CHAPTER XXXIX
THE HEART OF BARBARA
The Ambassador, standing by the mantel, looked thoughtfully at his wife.She sat in a big wicker chair, in a soft dressing-gown, her handsclasped over one knee in a pose very pretty and girlish.
"Come!" he said good-humoredly. "You women are always imagining romancesand broken hearts. Why, Barbara and Daunt haven't known each other longenough to fall in love."
She looked at him quizzically. "Do you remember how long we had knowneach other when you--"
"Pshaw!" he retorted. "That's just like a woman. She never can arguewithout coming to personalities. Besides, there never was another girllike you, my dear--I couldn't afford to take any chances."
"Away with your blarney, Ned! You know I'm right, though you won't admitit."
"Of course I won't. Daunt's not a woman's man. He never was. He's beengetting along pretty well with Barbara, no doubt. But this man she'sgoing to marry she's known for a year. The bishop told me about him theday after they landed. He thought she was practically engaged to himthen."
"'Practically!'" she commented with gentle scorn. "Are girls who havebeen properly brought up ever 'practically' engaged, and not fully so?She may have expected to marry him, and yet if I ever saw a girl inlove--and, oh, Ned, remember that I understand what that means!--she wasin love with Daunt yesterday. We women see more than men and feel more.Patsy saw it too. She's feeling badly about it, poor child, I think."
"Nonsense!" the ambassador sniffed. "There isn't a shred of evidence.Barbara's not a flirt in the first place, and, if she were, Daunt cantake care of himself."
"He came to your study, didn't he, after the ball? I thought I heard hisvoice in the hall."
"Yes," he answered.
"How did he look?"
"Well," he said hesitatingly, "he was a bit off color, I thought. I toldhim to take a few days off and run up to Chuzenji."
"Is he going?"
"Yes. He's leaving early in the morning. But don't get it into yoursympathetic little head that it has the slightest thing to do withBarbara. The idea's quite absurd. He's never thought of such a thing asfalling in love with her!"
"Don't you think a woman _knows_ about these things?"
"When she's told. And Barbara has told you, hasn't she?"
"That she is going to marry Mr. Ware. Yes."
"Well, what more do you want?"
She shook her head. "Only for her to be happy!" she said tremulously."I've never known a girl who has grown so into my heart, Ned. I feelalmost as though she were Patsy's sister. She has no mother of herown--no one to advise her. And yet--I--somehow I couldn't talk about itto her. I _tried_. She doesn't want to. It seemed almost as if she wereafraid."
"Afraid?"
"Of doing something else. As if she were going into this marriage as arefuge. I don't know just why I felt that, but I did. She was so verypale, so very quiet and contained. It didn't seem quite natural. It mademe think of Pamela Langham. You remember her? She was in love with a manwho--well, whom she found she couldn't marry. He wasn't the right sort.I suppose she was afraid she would marry him anyway if she waited. Soshe married another man at once--a man who had been in love with her foryears. We were just the same age and she told me all about it at thetime. To-night when Barbara told me she had promised to marry this Mr.Ware--and soon, Ned!--I seemed to see poor little dead Pamela looking atme with her pale face and big, deep eyes."
She turned her head and furtively wiped her eyes. "If I could only besure!" she said. "But I think how I should feel--if it were Patsy, Ned!"
* * * * *
And while they talked, Barbara lay in her blue-and-white room, wide-eyedin the dark. The smiling, ball-room mask had slipped from her face andleft it strained and white. She had drawn the curtain and shut out themisty glory of the garden--and the small white cottage across thescented lawn.
In those few agonized hours of the afternoon, while she had lain therethrilling with suffering, something deep within her had seemed tofail--as though a newly-lighted flame, white and pure, had fallen anddied. Where it had gleamed remained only a painful twilight. It had beena different Barbara that had emerged. The fairest fabric of thoseJapanese days had crashed into the dust, and in the echo of its fall shestood anchorless, in terror of herself and of the future. The harbor ofconvention alone seemed to offer safety--and at the harbor entrancewaited Austen Ware. At the ball the die had been cast.
Outside the window she could hear the rasp of the pine-branches and thesleepy "korup! korup!" of a pigeon. A tiny night-lamp was on the standbeside her. Its gleam lit vaguely the golden Buddha on the Sendai chest.Its face now seemed cold and blank and cruel, and in its dim light, onthe shadowy wall, sharp detached pictures etched themselves. She sawherself looking at Austen Ware's yacht, set in that wonderful, warm,orient bay--a swift, white monitor, watching her! She saw a yellow rankof convicts filing into the yawning mouth of Shimbashi Station--like thelong, drab years of savorless lives! She saw the great white plasterfigure over the entrance-arch of the Yoshiwara--beckoning to hollowsmiles that covered empty hearts!
Over the thronging pictures grew another--a misty, nightgowned littlefigure who stood by her, whispering her name. Patricia, after sleeplesshours, crept from her bed to Barbara's room, longing for some assurance,she knew not what, some breath of the old girlish confidences to meltthe ice that seemed to have congealed between them. And Barbara, withthe first phantom of softened feeling she had known that night, took theother into her arms.
But it was she who comforted, whispering words that she knew were empty,caressing the younger girl with a touch that held no tremor, no hint ofthose anguished visions that had floated through the leaden silences ofher soul.
Till at last, Patricia, half-reassured, smiled and fell asleep; whileBarbara, her loose gold hair drifting across the pillow, her bare armnestling the dark, braided head beside her, lay stirless, staring intothe shadows, where the pale glimmer of the Buddha floated, a ghostly_chiaroscuro_.
The Kingdom of Slender Swords Page 41
