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Washington Irving - "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent."

Edgar Rice Burroughs - "The People That Time Forgot"

Frank Stockton - "The Magic Egg and Other Stories"

Emma Wolf - "Other Things Being Equal"

Other Things Being Equal

E >> Emma Wolf >> Other Things Being Equal




She disengaged herself from his arms and sat down. Some late roisterers
passing by in the street were heard singing to the twang of a mandolin. It
was a full, deep song, and the casual voices blended in perfect accord. As
the harmony floated out of hearing, she looked up at him with a haunting
smile.

"People are always singing to us; I wish they wouldn't. Music is so sad;
it is like a heart-break."

He knelt beside her; he was a tall man, and the action seemed natural.

"You are pale and tired," he said; "and I am going to take a doctor's
privilege and send you to bed. To-morrow you can answer better what I so
long to hear. You heard what your father said; your answer rests entirely
with you. Will you write, or shall I come?"

"Do you know," she answered, her eyes burning in her pale face, "you have
very pretty, soft dark hair? Does it feel as soft as it looks?" She
raised her hand, and ran her fingers lingeringly through his short, thick
hair.

"Why," she said brightly, "here are some silvery threads on your temples.
Troubles, darling?"

"You shall pull them out," he answered, drawing her little hand to his
lips.

"There, go away," she said quickly, snatching it from him and moving from
her chair as he rose. She rested her elbow on the mantel-shelf, and the
candles from the silver candelabra shone on her face; it looked strained
and weary. Kemp's brows gathered in a frown as he saw it.

"I am going this minute," he said; "and I wish you to go to bed at once.
Don't think of anything but sleep. Promise me you will go to bed as soon
as I leave."

"Very well."

"Good-night, sweetheart," he said, kissing her softly, "and dream happy
dreams." He stooped again to kiss her hands, and moved toward the door.

"Herbert!" His hand was on the portiere, and he turned in alarm at her
strange call.

"What is it?" he asked, taking a step toward her.

"Nothing. Don't--don't come back, I say. I just wished to see your face.
I shall write to you. Good-night."

And the curtain fell behind him.

As he passed down the gravel walk, a hack drew up and stopped in front of
the house. Louis Arnold sprang out. The two men came face to face.

Arnold recognized the doctor immediately and drew back. When Kemp saw who
it was, he bowed and passed on. Arnold did likewise, but he went in where
the other went out.

It was late, after midnight. He had just arrived on a delayed southern
train. He knew the family had come home that morning. Dr. Kemp was rather
early in making a visit; it had also taken him long to make it.

Louis put his key in the latch and opened the door. It was very quiet; he
supposed every one had retired. He flung his hat and overcoat on a chair
and walked toward the staircase. As he passed the drawing-room, a stream
of light came from beneath the portiere. He hesitated in surprise,
everything was so quiet. Probably the last one had forgotten to put out
the lights. He stepped noiselessly up and entered the room. His footfall
made no sound on the soft carpet as he moved about putting out the lights.
He walked to the mantel to blow out the candles, but stopped, dumfounded,
within a foot of it. The thing that disturbed him was the motionless white
figure of his cousin. It might have been a marble statue, so lifeless she
seemed, though her face was hidden in her hands.

For a moment Arnold was terrified; but the feeling was immediately
succeeded by one of exquisite pain. He was a man not slow to conjecture;
by some intuition he understood.

He regained his presence of mind and turned quietly to quit the room; his
innate delicacy demanded it. He had but turned when a low, moaning sound
arrested him; he came back irresolutely.

"Did you call, Ruth?"

Silence.

"Ruth, it is I, Louis, who is speaking to you. Do you know how late it
is?"

With gentle force he drew her fingers from her face. The mute misery there
depicted was pitiful.

"Come, go to bed, Ruth," he said as to a child.

She made a movement to rise, but sank back again.

"I am so tired, Louis," she pleaded in a voice of tears, like a weary
child.

"Yes, I know; but I will help you." The unfamiliar, gentle quality of his
voice penetrated even to her numbed senses.

She had not seen him since the night he had asked her to be his wife. No
remembrance of this came to her, but his presence held something new and
restful. She allowed him to draw her to her feet; and as calmly as a
brother he led her upstairs and into her room. Without a question he lit
the gas for her.

