MATCHED PEARLS Read online

  The thought filled her with a great awe and started the scalding tears again. She felt like a little, humble, frightened child who hadn’t known her danger or need. All her self-sufficiency was gone. She despised herself.

  The Constance of yesterday would have said, “Oh, such a fuss about a little kiss. What did it matter whether he kissed me or not? Of course I’ve always hated those things, but what’s a kiss more or less? No real harm done.”

  But the Constance of this evening lay and shuddered because she had seen into her own heart and seen weakness and vileness and sin there. Playing with a principle of right and wrong. That was what it was. Oh, of course the world today was doing it all the time and laughing openly about it. But that did not make it any better now. She had seen into her own heart.

  Maggie came to the door with the lovely white coat and a message from Doris that she would come if she was needed, but Constance sent back word that all she needed was rest, and would she please make her excuses? Maggie went away again, and quiet and darkness settled down around her. Constance arose and undressed in the dark, crept around her room giving little gasping sobs, now and then a long shudder of horror at the memory of the evening, an utter despising of herself. It was as if for the first time she had gazed into her own heart, which she had always supposed to be white and pure, and found it a nest of filth and creeping things.

  She got into her bed and sobbed again into her pillow. She thought of Seagrave praying for her. Had it then been his prayers that had haunted her, held her back? She had thought it was her own nerves, seeing his face following her everywhere that way, reproaching her. But now suddenly she wondered if prayer did really have a power, an effect? Was it perhaps like the radio? Just as sounds were stored up in the air, so perhaps prayers were hovering around on their way to and from God? It filled her with great awe. It made her feel strangely as if God were in her room watching her thoughts.

  But at least whatever had done it, she was free now from that feeling that Seagrave was following her. She was still burdened by the thought of her own failure, her own worthlessness; still ashamed of the way she had gotten her pearls and oppressed by the thought of confessing to Seagrave, but at least he was not haunting her anymore. She could look off into the darkness of her room and not see his spectral glance searching her. She had snapped back to normal, but she had left her self-respect and her self-esteem behind somewhere, and could she ever get them back?

  At last, worn with alternate rage and shame and despair, she fell asleep, and when Doris came in later she tiptoed around the room and did not disturb her, for which Constance, partly roused, was vaguely grateful. She knew there was a reckoning coming, but she did not want to think about it now.

  But the next morning it had to come.

  Doris was coolly suspicious.

  “But Constance, were you really sick?” she asked pointedly. “You seemed perfectly well when we started.”

  “I had a headache,” said Constance evasively, glad to reflect that this was perfectly true.

  “But Connie, you never stay away from a good time just for a headache.”

  “A good time?” said Constance with a touch of her old familiar sarcasm. “I didn’t exactly feel that I was having a good time. You know I only went to please you.”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t please me, going off like that. What do you suppose Thurlow Wayne thought of you? Just beating it like that without a word of explanation?”

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking about his opinion,” said Constance, a troubled look in her face. “But didn’t you get my message? Maggie promised to give it to you.”

  “Oh yes, I got your message. But I knew there must be something back of it. You never are rude like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Constance, “but I really had to get away at once. I had to lie down.”

  Doris swung around on her.

  “What did Thurl do? I can’t understand it. I was just sure you’d fall for him as soon as you saw him. I thought you’d see how clever and sophisticated he is. I was sure you’d fall for him hard. And I knew he was simply nuts about you just from having seen you in the distance, and then—you vanish! What was the matter with him? What do you want for your money?”

  “He’s probably all right for the people who like him,” said Constance, feeling somehow a weight on her tongue. “He’s just not the type that I admire, that’s all!” she finished lamely.

  “For goodness’ sake! What could you ask for more? Handsome as a picture, rich as Croesus, crazy about you, and clever as they come. And you treated him like the dust under your feet! Well, I can tell you he’s not used to that. No wonder he said you were like an icicle.”

