CHAPTER XXII

After Fred had gone out into the wilderness, and learned her lesson; after that long day in the cottage, when her mind had emptied itself of some of its own certainties, so that deep, primitive knowledges could flow into it, she took up life again in her own way. She went to her office, she exercised Zip, she accepted every invitation that came to her; but she got thin. "Scrawny," her grandmother called it. Also, she expended a good deal of money on a bridesmaid's dress—for something had happened! Happened, curiously enough, on the very afternoon when she was studying that hard page of Nature's book, all alone, in the empty cottage by the lake....

The very next morning Laura had burst into 15 Payton Street. "Swear not to tell," she said; and when Fred had sworn, the secret—glowing, wonderful! was told in two words:

"I'm engaged!"

Then came an ecstatic recital, ending with "I've decided on daffodil yellow for your dresses. Rather far ahead—for it isn't to be until the middle of December. But I think it's just as well to plan, don't you?"

"Of course it is," Fred agreed. ("Oh, if I only hadn't asked him!")

[Pg 243]

"Billy-boy will juggle out enough money for the finest satin going, for his only daughter; but you girls can have perfectly sweet flowered voile, over yellow charmeuse. I've a corking idea for your hats." Then she looked at Fred closely. "You're not a bit surprised; I believe you knew what was going to happen!"

Fred laughed non-committally. Laura herself had been so far from knowing what was going to happen, that Howard Maitland had to fairly pound it into her that he was in love with her! He had not meant to tell her so soon. It wouldn't be decent, he thought, remembering that night in the cottage. He hadn't meant to speak for at least a month. He was going to mark time, and forget that there had ever been a minute when Fred Payton had imagined she cared about him—"for, of course, that was all it amounted to," he told himself; "imagination!" There was more modesty than truth in his phrase, yet his conviction was sincere enough—"A girl like Fred couldn't really care for me. I'm not up to her!"

It was characteristic of his simple soul, that he told Laura the same thing, when he blundered into the proposal that he had meant to hold back for a month. It was wrung from him by his despair at her misunderstanding his feeling about Fred. He was in full swing of haranguing her upon the wonderfulness of her cousin—"Of course; she's perfectly stunning," Laura had interrupted; "I know she's simply great. But why on earth you two don't announce your engagement I can't imagine! You make me a little tired," she said, good-naturedly, but rather obviously bored.

[Pg 244]

"Announce our what?"

"Engagement. Do you suppose we are all blind?"

Howard Maitland actually whitened a little under his Philippine tan. "You are mistaken, Laura," he said, quietly. "If I have given you the impression that Fred had the slightest feeling for me, I ought to be kicked."

Laura turned an indignant face toward him: "Do you mean to tell me that Fred has only been flirting with you? I don't believe it! She's not that kind."

They were in the Childses' parlor in the yellow dusk of the autumn afternoon. Laura had given her caller two cups of tea with four lumps of sugar in each cup, and Howard, between innumerable little cakes, had been telling her again of Frederica's behavior that terrible night at the camp. It was at least the third time that she had heard the grim details, and each time she had shivered and wished he would stop. To silence him, she had charged upon him for not announcing his engagement; it seemed flippant, but it would change the subject. His dismay made her forget Flora, in real bewilderment. Not engaged to Fred! Had Fred played with him?

"If Fred's been just flirting, she ought to be ashamed," Laura said, hotly; "she knew you were perfectly gone on her."

"Laura, you didn't suppose such a thing?"

"That you were gone on Fred? Of course I did! I knew you were crazy about her, a year ago; and so did she. Howard, I'm awfully sorry."

"Sorry—for what?"

"For you."

[Pg 245]

Howard Maitland got on his feet, and walked the length of the room, and back; he said something under his breath. Then he drew up a chair beside her and took her hand.

"I never thought of such a thing."

"What!"

"You are the only girl I ever cared two cents for."

She put her hand against her young breast, in astounded question: "I?"

"I should think you'd have seen it. You, and—and everybody."

"But Howard, it can't be—me?" she protested, faintly.

"It's been you, always. When you accuse me of being in love with—with anybody else, and say everybody thought so, you just bowl me over!" His shocked astonishment left no doubt of his sincerity.

"But Freddy," Laura began—

He broke in sharply: "Fred knows how tremendously I admire her. I've always said so, to you and to her, too. And I believe she likes me as much as she likes any of us fellows—but of course I'm not up to her, and she never flirted with me in her life! She's not the kind of girl who wants to collect scalps," he said, almost with anger. "I never thought of—caring for her. Why, I—I couldn't care for Fred!"

"But you were always talking about her, and—"

"Of course I talked about her! Doesn't everybody talk about her? But as for being in love with her—Laura, I tell you, you are the only girl in existence, so far as I'm concerned. I suppose you don't care anything about me."

[Pg 246]

Laura put her hands over her face, and laughed; then stretched them out to him, and the tears brimmed over.... "Oh, Howard, you are such a goose!"

There was a speechless moment; then he put his arms around her, kissed the fluffy hair that brushed his lips, and said, "Oh, my little darling! my little love...."

After that they had to talk it all over, and there were endless explanations.

"You do believe I never thought of—anybody else?" he asked, again and again. And she said yes, she believed it, but she didn't understand it.

"Why, I was so sure you were in love with her, I used to give you chances to be together. Do you remember that afternoon you went to say good-by to her, before you went to the Philippines? I stayed up-stairs to give you a chance to ask her."

"Laura!"

"I did."

"How could you be so absurd?"

"Everybody thought so."

That silenced him. He was horribly ashamed. It was his fault, then, that night in the cottage? "Everybody thought so." So, naturally, Fred thought so—and she was the noblest and most generous woman in the world! "It's my fault somehow, that she spoke," he told himself, in a passion of humiliation.

That night he wrote to her. The engagement was not to "come out" for two or three weeks;—"only the family must know," Laura said; but Howard had protested: "Fred—let's tell Fred?"

[Pg 247]

"Well," Laura consented, reluctantly, "I'll go and see her to-morrow morning and make her swear not to tell."

"She can keep a secret," he said. He did not add that Fred should learn the secret before to-morrow morning. "I'm the one to break it to her," he thought. Then mentally kicked himself for saying "break it."

When he sat down at his desk that night to write to her, his face was rigid at what was before him; it was nearly dawn before the task was finished; letters—long letters, short letters, letters expressing his admiration for her, letters ignoring it, letters about Laura, about the Philippines, about Flora—were written out, torn up, flung into the waste-basket. Then came the brief, blunt truth-telling: Laura had accepted him, and he knew that she, his old pal, would wish them happiness. Of course there was a postscript: she would be their very best friend, because they both thought she was the finest woman they knew.

When the letter was addressed and sealed, he went out into the four-o'clock-in-the-morning stillness, and walked over to Payton Street to slip it into the letter-box of the sleeping house. He would not trust it to the mail; he would run no risk of Laura's arriving before the first delivery. Fred mustn't be caught off guard! Then he walked home—glanced at a little suspiciously by an officer on his somnolent beat—about as uncomfortable a young man as ever realized his own happiness in contrast to some one else's unhappiness—for, in spite of his modest disclaimer, he knew that Fred was unhappy: "How would[Pg 248] I feel if Laura had refused me? And, of course, Fred is harder hit than a man would be."

But, no matter how hard hit she was, thanks to that letter, the next morning, when Laura swore her to secrecy, and said that the bridesmaids' hats would be dreams! Fred's upper lip was smilingly stiff.

It was just after that that Mrs. Holmes began to say that her granddaughter was "scrawny."