"It is this," she said. "I have been reading books lately that have taken my religion from me; it has gone utterly. I want to ask you what I shall do,--if there is anything to take its place. I--I--feel as if I could not get along without something."

Colonel Belmont made a faint exclamation and wheeled about, staring at the fire. His first impulse was to laugh, so ludicrous was the idea that anyone should come to him for spiritual advice; his second to get out of the room. He did neither, however, and ordered his intelligence to work.

He did not speak for some time; and Magdalena, for the first moment, watched him intently, scarcely breathing. Then her attention wandered from herself, and she studied his profile. She noted for the first time how worn it was, the bags under the injected eyes, the heavy lines about the mouth. She had no name for what she saw written in that face, but she suddenly felt herself in the presence of one of life's mysteries. Of man's life she knew nothing--nothing. What did this man do when he was not at home? Who were his friends besides her morose father, her cold dry uncle? She felt Belmont's difference from both, and could not know that they had much in common. What circ.u.mstances had imprinted that face so differently from the few faces familiar to her? For the first time man in the concrete interested her. She suddenly realised how profound was her ignorance, despite the lore she had gathered from books,--realised dimly but surely that there was a vast region called life for her yet to explore, and that what bloomed for a little on its surface was called human nature. She gave an involuntary shiver and sank back in her chair. At the same moment Colonel Belmont looked round.

"Someone walking over your grave?" he asked, smiling. "What you asked came on me right suddenly, 'Lena. I couldn't answer it all in a minute.

You didn't say much--you never do; so I understand how you've been taking this thing to heart. I'm sorry you've lost your religion, for it stands a woman in mighty well. They have the worst of it in this life."

Perhaps he was thinking of his wife. His face was very sober. "But if you have lost it, that is the end of the chapter as far as you are concerned. All I can think of is this--" the words nearly choked him, but he went on heroically: "Do what you think is right in little matters as well as in great. You've been properly brought up; you know the difference between right and wrong; and all your instincts are naturally good, if I know anything about women. As you grow older, you will see your way more clearly. You won't have the temptations that many women have, so that it will be easier for you than for some of the poor little devils. And you'll never be poor. You'll find it easier than most--and I'm glad of it!" he added with a burst of warm sympathy. Emotional by nature, the unaccustomed experience had brought him to the verge of tears; and Magdalena, forlorn and lonely, but thanking him mutely with her eloquent eyes, appealed to the great measure of chivalry in him.

"I am glad I spoke to you, Uncle Jack," she said after a moment. "You have given me much to think about, and I am sure I shall get along much better. Thanks, ever so much."

She did not rise to go, but was silent for several moments. Then she asked abruptly,--

"What do you mean by women having temptations? I know by the way you said it that you don't mean just ordinary every-day temptations."

Colonel Belmont glanced about helplessly. His eloquence had carried him away; he had not paused to take feminine curiosity into account. He encountered Magdalena's eyes. They were fixed on him with solemn inquiry, and they were very intelligent eyes. Did he take refuge in verbiage, she would not be deceived. Did he refuse to continue the conversation, she would be hurt. In either case her imagination would have been set at work, and she might go far, and in the wrong direction, to satisfy her curiosity. Once more he stared at the fire.

To his daughter he could have said nothing on such a subject: he was too old-fashioned, too imbued with the chivalrous idea of the South of his generation that women were of two kinds only, and that those who had been segregated for men to love and worship and marry must never brush the skirts of their thought against the sin of the world. They were ideal creatures who would produce others like themselves, and men--like himself.

But as he considered he realised that he had a duty toward Magdalena, which grew as he thought: she needed help and advice and had come to him, having literally no one else to go to. After all, might she not have temptations which would pa.s.s his beautiful, quick-witted, triumphant daughter by? Helena, with the world at her feet, would have little time for brooding, little time for anything but the lighter pleasures of life under his watchful eye, until she loved and pa.s.sed to the keeping of a man who, he hoped, would be far stronger and finer than himself. But Magdalena? Repressed, unloved, intellectual, disappointed at every turn, pa.s.sionate undoubtedly,--there was no knowing to what sudden extremes desperation might drive her. And the woman, no matter how plain, had yet to be born who could not be utterly bad if she put her mind to it. It was not only his duty to warn Magdalena, but to give her such advice as no mortal had ever heard from his lips before, nor ever would hear again.

He drew a long breath and wheeled about. Magdalena was leaning forward, staring at him intently. There was no self-consciousness in her face, and he realised in a flash that he would merely talk into a brain. Her woman's nature would not be awakened by the homily of an elderly man.

The task became suddenly light.

"Well, it's just this: There's no moral law governing the animal kingdom; but men and women were allowed to develop into speaking, reasoning, generally intelligent beings for one purpose only: to make the world better, not worse. Their reasoning faculty may or may not be a spark of the divine force behind the universe; but there's no doubt about the fact, not the least, that every intelligent being knows that he ought to be at least two thirds good, and in his better moments--which come to the worst--he has a desire to be wholly good, or at least better than he has ever been. In other words, the best of men strive more or less constantly toward an ideal (and the second-best strive sometimes) which, if realised, would make this world a very different place. I believe myself that it is this instinct alone which is responsible for religions,--a desire for a concrete form of goodness to which man can cling when his own little atom is overwhelmed by the great measure of weakness in him. Do you follow me?"