  Constance rose up on one elbow and looked at her roommate earnestly.

  “Did he say that, Doris?”

  “He certainly did!” said Doris indignantly. “Called you a polar star and a lot of other poetic things, but I could see he was mad all over. Of course I excused you, said you weren’t feeling well and a lot of bunk and that you hadn’t wanted to come but wouldn’t let him down and all that. But I could see he was cut clear through, and I know something happened. I don’t see why you had to develop such an awful hate for him. Now what was it? Confess.”

  “Nothing really happened at all, Dorrie.” Constance spoke quietly, almost humbly. “And I don’t really hate him. I think perhaps it was myself I hated. While I was dancing with him, I—just—hated myself. Perhaps you won’t understand, and I’m afraid I can’t explain, but that’s the way it really was.”

  Doris stared.

  “If you aren’t the oddest girl!” she said. “And you didn’t used to be at all! You used to be a good sport, ready for anything. You never even took such a dislike to Casper Coulter till this last time you went home. If joining the church ruins a person for life, then it’s to be hoped no more of our class will join. That string of pearls has just ruined your disposition, Connie Courtland. You’re getting too good for this earth!” And Doris snapped a string of amber beads around her neck and slammed out of the room and down to breakfast.

  Constance got out of her bed, locked the door, and then stood staring across her room in a kind of dazed wonder.

  “Then he didn’t know!” she said aloud. “He thought I was an icicle. Oh, I’m glad, glad, glad!”

  Suddenly the color flowered into her white cheeks, and she put up her hands and covered her face, dropping upon her knees beside the bed, burying her face in the pillow.

  She wasn’t praying. She didn’t really know how. But she felt as if her soul was being bathed in prayer, made clean somehow from a smirch she dreaded, by a prayer, someone else’s prayer, not hers. But nevertheless prayer.

  All that day she went about quietly, almost humbly, feeling a strange uncertainty in herself. It was as if somehow she had discovered depths in herself that had never been sounded. She even went to church, though there was nothing in the stately service nor the eloquent and intellectual sermon to remind her of anything that had happened at Easter time. Yet she sat during the whole time and tortured herself with thoughts of it, like a man wearing a hair shirt as penance.

  Doris, never long to hold a grudge, came out of her sulks and tried to start a little fun. Constance stayed sweet and gentle but somehow aloof. Doris tried various methods but found Constance still disinterested, absentminded, and at last with an uneasy stare at her, Doris went out of the room to seek more lighthearted companions.

  Chapter 7

  There was one outcome of the Saturday night dance for which Constance was grateful. She was no longer obsessed by Seagrave’s reproachful eyes. Scorn and indignation at Thurlow Wayne had taken its place. She hated the thought of Thurlow Wayne. Not so much for what he was as because he had made her see into her own heart and shown her own ugliness and sin.

  She tried to blame it all on him, but her honest mind would not stand for that, and over and over again in her leisure moments she reenacted that evening, going over just w
here she had made her mistakes, trying to think just what she should have said and done. Scathing sentences scorched to her lips from a heart hot with annoyance. How she would have enjoyed showing him how she despised him! There was only one thing that kept her from arranging a meeting with him somehow and doing it and that was that she had learned also to despise herself.

  But the days were very full of duties, and Constance was a conscientious student and worker. Also, because she was clever and a good executive, she had many burdens heaped upon her willing hands, and she was glad to have it so. It was easier to get back her old happy ease and self-content.

  Now and then a hint of worry about Doris crossed her mind. For Doris was hurried and excited, and Doris kept out of her way a good deal. Often she suspected that Doris was out with Casper Coulter, for when she questioned her there would be only an evasive answer.

