The Gay Cockade
whom he had spent so many years.
V
Ridgeley did not come home to dinner. He telephoned that he would be
late. It was close and warm. Christopher, sitting with Anne and Jeanette
on the porch, decided that a storm was brewing.
Anne was restless. She went down into the garden, and Christopher
followed her. She wore white, and he was aware of the rose scent. He
picked a rose for her as he passed through the garden. "Bend your head,
and I'll put it in your hair."
"I can't wear pink."
"It is white in the dusk--" He put his hands on her shoulders, stopped
her, and stuck the rose behind her ear. Then he let her go.
They came to the grove of birches, and sat down on the stone seat. It
had grown dark, and the lightning flashing up from the horizon gave to
the birches a spectral whiteness--Anne was a silver statue.
"It was queer," she said, "about the old man at the circus."
"About the beads?"
"Yes. I wonder what he meant, Christopher? _'What you think is
evil--cannot be evil'?_ Do you think he meant--Death?"
He did not answer at once, then he said, abruptly, "Anne, how did it
happen that you and Ridgeley drifted apart?"
"Oh, it's hard to tell."
"But tell me."
"Well, when we were first married, I expected so much ... things that
girls dream about--that he would always have me in his thoughts, and
that our lives would be knit together. I think we both tried hard to
have it that way. I used to ride with him on his rounds, and he would
tell me about his patients. And at night I'd wait up for him, and have
something to eat, and it was--heavenly. Ridgeley was so ... fine. But
his practice got so big, and sometimes he wouldn't say a word when I
rode with him.... And he would be so late coming in at night, and he'd
telephone that I'd better go to bed.... And, well, that was the
beginning. I don't think it is really his fault or mine ... it's just
... life."
"It isn't life, and you know it," passionately. "Anne, if you had
married me ... do you think...?" He reached out in the dark and took
her hand. "Oh, my dear, we might as well talk it out."
She withdrew her hand. "Talk what out?"
"You know. I've learned to care for you an awful lot. I had planned to
go away. But I can't go now ... not and leave you to face things alone."
He heard her quick breath. "But I've got to face them."
"But not alone. Anne, do you remember what you said ... this morning?
That you were going to pack the days full? And you can't do that without
some one to help you. And Ridgeley won't help. Anne, let me do it. Let
me take you away from here ... away from Ridgeley. We will go where we
can hear the temple bells. We'll ride through the desert ... we'll set
our sails for strange harbors. We'll love until we forget everything,
but the day, the hour,--the moment! And when the time comes for endless
dreams...."
"Christopher...."
"Anne, listen."
"You mustn't say things like that to me ... you must not...!"
"I must. I want you to have happiness. We'll crowd more in to a few
short months than some people have in a lifetime. And you have a right
to it."
"Would it be happiness?"
"Why not? In a way we are all pushing death ahead of us. Who knows that
he will be alive to-morrow? There's this arm of mine ... there's every
chance that I'll have trouble with it. And an automobile accident may
wreck a honeymoon. You've as much time as thousands who are counting on
more."
The lightning flashed and showed the birches writhing.
"But afterward, Christopher, _afterward_...?"
"Well, if it is Heaven, we'll have each other. And if it is Hell ...
there were Paolo and Francesca ... and if it is sleep, I'll dream
eternally of you! Anne ... Anne, do you love me enough to do it?"
"Christopher, please!"
But the storm was upon them--rain and wind, and the thunder a cannonade.
Christopher, brought at last to the knowledge of its menace, picked Anne
up in his arms, and ran for shelter. When they reached the house, they
found Ridgeley there. He was stern. "It was a bad business to keep her
out. She's afraid of storms."
"Were you afraid?" Christopher asked her, as Ridgeley went to look after
the awnings.
"I forgot the storm," she said, and did not meet his eyes.
VI
Lying awake in her wide bed, Anne thought it over. She was still shaken
by Christopher's vehemence. She had believed him her friend, and had
found him her lover--and oh, he had brought back youth to her. If he
left her now, how could she stand it--the days with no one but Jeanette
Ware, and the soul-shaking knowledge of what was ahead?
And Ridgeley would not care--much. In a week be swallowed up by his
work....
She tried to read, but found it difficult. Across each page flamed
Christopher's sentences.... "We'll ride through the desert.... We'll set
our sails for strange harbors...."
Was that what the old man had meant at the circus.... "What you think is
evil--cannot be evil"? Would Christopher give her all that she had hoped
of Ridgeley? If she lived to be eighty, she and Ridgeley would--jog. Was
Christopher right--"You'll have more happiness in a few months than some
people in a lifetime?"
She heard her husband moving about in the next room, the water booming
in his bath. A thin line of light showed under his door.
She shut her book and turned out her lamp. The storm had died down and
the moon was up. Through the open window she could see beyond the garden
to the grove of birches.
Hitherto, the thought of the little grove had been as of a sanctuary.
She was aware, suddenly, that it had become a place of contending
forces. Were the guardian angels driven out...?
_But there weren't any guardian angels_! Ridgeley had said that they
were silly. And Christopher didn't believe in them. She wished that her
mother might have lived to talk it over. Her mother had had no doubts.
