She regarded him, noted how effective is humility with such magnificent proportions of strength.

"There isn't, Jim," she answered. "At least, not the change you look for. I'm sorry if you really wanted it, but I think in time you'll be glad----"

"Never, Beth."

She smiled.

Framtree hesitated, as if there were something further he would like to say. He refrained, however.... Beth gave her hand, which he kissed for old love's sake.

On the following Sunday morning, Adith Mallory's Equatorian news-feature appeared. The entire truth and all the names were not needed to make this as entertaining a Sunday newspaper story as ever drew forth her fanciful and flowing style. It was Equatoria that caught and held Beth's eye, and she saw Andrew Bedient in large movement behind the tale. The feature was dated in Coral City ten days before.

Beth was so interested that she wanted to meet the correspondent, and wondered if Miss Mallory had returned to New York. She dropped a card with her telephone number, and the next morning Miss Mallory 'phoned.

Her voice became bright with animation upon learning that Beth was upon the wire.

"There's no one in New York whom I'd rather talk with this moment, Miss Truba."

"And why?"

"That portrait at the _Smilax Club_--I saw it yesterday. I'm writing about it.... The face I know--and you have done it tremendously! I can't tell you how it affected me. Don't bother to come down here. Let me go to you."

"I shall be glad to see you, Miss Mallory,--this afternoon?"

"Yes, and thank you."

The call had brightened Beth's mood somewhat. A bundle of letters had been dropped through her door as she talked. Beth saw the quant.i.ty of them and remembered it was Monday's first mail. She busied about the studio for a moment.... Letters, she thought,--these were all she had to represent her great investments of faith. Letters--the sum of her longings and vivid expectations. No matter what she wanted or deserved--a voice, a touch or a presence--it had all come to this, the crackle of letter paper. What a strange thing to realize! A fold of paper instead of a hand--a special delivery instead of a step upon the stair--a telegram instead of a kiss!...

"I belong in a cabinet," she sighed. "I guess I'm a letter-file instead of a lady."...

There was a large square envelope from Equatoria.... With stinging cheeks, Beth resented the buoyant happiness of the first few lines.

Until a clearer understanding came, it seemed that he was blessing her refusal of him. How unwarranted afterward this thought appeared! The letter lifted her above her own suffering. Her mind was held by the great vital experience of a soul, a soul faring forth on its supreme adventure. He did not say what had happened in words, but she saw his descent in the flesh and his upward flight of spirit--the low ebb and the flashing heights.... How well she knew the cool brightness of his eyes, as he wrote! The G.o.d she had liberated that sunlit day was dead--not dead to her alone, but to any woman of Sh.o.r.e or Mountain or Isle.... With a gasp, she recalled Vina Nettleton's first conception, that Bedient was past, or rapidly pa.s.sing beyond the attraction of a single woman.

Beth saw that she had helped to bring him to this greater dimension.

There was a thrill in the thought. There would have been a positive and enduring joy, had he not gone from her to another. Truly, that was an inauspicious beginning for Illumination--but miracles happened. This thought fascinated her now: Had she seen clearly and made the great sacrifice of withholding herself--that he might rise to prophecy--there would have been gladness in that! She felt she could have done that--the iron Beth--given him to the world and not retained him for her own heart. He said that other women had done so. What an instrument!

But strength did come from his letter; there was a certain magic in his praise and blessing. It gave her something like the natural virtues of mountain coolness and ocean air. Austerely pure, it was. Plainly, pleasure had not made him tarry long.

Beth and Miss Mallory had talked an hour before the name of Jim Framtree was innocently mentioned by the newspaperwoman. It was not Beth's way to betray her fresh start of interest, even though she gained her first clue to the meaning of the fine light she had seen in Bedient's eyes at parting.... The blood seemed to harden in her heart.

The familiar sounds of the summer street came up through the open windows with a sudden horror, as if she were a captive on cannibal sh.o.r.es.

