BOOK TWO: FRANKIE’S BRIEF DAY (continued 2)

But the fascination wore off a bit for Frances after she had experienced something of Julie’s famous rudeness. She was utterly ignored. Horace tried to talk to her, but he was not fluent, and his dinner engrossed him. She had nothing to do but listen to Julie talking to Lionel, a torrent of gossip about people not personally known to either of them, glib comment on plays and books and fashions and dances. Lionel’s interest lay in just these things; he had as many stories as she: those mysterious tales of prominent people, confidential to a degree, heard from someone who really knows.... If Lionel hated and despised Julie and she loathed him, they dissembled it well. They were friendly, they were more than friendly, they were comrades. He had never talked with such interest to Frankie!

“Did you notice Mrs. Lord on the Avenue yesterday, Li? I never saw such a fool. A skirt like that with her celebrated bowlegs!”

And so on. The impossibleness of Julie was now fully evident to Frances, the gross vulgarity beneath her dainty charm, the malice, the nastiness in her shallow heart. She was glad Lionel didn’t like her; she told herself that his absorption in her chatter was only politeness.

When the dinner was over, she retired with Julie to a little music room, where Julie began to smoke. She changed abruptly now that there were no men about, became frankly, brutally hard.

“Well!” she said. “You’ve picked a winner! When Horace told me Li was going to be married, I couldn’t believe it. I told him there wasn’t a girl on earth who’d be such a fool.”

“Why?” asked Frances coldly.

“The boy’s a joke, my dear child! A perfect joke! The biggest idiot there is. He spent all the money his mother left him in two years, just making a fool of himself. And now he expects to sit down on Horace for the rest of his little life. It makes me sick.”

Frances had grown rather pale.

“I suppose he thinks he is welcome in his brother’s house,” she said.

“Lord! He knows I’m sick and tired of his hanging about. It’s not that! He doesn’t care whether he’s welcome or not. He worries us to death. And that chump of a Horace always gives in to him. I only hope you’ll be able to do something with him. I’ve told old Horace we didn’t understand that in this country—a young, able-bodied man sitting round the house, living on someone else. I said if Horace had any money to waste, he could waste it on me. I can do with all he’s got!”

Frances, shocked, outraged, stunned by this sudden and vigorous attack, tried to rally.

“He does work,” she said.

“Work! My God! Horace told me himself what an infernal nuisance Li is in the office. He comes in late and fiddles about a bit, and then goes uptown again. Work! He just likes to call the money he gets out of Horace a salary instead of graft. It comforts his little pride. Let’s see your ring!” she demanded suddenly.

Frances took it off and handed it to her.

“Two carats! And look at the setting! For God’s sake! I bet poor Horace had to shell out heavily for that!”

Frances did not put it on again; she held it in her hand. She was in anguish, so great that she was afraid she would not be able to hide it much longer. It called for every ounce of self-control she possessed to speak in a fairly natural voice.

“I didn’t understand the situation,” she said, “and I’m sure—he didn’t—entirely realise——”

“I’ve spoken plainly enough to make him ‘realise.’ No; he’s a hopeless case; I only wanted to warn you that Horace isn’t going to take care of a whole family. Oh, don’t get furious! I know you didn’t know about it! Only Li’s a grafter born and bred.”

“You misjudge him,” said Frances sternly. She wasn’t going to be routed by this horrible little savage. “I don’t think you’re able to understand a man of his type.”

“My Lord! I’ve met dozens like him. Just a nice, harmless little grafter. You’ll find them in every hotel in the city. My dear child, I know men mighty well. I’ve had experience!”

Then, to Frankie’s indescribable relief, she left the topic of Lionel and began a history of her own life, with particular emphasis on her suitors. Her father had been a “Cattle King,” she told her, in all seriousness, a millionaire. She had been brought up on a ranch, and then sent to school in the East, to “finish.”

“The best school in New York,” she said. “Dad had a hard time to get me in. But I hated it. I had a great deal of talent for drawing, so I just walked out of the school and got a studio in Washington Square, and plunged right in. I got lots of work from the start, fashions and society sketches. Popper was tickled to death. He said he’d double every cent I made, and he did. He likes independence. But I gave that all up when I got married. I’ve taken up dancing. I’ve got a regular gift for it. I could go on the stage to-morrow if I wanted. I’ve had offers from the big managers.”

