CHAPTER I THE WOMAN

A hush fell on the waiting throng at old St. John's. The soft babble of modulated voices died suddenly away as from the greenery and the daisies of the chancel a singer's voice rose sweet and clear. The white-ribboned, white-canvased aisles were ready for the coming of a bride's feet, and the wedding guests imprisoned behind the silken bands bent forward expectantly to hear her nuptial song.

That song, as was most meet, breathed love and perfect trust; when it was finished there were tears in many eyes. Women's hearts are very tender at weddings, and the song was in the universal key.

In the vestibule, other ears were bending to catch the strains. With the first note Judge Kirtley raised his hand enjoining silence, and the ushers and the maids fell back, leaving the old man and his companion listening at the door. Upon his arm was Margaret, child of his love, though not of his blood. She was the daughter of his old friend, who, with his dying breath, had left her to his charge. He had been faithful to his trust; he had been to her a father; and she, coming into his childless home, had filled a daughter's place. It would be lonely enough without her.

But it was not this that filled his mind as he listened to the song. He was thinking with the sense of helplessness that comes to every father, to every faithful guardian at a time like this, that he had done all he could; his trust was over; a moment more and he would give her for all time into the keeping of another. Would that other rise to meet the trust? This was the question reiterating itself in his soul. Did Victor De Jarnette know women's hearts—how strong they were to bear, how quick to bleed? Was his a hand that could be both strong and gentle? None other, he knew, could safely guide this girl of his. Margaret was high-strung and impetuous; her capacity for sorrow and for joy had sometimes made him stand aghast. Victor De Jarnette could make a heaven on earth for her, or—

He did not finish, but involuntarily he pressed close to him the white-gloved hand, and Margaret looked up wonderingly, marveling to see his face so stern. There was no shadow on her sky to-day. Her soul was in tune with the singer's rhapsody.

The song ended. There was a soft bustle in the vestibule; the majestic measures of Lohengrin filled her ears; the bridesmaids shook out their plumage and moved on; the flower girls were scattering roses for her path; and with uplifted head and shining eyes Margaret Varnum went forward to meet her lover.

In the chancel, proud, erect, and confident, stood Victor De Jarnette, waiting for her coming. In his black eyes was the triumph of possession. There were others in that church who had sought to win Margaret Varnum, and he did not forget it.

"He's a devilish handsome fellow!" whispered a young officer in the south transept to his companion.

"Yes," was the reply, "with the primary accent on the adverb, eh?"

"Why doesn't his brother take part in it?" asked Mrs. Pennybacker of her niece, "as best man or usher or something?"

Mrs. Van Dorn shrugged her shapely shoulders.

"He is opposed to it, I believe. Not to Margaret especially, but to marriage in general. I don't suppose you could persuade him to take part in a wedding—now."

"What is the matter with the man?" demanded her aunt. "He doesn't look like a crank. What can have given him such a bias as this?"

Her niece smiled enigmatically. "Modesty forbids that I should say much on the subject, my dear aunt. But there are people who are unkind enough to lay to your niece's charge Richard De Jarnette's change of heart. She certainly remembers when he held altogether different views."

"Do you mean to say, Maria,—"

"Oh, no, certainly not, so don't look at me like that. I am only telling you what people say. Ah! There come the bridesmaids. Isn't that pink gown a dream?"

Mrs. Pennybacker was looking past the bridal party to the front pew, where sat Victor De Jarnette's elder brother, stern and unbending. By his side was a younger man, who spoke to him from time to time in a light way as if to cheer him, but his pleasantries elicited scant response. It was his friend, Dr. Semple. The two were the sole occupants of the pew reserved for the family of the bridegroom. The De Jarnette brothers were singularly alone.

"I don't believe it," thought Mrs. Pennybacker as she studied the man's face. "He doesn't look to me like a man who would lose his head over Maria, poor thing! as pretty as she is. Some women can make an offer of marriage out of an invitation to a prayer-meeting, and see a love letter in a note beginning, 'My dear madam.' Still, you can't tell. Maria has a pretty face. And men are great fools."