The door of her husband's room opened, and he was silhouetted against
the light. Coming up to the side of her bed, he found her wide-eyed.
"Can't you sleep, my dear?"
"No."
"I don't want to give you anything."
"I don't want anything."
He sat down by the side of the bed. He had on his blue bathrobe, and the
open neck showed his strong white throat. "My dear," he said, "I've been
thinking of what you said this morning--about my lack of belief and the
effect it has had on yours. And--I'm sorry."
"Being sorry doesn't help any, does it, Ridgeley?"
"I should like to think that you had your old faiths to--comfort you."
She had no answer for that, and presently he said, "Are you warm
enough?" and brought an extra blanket, because the air was cool after
the storm, and then he bent and kissed her forehead. "Shut your eyes and
sleep if you can."
But of course she couldn't sleep. She lay there for hours, weighing what
he had said to her against what Christopher had said. Each man was
offering her something--Christopher, life at the expense of all her
scruples. Ridgeley, the resurrection of burnt-out beliefs.
She shivered a bit under the blanket. It would be heavenly to hear the
temple bells--with youth beside her. To drink the wine of life from a
brimming cup. But all the time she would be afraid, nothing could take
away that fear.--Nothing, nothing, _nothing_.
She was glad that her husband was awake. The thin line of light still
showed beneath his door. It would be dreadful to be alone--in the dark.
At last she could stand it no longer. She got out of bed, wrapped
herself in a robe that lay at the foot of it, and opened the door.
"May I leave it open?"
As her husband turned in his chair, she saw his hand go quickly, as if
to cover the paper on which he was writing. "Of course, my dear. Are you
afraid?"
"I am always afraid, Ridgeley. Always--"
She put her hands up to her face and began to cry. He came swiftly
toward her and took her in his arms. "Hush," he said, "nothing can hurt
you, Anne."
VII
When she waked in the morning, it was with, the remembrance of his
tenderness. Well, of course he was sorry for her. Anybody would be. But
Christopher was sorry, too. And Christopher had something to offer
her--more than Ridgeley--yes, it was more--
She was half afraid to go down-stairs. Christopher would be at breakfast
on the porch. Jeanette would be there, pouring coffee, and perhaps
Ridgeley if he had no calls. And Christopher would talk in his gay young
voice--and Ridgeley would read the newspaper, and she and Christopher
would make their plans for the day--
She rose and began to dress, but found herself suddenly panic-stricken
at the thought of the plans that Christopher might make. If they motored
off together, he would talk to her as he had talked in the grove of
birches--of the temple bells, and of the desert, and the strange
harbors--and how could she be sure that she would be strong enough to
resist--and what if she listened, and let him have his way?
She decided to eat her breakfast in bed, and rang for it. A note came up
from Christopher. "Don't stay up-stairs. Ridgeley left hours ago, and I
shan't enjoy my toast and bacon if you aren't opposite me. I have picked
a white rose to put by your plate. And I have a thousand things to say
to you--"
His words had a tonic effect. Oh, why not--? What earthly difference
would it make? And hadn't Browning said something like that--"_Who knows
but the world may end to-night_?"
She was not sure that was quite the way that Browning had put it, and
she thought she would like to be sure--she could almost see herself
saying it to Christopher.
So she went into her husband's room to get the book.
Ridgeley's books were on the shelf above his desk. They had nothing to
do with his medical library--that was down-stairs in his office, and now
and then he would bring up a great volume. But he had a literary side,
and he had revealed some of it to Anne in the days before he had been
too busy. His Browning was marked, and it was not hard to find "The Last
Ride." She opened at the right page, and stood reading--an incongruous
figure amid Ridgeley's masculine belongings in her sheer negligee of
faint blue.
She closed the book, put it back on the shelf, and was moving away, when
her eyes were caught by two words--"For Anne," at the top of a sheet of
paper which lay on Ridgeley's desk. The entire page was filled with
Ridgeley's neat professional script, and in a flash the gesture which he
had made the night before returned to her, as if he were trying to hide
something from her gaze.
She bent and read....
Oh, was this the way he had spent the hours of the night? Searching for
words which might comfort her, might clear away her doubts, might bring
hope to her heart?
And he had found things like this: "_My little sister, Death_," said
good St. Francis; ... "_The darkness is no darkness with thee, but the
night is as clear as day; the darkness and light to thee are both
alike_..." "_Yea, though I Walk through the Valley of the Shadow_ ..."
These and many others, truths which had once been a part of her.
She read, avidly. Oh, she had been thirsty--for this! Hungry for this!
And _Ridgeley_--! The tears dripped so that she could hardly see the
lines. She laid her cheek against the paper, and her tears blistered it.
She carried it into her room. Christopher's note still lay on her
pillow. She read it again, but she had no ears now for its call. She
rang for her maid. "I shall stay in bed and write some letters."
She wrote to Christopher, after many attempts. "We have been such good,
_good_ friends. And we mustn't spoil it. Perhaps if you could go away
for a time, it would be best for both of us. I am going to believe that
some day you will find great happiness. And you would never have found
happiness with me, you would have found only--fear. And I know now what