"Good-night, Ruth," he said, blowing out the match. "Go right to bed; your
head will be relieved by sleep."

"Thank you, Louis," she said, feeling dimly grateful for something his
words implied; "good-night."

Arnold noiselessly closed the door behind him. She quickly locked it and
sat down in the nearest chair.

Her hands were interlaced so tightly that her nails left imprints in the
flesh. She had something to consider. Oh dear, it was such a simple
thing; was she to break her father's heart, or her own and--his? Her
father's, or his.

It was so stupid to sit and repeat it. Surely it was decided long ago.
Such a long time ago, when her father's loving face had put on its misery.
Would it look that way always? No, no, no! She would not have it; she
dared not; it was too utterly wretched.

Still, there was some one else at the thought of whom her temples throbbed
wildly. It would hurt him; she knew it. The thought for a moment was a
miserable ecstasy; for he loved her, --her, simple Ruth Levice, --beyond
all doubting she knew he loved her; and, oh, father, father, how she loved
him! Why must she give it all up? she questioned fiercely; did she owe no
duty to herself? Was she to drag out all the rest of her weary life
without his love? Life! It would be a lingering death, and she was young
yet in years. Other girls had married with graver obstacles, in open
rupture with their parents, and they had been happy. Why could not she?
It was not as if he were at fault; no one dared breathe a word against his
fair fame. To look at his strong, handsome face meant confidence. That
was when he left the room.

Some one else had left the room also. Some one who had loved her all her
life, some one who had grown accustomed in more than twenty years to listen
gladly for her voice, to anticipate every wish, to hold her as in the palm
of a loving hand, to look for and rest on her unquestioned love. He too
had left the room; but he was not strong and handsome, poor, poor old
father with his small bent shoulders. What a wretched thing it is to be
old and have the heart-strings that have so confidently twisted themselves
all these years around another rudely cut off, --and that by your only
child!

At the thought an icy quiet stole over her. How long she sat there,
musing, debating, she did not know. When the gray dawn broke, she rose up
calmly and seated herself at her writing-table. She wrote steadily for
some time without erasing a single word. She addressed the envelope
without a falter over the name.

"That is over," she said audibly and deliberately.

A cock crowed. It was the beginning of another day.


Chapter XIX

Dr. Kemp tossed the reins to his man, sprang from his carriage, and hurried
into his house. "Burke!" he called while closing the door, "Burke!" He
walked toward the back of the house and into the kitchen, still calling.
Finding it empty, he walked back again and began a still hunt about the
pieces of furniture in the various rooms. Being unsuccessful, he went into
his bedroom, made a hasty toilet, and hurried again to the kitchen.

"Where have you been, Burke?" he exclaimed as that spare-looking personage
turned, spoon in hand, from the range.

"Right here, General," he replied in surprise, "except when I went out."

"Well; did any mail come here for me?"

"One little Billy-do, General. I put it under your dinner-plate; and shall
I serve the soup?" the last was bellowed after his master's retreating
form.

"Wait till I ring," he called back.

He lifted his solitary plate, snatched up the little letter, and sat down
hastily, conscious of a slight excitement.

His name and address stared at him from the white envelope in a round, firm
hand. There was something about the loop-letters that reminded him of her,
and he passed his hand caressingly over the surface. He did not break the
seal for some minutes, --anticipation is sometimes sweeter than
realization. Finally it was done, but he closed his eyes for a second, _ a
boyish trick of his that had survived when he wished some expected pleasure
to spring suddenly upon him. How would she address him? The memory of
their last meeting gave him courage, and he opened his eyes. The
denouement was disconcerting. Directly under the tiny white monogram she
had begun without heading of any description: --

It was cruel of me to let you go as I did: you were hopeful when you left.
I led you to this state for a purely selfish reason. After all, it saved
you the anguish of knowing it was a final farewell; for even then I knew it
could never be. Never! Forever!--do you know the meaning of those two
long words? I do. They have burned themselves irrevocably into my brain;
try to understand them, --they are final.

I retract nothing that I said to my father in your presence; you know
exactly how I still consider what is separating us. I am wrong. Only I am
causing this separation; no one else could or would. Do not blame my
father; if he were to see me writing thus he would beg me to desist; he
would think I am sacrificing my happiness for him. I have no doubt you
think so now. Let me try to make you understand how different it really
is. I am no Jephthah's daughter, --he wants no sacrifice, and I make none.
Duty, the hardest word to learn, is not leading me. You heard my father's
words; but not holding him as I do, his face could not recoil upon your
heart like a death's hand.