The men came in then, and she offered an exhibition.

“I’ll show you the dance I’m going to do in the Fresh Air Fund Bazaar. You play, Li; go over this music while I get ready,” and she disappeared for a long time.

Lionel sat down at the piano and began obediently to try the music she had handed him; a sensual, banal thing, called new, but very reminiscent. He turned his head to smile at Frankie, and then gave his attention to the music, innocently satisfied with the answering smile he had had from her. The light from the lamp shone on his sleek head; he looked so young, so very slim, so fragile and well-bred; her heart ached for him in his unconscious shame. Of course, of course, he didn’t realise! She no more despised him than a mother despises a greedy child.

Julie came back in a costume which completed Frankie’s nightmare of misery and shame. She called it Hindu. Her slim legs and feet were bare, and her body so gauzily covered.... Frances involuntarily glanced at her husband, but he was staring up at the smoke rings he was blowing.

Her dancing was good—quite beautiful. But Frances was not an artist, not an æsthete; she was something of a prig and very much of a Defoe. A little—a tiny bit more of either in her nature would have turned the balance and sent her to her feet in terrible indignation. However, she was able to endure the exhibition with apparent coolness, watched the half-naked Julie twisting supplely before Lionel’s eyes without a visible trace of what she felt.

But how immeasurably glad she was to get away!

“Please send away the taxi,” she asked Lionel. “I’d like to walk a little way. And talk to you.”

Cheerful and unsuspicious, he complied.

“Wonderful night!” he remarked, looking with grateful eyes at the river.

She clutched his arm.

“Oh, Lionel!” she cried, and he was startled to hear a sob in her voice.

“What’s wrong, dearest girl?” he asked anxiously, trying to see her face in the dark.

“That awful—that dreadful, disgusting woman——” she said, in a broken voice. “Oh, Lionel! You can’t imagine!...”

“Did she say anything to upset you, old girl?”

“It’s not that—— It’s ... I didn’t know——”

She dried her eyes and spoke more calmly, all her courage, all her pride, all her love impelling her. She held out the ring, glittering marvellously in the light of a street lamp.

He stared at it in stupefaction.

“Frances!” he cried.

“Please take it! Lionel! My dear boy! I couldn’t wear it.... She said—he had to pay for it. That it’s all his money.... Oh, my dear old Lionel, don’t you see? I’ll wait—till you can get me one—of your own!”

Regardless of passers-by, he put his arm about her waist.

“Frankie,” he said, “I’ll do exactly what you want—always. I know I’m not nearly good enough for you. Only tell me what you want me to do.”

“I want you to be a man!” she cried passionately, and began to cry again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I

Frances was a prey to remorse that night. She took into consideration Lionel’s upbringing, Horace’s indulgence to him, his own generous and careless nature, and she felt that she had hurt him cruelly and unjustly. The thought of his flouted ring brought her almost to tears.

He was very proud, very sensitive in his own queer way. She was even a little afraid that he wouldn’t come back, or that, if he did, he would be changed.

It was a great relief to hear him through the telephone, in quite his usual voice, at his usual hour of five o’clock.

“What about a walk this evening?” he suggested. “I’ll be waiting at the door for you at eight.”

He was remarkably solemn and correct; he took Frankie’s arm without a word and set off toward Madison Avenue. It was a warm, misty evening in late September, enervating weather. Frankie was tired and nervous and filled with apprehension. Was he going to reproach her?

He pulled out of his pocket a little bundle of papers fastened by a rubber band, and gave it to her.

“My bank book,” he said, “and all the other stuff. You’d better take charge of it, old girl.... I’ll tell you just how I stand, and you can tell me what I’d better do.”

“Oh, Lionel!” she cried, “You dear old thing! And I was so afraid you’d be hurt or offended!”

“I think you’re right—all that you said,” he answered seriously. “I want to make a new start—begin over again. Only it’s rather hopeless. I’ve a hundred and five pounds a year income from my mother, and that’s all. No prospects. Not a relative who could leave me a son. And eighty dollars in the bank. Rather dismal, isn’t it?”

