“I think I should not have played as I did, an hour ago,” she wrote. “It stirs me too greatly and I am afraid it makes me inclined to self-pity afterward, and I must never let myself feel THAT! If I once begin to feel sorry for myself… . But I WILL not! No. You are here in the world. You exist. You ARE! That is the great thing to know and it must be enough for me. It is. I played to You. I played JUST LOVE to you—all the yearning tenderness—all the supreme kindness I want to give you. Isn’t love really just glorified kindness? No, there is something more… . I feel it, though I do not know how to say it. But it was in my playing—I played it and played it. Suddenly I felt that in my playing I had shouted it from the housetops, that I had told the secret to all the world and EVERYBODY knew. I stopped, and for a moment it seemed to me that I was dying of shame. But no one understood. No one had even listened… . Sometimes it seems to me that I am like Cora, that I am very deeply her sister in some things. My heart goes all to You—my revelation of it, my release of it, my outlet of it is all here in these pages (except when I play as I did to-day and as I shall not play again) and perhaps the writing keeps me quiet. Cora scatters her own releasings: she is looking for the You she may never find; and perhaps the penalty for scattering is never finding. Sometimes I think the seeking has reacted and that now she seeks only what will make her feel. I hope she has not found it: I am afraid of this new man—not only for your sake, dear. I felt repelled by his glance at me the first time I saw him. I did not like it—I cannot say just why, unless that it seemed too intimate. I am afraid of him for her, which is a queer sort of feeling because she has alw–-“
Laura’s writing stopped there, for that day, interrupted by a hurried rapping upon the door and her mother’s voice calling her with stress and urgency.
The opening of the door revealed Mrs. Madison in a state of anxious perturbation, and admitted the sound of loud weeping and agitated voices from below.
“Please go down,” implored the mother. “You can do more with her than I can. She and your father have been having a terrible scene since Richard went home.”
Laura hurried down to the library.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oh, COME in, Laura!” cried her sister, as Laura appeared in the doorway. “Don’t STAND there! Come in if you want to take part in a grand old family row!” With a furious and tear-stained face, she was confronting her father who stood before her in a resolute attitude and a profuse perspiration. “Shut the door!” shouted Cora violently, adding, as Laura obeyed, “Do you want that little Pest in here? Probably he’s eavesdropping anyway. But what difference does it make? I don’t care. Let him hear! Let anybody hear that wants to! They can hear how I’m tortured if they like. I didn’t close my eyes last night, and now I’m being tortured. Papa!” She stamped her foot. “Are you going to take back that insult to me?”
“`Insult’?” repeated her father, in angry astonishment.
“Pshaw,” said Laura, laughing soothingly and coming to her. “You know that’s nonsense, Cora. Kind old papa couldn’t do that if he tried. Dear, you know he never insulted anybody in his–-“
“Don’t touch me!” screamed Cora, repulsing her. “Listen, if you’ve got to, but let me alone. He did too! He did! He KNOWS what he said!”
“I do not!”
“He does! He does!” cried Cora. “He said that I was—I was too much `interested’ in Mr. Corliss.”
“Is that an `insult’?” the father demanded sharply.
“It was the way he said it,” Cora protested, sobbing. “He meant something he didn’t SAY. He did! He did! He MEANT to insult me!”
“I did nothing of the kind,” shouted the old man.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I said I couldn’t understand your getting so excited about the fellow’s affairs and that you seemed to take a mighty sudden interest in him.”
“Well, what if I DO?” she screamed. Haven’t I a right to be interested in what I choose? I’ve got to be interested in SOMETHING, haven’t I? YOU don’t make life very interesting, do you? Do you think it’s interesting to spend the summer in this horrible old house with the paper falling off the walls and our rotten old furniture that I work my hands off trying to make look decent and can’t, and every other girl I know at the seashore with motor- cars and motor-boats, or getting a trip abroad and buying her clothes in Paris? What do YOU offer to interest me?”
The unfortunate man hung his head. “I don’t see what all that has to do with it–-“
She seemed to leap at him. “You DON’T? You DON’T?”
“No, I don’t. And I don’t see why you’re so crazy to please young Corliss about this business unless you’re infatuated with him. I had an idea—and I was pleased with it, too, because Richard’s a steady fellow—that you were just about engaged to Richard Lindley, and–-“
“Engaged!” she cried, repeating the word with bitter contempt. “Engaged! You don’t suppose I’ll marry him unless I want to, do you? I will if it suits me. I won’t if it suits me not to; understand that! I don’t consider myself engaged to anybody, and you needn’t either. What on earth has that got to do with your keeping Richard Lindley from doing what Mr. Corliss wants him to?”
“I’m not keeping him from anything. He didn’t say–-“
“He did!” stormed Cora. “He said he would if you went into it. He told me this afternoon, an hour ago.”
“Now wait,” said Madison. “I talked this over with Richard two days ago–-“
Cora stamped her foot again in frantic exasperation. “I’m talking about this afternoon!”
“Two days ago,” he repeated doggedly; “and we came to the same conclusion: it won’t do. He said he couldn’t go into it unless he went over there to Italy—and saw for himself just what he was putting his money into, and Corliss had told him that it couldn’t be done; that there wasn’t time, and showed him a cablegram from his Italian partner saying the secret had leaked out and that they’d have to form the company in Naples and sell the stock over there if it couldn’t be done here within the next week. Corliss said he had to ask for an immediate answer, and so Richard told him no, yesterday.”
“Oh, my God!” groaned Cora. “What has that got to do with YOUR going into it? You’re not going to risk any money! I don’t ask you to SPEND anything, do I? You haven’t got it if I did. All Mr. Corliss wants is your name. Can’t you give even THAT? What importance is it?”
