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<hr class="large" />[Pg 233] <h2>XVII</h2> <h2>“He Loves Her Still”</h2> When Doctor Brinkerhoff came on Wednesday evening, he was surprised to discover that Iris had gone away. “It was sudden, was it not?” he asked. “It seemed so to us,” returned Margaret. “We knew nothing of it until the morning she started. She had probably been planning it for a long time, though she did not take us into her confidence until the last minute.” Lynn sat with his face turned away from his mother. “Did you, perhaps, suspect that she was going?” the Doctor directly inquired of Lynn. He hesitated for the barest perceptible interval before he spoke. “She told us at the breakfast table,” he answered. “Iris is replete with surprises.” “But before that,” continued the Doctor, “did you have no suspicion?” [Pg 234] Lynn laughed shortly. “How should I suspect?” he parried. “I know nothing of the ways of women.” “Women,” observed the Doctor, with an air of knowledge,—“women are inscrutable. For instance, I cannot understand why Miss Iris did not come to say ‘good-bye’ to me. I am her foster-father, and it would have been natural.” “Good-byes are painful,” said Margaret. “We Germans do not say ‘good-bye,’ but only ‘auf wiedersehen.’ Perhaps we shall see her again, perhaps not. No one knows.” “Fräulein Fredrika does not say ‘auf wiedersehen,’” put in Lynn, anxious to turn the trend of the conversation. “No,” responded the Doctor, with a smile. “She says: ‘You will come once again, yes? It would be most kind.’” He imitated the tone and manner so exactly that Lynn laughed, but it was a hollow laugh, without mirth in it. “Do not misunderstand me,” said the Doctor, quickly; “it was not my intention to ridicule the Fräulein. She is a most estimable woman. Do you perhaps know her?” he asked of Margaret. [Pg 235] “I have not that pleasure,” she replied. “She was not here when I first came,” the Doctor went on, “but Herr Kaufmann sent for her soon afterward. They are devoted to each other, and yet so unlike. You would have laughed to see Franz at work at his housekeeping, before she came.” A shadow crossed Margaret’s face. “I have often wondered,” she said, clearing her throat, “why men are not taught domestic tasks as well as women. It presupposes that they are never to be without the inevitable woman, yet many of them often are. A woman is trained to it in the smallest details, even though she has reason to suppose that she will always have servants to do it for her. Then why not a man?” “A good idea, mother,” remarked Lynn. “To-morrow I shall take my first lesson in keeping house.” “You?” she said fondly; “you? Why, Lynn! Lacking the others, you’ll always have me to do it for you.” “That,” replied the Doctor, triumphantly, “disproves your own theory. If you are in earnest, begin on the morrow to instruct Mr. Irving.” [Pg 236] Margaret flushed, perceiving her own inconsistency. “I could be of assistance, possibly,” he continued, “for in the difficult school of experience I have learned many things. I have often taken professional pride in closing an aperture in my clothing with neat stitches, and the knowledge thus gained has helped me in my surgery. All things in this world fit in together.” “It is fortunate if they do,” she answered. “My own scheme of things has been very much disarranged.” “Yet, as Fräulein Fredrika would say, ‘the dear God knows.’ Life is like one of those puzzles that come in a box. It is full of queer pieces which seemingly bear no relation to one another, and yet there is a way of putting it together into a perfect whole. Sometimes we make a mistake at the beginning and discard pieces for which we think there is no possible use. It is only at the end that we see we have made a mistake and put aside something of much importance, but it is always too late to go back—the pieces are gone. “In my own life, I lost but one—still, it was the keystone of the whole. When I came from [Pg 237]Germany, I should have brought letters from those in high places there to those in high places here. It could easily have been done. I should have had this behind me when I came to East Lancaster, and I should not have made the mistake of settling first on the hill. Then——” The Doctor ceased abruptly, and sighed. “This country is supposed to be very democratic,” said Lynn, chiefly because he could think of nothing else to say. “Yes,” replied the Doctor, “it is in your laws that all men are free and equal, but it is not so. The older civilisations have found there is class, and so you will find it