  “Con isn’t like herself,” she heard Doris say one day down in the hall, talking to a group of classmates, just as Constance approached the stairs above. Doris’s voice was a carrying one, and the halls had many echoes. “She’s really got religion, I guess. She’s as long-faced and fussy. It’s too bad she couldn’t have waited till after commencement. She’s spoiled no end of good times for me just because she’s getting so straitlaced. She’s actually made Thurlow Wayne think she’s a regular dumbbell. I never knew her to be so before in all the years we’ve been together.”

  Constance, stung by the tone and the words both, turned quickly and walked back to her room, her eyes full of sudden hurt. Doris! Her friend! Oh, what was the matter with everything? And it had all started with Easter Sunday and the pearls. No, it had started with the shabby stranger with the searching eyes and the radiant face.

  She stood looking out of the window and far away over the campus till suddenly she heard Doris’s voice ring out again, in a greeting, and there was a lilt in her tone that made Constance lean over the windowsill and look down. Who was it that had stirred Doris’s voice to that joyous note?

  She looked and saw it was Casper Coulter again, and her heart sank. Was Doris really interested in him after all her protestations to the contrary? Oh, she ought to try to do something to stop that intimacy. Only yesterday she had heard some of the girls telling how drunk he had been at a weekend party some of them had attended in one of the suburbs.

  She watched them an instant, the trouble growing in her eyes. The young man took Doris’s hands possessively in his own and held them longer than was necessary. He looked deep into her eyes. She could hear Doris’s conscious little intimate laugh of understanding. Then they separated, calling a cheerful word back and forth as Coulter went down the campus path toward the village.

  Well, there were only a few days more before commencement, and they would be necessarily full. Perhaps it was better not to anger Doris. Dear Doris, how she loved her! They had had so many happy times together. And surely Doris was only having a little harmless flirtation. Perhaps it would be better just to try to hold her interest and keep her busy in other ways than to make a fuss now. She would soon be far away in California and her mother could look after her admirers. Far be it from Constance to set herself up as a judge in a case like this!

  But suddenly she heard Doris herself coming along the hall, singing a popular song, that lilt in her voice still, and her eyes wearing that starry look.

  Constance drew away from the window quickly and turned with a smile of welcome.

  “Dorrie, I was just wondering where you were. How about trying on that rose silk frock now? I could easily turn up the hem if you still feel it is a little too long. I’ve just got that paper finished and off my hands at last. Such a nuisance, Professor Hart insisting on my making all those changes at the last minute this way, and now I’m thankful to say we can have some good times together again before it’s all over.”

  There was a flash of pleased surprise in Doris’s eyes for an instant and then a sudden withdrawing, apology in her manner.

  “Oh, Connie, I’m sorry!” she said hesitantly. “It’s awfully good of you to offer, but I’ve just promised to go out for a drive. I hadn’t an idea you would be free. But say, you go with us, won’t you? I know Casper won’t mind, and I hate to leave you at home this gorgeous day.”

  “Oh, Dorrie, you’re not going out with him again, are you?” said Constance impulsively. “Please don’t! He really isn’t your kind! Come on and let’s do something together. This is almost our last Saturday, you know. There’ll be too much going on next week to have fun together.”

  “I know, Connie, but I thought you were all tied up, and it’s too late to change now. Casper has gone for his car. It’s a new one, Con, a twelve-cylinder sport model. It’s a wow. I’m the first one to get a ride in it, and I wouldn’t miss it for anything. He drove up from New York on purpose to take me out today. I promised him three days ago I would go.”

  “But Doris, I’m afraid of his driving. I really am. It’s not just fast or careless. It’s daredevil! It’s as if he was out of his mind sometimes. I’ve seen him driving when he was drunk, Doris, and it’s awful. Rose Mellen says—”

  “Oh, cut it, Connie! Don’t try the preaching act on me. You can’t tell me anything that Rose Mellen says. She’s jealous. She tried her best to get asked to ride in that car. Come, Connie, be yourself and help me get ready. I was going to ask to borrow your red hat. It’s just the thing I need with my new red dress. Do be good. I’m in a terrible hurry. I promised I’d be ready in ten minutes. Aw, come on, Connie, and be a good sport!”

