The Web of Life Part 35

"Dr. Sommers has told me about you."

"Did he! He didn't tell any one of his marriage." The bluntness of the speech was relieved by the confidential manner in which Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k leaned forward to the other woman.

"It was sudden," Alves replied coolly.

"I know! But _we_, my father and I, had a right to feel hurt. We knew him so well, and we should have liked to know you."

"Thank you."

"But we had no cards--you disappeared--hid yourselves--and you turn up in this unique place! It's only by chance that I've found you now."

"We didn't send out cards. We are such simple people that we don't expect--"

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k blushed at the challenge, and interrupted to save the speech from its final ungraciousness.

"Of course, but we are different. We have always been so interested in Dr.

Sommers. He was such a promising man."

Alves made no effort to reply. She resented Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k's efforts to reach her, and withdrew into her sh.e.l.l. This young woman with her attendant brougham belonged to the world that she liked to feel Sommers had renounced for her sake. She disliked the world for that reason.

"Is he doing well?" Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k asked bluntly. "He was so brilliant in his studies and at the hospital! I was sorry that he left, that he felt he ought to start for himself. He had a good many theories and ideals. We didn't agree,"--she smiled winningly at the grave woman, "but I have had time to understand somewhat--only I couldn't, I can't believe that my father and his friends are _all_ wrong." Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k rushed on heedlessly, to Alves's perplexity; she seemed desperately eager to establish some kind of possible understanding between them. But this cold, mature woman, in her plain dress, repelled her. She could not prevent herself from thinking thoughts that were unworthy of her.

Why had he done it! What had this woman to give that the women of her set could not equal and more than equal? The atmosphere of her brougham, of her costly gown and pretty hat contrasted harshly with the dingy temple and dead weeds of the waste land. Dr. Lindsay had said much, and insinuated more, about the entanglement that had ruined the promising young surgeon.

Was it this woman's sensual power--she rejected the idea on the instant.

Dr. Sommers was not that kind, in spite of anything that Lindsay might say.

She could not understand it--his devotion to this woman, his giving up his chances. It was all a part of some scheme beyond her power to grasp fully.

"I want to know you," she said at last, after an awkward silence. "Won't you let me?"

Alves leaned slightly forward, and spoke slowly.

"You are very kind, but I don't see any good in it. We don't belong to your world, and you would show him all the time what he has to get along without. Not that he wouldn't do it again," she added proudly, noticing the girl's lowered gaze. "I don't think that he would like to have me say that he had given up anything. But he's got his way to make, _here_, and it is harder work than you imagine."

"I don't see, then, why you refuse to let me--his old friends--help him."

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k spoke impatiently. She was beginning to feel angry with this impa.s.sive woman, who was probably ignorant of the havoc she had done.

"He doesn't want any help!" Alves retorted. "We are not starving now.

_I_ can help him. I will help him and be enough for him. He gave it up for me."

"Can you get him friends and practice?" Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k asked sharply. "Can you make it possible for him to do the best work, and stand high in his profession? Will you help him to the place where he can make the most of himself, and not sell his soul for bread?"

These questions fell like taunts upon the silent woman. She seemed to feel beneath them the boast, 'I could have done all that, and much more!' These words were like the rest of this fashionable young woman--her carriage, her clothes, her big house, her freshness of person--all that she did not have.

Alves retorted:

"He won't let any one push him, I know. What he wants, he will be glad to get by himself. And," she added pa.s.sionately, "I will help him. If I stand in his way,--and he can't do what he wants to do,--I will take myself out of his life."

Boast for boast, and the older woman's pa.s.sionate words seemed to ring the stronger. They looked at each other defiantly. At last Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k pulled her wrap about her, and rose to go. A final wave of regret, of yearning not to be thrust out in this way from these lives made her say:

"I am sorry you couldn't have let me be a little friendly. I wanted to have you to dinner,"--she smiled at the dull practicality of her idea; "but I suppose you won't come."

"He may do as he likes," Alves said, in a more conciliatory manner.

"But he can't!" the girl smiled back good-humoredly. "One doesn't go to dinner without one's wife, especially when one's wife doesn't like the hostess."

Alves laughed at the frank speech. She might have liked this eager, fresh young woman, who took things with such dash and buoyancy, if she could have known her on even terms. As they stood facing each other, a challenge on Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k's face, Alves noticed the doctor's figure in the road beyond.

"I think that is Dr. Sommers coming. He can answer your question for himself."

Sommers was approaching from Blue Gra.s.s Avenue; his eyes were turned in the direction of the lake, so that he did not see the women on the steps of the temple until Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k turned and held out her hand. Then he started, perceptibly enough to make Alves's lips tighten once more.

"I have been calling on your wife," Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k explained, talking fast.

"But she doesn't like me, won't ask me to come again."

"We shall be very glad to see you," Alves interposed quickly. "But I make no calls."

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k declined to sit down, and Sommers accompanied her to the waiting carriage. Alves watched them. Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k seemed to be talking very fast, and her head was turned toward his face.

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k was answering Sommers's inquiries about Colonel and Mrs.

Hitchc.o.c.k. The latter had died over a year ago, and Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k had been in poor health.

"He has some bitter disappointments," Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k said gravely. "His useful, honorable, unselfish life is closing sadly. We have travelled a good deal; we have just come back from Algiers. It is good to be back in Chicago!"

"I have noticed that the Chicagoan repeats that formula, no matter how much he roams. He seems to travel merely to experience the bliss of returning to the human factory."

"It isn't a factory to me. It is home," she replied simply.

"So it is to us, now. We are earning our right to stay within its gates."

"Are things--going better?" Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k asked hesitatingly. She scanned the doctor's face, as if to read in the grave lines the record of the year.

"We are alive and clothed," he replied tranquilly.

"What a frightful way to put it!"

"The lowest terms--and not very different from others." His eye rested upon the glossy horses and the spotless victoria.

"No!" Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k answered dispiritedly. "But I _won't_ think of it that way. I am coming to see you again, if I may?"

"You were very good to look us up," he answered evasively.

They lingered, speaking slowly, as if loath to part in this superficial manner. He told her of his employment in Burnside, and remarked slowly,

"I wonder who could have put the manager on my track."

"I wonder," she repeated, looking past him.

"You see I didn't start quite at the scratch," he added, his face relaxing into a smile.

"I shouldn't quarrel about _that_ handicap."