It was the Judge who told Becky that Dalton had not gone. "Mrs.

Waterman is very ill, and they are all staying down."

Becky showed no sign of what the news meant to her, but that night pride and love fought in the last ditch. It seemed to Becky that with Dalton at King's Crest the agony of the situation was intensified.

"Oh, why should I care?" she kept asking herself as she sat late by her window. "He doesn't. And I have known him only three weeks. Why should he count so much?"

She knew that he counted to the measure of her own constancy. "I can't bear it," she said over and over again pitifully, as the hours pa.s.sed.

"I think I shall--die."

It seemed to her that she wanted more than anything in the whole wide world to see him for a moment--to hear the quick voice--to meet the sparkle of his glance.

Well, why not? If she called him--he would come. She was sure of that. He was staying away because he thought that she cared. And he didn't want her to care. But he was not really--cruel--and if she called him----

She wandered around the room, stopping at a window and going on, stopping at another to stare out into the starless night. There had been rain, and there was that haunting wet fragrance from the garden.

"I must see him," she said, and put her hand to her throat.

She went down-stairs. Everybody was in bed. There was no one to hear.

Her grandfather's room was over the library; Mandy and Calvin slept in servants' quarters outside. To-morrow the house would be full of ears--and it would be too late.

A faint light burned in the lower hall. The stairway swept down from a sort of upper gallery, and all around the gallery and on the stairs and along the lower hall were the portraits of Becky's dead and gone ancestors.

They were really very worth-while ancestors, not as solid and substantial perhaps as those whose portraits hung in the Meredith house on Main Street in Nantucket, but none the less aristocratic, with a bit of dare-devil about the men, and a hint of frivolity about the women--with a pink coat here and a black patch there, with the sheen of satin and the sparkle of jewels--a Cavalier crowd, with the greatest ancestor of all in his curly wig and his sweeping plumes.

They stared at Becky as she went down-stairs, a little white figure in her thin blue dressing-gown, her bronze hair twisted into a curly topknot, her feet in small blue slippers.

The telephone was on a small table under the portrait of the greatest grandfather. He had a high nose, and a fine clear complexion, and he looked really very much alive as he gazed down at Becky.

She found the King's Crest number. It was a dreadful thing that she was about to do. Yet she was going to do it.

She reached for the receiver. Then suddenly her hand was stayed, for it seemed to her that into the silence her greatest grandfather shouted accusingly:

"_Where is your pride?_"

She found herself trying to explain. "But, Grandfather----"

The clamour of other voices a.s.sailed her:

"_Where is your pride?_"

They were flinging the question at her from all sides, those gentlemen in ruffles, those ladies in shining gowns.

Becky stood before them like a prisoner at the bar--a slight child, yet with the look about her of those lovely ladies, and with eyes as clear as those of the old Governor who had accused her.

"But I love him----"

It was no defense and she knew it. Not one of those lovely ladies would have tried to call a lover back, not one of them but would have died rather than show her hurt. Not one of those slender and sparkling gentlemen but would have found swords or pistols the only settlement for Dalton's withdrawal at such a moment.

And she was one of them--one of that prideful group. There came to her a sense of strength in that a.s.sociation. What had been done could be done again. Other women had hidden broken hearts. Other women had held their heads high in the face of disappointment and defeat. There were traditions of the steadfastness of those smiling men and women.

Some day, perhaps, she would have her portrait painted, and she would be--smiling.

She had no fear now of their glances, as she pa.s.sed them on the stairs, as she met them in the upper hall. What she had to bear she must bear in silence, and bear it like a Bannister.

CHAPTER IX

"T. BRANCH"

I

Dalton felt that Fate had played a shabby trick. He had planned a graceful exit and the curtain had stuck; he had wanted to run away, and he could not. Flora was very ill, and it was, of course, out of the question to desert Oscar.

Madge had been sent for. She was to arrive on the noon train. He had promised Oscar that he would drive down for her. The house was in a hubbub. There were two trained nurses, and a half-dozen doctors. The verdict was unanimous, Flora could not be moved, and an operation was imperative.

And in the meantime there was the thought of Becky beating at his heart. With miles between them, the thing would have been easy. Other interests would have crowded her out. But here she was definitely within reach--and he wanted her. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted Madge, more than he had ever wanted any other woman. There had been a sweetness about her, a dearness.

He thought it over as he lay in bed waiting for his breakfast. Since waking, he had led Kemp a life of it.

"Of all the fools," he said, when at last the tray came.

"Anything the matter, sir?"

George lifted a silver cover. "That's not what I ordered."

"You said a kidney omelette, sir."

"I wanted the kidney broiled--not in a messy sauce. Take it away."

"I'll get you another."

"I don't want another. Take it away." He flung his napkin on the tray and turned his face to the wall. "I've got a headache. Tell Waterman that if he asks for me, that I've told you to go down and meet Miss MacVeigh."

Kemp stood and looked at the figure humped up under the light silk cover. He had long patience. He might have been a stick or stone under his master's abuse. But he was not a stick or a stone. It seemed too that suddenly his soul expanded. No man had ever called him a fool, and he had worn a decoration in France. He knew what he was going to do. And for the first time in many months he felt himself a free man.

George's decision to have Kemp meet Madge had been founded on the realization that it would be unbearably awkward if he should pa.s.s Becky on the road. She had sent back his pendant without a word, and there was no telling how she was taking it. If the thing were ever renewed--and his mind dwelt daringly on that possibility, explanations would be easy--but he couldn't make explanation if she saw him first in a car with another woman.

It was thus that Madge, arriving on the noon train, found Kemp waiting for her. Kemp was very fond of Miss MacVeigh. She was not a sn.o.b and there were so many sn.o.bs among Dalton's friends. She talked to him as if he were a man and not a mechanical toy. Dalton, on the other hand, treated his valet as if he were a marionette to be pulled by strings, an organ controlled by stops, or a typewriter operated by keys.

Major Prime had come down on the same train. Randy, driving Little Sister, was there to meet him.

"It is good to get back," the Major said. "I've been homesick."

"We missed you a lot. Yesterday we had a barbecue, and you should have been here----"

"I wanted to be, Randy. I hope you are not going to turn me out with the rest of the boarders when you roll in affluence."

"Affluence, nothing--but I sold two cars yesterday----"