There was not a flaw in the matchless ceremony which has come down to us as a heritage from the ages; not a faltering note in either voice. "To love and to cherish ... till death us do part." This was their plighted troth.

The church's challenge rang out boldly.

"If any man can show just cause why these two persons may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace."

A stillness fell upon the place. But no man spoke.

At that most searching admonition, "I require and charge you both, as ye will answer in the dreadful day of judgment ... if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together ... ye do now confess it," they searched their souls, but if they found impediment it stood unconfessed.

Once, Margaret felt her lover's hand close suddenly on hers and then relax. She loved him for his vehemence, and gave an answering clasp. At that moment those near the door looked into each other's faces with startled, questioning gaze and bent their heads to listen. No sound was heard above the rector's solemn monotone and the response.

"Victor, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?" The straining ears relaxed and gave heed to the bridegroom's vow. "Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

And Victor De Jarnette answered resonantly,

"I will."

Kneeling, they asked God's benediction on their wedded lives; then down the aisle in radiant happiness they led the train,—one flesh, if there be aught in vows—for evermore.

"Did you hear anything during that ceremony?" asked John Jarvis, the lawyer, of his wife as they drove away.

She looked up eagerly. "Yes. Did you?"

"I thought I did. What was it, do you think?"

"It sounded to me like a knock—"

"Yes,—"

"—and then a cry, faint, but like a woman's voice."

They spoke in guarded tones, but the old carriage driver, who had been in the family for twenty years and was a privileged character, heard and touched his hat.

"Dat was a crazy woman, miss, de p'liceman say, tryin' to git in widout no ticket. Dey run 'er in. Yaas, miss."

A knot of men who had likewise heard the knock discussed it as they walked toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

"He's been wild," said one, raising his brow, and his companion answered with easy tolerance,

"Oh, yes, of course. But he has sowed his wild oats, and now he is ready to settle down."

A lady, passing, caught the words and their drift.

"Did you ever notice," she said thoughtfully to her husband, who walked beside her, "that people always say, 'Oh well, he has sowed his wild oats,' as if that finished it? But in the country, where I was born, we sow our oats and know that we will reap. I imagine 'wild oats' are not very different from other kinds."

CHAPTER II THE ELDER BROTHER

"For one thing he is too young," said Richard De Jarnette. "At twenty-one a man is still a boy, unless he has had more to develop him than Victor has ever had. And besides—"

And there he stopped.

It was the evening after the wedding, and the two men sat in the library of Richard De Jarnette's K Street house. It had seemed rather a gloomy place until the genial doctor was ushered in, for when young life goes out of a home by way of the wedding route, it leaves almost as great a gap as if there had been a funeral.

The elder De Jarnette permitted himself few friends, other than those in business circles, and no intimates, if we may except the one who had come to him to-night guided by love's instinct. He and Dr. Semple had been boys together in college, had had their maiden love affairs about the same time, and had recovered from them with about the same expedition. They knew each other, as the doctor was wont to remark pleasantly, "from the ground up."

But the doctor, even while saying this, was quite aware that he did not know Richard De Jarnette from the ground down—that is to say, to the roots of his nature. He occasionally came upon unexpected subterranean passages in the man's character, leading he knew not whither, for when upon two or three occasions he had attempted to explore these interesting byways, he had come suddenly upon a sign which said so plainly that the wayfaring man, though a fool, might read: "No trespassing allowed." And Dr. Semple, being a wise man and not a fool, always made haste to vacate when he saw this legend. He knew, what the rest of their world knew, that Richard De Jarnette was a rising business man, of strict integrity and tireless energy, and he knew what their world did not know, that there had been a time when his life had not been bounded by the four walls of his office, or the prim severity of a home presided over by a housekeeper,—a time when he had had his dreams like the rest. Then when he had not much more than made his masculine début into

society, he had suddenly dropped from its ranks and given himself thenceforward wholly to business. There had been some speculation about the cause of this sudden lapse of interest, even among his male acquaintances, and more, of course, among those of the sex which is rightly supposed to have greater curiosity upon these subjects. But it is a very busy world. Broken ranks in any procession soon fill up,—and nobody sought him out in his seclusion save Dr. Semple.