Magdalena nodded, but she did not look satisfied.

"Well, this is the point: The world might be prosaic without sin, but it is right positive that women would suffer less. And if it could be pounded into every woman's head that she was a fool to think twice about any man she could not marry, and that she threatened the whole social structure every time she brought a fatherless child into the world; that she made possible such creatures as you saw in Dupont Street, and a long and still more hideous sequelae, every time she deliberately violated her own instinct for good,--we'd all begin to develop into what the Almighty intended us to be when He started us off on our long march. Don't misunderstand me! Even if I were not such a sinner myself, I'd be deuced charitable where love was concerned, marriage or no marriage--O Lord! I didn't mean to say that. Forget it until you're thirty; then remember it if you like, for your brain is a good one. Look, promise me something, 'Lena;" he leaned forward eagerly and took her hand. "Promise me, swear it, that until you are thirty you'll never do anything your instincts and your intelligence don't a.s.sure you is right,--really right without any sophistry. Of course I mean in regard to men. I don't want you to make yourself into a prig--but I am sure you understand."

"I think I do," said Magdalena. "I promise."

"Thank goodness, for you'll never break your word. You may be tempted more than once to kick the whole stupid game of life to the deuce and go out on a bat like a man, but console yourself with this: you'd be a long sight worse off when you got through than when you started, and you'd either go to smash altogether or spend the rest of your life trying to get back where you were before; and sackcloth hurts. There isn't one bit of joy to be got out of it. If you can't get the very best in this world, take nothing. That's the only religion for a woman to cling to, and if she does cling to it she can do without any other."

Magdalena rose. "Good-night," she said. "I'll never forget a word of it, and I'm very much obliged."

She kissed him and had half crossed the room before he sprang to his feet and went hastily forward to open the door. He went to her father's house with her, then returned to his library fire. To the surprise of his servants, he spent the evening quietly at home.

XII

A year from the following June, and two days after her arrival in Menlo, Magdalena went into the middle woods. The great oaks were dusty already, their brilliant greens were dimming: but the depths of the woods were full of the warm shimmer of summer, of the mysterious noises produced by creatures never seen, by the very heat itself, perchance by the riotous sap in the young trees which had sprung to life from the roots of their mighty parents.

Magdalena left the driveway and pushed in among the brush. Poison oak did not affect her; and she separated the beautiful creeper fearlessly until she reached a spot where she was as sure of being alone and unseen as if she had entered the bowels of the earth. She sat down on the warm dry ground and looked about her for a moment, glad in the sense of absolute freedom. Above the fragrant brush of many greens rose the old twisted oaks, a light breeze rustling their brittle leaves, their arms lifted eagerly to the warm yellow bath from above. Near her was a high pile of branches and leaves, the home of a wood-rat. No sound came from it, and mortal had nothing to fear from him. A few birds moved among the leaves, but the heat made them lazy, and they did not sing.

After a few moments, Magdalena's glance swept the wall of leaves that surrounded her; then she took a pencil and a roll of foolscap from her pocket. She had made up her mind that the time had come for her first essay in fiction. For two years and a half she had studied and thought to this end; too reverent to criticise, but taking the creators'

structures to pieces as best she could and giving all attention to parts and details.

She had had a nebulous idea in her mind for some time. It had troubled her that it did not a.s.sume definite form, but she trusted to that inspiration of the pen of which she had read much.

Her hand trembled so that she could not write for a few moments. She put the pencil down, not covering her face with her hands as a more demonstrative girl would have done, but biting her lips. Her heart beat suffocatingly. For the first time she fully realised what the power to write would mean to her. Her religion had gone, that dear companion of many years; she had practised faithfully until six months ago, when she had asked her teacher to tell her father that she could never become even a third-rate musician; and Don Roberto had, after a caustic hour, concluded that he would "throw no more good money after bad;" she had had long and meaning conferences with her mirror, conjuring up phantasms of the beautiful dead women of her race, and decided sadly that the worship of man was not for her. She had never talked for ten consecutive minutes with a young man; but she had a woman's instincts, she had read, she had listened to the tales of her aunt, and she knew that what man most valued in woman she did not possess. Her great position and the graces she hoped to cultivate might gratify her ambitions in a measure, but they would not companion her soul. Books were left; but books are too heterogeneous an interest to furnish a vital one in life, a reason for being alive. She had read of the jealous absorption of art, of the intense exclusive love with which it inspired its votaries. She had read of the joys of creation, and her whole being had responded; she felt that did her brain obey her will and shape itself to achievement, she too would know ecstasy and ask nothing more of life.

