_What could that mean except that he would welcome_ ...

Oh Heavens! her pulse was hammering again. She sprang up and ran to the mirror. Yes, the mirror showed a face that scared her; haggard and pinched with a fierce desire.

There were not only lines now, there was a hollow in the cheek ... or was that a shadow? It made her look a thousand years old. Ma.s.sage would do that no good! And she had no faith in any of those "flesh-foods."

Perhaps she was underweight. The hideous strain and suspense of the last weeks had told on her. Perhaps she would better omit those morning exercises for a time, in this intense heat. Perhaps she would better take cream with her oatmeal again. Or perhaps cream of wheat would be better than oatmeal. How ghastly that made her look! But perhaps it was only a shadow. She could not summon courage enough to move and see.

Finally she took up her hand-mirror, framed in creamy ivory, with a carved jade bead hanging from it by a green silk cord. She went to the window to get a better light on her face. She examined it, holding her breath; and drew a long, long sigh of respite and relief. It _had_ been only a shadow!

But what a fright it had given her! Her heart was quivering yet. What unending vigilance it took to protect yourself from deep emotions. When it wasn't one, it was another, that sprang on you unawares.

Another one _was_ there, ready to spring also, the suddenly conceived possibility, like an idea thrust into her mind from the outside, that there might be some active part she could play in what was going on in this house. People did sometimes. If some chance for this offered ...

you never could tell when ... a word might be ... perhaps something to turn Marise from Neale long enough to ...

She cast this idea off with shame for its crudeness. What vulgar raw things would come into your head when you let your mind roam idly ...

like cheap melodrama ...

She would try the Vedanta deep-breathing exercises this time to quiet herself; and after them, breathing in and out through one nostril, and thinking of the Infinite, as the Yogi had told her.

She lay down flat on the bed for this, kicking off her quilted satin _mules_, and wriggling her toes loose in their lace-like silk stockings.

She would lie on her back, look up at the ceiling, and fix her mind on the movement up and down of her navel in breathing, as the Vedanta priest recommended to quiet the spirit. Perhaps she could even say,

"Om ... om ... om ..."

as they did.

No, no she couldn't. She still had vestiges of that stupid, gross Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness clinging to her. But she would outgrow them, yet.

She lay there quiet and breathed slowly, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

And into her mind there slowly slid a cypress-shaded walk with Rome far below on one side, and a sun-ripened, golden, old wall on the other. She stood there with Marise, both so young, so young! And down the path towards them came a tall figure, with a bold clear face, a tender full-lipped mouth, and eyes that both smiled and were steady.

Helplessly she watched him come, groaning in spirit at what she knew would happen; but she could not escape till the ache in her throat swelled and broke, as she saw that his eyes were for Marise and his words, and all of his very self for which she ...

So many years ... so many years ... with so much else in the world ... not to have been able to cure that one ache ... and she did not want to suffer ... she wanted to be at rest, and have what she needed. The tears rose br.i.m.m.i.n.g to her eyes, and ran down on each side of her face to the pillow. Poor Eugenia! Poor Eugenia!

She was almost broken this time, but not entirely. There was some fight left in her. She got up from the bed, clenched her hands tightly, and stood in the middle of the floor, gathering herself together.

Down with it! Down! Down! Just now, at this time, when such an utterly unexpected dawn of a possible escape ... to give way again.

She thought suddenly, "Suppose I give up the New-Thought way, always distracting your attention to something else, always suppressing your desire, resisting the pull you want to yield to. Suppose I try the Freud way, bringing the desire up boldly, letting yourself go, unresisting."

It was worth trying.

She sat down in a chair, her elbows on the dressing-table, and let herself go, gorgeously, wholly, epically, as she had been longing to ever since she had first intercepted that magnetic interchange of looks between Marsh and Marise, the day after her arrival, the day of the picnic-supper in that stupid old woman's garden. That was when she had first known that something was up.

Why, how easy it was to let yourself go! They were right, the Freudians, it was the natural thing to do, you did yourself a violence when you refused to. It was like sailing off above the clouds on familiar wings, although it was the first time she had tried them... . Marise would fall wholly under Marsh's spell, would run away and be divorced. Neale would never raise a hand against her doing this. Eugenia saw from his aloof att.i.tude that it was nothing to him one way or the other. Any man who cared for his wife would fight for her, of course.

And it was so manifestly the best thing for Marise too, to have a very wealthy man looking out for her, that there could be no disturbing reflexes of regret or remorse for anybody to disturb the perfection of this fore-ordained adjustment to the Infinite. Then with the children away at school for all the year, except a week or two with their father ... fine, modern, perfect schools, the kind where the children were always out of doors, Florida in winter and New England hills in summer.

Those schools were horribly expensive ... what was all her money for?

... but they had the best cla.s.s of wealthy children, carefully selected for their social position, and the teachers were so well paid that of course they did their jobs better than parents.

Then Neale, freed from slavery to those insufferable children, released from the ign.o.ble, grinding narrowness of this petty manufacturing business, free to roam the world as she knew he had always longed to do ... what a life they could have ... India with Neale ...

