It was because she had broken with Billy
that Loretta had come visiting to Santa
Clara
Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara Santa Clara
The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous
plan began shaping itself in Mrs. Hemingway's brain. The second day she
remarked to Jack Hemingway, her husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young
thing that were it not for her sweet guilelessness she would be positively
stupid. In proof of which, Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that
made him chuckle. By the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable
form. Then it was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote:
"Mr. Edward Bashford, Athenian Club, San
Francisco
"Dear Ned," the letter began. She
had once been violently loved by him for three weeks in her pre-marital days.
But she had covenanted herself to Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her
heart as well; and Ned Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over
it. He merely added the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data
out of which he manufactured philosophy. Artistically and temperamentally he
was a Greek-- a tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in token
that he, too, had passed through the long sickness that follows upon the ardent
search for truth; that he too had emerged, too experienced, too shrewd, too
profound, ever again to be afflicted by the madness of youths in their love of
truth. "'To worship appearance,'" he often quoted; "'to believe
in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus
of appearance!'" This particular excerpt he always concluded with,
"'Those Greeks were superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY!'"
He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and
worn. Women were faithless and unveracious, he held--at such times that he had
relapses and descended to pessimism from his wonted high philosophical calm. He
did not believe in the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he
did not strip from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth. He was
content to accept them as appearances and to make the best of it. He was
superficial- -OUT OF PROFUNDITY.
"Jack says to be sure to say to you,
'good swimming,'" Mrs. Hemingway wrote in her letter; "and also 'to
bring your fishing duds along.'" Mrs. Hemingway wrote other things in the
letter. She told him that at last she was prepared to exhibit to him an
absolutely true, unsullied, and innocent woman. "A more guileless,
immaculate bud of womanhood never blushed on the planet," was one of the
several ways in which she phrased the inducement. And to her husband she said
triumphantly, "If I don't marry Ned off this time--" leaving unstated
the terrible alternative that she lacked either vocabulary to express or
imagination to conceive.
Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta
found that she was not unhappy at Santa
Clara
Loretta began to discover that she was not
a pale orb shining by reflection. Quite unconsciously she became a small centre
of things. When she was at the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for
her and to express preferences for certain songs. When she dropped her
handkerchief, there was some one to pick it up. And there was some one to
accompany her in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned to cast
flies in still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to entangle silk
lines and gut-leaders with the shrubbery.
Jack Hemingway did not care to teach
beginners, and fished much by himself, or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford
ample time in which to consider Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all
that his philosophy demanded. Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and
out of his profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the
duplicity his philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She had
the grace of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of fine china,
in all of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the Life Force
palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he believed.
Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed
personality. She discovered a will of her own and wishes of her own that were
not everlastingly entwined with the will and the wishes of Daisy. She was
petted by Jack Hemingway, spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by
Ned Bashford. They encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while she
developed the pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty and
delicate women. Her environment acted as a soporific upon her ancient desire
always to live with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded her as in the days of
her companionship with Billy. The more she saw of Billy, the more certain she
had been that she could not live away from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned
Bashford, the more she forgot her pressing need of Daisy.
Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting.
He confused superficiality with profundity, and entangled appearance with
reality until he accounted them one. Loretta was different from other women.
There was no masquerade about her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs.
Hemingway, and more, who agreed with him and at the same time caught her
husband's eyelid drooping down for the moment in an unmistakable wink.
It was at this time that Loretta received a
letter from Billy that was somewhat different from his others. In the main,
like all his letters, it was pathological. It was a long recital of symptoms
and sufferings, his nervousness, his sleeplessness, and the state of his heart.
Then followed reproaches, such as he had never made before. They were sharp
enough to make her weep, and true enough to put tragedy into her face. This
tragedy she carried down to the breakfast table. It made Jack and Mrs.
Hemingway speculative, and it worried Ned. They glanced to him for explanation,
but he shook his head.
"I'll find out to-night," Mrs.
Hemingway said to her husband.
But Ned caught Loretta in the afternoon in
the big living-room. She tried to turn away. He caught her hands, and she faced
him with wet lashes and trembling lips. He looked at her, silently and kindly.
The lashes grew wetter.
"There, there, don't cry, little
one," he said soothingly.
