance to Harry that night. Harry listened, and looked much annoyed, but he answered finally:

"I do not believe there is anything wrong, Yanna. It is imprudent of Rose, and not right; and I wonder at her, for Antony told me an hour ago that little Emma was seriously ill. What a worry he does make over that baby of theirs!"

"It is such a frail, lovely little creature; and Antony has such a tender heart."

"And Rose does not hover over her nursery, as you do, Yanna."

"But you think there is nothing wrong, Harry?"

"In a legal sense, nothing. But, nevertheless, it is a shame for Rose to carry on such intrigues; and I will see her in the morning and give her some plain words. Antony is too careful of her feelings. I am glad she is not my wife."

Then the subject was dropped, and Adriana did not entertain it again.

In her secret heart, she felt that she might forgive Rose if she were driven to deceive her husband by the force of a strong pa.s.sion; but for this silly, weak drifting into sin and danger on little currents of vanity and sensual romance, she had no toleration. Refusing consciously to reason out the exact turpitude of Antony's wife, anger at the erring woman lay at the bottom of all her thoughts, as she moved about the household duties of the day. "Such a good husband!

Such a lovely little daughter! How can Rose wrong them both so shamefully?" These unspoken words rang to and fro like a fretful complaining in her inner self.

While she was taking lunch, Rose came to see her. She entered the room with much of her old effusiveness; she kissed and petted her sister-in-law, and said: "Give me a strong cup of tea, Yanna. I am worn out. Baby was ill all night, and Antony would neither sleep nor let any one else sleep."

"But if Emma were sick you would not be able to sleep, I am sure. And she must be better, or you would not have left the little one at all."

"Mamma is watching her. I just ran over to see you. It always rests me and makes me strong to see you, Yanna. I know what you are going to say--that I might, then, come oftener--so also I might go oftener to church. But I do not love you the less, Yanna; when I am good I always love you."

"Dear Rose, I wish you were always what you call 'good.'"

"I wish I were! I do long to be good! I am so weak and silly, but there is a good Rose somewhere in me. Do you think baby is really very sick?"

"Babies all suffer dreadfully, Rose, in teething. I often wonder how grown-up people would endure half-a-dozen teeth forcing their way through sore, inflamed gums. There would be swearing among the men, and hysteria among the women, and we should all do as Burns did when he had only one troublesome tooth--kick the furniture about--really, or figuratively."

"Poor Emma! I do love her! I do love her! If there is anything on earth I love, it is Emma. But Antony is simply absurd. He insists on the whole house teething, too. He will have no company; and some one has to sit by Emma's cot all night because, he says, 'she must need cold water often,' and when I told him this morning that we had all gone through the same suffering once in our lives, he looked at me as if he thought I was a brute. I was only trying to aggravate him. He ought not to tempt me to aggravate him; for I cannot help doing it.

And of course, I love Emma far better than he does. I nearly died for her. I was provoked with Antony this morning."

"What does the doctor say?"

"He says baby is to go to the mountains, so we are to have the Woodsome house; and papa and mamma are going to Europe. Papa wants 'authorities.' I should think the British Museum may perhaps satisfy him."

"We are going to Woodsome also, this summer. How soon will you leave the city?"

"That is what we are disputing about. Antony wants to go at once. I want to give one, just one, farewell dance before shutting myself up for months. I wish you could have seen Antony's face when I proposed it. I just wish you could! It was awful! He said '_No_,' and he stood on '_No_,' and nothing short of an earthquake could have moved him. I simply hate Antony, when he is so ugly; and I told him I hated him."

"But it is not right to dance and feast when your child is so ill, Rose."

"My baby is no worse than other babies in the same condition. I am so weary of all the trouble. I feel like running away and hiding myself from every one. I wish I were in some place where Antony, and mamma, and Harry, and every one, could not be perpetually saying, 'You must not do this,' or, 'You must do that.' The other day I heard of a heavenly land, where the sun always s.h.i.+nes, and the flowers always bloom, and loving and dancing and singing and feasting make up the whole of life."

"Oh, Rose! Rose! That is a very earthly land, indeed."

"A woman has no youth in this country. And I shall only be a very little time young now. I do grudge spending my young days in gloom, and sorrow, and scolding. It is too bad. If I should fly away to some wilderness, would you take care of my baby, Yanna?"

"What nonsense are you talking, Rose?"

"Of course, it is nonsense; and yet I might die--or commit suicide--or something. If anything happened to you, I would take little Harry and make him my very own. Would you take little Emma if anything happened to me? I might die."

"My dear Rose, you are not likely to die."

"I know I am not--but things happen."

"What things?"

"Accidents--and such things. One never knows. It does seem a silly thing to ask, but I have a sudden feeling about it, Yanna. If I should die--or anything should happen--you are to take Emma and bring her up to be good--I mean pious--I mean not like her poor, silly mother. How absurd I am! Whatever is the matter with me? Am I going to be ill, I wonder? Am I going to have a fever?"

"I saw you yesterday on Broadway. What a pretty suit you had on! Mr.

Duval was with you."

"Mr. Duval! Yes. I had forgotten. Yes, I met d.i.c.k as I came out of a store, and we walked up a block to Twenty-third Street. Do you know that store under the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where they sell such lovely jewelry? I was going there."

"I do not think Antony would like you to go anywhere with Mr. Duval."

"Antony will just have to dislike it then. He has gone as far as I intend to let him. The past two weeks he has wanted me to sit by the cradle, day and night, and night and day. I love my child, but I do want a breath of fresh air sometimes."