A Lover of Truth

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II

Jean Beycboft at fourteen was much the same inwardly that she had been at ten. Outwardly she was less attractive, for she had g«, J™,y Wl «d w» «»«io™ rf W h»d. and feet. A close observer would have noticed that she was not without beauty, although it was as yet undeveloped, and would have suspected that she had interesting traits ; but such observers are rare, and to the world in general she was merely an overgrown, painfully shy girl. She was still subject to the same fluctuations of feeUng, varying from intense happiness to abject misery, and although she had passed beyond the period of kissing-games, she had discovered that dancing-school, under some circumstances, can be a far more agonizing ordeal.

^^ Jean," said her sister one night, as she was escorting her to this form of torture, " you Ve improved wonderfully in your waltzing since you have practiced at home with me. All you want is confidence. Do try to look happy, and don't forget you must talk a little. You stood all through the lancers the other night without saying a word to Alan Nichols."

^^ He did n't say anything to me. He was watching Elsie. He only danced with me from a sense of duty. He is always good to the wall flowers on principle."

"My dear, you must not take people's motives for granted. He probably wanted to dance with you."

"I hate dancing-schaol ! " exclaimed Jean. She had grown a little less reserved in the four years.

"It is hard for me to understand it, for I liked it so much."

" Of course you did," and Jean glanced admiringly at her graceful sister. "You like everything, Helen ; you were bom in tune."

It was then that Helen gave Jean the advice that all unselfish unconscious women are sure to give, sooner or later, to their self-centred self-conscious, relatives.

" If you were only to forget yourself, dear," she suggested : " and think about other people, you would find it made an immense difference."

Jean, as usual, took refuge in silence. What she thought was, " It is easy to say that, if you are like Helen, but it is not easy to do it if you are so shy that all the words you want to say suddenly go out of your head, and you can't remember the figures in the square dances to save your soul unless you keep your mind on them every single minute. If I were to think about other people, I should get so hopelessly mixed that I should tangle up the whole set in the lancers."

Jean's silence encouraged Helen to proceed. *^ If Alan asks you to dance to-night, try to make him talk. He can be very interesting. All he needs is to be drawn out."

As Jean took off her wraps in the dressingroom, she nodded in a shy, uncomfortable fashion to the girls she knew slightly, and then turned to greet cordially her three or four friends. She was a favorite in a quiet way with the girls she liked, while those whom she did not like called her ^^ stuck up."

Elsie was looking particularly bewitching in a pale blue gown trimmed with swan's down. She was chattering to one of her girl friends, but she let her eyes wander thrcmgh the open door to the group of lads who were standing in a comer in the dancing-hall. More than one pair of eyes rested with boyish admiration on the little figure in pale blue, framed in the doorway.

" Oh, dear ! How I wish I were like Elsie 1 " Jean thought for the hundredth time.

A few minutes later the girls were all sitting on the wooden settees in the hall, waiting for the music to strike up. Elsie and Jean were sidB by side. Elsie's face was bright with happiness, her blue eyes sparkled, and there was a lovely color in her cheeks. As the strains of a Strauss waltz sounded from the piano, she tapped the floor softly with one diminutive bronze-clad foot. Everything about her, from her smiling face to her dainty little figure, breathed eager invitation. Jean sat with her eyes cast on the floor. Her attitude was one of hopeless misery. She seemed conscious of the awkward lines of her slim figure, and of the size of her bronzed slippers, that made Elsie's feet look like those of a little child. There was a stand-off air about her that said as plainly as if it were written all over her in large characters, —

^^ Who dances with me does so at his peril, for I waltz badly, and oh, how I hate it ! "

The boys came racing across the floor to secure their favorite partners. Elsie was at once led off by the pleasant-faced George Morley, the best dancer in the school, while Alan, who had wanted Elsie too, was obliged to content himself with Susie Endicott. The other girls were appropriated in due season one by one. It at last became apparent to the suffering Jean that there was an extra girl present, and that this left-over person was to be herself. Her cheeks grew redder and redder, and she wished she could borrow an invisible cloak. They had all begun to dance, and she felt as if the eyes of every one in the room were fastened on her and that they were all thinking, "Jean Reycroft hasn't a partner. Poor girl, it's a pity she waltzes so badly."

Presently Virginia Morley, who had joined the ranks of the spectators, good naturedly crossed over and asked Jean if she would not like to waltz with her. Jean had always secretly despised her, because she had a loud voice and laugh, and did not belong . to an aristocratic family, but she was touchingly grateful at the present moment for attention even from this quarter.

