WHO CARES?

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"What a delightful room," said Mrs. Harley. "It looks so comfortable
for a drawing-room that it must have been furnished by a man."

"We'll have a house in town by October, around here, and I'll bet it
won't be uncomfortable when you've finished with it."

The raucous shouts of men crying an "extra" took Harley quickly to
the open window. He watched one scare-monger edge his way up one
side of the street and another, whose voice was like the jagged edge
of a rusty saw, bandy leg his way up the other side. "Sounds like
big sea battle," he said, after listening carefully. "Six German
warships sunk, five British. Horrible loss of life. But I may be
wrong. These men do their best not to be quite understood. Only six
German ships! I wish the whole fleet of those dirty dogs could be
sunk to the bottom."

There was nothing neutral or blind-eyed about George Harley. He had
followed all the moves that had forced the war upon the nations
whose spineless and inefficient governments had so long been playing
the policy of the ostrich. He had nothing but detestation for the
vile and ruthless methods of the German war party and nation and
nothing but contempt for the allied politicians who had made such
methods possible. He had followed the course of the war with pain,
anguish and bated breath, thrilling at the supreme bravery of the
Belgians and the French, and the First Hundred Thousand, thanking
God for the miracle that saved Paris from desecration, and paying
honest tribute to the giant effort of the British to wipe out the
stain of a scandalous and criminal unpreparedness. He had squirmed
with humiliation at the attempts of the little, dreadful clever
people of his own country,--professors, parsons, pacifists and pro-
Germans,--to prove that it was the duty of the United States to
stand aloof and unmoved in the face of a menace which affected
herself in no less a degree than it affected the nations then
fighting for their lives, and had watched with increasing alarm the
fatuous complacency of Congress which continued to deceive itself
into believing that a great stretch of mere water rendered the
country immune from taking its honest part in its own war. "Oh, my
God," he had said in his heart, as all clear-sighted Americans had
been saying, "has commercialism eaten into our very vitals? Has the
good red blood of the early pioneers turned to water? Are we without
the nerve any longer to read the writing on the wall?" And the only
times that his national pride had been able to raise its head
beneath the weight of shame and foreboding were those when he passed
the windows of Red Cross Depots and caught sight of a roomful of
good and noble women feverishly at work on bandages; when he read of
the keen and splendid training voluntarily undergone by the far-
sighted men who were making Plattsburg the nucleus of an officers'
training corps, when he was told how many of his young and red-
blooded fellow-countrymen had taken up arms with the Canadian
contingents or had slipped over to France as ambulance men. What
would he not have given to be young again!

He heaved a great sigh and turned back to the precious little woman
who had placed her life into his hands for love. The hoarse alarming
voices receded into the distance, leaving their curious echo behind.

"What were we talking about?" he asked. "Oh, ah, yes. The house.
Lil, during the few days that I have to be in the city, let's find
the house, let's nose around and choose the roof under which you and
I will spend all the rest of our honeymoon. What do you say, dear?"

"I'd love it, Geordie; I'd just love it. A little house, smaller
than this, with windows that catch the sun, quite near the Park, so
that we can toddle across and watch the children playing. Wouldn't
that be nice? And now I think I'll ring for some one to show me
Joan's room and creep in and suggest that she gets up."

But there was no need. The door opened, and Joan came in, with eyes
like stars.

IX

Three o'clock that afternoon found the Harleys still in Martin's
house, with Mrs. Harley fidgetting to get George out for a walk in
order that she might enjoy an intimate, mother-talk with Joan, and
Joan deliberately using all her gifts to keep him there in order to
avoid it.

Lunch had been a simple enough affair as lunches go, lifted above
the ordinary ruck of such meals by the 1906 Chateau Latour and the
Courvoisier Cognac from the cellar carefully stocked by Martin's
father. From the psychological side of it, however, nothing could
well have been more complicated. George had not forgotten his
reception by the Ludlows that day of his ever-to-be-remembered visit
of inspection--the cold, satirical eyes of Grandmother, the freezing
courtesy of Grandfather, and the silent, eloquent resentment of the
girl who saw herself on the verge of desertion by the one person who
made life worth living in intermittent spots. He was nervous and
overanxious to appear to advantage. The young thoroughbred at the
head of the table who had given him a swift all-embracing look, an
enigmatical smile and a light laughing question as to whether he
would like to be called "Father, papa, Uncle George or what" awed
him. He couldn't help feeling like a clumsy piece of modern pottery
in the presence of an exquisite specimen of porcelain. His hands and
feet multiplied themselves, and his vocabulary seemed to contain no
more than a dozen slang phrases. He was conscious of the fact that
his collar was too high and his clothes a little too bold in
pattern, and he was definitely certain for the first time in his
life, that he had not yet discovered a barber who knew how to cut
hair.