“Not a bit! Fancy having an income, and calling the outlook dismal! And you’re young, you’ve got everything before you. You’re sure to find a good job before very long——”

“Yes, but my dear girl, that eighty dollars is all I’ve got to live on for three months and a half, until my next remittance comes. Unless I stop on in Horace’s office——”

“No, no! You mustn’t stay there! Please, please break off all that, won’t you?”

“Whatever you say, old girl. But where am I to live if I leave Horace’s?”

“I’ll find you a place,” she said, rashly.

“I’ll have to explain to him, though.... What shall I say?”

He really did not understand quite what was expected of him, or what he was doing. It was somehow a fine thing to renounce his comfort and security, and declare himself independent, and as long as Frances wished it, he was willing to do it. But it was a bit—theatrical. After all these years to refuse old Horace’s money.

“I’ll pop in and take lunch with him to-morrow,” he said.

“And tell him that you’re going to stand on your own feet,” urged Frances. “He’ll understand. And think all the more of you. Tell him—be sure—that you appreciate all he’s done for you, but that now you’re going to take care of yourself.”

He agreed.

“I’ll come and tell you about it as soon as it’s over,” he said. “You can expect me about three.”

She didn’t know with what a heavy heart he went upon this errand, or how well it proved his love and admiration for her. She didn’t know, or suspect, what he felt for Horace, and how he dreaded hurting him. Otherwise, she might have understood that he would necessarily be stupid and clumsy and muddle the whole thing, as he did....

II

Miss Eppendorfer was lying down in her bedroom, not to be disturbed. Kurt was not coming that evening, and the poor woman had seized the chance of gratifying her long-starved vice. So that Frances was as good as alone. She waited half an hour for Lionel without thinking much about it; they wouldn’t be able to talk anyway. She couldn’t go out and leave the authoress in her present condition, and she never entertained Lionel in the flat. They both considered it incorrect. Still, he could tell her what Horace had said. She was anxious about that interview. She was afraid that Horace might have begged him to go on living with him; that he might have weakened Lionel’s very new independence.

An hour passed, and she grew a little restless. It wasn’t like Lionel to keep her waiting. Why didn’t he telephone? She picked up a book and began to read. Another hour. She made herself a cup of tea and tried to be angry, with all the time a dull alarm in her heart. Six o’clock! Her anxiety grew unbearable, in that silent flat, worse than alone. She was not much given to tears, but she shed some now. It grew dark; she lighted a lamp and pulled down the shades and flung herself on the sofa.

She thought the same things any woman would have thought; that he had met with an accident, been run over, that he was injured, dying, perhaps dead. Then that he had deserted her, because he no longer loved her. Then that there was some mistake, that he had meant Sunday....

At last there was a ring at the bell, and she flew to open the door. Lionel stood outside.

“Lionel!” she cried. “I’ve been so worried! What has been the matter?”

He said nothing, made no move to enter.

“Come in,” she said impatiently, “and tell me what’s kept you.”

Her alarm increased every minute; there was something queer about him....

She took his arm and pulled him gently into the sitting room; then when she was able to look at him in the lamp-light, she knew. She had seen that silly smile, that flush before, had heard that thick and faltering voice.

Her heart seemed to stop beating; her blazing eyes were fixed on his face.

“You’re drunk,” she said, with what contempt, disgust, and bitterness! “You’d better go.”

But he sat down on the sofa and began to cry forlornly, like a child.

“Stop!” she said. “Stop! Miss Eppendorfer’ll hear you.”

“I can’t!” he sobbed.

She closed the door into the hall, and went back to the sofa to find him incredibly and suddenly asleep. She couldn’t at first believe in a slumber so very sudden. She shook him.

“Get up and go away!” she said, but it had no effect. There he lay, breathing heavily through his mouth, flushed, oddly serious in his expression, like a weary victor in some mighty struggle.

Frances gave way to a sort of frenzy.

“I can’t have two of you!” she cried.

Recklessly she opened the door of Miss Eppendorfer’s room, found her also sound asleep, not to be wakened. She revolted utterly then, locked herself into her own little room, careless of what might happen to those others.