China ... Paris ... they would avoid Rome perhaps because of unwelcome memories ... Norway in summer-time. Think of seeing Neale fishing a Norway salmon brook ... she and Neale on a steamer together ... together ...

She caught sight of her face in the mirror ... that radiant, smiling, triumphant, _young_ face, hers!

Yes, the Freud way was the best.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SOUL OF NELLY POWERS

July 20.

The big pine was good for one thing, anyhow, if it did keep the house as dark as a cellar with the black shade it made. The side-porch was nice and cool even on a hot summer day, just right for making b.u.t.ter. If it wasn't for the horrid pitch-piny smell the tree wouldn't be so bad. The churning was getting along fine too. The dasher was beginning to go the blob-blob way that showed in a minute or two the b.u.t.ter would be there.

It had been a real good idea to get up early and get the work out of the way so that the churning could be done before it got so hot. A thunder-storm was coming, too, probably. You could feel it in the air.

There, perhaps the b.u.t.ter had come, now. Nelly pushed the dasher down slowly and drew it back with care, turning her ear to listen expertly to the sound it made. No, not yet, there wasn't that watery splash yet that came after it had separated.

She went on with the regular rhythmic motion, her eyes fixed dreamily on the round hole in the cover of the churn, through which the dasher-handle went up and down and which was now rimmed with thick yellow cream. She loved to churn, Nelly thought. She loved to have milk to look out for, anyhow, from the time it came in from the barn, warm and foamy and sweet-smelling, till the time when she had taken off the thick, sour cream, like shammy-skin, and then poured the loppered milk spatteringly into the pigs' trough. She liked seeing how the pigs loved it, sucking it up, their eyes half shut because it tasted so good. There wasn't anything that was better than giving people or animals what they liked to eat. It made her feel good all over to throw corn to the hens and see how they scrabbled for it. She just loved to get a bag of stick candy at the store, when she went to town, and see how Addie and Ralph and little 'Gene jumped up and down when they saw it.

And then it was so nice to be fore-handed and get the churning out of the way before noon. She would have time this afternoon after the dishes were done, to sit right down with that sprigged calico dress for little Addie. She could get the seams all run up on the machine before supper-time, and have the hand-work, b.u.t.tonholes and finishing, for pick-up work for odd minutes. She just loved to sit and sew, in a room all nice and picked up, and know the house-work was done.

That would be a _real_ pretty dress, she thought, with the pink sprigs and the pink feather-st.i.tching in mercerized cotton she was going to put on it. Addie would look sweet in it. And if it was washed careful and dried in the shade it wouldn't fade so much. It was a good bright pink to start with. Only Addie ought to have a new hat to wear with it. A white straw with pink flowers on it. But that would cost a couple of dollars, anyhow, everything was so dear now. Oh well, 'Gene would let her buy it. 'Gene would let her do most anything.

She thought with pity of her sisters, mill-hands in West Adams still, or married to mill-hands, men who got drunk on the sly and didn't work regular, and wanted a full half of all they made for themselves. 'Gene and his mother were always scolding about the money they could have had if they'd kept that wood-land on the mountain. They'd ought to ha' been really poor the way she had been, so's you didn't know where the next meal was coming from, or how the rent was going to be paid. She had been awfully lucky to get 'Gene, who let her decide how much money ought to be spent on the children's clothes and hers, and never said a thing, or scolded or bothered. He was kind of _funny_, 'Gene was, always so sober and solemn, and it was a _sort_ of bother to have him so crazy about her still. That had been all right when they were engaged, and first married. She had liked it all right then, although it always seemed sort of foolish to her. But men _were_ that way! Only now, when there were three children and another one coming, and the house to be kept nice, and the work done up right, and the farmwork and everything going so good, and so much on her mind, why, it seemed as though they'd ought to have other things to think about beside kissings and huggings. Not that 'Gene didn't do his share of the work. He was a fine farmer, as good as anybody in the valley. But he never could settle down, and be comfortable and quiet with her, like it was natural for old married folks to do. If she went by him, close, so her arm touched him, why then, if n.o.body was there he'd grab at her and kiss her and rumple her hair, and set her all back in her work. With all she had to do and think of, and she did her work as good as anybody if she did say it who shouldn't, she had her day planned before she turned her feet out of bed in the morning. And she liked to have things go the way she planned them. She _liked_ 'Gene all right, only she had her work to get done.

She churned meditatively, looking off towards the mountain where the Eagle Rocks heaved themselves up stiff and straight and high. 'Gene's mother came to the door, asked if the b.u.t.ter was coming all right, looked at her, and said, "My! Nelly, you get better looking every day you live," and went back to her bread-baking.

Nelly went on with her reflections about 'Gene. It was more than just that he bothered her and put her back with her work. She really didn't think it was just exactly nice and refined to be so crazy about anybody as that. Well, there was a streak in the Powerses that wasn't refined.

