University of Virginia Library

2. II

MRS. MILLER was a brave woman, accustomed to the command not only of others but of herself; but she felt an odd dryness in her throat as she stood waiting for a response to her ring at the bell over which was fixed an old-fashioned brass plate marked "Wilson." Since the death of her parents Mary Wilson had lived on alone in the house where she was born, a little white cottage with a quaint, prim garden about it, redolent of old-fashioned perfumes and filled with memories of her mother's mild, faded presence. The flower garden had been the gentle passion of the older woman's life, and Mary could not look out upon the neat beds and luxuriant old shrubs without a momentary vision of her mother's stooped shoulders bending over the roses, or hearing her slow, light footfall in the now so empty gravel paths.

Inside, the low-ceilinged rooms were as sensibly filled with her father's simple, kindly spirit. The thousand ingenious contrivances for lightening the work of the household, the shelves and brackets here and there, the windows lowered to the floor so that her little mother could look out on the garden as she sat sewing, the window-seat box for Mary's toys when she was a child — all surrounded the lonely woman with a sense of remembered affection and care.

Mrs. Miller rang the bell again. It resounded through a house patently empty. She drew out her watch and noticed that she was ahead of time. The high school, two squares away, would not be dismissed for five minutes. She looked about for a place to wait, and sank down on a bench under an arbor of wistaria, just then in full bloom, in the leafless luxuriance of early spring. Fanny relaxed, in spite of herself, in the quiet perfumed silence of the little garden. She was fond of flowers herself, and noticed with an absently approving eye the healthy vigor of the lilacs and peonies, beginning to leaf. Rows of sweet peas were just thrusting green bowed heads through the brown earth.

For a moment the mother knew an instant's rest from the turmoil of anxiety about her son. But it surged up in her at the sound of the gate clicking behind her. She turned and saw Mary Wilson walking up the path, her fair uncovered head shining in the sunlight. Mrs. Miller rose, her knees shaking under her, her mouth parched, but with the determination of a mother fighting for her young gleaming from her dark eyes. The other woman stopped, surprised and hesitating.

Mrs. Miller came forward. She knew the teacher by sight, remembering her from the days when the family had laughed at Ralph's boyish admiration for her. "This is Mrs. Miller," she said in a neutral voice, and then, with a sudden flash, "I am Ralph Miller's mother, and I have come to talk to you about him!"

Mary Wilson flushed a slow, painful red up to the roots of her blond hair, but she commanded her voice enough to say evenly: "Won't you come into my house, Mrs. Miller?"

She opened the door, stood on one side to let the older woman pass, and they both entered the little living-room in a complete silence. A canary swinging

in the open window burst into a roulade of joyful welcome to his mistress. Mary carried him into another room, and, returning, found Mrs. Miller seated in the cretonne-covered chair her father had made her mother. The school-teacher sat down across the room and waited, her hands tightly clasped.

Mrs. Miller hesitated at first for words, but when she began they came in a rush: "Miss Wilson, you see in me a very unhappy woman. I have just learned of my son's engagement to you, and I have come to reason with you about it; to use every inducement I can think of to induce you to break so absurd, so unnatural a relationship. You may ask me why I do not go to my son. I have done so, and I come here with a heart aching from the first quarrel with my only child, from the first harsh words my boy has ever given me."

Her voice trembled, but she set her lips together firmly for a moment and went on: "You are an intelligent woman, of some experience. You cannot have lived to your age" — Mary winced at this — "without knowing how preposterous a marriage between you and my son would be, how it would expose you both to ridicule and humiliation, and how it would mean unhappiness in the end for you. Ralph is not yet twenty-one, and you must be over thirty —"

Mary interrupted her. "I am thirty-four, Mrs. Miller; but your son loves me."

The mother gave an impatient gesture. "Love! What does a child his age know about love! He is the victim of an ordinary foolish infatuation. He undoubtedly does admire you greatly and respect you, and probably he has a great affection for you, but as for loving you — he doesn't know, he can't know, the meaning of the word."

Mary's clasped hands tightened. "What you say would be true in all cases but one out of a thousand, but this is the one time it is not true. Ralph has always been an unusual boy. You must not think, Mrs. Miller, that I have not tormented myself over the difference in our ages and stations as much as you, but I know Ralph through and through" — her face paled with a sudden exaltation of certainty — "and he is unlike others of his age. He is a man, in spite of his youth, and he loves with a man's love."