For the first time in her life she remained awake all night. Early in the morning, before it was quite light, she slipped into the kitchen to make tea, and then went again to wake Lionel. This time it was not so hard. She gave him a cup of tea, stood in stony silence while he gulped it down, handed him his hat and overcoat, and firmly pushed him, dazed and passive, out of the door.

III

Miss Eppendorfer remained in bed until noon; she was “better” she said, but exhausted and listless. Frances was inordinately busy. She typed page after page of the authoress’s manuscript, and when there was absolutely no more to copy, set to work cleaning the table silver. She did not wish to think. It was the end of the world. Nothing ahead, nothing she could endure to contemplate.

She hated Miss Eppendorfer because Lionel had been drunk. It was an illogical and unjust feeling, but she couldn’t repress it. She kept away from her as much as possible. She was very thankful to see her go out, arm in arm, with her cousin Kurt, to a concert for which she had bought tickets for a fabulous price. She thought she would go out herself, perhaps to church; she had begun to get ready, in fact, when Lionel arrived. Lionel exactly the same, nonchalant, superior, not a trace even of fatigue——

“The hall-boy told me Miss E. and the German chap had gone out, so I thought I’d come up,” he said.

Frances was frigidly silent.

“I owe you an explanation,” he went on, “only—I haven’t any. I ... had an awful row with Horace, and it knocked me up, and I ... tried to—more or less—forget it.”

“No doubt you succeeded.”

She spoke with cold precision, like a school teacher to a prejudged culprit; and he, acknowledging her claims as he always did, forced himself to explain. It was wretched for him, an almost intolerable humiliation to be called to account in this way; he was ashamed of himself, and he longed passionately to drop the subject forever. But Frances was the woman who had promised to marry him, and he felt he owed it to her.

“You see, he was offended.... He thought—wanted me to be more—gradual. Stop on in his office, at least. And in the end, we quarrelled. I told him I wouldn’t take anything more from him—all that you advised, and so forth. And he—but what’s the use in repeating all that? It’s the first row we’ve ever had.”

He could not tell her how he regretted old Horace, with what affection and pain he remembered his benefits; couldn’t explain how much this “row” had hurt him. He had been horribly tactless and had wounded and infuriated Horace, without making it clear to him—or to himself—what it was about.

If he expected sympathy he was disappointed. If he had only apologised, said he was ashamed and sorry, she would have melted completely; it was this insistence upon the misfortune of having quarrelled with Horace, this cool passing over of his own beastliness, that she couldn’t stand. She didn’t even ask him to sit down, but remained standing herself, looking straight at him.

“I’m awfully sorry,” he said, “that I came here like that. Awfully sorry. It wasn’t fair to you. But I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

Frances laughed shortly.

“Don’t bother to apologise. Why should I object to being alone all night with two drunken beasts——”

“I say!” he protested.

“It’s evident,” she went on, “that you don’t know at all how I look at that. How I loathe it. I’d rather not talk about it at all. I’d rather you’d go.”

“You don’t mean that, Frankie, old girl!”

“I do!”

He searched her face.

“Frankie, you don’t mean ... I see you do, though. Very well, I’ll go.... But, Frankie!... Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!” said Frankie.

IV

Frankie resolved to forget Lionel. She tried her best.

“I made a mistake,” she said to herself. “Very well! It’s over and done with now. I’m not going to be a sentimental idiot. It’s over!”

It wasn’t, though. Her loneliness was bitter, her wound profound; she had nothing to sustain her but her own self-righteousness—cold comfort in that. It was all very well to tell herself Lionel was no good; whether he was or not, she wanted him back. Worst of all was her worry about him. She was convinced that without her he was lost, was helpless—what all women think about their men. She had the loftiest views about women anyway, and their influence. They were ordained the spiritual monitors of men, as well as the natural guardians of their healths and pocketbooks. Woman was the practical one, the conserver, the frequenter of savings banks; she was also the beauty and the charm of life. What remained was Man.