"You've improved," Virginia said encouragingly, when their dance was over; "all you need is practice. Reversing seems to stick you a little. If you '11 come up some afternoon, I 'U play for you and get George to waltz with you."

Jean shuddered at this awful prospect and hastened to reply, —

" You are very kind, but Helen is teacUhg me all I have time for."

** As you like," said Virginia stiffly ; and she added to herself, "George is right; she is * stuck up.' "

When it was time for the lancers, Jean's dejected figure took on a more hopeful pose, for she had mastered the intricacies of this dance. Her heart began to beat quickly, for Alan Nichols was approaching. She was so afraid he would think she liked to dance with him, that she put on her most severe expression, and looked away from him to the farther end of the room. He stood before her a little dampened by her chilling reception, and looked irresolutely towards Susie Endicott. Jean had a pang of keen disappointment, fearing that after all he was not going to ask her to dance.

^^Jean, will you dance the lancers with me?"

There could be no mistake. The bare room at once seemed a palace, the wooden settee where she had been sitting became a regal throne, the cracked piano was a whole orchestra, the flaring gas jets threw a dazzling light, and she was so happy that she could willingly have lived through a hundred mortifying experiences for the sake of such a blissful moment. She followed her partner silently across the hall in a dreAn of delight, and they took their places as side couple in a set opposite Elsie and George Morley.

" Oh, dear, if I could only do as Helen says and make him talk I " thought poor Jean, but it seemed impossible to begin. It was too trite to remark that it was a pleasant evening, for Alan was an intellectual boy who would scorn such threadbare themes. Suddenly she thought of school, and of the one class in which they were fellow pupils.

^^Do you like French?" she inquired in a low tone.

" I beg your pardon."

"Do you like French?" she repeated in a melancholy voice.

" Not at all."

This was somewhat disheartening.

" Do you like Greek ? " she continued desperately.

" Very much."

She caught her sister's eyes fixed on her in an encouraging manner. " Go on," Helen seemed to say, " you are doing bravely."

This was too much for Jean's gravity. She laughed nervously and looked down at her slippers.

"Come on, Jean," said Elsie; "don't be a slow-poke. It 's your turn to dance now."

Jean was one of those persons of New England descent who, if they once embark upon a line of conduct that they feel prescribed by duty, pursue it unflinchingly. She had undertaken to talk to Alan Nichols, and talk she would, even if he and she were more uncomfortable in the process than if they had maintained an unsociable but at least restful silence.

" I 've never studied Greek," she went on in the next pause in the dance. ^^ I don't think I should like it. American history is my favorite study."

^^I like it too," said Alan, brightening visibly.

^^ How handsome he is," thought Jean, '^ and how manly. It seems funny I should be in a French class with him, when he is so old — eighteen, and going to college next year. I wish it were as easy to learn to dance as it is to learn French."

" How far have you gone in American History?" Alan inquired presently.

" We 've just had the Signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is all so interesting, especially the part about Benjamin Franklin amusing " — suddenly the name of Thomas Jefferson went as completely out of her head as if he had never had one.

^^ Roger Sherman?" her companion suggested.

" Robert Livingston ? "

^^ No," she said, while her cheeks were getting hotter and hotter.

" You don't mean Adams or JefEerson ? "

^^ YeSf I mean Jefferson. Franklin told him a very funny story about a hatter."

" What was it ? "

She tried to think. She had remembered it perfectly a moment before, but now it had vanished along the same road that Thomas Jefferson had traveled.

" I forget what it was," said poor Jean, " but it was very funny."

^^ Jean, for heaven's sake come and cross right hands," Elsie cried unpatiently.

" He will never, never dance with me again," Jean said to herself. " He will think me a perfect fool. As long as you don't open your lips there is the chance that you could speak if you chose, but if you talk and make an idiot of yourself there is no hope for you."

And so ended her first attempt to draw out Alan Nichols.

Jean's grandfather, the Rev. Edward Thorndyke, was an Orthodox clergyman of a liberal stripe. He was one of those fortunate men born with charm, and was loved for his attractions even more than for his goodness. Mr. Thorndyke was superintendent of his Sundayschool, and was on intimate terms with every child. He had a class of the older boys, who werie made welcome to his study at all hours.

Whenever they chanced to avail themselves of the privilege, Jean always hurried up the back stairs, that she might escape the trial of speaking to them.

