"If that's all that stands between us--"

To her relief he said no more; though she was disappointed that the subject should be dropped in a way that made it possible to bring it up again. As he was taking his leave she renewed the attempt to end the matter once for all.

"I know you think me foolish--" she began.

"No, not foolish; only romantic."

"Then, romantic. Romance is as bad as folly when one is twenty-seven. I confess it," she went on, trying to smile, "only that you may understand that it's a permanent condition which I sha'n't get over."

"Oh yes, you will."

"Things happened--long ago--such as don't generally happen; and so--I'm waiting for him. If he never comes--then I'd rather go on--waiting--uselessly."

It was hard to say, but it was said. He laughed again--not quite so derisively as before--and went away.

When he had gone, she resumed her seat behind the tea-table. She sat looking absently at the floor and musing on the words she had just spoken.

Not in all the seven or eight years since Norrie Ford went away had she acknowledged to her own heart what, within the last few minutes, she had declared aloud. The utmost she had ever owned to herself was that she "could have loved him." When she refused other men, she did not confess to waiting for him; she evaded the question with herself, and found pretexts.

She would have continued doing so with Conquest, had not his persistency driven her to her last stand. But now that she had uttered the words for his benefit, she had to repeat them for her own. Notwithstanding her pa.s.sionate love of woods, winds, and waters, she had always been so sane, so practical, in the things that pertained to daily life that she experienced something like surprise at detecting herself in this condition of avowed romance. She had actually been waiting for Norrie Ford to return, and say what he had told her he _would_ say, should it ever become possible! She was waiting for him still! If he never came she would rather go on waiting for him--uselessly! The language almost shocked her; but now that the thing was spoken she admitted it was true. It was a light thrown on herself--if not precisely a new light, at least one from which all shades and colored wrappings that delude the eye and obscure the judgment had been struck away.

She smiled to herself to think how little Conquest understood her when he ascribed to her the ambition to graft her ungarnered branch on the stock of a duly cultivated civilization. She might have had that desire once, but it was long past. It was a kind of glory to her now to be outside the law--with Norrie Ford. There they were exiles together, in a wild paradise with joys of its own, not less sweet than those of any Eden. She had faced more than once the question of being "taken into the orchard," as Conquest put it. The men who had asked her at various times to marry them had been like himself, men of middle age, or approaching it--men of a.s.sured position either by birth or by attainment. As the wife of any one of them her place would have been unquestioned. She had not rejected their offers lightly, or from any foregone conclusion. She had taken it as a duty to weigh each one seriously as it came; and, leaving the detail of love apart, she had asked herself whether it was not right for her to seize the occasion of becoming "some one" in the world. Once or twice the position offered her was so much in accordance with her tastes that her refusal brought with it a certain vague regret. "But I couldn't do it," were the words with which she woke from every dream of seeing herself mistress in a quiet English park, or a big house in New York. Her habits might be those of civilized mankind; but her heart was listening for a call from beyond the limits in which men have the recognized right to live. She could put no shackles on her freedom to respond to it--if it ever came.

XIV

She discovered that Norrie Ford had come back, and that some of her expectations were fulfilled by finding him actually seated beside her one evening at dinner.

Miss Jarrott's taste in table light was in the direction of candles tempered by deep-red shades. As no garish electricity was allowed to intrude itself into this soft glow, the result was that only old acquaintances among her guests got a satisfactory notion of each other's features. It was with a certain sense of discovery that, by peering through the rose-colored twilight, Miriam discerned now a Jarrott or a Colfax, now an Endsleigh or a Pole--faces more or less well known to her which she had not had time to recognize during the few hurried minutes in the drawing-room.

It was the dinner of which Evie had said, in explaining her plan of campaign to Miriam, "We must kill off the family first of all." It was plain that she regarded the duty as a bore; but she was too worldly wise not to see that her bread cast upon the waters would return to her. Most of the Jarrotts were important; some were wealthy; and one--Mrs. Endsleigh Jarrott--was a power in such matters as a.s.semblies and cotillons. The ladies Colfax were little less influential; and while the sphere of the Poles and Endsleighs was in the world of art, letters, and scholarship, rather than in that of fashion and finance, they had the uncontested status of good birth. To Evie they represented just so much in the way of her social a.s.sets, and she was quick in appraising them at their correct relative values. Some would be good for a dinner given in her honor, others for a dance. The humblest could be counted on for a theatre-party or a "tea." She was skilful, too, in presenting her orphan state with a touching vividness that enlisted their sympathies on behalf of "poor Jack's," or "poor Gertrude's," pretty little girl, according to the side of the house on which they recognized the relationship.