'Gene's mother! gracious! When she got going, laughing and carrying-on, what wouldn't she say, right out before anybody! And dancing still like a young girl! And that hateful old Mrs. Hewitt, just after they'd moved back to Ashley, didn't she have to go and tell her about 'Gene's being born too soon after his father and mother were married? 'Gene took it from his mother she supposed; he wa'an't to blame, really. But she hoped Addie and Ralph would be _like_ her folks. Not but what the Powerses were good-hearted enough. 'Gene was a good man, if he was queer, and an awful good papa to Addie and Ralph and little 'Gene. None of her sisters had got a man half so good. That sprigged dress would look good with feather-st.i.tching around the hem, too. Why hadn't she thought of that before? She hadn't got enough mercerized thread in the house, she didn't believe, to do it all; and it was such a nuisance to run out of the thread you had to have, and n.o.body going to the village for goodness knows when, with the farmwork behind the way it was, on account of the rains.

She shifted her position and happened to bring one of her feet into view. Without disturbing a single beat of the regular rhythm of the dasher, she tilted her head to look at it with approbation. If there was one thing she was particular about it was her shoes. She took such comfort in having them nice. They could say what they pleased, folks could, but high heels _suited_ her feet. Maybe some folks, that had great broad feet like that old Indian Toucle, felt better in those awful, sloppy old gunboats they called "Common-sense shoes," but _she_ didn't! It would make her sick to wear them! How they did look! Was there anything so pretty, anyhow, as a fine-leather shoe with a nice pointed toe, and a pretty, curved-in heel? It made you feel refined, and as good as anybody, even if you had on a calico dress with it. That was another nice thing about 'Gene, how he'd stand up for her about wearing the kind of shoes she wanted. Let anybody start to pick on her about it, if 'twas his own mother, he'd shut 'em up short, and say Nelly could wear what she liked he guessed. Even when the doctor had said so strict that she hadn't ought to wear them in the time before the babies came, 'Gene never said a word, when he saw her doing it.

There, the b.u.t.ter was just almost there. She could hear the b.u.t.termilk begin to swash! She turned her head to call to her mother-in-law to bring a pitcher for the b.u.t.termilk, when a sound of galloping hoofs echoed from the road. Nelly frowned, released her hold on the dasher, listened an instant, and ran into the house. She went right upstairs to her room as provoked as she could be. Well, she would make the bed and do the room-work anyhow, so's not to waste _all_ that time. She'd be that much ahead, anyhow. And as soon as Frank had finished chinning with Mother Powers, and had gone, she'd go back and finish her churning. She felt mad all through at the thought of that cream left at just the wrong minute, just as it was separating. Suppose Frank hung round and _hung_ around, the way he did often, and the sun got higher and the cream got too warm, and she'd have to put in ice, and go down cellar with it, and fuss over it all the rest of the day? She was furious and thumped the pillows hard, with her doubled-up fist. But if she went down, Frank'd hang around worse, and talk so foolish she'd want to slap him. He wa'n't more'n half-witted, sometimes, she thought. What was the _matter_ with men, anyhow? They didn't seem to have as much sense as so many calves!

You'd think Frank would think up something better to do than to bother the life out of busy folks, sprawling around all over creation the way he did. But she never had any luck! Before Frank it had been that old Mrs. Hewitt, nosing around to see what she could pick fault with in a person's housekeeping, looking under the sink if you left her alone in the kitchen for a minute, and opening your dresser drawers right before your face and eyes. Well, Frank was getting to be most as much of a nuisance. He didn't peek and snoop the way Mrs. Hewitt did, but he _bothered_; and he was getting so impudent, too! He had the big-head because he was the best dancer in the valley, that was what was the matter with him, and he knew she liked to dance with him. Well, she did.

But she would like to dance with anybody who danced good. If 'Gene didn't clump so with his feet, she'd love to dance with him. And Frank needn't think he was so much either. That city man who was staying with the old man next to the Crittendens was just as good a dancer as Frank, just exactly as light on his feet. She didn't like him a bit. She thought he was just plain fresh, the way he told Frank to go on dancing with her. What was it to him! But she'd dance with him just the same, if she got the chance. How she just loved to dance! Something seemed to get into her, when the music struck up. She hardly knew what she was doing, felt as though she was floating around on that thick, soft moss you walked on when you went blue-berrying on the Burning above the Eagle Rocks ... all springly... . If you could only dance by yourself, without having to bother with partners, that was what would be nice.

She stepped to the door to listen, and heard 'Gene's mother cackling away like an old hen. How she would carry on, with anybody that came along! She hadn't never settled down, not a bit really, for all she had been married and was a widow and was old. It wa'n't nice to be so lively as that, at her age. But she _wasn't_ nice, Mother Powers wasn't, for all she was good to Addie and Ralph and little 'Gene. Nelly liked nice people, she thought, as she went back to shake the rag rugs out of the window; refined ladies like Mrs. Bayweather, the minister's wife. That was the way _she_ wanted to be, and have little Addie grow up. She lingered at the window a moment looking up at the thick dark branches of the big pine. How horrid it was to have that great tree so close to the house! It shaded the bedroom so that there was a musty smell no matter how much it was aired. And the needles dropped down so messy too, and spoiled the gra.s.s.

Frank's voice came up the stairs, bold, laughing, "Nelly, Nelly, come down here a minute. I want to ask you something!"