Frances had planned a future for them with care; and little by little she fancied she was improving the man himself, making him more responsible, more sedate, more what a woman demands of a husband. She was too intelligent to understand him. She couldn’t manage him and comprehend him as an ignorant, emotional woman would have done. With every new idea, every book read, she had retreated from the position that was her birthright.

She thought over Lionel with a passionate desire to do right; tried to obtain guidance from her brain while her heart was dumb. She wondered whether it did him more good to see how seriously she regarded his offence, or whether it would have helped him more to forgive him. Never considered it simply as a matter of cruelty or kindness. She was so concerned with thinking of what was morally best for Lionel that she neglected her own soul’s good.

And without doubt her soul suffered. She was becoming irritable, intolerant, over-haughty, wrapped up in her own affairs. She needed Lionel badly, needed his carelessness, his sweet temper. In spite of that, she thought she was “getting over” it splendidly; being sensible, and so on. She was able to eat and to sleep and to live as usual; even looked the same. And then, suddenly, one night, woke up with a piercing pain, a most irresistible tenderness and longing for him.

“How could I have been so heartless!” she asked herself, sitting up in bed, and clasping her hands hysterically. “What did it matter, what he did? What do I care about that? Lionel! Darling! I want you back so!”

She got up then and there and wrote to him, addressing it in care of Horace.

V

He came the next evening. Quite in accordance with his extreme character he had in ten days’ time become unnecessarily wretched and shabby in looks and manners. He was even thinner.

He had looked and looked for a job, he said, but no one would have an inexperienced man of his age. He was in despair. So that Frances could not for an instant maintain her injured majesty, but had to comfort and fortify him, even to cry over him a little.

“Don’t be discouraged!” she entreated, stroking his hair. “Poor old boy!”

“But I haven’t a penny! I used that money in the bank. I’ve moved into a cheap boarding-house. But still I can’t manage. And my remittance doesn’t come until January.”

Followed an extraordinary period for the lovers. Lionel pawned his watch, his travelling-bag, his cuff-buttons, one thing after another. He would get down to his last dollar and come to Frankie, white with despair, and she would think of something else to do. He would come back from each of these visits to the pawn-shop jubilant and pleading for a “celebration,” but Frankie never permitted it. He put everything into her hands without reserve, and received back what she allowed him, unquestioningly. They frequented cinemas instead of theatres; he found a cheaper brand of cigarettes. He did it all, too, with such generosity and simplicity that Frankie was utterly enslaved. He was her child, her ewe lamb, she watched over him, planned for him, guided him, with passionate devotion.

He alternated between ghastly worry that made him talk about suicide, and the wildest hopefulness. It was Frances who bore the brunt of the misery. She fretted continually, couldn’t sleep at night. She thought and schemed and planned for means of sustaining this beloved creature, above all trying to secure him proper food three times a day without his suspecting that some of its cost came from her own pocket. Luckily he almost always forgot how much he had given her to keep for him, and how much he had spent out of it. He didn’t imagine the suffering he caused her. On the contrary, he believed that his fits of extravagant gaiety, in reality quite beyond his control, were contrived especially to cheer up Frances.

He was sometimes ready to admit to himself that Frankie’s disposition was not quite what he had once thought it. She was absolutely cross. Time after time she refused to go out with him, even to the “movies”; she said they couldn’t afford it.

“But you don’t realise,” he protested, “how much I need a bit of recreation.”

“I realise how much you’re going to need a bit of money,” she replied grimly. “You can’t be childish. You’ll have to do without everything but necessities for a while.”

VI

Inspiration came from a wholly unexpected source. Frankie was sitting in her room in the dark one evening, after a walk with Lionel, exhausted from her effort to encourage him in a mood of black despair. She had drawn her chair up to the window and sat looking out over the roof of the next house at the cloudy sky. There was the usual noise from the court, the shrill children who never went to bed, the phonographs, a woman singing in a piercing, artificial voice. She was used to it now, scarcely heard it, but it filled her ears, and she was unaware of Miss Eppendorfer’s entrance until she touched her on the shoulder.

“I knocked and knocked!” said she. “I wanted to ask you to make me a cup of coffee; I’m so nervous.”

Frankie said ‘Of course’ but her voice was weary, and Miss Eppendorfer noticed it.

