Jacqueline slipped out of the room very gratefully. The tears had been welling up behind her eyes so fast that she was afraid some of them would spill over. She wanted desperately to be alone until she had accustomed herself to the thought of Channing with another woman. A blonde, pretty person, Jemima had said.--At least she did not sound like a person who could help him to write books!

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

As soon as they were alone, Jemima demanded explanations of her mother.

"What has happened to Jacky? Why, she's all eyes! I never saw such a change! Her smile makes you want to cry, somehow.--Mother, it can't be--Channing?"

"I am afraid it is--" sighed Kate.

"Then she really cared for him? Why, but that's incredible! Such a man, Mother! James has told me a good deal about him. He's a sort of male vampire, always needing a woman to pet and admire him--any sort of woman. And our Jacqueline!" Her lips set. "Humph! If the child still cares for him, I'll see that she hears the whole truth about him.

Jacky's not lacking in pride."

"I hope and pray it is only her pride that is suffering now," said Kate, and took Jemima fully into her confidence. It was a great relief to talk it over with somebody. She realized how she had missed this cool and level-headed child of hers.

But when she had finished, Jemima was by no means cool and level-headed.

All her pretty married complacency had gone. She was more excited than her mother had ever seen her. She jumped up and began to walk around the room, muttering rather surprising things.

"Why did you let him go? The horrid beast! Oh, poor little Jacky, poor little Jacky! Why did you let him off, Mother? Why didn't you--shoot him?"

"Daughter!"

"Well, I don't care," muttered the girl, defiantly. "I can understand killing a man like that, I can!"

A queer little smile twitched at Kate's lips. "Can you, my dear?"

Jemima stopped short, and her eyes met her mother's, widening. She realized of what Kate was thinking. "Yes, I can," she repeated, breathlessly. "A man like that ... Mother! _Was my father--a--man like that?_"

But Kate spoke quickly, as if she had not heard. "Then you think I did right in letting Jacqueline believe Channing had failed her?"

The girl thought it over. "No," she said at last, with her usual ruthlessness. "I don't. No good ever comes of deception, Mother. Look what it has done already! Poor Mag ran away because she was afraid of not keeping your secret."

Kate winced. "But I have Jacqueline!"

"And of course," conceded the other thoughtfully, "Mag would have gone to the bad anyway, soon or late.--Oh, yes, she would, Mother! No use blinking facts. As she used to say, she was 'spiled anyway.' On the whole," Jemima decided, "I think you have done the best thing possible.

But I wish _I_ had been here!--What are you going to do with Jacky now?

Let her study singing?"

Kate realized the silence that had latterly fallen on Storm. The girl had not sung a note in weeks. Both piano and graphophone had been idle.

She spoke of this.

"That's bad! Music has always meant so much to Jacky. She'll have to have an outlet of some sort. Better let her come home with me, Mother.

I'll get her interested in something."

Kate shook her head. "Try, if you like, but she won't go. She's more 'mommerish' than ever just now, poor baby. She needs mothering, I think--and marrying!"

Jemima looked up quickly. "You mean Philip? Surely, Mother, you've given up the Philip idea, after _this_!"

"Why should I?"

"Why, Mother! Would it be fair to him? Don't you realize that poor little Jacky has been almost--wicked?"

"No, no, dear, never wicked! Only ignorant, and desperately in love. It seemed to her the honorable thing to do to go away openly with the man she loved, instead of concealing it.--Oh, can't you understand? Don't you see the difference between generous, blind sacrifice, and what you call 'wickedness'?"

"No," said Jemima, with pursed lips. "I must confess I can't. That happens to be my weakness.--But I can see, and have always seen, that Jacqueline is one of the sort of people who ought to be married as early in life as possible."

"Exactly! And who better for her than Philip?"

Jemima looked at her mother in utter exasperation. Was it possible that she was still blind to the thing that was the gossip of the countryside?

Or--a new thought!--was it possible that she was going to take advantage of Philip's devotion to her, of his idealism and capacity for self-immolation, to persuade him into carrying out her long-laid plans?

