“I know the meaning of what’s mine. Think I’d give up the woman I loved to another man?”
“Even if she loved the other man best?”
“I’d have my girl first, and find out how she felt about the other man afterwards.”
“Oh, but think if you gave her up, how noble it would be. You would have sacrificed all that you held the dearest to an ideal. Oh, if I were in Enoch Arden’s place, and my husband thought I was dead, and I knew he was happy with another woman, it would just be a joy to deny myself, sacrifice myself to spare him unhappiness. That would be my idea of love. Then I’d go into a convent.”
“Not much. I’d let the other fellow go to the convent. If I loved a woman, I wouldn’t let anything in the world stop me from winning her.”
“You have so much determination, haven’t you?” she said, looking at him.
Landry enlarged his shoulders a little and wagged his head.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know, but I’d try pretty hard to get what I wanted, I guess.”
“I love to see that characteristic in men,” she observed. “Strength, determination.”
“Just as a man loves to see a woman womanly,” he answered. “Don’t you hate strong-minded women?”
“Utterly.”
“Now, you are what I would call womanly—the womanliest woman I’ve ever known.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she protested, a little confused.
“Yes, you are. You are beautifully womanly—and so high-minded and well read. It’s been inspiring to me. I want you should know that. Yes, sir, a real inspiration. It’s been inspiring, elevating, to say the least.”
“I like to read, if that’s what you mean,” she hastened to say.
“By Jove, I’ve got to do some reading, too. It’s so hard to find time. But I’ll make time. I’ll get that Stones of Venice I’ve heard you speak of, and I’ll sit up nights—and keep awake with black coffee—but I’ll read that book from cover to cover.”
“That’s your determination again,” Page exclaimed. “Your eyes just flashed when you said it. I believe if you once made up your mind to do a thing, you would do it, no matter how hard it was, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, I’d—I’d make things hum, I guess,” he admitted.
The next day was Easter Sunday, and Page came down to nine o’clock breakfast a little late, to find Jadwin already finished and deep in the pages of the morning paper. Laura, still at table, was pouring her last cup of coffee.
They were in the breakfast-room, a small, charming apartment, light and airy, and with many windows, one end opening upon the house conservatory. Jadwin was in his frock coat, which later he would wear to church. The famous gardenia was in his lapel. He was freshly shaven, and his fine cigar made a blue haze over his head. Laura was radiant in a white morning gown. A newly cut bunch of violets, large as a cabbage, lay on the table before her.
The whole scene impressed itself sharply upon Page’s mind—the fine sunlit room, with its gay open spaces and the glimpse of green leaves from the conservatory, the view of the smooth, trim lawn through the many windows, where an early robin, strayed from the park, was chirruping and feeding; her beautiful sister Laura, with her splendid, overshadowing coiffure, her pale, clear skin, her slender figure; Jadwin, the large, solid man of affairs, with his fine cigar, his gardenia, his well-groomed air. And then the little accessories that meant so much—the smell of violets, of good tobacco, of fragrant coffee; the gleaming damasks, china and silver of the breakfast table; the trim, fresh-looking maid, with her white cap, apron, and cuffs, who came and went; the thoroughbred setter dozing in the sun, and the parrot dozing and chuckling to himself on his perch upon the terrace outside the window.
At the bottom of the lawn was the stable, and upon the concrete in front of its wide-open door the groom was currying one of the carriage horses. While Page addressed herself to her fruit and coffee, Jadwin put down his paper, and, his elbows on the arms of his rattan chair, sat for a long time looking out at the horse. By and by he got up and said:
“That new feed has filled ’em out in good shape. Think I’ll go out and tell Jarvis to try it on the buggy team.” He pushed open the French windows and went out, the setter sedately following.
Page dug her spoon into her grapefruit, then suddenly laid it down and turned to Laura, her chin upon her palm.
“Laura,” she said, “do you think I ought to marry—a girl of my temperament?”
“Marry?” echoed Laura.
“Sh-h!” whispered Page. “Laura—don’t talk so loud. Yes, do you?”
“Well, why not marry, dearie? Why shouldn’t you marry when the time comes? Girls as young as you are not supposed to have temperaments.”
But instead of answering Page put another question:
“Laura, do you think I am womanly?”
“I think sometimes, Page, that you take your books and your reading too seriously. You’ve not been out of the house for three days, and I never see you without your notebooks and textbooks in your hand. You are at it, dear, from morning till night. Studies are all very well—”
“Oh, studies!” exclaimed Page. “I hate them. Laura, what is it to be womanly?”
“To be womanly?” repeated Laura. “Why, I don’t know, honey. It’s to be kind and well-bred and gentle mostly, and never to be bold or conspicuous—and to love one’s home and to take care of it, and to love and believe in one’s husband, or parents, or children—or even one’s sister—above anyone else in the world.”
“I think that being womanly is better than being well read,” hazarded Page.
“We can be both, Page,” Laura told her. “But, honey, I think you had better hurry through your breakfast. If we are going to church this Easter, we want to get an early start. Curtis ordered the carriage half an hour earlier.”
“Breakfast!” echoed
