The Twenty-Fourth of June Part 17

The last words came on a note of rather shaky laughter. Roberta's arm lay across her mother's knee, her head upon it. She turned her head downward for an instant, burying her face in the angle of her arm. Mrs.

Gray regarded the ma.s.s of dark locks beneath her hand with a look amused yet sympathetic.

"That sort of discomfort attacks us all, at times," she said. "Ideals change and develop with our growth. One would not want the same ones to serve her all her life."

"I know. But when it's not a new and better ideal which displaces the old one, but only--an attraction--"

"An attraction not ideal?"

Roberta shook her head. "I'm afraid not. And I don't see why it should be an attraction at all. It ought not to be, if my ideals have been what they should have been. And they have. Why, you gave them to me, mother, many of them--or at least helped me to work them out for myself. And I--I had confidence in them!"

"And they're shaken?"

"Not the ideals--they're all the same. Only--they don't seem to be proof against--a.s.sault. Oh, I'm talking in riddles, I know. I don't want to put any of it into words, it makes it seem more real. And it's only a shadowy sort of difficulty. Maybe that's all it will be."

Mothers are wonderful at divination; why should they not be, when all their task is a training in understanding young natures which do not understand themselves. From these halting phrases of mystery Mrs. Gray gathered much more than her daughter would have imagined. But she did not let that be seen.

"If it is only a shadowy difficulty the rising of the sun will put it to flight," she predicted.

Roberta was silent for a s.p.a.ce. Then suddenly she sat up.

"I had a long letter from Forbes Westcott to-day," she said, in a tone which tried to be casual. "He's staying on in London, getting material for that difficult Letchworth case he's so anxious to win. It's a wonderfully interesting letter, though he doesn't say much about the case. He's one of the cleverest letter writers I ever knew--in the flesh. It's really an art with him. If he hadn't made a lawyer of himself he would have been a man of letters, his literary tastes are so fine. It's quite an education in the use of delightfully spirited English, a correspondence with him. I've appreciated that more with each letter."

She produced the letter. "Just listen to this account of an interview he had with a distinguished Member of Parliament, the one who has just made that daring speech in the House that set everybody on fire." And she read aloud from several closely written pages, holding the sheets toward the still bright embers, and giving the words the benefit of her own clear and understanding interpretation. Her mother listened with interest.

"That is, indeed, a fine description," she agreed. "There is no question that Forbes has a brilliant mind. The position he already occupies testifies to that, and the older men all acknowledge that he is rising more rapidly than could be expected of any ordinary man. He will be one of the great men of the legal profession, your father and uncle think, I know."

"One of the great men," repeated Roberta, her face still bent over her letter. "I suppose there's no doubt at all of that. And, mother--you may imagine that when he sets himself to persuade--any one--to--any course, he knows how to put it as irresistibly as words can."

"Yes, I should imagine that, dear," said her mother, her eyes on the down-bent profile, whose outlines, against the background of the firelight, would have held a gaze less loving than her own.

"His age makes him interesting, you know," pursued Roberta. "He's just enough older--and maturer--than any of the men I know, to make him seem immensely more worth while. His very looks--that thin, keen face of his--it's plain, yet attractive, and his eyes look as if they could see through stone walls. It flatters you to have him seem to find the things you say worth listening to. I can't just explain his peculiar--fascination--I really think it is that, except that it's his splendid mind that grips yours, somehow. Oh, I sound like a, schoolgirl," she burst out, "in spite of my twenty-four years. I wonder if you see what I mean."

"I think I do," said her mother, smiling a little. "You mean that your judgment approves him, but that your heart lags a little behind?"

"How did you know?" Roberta folded her arms upon her mother's lap, and looked up eagerly into her face. "I didn't say anything about my heart."

"But you did, dear. The very fact that you can discuss him so coolly tells me that your heart isn't seriously involved as yet. Is it?"

"That's what I don't know," said the girl. "When he writes like this--the last two pages I can't read to you--I don't know what I think.

And I'm not used to not knowing what I think! It's disconcerting. It's like being taken off your feet and--not set down again. Yet, when I'm with him--I'm not at all sure I should ever want him nearer than--well, than three feet away. And he's so insistent--persistent. He wants an answer--now, by mail."

"Are you ready to give it?"

