"Is she? Oh, Ted, you must read something besides newspapers! Mrs.

North hasn't been made a celebrity by the papers--somehow she's managed to keep clear of cheap notoriety--but there's scarcely a woman writing to-day whose work is better than hers. She is really--_really_--distinguished!"

Instantly he was "on the job," as he would have expressed it, at that revelation: "Well, she won't keep out of the 'Star'! I'll have a story about her to-morrow. Confound it! I wish I'd known to-day! But the Davises never let me know anything. I found out by accident that Charlotte was home. And such a time as I had getting her photograph.

I don't believe that family care about their own town's paper!"

Sheila smiled. She had a pretty accurate conception of the place that Shadyville must occupy on Charlotte's horizon--and on Alice North's.

But she only remarked soothingly, "I can tell you all about Alice North. I've read nearly everything she's written, and a number of magazine articles about her, too. I'll get you up a good story about her--the sort of story she won't object to either." Then her enthusiasm swept her from the subject of newspaper values to the true value of Mrs. North:

"Oh, Ted, isn't it splendid for a woman to have a talent like that--a talent that's made her famous at thirty!"

But there was no responsive enthusiasm in Ted's face, no leap of light in the eyes that met the fire of hers. "I suppose so," he conceded grudgingly, "yes, I suppose it is. But I don't care for that sort of woman myself--at least for that sort of married woman."

"But why, Ted? Why? Her work doesn't interfere with her loving her husband!"

"It interferes with her making a home for him. And _that's_ a woman's work--making a home."

"But, Ted, maybe he doesn't want a home--or maybe they have a housekeeper."

Ted shrugged: "Oh, if it suits him to live in a hotel, or at the mercy of a hired housekeeper, it's all right. But in that case, he's missing the best thing a man ever gets--I mean the kind of home a woman's _love_ makes!"

At those words Sheila would have surrendered the argument--so easily was she swayed by a touch upon her heart. But Ted was not through with the subject. His masculine self-respect was aroused against this woman who was succeeding outside the sphere of strictly feminine occupation, and he was determined to show her, in her worst light, to Sheila.

"Has she any children?" he demanded belligerently.

"No--at least, I think not."

"Now you see that I'm right!" he exulted.

But the moment for yielding had pa.s.sed with Sheila. "I see nothing of the sort," she replied with a flare of temper. "Her having children--or not having them--has no bearing whatever on the matter."

"Oh, yes, it has! You mark my words--she hasn't had any children because she's wanted to spend all her time advancing herself--building up a tawdry little fame for herself! I tell you, Sheila, talent's a bad thing for a woman--a bad thing!"

"But, Ted--_I_ write."

He stared at her in nave surprise. Then his face softened into indulgent laughter. "Why, kitty, so you do! I'd forgotten that you scribble. But you don't take it seriously. I don't mind your playing at it, so long as you don't get the notion that it's the biggest thing in life." And he laughed again and pinched her cheek--rea.s.suringly.

She didn't laugh in answer, however. She only gazed at him with an odd intentness, as if she were seeing him for the first time. Then, gravely, she inquired: "What would you think the biggest thing in life, Ted--if you were a woman--a woman like Alice North?"

He drew her down to his knee and whispered into her ear. She was very still for an instant, her whole body subdued, spellbound, by that whispered word. Then, with a movement singularly untender, she withdrew from his arms and stood erect--free--before him. The rich scarlet still flooded her cheek--now like a flag of reluctant womanhood--but he searched her eyes in vain for the glow that should have matched it.

"Well--you'll think so some day!" he insisted gently.

CHAPTER VIII

Sheila was not naturally secretive, and it was a measure of the antagonism which Ted had aroused in her that she said nothing to him of her projected visit to Alice North.

She had intended to tell him at once of Charlotte's kindly plan to interest Mrs. North in her work; she had been impatient to tell him, and her announcement of Charlotte's return, and Mrs. North's arrival with her, had been meant only as the preface to the confidence. She had been so sure of his sympathy, of his ambition for her and his pleasure in this opportunity to test her power.

His real att.i.tude toward the achievements of women she had never suspected. He had so gladly and gratefully accepted her help in his own work, he had so generously acknowledged her ability, that she had never conceived of any s.e.x distinction in his views. She had been his comrade--now he would be hers. And oh, she would make him proud of her! She would see his eyes light for her as, sometimes, she had seen them light over the story of men's successes. For Ted loved success.

If she looked forward to triumphs, he was always at the heart of them.

Whatever she could do would be done more for his honor than for her own. Whatever was rare and fine in her she had come to value first because she was his wife--and afterward for her own profit. She imagined herself, crowned by Mrs. North's praise, returning to Ted to cry:

"It is the real, the true thing--my gift! I will do beautiful work.

Oh, dearest, I have more to bring you than I dared to believe!"

So her impetuous mind had run onward to meet happy possibilities when Ted arrested it with the comment, "I don't care for that sort of woman myself--at least for that sort of married woman!" And at the words, Sheila's dreams had fallen, like broken-winged birds, to the ground.

For a moment--nay, through all the conversation that followed, a conversation that revealed to her with cruel clarity a phase of her husband's mind that she had not hitherto encountered--she was wondering if those dreams would ever rise again. Rude and stupid blows from the hand she loved best had struck them down. How could they recover themselves? How could they sing and soar--those fragile, shattered things?

