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Side of the Angels

<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> There were both amazement and terror in Rosie's face when, at dusk next day, Claude strolled down the flowery path of the hothouse. Since Thor had turned from her, on almost the same spot, forty-eight hours previously, no hint from either of the brothers had come her way. Through the intervening time she had lived in an anguish of wonder. What was happening? What was to happen still? Would anything happen at all? Had Claude discovered the astounding fact that the elder brother was in love with her? If he had, what would he do? Would he go wild with jealousy? Or would he never have anything to do with her again? Either case was possible, and the latter more than possible if he had received a hint of the degree in which she had betrayed herself to Thor. As to that, she didn't know whether she was glad or sorry. She knew how crude had been her self-revelation, and how shocking; but the memory of it gave her a measure of relief. It was like a general confession, like the open declaration of what had been too long kept buried in the heart. It had been a shameful thing to own that, loving one man, she would have married another man for money; but a worse shame lay in being driven to that pass. For this she felt herself but partly responsible, if responsible at all. What did she, Rosie Fay, care for money in itself? Put succinctly, her first need was of bread, of bread for herself and for those who were virtually dependent on her. After bread she wanted love and pleasure and action and admiration and whatever else made up life—but only after it. She was craving for them, she was stifling for lack of them, but they were all secondary. The very best of them was secondary. Only one thing stood first—and that was bread. Undoubtedly her frankness had revolted Thor Masterman. But what did he know of an existence which left the barest possible margin for absolute necessity? What would life have meant to him had he never had a day since he first began to think when he had been entirely free from anxiety as to the prime essentials? Rosie couldn't remember a time when the mere getting of their pinched daily food hadn't been a matter of contrivance, with some doubt as to its success. She couldn't remember a time when she had ever been able to have a new dress or a pair of boots without long calculation beforehand. On the other hand, she remembered many a time when the pinched food couldn't be paid for, and the new dress or the pair of boots had come almost within reach only to be whisked aside that the money might be used for something still more needful. In a world of freedom and light and flowers and abundance her little soul had been kept in a prison where the very dole of bread and water was stinted. She had never been young. Even in childhood she had known that. She had known it, and been patient with the fact, hoping for a chance to be young when she was older. If money came in then, money for boots and bread, for warm clothes in winter and thin clothes in summer, for fuel and rent and taxes and light, and the pay of the men, and the innumerable details which, owing to her father's dreaminess, she was obliged to keep on her mind—if money were ever to come in for these things, she could be young with the best. She could be young with the intenser happiness that would come from spirits long thwarted. It might never now be a light-hearted happiness, but it would be happiness for all that. It would be the deeper, and the more satisfying, and the more aware of itself for its years of suppression. To her long experience in denial Rosie could only oppose a heart more imperiously exacting in its demands. Her tense little spirit didn't know how to do otherwise. From lines of ancestry that had never done anything but toil with patient relentlessness to wring from the soil whatever it was capable of yielding, she had inherited no habit of compromise. In them it had been called grit; but a softer generation having let that word fall into disuse, Rosie could only account for herself by saying she "wasn't a quitter." She meant that she could neither forego what she asked for, nor be content with anything short of what she conceived to be the best. Could she have done that, she might have enjoyed the meager "good time" of other girls in the village; she might have listened to the advances of young Breen the gardener, or of Matt's colleague in the grocery-store. But she had never presented such possibilities for her own consideration. She was like an ant, that sees but one object to the errand on which it has set out, disdaining diversion. And if it had all summed itself up into what looked like a hard, unlovely avariciousness, it was because poor Rosie had nothing to tell her the values and co-relations of the different ingredients in life. For the element that suffuses good-fortune and ill-fortune alike with corrective significance she had imbibed from her mother one kind of scorn, and from her father another. She knew no more of it than did Thor Masterman. Like him, she could only work for a material blessing with material hands, though without his advantages for molding things to his will. He had his advantages through money. Since all things material are measured