With the confusion incidental to the arrival from South America, the settling into a new house, and the ordering of new clothes, Miriam had had little of the old intimate intercourse with Evie during the six weeks since the latter's return. There was no change in their mutual relation; it was only that Evie was caught up into the glory of the coming winter, and had no time for the apartment in Fifty-ninth Street. It was with double pleasure, therefore, that Miriam responded one day to Evie's invitation to "come and look at my things," which meant an inspection of the frocks and hats that had just come home. They lay about now, in clouds like a soft summer sunset, or in gay spots of feathers and flowers, on the bed and the sofa in Evie's room, and filled all the chairs except the one on which Miriam had retreated into the farthest corner of the bay-window.

Seated there, not quite in profile, against the light, her head turned and slightly inclined, in order to get a better view of Evie's finery, her slender figure possessed a sort of Vand.y.k.e grace, heightened rather than diminished by the long plumes and rich draperies of the month's fashion.

Evie flitted between closets, wardrobes, and drawers, prattling while she worked off that first event of her season, in which the family were to be "killed off." She recited the names of those who would "simply _have_ to be asked" and of those who could conveniently be omitted.

"And, of course, Popsey Wayne must come," she observed in her practical little way. "I dare say he won't want to, poor dear, but it wouldn't do if he didn't. Only you, you dear thing, will have to go in with him--to pilot him and look after him when the dishes are pa.s.sed. But I'm going to have some one nice on your other side, do you see?--some one awfully nice. We shall have to ask a few people outside the family, just to give it relief, and save it from looking like Christmas."

"You'll have Billy, I suppose."

Evie took the time to deposit a lace blouse in a drawer, as softly as a mother lays a sleeping babe to rest.

"No, I sha'n't ask Billy," she said, while she was still stooping.

"Won't he think that queer?"

"I hope so." She turned from the drawer, and lifted a blue gossamer creation from the bed. Miriam smiled indulgently.

"Why? What's the matter? Have you anything to punish him for?"

"I've nothing to punish him for; I've only got something I want to--bring home to him." She paused in the middle of the room, with her blue burden held in her outstretched arms, somewhat like a baby at a christening. "I might as well tell you, Miriam, first as last. You've got to know it some time, though I don't want it talked about just yet. I've broken my engagement to Billy."

"Broken your engagement! Why, I saw Billy myself this morning. I met him as I was coming over. He said he was here last night, and seemed particularly cheerful."

"He doesn't know it yet. I'm doing it--by degrees."

"You're doing it by--what?" Miriam rose and came toward her, stopping midway to lean on the foot-rail of the bed. "Evie darling, what do you mean?"

Evie's eyes brimmed suddenly, and her lip trembled.

"If you're going to be cross about it--"

"I'm not going to be cross about it, but I want you to tell me exactly what you're doing."

"Well, I'm telling you. I've broken my engagement, and I want to let Billy know it in the kindest way. I don't want to hurt his feelings. You wouldn't like me to do that yourself. I'm trying to bring him where he'll see things just as I do."

"And may I ask if you're--getting him there?"

"I shall get him there in time. I'm doing lots of things to show him."

"Such as what?"

"Such as not asking him to the dinner, for one thing. He'll know from that there's something wrong. He'll make a fuss, and I shall be disagreeable.

Little by little he'll get to dislike me--and then--"

"And how long do you think it will take for that good work to be accomplished?"

"I don't see that that matters. I suppose I may take all the time I need.

We're both young--"

"And have all your lives to give to it. Is that what you mean?"

"I don't want to give all my life to it, because--I may as well tell you that, too, while I'm about it--because I'm engaged to some one else."

"Oh, Evie!"

Miriam went back, like a person defeated, to the chair from which she had just risen, while Evie buried herself in the depths of a closet, where she remained long enough, as she hoped, to let Miriam's first astonishment subside. On coming out she a.s.sumed a virtuous tone.

"You see now why I simply _had_ to break with Billy. I couldn't possibly keep the two things going together--as some girls would. I'm one of those who do right, whatever happens. It's very hard for me--but if people would only be a little more sympathetic--"

It was some minutes before Miriam knew just what to say. Even when she began to speak she doubted her capacity for making herself understood.

"Evie darling," she said, trying to speak as for a child's comprehension, "this is a very serious matter. I don't think you realize how serious it is. If you find you don't love Billy well enough, of course you must ask him to release you. I should be sorry for that, but I shouldn't blame you.

But until you've done it you can't give your word to any one."

"Well, I must say I never heard anything like that," Evie declared, indignantly. "You do have the strangest ideas, Miriam. Dear mamma used to say so, too. I try to defend you, but you make it difficult for me, I must say. I never knew any one like you for making things more complicated than they need be. You talk of my asking Billy to release me when I released myself long ago--in my own mind. That's where I have to look. I must do things according to my conscience--and when that's clear--"