"Well, let things go on then.But they won't go on.""No, they won't go on," echoed her mother."She's pretty enough, and she's capable; and your father's got the money--Idon't know what I'm saying! She ain't equal to him, and she never was.I kept feeling it all the time, and yet I kept blinding myself.""If he had ever cared for her," said Penelope, "it wouldn't have mattered whether she was equal to him or not.
I'M not equal to him either."
Her mother went on: "I might have thought it was you;but I had got set----Well! I can see it all clear enough, now it's too late.I don't know what to do.""And what do you expect me to do?" demanded the girl.
"Do you want ME to go to Irene and tell her that I've got him away from her?""O good Lord!" cried Mrs.Lapham."What shall I do? What do you want I should do, Pen?""Nothing for me," said Penelope."I've had it out with myself.Now do the best you can for Irene.""I couldn't say you had done wrong, if you was to marry him to-day.""Mother!"
"No, I couldn't.I couldn't say but what you had been good and faithfull all through, and you had a perfect right to do it.There ain't any one to blame.He's behaved like a gentleman, and I can see now that he never thought of her, and that it was you all the while.Well, marry him, then! He's got the right, and so have you.""What about Irene? I don't want you to talk about me.
I can take care of myself"
"She's nothing but a child.It's only a fancy with her.
She'll get over it.She hain't really got her heart set on him.""She's got her heart set on him, mother.She's got her whole life set on him.You know that.""Yes, that's so," said the mother, as promptly as if she had been arguing to that rather than the contrary effect.
"If I could give him to her, I would.But he isn't mine to give." She added in a burst of despair, "He isn't mine to keep!""Well," said Mrs.Lapham, "she has got to bear it.
I don't know what's to come of it all.But she's got to bear her share of it." She rose and went toward the door.
Penelope ran after her in a sort of terror."You're not going to tell Irene?" she gasped, seizing her mother by either shoulder.
"Yes, I am," said Mrs.Lapham."If she's a woman grown, she can bear a woman's burden.""I can't let you tell Irene," said the girl, letting fall her face on her mother's neck."Not Irene," she moaned.
"I'm afraid to let you.How can I ever look at her again?""Why, you haven't done anything, Pen," said her mother soothingly.
"I wanted to! Yes, I must have done something.
How could I help it? I did care for him from the first, and I must have tried to make him like me.Do you think I did? No, no! You mustn't tell Irene! Not--not--yet! Mother! Yes! I did try to get him from her!"she cried, lifting her head, and suddenly looking her mother in the face with those large dim eyes of hers.
"What do you think? Even last night! It was the first time I ever had him all to myself, for myself, and I know now that I tried to make him think that I was pretty and--funny.And I didn't try to make him think of her.
I knew that I pleased him, and I tried to please him more.
Perhaps I could have kept him from saying that he cared for me;but when I saw he did--I must have seen it--I couldn't.
I had never had him to myself, and for myself before.
I needn't have seen him at all, but I wanted to see him;and when I was sitting there alone with him, how do I know what I did to let him feel that I cared for him? Now, will you tell Irene? I never thought he did care for me, and never expected him to.But I liked him.Yes--I did like him! Tell her that! Or else I will.""If it was to tell her he was dead," began Mrs.Lapham absently.
"How easy it would be!" cried the girl in self-mockery.
"But he's worse than dead to her; and so am I.I've turned it over a million ways, mother; I've looked at it in every light you can put it in, and I can't make anything but misery out of it.You can see the misery at the first glance, and you can't see more or less if you spend your life looking at it." She laughed again, as if the hopelessness of the thing amused her.Then she flew to the extreme of self-assertion."Well, I HAVE a right to him, and he has a right to me.If he's never done anything to make her think he cared for her,--and I know he hasn't;it's all been our doing, then he's free and I'm free.
We can't make her happy whatever we do; and why shouldn't I----No, that won't do! I reached that point before!"She broke again into her desperate laugh."You may try now, mother!""I'd best speak to your father first----"Penelope smiled a little more forlornly than she had laughed.
"Well, yes; the Colonel will have to know.It isn't a trouble that I can keep to myself exactly.It seems to belong to too many other people."Her mother took a crazy encouragement from her return to her old way of saying things."Perhaps he can think of something.""Oh, I don't doubt but the Colonel will know just what to do!""You mustn't be too down-hearted about it.It--it'll all come right----""You tell Irene that, mother."
Mrs.Lapham had put her hand on the door-key; she dropped it, and looked at the girl with a sort of beseeching appeal for the comfort she could not imagine herself.
"Don't look at me, mother," said Penelope, shaking her head.
"You know that if Irene were to die without knowing it, it wouldn't come right for me.""Pen!"