by that, by that Rosie measured them. The matter and the measure were all she knew. They meant safety for herself and for her parents, and protection for Matt when he came out of jail. How could she do other than spend her heart upon them? What choice had she when the alternative lay between Claude and love on the one side and on the other Thor, with his hands full of daily bread for them all? With Claude and his love there went nothing besides, while with Thor and his daily bread there would be peace and security for life. She asked it of herself; she asked it, in imagination, of him. What else could she do but sell herself when the price on her poor little body had been set so high? She had spent two burning, rebellious days. All the while she was cooking meals, or setting tables, or washing dishes, or making beds, or selling flowers, or pruning, or watering, or addressing envelopes for the monthly bills, her soul had been raging against the unjust code by which she would have to be judged. Thor would judge her; Claude would judge her, if he knew; any one who knew would judge her, and women most fiercely of all. But what did they know about it? What did they know of twenty-odd years of going around in a cage? What did they know of the terror of seeing the cage itself demolished, and being without a protection? Did they suppose she wouldn't suffer in giving up her love? Of course she would suffer! The very extremity of her suffering would prove the extremity of her need. Passionately Rosie defended herself against her imaginary accusers, because unconsciously she accused herself. Nevertheless, Claude's sudden appearance startled her, though the set of his shoulders towering through the dusk transported her to the enchanted land. Here were mountains, and lakes, and palaces, and plashed marble steps, and the music of lutes, and banquets of ambrosial things to which daily bread was as nothing. Claude brought them with him. They were the conditions of that glorious life in which he had his being. They were the conditions in which she had her being, too, the minute she came within his sphere. She passed through some poignant seconds as he approached. For the first time since her idyl had begun to give a new meaning to existence she perceived that if he renounced her it would be the one thing she couldn't bear. She might have the strength to give him up; for him to give her up would be beyond all the limits of endurance. She put it to herself tersely in saying it would break her heart. But he dispelled her fears by smiling. He smiled from what was really a long way off. Even she could see that he smiled from pleasure, though she couldn't trace his pleasure to his delicious feeling of surprise. If she had ceased to be a dryad in a wood, it was to become the Armida of an enchanted garden. She could have no idea of the figure she presented to a connoisseur in girls as from a background of palms, fern-trees, and banked masses of bloom she stared at him with lips half parted and wide, frightened eyes. Submitting to this new witchery in the same way as he was yielding to the heavy, languorous perfumes of the place, Claude smiled continuously. "The fat's all in the fire, Rosie," he said, in a loud whisper, as he drew nearer; "so we've nothing to be afraid of any longer." It was some minutes before she could give concrete significance to these words. In the mean time she occupied herself with assuring him that there was no one in the hothouse but herself, and that in this gloaming they could not be seen from outside. She even found a spot—a kind of low staging from which foliage plants had recently been moved away—on which they could sit down. They did so, clinging to each other, though—conscious of her coarse working-dress—she was swept by a shameful sense of incongruity in being on such terms with this faultlessly attired man. She did her best to shrink from sight, to blot herself out in his embrace, unaware that to Claude the very roughness, and the scent of growing things, gave her a savage, earthy charm. He explained the situation to her, word by word. When he told her that their meetings were known to his father, she hid her face on his breast. When he went on to describe how resolute he had been in taking the bull by the horns, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked up into his face with the devotion of a dog. On hearing what a good mother Mrs. Masterman had been, her utterances, which welled up out of her heart as if she had been crying, were like broken phrases of blessing. As a matter of fact, she was only half listening. She was telling herself how mad she had been in fancying for an instant that she could ever have married Thor—that she could ever have married any one, no matter how great the need or how immense the compensation. Having confronted the peril, she knew now, as she had not known it hitherto, that her heart belonged to this man who held her in his arms for him to do with it as he pleased. He might treasure it, or he might play with it, or he might break it. It was all one. It was his. It was his and she was his—to shatter on the wheel or to trample in the mire, just as he was inclined. It was so clear to her now that she wondered she hadn't seen it with equal force in those days when she was so resolute in declaring that she "knew what she