He put his arm protectingly around her
shoulder. And to his shoulder, like a tired child, she turned her face. He
thrilled in ways unusual for a Greek who has recovered from the long sickness.
"Oh, Ned," she sobbed on his
shoulder, "if you only knew how wicked I am!"
He smiled indulgently, and breathed in a
great breath freighted with the fragrance of her hair. He thought of his
world-experience of women, and drew another long breath. There seemed to
emanate from her the perfect sweetness of a child--"the aura of a white
soul," was the way he phrased it to himself.
Then he noticed that her sobs were
increasing.
"What's the matter, little one?"
he asked pettingly and almost paternally. "Has Jack been bullying you? Or
has your dearly beloved sister failed to write?"
She did not answer, and he felt that he
really must kiss her hair, that he could not be responsible if the situation
continued much longer.
"Tell me," he said gently,
"and we'll see what I can do."
"I can't. You will despise me.
He laughed incredulously, and lightly
touched her hair with his lips--so lightly that she did not know.
"Dear little one, let us forget all
about it, whatever it is. I want to tell you how I love--"
She uttered a sharp cry that was all
delight, and then moaned--
"Too late!"
"Too late?" he echoed in
surprise.
"Oh, why did I? Why did I?" she
was moaning.
He was aware of a swift chill at his heart.
"What?" he asked.
"Oh, I . . . he . . . Billy.
"I am such a wicked woman, Ned. I know
you will never speak to me again."
"This--er--this Billy," he began
haltingly. "He is your brother?"
"No . . . he . . . I didn't know. I
was so young. I could not help it. Oh, I shall go mad! I shall go mad!"
It was then that Loretta felt his shoulder
and the encircling arm become limp. He drew away from her gently, and gently he
deposited her in a big chair, where she buried her face and sobbed afresh. He
twisted his moustache fiercely, then drew up another chair and sat down.
"I--I do not understand," he
said.
"I am so unhappy," she wailed.
"Why unhappy?"
"Because . . . he . . . he wants me to
marry him."
His face cleared on the instant, and he
placed a hand soothingly on hers.
"That should not make any girl
unhappy," he remarked sagely. "Because you don't love him is no
reason--of course, you don't love him?"
Loretta shook her head and shoulders in a
vigorous negative.
"What?"
Bashford wanted to make sure.
"No," she asserted explosively.
"I don't love Billy! I don't want to love Billy!"
"Because you don't love him,"
Bashford resumed with confidence, "is no reason that you should be unhappy
just because he has proposed to you."
She sobbed again, and from the midst of her
sobs she cried--
"That's the trouble. I wish I did love
him. Oh, I wish I were dead!"
"Now, my dear child, you are worrying
yourself over trifles." His other hand crossed over after its mate and
rested on hers. "Women do it every day. Because you have changed your mind
or did not know your mind, because you have--to use an unnecessarily harsh
word--jilted a man--"
"Jilted!" She had raised her head
and was looking at him with tear-dimmed eyes. "Oh, Ned, if that were
all!"
"All?" he asked in a hollow
voice, while his hands slowly retreated from hers. He was about to speak
further, then remained silent.
"But I don't want to marry him,"
Loretta broke forth protestingly.
"Then I shouldn't," he
counselled.
"But I ought to marry him."
"OUGHT to marry him?"
She nodded.
"That is a strong word."
"I know it is," she acquiesced,
while she strove to control her trembling lips. Then she spoke more calmly.
"I am a wicked woman, a terribly wicked woman. No one knows how wicked I
am--except Billy."
There was a pause. Ned Bashford's face was
grave, and he looked queerly at Loretta.
"He--Billy knows?" he asked
finally.
A reluctant nod and flaming cheeks was the
reply.
He debated with himself for a while,
seeming, like a diver, to be preparing himself for the plunge.
"Tell me about it." He spoke very
firmly. "You must tell me all of it."
"And will you--ever--forgive me?"
she asked in a faint, small voice.
He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made
the plunge.
"Yes," he said desperately.
"I'll forgive you. Go ahead."
"There was no one to tell me,"
she began. "We were with each other so much. I did not know anything of
the world--then."
She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting
his lip impatiently.
"If I had only known--"
She paused again.
