A Poor Wise Man

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER VIII

  Lily had known Alston Denslow most of her life. The children of thatgroup of families which formed the monied aristocracy of the cityknew only their own small circle. They met at dancing classes, wheregovernesses and occasionally mothers sat around the walls, while thelittle girls, in handmade white frocks of exquisite simplicity, theirshining hair drawn back and held by ribbon bows, made their prim littledip at the door before entering, and the boys, in white Eton collars andgleaming pumps, bowed from the waist and then dived for the masculinecorner of the long room.

  No little girl ever intruded on that corner, although now and then abrave spirit among the boys would wander, with assumed unconsciousnessbut ears rather pink, to the opposite corner where the little girls weregrouped like white butterflies milling in the sun.

  The pianist struck a chord, and the children lined up, the girls on oneside, the boys on the other, a long line, with Mrs. Van Buren in thecenter. Another chord, rather a long one. Mrs. Van Buren curtsied tothe girls. The line dipped, wavered, recovered itself. Mrs. Van Burenturned. Another chord. The boys bent, rather too much, from the waist,while Mrs. Van Buren swept another deep curtsey. The music now, verydefinite as to time. Glide and short step to the right. Glide and shortstep to the left. Dancing school had commenced. Outside were long linesof motors waiting. The governesses chatted, and sometimes embroidered.Mademoiselle tatted.

  Alton Denslow was generally known as Pink, but the origin of the namewas shrouded in mystery. As "Pink" he had learned to waltz at thedancing class, at a time when he was more attentive to the step than tothe music that accompanied it. As Pink Denslow he had played on a scrubteam at Harvard, and got two broken ribs for his trouble, and as Pinkhe now paid intermittent visits to the Denslow Bank, between the huntingseason in October and polo at eastern fields and in California. Attwenty-three he was still the boy of the dancing class, very careful atparties to ask his hostess to dance, and not noticeably upset when shedid, having arranged to be cut in on at the end of the second round.

  Pink could not remember when he had not been in love with Lily Cardew.There had been other girls, of course, times when Lily seemed far awayfrom Cambridge, and some other fair charmer was near. But he had alwaysknown there was only Lily. Once or twice he would have becomeengaged, had it not been for that. He was a blond boy, squarely built,good-looking without being handsome, and on rainy Sundays when therewas no golf he went quite cheerfully to St. Peter's with his mother, andwatched a pretty girl in the choir.

  He wished at those times that he could sing.

  A pleasant cumberer of the earth, he had wrapped his talents in a napkinand buried them by the wayside, and promptly forgotten where they were.He was to find them later on, however, not particularly rusty, and heincreased them rather considerably before he got through.

  It was this pleasant cumberer of the earth, then, who on the morningafter Lily's return, stopped his car before the Cardew house and gotout. Immediately following his descent he turned, took a square whitebox from the car, ascended the steps, settled his neck in his collar andhis tie around it, and rang the bell.

  The second man, hastily buttoned into his coat and with a faint odorof silver polish about him, opened the door. Pink gave him his hat, butretained the box firmly.

  "Mrs. Cardew and Miss Cardew at home?" he asked. "Yes? Then you mighttell Grayson I'm here to luncheon--unless the family is lunching out."

  "Yes, sir," said the footman. "No, sir, they are lunching at home."

  Pink sauntered into the library. He was not so easy as his mannerindicated. One never knew about Lily. Sometimes she was in a mood whenshe seemed to think a man funny, and not to be taken seriously. Andwhen she was serious, which was the way he liked her--he rather lackedhumor--she was never serious about him or herself. It had been religiononce, he remembered. She had wanted to know if he believed in thethirty-nine articles, and because he had seen them in the back ofthe prayer-book, where they certainly would not be if there was notauthority for them, he had said he did.

  "Well, I don't," said Lily. And there had been rather a bad half-hour,because he had felt that he had to stick to his thirty-nine guns,whatever they were. He had finished on a rather desperate note ofappeal.

  "See here, Lily," he had said. "Why do you bother your head about suchthings, anyhow?"

  "Because I've got a head, and I want to use it."

  "Life's too short."

  "Eternity's pretty long. Do you believe in eternity?" And there theywere, off again, and of course old Anthony had come in after that, andhad wanted to know about his Aunt Marcia, and otherwise had shown everyindication of taking root on the hearth rug.

  Pink was afraid of Anthony. He felt like a stammering fool when Anthonywas around. That was why he had invited himself to luncheon. Old Anthonylunched at his club.