was doing." And yet within a few minutes she saw how difficult it was to surrender herself, even mentally, without reserves. She was still listening but partially. She recognized plainly enough that the things he was saying were precisely those which a month ago would have filled her soul with satisfaction. He loved her, loved her, loved her. Moreover, he had found the means of sweeping all obstacles aside. They were to be married as soon as possible—just as soon as he could "arrange things." Thor and his mother were with them, and his father's conversion would be only a matter of time. These assurances, by which all the calculations of her youth were crowned, found her oddly apathetic. It was not because she had lost the knowledge of their value, but only that they had become subsidiary to the great central fact that she was his—without money or price on his side, and no matter at what cost on hers. It was only when he began to murmur semi-coherent plans for the future, in which she detected the word Paris, that she was frightened. "Oh, but, Claude darling, how could I go to Paris when there's so much for me to do here?" It could not be said that he took offense, but he hinted at reproval. "Here, dearest? Where?" "Here where we are. I don't see how I could go away." "But you'd have to go away—if we were married." "Would it be necessary to go so far?" "Wouldn't it be the farther the better?" "For some things. But, oh, Claude, I have so many things to consider!" "But I thought that when a woman married she left—" "Her father and mother and everything. Yes, I know. But how can I leave mine—when I'm the only one who has any head? Mother's getting better, but father's not much good except for mooning over books. And then"—she hesitated, but whipped herself on—"then there's Matt. He'll be out before long. Some one must be here to tell them what to do." He withdrew his arms from about her. "Of course, if you're going to raise so many difficulties—" "I'm not raising difficulties, Claude darling. I'm only telling you what difficulties there are. God knows I wish there weren't any; but what can I do? If it were just going to Paris and back—" "Well, why not go—and come back when we're obliged to?" In the end they compromised on that, each considering it enough for the present. Rosie was unwilling to dampen his ardor when for the first time he seemed able to enter into her needs as a human being with cares and ties. He discussed them all, displaying a wonderful disposition to shoulder and share them. He went so far as to develop a philanthropic interest in Matt. Rosie had never known anything so amazing. She clasped him to her with a kind of fear lest the man should disappear in the god. "I'll talk to Thor about him," Claude said, confidently. "Got a bee in his bonnet, Thor has, about helping chaps who come out of jail, and all that." Rosie shuddered. It was curiously distasteful for her to apply to Thor. She felt guilty toward him. If she could do as she chose, she would never see him again. She said nothing, however, while Claude went on: "Thor's a top-hole brother, you know. You'll find that out one of these days. Lots of things I shall have to explain to you." He added, without leading up to it. "He's engaged to Lois Willoughby." Rosie sprang from his arms. "What? Already?" She was standing. He looked up at her curiously. "Already? Already—how? What do you mean by that?" She tried to recapture her position. "Why, already—right after us." She reseated herself, getting possession of one of his hands. To this tenderness he made no response. He seemed to ruminate. "Say, Rosie—" he began at last, but apparently thought better of what he had meant to say. "All right," he broke in, carelessly, going on to speak of the wisdom of leaving the public out of their confidence until their plans were more fully matured. "Thor's to be married about the twentieth of next month," he continued, while Rosie was on her guard against further self-betrayal. "After that we'll have Lois on our side, and she'll do a lot for us." By the time Claude emerged from the hothouse it was dark. Glad of the opportunity of slipping away unobserved, he was hurrying toward the road when he found himself confronted by Jasper Fay. In the latter's voice there was a sternness that got its force from the fact that it was so mild. "You been in the hothouse, Mr. Claude?" Claude laughed. In his present mood of happiness he could easily have announced himself as Fay's future son-in-law. Nothing but motives of prudence held him back. He answered, jestingly, "Been in to see if you had any American beauties." "No, Mr. Claude; we don't grow them; no kind of American beauties." Claude laughed again. "Oh, I don't know about that. Good night, Mr. Fay. Glad to have seen you." He passed on with spirits slightly dashed because his condescension met with no response. He was so quick to feel that Fay's silence struck him as hostile. It struck him as hostile with a touch of uncanniness. On glancing back over his shoulder he saw that Fay was following him watchfully, like a dog that sneaks after an intruder till he has left the premises. Being sensitive to the creepy and the sinister, Claude was glad when he had reached the road. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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