"No. I'm afraid to give it--at long distance."

"Then do not. You are under no obligation to do that. The test of actual presence is the only one to apply. Let him wait till he comes home. It will not hurt him."

She spoke with spirit, and her daughter responded to the tone.

"I know that's the best advice," Roberta said, getting to her feet.

"Mother, you like him?"

"Yes, I have always liked Forbes," said Mrs. Gray, with cordiality.

"Your father likes him, and trusts him, as a man of honour, in his profession. That is much to say. Whether he is a man who would make you happy--that is a different question. No one can answer that but yourself."

"I haven't wanted any one to make me happy." Roberta stood upon the hearth-rug, a figure of charm among the lights and shadows. "I've been absorbed in my work--and my play. I enjoy my men friends--and am glad when they go away and leave me. Life is so full--and rich--just of itself. There are so many wonderful people, of all sorts. The world is so interesting--and home is so dear!" She lifted her arms, her head up.

"Mother, let's play the Bach _Air_," she said. "That always takes the fever out of me, and makes me feel calm and rational. Is it very late?--are you too tired? n.o.body will be disturbed at this distance."

"I should love to play it," said Mrs. Gray, and together the two went down the room to the great piano which stood there in the darkness.

Roberta switched on one hooded light, produced the music for her mother, and tuned her 'cello, sitting at one side away from the light, with no notes before her. Presently the slow, deep, and majestic notes of the "Air for the G String" were vibrating through the quiet room, the 'cello player drawing her bow across and across the one string with affection for each rich note in her very touch. The other string tones followed her with exquisite sympathy, for Mrs. Gray was a musician from whom three of her four children had inherited an intense love for harmonic values.

But a few bars had sounded when a tall figure came noiselessly into the room, and Mr. Robert Gray dropped into the seat before the fire which his wife had lately occupied. With head thrown back he listened, and when silence fell at the close of the performance, his deep voice was the first to break it.

"To me," he said, "that is the slow flowing and receding of waves upon a smooth and rocky sh.o.r.e. The sky is gray, but the atmosphere is warm and friendly. It is all very restful, after a day of perturbation."

"Oh, is it like that to you?" queried Roberta softly, out of the darkness. "To me it's as if I were walking down the nave of a great cathedral--Westminster, perhaps--big and bare and wonderful, with the organ playing ever so far away. The sun is s.h.i.+ning outside and so it's not gloomy, only very peaceful, and one can't imagine the world at the doors." She looked over at her mother, whose face was just visible in the shaded light. "What is it to you, lovely lady?"

"It is a prayer," said her mother slowly, "a prayer for peace and purity in a restless world, yet a prayer for service, too. The one who prays lies very low, with his face concealed, and his spirit is full of wors.h.i.+p."

The light was put out; the three, father, mother, and daughter, came together in the fading fire-glow. Roberta laid a warm young hand upon the shoulder of each. "You dears," she said, "what fortunate and happy children your four are, to be the children of you!"

Her father placed his firm fingers under her chin, lifting her face.

"Your mother and I," said he, "consider ourselves fairly fortunate and happy to be the parents of you. You are an interesting quartette. 'Age cannot wither nor custom stale' your 'infinite variety.' But age will wither you if you often sit up to play Bach at midnight, when you must teach school next day. Therefore, good-night, Namesake!"

Yet when she had gone, her father and mother lingered by the last embers of the fire.

"G.o.d give her wisdom!" said Roberta's mother.

"He will--with you to ask Him," replied Roberta's father, with his arms about his wife. "I think He never refuses you anything! I don't see how He could!"

CHAPTER XI

"THE TAMING OF THE SHREW"

"School again, Rob! Don't you hate it?"

"No, of course I don't hate it. I'm much, much happier when I'm teaching Ethel Revell to forget her important young self and remember the part she is supposed to play, than I am when I am merely dusting my room or driving downtown on errands."

As she spoke Roberta pushed into place the last hairpin in the close and trim arrangement of her dark hair, briefly surveyed the result with a hand-gla.s.s, and rose from her dressing-table. Ruth, at a considerably earlier stage of her dressing, regarded her sister's head with interest.

"I can always tell the difference between a school day and another day, just by looking at your hair," she observed, sagely.

"How, Miss Big Eyes, if you please?"