  When he heard Lily coming down the stairs, Pink's honest heart beatsomewhat faster. A good many times in France, but particularly on theship coming back, he had thought about this meeting. In France a fellowhad a lot of distractions, and Lily had seemed as dear as ever, butextremely remote. But once turned toward home, and she had filledthe entire western horizon. The other men had seen sunsets there, andsometimes a ship, or a school of porpoises. But Pink had seen only Lily.

  She came in. The dear old girl! The beautiful, wonderful, dear old girl!The--

  "Pink!"

  "H--hello, Lily."

  "Why, Pink--you're a man!"

  "What'd you think I'd be? A girl?"

  "You've grown."

  "Oh, now see here, Lily. I quit growing years ago."

  "And to think you are back all right. I was so worried, Pink."

  He flushed at that.

  "Needn't have worried," he said, rather thickly. "Didn't get to thefront until just before the end. My show was made a labor division inthe south of France. If you laugh, I'll take my flowers and go home."

  "Why, Pink dear, I wouldn't laugh for anything. And it was the manbehind the lines who--"

  "Won the war," he finished for her, rather grimly. "All right, Lily.We've heard it before. Anyhow, it's all done and over, and--I broughtgardenias and violets. You used to like 'em."

  "It was dear of you to remember."

  "Couldn't help remembering. No credit to me. I--you were always in mymind."

  She was busily unwrapping the box.

  "Always," he repeated, unsteadily.

  "What gorgeous things!" she buried her face in them.

  "Did you hear what I said, Lily?"

  "Yes, and it's sweet of you. Now sit down and tell me about things. I'vegot a lot to tell you, too."

  He had a sort of quiet obstinacy, however, and he did not sit down. Whenshe had done so he stood in front of her, looking down at her.

  "You've been in a camp. I know that. I heard it over there. AnneDevereaux wrote me. It worried me because--we had girls in the campsover there, and every one of them had a string of suitors a mile long."

  "Well, I didn't," said Lily, spiritedly. Then she laughed. He had beenafraid she would laugh. "Oh, Pink, how dear and funny and masculine youare! I have a perfectly uncontrollable desire to kiss you."

  Which she did, to his amazement and consternation. Nothing she couldhave done would more effectually have shown him the hopelessness of hissituation than that sisterly impulse.

  "Good Lord," he gasped, "Grayson's in the hall."

  "If he comes in I shall probably do it again. Pink, you darling child,you are still the little boy at Mrs. Van Buren's and if you would onlypurse your lips and count one--two--three--Are you staying to luncheon?"

  He was suffering terribly. Also he felt strangely empty inside, becausesomething that he had carried around with him for a long time seemed tohave suddenly moved out and left a vacancy.

  "Thanks. I think not, Lily; I've got a lot to do to-day."

  She sat very still. She had had to do it, had had to show him, somehow,that she loved him without loving him as he wanted her to. She had actedon im
pulse, on an impulse born of intention, but she had hurt him. Itwas in every line of his rigid body and set face.

  "You're not angry, Pink dear?"

  "There's nothing to be angry about," he said, stolidly. "Things havebeen going on, with me, and staying where they've always been, withyou. That's all. I'm not very keen, you know, and I used to think--Yourpeople like me. I mean, they wouldn't--"

  "Everybody likes you, Pink."

  "Well, I'll trot along." He moved a step, hesitated. "Is there anybodyelse, Lily?"

  "Nobody."

  "You won't mind if I hang around a bit, then? You can always send me offwhen you are sick of me. Which you couldn't if you were fool enough tomarry me."

  "Whoever does marry you, dear, will be a lucky woman."

  In the end he stayed to luncheon, and managed to eat a very fair one.But he had little lapses into silence, and Grace Cardew drew her ownshrewd conclusions.

  "He's such a nice boy, Lily," she said, after he had gone. "And yourgrandfather would like it. In a way I think he expects it."

  "I'm not going to marry to please him, mother."

  "But you are fond of Alston."

  "I want to marry a man, mother. Pink is a boy. He will always be a boy.He doesn't think; he just feels. He is fine and loyal and honest, but Iwould loathe him in a month."

  "I wish," said Grace Cardew unhappily, "I wish you had never gone tothat camp."

