Fran Part 10

"I am glad you don't. He was no true man, but a weakling. I am glad I have never been thrown with such a--a degenerate."

"But, Miss Grace," he urged pleadingly, "do you think my friend, when he went back to find her and she was gone--do you think he should have kept on hunting? Do you think, Grace, that he should have remained yoked to an unbeliever, after he realized his folly?"

There was heavenly compa.s.sion in her eyes, for suddenly she had divined his purpose in defending Fran's father. He was thinking of his own wife, and of his wife's mother and brother--how they had ceased to show sympathy in what he regarded as the essentials of life. Her silence suggested that as she could not speak without casting reflection upon Mrs. Gregory, she would say nothing, and this tact was grateful to his grieved heart.

To the degree that Grace Noir took solemn satisfaction in attending every service of the Walnut Street church, no matter what the weather, she had grown to regard non-attendants as untrue soldiers, bivouacking amidst scenes of feasting and dancing. She made nothing of Mrs.

Gregory's excuse that she stayed at home with her mother--the old lady should be wheeled to the meeting-house, even if against her inclinations. As for the services being bad for Simon Jefferson's weak heart,--she did not think they would hurt his heart or that it would matter if they did. Visible, flesh-and-blood presence was needful to uphold the inst.i.tution, and Grace would have given more for one body resting upright in a pew, than for a hundred members who were there only "in the spirit".

"I have been thinking of something very strange," Grace said, with a marked effort to avoid the issue lest she commit the indiscretion of blaming her employer's wife. "I remember having heard you say that when you were a young man, you left your father's home to live with a cousin in a distant town who happened to be a teacher in a college, and that you were graduated from his college. Don't you think it marvelous, this claim of Fran, who says that her father, when a young man, went to live with a cousin who was a college professor, and that he was graduated from that college? And she says that her father's father was a rich man--just as yours was--and that the cousin is dead --just as yours is."

At these piercing words, Gregory bowed his head to conceal his agitation. Could it be possible that she had guessed all and yet, in spite of all, could use that tone of kindness? It burst upon him that if he and she could hold this fatal secret in common, they might, in sweetest comradeship, form an alliance against fate itself.

She persisted: "The account that Fran gives of her father is really your own history. What does that show?"

He spoke almost in a whisper. "My friend and I were much alike." Then he looked up swiftly to catch a look of comprehension by surprise, if such a look were there.

Grace smiled coolly. "But hardly identical, I presume. Don't you see that Fran has invented her whole story, and that she didn't have enough imagination to keep from copying after your biographical sketch in the newspaper? I don't believe she is your friend's daughter. I don't believe you could ever have liked the father of a girl like Fran,--that he could have been your intimate friend."

"Well--" faltered Gregory. But why should he defend Fran?

"Mr. Gregory," she asked, as if what she was about to say belonged to what had gone before, "would it greatly inconvenience you for me to leave your employment?"

He was electrified. "Grace! Inconvenience me!--would you--could..."

"I have not decided--not yet. Speaking of being yoked with unbelievers--I have never told you that Mr. Robert Clinton has wanted me to marry him. As long as he was outside of the church, of course it was impossible. But now that he is converted--"

"Grace!" groaned the pallid listener.

"He would like me to go with him to Chicago."

"But you couldn't love Bob Clinton--he isn't worthy of you, Grace.

It's impossible. Heaven knows I've had disappointments enough--" He started up and came toward her, his eyes glowing. "Will you make my life a complete failure, after all?"

"Love him?" Grace repeated calmly. "This is merely a question of doing the most good."

"But, Grace, love must be considered--if it comes too late, it overturns the purest purposes. Don't wait until it's too late as I-- as--I repeat, until it's too late."

"I know nothing about love."

"Then let me teach you, Grace, let--"

"Shall we not discuss it?" she said gently. "That is best, I think. If I decide to marry Mr. Clinton, I will tell you even before I tell him.

I don't know what I shall choose as my best course."

"But, Grace! What could I do--without--"

"Shall we just agree to say no more about it?" she softly interposed.