I am trying to write coherently and to the point: see what a coward I am!
Let me say it now, --I could never be happy with you. Do you remember
Shylock, --the old man who withdrew from the merry-making with a breaking
heart? I could not make merry while he wept; my heart would weep also.
You see how selfish I am; I am doing it for my own sake, and for no one's
else.

And that is why I ask you now to forgive me, --because I am not noble
enough to consider you when my happiness is at stake. I suppose I am a
light person seemingly to play thus with a man's heart. If this
reflection can rob you of regret, think me so. Does it sound presumptuous
or ironical for me to say I shall pray you may be happy without me?
Well, it is said hearts do not break for love, --that is, not quickly. If
you will just think of what I have done, surely you will not regret your
release; you may yet find a paradise with some other and better woman. No,
I am not harsh or unreasonable; even I expect to be happy. Why should not
you, then, --you, a man; I, a woman? Forget me. In your busy, full life
this should be easy. Trust me, no woman is worthy of spoiling your life
for you.

My pen keeps trailing on; like summer twilight it is loath to depart. I am
such a woman. I may never see your face again. Will you not forgive me?

RUTH.

He looked up with a bloodless face at Burke standing with the smoking soup.

"I--I--thought you had forgotten to ring," he stammered, shocked at the
altered face.

"Take it away," said his master, hoarsely, rising from his chair. "I do
not wish any dinner, Burke. I am going to my office, and must not be
disturbed."

The man looked after him with a sadly wondering shake of his head, and went
back to his more comprehensible pots and kettles.

Kemp walked steadily into his office, lit the gas, and sat down at his
desk. He began to re-read the letter slowly from the beginning. It took a
long time, for he read between the lines. A deep groan escaped him as he
laid it down. It was written as she would have spoken; he could see the
expression of her face in the written words, and a miserable empty feeling
of powerlessness came upon him. He did not blame her, --how could he, with
that sad evidence of her breaking heart before him? He got up and paced
the floor. His head was throbbing, and a cold, sick feeling almost
overpowered him. The words of the letter repeated themselves to him.
"Paradise with some other, better woman," --she might have left that out;
she knew better; she was only trying to cheat herself. "I too shall be
happy." Not that, not some other man's wife, --the thought was demoniacal.
He caught his reflection in the glass in passing. "I must get out of
this," he laughed with dry, parched lips. He seized his hat and went out.
The wind was blowing stiffly; for hours he wrestled with it, and then came
home and wrote to her: --

I can never forgive you; love's litany holds no such word. Be happy if you
can, my santa Filomena; it will help me much, --the fact that you are
somewhere in the world and not desolate will make life more worth the
living. If it will strengthen you to know that I shall always love you,
the knowledge will be eternally true. Wherever you are, whatever the need,
remember--I am at hand.

HERBERT KEMP.

Mr. Levice's face was more haggard than Ruth's when, after this answer was
received, she came to him with a gentle smile, despite the heavy shadows
around her eyes.

"It is all over, Father," she said; "we have parted forever. Perhaps I did
not love him enough to give up so much for him. At any rate I shall be
happier with you, dear."

"Are you sure, my darling?"

"Quite sure; and there is no more to be said of it. Remember, it is dead
and buried; we must never remind each other of it again. Kiss me, Father,
and forget that it has been."

Mr. Levice drew a long sigh, partly of relief, partly of pain, as he looked
into her lovely, resolute face.


Chapter XX

We do not live wholly through ourselves. What is called fate is but the
outcome of the spinning of other individuals twisted into the woof of our
own making; so no life should be judged as a unit.

Ruth Levice was not alone in the world; she was neither recluse nor a
genius, but a girl with many loving friends and a genial home-life. Having
resolved to bear to the world an unchanged front, she outwardly did as she
had always done. Her mother's zealous worldliness returned with her
health; and Ruth fell in with all her plans for a gay winter, --that is,
the plans were gay; Ruth's presence could hardly be termed so. The old
spontaneous laugh was superseded by a gentle smile, sympathetic perhaps,
but never joyous. She listened more, and seldom now took the lead in a
general conversation, though there was a charm about a t te- -t te with her
that earnest persons, men and women, felt without being able to define it.
For the change, without doubt, was there. It was as if a quiet hand had
been passed over her exuberant, happy girlhood and left a serious,
thoughtful woman in its stead. A subtile change like this is not speedily
noticed by outsiders; it requires usage before an acquaintance will account
it a characteristic instead of a mood. But her family knew it. Mrs.
Levice, wholly in the dark as to the cause, wondered openly.