“What’s the trouble, my dear?” she asked, kindly. “Let’s sit here and talk a while.”

She sat down on the bed where she could reach out and lay a friendly hand on Frankie’s arm.

“I’ve noticed—it’s not curiosity.... It’s only that I’m very fond of you—you can’t imagine how fond of you, my dear.... I don’t expect you to return it. I know I’m not lovable. And probably you despise me for—lots of things. But, my dear! My dear! I do wish you so well! I’d do anything! If you’d like to tell me, perhaps I could help.... I’ve had experience enough. I could understand.”

Frances was silent. She couldn’t bring herself to confide in Miss Eppendorfer.

“I think I know,” the other went on. “It’s money, isn’t it? You want to marry, but you’re afraid.”

“Not afraid,” said Frances, nettled. “It’s only that I don’t want to be stupid—rash—— I don’t think it’s right to marry on nothing. I’d rather wait ten years.”

“You’re making a mistake,” said the authoress. “But tell me about it.”

Frances hesitated a moment.

“You see,” she began. “I’m afraid that perhaps I made a mistake—advised him wrongly. You see, he was depending entirely on his brother—living with him. He’d never really thought how—that it wasn’t quite—very self-respecting. And I asked him to stop, to try to stand on his own feet. And I’m not sure if he’s able to do that. He has nothing now, except a little more than a hundred pounds a year or so.”

“Except!” said Miss Eppendorfer.

“Oh, of course, it helps. But the trouble is, he’s perfectly inexperienced. He can’t seem to find a job. We’ve—he has answered advertisements and registered at agencies, and nothing’s any good. I’m so afraid of his getting completely discouraged and going back to his brother again. It’s so wretched for him. There’s no chance of our being married for years——”

“Why?”

“We couldn’t both live on a hundred pounds a year—about five hundred dollars!”

“Why should you try? You’re earning something, and under no expense. Why don’t you get married anyway, and go on as you are?”

Frankie was amazed.

“I never thought of such a thing. It ... we couldn’t have any home....”

“Does that matter? You’d have each other. Oh, if I were you, if I were you ...! I shouldn’t think of anything but—just having each other, just your love. I’d never think of a home or money. Only of the man I loved.”

Her voice broke, and her hand on Frankie’s arm trembled.

“My dear, I’m speaking against my own interests, for of course I don’t want to lose you.... But you don’t understand, you don’t appreciate love. It isn’t a home that you want. My dear! My dear! And would you let him wait and eat out his heart, for years, for your vanity, until he could give you all the silly little things you think you want? You don’t know men, you don’t know life; you don’t know how very short a time we have for love. You don’t know him. You don’t know anything. If you did, you wouldn’t let this go! You’d be happy while you could, you’d make him happy.”

Frances didn’t stir; there was absolute silence for a long time. Then she got up.

“I’ll make the coffee now,” she said, and, in spite of herself, couldn’t keep a trace of gentleness out of her tone, something that approached tenderness. She hated sentimentality, but—no use denying that she was deeply moved by the poor woman’s vehemence, by the thought she had conveyed. Of course, the advice of Miss Eppendorfer was not to be taken too seriously, and yet, couldn’t she be right on some points? She attended to the coffee with earnestness, thinking all the while. What if she had been cold and selfish, and made her own dear boy unhappy? A coward?... And a faint realisation of the truth not fully seen or known till much later came upon her, of the pitiful folly of waiting, of patience and of prudence in this poor life so short and so hazardous.

“I will! I will!” she said to herself. “He shan’t struggle on alone. I won’t lose my happiness—our happiness. I’m not afraid!”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I

She hurried downstairs to meet Lionel the next evening, flushed and resolute.

“Let’s walk!” she said.

“It’s raining——”

“I don’t care. I want to talk to you. I must!”

He didn’t approve of walking in the rain; he thought it imprudent and eccentric, so that he was somewhat stiff; but she took no notice of that. She thrust her hand through his arm and squeezed it a little.

“Lionel!” she whispered, “Shall we get married?”

“My dearest girl!” he cried. “You know there’s nothing on God’s earth I want so much. But——”

“No! Listen! We can!”

