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Page 22
"Does she know?" asked James, half-gasping.
"You mean does Clemency know I am ill?"
"Yes."
"She knows I am ill. She does not know how terrible it is. You must help
me to keep it from her. I almost never give way when she is present. I
knew she was taking a nap this afternoon, and the pain was so awful. It
is better now. I think I will go to my room and lie down for a while."
Mrs. Ewing rose, and extended her hand to James. "I have forgotten
already what you told me," she said.
"I can never forget!"
"You must, or you must go away from here."
"I can never forget, but it shall be a thing of the past," said James.
"That is right," Mrs. Ewing said with a maternal air. "It will only take
a little effort. You will see."
She went out of the room with a flounce of red draperies, and left
James. He sat down beside a window and stared out blankly. The thought
came to him, how many avowals of love and deathless devotion such a
woman must have listened to. Her manner of receiving his made him think
that there had been many. "It is quite proper," he thought to himself.
"A woman like that is born to be worshiped." Then he thought of what she
had told him, and a sort of rage filled his heart. He recognized the
fact that she had been right in her estimation of the worship of a young
man. He is always trying to turn his idol into clay.
The door opened and Clemency entered, but he did not notice it. She came
and sat down in front of him, and looked angrily at him, then for the
first time he saw her. He rose. "I beg your pardon, I did not hear you
come in," he said.
"Sit down again," said Clemency pettishly. "Don't be silly. I am used
to having young men not see anybody but my mother when she comes into a
room, and it is quite right, too. I don't think there ever was a woman
so beautiful as she, do you?"
"No, I don't," replied James.
Clemency eyed him keenly. Then she blushed at the surmise which came to
her, and James also blushed at the knowledge of the surmise. "You can't
be much older than I am. I am twenty-three," said Clemency after a
while. Then the red suffused her very throat.
"I am twenty-three, too," said James. Then he added bluntly, for he
began to be angry, "A man can think a woman the most beautiful he ever
saw without--"
"Oh, I didn't think you were such a fool," said Clemency; then she
added, in a meek and shamed voice, "I should have been awfully disgusted
with you if you had not thought my mother the most beautiful woman you
ever saw, and I am used to men not seeing me. I don't want them to. I
think I feel something as Annie Lipton does about men. She says she
feels as if she wanted to kill every man who looks at her as if he
loved her. I think I should, too."
"Miss Lipton has a great many admirers," remarked James by way of
changing the subject.
"Oh, yes, every young man for miles around, ever since she was grown up.
She doesn't like any of them." Clemency looked at James with sudden
concern. "I am going to tell you something," she said, "even if it is
rather betraying confidence. I think I ought to. Annie told me she had
taken a great dislike to you, from the very first moment she saw you, so
it would be no use--"
"I am sorry," replied James stiffly, "but as I had no particular feeling
for her, except admiration of her beauty, it makes no especial
difference."
"I thought, of course, you would fall in love with her," said Clemency.
Then she added, with most inexplicable inverted jealousy, "You must have
very poor taste, or you would. You are the first one."
"Some one has to be first," James said, laughing.
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