The Dust Flower Part 34

"I'm sure I haven't an idea. I think he must be some camera-man who's seen me when they've been shooting the pitch--" she made the correction almost in time--"who's seen me when they've been shooting the _pick-tures_. I can't think of anything else."

They watched the retreating form till, without a backward glance, it turned into Madison Avenue.

"Come along in," Allerton called then, in a tone intended to disperse misgiving, "and let's begin."

Ten minutes later he was reading in the library, from a big volume open on his knees, how for over a century the chicory root had been dried and ground in France, and used to strengthen the cheaper grades of coffee, when Letty broke in, as if she had not been following him:

"I don't think that fella could have been a camera-man after all. No camera-man would ha' noticed me in the great big bunch I was always in."

"Oh, well, he can't do you any harm anyhow," Allerton a.s.sured her.

"I'll just finish this, and then I'll look for the poem by Mrs.

Deland."

With her veil and gloves in her lap Letty sat thoughtful while he pa.s.sed from shelf to shelf in search of the smaller volume. Of her real suspicion, that the man was a friend of Judson Flack's, she decided not to speak.

Seated once more in front of her, and bending slightly toward her, Allerton read:

"Oh, not in ladies' gardens, My peasant posy!

Smile thy dear blue eyes, Nor only--nearer to the skies-- In upland pastures, dim and sweet-- But by the dusty road Where tired feet Toil to and fro; Where flaunting Sin May see thy heavenly hue, Or weary Sorrow look from thee Toward a more tender blue."

Allerton glanced up from the book. "Pretty, isn't it?"

She admitted that it was, and then added: "And yet there was the times when the castin' director put me right in the front, to register what the crowd behind me was thinkin' about. He might ha' noticed me then."

"Yes, of course; that must have been it. Now wouldn't you like me to read that again? You must always read a poem a second or third time to really know what it's about."

Meanwhile a poem of another sort was being read to Miss Barbara Walbrook by her aunt, who had entered the drawing-room within five minutes after Allerton had left it. During those five minutes Barbara had remained seated, plunged into reverie. The problem with which she had to deal was the degree to which she was right or wrong in permitting Rashleigh to go on in his crazy course. That this outcast girl was twining herself round his heart was a fact growing too obtrusive to be ignored. Had Rashleigh been as other men decisive action would have been imperative. But he was not as other men, and there lay the possibilities she found difficult.

If the aunt couldn't help the niece to solve the difficult question she at least could compel her to take a stand.

As she entered the drawing-room she came from out of doors, a slender, unfleshly figure, all intellect and idea. Her vices being wholly of the spirit were not recognized as vices, so that she pa.s.sed as the highest type of the good woman which the continent of America knows anything about. Being the highest type of the good woman she had, moreover, the privilege which American usage accords to all good women of being good aggressively. No other good woman in the world enjoys this right to the same degree, a fact to which we can point with pride. The good English woman, the good French woman, the good Italian woman, are obliged by the customs of their countries to direct their goodness into channels in which it is relatively curbed. The good American woman, on the other hand, is never so much at home as when she is on the warpath. Her goodness being the only standard of goodness which the country accepts she has the right to impose it by any means she can harness to her purposes. She is the inspiration of our churches, and the terror of our const.i.tuencies. She is behind state legislatures and federal congresses and presidential cabinets.

They may elude her lofty purposes, falsify her trust, and for a time hoodwink her with male chicaneries; but they are always afraid of her, and in the end they do as she commands. Among the coa.r.s.ely, stupidly, viciously masculine countries of the world the American Republic is the single and conspicuous matriarchate, ruled by its good women. Of these rulers Miss Marion Walbrook was as representative a type as could be found, high, pure, zealous, intolerant of men's weaknesses, and with only spiritual immoralities of her own.

Seated in one of her slender upright armchairs she had the impressiveness of goodness fully conscious of itself. A doc.u.ment she held in her hand gave her the judicial air of one ent.i.tled to pa.s.s sentence.

"I'm sorry, Barbara; but I've some disagreeable news for you."

Barbara woke. "Indeed?"

"I've just come from Augusta Chancellor's. She talked about--that man."

"What did she say?"

"She said two or three things. One was that she'd met him one day in the Park when he decidedly wasn't himself."

"Oh, it's hard to say when he's himself and when he isn't. He's what the French would call _un original_."

"Oh, I don't know about that. The originality of men is commonplace as it's most novel. This man is on a par with the rest, if you call it original for him to have a woman in the house."

Barbara feigned languidness. "Well, it is--the way he has her there."

"The way he has her there? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean what I say. There's no one else in the world who would take a girl under his roof in the way Rash has taken this girl."

"How, may I ask, did he take her?"

Having foreseen that one day she should be in this position Barbara had made up her mind as to how much she should say. "He found her."

"Oh, they all do that. They generally find them in the Park."

"Exactly; it's just what he did."

"I guessed--it was only guessing mind you--that he also tried to find Augusta Chancellor."

"Oh, possibly. He'd go as far as that, if he saw her doing anything he thought not respectable."

"Barbara, please! You're talking about a friend of mine, one of my colleagues. Let's return to--I hope you won't find the French phrase invidious--to our mutton."

"Oh, very well! Rash found the girl homeless--penniless--with no friends. Her stepfather had turned her out. Another man would have left her there, or turned her over to the police. Rash took her to his own house, and since then we've both been helping her to--to get on her feet."

"Helping her to get on her feet in a way that's driven from the house the good old women who've been there for nearly thirty years."

"Oh, you know that too, do you?"

"Why, certainly. Jane, that was the parlor maid, is very intimate with Augusta Chancellor's cook; and she says--Jane does--that he's actually married the creature."

Barbara shrugged her shoulders. "I can't help what the servants say, Aunt Marion. I'm trying to be a friend to the girl, and help her to pull herself together. Of course I recognize the fact that Rash has been foolish--quixotic--or whatever you like to call it; but he hasn't kept anything from me."

"And you're still engaged to him?"

"Of course I'm still engaged to him." She held out her left hand.

"Look at his ring."

"Then why don't you get married?"

"Are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?"

The question being a pleasantry Miss Walbrook took it with a gentle smile. When she resumed it was with a slight flourish of the doc.u.ment in her hand and another turn to the conversation.

"I went to the bank this morning. I've brought home my will. I'm thinking of making some changes in it."

Barbara looked non-committal, as if the subject had nothing to do with herself.

"The question I have to decide," Miss Walbrook pursued, "is whether to leave everything to you, in the hope that you'll carry on my work----"

"I shouldn't know how."