One winter day, not long after her unlucky experiment in conversation, she was curled up in the study window-seat, absorbed in ^^ Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde," when she heard a ring at the door. .

She instantly fled to the top of the staircase.

" Is Mr. Thomdyke in ? " asked a voice that set her heart beating quickly.

** Is Miss Helen in ? " inquired a second voice to which she was indifferent.

^^ No, but Miss Jean is."

Jean did not wait to hear anything further, but retreated precipitately to her own room. The bare idea of having an interview with Alan Nichols and George Morley was paralyzing. She heard Sarah coming upstairs. What should she do ? At first, escape seemed impossible. As the maid came nearer and nearer, Jean grew more and more desperate. Finally a bright idea struck her, and she hastily shut herself into her closet. It was a very sm^U closet, and life was not especially agreeable there, but anything was better than having to speak to those terrifying boys.

'^ Miss Jean ! " Sarah called, ^^ Miss Jean ! where are you ? "

Then after a time she heard the door close and the sound of descending footsteps. When Jean was sure that her enemies had departed, she came cautiously forth and looked stealthily out of her window, to see if they were walking down the street, for even a brief glimpse of Alan's back, if only it might be seen from a safe distance gave her keen pleasure. No, they were out of sight already. It was so cold in her room that she decided to go down to the warmth below. She had opened the study door and stepped over the threshold before she discovered to her horror that the two boys were comfortably ensconced in front of the fire.

" Good afternoon, Jean," said Alan. " We were waitmg for your grandfather, but you will do just as well."

" I beg your pardon, I did n't know you were here," she stanmiered.

" We came to leave the money for the Children's Mission," Alan explained.

" Grandfather will be in very soon," Jean said in almost inaudible tones. '^ He has only gone to the post-office."

" Then we will wait for him, but don't let us drive you away," said Alan politely. " Don't mind us."

A LOVER OF TRUTH 3X

Not mind them, indeed, when she was trembling all over with fright !

" You are cold," said George kindly. " Come over by the fire."

George Morley was another of those favored beings born with charm, and although Jean had never thought him especially interesting, she could not but feel the attraction of his friendly manners and pleasant, frank smile.

It wa^ easier to slip into a chair than to slip out of the room, and Jean did as he suggested. She opened her book and began to read, but after a time it struck her that this was not polite.

" It is a cold day," she observed in a scared voice. " I think it is going to snow.'

" Yes," said Alan, " I thmk it is.'

Now that Jean had once made the fatal plunge, something unexpected happened. In spite of her great fear, there was an awful fascination in sitting in the same room with Alan Nichols. She was exhilarated, miserable as she was. She glanced furtively from time to time at his fine figure and at his handsome face, with its clearcut features, the strong mouth, and somewhat aggressive chin, the straight nose, and the dark eyes that seemed so full of expression, and the more she looked at him the more conscious she was of a feeling of helpless attraction.

• " How are you getting on with American history?" he asked her presently, with a halfamused, half-ironical smile.

"Very well. I think Washington was perfectly fine."

" A good many other people have thought so too."

" I hate Alan Nichols," she said to herself ; " he is very disagreeable."

" I could never see why everybody made such a time about that old cherry-tree," said George, coming to her rescue.

" I never could either," she agreed. " It is almost impossible to tell a direct lie about a thing like that, if you are at all truthful."

" Yes," George assented, " that is n't the sort of thing a fellow lies about."

Jean was much interested. " What kind of things do boys lie about ? " she asked, and then became covered with confusion at her boldness.

" Why, you 'd lie to get another fellow out of a scrape, or you might lie if you were crazy to go fishing and had been told you could n't go. There are lots of different kinds of lies you 'd tell ; but it would be easy enough to tell the truth about the cherry-tree."

" Yes," said Jean, " but if anybody had asked George Washington if he liked his father, and his father had been horrid, and he had hated him, then it would have been brave to tell the truth, because it would have been so hard."

" It would — rather 1 " George admitted with a chuckle.

" The world would be much better ofE if we did tell the truth about such things," Alan remarked. " If we hate our families why should n't we say so, instead of mulling along pretending we like them ? "

Jean was always interested in a discussion, and forgot her shyness for the moment. Her face lighted up and she looked really beautiful, as she leaned a little forward' and her dark eyes became animated. ^^ Do you think it is ever right to tell a lie ? " she asked Alan.

"In the abstract I should say never."

" But if you could save a man's life by telling aKe?"

"I think we ought to have faith enough in justice prevailing in the end to teU the truth."