"You might be thirty, Ruth, instead of twenty-two, by the staidness of your
demeanor. While other girls are laughing and chatting as girls should, you
look on with the tolerant dignity of a woman of grave concerns. If you had
anything to trouble you, there might be some excuse; but as it is, why
can't you go into enjoyments like the rest of your friends?"

"Don't I? Why, I hardly know another girl who lives in such constant
gayety as I. Are we not going to a dinner this evening and to the ball
to-morrow night?"

"Yes; but you might as well be going to a funeral for all the pleasure you
seem to anticipate. If you come to a ball with such a grandly serious air,
the men will just as soon think of asking a statue to dance as you. A
statue may be beautiful in its niche, but people do not care to study its
meaning at a ball."

"What do you wish me to do, Mamma? I should hate the distinction of a
wall-flower, which you think imminent. I am afraid I am too big a woman to
be frolicsome."

"You never were that, but you were at least a girl. People will begin to
think you consider yourself above them, or else that you have some secret
trouble."

The smile of incredulity with which she answered her would have been
heart-breaking had it been understood. No flush stained the ivory pallor
of her face at these thrusts in the dark; Louis was never annoyed in this
way now. Her old-time excited contradictions never obtruded themselves in
their conversations. A silent knowledge lay between them which neither, by
word or look, ever alluded to. Mrs. Levice noted with delight their
changed relations. Louis's sarcasm ceased to be directed at Ruth; and
though the familiar sparring was missing, Mrs. Levice preferred his
deferential bearing when he addressed her, and Ruth's grave graciousness
with him. She drew her own conclusions, and accepted Ruth's quietness with
more patience on this account.

Louis understood somewhat; and in his manliness he could not hide that her
suffering had cost him a new code of actions. But he could not understand
as her father did. Despite her brave smile, Levice could almost read her
heart-beats, and the knowledge brought a hardness and a bitter regret. He
grew to scanning her face surreptitiously, looking in vain for the old,
untroubled delight in things; and when the unmistakable signs of secret
anguish would leave traces at times, he would turn away with a groan. Yet
there was nothing to be done. He knew that her love had been no light
thing nor could her giving up be so; but feeling that no matter what the
present cost, the result would compensate, he trusted to time to heal the
wound. Meanwhile his own self-blame at these times left its mark upon him.

For Ruth lived a dual life. The real one was passed in her quiet chamber,
in her long solitary walks, and when she sat with her book, apparently
reading. She would look up with blank, despairing eyes, clinched hands,
and hard-set teeth when the thought of him and all her loss would steal
upon her. Her father had caught many such a look upon her face. She had
resolved to live without him, but accomplishment is not so easy. Besides,
it was not as if she never saw him. San Francisco is not so large a city
but that by the turning of a corner you may not come across a friend. Ruth
grew to study the sounds the different kinds of vehicles made; and the
rolling wheels of a doctor's carriage behind her would set her pulses
fluttering in fright.

She was walking one day along Sutter Street toward Gough from Octavia. The
street takes a sudden down-grade midway in the block. She was approaching
this declension just before the Boys' High School when a carriage drove
quickly up the hill toward her. The horses gave a bound as if the reins
had been jerked; there was the momentary flash of a man's stern, white face
as he raised his hat; and Ruth was walking down the hill, trembling and
pale. It was the first time; and for one minute her heart seemed to stop
beating and then rushed wildly on. Whether she had bowed or made any sign
of recognition, she did not know. It did not matter, though; if he thought
her cold or strange or anything, what difference could it possibly make?
For her there would be left forever this dead emptiness. These casual
meetings were inevitable; and she would come home after them worn-out and
heavy-eyed. "A slight headache" was a recurrent excuse with her.