Her nerves settled, and she began to write. Her reading had been confined to the cla.s.sics of the old world: not only had she not read a modern novel, but of the regnant lights of her own country, Mr. Howells and Mr. James, she had never heard. She may have seen their names in the "Literary Bulletin" her bookseller sent her, but had probably gathered that they were biologists. There was no one to tell her that the actors and happenings within her horizon were the proper substance for her creative faculty. California had whispered to her, but she had not understood. Her intention was to write a story of England in the reigns of Oliver Cromwell and Charles the Second. The romance of England appealed to her irresistibly. The ma.s.s of virgin ore which lay at her hand did not provoke a flash of magnetism from her brain.

She wrote very slowly. An hour pa.s.sed, and she had only covered a page.

Her head ached a little from the intense concentration of mind. Her fingers were stiff. Finally, she laid her pencil aside and read what she had written. It was a laboured introduction to the story, an attempt to give a picture of the times. She was only nineteen and a novice, but she knew that what she had written was rubbish. It was a trite synopsis of what she had read, of what everybody knew; and the English, although correct, was commonplace, the vocabulary cheap. She set her lips, tore it up, and began again. At the end of another hour she destroyed the second result.

Then she determined to skip the prologue for the present and begin the story. For many long moments she sat staring into the brush, her brain plodding toward an opening scene, an opening sentence. At last she began to write. She described the hero. He was walking down the great staircase of a baronial hall,--in which he had lain concealed,--and the company below were struck dumb with terror and amazement at the apparition. She got him to the middle of the stair; she described his costume with fidelity; she wrote of the temper of the people in the great hall. Then she dropped the pencil. What was to happen thereafter was a blank.

She read what she had written. It was lifeless. It was not fiction. The least of Helena's letters was more virile and objective than this.

Again that mysterious indefinable presentiment a.s.sailed her. It was the first time that it had come since that night she had stood on the balcony and opened her brain to literary desire. Had that presentiment meant anything since compa.s.sed? Her father's cruel treatment? Her terrible experience in the street of painted women? Her illness? The loss of her religion? It was none of these things. So far, it had not been fulfilled; and it had struck its warning note again. She shivered, then discovered that the yellow light was no longer about her, and that her head ached. She rose stiffly and put the torn sc.r.a.ps of paper in her pocket. As she left, she cast a curious glance about her retreat, not knowing what prompted it. The scent of newly upturned earth came to her nostrils; a bird flew down on the rat's nest, starting along the sides a shower of loose earth; the frogs were chanting hoa.r.s.ely.

XIII

The next morning the natural buoyancy of youth a.s.serted itself; she reasoned that a long hard apprenticeship had been the lot of many authors, and determined that she would write a page a day for years, if need be, until her tardy faculty had been coaxed from its hard soil and trained to use.

She could not go to the woods that day: her mother expected callers.

"Your birthday is a week from Wednesday," Mrs. Yorba said as they sat on the verandah. "Your father and I have decided to give a dinner. You will not come out formally, of course, until winter; but a little society during the summer will take off the stiffness."

Magdalena turned cold. "But, mamma! I cannot talk to young men."

"You expect to begin sometime, do you not? I shall also take you to any little entertainment that is given in Menlo this summer; and as the Brannans and Montgomerys are back from Europe,--they arrived last Thursday,--there may be several. The older girls gave little parties before they married; but there have not been any grown girls in Menlo for some years now. Rose Geary and Caro Folsom, who spent last summer in the East, will spend this in Menlo, so that there will be five of you, besides Nelly Washington."

Magdalena knew that the matter was settled. She had given a good deal of imagination to the time when she should be a young lady, but the immediate prospect filled her with dismay. Then, out of the knowledge that her lines had been chosen for her, she adapted herself, as mortals do, and experienced some of the pleasures of antic.i.p.ation.

"I believe I did not tell you," her mother resumed, "that I wrote to Helena some time ago asking her to bring back four dresses for you,--a ball dress for your debut, an English walking suit, a calling dress, and a dinner dress."

Magdalena had never given a thought to dress; but this sudden announcement that she was to have four gowns from Paris and London p.r.i.c.ked her with an intimation that the interests of life were more varied than she had suspected. She wondered vividly what they would be like, and recalled several of Nelly Washington's notable gowns.

"You are to have forty dollars a month after your birthday, and your father will permit me to get you three dresses a year; everything else must come out of your allowance. You will keep an account-book and show it to your father every month, as I do. Oh--and there is another thing: a Mr. Trennahan of New York has brought letters to your father. He is a man of some importance,--is wealthy and has been Secretary of Legation twice, and comes of a distinguished family; we must do something for him, and have decided to ask him down to your dinner. That will kill two birds with one stone. He can also stay a day or two, and we will show him the different places."

"A strange man in the house for two days," gasped Magdalena, forgetting that she was to have forty dollars a month.

"He can take care of himself most of the time. Here come Nelly."

Mrs. Washington's ponies were rounding the deer park. Magdalena craned her neck.

"She has some one with her," she said. And in another half-moment: "Tiny Montgomery and Ila Brannan."

Magdalena clasped her hands tightly to keep them from trembling. What would they think of her? She saw that they were smartly dressed.