The Sisters In Law Part 25

Gora looked very thoughtful as she listened. "Shall you tell Mortimer?"

"Oh, I don't know. Possibly not. Why agitate him? The thing is done."

"But if you study with this man?"

"There is no necessity to explain where I met him. I look upon myself as Morty's partner, not as his subject. We have never disputed over anything yet, but of course as time goes on I shall wish to do many things whether he happens to like it or not. Possibly without consulting him."

"You've had time to think these past three months for the first time in your life," said Gora shrewdly. "Here we are. I hope you don't hate stairs. I do when I come home dog-tired, but somehow I can't give up the old place.... And I've lit the candles in your honor."

II

"Oh, but it is pretty! Charming!"

Thought Gora: "I do hope she's not going to be gracious. I've never liked her so well before."

But Alexina was too excited to have a firm grip on the Ballinger-Groome tradition. She had had an adventure, an uncommon one, in a far from respectable night district; she had done something that would cause the impeccable Mortimer the acutest anguish if he knew of it; and she had caught sight immediately of Gathbroke's picture framed and enthroned on the mantelpiece.

She walked about the room admiring the hangings and prints, the old Chinese lanterns that held the candles.

"I am going to refurnish our lower rooms," she said. "If you have time do help me. Heavens! I wish I could work off some of that old furniture on you. I like the Italian pieces well enough, but there are too many of them. That rather low Florentine cabinet in the back parlor would just fit in this corner...."

She gave a little girlish exclamation and ran forward.

"Isn't that young Gathbroke, who was out here at the time of the earthquake and fire ... or an older brother, perhaps?"

She had taken the photograph from the mantel and was examining it under one of the lanterns. Her alert ear detected the deeper and less steady note in Gora's always hoa.r.s.e voice.

"It is the same. Did you meet him? ... Oh, I remember he told me he met you at the Hofer ball. He rather raved over you, in fact."

"Did he? How sweet of him. I met him again, I remember. Mr. Gwynne brought him down to Rincona one day."

"Oh?"

And Alexina, knew that he had never mentioned that visit.

"But he looks much much older."

"He did before he left. That horrible experience of his seemed to prey on him more and more.

"Oh."

He had not looked a day over twenty-three on that afternoon at Eincona, two weeks after the fire.

Alexina replaced the picture, then turned to her sister-in-law with a coaxing smile. "Are you engaged? It would be too romantic. Do tell me."

"No," said Gora, shortly. "We are not engaged. Good friends, that is all, and write occasionally."

"Well, he must be very much interested--and you must be a very interesting correspondent, Gora dear! Is he? Interesting, I mean. What does he do, anyhow? I have a vague remembrance that he said something about the army."

"He was in the army, the Grenadier Guards. But he has resigned and gone into business with a cousin of his in Lancashire. He wrote me--oh, it must be nearly two years ago--that if there should be a war he would enlist as a matter of course, but as there was no prospect of any, and he was sick of idleness--his good middle-cla.s.s energetic blood a.s.serting itself, he said,--he was going to amuse himself with work, incidentally try to make a fortune. His mother left a good deal of money, but there are several children and I guess the present earl needs most of it to keep up his estates, to say nothing of his position. Fotten law, that--entail, I mean."

Alexina came and sat down on the divan beside Gora, piling the cushions behind her. "Are you a socialist?"

"I am not. I believe in sticking to your own cla.s.s, whether you have a grudge against it or not, or even if you think it far from perfection."

She shot a quick challenging glance at her admittedly aristocratic sister-in-law, but Alexina had lifted the lower white of her eyes just above their soft black fringe and looked more innocent than any new born lamb. As she did not answer Gora continued:

"I remember that night I sat out with Gathbroke on Calvary he said something about socialism ... that it was a confession of failure. I may feel so furious with destiny sometimes that I could go out and wave a red flag, or even the darker red of anarchy, but what always sobers me is the thought that if I had the good luck to inherit or make even a reasonable fortune I'd have no more use for socialism than for a rattlesnake in my bed. Why are you interested?"

"Only as in any subject that interests a few million people. I haven't the least intention of being converted, but I don't want to be an ignoramus. Aileen and Sibyl and I did start Marx's _Das Kapital_--in German! We nearly died of it. But I felt sure that this man, Kirkpatrick, had studied his subject, if only because his language changed so completely when he talked about it. It was as if he were quoting, but intelligently. Of course the poor man had little or no education to begin with. Somehow he struck me as a pathetic figure.

Perhaps when every one is educated--and there must be many thousands of naturally intelligent men in the working cla.s.s whose brains if trained would be mighty useful in Washington--well, all having had equal opportunities they would surely arrive at some way to improve conditions without struggling for anything so hopeless as socialism. I know enough to be sure that it is hopeless, because it antagonizes human nature."

"Rather. The trend under all the talk is more and more toward individualism, not self-effacing communism. As for myself I like the idea of the fight--for public recognition, I mean; and I don't think I'd be happy at all if things were made too smooth for me; if, for instance, in a socialized state it were decided that I could devote all my time to writing, and that the state would take care of me, publish my work, and distribute it exactly where it was sure to be appreciated.

I haven't any of the old California gambling blood in me, but I guess the hardy ghost of those old days still dominates the atmosphere, and I have not been one of those to escape."

"It's in mine! Not that I care for gambling, really, like Aileen and Alice. But I've always been fascinated by the idea of taking long chances, and I have had inklings that I'll be rather more than less fascinated as I grow older.... When are your stories to be published? I am simply expiring to read them."

"Are you?"

III

Alexina had thrust her slim index finger unerringly through Gora's bristling armor and tickled her weakest spot. The fledgling author smiled into the dazzling eyes opposite and a deep flush rose to her high cheek bones.

"Rather!"

"Then..." Gora rose and took a magazine from the table beside her bed.

She spread it open on her lap, when she had resumed her seat, and handled it as Alexina had seen young mothers fondle their first-born.

"It's here. Just out."

"Oh!" Alexina gave a little shriek of genuine antic.i.p.ation. "Read it to me. Quick. I can't wait."

Gora led a lonely life outside of her work, a lonely inner life always.

She had never had an intimate friend, and she suddenly reflected that there had been a certain measure of sadness in her joy both when her ma.n.u.scripts were accepted and to-day when for the first time she had gazed at herself in print.... She had had no one to rejoice with her.... She felt an overwhelming sense of grat.i.tude to Alexina.

But she gave this young wife of her brother whom she knew as little as Alexina knew her, another swift suspicious glance.... No, there was nothing of Alexina's usual high and careless courtesy in that eager almost excited face.

"I'd love to have your opinion.... I read very badly.... Make allowances...."

"Oh, fire away. If I'd written a story and had it accepted by that magazine I'd read it from the housetops."

Gora read the story well enough, and Alexina's mind did not wander even to Gathbroke. It was written in a pure direct vigorous English. A little less self-consciousness and it would have been distinguished.