Overeager to emphasize her realization of the change in her
relationship to Joan, overanxious to let it be seen at once that she
was merely an affectionate and interested visitor and not a mother
with a budget of suggestions and corrections and rearrangements,
Mrs. Harley added to the complication. Usually the most natural
woman in the world with a soft infectious laugh, a rather shrewd
humor and a neat gift of comment, she assumed a metallic
artificiality that distressed herself and surprised Joan. She
babbled about absolutely nothing by the yard, talked over George's
halting but gallant attempts to make things easy like any Clubwoman,
and in an ultra-scrupulous endeavor to treat Joan as if she were a
woman of the world, long emancipated from maternal apron strings,
said things to her, inane, insincere things, that she would not have
said to a complete stranger on the veranda of a summer hotel or the
sun deck of a transatlantic liner. She hated herself and was
terrified.

For two reasons this unexpected lunch was an ordeal so far as Joan
was concerned. She remembered how antagonistic she had been to
Harley under the first rough shock of her mother's startling and
what then had appeared to be disloyal aberration, and wanted to make
up for it to the big, simple, uncomfortable man who was so obviously
in love. Also she was still all alone in the mental chaos into which
everything that had happened last night had conspired to plunge her
and was trying, with every atom of courage that she possessed, to
hide the fact from her mother's quick solicitous eyes. SHE of all
people must not know that Martin had gone away or find the loose end
of her married life!

It was one of those painful hours that crop up from time to time in
life and seem to leave a little scratch upon the soul.

But when quarter past three came Mrs. Harley pulled herself
together. She had already dropped hints of every known and well-
recognized kind to George, without success. She had even invented
appointments for him at the dentist's and the tailor's. But George
was basking in Joan's favor and was too dazzled to be able to catch
and concentrate upon his wife's insinuations as to things and people
that didn't exist. And Joan held him with her smile and led him from
one anecdote to another. Finally, with no one realized how supreme
an effort, Mrs. Harley came to the point. As a rule she never came
to points.

"Geordie," she said, seizing a pause, "you may run along now, dear,
and take a walk. It will do you good to get a little exercise before
dinner. I want to be alone with Joan for a while."

And before Joan could swing the conversation off at a tangent the
faithful and obedient St. Bernard was on his feet, ready and willing
to ramble whichever way he was told to go. With unconscious dignity
and a guilelessness utteriy unknown to drawing-rooms he bent over
Joan's reluctant hand and said, "Thank you for being so kind to me,"
laid a hearty kiss on his wife's cheek and went.

"And now, darling," said Mrs. Harley, settling into her chair with
an air of natural triumph, "tell me where Martin is and how long
he's going to be away and all about everything."

These were precisely the questions that Joan had worked so hard and
skilfully to dodge. "Well, first of all, Mummy," she said, with
filial artfulness, "you must come and see the house."

And Mrs. Harley, who had been consumed with the usual feminine
curiosity to examine every corner and cranny of it, rose with
alacrity. "What I've already seen is all charming," she said. "I
knew Martin's father, you know. He spent a great deal of time at his
house near your grandfather's, and was nearly always in the saddle.
He was not a bit like one's idea of a horsey man. He was, in fact, a
gentleman who was fond of horses. There is a world of difference. He
had a most delightful smile and was the only man I ever met, except
your grandfather, who could drink too much wine without showing it.
Who's this good-looking boy with the trustworthy eyes?"

"Martin," said Joan. "Martin," she added inwardly, "who treated me
like a kid last night."

Mrs. Harley looked up at the portrait. An involuntary smiled played
round her mouth. "Yes, of course. I remember him. What a dear boy!
No wonder you fell in love with him, darling. You must be very
happy."

Joan followed her mother out of the room. She was glad of the chance
to control her expression. She went upstairs with a curious lack of
the spirit of proprietorship. It hurt her to feel as if she were
showing a house taken furnished for the season in which she had no
rights, no pride and no personal interest. Martin had treated her
like a kid last night and gone away in the morning without a word.
Alice and Gilbert had taunted her with not being a wife. She wasn't,
and this was Martin's house, not hers and Martin's . . . it hurt.

