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Page 37
When that morning she had seen Peabody running up the steps of
the Elevated, all the doubts, the troubles, questions, and
misgivings that night and day for the last three months had
upset her, fell from her shoulders like the pilgrim's heavy
pack. For months she had been telling herself that the unrest
she felt when with Peabody was due to her not being able to
appreciate the importance of those big affairs in which he was
so interested; in which he was so admirable a figure. She
had, as she supposed, loved him, because he was earnest,
masterful, intent of purpose. His had seemed a fine
character. When she had compared him with the amusing boys of
her own age, the easy-going joking youths to whom the
betterment of New York was of no concern, she had been proud
in her choice. She was glad Peabody was ambitious. She was
ambitious for him. She was glad to have him consult her on
those questions of local government, to listen to his fierce,
contemptuous abuse of Tammany. And yet early in their
engagement she had missed something, something she had never
known, but which she felt sure should exist. Whether she had
seen it in the lives of others, or read of it in romances, or
whether it was there because it was nature to desire to be
loved, she did not know. But long before Winthrop returned
from his trip round the world, in her meetings with the man
she was to marry, she had begun to find that there was
something lacking. And Winthrop had shown her that this
something lacking was the one thing needful. When Winthrop
had gone abroad he was only one of her brother's several
charming friends. One of the amusing merry youths who came
and went in the house as freely as Sam himself. Now, after
two years' absence, he refused to be placed in that category.
He rebelled on the first night of his return. As she came
down to the dinner of welcome her brother was giving Winthrop,
he stared at her as though she were a ghost, and said, so
solemnly that every one in the room, even Peabody, smiled:
"Now I know why I came home." That he refused to recognize
her engagement to Peabody, that on every occasion he told her,
or by some act showed her, he loved her; that he swore she
should never marry any one but himself, and that he would
never marry any one but her, did not at first, except to
annoy, in any way impress her.
But he showed her what in her intercourse with Peabody was
lacking. At first she wished Peabody could find time to be as
fond of her, as foolishly fond of her, as was Winthrop. But
she realized that this was unreasonable. Winthrop was just a
hot-headed impressionable boy, Peabody was a man doing a man's
work. And then she found that week after week she became more
difficult to please. Other things in which she wished Peabody
might be more like Winthrop, obtruded themselves. Little
things which she was ashamed to notice, but which rankled; and
big things, such as consideration for others, and a sense of
humor, and not talking of himself. Since this campaign began,
at times she had felt that if Peabody said "I" once again, she
must scream. She assured herself she was as yet unworthy of
him, that her intelligence was weak, that as she grew older
and so better able to understand serious affairs, such as the
importance of having an honest man at Albany as
Lieutenant-Governor, they would become more in sympathy. And
now, at a stroke, the whole fabric of self-deception fell from
her. It was not that she saw Peabody so differently, but that
she saw herself and her own heart, and where it lay. And she
knew that "Billy" Winthrop, gentle, joking, selfish only in
his love for her, held it in his two strong hands.
For the moment, when as she sat in the car deserted by Peabody
this truth flashed upon her, she forgot the man lying injured
in the street, the unscrubbed mob crowding about her. She was
conscious only that a great weight had been lifted. That her
blood was flowing again, leaping, beating, dancing through her
body. It seemed as though she could not too quickly tell
Winthrop. For both of them she had lost out of their lives
many days. She had risked losing him for always. Her only
thought was to make up to him and to herself the wasted time.
But throughout the day the one-time welcome, but now
intruding, friends and the innumerable conventions of
hospitality required her to smile and show an interest, when
her heart and mind were crying out the one great fact.
It was after dinner, and the members of the house party were
scattered between the billiard-room and the piano. Sam Forbes
returned from the telephone.
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