** Well, I know I 'd lie like a blue streak to save a man's life," said George.

Jean had something further that she wanted to ask, but her courage had deserted her. She bent her eyes on the floor and clasped her hands nervously. When she looked down all the light seemed gone out of her face, but there was something interesting still in the shy figure in the dark red gown, sitting in the ruddy firelight.

poised lightly on her chair, as if ready for instant flight. Both Alan and George were conscious of a desire to make her stay.

" Don't you think it is always wrong to tell a lie ? " Alan asked her.

" I suppose so," she answered slowly, looking straight at him for one moment with eyes that were like those of a frightened fawn. "But somehow when you say a thing is pretty and you don't think it is pretty, so as not to hurt a person's feelings, or that you 've had a good time at a party when you've had a stupid time, it doesn't seem exactly like a lie; it seems like being polite."

" But if you stop to think you will see that it is a lie," persisted Alan, "and if we allow ourselves one kind of lie " —

" Oh, come now, Alan, give us a rest ! " said George.

" If we once begin to take the smallest liberty with truth, no one knows where to find us," Alan continued. "It seems to me like this. Coal is always black isn't it? "

" Yes."

"It is just as black whether it is in a big lump or in a fine powder, and so falsehood is falsehood whether the lie is large or small. The little lies are the most dangerous because they are so insidious."

** Perhaps they are," Jean admitted, " but it seems so disagreeable to be always finding fault with things and people."

" If we were all absolutely truthful we should all be in the same box," said Alan, who was as fond of an ethical discussion as Jean herself. ''And think how much more piquant and interesting life would be! There would be no glib society lies, no pretending, on the part of families who were quarreling half the time, that they got on well, but a good, wholesome, truthful hatred. ' You don't seem to be very happy with your wife, sir,' somebody would remark, and instead of vowing you adored her, you would have the satisfaction of saying, 'I dislike her very much; she's a selfish, aggravating woman.' "

" Well, I 'm glad I 'm not your wife, Alan," said George.

At this point Mr. Thomdyke came in, .and Jean slipped away, but the conversation was destined to remain with her for many years, helping to mould her character, and increasing her ardent admiration for Alan.

m

Mrs. Shimmin was giving the most brilliant dancing-party of the season, and Jean Beycroft, like little Jack Homer, ^' sat in a corner," but without the solace of a Christmas pie. Indeed, as she looked back over the many occasions when she had sat in similar comers in Edgecomb, there were very 'few plums in the retrospect. She had crossed the seas since her childish days, and attained a fair amount of success and happiness in distant lands, but she was learning now that it is well-nigh impossible to outgrow an early reputation in one's native town. The fact that she had studied art for two years in Paris, and had had a picture exhibited in the Salon, was of no avail ; and for the moment she seemed to have gone back to her dancing-school days, and become again, in other people's minds, the shy girl who waltzed badly and had nothing to say. The truth was, nevertheless, that her long absence from home had helped her to overcome her self -distrust. She had been forced to think and act for herself. To acquire a calm manner, no matter how frightened or excited she might be feeling, had been her ambition for years, and she had succeeded so well that she was often considered cold when she was merely shy. Jean had now been grown up long enough to have the first zest of the experience wear off. She was almost twenty-three, and twenty-three seemed like the old age of girlhood. She could not but admit, however, that life grew more delightful with each added year. One must be ) a very interesting person to be satisfied long at \ J a time with a life that revolves chiefly around *i / one's self, and most of us are forced in self- f ( defense, if for no other reason, to widen our \ Vhorizon. Now, as she was suddenly brought face " to face with her childhood, she was conscious that at fourteen she had been the central figure in her own landscape, a poor, unsatisfactory figure enough, passionate, eager, intense, yet striving to ignore her half-famished needs, tl^t no one might suspect the untempered material of which she was made. Her world in those days, as she looked back at it with her larger vision, seemed almost too small for breathing space. It was bounded by the wooden fence that shut in the parsonage garden, a charming garden full of flowering ahnonds, periwinkles, lUies of the valley, roses, peonies, scarlet poppies, and many, colored hollyhocks, with an orchard behind it that was sometimes a fragrant mass of bloom and sometimes a glory of fruit.

When she was seventeen the world had suddenly enlarged its borders and included New York, with its many delights as known to a school-girl. Jean recalled her rapturous joy when she saw the city at night for the first time, with the rows and rows of lights mysteriously stretching away into infinite space. It was then that she had her first glimpse of the true proportion of her life to the lives of others. She remembered saying to her school friend, Susie Endicott, ^' Is n't it hard to realize that all these houses are full of human beings who feel as necessary to the world as we feel ; and who are all carrying an unfinished novel around with them, and just as much interested in their story as we are in ours ? "

" What a queer girl you are ! " her friend replied, and Jean had subsided.

