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Page 20
CHAPTER IV
The weeks went on, and James led the same life with practically no
variation. The sense of a mystery or mysteries about the house never
left him, and it irritated him. He was not curious; he did not in the
least care to know in what the mystery consisted, but the fact of
concealment itself was obnoxious to him. As for himself, he never
concealed anything, and when it came to mystery, he had a vague idea of
something shameful, if not criminal. Doctor Gordon's incomprehensible
changes of mood, of almost more than mood, of character even, disturbed
him. Why a man should be one hour a country buffoon, the next an
absorbed gentleman, he could not understand. And he could not understand
also why Clemency had never left the house since he had met her on the
day of his arrival. She evidently was herself angry and sulky at being
housed, but she did not attempt to resist, and whenever Mrs. Ewing
expressed anxiety about her health, she laughed it off, and made some
excuse, such as the badness of the roads, or some Christmas work which
she was anxious to finish. However, at last Mrs. Ewing's concern grew so
evident that Doctor Gordon at dinner one day gave what seemed a
plausible reason for Clemency remaining indoors. "If you will have it,
Clara," he said, "Clemency has a slight pain in her side, and pleurisy
and pneumonia are all about, and I told her that she had better take no
chances, and the weather has been raw."
Mrs. Ewing turned quite white. "Oh, Tom," she murmured, "why didn't you
tell me?"
"I did not tell you, Clara dear, because you would immediately have had
the child in a galloping consumption, and it is really nothing at all. I
only want to be on the safe side."
"It is a very little pain, mother dear," said Clemency. When Clemency
spoke to Mrs. Ewing, her voice had a singing quality. At such times,
although the young man's very soul was possessed of the mother, he could
not help viewing the daughter with favor. But he was puzzled about the
pleurisy. The girl seemed to him entirely well, although she was losing
a little of her warm color from staying indoors. Still, after all, a
pain is as invisible as a spirit. Her friend, Annie Lipton, spent a few
days with her, and then James saw very little of Clemency. The two girls
sat together in Clemency's room, and only the Lord of innocence and
ignorance knew what they talked about. They talked a great deal. James,
whenever he was in the house, was conscious of the distant murmur of
their sweet young voices, although he could not distinguish a word.
Annie Lipton was a prettier girl than Clemency, though without her
personal charm. Her beauty seemed to abash her, and make her indignant.
She was a girl who should have been a nun, and viewed love and lovers
from behind iron bars. She treated James with exceeding coolness.
"Annie Lipton is an anomaly," Doctor Gordon remarked once over his
after-dinner pipe, when they sat in the study listening to the feminine
murmur on the other side of the wall. It sounded like the gentle ripple
of a summer sea.
"Why?" returned James.
"She defies her sex," replied Doctor Gordon, "and still there is nothing
mannish about her. She is a woman angry and ashamed at her womanhood.
If she ever marries, it will be at the cost of a terrible mental
struggle. There are women-haters among men, and there are a very few--so
few as to rank with albinos and white blackbirds in scarcity--man-haters
among women. Annie is a man-hater."
"She is very pretty, too," said James.
"If you attempt the conquest, I'll warn you there will be scaling
ladders and all the ancient paraphernalia of siege needed," said Doctor
Gordon laughingly. James colored.
"It may be that I am a woman-hater," he replied, and looked very young.
Doctor Gordon again laughed.
A little later they went to Georgie K.'s. They went nearly every evening
while Annie Lipton was with Clemency. After she had left they did not go
so often. "It is pretty dull for Clemency," Doctor Gordon would say, and
they would remain at home and play whist with the two ladies. James
began to be quite sure that Doctor Gordon's visits to Georgie K.'s were
mostly made when Mrs. Ewing looked worse than usual and did not eat her
dinner. James became convinced in his own mind that Mrs. Ewing was not
well, although he never dared broach the subject again to the doctor,
and although it made no difference whatever in his own attitude toward
her. As well might he have turned his back upon the Venus, because of
some slight abrasion which her beautiful body had received from the
ages.
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