  All afternoon Lily and Grace shopped. Lily was fitted into shiningevening gowns, into bright little afternoon frocks, into Paris wraps.The Cardew name was whispered through the shops, and great piles ofexotic things were brought in for Grace's critical eye. Lily's ownattitude was joyously carefree. Long lines of models walked by, drapedin furs, in satins and velvet and chiffon, tall girls, most of them,with hair carefully dressed, faces delicately tinted and that curiousforward thrust at the waist and slight advancement of one shoulder thatgave them an air of languorous indifference.

  "The only way I could get that twist," Lily confided to her mother,"would be to stand that way and be done up in plaster of paris. It isthe most abandoned thing I ever saw."

  Grace was shocked, and said so.

  Sometimes, during the few hours since her arrival, Lily had wondered ifher year's experiences had coarsened her. There were so many times whenher mother raised her eyebrows. She knew that she had changed, that thegranddaughter of old Anthony Cardew who had come back from the war wasnot the girl who had gone away. She had gone away amazingly ignorant;what little she had known of life she had learned away at school. Buteven there she had not realized the possibility of wickedness and vicein the world. One of the girls had run away with a music master whowas married, and her name was forbidden to be mentioned. That waswickedness, like blasphemy, and a crime against the Holy Ghost.

  She had never heard of prostitution. Near the camp there was a districtwith a bad name, and the girls of her organization were forbidden to somuch as walk in that direction. It took her a long time to understand,and she suffered horribly when she did. There were depths of wickedness,then, and of abasement like that in the world. It was a bad world, acruel, sordid world. She did not want to live in it.

  She had had to reorganize all her ideas of life after that. At first shewas flamingly indignant. God had made His world clean and beautiful, andcovered it with flowers and trees that grew, cleanly begotten, from theearth. Why had He not stopped there? Why had He soiled it with passionand lust?

  It was a little Red Cross nurse who helped her, finally.

  "Very well," she said. "I see what you mean. But trees and flowers arenot God's most beautiful gift to the world."

  "I think they are."

  "No. It is love."

  "I am not talking about love," said Lily, flushing.

  "Oh, yes, you are. You have never loved, have you? You are talking ofone of the many things that go to make up love, and out of that onephase of love comes the most wonderful thing in the world. He gives usthe child."

  And again:

  "All bodies are not whole, and not all souls. It is wrong to judge lifeby its exceptions, or love by its perversions, Lily."

  It had been the little nurse finally who cured her, for she securedLily's removal to that shady house on a by-street, where the tragediesof unwise love and youth sought sanctuary. There were prayers there,morning and evening. They knelt, those girls, in front of their littlewooden chairs, and by far the great majority of them quite simply laidtheir burdens before God, and with an equal simplicity, felt that Hewould help them out.

  "We have erred, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We havefollowed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We haveoffended against Thy holy laws.... Restore Thou those who are penitent,according to Thy promises.... And grant, Oh most merciful Father, thatwe may hereafter live a godly, righteous and sober life."

  After a time Lily learned something that helped her. The soul wasgreater and stronger than the body and than the mind. The body failed.It sinned, but that did not touch the unassailable purity and simplicityof the soul. The soul, which lived on, was always clean. For that reasonthere was no hell.

  Lily rose and buttoned her coat. Grace was fastening her sables, andmaking a delayed decision in satins.

  "Mother, I've been thinking it over. I am going to see Aunt Elinor."

  Grace waited until the saleswoman had moved away.

  "I don't like it, Lily."

  "I was thinking, while we were ordering all that stuff. She is a Cardew,mother. She ought to be having that sort of thing. And just becausegrandfather hates her husband, she hasn't anything."

  "That is rather silly, dear. They are not in want. I believe he is quiteflourishing."

  "She is father's sister. And she is a good woman. We treat her like aleper."

  Grace was weakening. "If you take the car, your grandfather may hear ofit."

  "I'll take a taxi."

  Grace followed her with uneasy eyes. For years she paid a price forpeace, and not a small price. She had placed her pride on the domesticaltar, and had counted it a worthy sacrifice for Howard's sake. And shehad succeeded. She knew Anthony Cardew had never forgiven her and wouldnever like her, but he gave her, now and then, the tribute of a grudgingadmiration.

  And now Lily had come home, a new and different Lily, with her father'slovableness and his father's obstinacy. Already Grace saw in the girlthe beginning of a passionate protest against things as they were.Perhaps, had Grace given to Lily the great love of her life, instead ofto Howard, she might have understood her less clearly. As it was, sheshivered slightly as she got into the limousine.