They had common friends, and it would not have been surprising had she met
him at the different affairs to which she went, always through her mother's
desire. But the dread of coming upon him slowly departed as the months
rolled by and with them all token of him. Time and again she would hear
allusions to him. "Dr. Kemp has developed into a misogynist," pouted
Dorothy Gwynne. "He was one of the few decided eligibles on the horizon,
but it requires the magnet of illness to draw him now. I really must look
up the symptoms of a possible ache; the toilet and expression of an invalid
are very becoming, you know."

"Dr. Kemp made a splendid donation to our kindergarten to-day. I have not
seen him since we were in the country, and he thought me looking very well.
He inquired after the family, and I told him we had a residence, at which
he smiled." This from Mrs. Levice. Ruth would have given much to have
been able to ask after him with self-possession, but the muscles of her
throat seemed to swell and choke her while silent. She went now and then
to see Bob Bard in his flower-store; he would without fail inquire after
"our friend" or tell her of his having passed that day. Here was her one
chance of inquiring if he was looking well, to which the answer was
invariably "yes."

She sat one night at the opera in her wonted beauty, with her soft, dusky
hair rolled from her sweet Madonna face. Many a lorgnette was raised a
second and a third time toward her. Louis, seated next to her, resented
with unaccountable ferocity this free admiration that she did not see or
feel.

As the curtain went down on the first act, he drew her attention to some
celebrity then passing out. She raised her glass, but her hand fell
nerveless in her lap. Immediately following him came Dr. Kemp. Their eyes
met, and he bowed low, passing on immediately. The rest of the evening
passed like a nightmare; she heard nothing but her heart-throbs, saw
nothing but his beloved face regarding her with simple courtesy. Louis
knew that for her the opera was over; the tell-tale bistrous shadows grew
around her eyes, and she became deadly silent.

"What a magnificent man he is," murmured Mrs. Levice, "and what an
impressive bow he has!" Ruth did not hear her; but when she reached her
own room, she threw herself face downward on her bed in intolerable
anguish. She was not a girl who cried easily. If she had been, her
suffering would not have been so intense, --when the flood-gates are
opened, the river finds relief. Over and over again she wished she might
die and end this eager, passionate craving for some token of love from him,
or for the power of letting him know how it was with her. And it would
always be thus as long as she lived. She did not deceive herself; no mere
friendship would have sufficed, --all or nothing after what had been.

Physically, however, she bore no traces of this continual restraint. On
the contrary, her slender figure matured to womanly proportions. Little
children, seeing her, smiled responsively at her, or clamored to be taken
into her arms, there was such a tender mother-look about her. By degrees
her friends began to feel the repose of her intellect and the sympathy of
her face, and came to regard her as the queen of confidantes. Young girls
with their continual love episodes and excitements, ambitious youths with
their whimsical schemes of life and aspirations of love, sought her out
openly. Few of these latter dared hope for any individual thought from
her, though any of the older men would have staked a good deal for the
knowledge that she singled him for her consideration.

Arnold viewed it all with inward satisfaction. He regarded memory but as a
sort of palimpsest; and he was patiently waiting until his own name should
appear again, when the other's should have been sufficiently obliterated.

It was a severe winter, and everybody appreciated the luxury of a warm
home. December came in wet and cold, and la grippe held the country in its
disagreeable hold. The Levices were congratulating themselves one evening
on their having escaped the epidemic.

"I suppose the secret of it lies in the fact that we do not coddle
ourselves," observed Levice.

"If you were to coddle yourself a little more," retorted his wife, "you
would not cough every morning as you do. Really, Jules, if you do not
consult a physician, I shall send for Kemp myself. I actually think it is
making you thin."

"Nonsense!" he replied carelessly; "it is only a little irritation of the
throat every morning. If the weather is clear next week, I must go to New
York. Eh, Louis?"

"At this time of the year!" cried Mrs. Levice, in expostulation.

"Some one has to go, and the only one that should is I."

"I think I could manage it," said Louis, "if you would see about the other
adjustment while I am gone."

"No, you could not,"--when Levice said "no," it seldom meant an ultimate
"yes." "Besides, the trip will do me good."

"I shall go with you," put in Mrs. Levice, decidedly.

"No, dear; you could not stand the cold in New York, and I could not be
bothered with a woman's grip-sack."

"Take Ruth, then."

"I should love to go with you, Father," she replied to the questioning
glance of his eyes. He seemed to ponder over it for a while, but shook his
head finally.

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