And she told him Miss Eppendorfer’s plan. He refused violently; it wasn’t fair to Frankie; he would be a cad, a beast.

“You’ll be much more of a beast if you won’t. We can be happy. I’ll save up, and after you find a job, you can save too, so that we can soon have a home of our own. And until then, of course, we’ll keep it a secret. But, oh, Lionel, I do so want us to be safely married, so that no one can separate us. So that if you were to be sick, I could look after you.”

He comprehended perfectly and sympathised with that curious and touching idea of all lovers; that if only they can be married, no ill can touch them; they are safe.

“I can’t!” he said. “Absolutely I can’t. Don’t you see, old girl, I want to give you something—I don’t want to take everything from you. I want——”

“Don’t let pride stand in the way!” she entreated. “Lionel, only suppose one of us were to die! Dear, darling old boy, let’s be brave. Let’s just go ahead, and if things are hard, why, we’ll go through with them together.”

“I ought not,” he said miserably. “It’s not fair to you.”

He felt obliged to bring forward all the objections which obviously presented themselves, but he did so without spirit. For the preposterous idea appealed to him irresistibly. He said, “Wait,” but he didn’t mean it. He abhorred waiting at all times, and above all, waiting for Frankie. She kindled him, thrilled him with her serious madness.

“We can’t waste our best years,” said Frankie. “Really, Lionel, it’s not a silly plan. I’m not rash, you know it. I know this will be the best plan for us both.”

She was determined to hold him tightly, to defend him from his own weakness, to fortify him. For this, any sacrifice of pride, of worldly advantage, was justified. She had to marry Lionel to save him, even if in saving him everything else was lost.

“I’m not convinced,” he insisted, “but, old girl, I haven’t got the strength to refuse. I’d have to be more than mortal to refuse to marry my beautiful girl.”

“Stop being so wretched!” she ordered. “We’re going to be happy. We’re going to help each other.”

He caught her in his arms.

“Darling!” he cried, “I’ll—I’d do anything to make you happy. I’ll try. I’m not good enough, but I’ll try. I—absolutely worship you, Frankie!”

And added, more quietly:

“And when you’re my wife, I’ll amount to something.”

II

He went to the Grand Central with her on Christmas Eve, to say good-bye, for conscience compelled her to go back to Brownsville Landing for the holidays. They were both in a mood of rapture, although Frankie was somewhat obsessed by finances. She had given Lionel five envelopes, each containing just enough money for one of the five days she was to be away.

“Now remember!” she warned, “that’s all you’ve got, until I get back. I’ll come early on New Year’s morning, and Miss Eppendorfer’ll give me my cheque. She never keeps me waiting a day. Then I’ll lend you that until the fifteenth. But do please, please be careful of what you’ve got! Remember it’s all you’ve got! You will be sensible, won’t you?”

“No. Frankie, aren’t you sorry to think of my being all alone on Christmas day in a beastly cheap boarding-house?”

“You know I am! But don’t think about it, dear; think about the sixteenth.”

They had planned to be married then, the very day after his quarterly remittance came.

“Five minutes to! We’d better go down to the lower level. Oh, dear old boy, I do hate to leave you! You will be careful, won’t you? About everything. About money—and you know what!”

“Dashed if I do! Money and what?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“About—drinking,” she whispered.

“Oh, by Jove!” he cried, startled. “But, my dear girl, I don’t go in for that, you know. I’m not quite a drunkard.”

“I know! I know, darling! Only I had to say it. Don’t be offended!”

“Of course not, you blessed baby!”

“And you will take at least one glass of milk a day, won’t you? You’re so thin! And——”

“I shall! I shall!” he cried, laughing. “Come on, old girl! The gates are open. I say! It’s perfectly all right to kiss you good-bye, isn’t it? I might be your brother—or your husband. Everyone does, eh?”

She reflected.

“Yes,” she said, with a blush, and raised her face to his. “Good-bye! God bless you, my own boy! Take care of yourself! I shall think of you every minute!”

“Good-bye, my beautiful girl!” he answered. “God bless you! Come back to me soon!”

He stood watching her down the platform, strong, eager, and splendid. Saw her go, never to return to him.