With Edge Tools Part 11

CHAPTER VIII.

GATHERING CLOUDS.

"Are you going to the 'Renaissance Club' tea, Marion, dear?" said Florence Moreland, coming into the library on the afternoon following the "Patricians'" ball. Marion was sitting on the low front window seat, and she held a sash curtain crumpled in her hand. Her eyes were slowly following the numerous sleighs gliding up and down the Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive.

The sun shone brightly on the glistening snow, the bells jingled merrily, and the waving plumes of graceful sleighs combined, with the rosy faces of their fur-clad occupants, to form a cheery winter picture.

But with all this brightness before her Marion looked thoughtful and disturbed. Perhaps the restless lake beyond, das.h.i.+ng its troubled waves against the grey sea wall, better expressed the thoughts which caused the discontented wandering of her eyes. She did not reply to Florence's question but continued looking out over the roadway, as though unaware of her friend's presence.

"Marion, dear," called Florence in a louder tone; "didn't you hear me?"

Mrs. Sanderson slowly dropped the sash curtain and looked up. "O, are you there?" she said vaguely.

"Yes, and I have been here an age trying to make you hear me," Florence replied. "What are you dreaming about?"

"O, nothing much," Marion sighed; but her voice told her friend that this was not quite true.

"You are in one of your moods again," said Florence. "You need me to cheer you up; but first of all tell me if you are going to the tea this afternoon?"

"O, I fancy so," Marion replied somewhat mournfully. "I wish the 'Renaissance Club' were in Kamtschatka, or some other such place, but Roswell actually promised to come home in time to take us, so I suppose we shall have to go. It is not time yet, though."

"I know it," said Florence, "but I think I had better change my gown now."

"You look well enough as you are," Marion replied, casting her eyes critically over her friend's attire. "Put on your gold-braided jacket and you will look as smart as any girl there."

"Very well, then I shall go as I am. I would much rather talk than bother about dressing." Saying this Florence approached Marion and sat down beside her on the window seat. Marion did not notice her, but continued to look thoughtfully out of the window. Florence watched her for a moment, as though trying to read the thoughts behind her restless eyes; then she gently took both her friend's hands, and holding them in her own said inquiringly: "What is troubling you, dear."

"Nothing," Marion sighed.

"Then why do you seem so far away?"

"Because I was thinking."

"Of what?" asked Florence.

"Of how like a human life the waters of that lake are."

"I don't understand," said her friend.

"Why, like a life they roll waywardly on until they pa.s.s to mother earth again, or are borne upward to the clouds. Sometimes they lie peacefully at rest, or they ripple merrily like children at play, only to be rudely awakened and lashed to angry fury in an aimless struggle with the winds.

Like a life they are merely the agents of some greater power, helplessly following their destiny."

"I think you theorize too much, my dear," said Florence. "If you want happiness, you must take life as it comes."

"Happiness," laughed Marion cynically. "Happiness is like the golden bowl at the rainbow's base; no matter how desperately you chase after it, it still glitters in the distant future."

"Possibly," replied Florence, "though I remember reading somewhere that 'the reason there is so little happiness in the world is because so few people are engaged in producing it.' Perhaps that is why we are unhappy."

"Do you know the formula for the production of this rarity?" sneered Marion.

"No, but I suppose it has something to do with the time honored saying, 'be virtuous,' and so forth."

"Yes, I know; the kind of happiness that comes from the knowledge that one is good," put in Marion. "It is a sort of self-satisfied, touch-me-not happiness, with a better-than-you-are smirk about it."

"Can't one have a clear conscience without being a Pharisee?" asked Florence.

"I don't know," sighed Marion. "It is all a question of temptation, I suppose. Some people seem to be good from birth; they are never tempted, and have no charity for those who are."

"I don't call such people good," replied Florence; "a St. Anthony without a temptation would be a sorry picture of virtuous self-control."

Marion did not reply. For a moment she remained quietly thinking, as though Florence's words had inspired her with an idea; finally she spoke, in slowly chosen words: "Do you think what the Bible says about a mental sin being as great as the outward act can be true?"

"I think it depends entirely upon circ.u.mstances," replied Florence.

Marion turned her eyes thoughtfully upon the floor, then, restlessly twisting a cus.h.i.+on ta.s.sel between her fingers, she asked earnestly: "Do you think a woman who is tempted and resists, yet feels the subtle poison still in her heart, has sinned?"

Florence was silent a moment, as though weighing the question in her mind. "I would not condemn such a woman," she finally said; "I would pity her."

"What ought she to do?" asked Marion.

"She has kept her self-respect, and I think on that foundation she should build the negative happiness called peace of mind."

"What if the sting is too fresh, the poison too strong? What if the cup is still before her?"

"Then she should dash it resolutely from her, and trust that time will heal the wound."

Marion smiled faintly. She was thinking of an express train rus.h.i.+ng toward the East and bearing danger farther and farther away. "Perhaps destiny is kind sometimes," she thought. "Were you ever unhappy, Florence?" she asked after a moment.

"Why, what an absurd question," her friend replied. "Is there any one who has not been unhappy at some time?"

"O, of course people have unpleasant moments which they get over,"

Marion answered; "but what I call unhappiness is to feel that one has made an irreparable mistake in life, and then to be suddenly shown the unattainable possibility."

"I should think such a person would feel something like a hungry pauper, gazing into a pastry cook's window. The glimpse of possibility must intensify his craving."

"You are utterly practical and entirely unsympathetic," said Marion, somewhat ruffled at Florence's levity. "Sometimes I think you are a most unsatisfactory person."

"I will not be dismissed as a person," laughed Florence. "You may call me anything you like, but don't subject me to the degradation of being styled a person."

"I think you deserve it for turning my seriousness so inconsiderately into ridicule," said Marion with an injured air.

"It is just the best thing for you," Florence replied. "You worry unnecessarily."

"You always say that," sighed Marion, "but you don't understand."

"Yes, I do. No one understands you as well as I do."

"Then why don't you sympathize with me more?"

"You don't need sympathy; that only panders to your discontent. What you need is to be shaken up and made to forget yourself."