But even as she glimpsed them thus, broken, defeated, there surged up within her the strength of resistance. Sweetly compliant in all the common affairs of her and Ted's joint life, she had, for this issue so vital to her, an amazing obstinacy. Defeated? She and her dreams?

_No_! Her dreams were her own, born of her as surely as the children of her body would be. They were hers to save--hers to realize. And she was strong enough to do it!

That had been her thought when she withdrew herself from Ted's knee.

His whisper--"The greatest thing that can happen to a woman is motherhood!"--had inspired no tenderness in her. For at that moment there was astir within her, violent and dominant, the impulse that is mightier than motherhood itself--the impulse of _creation_. And it was none the less imperative because it demanded to mould with written words rather than living flesh.

Ted's last gentle speech, his hurt expression when she turned coldly from him, moved her not at all. For the time, he was not Ted, her beloved, but Man, her enemy. True, she had not regarded man as an enemy before. Peter, for instance, had been an ally without whom she could not even have fared thus far. But Peter was not a husband; his masculinity had not been appealed to--nor threatened. She saw now that men would always fight for the mastery of their own women, would always seek to impose s.e.x upon them as a yoke.

Ah, that black, bitter gulf of s.e.x!

Sheila, looking into it for the first time, shuddered with revolt and rage. So _this_ was life; this the end of such moments as her exquisite awakening to love. To _this_ the high and heavenly raptures lured one at last! A bird in the wrong cage, impotently beating its breast against the bars--Sheila was like enough to such an one in that furious, unconsciously helpless hour.

By the next day, however, the fierce whirlwind of her astounded resentment had pa.s.sed. She began to see that Ted might be the victim of his s.e.x as she was the victim of hers; that the real tyranny was not that of Ted over her, but of Nature over them both; of Nature who would use them each with equal ruthlessness for her own purposes. But this perception did not daunt her. Unhesitatingly, she arrayed herself against Nature now; she would save her dreams even from that! And as Ted was a part of Nature's plan, she said nothing to him of her determination to fulfill herself in spite of it.

In the afternoon she set out resolutely for Charlotte's. It was summer, and Shadyville was at its fairest. As Sheila trod the wide, tree-canopied streets, with their old-fashioned houses in fragrant garden closes on either side, a hundred tiny voices whispered to her messages of peace; of life that goes on from summer to summer; of growth, in the dark and choking earth, that springs at last upward to the sun. But she did not hear. For her there was neither comfort nor peace nor any joy in the processes and victories of mere life.

When she reached the Davis house, Charlotte and Mrs. North were on the veranda, clad brightly in a summer frivolity, and their air of leisure and gayety was oddly unlike the tense and pa.s.sionate mood of Sheila herself. In fact the whole scene--the porch with its fluttering awnings and festive flowers, the dainty tea-table that already awaited the guest, the two charming women presiding there--seemed far removed from the grave resolve and stormy emotions that Sheila had brought thither. For an instant, as she paused at the gate, she felt herself absurd. She had come to have afternoon tea with two women who were obviously of the big, conventional world--and she had brought her naked soul to them! Acutely self-conscious, painfully humiliated, she would have retreated if she could, but Charlotte was already hailing her.

And then--her hand was clasped in Alice North's, her eyes were meeting eyes at once so probing and so luminous that they opened every door of her nature and flooded it with light.

Sheila had never had a case of hero-worship, but as she put her hand in Mrs. North's, she fell, figuratively, upon her knees. The very buoyancy and a.s.surance of the latter's manner, which had, for an instant, chilled and rebuffed her, now appeared to her the outward manifestation of a brilliant and conquering spirit. Like a devotee, she watched Mrs. North's quick, graceful movements, her vivid, changeful face; like a devotee she listened to her sparkling, inconsequent chatter. This woman, handicapped by her womanhood, had done big things. Any word from her lips, any gesture of her hand was something to admire and remember.

It never even entered Sheila's head that, although she had done great things, Alice North might not be a great woman. It never occurred to her to ask _how_ she had triumphed--at whose or at what cost. She never even dreamed that one's life--just a n.o.ble submission to Nature, a willing and patient compliance with laws and purposes above one's own--might be the final and fullest expression of genius. Alice North had written books--and Sheila was at her feet.

After awhile Charlotte tactfully left her alone with her idol--in whose footsteps she meant to walk henceforth--to _climb_!

"I've read your stories," said Mrs. North softly then. It was the first mention of Sheila's work, and the girl quivered from head to foot. She gazed mutely at the oracle--waiting for life, for death.

Suddenly Mrs. North leaned forward and caught Sheila's hands in hers.

Alice North had never failed to be sensitive to drama; to play her part in it with sympathy and effect.

"My dear," she exclaimed, and her voice was clear and thrilling, "my dear, you have it--the divine gift!"

And as they looked at each other, the eyes of each filled with tears.

Alice North was indeed sensitive to drama--so sensitive that her counterfeit emotions sometimes deceived even her--and Sheila was shaken to the heart, to the soul.

"You mean--you mean--that I--" began the girl brokenly.