He had never been a very successful society man, in truth having few of the social gifts which are there more imperative than either character or learning. And besides, he had no real love for it, and people rarely excel in the thing to which they are indifferent. Since his unceremonious dropping out he had devoted himself exclusively to business and his books. His one friend was Dr. Semple,—his one passion, his love for his young half-brother, who had shared his home since the death of their father.

"Of course that isn't your real reason for opposing this marriage, De Jarnette," said the doctor, easily. "I understand that. You don't want him to marry at all, and you know it."

Mr. De Jarnette smiled grimly.

"I admit it. I have made no pretence of denying it to myself, and since you seem rather skilful at diagnosis, I suppose it is not worth while to deny it to you. The truth is, Semple," the explanatory tone had in it almost an appeal, "I have looked out for this boy's welfare since the day—" his face darkened—"the day he so sorely needed it. I—I suppose I have got in the habit of it."

"You've spoiled him. There's no doubt of that," agreed his companion cheerfully. "But I should think that now you would be glad to see his future in the hands of a good woman like Margaret Varnum. It is a safeguard, Dick,—one that you and I haven't availed ourselves of, it is true, but still a safeguard. I am sure of it."

"You are sure of nothing where a woman is concerned," declared Richard De Jarnette, deliberately. "You may think you are, listening to their protestations, but you will find out your mistake sooner or later. They are treacherous, Bob. You cast your pearls before them and when they find they are not diamonds, they turn and rend you. I know them. They are not to be trusted."

"There are women and women, I suppose. You will agree that there are several varieties of men. There is Slyter, for instance."

"Slyter is a beast," said Mr. De Jarnette, with a gesture of disgust.

"He belongs to our sex. We can't disown him, much as we would like to. But we would hardly wish to be judged by him. If you belonged to my profession, De Jarnette, you would know women better and do them more justice."

"I know them—know them better than you do. At least, I know a side of them that you have never seen because you have never been to school to them."

Dr. Semple threw his head back and blew out slowly what seemed to be an inexhaustible volume of smoke. Every thought seemed concentrated upon it. When the last of it had floated off into thin air he remarked quietly, "You have never quite got over it, Dick."

He had deliberately pushed aside the sign and walked into the forbidden grounds. Somewhat to his surprise, for he hardly knew himself how it would be taken, he found his friend walking by his side.

Mr. De Jarnette flipped the ash from his cigar and then answered composedly, "I have got over it so entirely that the sight of her causes no more commotion in my breast than the vision of the scrub lady who daily puts the outer hall in order. I hope you are wasting no sympathy upon me. I haven't even any bitterness about it,—and certainly no regret. It has simply left me with more knowledge of women. That is all. And that is worth all it cost. It is what has rendered me immune all these years. 'A burnt child,' you know."

An expression of curious relief came into the physician's face.

"Do you know, Dick, I have always had a lingering ghost of a fear—now that she is a widow—and it would be possible, don't you know, that—"

"Bah-h! I beg you will not do me the injustice of the thought. Do you know, Semple, the incomprehensible thing about it now to me is that I should ever have wasted love upon her. I have asked myself a hundred times what it was I thought I loved and where it had gone. That is where the sting of it comes in. It isn't that she should have thrown me over for the old man and his millions,—but that I shouldn't have known from the first that she wasn't—oh, well! It is over. It is just exactly with me as though it had never been, except—"

"Except—"

"—that I am wiser."

"But not better," thought the physician. "The trouble about these things is that they never leave a man the same. Something is always burned out of him." Aloud he said, "She is only one woman, Dick. A man always has a mother."

Richard De Jarnette's face softened less than one would suppose.

"My mother was but a name to me," he said. "She died in giving me birth. I have—"

"Then by her birth pangs she has made you a debtor to all womankind," interrupted the doctor, a little sternly, "and if she gave her life for yours—"

"I do not acknowledge the indebtedness," his host returned, coldly. "I did not ask to be brought into this world. Now that I am here I can do nothing less than try to keep myself up, but I do not see that I have any special cause for gratitude to the ones who imposed this responsibility upon me."