Mrs. Miller's countenance wore the half-shocked, half-scornful expression of middle-aged Puritans when a passion is spoken of. "I didn't suppose you still clung to those immature, romantic ideas of life. I should think you were old enough to see more clearly, but I suppose an unmarried woman, no matter how old she is, is always a child. Marriage is not a matter of romance. Love must be at the bottom of it all, of course, but married life is made up of a thousand prosaic details where weightier matters than passion decide the course of things. You say Ralph 'loves' you. Perhaps he does now; but think, if the unsparing light of the intimacy of married life were thrown on you! Think! When he is finished with his medical course he will be twenty-five — a young man of twenty-five — and you will be nearly forty."

Mary groaned and hid her face in her hands. The mother went on, encouraged, her eyes glowing with the holy cruelty of fanatics.

"You don't look your age now, it is true, at least to men's eyes; but you know, and every woman who sees you knows, how near you are to middle age. Think what anguish it would be for you to see Ralph suddenly conscious of your first gray hairs or the wrinkles deepening about your mouth! Think what humiliation it would be to have people pointing at you and to know that they were saying, 'There goes the sentimental old maid who married one of her high-school pupils!'"

Mary cried aloud in pain and stood up, throwing her arms above her head. "Do you think I care for an instant what people would say? Why, I love Ralph. I love him! He is the only man in the world for me. I, who would die to serve him — would I care what gossiping people say?"

So intense, so unreserved an ardor rang in her voice that for a moment the mother was silenced, though her courage rose as Mary, with a sudden lapse into miserable uncertainty, said brokenly, "It is only for his own sake that I hesitate —"

Mrs. Miller was quick to see the opening. Her voice softened as she laid her hand on Mary's shoulder. "My dear," she said, almost kindly, "no one knows how terribly I pity you. I believe you wholly. When I came here, I confess I had a different conception of your character. I even thought it might be Ralph's independent fortune which —"

At Mary's scornful, blazing look she choked and hurried on: "But I see you are a good woman, who really loves my son. And it is in the name of that love that I appeal to you now. I do not speak of the difference in station between you, although I believe honestly that is almost impossible to cross, but I appeal to you to save the man you love from wrecking his life. You know — you must know — as I do, that in spite of all pretty phrases your plan is an insane one. You must feel that he cannot know himself yet. If you know him so intimately as you say, you must be aware how wildly and impulsively generous he is. If he thought the shadow of an obligation to you rested on him he would give himself eagerly to living up to what you expected. Be as generous as he! Don't take advantage of his youth, his utter inexperience —" She was pleading as for her life.

Mary Wilson looked at her with smoldering eyes, and caught her up with an eagerness as intense as her own. "You don't know what you're asking. It must be you have never loved. It is like asking me to hold my breath until I die — it is superhuman. Think!" she cried in quivering appeal — "think of what it would mean to the Ralph we both know, the sensitive, exquisitely honorable, self-doubting soul, to have always with him a love like mine, a steady, enduring, understanding affection, sure with the certainty of maturity, always to be a shield between him and the world which is so cruel to gentle and delicately organized beings such as he is! Think what I could be to him — how I could guard him and steady him in his belief in himself! I would give every atom of my heart and intelligence to making him happy and strong —" She was choked with tears, and stopped, sobbing.

Mrs. Miller shook her head. "That is a mother's love you are describing. He has one mother; he does not need another. The common lot should be his. He should not be shielded and guarded, even by a great affection. He should shield and guard another. Only so could he ever grow. He must marry, not some one who has lived through the experience he must have, but some one young, ignorant, like himself, with whom he can grow in power, whose very mistakes will be strengthening to him, whom he must lead and uphold."

Through the strong, firm body of the younger woman there was running a series of convulsive shudders. She sank into a chair and laid her head in her hands. Mrs. Miller talked on and on, sure that she had hit upon the right line. She was surprised at the depth of pity she felt for the motionless figure before her, shaken from time to time with a dry sob, but she was fighting for the happiness of her child, and conviction grew within her as she talked. Finally there was a long silence, significant and portentous, throbbing with the premonition of a decision. Mary lifted her head and looked about her with tired eyes.

"You are right," she said in a low tone, quite steady. "I will do as you say. It is best for Ralph."

Mrs. Miller broke down for the first time, and wept loudly in her handkerchief. "You are a noble woman!" she said between her sobs. "I can never be grateful enough to your generosity."

The other said quietly: "It is not for you I am doing it. It is for Ralph" — and then, with a sudden return to her white exaltation — "for Ralph, whom I love as no one was ever loved before, since for his good I am willing to sacrifice his belief in me." Her fervor subsided again, and she was only very pale and still as she closed the door on her visitor, saying: "You need have no fear. Ralph will never come back to me."