"That is wisest until my decision is made. We were talking about Fran --do you not think this a good opportunity for Mrs. Gregory to attend services? Fran can stay with Mrs. Jefferson."

"I have no doubt," he said, still agitated, "that my wife would find it easy enough to go to church, if she really wanted to go."

"Mr. Gregory!" she reproved him.

"Well," he cried, somewhat defiantly, "don't you think she could go, if she wanted to?"

"Well," Grace answered slowly, "this girl will leave her without any-- any excuse."

"Oh, Miss Grace, if my wife were only--like you--I mean, about going to church!"

"I consider it," she responded, "the most important thing in the world." Her emphatic tone proved her sincerity. The church on Walnut Street stood, for her, as the ark; those who remained outside, at the call of the bell, were in danger of engulfment.

After a long silence, Grace looked up from her typewriter. "Mr.

Gregory," she said pausingly, "you are unhappy."

Nothing could have been sweeter to him than her sympathy, except happiness itself. "Yes," he admitted, with a great sigh, "I am very unhappy, but you understand me, and that is a little comfort. If you should marry Bob Clinton--Grace, tell me you'll not think of it again."

"And you are unhappy," said Grace, steadfastly ruling Bob Clinton out of the discussion, "on account of Fran."

He burst forth impulsively--"Ever since she came to town!" He checked himself. "But I owe it to my friend to shelter her. She wants to stay and--and she'll have to, if she demands it."

"You are unhappy," Grace quietly pursued, "because her character is already formed, because she is a girl who laughs at sacred things, and mocks the only true objects of life. You know it is too late to change her, and you know her influence is bad for--for everybody in this house."

"But it can't be helped," he insisted disconsolately. "If she wants to stay, I can't help it. But, Grace, you are right about her influence.

Even my wife finds new strength to resist what she knows to be her duty, because the girl likes her."

"Do you owe more to your dead friend," Grace asked, with pa.s.sionate solemnity, "than to the living G.o.d?"

He shrank back. "But I can't send her away," he persisted in nervous haste. "I can't. But heaven bless you, Grace, for your dear thought of me."

"You will bless me with more reason," said Grace softly, "when Fran decides to go away. She'll tire of this house--I promise it. She'll go--just wait!--she'll go, as unceremoniously as she came. Leave it to me, Mr. Gregory." In her earnestness she started up, and then, as if to conceal her growing resolution, she walked swiftly to the window as if to hold her ma.n.u.script to the light. Gregory followed her.

"If she would only go!" he groaned. "Grace! Do you think you could?-- Yes, I will leave everything to you."

"She'll go," Grace repeated fixedly.

The window at which they stood overlooked the garden into which Fran had wheeled old Mrs. Jefferson.

Fran, speaking through the ear-trumpet with as much caution as deafness would tolerate, said, "Dear old lady, look up at the library window, if you please, for the muezzin has climbed his minaret to call to prayers."

Very little of this reached its destination--muezzin was in great danger of complicating matters, but the old lady caught "library window", and held it securely. She looked up. Hamilton Gregory and Grace Noir were standing at the tower window, to catch the last rays of the sun. The flag of truce between them was only a typewritten sheet of ma.n.u.script. Grace held the paper obliquely toward the west; Hamilton leaned nearer and, with his delicate white finger, pointed out a word. Grace nodded her head in gentle acquiescence.

"Amen," muttered Fran. "Now let everybody sing!"

The choir leader and his secretary vanished from sight.

"Just like the play in Hamlet," Fran said half-aloud. "And now that the inside play is over, I guess it's time for old Ham to be doing something."

Mrs. Jefferson gripped the arms of her wheel-chair and resumed her tale, as if she had not been interrupted. It was of no interest as a story, yet possessed a sentimental value from the fact that all the characters save the raconteur were dead, and possibly all but her forgotten. Fran loved to hear the old lady evoke the shades of long ago, shades who would never again a.s.sume even the palest manifestation to mortals, when this old lady had gone to join them.