"Yes, go on," he urged.
"We were together almost every
evening."
"Billy?" he demanded, with a
savageness that startled her.
"Yes, of course, Billy. We were with
each other so much . . . If I had only known . . . There was no one to tell me
. . . I was so young--"
Her lips parted as though to speak further,
and she regarded him anxiously.
"The scoundrel!"
With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his
feet, no longer a tired Greek, but a violently angry young man.
"Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a
good man," Loretta defended, with a firmness that surprised Bashford.
"I suppose you'll be telling me next
that it was all your fault," he said sarcastically.
She nodded.
"What?" he shouted.
"It was all my fault," she said
steadily. "I should never have let him. I was to blame."
Bashford ceased from his pacing up and
down, and when he spoke, his voice was resigned.
"All right," he said. "I
don't blame you in the least, Loretta. And you have been very honest. But Billy
is right, and you are wrong. You must get married."
"To Billy?" she asked, in a dim,
far-away voice.
"Yes, to Billy. I'll see to it. Where
does he live? I'll make him."
"But I don't want to marry
Billy!" she cried out in alarm. "Oh, Ned, you won't do that?"
"I shall," he answered sternly.
"You must. And Billy must. Do you understand?"
Loretta buried her face in the cushioned
chair back, and broke into a passionate storm of sobs.
All that Bashford could make out at first,
as he listened, was: "But I don't want to leave Daisy! I don't want to
leave Daisy!"
He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped
curiously to listen.
"How was I to know?--Boo--hoo,"
Loretta was crying. "He didn't tell me. Nobody else ever kissed me. I
never dreamed a kiss could be so terrible . . . until, boo-hoo . . . until he
wrote to me. I only got the letter this morning."
His face brightened. It seemed as though
light was dawning on him.
"Is that what you're crying
about?"
"N--no."
His heart sank.
"Then what are you crying about?"
he asked in a hopeless voice.
"Because you said I had to marry
Billy. And I don't want to marry Billy. I don't want to leave Daisy. I don't
know what I want. I wish I were dead."
He nerved himself for another effort.
"Now look here, Loretta, be sensible.
What is this about kisses. You haven't told me everything?"
"I--I don't want to tell you everything."
She looked at him beseechingly in the
silence that fell.
"Must I?" she quavered finally.
"You must," he said imperatively.
"You must tell me everything."
"Well, then . . . must I?"
"You must."
"He . . . I . . . we . . ." she
began flounderingly. Then blurted out, "I let him, and he kissed me."
"Go on," Bashford commanded
desperately.
"That's all," she answered.
"All?" There was a vast
incredulity in his voice.
"All?" In her voice was an
interrogation no less vast.
"I mean--er--nothing worse?" He
was overwhelmingly aware of his own awkwardness.
"Worse?" She was frankly puzzled.
"As though there could be! Billy said- -"
"When did he say it?" Bashford
demanded abruptly.
"In his letter I got this morning.
Billy said that my . . . our . . . our kisses were terrible if we didn't get
married."
Bashford's head was swimming.
"What else did Billy say?" he
asked.
"He said that when a woman allowed a
man to kiss her, she always married him--that it was terrible if she didn't. It
was the custom, he said; and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like
it. I know I'm terrible," she added defiantly, "but I can't help
it."
Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a
cigarette.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" he
asked, as he struck a match.
Then he came to himself.
"I beg your pardon," he cried,
flinging away match and cigarette. "I don't want to smoke. I didn't mean
that at all. What I mean is--"
He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in
his, then sat on the arm of the chair and softly put one arm around her.
"Loretta, I am a fool. I mean it. And
I mean something more. I want you to be my wife."
He waited anxiously in the pause that
followed.
"You might answer me," he urged.
"I will . . . if--"
"Yes, go on. If what?"
"If I don't have to marry Billy."
"You can't marry both of us," he
almost shouted.
"And it isn't the custom . . . what. .
. what Billy said?"
"No, it isn't the custom. Now,
Loretta, will you marry me?"
"Don't be angry with me," she
pouted demurely.
He gathered her into his arms and kissed
her.
"I wish it were the custom," she
said in a faint voice, from the midst of the embrace, "because then I'd
have to marry you, Ned dear . . . wouldn't I?"