Susie was gifted by nature with those matter-of-fact qualities that Jean was trying to acquire by art. She was one of the girls whom Jean had envied in the old days. If she could not be pretty and bewitching like Elsie, she would rather be like Susie, with her pleasant face and frank manners, her perfectly commonplace mind, and her happy temperament. Susie made friends everywhere, for all she demanded was a human being who was not too interesting. She did not enjoy original people, finding them imsatisfactory and queer. Even Alan Nichols was too individual to please her.

" She seems to have become reconciled to him now," Jean reflected, as she watched them waltzing together.

Susie was in faultless evening dress, which showed off her pretty neck and arms, and she looked the wholesome, whole-souled girl she was. She glanced up every now and then with a smile at Alan, who towered above her, for Susie was short and rather stout. Jean watched Alan's face with the double interest of the artist and the woman. He was not as handsome as he used to be, but he was still more distinguished looking. He did not have a happy expression, and she could not make out whether he felt himself superior to his company and was taking no pains to conceal the fact, or whether he was unhappy for some serious reason. His face was one that could never fail to interest a student in human nature, for it held out indefinite and baffling promises.

'^ He might have the grace to ask me to dance once," thought Jean, " but why should I care if he does n't ? He is an aggravating person, and I don't half Kke him."

Yet whether she liked him or disKked him the fact remained that for all these years he had continued to be the hero of her drama, a most unsatisfactory hero, to be sure, playing a curiously illusive part for a person in that prominent position, but nevertheless the hero. He was the hero still ; she was exasperated to find that an interval of time and distance had made no difference in the effect that his mere presence produced upon her.

Her thoughts next occupied themselves with a happy year at the New York Art League, and then they took a voyage across the Atlantic with some fellow art students, — a miserable, seasick voyage, when death seemed preferable to life. After that there had come a wonderful new birth in Paris, when the dreams of her childhood were more than realized, when poetry clothed the very stones of the streets, and the air itself seemed full of indefinable romance. The spires of Notre Dame, the bridges that spanned the Seine, black-robed priests, long rows of lights with the Arc de I'Etoile at the end, hard-working days in her atelier, warm friendships with other girls, — all came rushing into her mind without sequence or system, blottine out the candle-lighted room in which she sat, while the strains of a Strauss waltz seemed to blend all these confused impressions into a harmonious, kaleidoscopic whole. She had an acute spasm of homesickness for that foreign land. It was all over, her enchanting student life, while before her was Edgecomb, with its routine of quiet duties, its mild gayeties, and conventional inhabitants, with their strict but narrow sense of duty and their well-r^ulated minds.

She was roused from her reverie by Virginia Morley, who came across the room and seated herself in the vacant place by her side where Alan ought to have been.

"I'm going to keep this seat for George," she announced. '^He is depending upon dancing with you. He had to be late to-night, because there is a town-meeting ; he 's getting to be quite a public character."

" I 'm glad to hear it," said Jean.

"Don't you find Edgecomb thrillingly ex- • citing ? " Virginia continued vivaciously. " It must seem so livd.y and satisfying after. your student life in Paris. Isn't this the correct thing to say ? You must be in a mood to appreciate the joys of a dull little country town, where people don't know or care anything about art."

Jean laughed, and found Miss Morley refreshing. Contact with a larger world had taught her that there are worse things than the society of an amusing woman, even if her voice and manner do jar on your nerves.

"My dear, I hope you have come home in a properly domestic frame of mind," Virginia went on. " Art is all very well in Paris, but housework suits the Edgecomb ladies much bet^ ter. To wind up with, there is always the happy marriage that is utterly unsuited to girls who paint, because they are so unpractical, but* that is the just reward of the thoroughly domestic."

" Heaven forbid I " Jean exclaimed fervently.

" I 've been all through the mill," said Virginia, " and as I have no talents I tried being properly domestic, but even that failed to bring ' the prince. I don't despair yet, although he 's a little late in coming, as I 'm now thirty-two. By the way, the dear Edgecomb ladies seem to forget that we can't all be married unless we turn Mormons. I once suggested Polygamy as a solution when Mrs. Bentley was bemoaning that there were so many old maids in town, and she looked so shocked! You look shocked too."