It was just before New Year’s that Lucy Logan brought a letter for Frederick Towne to sign, and when he had finished she said, “Mr. Towne, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to work any more. So will you please accept my resignation?” He showed his surprise. “What’s the matter? Aren’t we good enough for you?”
“It isn’t that.” She stopped and went on, “I’m going to be married, Mr. Towne.”
“Married?” He was at once congratulatory. “That’s a pleasant thing for you, and I mustn’t spoil it by telling you how hard it is going to be to find someone to take your place.”
“I think if you will have Miss Dale? She’s really very good.”
Frederick was curious. What kind of lover had won this quiet Lucy? Probably some clerk or salesman. “What about the man? Nice fellow, I hope——”
“Very nice, Mr. Towne,” she flushed, and her manner seemed to forbid further questioning. She went away, and he gave orders to the cashier to see[215] that she had an increase in the amount of her final check. “She will need some pretty things. And when we learn the date we can give her a present.”
So on Saturday night Lucy left, and on the following Monday a card was brought up to Edith Towne.
She read it. “Lucy Logan? I don’t believe I know her,” she said to the maid.
“She says she is from Mr. Towne’s office, and that it is important.”
Now Josephine, the parlor maid, had a nice sense of the proprieties which she had learned from Waldron, who was not on duty in the front of the house in the morning. So she had given Lucy a chair in the great hall. Waldron had emphasized that business callers and social inferiors must never be ushered into the drawing-room. The grade below Lucy’s was, indeed, sent around to a side door.
However, there Lucy sat—in a dark blue cape and a small blue hat, and she rose as Edith came up to her.
“Oh, let’s go where we can be comfortable,” Edith said, and led the way through the gray and white drawing-room beyond the peacock screen, to the glowing warmth of the fire.
They were a great contrast, these two women. Edith in a tea-gown of pale yellow was the last word in modishness. Lucy, in her modest blue, had no claims to distinction.
[216]But Lucy was not ill at ease. “Miss Towne,” she said, “I have resigned from your uncle’s office. Did he tell you?”
“No. Uncle Fred rarely speaks about business.”
With characteristic straightforwardness Lucy came at once to the point. “I have something I must talk over with you. I don’t know whether I am doing the wise thing. But it is the only honest thing.”
“I can’t imagine what you can have to say.”
“No you can’t. It’s this——” she hesitated, then spoke with an effort. “I am the girl Mr. Simms is in love with. He wants to come back and marry me.”
Edith’s fingers caught at the arm of the chair. “Do you mean that it was because of you—that he didn’t marry me?”
“Yes. He used to come to the office when he was in Washington and dictate letters. And we got in the way of talking to each other. He seemed to enjoy it, and he wasn’t like some men—who are just—silly. And I began to think about him a lot. But I didn’t let him see it. And—he told me afterward, he was always thinking of me. And the morning of your wedding day he came down to the office—to say ‘Good-bye.’ He said he—just had to. And—well, he let it out that he loved me, and didn’t want to marry you. But he said he would have to go on with it. And—and I told him he must not, Miss Towne.”
[217]Edith stared at her. “Do you mean that what he did was your fault?”
“Yes,” Lucy’s face was white, “if you want to put it that way. I told him he hadn’t any right to marry you if he loved me.” She hesitated, then lifted her eyes to Edith’s with a glance of appeal. “Miss Towne, I wonder if you are big enough to believe that it was just because I cared so much—and not because of his money?”
It was a challenge. Edith had been ready to pour out her wrath on the head of this girl to whom she owed the humiliation of the past weeks, but there was about Lucy a certain sturdiness, a courage which was arresting.
“You think you love him?” she demanded.
“I know I do. And you don’t. You never have. And he didn’t love you. Why—if he should lose every cent to-morrow, and I had to tramp the road with him, I’d do it gladly. And you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t want him unless he could give you everything you have now, would you? Would you, Miss Towne?”
Edith’s sense of justice dictated her answer. “No,” she found herself unexpectedly admitting. “If I had to tramp the roads with him, I’d be bored to death.”
“I think he knew that, Miss Towne. He told me that if he didn’t marry you, your heart wouldn’t be broken. That it would just hurt your pride.”
Edith had a moment of hysterical mirth. How[218] they had talked her over. Her lover—and her uncle’s stenographer! What a tragedy it had been! And what a comedy!
She leaned forward a little, locking her fingers about her knees. “I wish you’d tell me all about it.”
“I don’t know just what to tell. Except that we’ve been writing to each other. I said that we must wait three months. It didn’t seem fair to you to have him marry too soon.”
Uncle Fred’s stenographer sorry for her! “Go on,” Edith said, tensely.
So Lucy told the simple story. And in telling it showed herself so naive, so steadfast, that Edith was aware of an increasing respect for the woman who had taken her place in the heart of her lover. She perceived that Lucy had come to this interview in no spirit of triumph. She had dreaded it, but had felt it her duty. “I thought it would be easier for you if you knew it before other people did.”
Edith’s forehead was knitted in a slight frown. “The whole thing has been most unpleasant,” she said. “When are you going to marry him?”
“I told him on St. Valentine’s day. It seemed—romantic.”
Romance and Del! Edith had a sudden illumination. Why, this was what he had wanted, and she had given him none of it! She had laughed at him—been his good comrade. Little Lucy adored[219] him—and had set St. Valentine’s day for the wedding!
There was nothing small about Edith Towne. She knew fineness when she saw it, and she had a feeling of humility in the presence of little Lucy. “I think it was my fault as much as Del’s,” she stated. “I should never have said ‘Yes.’ People haven’t any right to marry who feel as we did.”
“Oh,” Lucy said rapturously, “how dear of you to say that. Miss Towne, I always knew you were—big. But I didn’t dream you were so beautiful.” Tears wet her cheeks. “You’re just—marvellous,” she said, wiping them away.
“No, I’m not.” Edith’s eyes were on the fire. “Normally, I am rather proud and—hateful. If you had come a week ago——” Her voice fell away into silence as she still stared at the fire.
Lucy looked at her curiously. “A week ago?”
Edith nodded. “Do you like fairy tales? Well, once there was a princess. And a page came and sang—under her window.” The fire purred and crackled. “And the princess—liked the song——”
“Oh,” said Lucy, under her breath.
“Well, that’s all,” said Edith; “I don’t know the end.” She stretched herself lazily. Her loose sleeves, floating away from her bare arms, gave the effect of wings. Lucy, looking at her, wondered how it had ever happened that Delafield could have turned his eyes from that rare beauty to her own undistinguished prettiness.
[220]She stood up. “I can’t tell you how thankful I am that I came.”
“You’re not going to run away yet,” Edith told her. “I want y............