Patchwork Part 35

"The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry, The link must break, and the lamp must die-- Good-bye to hope! Good-bye, good-bye!"

I told Royal I didn't like it, it was too much like Ca.s.sandra.

He laughed and said she generally sings it, but that it couldn't hurt us--was I superst.i.tious?

"No, oh, no," I declared. But I wished I could forget the words of that song.

Some of the party decided that a proper ending to the delightful evening would be a visit to a fashionable cafe. I didn't care to go. Royal urged me till I consented and I soon found myself in a beautiful place where merry groups of people were seated about small tables. Any desire for food I might have had left me as I heard Royal and the other men order wines and highb.a.l.l.s.

"What will you have, Phbe?" Royal asked me.

I gasped--"Why--nothing."

"Be a sport," he urged, "look around and do as the 'Romans do.'"

I looked around. Some of the women were smoking, others were drinking.

"Oh," I said, "this is dreadful. Let's go."

Royal laughed and the others teased me. One of the girls said I'd be doing all those things before the year ended. When I declared I would not Royal reminded me that I had said the same about cards and dancing.

His words silenced me. I felt engulfed in shame and deeply hurt. How could Royal be amused at my discomfiture if he loved me! Did he love me?

Did I want him to? Could I promise to honor and love him all my life?

But perhaps he was teasing me--ah, that was it! I breathed more easily again. Royal was teasing me, sure of my refusal to indulge in any intoxicant. The others ate and made merry while I toyed idly with the gla.s.s of ginger ale the waiter brought me against my wish. I mused and dreamed--would Royal like my people? Somehow, he seemed an incongruity among the dear ones at the gray farmhouse in Lancaster County. What would he say when we ate in the kitchen and daddy came to the table in his shirt sleeves? Love can bridge greater chasms than that, I thought.

When we are married----

"Royal Lee, are you ever going to marry?" The question broke into my revery.

I looked at Royal. There was no rise of color in his handsome face. He returned my look dispa.s.sionately then turned to his teasing, inquisitive friend.

"I'm a bachelor forever," he declared. "But that does not keep me from loving. Women I care for have too much good sense to think that marriage always follows love. Ye G.o.ds, I think love goes when marriage comes, so you'll have no chance to see my love interred."

I clenched my hands under the table. I felt my lips go white. How could he hurt me so? Of course our love was not a thing to be paraded in a public place but if he really cared for me as I thought he did he could have answered differently. An evasive answer would have served. An hour ago he had whispered tender words to me and now he frankly informed all present that he was a bachelor forever. I could not grasp the full significance of his words at once. I was dazed by the shock of them. I wanted to get away and be alone, to cry, to think, to determine what he had meant by his demonstrations of love if he did not hope to win me for his wife.

But later, when I went to bed in the pretty blue and white room next Virginia's, I did not cry. I lay wide awake thinking over and over, "How could he do it? Why is he heartless? Was he only playing?"

When morning came I had partially decided that I had been a ready, silly fool; that Royal Lee had merely whiled the hours away more pleasantly because of my love. I felt tempted to denounce him but I thought that would afford him additional amus.e.m.e.nt and make me not a whit less miserable. I was eager to get away from him. I desired but one little moment alone with him to satisfy myself that I did not judge him unjustly. Fortunately he came to the sitting-room as I sat there staring at the page of a magazine.

"Alone?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Phbe"--he drew nearer and I rose and stood away from him. "My Bluebird! You look unhappy. Are you still shocked at the smoking and drinking you saw last night? It's all in the game, you know. Why not be happy along with the rest of us, why be a prude?"

I shivered. Couldn't he know why I was unhappy! How false and fickle he was! I wouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve for him to read and laugh about. All my Metz determination rose in me.

"Why," I lied, "I'm not unhappy. I'm just tired. Late hours don't agree with me."

He stretched out his arm but I eluded him. "Don't," I said lightly; "we've been foolish long enough."

"Why"--he looked at me keenly. But I was determined he should not read my feelings. I smiled in spite of my contempt for him. "Why, Phbe," he said tenderly, "what has changed you? Why shouldn't I kiss you when I love you? Love never hurt any one."

"No--but----"

"But what?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing," I said, stepping farther away from him. "I'm in a hurry this morning. Good-bye." And for the first time I saw a look of chagrin mar the handsome face of Royal Lee. Before he could recover his customary equanimity I was gone from the house.

I walked, caring not where the way led. My brain was in a whirl. I felt as though I were fleeing from a crumbling precipice. In a flash I understood Virginia's tactful attempts at warning. She had tried to make me understand but my head was too easily turned by the fine speeches and flattering attentions of the musician. I have been vain and foolish but I've had my lesson. It still hurts and yet I can see the value of it.

I'll be better qualified after this to discriminate between the false and true.

I am going home to-day! It came to me suddenly as I went back to my boarding-house after my long walk. I promised David I'd come home for arbutus and the inspiration came to go home for the whole spring and summer. I'll write a note to Mr. Krause and one to Virginia. Dear Virginia, she has been so good to me and helped me in so many ways! I can never thank her enough. These eight months in Philadelphia have been a liberal education for me. I'll never regret them. I hope to come back in the fall and go on with the music lessons. By that time Royal Lee will have found another to make love to.

So I'm going home to-day, back to Lancaster County. The trees are green and the flowers are out--oh, I'm wild to get back!

CHAPTER XXVI

"HAME'S BEST"

LANCASTER COUNTY never before looked so fertile, so lovely, as it did that April day when Phbe returned to it after a long winter in Philadelphia.

As she came unexpectedly there was no one to meet her at Greenwald. She started across the street and was soon on the dusty road leading to the gray farmhouse.

"Let me see," she thought, "this is Friday afternoon and Aunt Maria will be scrubbing the kitchen floor."

But when the girl reached the kitchen of the gray house and tiptoed gently over the sill she found the big room in order and Aunt Maria absent.

"Why," she thought, "is Aunt Maria sick?" She opened the door to the sitting-room and there, seated by a window, was Aunt Maria with a ball of gray wool in her lap and five steel knitting needles plying in her hands.

"Aunt Maria!"

"Why, Phbe!"

The exclamations came simultaneously.

"What in the world are you doing? I mean why aren't you cleaning the kitchen? Oh, Aunt Maria, you know what I mean! I never saw you sitting down early on a Friday afternoon."

Aunt Maria laughed. "I ain't sick! You can see what I'm doin'; I'm knittin'. Ain't you learned to do it yet? I can learn you."

"Why, I know how. But what are you knitting? For the Red Cross?"

"Why not? You think the ladies in Phildelphy are the only ones do that?

There's a Red Cross in Greenwald and they are askin' all who can to help. I used to knit all my own stockings still so I thought I'd pitch right in. I let the cleanin' slide a little this week so I could get a good start on this once."

The girl gasped and looked at her aunt in wonder. All the days of her life she had never known her aunt to "let the cleanin' slide," if the physical strength were there to do the work. Aunt Maria was working for the Red Cross! While she, who had scorned the country folks and called them narrow, had knitted half-heartedly and spent the major part of her time in the pursuit of pleasure, the people of the little town and surrounding country had been doing real work for humanity.