"Is that you, Mr. Bedient?" she called. The voice came seemingly from an inner room; a cultivated voice, with that husky note in it which charms the mult.i.tude. Had he not a good mental picture of Mrs.

Wordling, he would have imagined some enchanted Dolores.... "How good of you to come! Just wait one moment."

The door opened partially after a few seconds, and he caught the gleam of a bare arm, but the actress had disappeared when he entered. Bedient was in a room where a torrential shower had congealed into photographs.

"I can't help it," she said at last, emerging from the inner room, unhooked.... "I've been trying to get a maid up here for the past half-hour.... I think there's only three or four between the shoulder-blades--won't you do them for me?"

She backed up to him bewitchingly.... Mrs. Wordling was in the twenty-nine period. If the thing can be imagined, she gave the impression of being both voluptuous and athletic. There was a rose-dusk tone under her healthy skin, where the neck went singing down to the shoulder, singing of warm blood and plenteous. Hers was the mid-height of woman, so that Bedient was amusedly conscious of the length of his hands, as he stood off for a second surveying the work to do.

"What's the trouble; can't you?"

There was a purring tremble in her tone that stirred the wanderer, only it was the past entirely that moved within him. The moment had little more rousing for him, than if he were asked to fasten a child's romper.... Yet he did not miss that here was one of the eternal types of man's pursuit--as natural a man's woman as ever animated a roomful of photographs--a woman who could love much, and, as Heine added, _many_.

"I'll just throw a shawl around, if you can't," she urged, nudging her shoulder.

"Far too warm for shawls," he laughed. "I was only getting it straight in my mind before beginning. You know it's tricksome for one accustomed mainly to men's affairs.... There's one--I won't pinch--and the second--anytime you can't find a maid, Mrs. Wordling--I'm in the Club a good deal--there they are, if they don't fly open----" and his hands fell with a pat on each of her shoulders.

Facing him, Mrs. Wordling encountered a perfectly unembarra.s.sed young man, and a calm depth of eye that seemed to have come and gone from her world, and taken away nothing to remember that was wildly exciting....

At least three women of her acquaintance were raving about Andrew Bedient, two artists with a madness for sub-surface matters having to do with men. Mrs. Wordling believed herself a more finished artist in these affairs. She wanted to prove this, while Bedient was the dominant man-interest of the Club.

And now he surprised her. He was different from the man she had pictured. Equally well, she could have located him--had he kissed her, or appeared confused with embarra.s.sment. Most men of her acquaintance would have kissed her; others would have proved clumsy and abashed, but none could have pa.s.sed through the test she offered with both denial and calm.... She wanted the interest of Bedient, because the other women fancied him; she wanted to show them and "that hag, Kate Wilkes,"

what a man desires in a woman; and now a third reason evolved. Bedient had proved to her something of a challenging sensation. He was altogether too calm to be inexperienced. Every instinct had unerringly informed her of his bounteous ardor, yet he had refrained. That which she had seen first and last about him--the excellence of his masculine attractions--had suddenly become important because no longer impersonal. Mrs. Wordling was fully equipped to carry out her ideas.

"You did that very well," she said, dropping her eyes before his steady gaze, "for one experienced only with men-matters. And now, I suppose you want to know why I took the pains to ask you here; oh, no, not to hook me up.... I didn't know you would get back so soon; I had just left word a few moments before you came.... Wasn't it great the way a dreadful disaster was averted at the _Hedda Gabler_ performance last night?... Did you see the morning paper?"

"No," said Bedient. "I was out early."

"Why, it appears that after the explosion, when everyone was crushing toward the doors, some man in the audience took the words of _Hedda_ and steadied the crowd with them, as men and women struggled in the darkness.... 'Now's the time for vine-leaves!' he called out. An unknown--wasn't he lovely?"

She placed the paper before him, and he read a really remarkable account of "the vine-leaf man" magnetizing the mob and carrying out a fainting girl. It was absurd to him, though Ibsen's subtlety, queerly enough, gave the story force.... No face of the audience had impressed him; none had appeared to notice him in the dark. He wondered how the newspaper had obtained the account.... There was a light, quick knock at the door.

"It isn't very often that a newspaper story is gotten up so effectively," Mrs. Wordling was saying. Apparently she had not heard the knock. Her voice, however, had fallen in a half-whisper, more penetrating than her usual low tones. "Do you suppose the hero will permit his name to be known?"

The knock was repeated in a brief, that-ends-it fashion. Mrs. Wordling with a sudden streak of clumsiness half overturned a chair, as she sped to the door. Bedient did not at once penetrate the entire manoeuver, but his nerve and will tightened with a premonition of unpleasantness.

Beth Truba was admitted. Quite as he would have had her do, the artist merely turned from one to the other a quick glance, and ignored the matter; yet that glance had stamped him with her conception of his commonness.

"I could just as well have sent the poster over," Beth said, "but, as I 'phoned, it is well to see, if it suits exactly, before putting it out of mind----"

"Lovely of you, dear. I'm so glad Mr. Bedient is here to see it!" Mrs.

Wordling's brown eyes swam with happiness.

Beth was in brown. Her profile was turned to Bedient, as she unrolled the large, heavy paper.... The work was remarkable in its effect of having been done in a sweep. The subtle and characteristic appeal of the actress (so truly her own, that she would have been the last to notice it) had been caught in truth and cleverly, the restlessness of her empty arms and eager breast. The face was finer, and the curves of the figure slightly lengthened; the whole in Beth's sweeping way, rather masterful.

"Splendid!" Mrs. Wordling exclaimed, and to Bedient added: "It's for the road. Isn't it a winner?"

"Yes, I do like it," Bedient said.