"No one knows why he wanted this talk with Mr. Framtree," Miss Mallory was saying. "He wanted it vitally--and you see what came of it--a revolution averted--the fortunes of the whole Island altered for the better--and yet, those were only incidents. He was so ill--that another man would have fallen--and yet he went to _The Pleiad_--and aboard the Spaniard's yacht, as you read.... I knew his courage before--from the _Hedda Gabler_ night--but it was true, he didn't know me! The only result I know was that Mr. Framtree came to New York----"

It seemed to Beth that her humanity was lashed and flung and desecrated.... "But he did not know," she thought. "He did not know. He could not have hurt me this way. He thought I could not change, that I should always worship the beauty of exteriors. I told him the parable--and he went away--to send me what he thought I wanted!..."

Miss Mallory had come with a tribute of praise to a great artist. She found a woman who was suffering, as she had suffered, in part. A great mystery, too, she found. It was almost too sacred for her to try to penetrate, because it had to do with him.... She wondered at Miss Truba's inability to speak, or to help herself in any way with the things that pressed her heart to aching fullness.... She had found it wonderfully restoring to talk of him--with a woman who knew him--and who granted his greatness from every point.

The long afternoon waned, but still the women were together. All that had taken place was very clear to Beth--even this woman's ministerings.

"And he is better--beyond words, better!" Miss Mallory added. "I received a note from him this morning. The _Hatteras_ arrived yesterday. I came up on the _Henlopen_ eight days ago. So it was my first word. Something great has happened. He is changed and lifted."

"Has Mr. Framtree finished his mission?" Beth asked.

"Yes. He intends to go back to-morrow afternoon. He finished sooner than he thought. He is going to help Mr. Bedient in the administration of the vast property.... It seems that no one ever touches Mr. Bedient, but that some great good comes to him. I am going back, too----"

"To live?"

"Yes." Miss Mallory explained what Dictator Jaffier had done for her, adding:

"It was all Mr. Bedient's doing.... You see what I mean, about the wonderful things that happen to others--where he is.... Yet I would rather have that picture of him you painted--than all Equatoria--but even that should not belong to one----"

"You love him then?" Beth asked softly.

"I dared that at first, but I didn't understand. He is too big to belong that way.... I would rather be a servant in his house--than the wife of any other man I ever knew. I am that--in thought--and I shall be near him!"

After a moment, Beth _heard_ the silence--and drew her thoughts back to the hour. She seemed to have gone to the utmost pavilions of tragedy--far beyond the sources of tears--where only the world's strongest women may venture. The Shadowy Sister was there.... Beth had come back with humility, which she could not reveal.

The dusk was closing about them.

"You have been good to come--good to tell me these things," Beth said.

"Some time I shall paint a little copy of the portrait for you. I'm sure he would be glad."

THIRTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER

A SELF-CONSCIOUS WOMAN

Two days later Beth answered a 'phone call from David Cairns.... He was just back from Nantucket ... for a few days.... Very grateful to find her in.... Yes, Vina had come over, too.

Beth was instantly animate. Vina had planned to be gone a month at least.

"I'd like to come over alone first--may I, Beth?" Cairns asked.

"Yes."

"Within a half-hour?"

"Yes.... I shall prepare to listen to great happiness."

... Beth reflected that she looked a belated forty; that she had lost her charm for the eye of Jim Framtree, who had treated her like a relative. She was ashamed to show her suffering to David Cairns--ashamed that she cared--but it was part of her. Happiness was in the air. She must listen. She marveled at her capacity to endure....

The dews of joy were upon David Cairns. Between Bedient and Vina, he had been born again. He looked at her--as all who knew her did now--and then again in silence. It always made her writhe--that second stare. It gave her the sense of some foreign evil in her body--like the discovery of a malady with its threat of death in every vein.

He told her that Vina and he were to be married at once. Beth gave to the story all that listening could add to the telling of happiness.

"And, David," she said. "I claim a little bit of credit for this glorious thing----"