Part 35

Edith drained her cup, affected disappointment at finding no stray leaves by which she might divine the future, then went to Rosemary, and took the empty cup which she sat holding with pathetic awkwardness.

"You have none, either, Miss Starr," she said, sweetly. "Suppose we try the crystal ball? I've been wanting to do it ever since I came, but was afraid to venture, alone."

Rosemary, her senses whirling, followed her over to the table, where the ball lay on its bit of black velvet.

"How do you do it?" asked Edith, of Madame.

"Just get into a good light, shade your eyes, and look in."

"That's easy," Edith said. She bent over the table, shaded her eyes with her white, beautifully-kept hands, and peered into the crystalline depths. "There's nothing here," she continued, somewhat fretfully, to Alden, "except you. By some trick of reflection, I could see you as plainly as though it were a mirror. You try, Miss Starr."

Madame's heart contracted suddenly as she remembered the day she had looked into the crystal ball, and had seen not only Alden, but a woman with flaming red hair, clasped closely in his arms. "It's all nonsense," she tried to say, but her stiff lips would not move.

Rosemary left the table and went back to her corner. "What did you see?" queried Edith. "Did you have any better luck than I did?"

"No," Rosemary answered, with a degree more of self-possession than she had shown previously. "There was nothing there but a black cloud."

The task of keeping up the conversation fell to Edith and Alden, for Madame had unconsciously withdrawn into herself as some small animals shut themselves into their shells. All were relieved, though insensibly, when Rosemary said she must go.

Alden went into the hall with her, to help her with her coat and hat, and, as opportunity offered, to kiss her twice, shyly, on her cheek. He wanted to go part way home with her, but Rosemary refused.

"You'd better not," she said, "but thank you just as much."

"Won't you even let me go to the corner with you?"

"No," said Rosemary, with trembling lips, "please don't."

So she went on alone, while Alden returned to the living-room. Edith was saying to Madame: "Poor little brown mouse! How one longs to take a girl like that and give her all the pretty things she needs!"

Madame took the crystal ball, wrapped it in its bit of velvet, and put it on the highest shelf of the bookcase, rolling it back behind the books, out of sight.

"Why do you do that, Mother?" asked Alden, curiously. "Because," returned Madame, grimly, "it's all nonsense. I won't have it around any more."

Alden laughed, but Edith went on, thoughtfully: "I'd like to do her hair for her, and see that all her under-things were right, and then put her into a crêpe gown of dull blue--a sort of Chinese blue, with a great deal of deep-toned lace for trimming, and give her a topaz pendant set in dull silver, and a big picture hat of ecru net, with a good deal of the lace on it, and one long plume, a little lighter than the gown."

"I would, too," said Alden, smiling at Edith. He did not in the least know what she was talking about, but he knew that she felt kindly toward Rosemary, and was grateful for it.

Rosemary, at home, went about her duties mechanically. There was a far-away look in her eyes which did not escape the notice of Grandmother and Aunt Matilda, but they forebore to comment upon it as long as she performed her tasks acceptably. At supper she ate very little, and that little was as dust and ashes in her mouth.

Before her, continually, was a heart-breaking contrast. She, awkward, ugly, ill at ease in brown alpaca made according to the fashion of ten or fifteen years ago, and Mrs. Lee, beautiful, exquisite, dainty to her finger-tips, richly dowered with every conceivable thing that she herself lacked.

"Mother," said Rosemary, to herself. "Oh, Mother!" She did not mean Mrs. Marsh, but the pretty, girlish mother who had died in giving birth to her. She would have been like Mrs. Lee, or prettier, and she would have understood.

Her heart smarted and burned and ached, but she got through the evening somehow, and, at the appointed time, stumbled up to her own room.

Why should she care because another woman was prettier than she, knew more, and had more? Were there not many such in the world, and had she not Alden? Accidentally, Rosemary came upon the cause of her pain.

Of course she had Alden, for always--unless--then, once more, reassurance came. "She's married," said Rosemary, smiling back at the white, frightened face she saw in the mirror. "She's married!"

The thought carried with it so much comfort that presently Rosemary slept peacefully, exhausted, as she was, by the stress of the afternoon. "She's married," was her last conscious thought, and a smile lingered upon her lips as she slept. She had not enough worldly wisdom to know that, other things being equal, a married woman may be a dangerous rival, having the unholy charm of the unattainable, and the sanction of another man's choice.

The Hour of the Turning Night

The darkness was vibrant, keen, alive. It throbbed with consciousness, with mysterious fibres of communication. There was no sense of a presence in the room, nor even the possibility of a presence. It was vague, abstract, yet curiously definite.