"If your mother had lived, De Jarnette, you would have felt differently," said the doctor, quietly, almost gently. "You would have known then, as you never can now, the breadth and depth of a mother's devotion."

"You forget that my father was thoughtful enough to provide me with a second mother. And since I recall it, perhaps you may remember the depth of that mother's devotion to her child."

He spoke with bitterest satire.

"I have only heard rumors about it," answered his friend.

"I'll tell you that story. A few words will do. The mother that my father gave me when I was nine years old, set herself first of all to alienate his affections from me, his child, and succeeded."

"She would have failed if he had been your mother," interjected the doctor in the slight pause.

"I am not sure of that, though I mean no disrespect to a mother who was buried too deep to rescue her child from all the indignities that woman heaped upon him. I will pass quickly over that, Semple. To this day it hurts me to think of it. I have never seen a man cruel to a child since without wanting to kill him, and a woman—"

"Was it the same after her own child came?"

"It was worse. She was jealous then in addition to being vindictive. If she had only been cruel to me and kind to him, I believe I could have stood it. For I loved that boy as I have loved few things in life. But she was cruel to him too. She neglected him. And finally—well, you know how it ended. Everybody knows the dishonor she brought on the name of De Jarnette. That is one thing I hate her for. From the time she left her child, a helpless baby of four years, I have had no faith in so-called mother-love. It is good to talk about. It sounds well. It is all right till the test comes—and sometimes the test never does come—but if it does, they'll fly the track every time. You can't depend on a woman. They are treacherous."

"What effect did her going away have on your father—in his relations to you, I mean? Did it bring his affections back to you?"

"No. You would suppose it would have had that effect, but it didn't. It made him misanthropic and hard. He could not bear Victor in his sight. The child seemed to be a constant reminder of the mother and the disgrace she had brought upon him. Then it was that I got into the habit of looking out for him. My father was a hard man—an unforgiving man. He ruled with a rod of iron. I've taken many a whipping that would have fallen upon Victor, small as he was, if I hadn't lied for him."

"Perhaps you would have done him better service to have let them fall upon him," the doctor was thinking.

"You see how it is, Bob. That is why he has always seemed so close to me. I really think of him more as my child than my half-brother. And that's why it hurts.... Oh, well! If he had only waited a few years I think I could have consented to it with a better grace. But my consent wasn't asked."

On his way home Dr. Semple looked at it with a professional eye. "The man has a wrong bias," he said, at last. "It was a case of malpractice, and it has left him with his nature out of joint. If he could have a hard enough wrench in the right hands it might be re-set. But where is the surgeon?" Then he went back to the cause. "Women are accountable for a deal of evil in this world. And it doesn't all come by 'ordinary generation,' as the catechism puts it. Oh, well!"

CHAPTER III MRS. PENNYBACKER OF MISSOURI

Two or three weeks after the wedding Mrs. Pennybacker sat with her niece in the elegantly appointed library of the mansion that old Cornelius Van Dorn had left to his bereaved widow.

Mrs. Van Dorn had enjoyed her crape, and was now in the softly alleviated stage of violet and heliotrope, which looked so well on her that she was tempted to prolong indefinitely this twilight of her grief. Certainly nothing could be more bewitching than the lavender housegown which enveloped her to-day, with its falls and cascades of soft lace and its coquettish velvet bows.

She was smiling complacently just now at this blond-haired reflection in the mirror as she leaned on the mantel.

"No, I don't believe I shall take off my mourning for another year," she said, half aloud, turning her head a little to one side to adjust a bow in her hair, "at least, not quite. Then perhaps I shall have a season of grays—a velvet hat with long feathers and a cut steel ornament. Soft shades are certainly becoming to me—and I dislike to see people rush into colors immediately, as if they had no feeling at all." The widowed lady sighed softly, as was her wont when referring to her bereavement. It seemed to go well with lavender.

"Your love for purple, Maria," observed Mrs. Pennybacker, ignoring the sentiment of these remarks and grasping promptly their salient point, as was her wont, "is an inherited one. Your mother used to feel when she had on a new purple calico or lawn that she was about as fine as they made them. And if she could get hold of a purple ribbon—"