here. At first, when everything is chaotic, all particles may seem alike, but in time there is an inevitable readjustment.” “We are getting very serious,” said Margaret. “It is an important subject,” responded the Doctor, with dignity. “I have often discussed it with my friend, Herr Kaufmann. He is a very fine friend to have.” “Yes,” said Lynn, “he is. It is only lately that I have learned to appreciate him.” “One must grow to understand him,” [Pg 238]mused the Doctor. “At first, I did not. I thought him rough, queer, and full of sarcasm. But afterward, I saw that his harshness was only a mask—the bark, if I may say so. Beneath it, he has a heart of gold.” “People,” began Margaret, avoiding the topic, “always seek their own level, just as water does. That is why there is class.” “But for a long time, they do not find it,” objected the Doctor. “Miss Iris, for instance. Her people were of the common sort, and those with whom she lived afterward were worse still. She”—by the unconscious reverence in his voice, they knew whom he meant—“she taught her all the fineness she has, and that is much. It is an argument for environment, rather than heredity.” Lynn left the room abruptly, unable to bear the talk of Iris. “I wish,” said the Doctor, at length, “I wish you knew Herr Kaufmann. Would you like it if I should bring him to call?” “No!” cried Margaret. “It is too soon,” she added, desperately. “Too soon after——” The Doctor nodded. “I understand,” he said. “It was a mistake on my part, for which you must pardon me. I only thought [Pg 239]you might be a help to each other. Franz, too, has sorrowed.” “Has he?” asked Margaret, her lips barely moving. “Yes,” the Doctor went on, half to himself, “it was an unhappy love affair. The young lady’s mother parted them because he lived in West Lancaster, though he, too, might have had letters from high places in Germany. He and I made the same mistake.” “Her mother,” repeated Margaret, almost in a whisper. “Yes, the young lady herself cared.” “And he,” she breathed, leaning eagerly forward, her body tense,—“does he love her still?” “He loves her still,” returned the Doctor, promptly, “and even more than then.” “Ah—h!” The Doctor roused himself. “What have I done!” he cried, in genuine distress. “I have violated my friend’s confidence, unthinking! My friend, for whom I would make any sacrifice—I have betrayed him!” “No,” replied Margaret, with a great effort at self-control. “You have not told me her name.” [Pg 240] “It is because I do not know it,” said the Doctor, ruefully. “If I had known, I should have bleated it out, fool that I am!” “Please do not be troubled—you have done no harm. Herr Kaufmann and I are practically strangers.” “That is so,” replied the Doctor, evidently reassured; “and I did not mean it. It is not the same thing as if I had done it purposely.” “Not at all the same thing.” At times, we put something aside in memory to be meditated upon later. The mind registers the exact words, the train of circumstances that caused their utterance, all the swift interplay of opposing thought, and, for the time being, forgets. Hours afterward, in solitude, it is recalled; studied from every point of view, searched, analysed, questioned, until it is made to yield up its hidden meaning. It was thus that Margaret put away those four words: “He loves her still.” They are pathetic, these tiny treasure-houses of Memory, where oftentimes the jewel, so jealously guarded, by the clear light of introspection is seen to be only paste. One seizes hungrily at the impulse that caused the hiding, thinking that there must be some certain [Pg 241]worth behind the deception. But afterward, painfully sure, one locks the door of the treasure-chamber in self-pity, and steals away, as from a casket that enshrines the dead. They talked of other things, and at half-past ten the Doctor went home, leaving a farewell message for Lynn, and begging that his kind remembrances be sent to Iris, when she should write. “Thank you,” said Mrs. Irving. “I shall surely tell her, and she will be glad.” The door closed, and almost immediately Lynn came in from the library, rubbing his eyes. “I think I’ve been asleep,” he said. “It was rude, dear,” returned Margaret, in gentle rebuke. “It is ill-bred to leave a guest.” “I suppose it is, but I did not intend to be gone so long.” The house seemed singularly desolate, filled, as it was, with ghostly shadows. Through the rooms moved the memory of Iris, and of that gentle mistress who slept in the churchyard, who had permeated every nook and corner of it with the sweetness