  Constance turned with troubled gaze and helped her get ready. After all, if that was what Doris wanted out of life, what business was it of hers?

  She loaned her the red hat, she hunted her gloves, and she produced a new pair of silk stockings of the right shade when Doris discovered a run in one of hers at the last minute.

  She watched furtively from the windows as the great purring car arrived at the entrance below the window, shiny and luxurious, bright with chromium trimmings. Its top was down and the sunshine glanced from every polished point. There was about it a nonchalant air of tremendous power, and Constance could not help but admire the beautiful thing.

  Doris, bright faced and apologetic for going, kissed her lightly and tripped downstairs. Constance saw the young man help her in. He was good-looking, there was no denying that, but the very tilt of his hat denoted recklessness and a kind of disregard of conventionalities. He wasn’t Doris’s kind.

  Doris looked up and waved a blithe farewell; the car darted off with a roar and became a mere speck in the distance of the road that wound away below the campus.

  Constance turned away from the window and looked around her blankly. She had come to a brief spot where there was nothing she actually had to do that minute, and there came the thought that college life was almost over. It would be easy to be melancholy about it, but she didn’t intend to give in to any more doldrums. So she caught up an armful of books to be returned to the library and hurried downstairs.

  There were plenty of the girls around the campus, gathered in little groups. Three of them invited her to play tennis, a fourth summoned her to join a hike, two more begged her to go into town on a shopping trip and help them pick out new dresses.

  But Constance did not feel inclined to join any of them. She had a sudden desire to rest herself. She decided to get a good book from the library and just lie down and read, perhaps take a nap and be fresh for the evening. She knew the evening would be a fun one. Several men friends were driving up from New York.

  So presently she wended her way to the library, returned her armful of books, and set herself to find the right book to read herself to sleep with.

  She had browsed for half an hour from shelf to shelf before she came on the book she wanted, a new novel, a bestseller just a few weeks before. What luck to find it in! That couldn’t have happened if it were not so near to commencement, with so many duties and a gorgeous day out besides.

  She took her book a
nd started for the dormitory, but several classmates idled in just then and they paused to talk together, luxuriating in the fact that there were no quiet rules to be kept in the library today. It was almost another half hour before Constance turned away from them and started toward the door again, resolved to get her resting time now at all cost.

  But just at that instant a young freshman rushed in at the door calling for her, her face white and distraught, her eyes wide with panic.

  “Is Constance Courtland here?” she called out before her eyes had accustomed themselves from the out-of-doors to the dim light of the library.

  “Yes?” said Constance with apprehension in her voice. Her hand flew to her throat involuntarily. “What’s the matter, Nan?”

  “Oh, come quick, won’t you? It’s Doris. She’s hurt! Terribly hurt! The doctor says she can’t possibly live but a few hours and she wants you right away, Constance.”

  “But how did it happen?” chorused the other girls in horror.

  “They went over the cliff!” said the breathless freshman. “They say Casper Coulter was killed instantly, and there isn’t a particle of hope for Doris!”

  The freshman was panting and stopping for breath. Constance seemed rooted to the floor, her face gone white and stricken. For an instant her head reeled and she felt as if she were falling. Then she set her lips hard and took a deep breath. She must not faint, if this was fainting. She had never fainted in her life.

  “Oh,” moaned one of the girls, “I told you he had been drinking. We saw him on his way down for his car, and he stopped and kidded with us. I thought then he wasn’t quite himself and his breath was strong of liquor.”

  But the freshman had got her breath again and, seizing hold of Constance, drew her along.

  “Come quick!” she said. “They told me to tell you to hurry. She might not live but a few minutes. No, not to the dormitory. They have taken her to the hospital!”

  Constance’s brain began to function at last and her heavy feet to move. She was anguished with the need for haste. She tried to run and seemed to be creeping.