Jemima herself might have been capable of such a ruthless thing, but on consideration she did not believe it of her mother. There was a certain large innocence about Mrs. Kildare, an almost virginal shyness of mind, that made it difficult for her to conceive, even in the face of direct evidence, that a man younger than herself, a man whom she chose to regard as a son, could be regarding her in turn with eyes other than filial. Jemima did her the justice to recognize this.

She opened her lips to inform her mother of the truth, but somehow found herself saying instead, rather lamely, "She's not in love with Philip!"

Kate smiled. "This from _you_, my dear?"

The bride flushed. "When I spoke as I did about love not being necessary to marriage, I was thinking of myself, not of Jacqueline," she explained with dignity. "People have different requirements. Besides, I happened not to be in love with anybody else."

"That does make a difference, but I am counting on time," said the mother. "Time and propinquity. You are not old enough yet to realize the strength of those two factors, my dear. I am.--You said once that Jacqueline was overs.e.xed. I think you are wrong. She simply matured very early, without our realising it. Certain instincts are very strong in her--the maternal instinct, for one--stronger than her judgment.--Just as it was with me. She is not the first poor little trusting dreamer to put up her altar to the Unknown G.o.d, and worship before the first who chooses to usurp it. But the altar remains, when the usurper has pa.s.sed."

"For Philip to occupy? Poor Phil!" murmured Jemima under her breath.

Her mother wheeled round upon her. "Why do you say 'poor Phil'?" she demanded indignantly. "Do you suppose I would offer Jacques' son anything but the best I have to give? Don't you know that I am thinking of his happiness quite as much, perhaps more than of Jacqueline's? His is a bigger nature than yours, my daughter. He would never make the mistake of thinking the child capable of 'wickedness,' no matter what folly she might commit."

"And does he know of her latest 'folly,' Mother?"

"I do not know how much he may suspect, but that is not my affair.

Jacqueline will tell him about it herself, doubtless ... after they are married," replied Kate, serenely.

Others entering the room just then put a stop to the conversation; but for the rest of the evening young Mrs. Thorpe was thoughtful. She knew the Madam's capacity for carrying out intentions. Watching Philip closely, his brotherly tenderness to Jacqueline contrasted with the silent, almost worshipful adoration her mother took so astonishingly for granted, she realized that it would be difficult for his lady to put any test to his devotion too difficult for him to perform. It seemed probable that Kate would succeed in covering one blunder with another blunder.

A great sympathy for Philip came over her--sympathy being a recently developed trait of Jemima's. She saw him suddenly as a piteous figure, even more piteous than her listless young sister, who would, after all, revive like a thirsty flower with the first draft of love that came to her reaching roots. Her mother had been right there.--But what was to atone to Philip for his lonely childhood, his lonely youth, always with the shadow resting upon it; his hopeless infatuation for a woman who would not see, his whole life devoted to that cold and thankless lot of service to others?

"We've taken too much from Philip as it is," she thought. "I must put a stop to this, somehow!"

She decided to drop a hint of warning to Jacqueline herself. Treachery it might be, but, as has been seen, Jemima was quite capable of treachery when it marched with expediency.

Drop a hint she accordingly did, one of her own especial brand of hints, as delicate and as subtle as a dynamite bomb.

It occurred at bedtime, when Jemima--the Thorpes were spending the night--slipped across into the room that had been the nursery to chat with her sister in the old-time intimacy of hair-brushing. Indeed, the room was still a nursery, for the crib that had been in turn Jemima's and Jacqueline's was drawn up close beside Jacqueline's bed, and contained the rosy, sleeping Kitty, with a favorite rattle tight clasped in one pink fist.

"Isn't she too precious, Jemmy?" whispered her foster-mother, who was leaning over the crib as her sister entered.

Jemima responded without particular enthusiasm--to her small Kitty would always represent in concrete form the doctrine of Original Sin. She said, "Come and let me show you how to fix your hair, dear, as they do it in New York. You're old enough now to wear it up."

"I try to, but it won't stay put, there's such a mop of it!" She submitted willingly to the other's deft ministrations. "Neither mother nor I look half as nice since you got married, Jemmy. Oh, I do love your smooth hands!" She held one affectionately to her cheek. "They're so nimble and sure of themselves, as if each finger had a little brain of its own that knew just exactly what it was about."