Beth was glad that he didn't enlarge.

"I must be on my way, then," she said. "I'm going into the country to-morrow for the week-end.... We're getting the old house fixed up for the winter. Mother writes that the repairs are on in full blast, and that I'm needed. Last Sat.u.r.day when I got there the plumbers had just come. Very carefully they took out all the plumbing and laid it on the front lawn; then put it back.... Good-by."

"Good-by, and thank you, Beth."

"I am glad that it pleases you, Mrs. Wordling." Her tone was pleasantly poised.

Bedient missed nothing now. He did not blame Mrs. Wordling for using him. He saw that she was out of her element with the others; therefore not at her best trying to be one with them. In her little strategies, she was quite true to herself. He could not be irritated, though he was very sorry. Of course, there could be no explanation. His own innocence was but a humorous aspect of the case. The trying part was that look in Beth Truba's eyes, which told him how bored she was by this sort of commonness.

Then there was to-morrow and Sunday with her away. In her brown dress and hat, glorious and away.

Bedient went away, too.

THIRTEENTH CHAPTER

ABOUT SHADOWY SISTERS

Beth Truba hadn't the gift of talking about the things that hurt her.

She had met all her conflicts in solitudes of her own finding; and there they had been consummated, like certain processes of nature, far from the gaze of man. She had found the world deranged from every girlish ideal. Full grown young men could be so beautiful to her artist's eyes, that years were required to realize that these splendid exteriors held more often than not, little more than strutting half-truths and athletic vanities.

Whistler, the master, had entered the cla.s.s-room unannounced, where Beth was studying, as a girl in Paris. Glancing about the walls, his eyes fastened upon a sketch of hers. He asked the teacher for the pupil who did it, and uplifted Beth's face to his, touching her chin and forehead lightly.

Then he whistled and said: "Off hand, I should say that you are to become an artist; but now that I look closely into your face, I am afraid you will become a woman."

Tentatively, she was an artist; she would not grant more.... A little while before, she had been very close to becoming a woman. None but the Shadowy Sister knew how near. (The Shadowy Sister was an inst.i.tution of Beth's--her conscience, her spirit, her higher self, or all three in one. She came from an old fairy-book. A little girl had longed for a playmate, even as Beth, and one day beside a fountain appeared a Shadowy Sister. She could stay a while, for she loved the little girl, but confessed it was much happier where _she_ lived.)... Shadowy Sisters for little girls who have no playmates, and for women who have no confidantes.

Under Beth's mirth, during the recent talk with David Cairns, had been much of verity. She was carrying an unhealed wound, which neither he nor the world understood. In Andrew Bedient she had discerned a fine and deeply-endowed nature--glimpses--as if he were some great woman's gift to the world, her soul and all. But Beth's romantic nature had been desolated so short a time ago, that she despised even her willingness to put forth faith again.... Such fruit must perish on the vine, if only common hands attend the harvest.

Women like Beth Truba learn in bitterness to protect themselves from possibilities of disillusionment. They hate their hardness, yet hardness is better than rebuilding sanctuaries that have been brutally stormed. For one must build of faith, radium-rare to those who have lost their intrinsic supply.

The Other Man had been a find of Beth's. He had come to her mother's house years ago--a boy. He had seemed quick to learn the ways of real people, and the things a man must know to delight a woman's understanding. In so many ways, the finishing touches of manhood were put upon him gracefully, that Beth gloried in the work of adding treasures of mind and character. She had even made his place in the world, through strong friends of her own winning.

Beth was a year or two older. The boy had grown splendid in appearance, when she discovered she was giving him much that he must hold sacredly, or inflict havoc upon the giver.... In moments when she was happiest, there would come a thought that something would happen.... The young man did not fully understand what caused the break. This may be the key to the very limitation which made him impossible--this lack of delicacy of perception. Certainly he did not know the greatness of Beth's giving, nor the fineness she had come to expect from him.... She did not exactly love him less, but rather as a mother than a maid, since she had to forgive.

A woman may love a man whom she is too wise to marry. There are man-comets, splendid, flashing, unsubstantial, who sweep into the zones of attraction of all the planet sisterhood; but better, if one cannot have a sun all to oneself, is a little cold moon for the companion intimate.... Something that the young man had said or done was pure disturbance to Beth, compatible with no system of development. She had sent him from her, as one who had stood before her rooted among the second-rate.

Only Beth knew the depth of the hurt. All the feminine of her had turned to aching iron. The Shadowy Sister seemed riveted to a hideous clanking thing, and all the dream-children crushed.

Her friends said: "Who would have thought that after making such a _man_ of her protege, Beth would refuse to marry him? Ah, Beth loves her pictures better than she could love any mere man. She was destined to be true to her work. Only the great women are called upon to make this choice. Nature keeps them virgin to reveal at the last unshadowed beauty. This refusal is the signet of her greatness."

Beth heard a murmur of this talk and laughed bitterly.

"No," she said to her studio-walls. "It's only because Beth is a bit choosey. She isn't a very great artist, and if she were, she wouldn't hesitate to become Mrs. Right Man, though it made her falter forever, eye and hand."

In her own heart, she would rather have had her visions of happiness in children, than to paint the most exquisite flowers and faces in the comprehension of Art.... For days, for weeks, she had remained in her studio seeing no one. Some big work was rumored, and she was left alone with understanding among real people, just as was Vina Nettleton....

But she was too maimed within to work. She wanted to rush off to Asia somewhere, and bury herself alive, but pride kept her at home. As soon as she was able to move and think coherently, she sought her few friends again. Even her dearest, Vina Nettleton, had realized but a t.i.the of the tragedy.