of her personality. There was something in the [Pg 242]air, as though music had just ceased—the wraith of long-gone laughter, the fall of long-shed tears. “I miss Iris,” said Margaret, dreamily. “She was like a daughter to me.” Taken off his guard, Lynn’s conscious face instantly betrayed him. “Lynn,” said Margaret, suddenly, “did you have anything to do with her going away?” The answer was scarcely audible. “Yes.” Margaret never forced a confidence, but after a pause she said very gently: “Dear, is there anything you want to tell me?” “It’s nothing,” said Lynn, roughly. He rose and walked around the room nervously. “It’s nothing,” he repeated, with assumed carelessness. “I—I asked her to marry me, and she wouldn’t. That’s all. It’s nothing.” Margaret’s first impulse was to smile. This child, to be talking of marriage—then her heart leaped, for Lynn was twenty-three; older than she had been when the star rose upon her horizon and then set forever. Then came a momentary awkwardness. Childish though the trouble was, she pitied Lynn, and regretted that she could not shield [Pg 243]him from it as she had shielded him from all else in his life. Then resentment against Iris. What was she, a nameless outcast, to scorn the offered distinction? Any woman in the world might be proud to become Lynn’s wife. Then, smiling at her own folly, Margaret went to him, dominated solely by gratitude. Not knowing what else to do, she drew his tall head down to kiss him, but Lynn swerved aside, and with his face against the softness of his mother’s hair, wiped away a boyish tear. “Lynn,” she said, tenderly, “you are very young.” “How old were you when you married, mother?” “Twenty-one.” “How old was father?” “Twenty-three.” “Then,” persisted Lynn, with remorseless logic, “I am not too young, and neither is Iris—only she doesn’t care.” “She may care, son.” “No, she won’t. She despises me.” “And why?” “She said I had no heart.” [Pg 244] “The idea!” “Maybe I didn’t have then, but I’m sure I have now.” He walked back and forth restlessly. Margaret knew that the griefs of youth are cruelly keen, because they come well in the lead of the strength to bear them. She was about to offer the usual threadbare consolation, “You will forget in time,” when she remembered the stock of which Lynn came. His mother, who had carried a secret wound for more than twenty-five years, who was she, to talk about forgetting, and, of all others, to her son? Gratitude was still dominant, though in her heart of hearts she knew that she was selfish. Lynn felt the lack of sympathy, and became conscious, for the first time in his life, that her tenderness had a limit. “Mother,” he said, suddenly, “did you love father?” “Why do you ask, son?” “Because I want to know.” “I respected him highly,” said Margaret, at length. “He was a good man, Lynn.” “You have answered,” he returned. “You don’t know—you don’t understand.” [Pg 245] “But I do understand,” she flashed. “You can’t, if you didn’t love father.” “I—I cared for someone else,” said Margaret, thickly, unwilling to be convicted of shallowness. Lynn looked at her quickly. “And you still care?” Margaret bowed her head. “Yes,” she whispered, “I still care!” “Mother!” he cried. In an instant, his arms were around her and she was sobbing on his shoulder. “Mother,” he pleaded, “forgive me! To think I never knew!” They had a long talk then, intimate and searching. “You have borne it bravely,” he said. “No one has ever dreamed of it, I am sure. The Master told me, the other day, that I must not be afraid of life. He said that everything, even our blessings, came to us through pain.” “I would not say everything,” temporised Margaret, “but it is true that much comes that way. We know happiness only by contrast.” “Happiness and misery, light and dark, sunshine and storm, life and death,” mused Lynn. “Yes, it is by contrast, but, as the [Pg 246]Master says, ‘the balance swings true.’ I wish you knew him, mother; he has helped me. I never knew my father, so it is not wrong for me to say that I wish he might have been my father.” Margaret grew as cold as ice, and her senses reeled, then flame swept her from head to foot. “Come,” she said, not knowing her own voice, “it is late.” Long afterward, in the solitude of her room, she took the precious thought from its hiding-place, and found it purest gold. It was as though all the bitterness in her heart, growing upward, through the years, had flowered overnight into a perfect rose. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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