"Ah," said Mrs. Harley softly as she went into Joan's bedroom. "Ah.
Very nice. You both have room to move here." But the mass of little
filet lace pillows puzzled her, and she darted a quick look at the
tall young thing with the inscrutable face who had ceased to be her
little girl and had become her daughter.

"The sun pours in," said Joan, turning away.

Mrs. Harley noticed a door and brightened up.

"Martin's dressing room?" she asked. "No. My maid's room!" Joan
said.

Mrs. Harley shook her head ever so little. She was not in sympathy
with what she called new-fashioned ideas. It was on the tip of her
tongue to say so and to forget, just this once, the inevitable
change in their relationship and speak like mammy once more. But she
was a timid, sensitive little woman, and the indefinable barrier
that had suddenly sprung up held her back. Joan made no attempt to
meet her halfway. The moment passed.

They went along the passage. "There are Martin's rooms," said Joan.

Mrs. Harley went halfway in. "Like a bachelor's rooms, aren't they?"
she said, without guile. And while she glanced at the pictures and
the crowded bootrack and the old tallboys, Joan's sudden color went
away again. . . . He was a bachelor. He had left her on the other
side of the bridge. He had hurt her last night. How awfully she must
have hurt him!

"When will Martin be back?"

"I don't know," said Joan. "Probably to-morrow. I'm not sure." She
stumbled a little, realized that she was giving herself away,--
because if a bride is not to know her husband's movements, who is?--
and made a desperate effort to recover her position. "It all depends
on how long he's kept. But he needed exercise, and golf's such a
good game, isn't it? I sha'n't hurry him back."

She looked straight into her mother's anxious eyes, saw them clear,
saw a smile come--and took a deep breath of relief. If there was one
thing that she had to put up the most strenuous fight to avoid, in
her present chaotic state of mind, it was a direct question as to
her life with Martin. Of all people, her mother must be left in the
belief that she was happy. Pride demanded that, even to the extent
of lying. It was hard luck to be caught by her mother, at the very
moment when she was standing among all the debris of her kid's
ideas, among all the broken beams of carelessness, and the shattered
panes of high spirits.

She was thankful that her mother was not one of those aggressive,
close-questioning women, utterly devoid of sensitiveness and
delicacy who are not satisfied until they have forced open all the
secret drawers of the mind and stuck the contents on a bill file,--
one of those hard-bosomed women who stump into church as they stump
into a department store with an air of "Now then, what can you show
me that's new," who go about with a metaphorical set of burglar's
tools in a large bag with which to break open confidences and who
have no faith in human nature.

And with a sudden sense of gratitude she turned to the woman whom
she had always accepted as a fact, an institution, and looked at her
with new eyes, a new estimate and a new emotion. The little, loving,
gentle, anxious woman with the capacity of receiving impressions
from external objects that amounted to a gift but with a reticence
of so fine and tender a quality that she seemed always to stand on
tiptoes on the delicate ground of people's feelings, was HERS, was
her mother. The word burst into a new meaning, blossomed into a new
truth. She had been accepted all these years,--loved, in a sort of
way; obeyed, perhaps, expected to do things and provide things and
make things easy, and here she stood more needed, at the moment when
she imagined that the need of her had passed, than at any other time
of her motherhood.

In a flash Joan understood all this and its paradox, looked all the
way back along the faithful, unappreciated years, and being no
longer a child was stirred with a strange maternal fellow feeling
that started her tears. Nature is merciless. Everything is
sacrificed to youth. Birds build their nests and rear their young
and are left as soon as wings are ready. Women marry and bear
children and bring them up with love and sacrifice, only to be
relegated to a second place at the first moment of independence.
Joan saw this then. Her mother's altered attitude, and her own
feeling of having grown out of maternal possession brought it before
her. She saw the underlying drama of this small inevitable scene in
the divine comedy of life and was touched by a great sympathy and
made sorry and ashamed.

But pride came between her and a desire to go down on her knees at
her mother's side, make a clean breast of everything and beg for
advice and help.

And so these two, between whom there should have been complete
confidence, were like people speaking to each other from opposite
banks of a stream, conscious of being overheard.

X

Day after day went by with not a word from Martin. April was
slipping off the calendar. A consistent blue sky hung over a teeming
city that grew warm and dry beneath a radiant sun. Winter forgotten,
spring an overgrown boy, the whole town underwent a subtle change.
Its rather sullen winter expression melted into a smile, and all its
foreign characteristics and color broke out once more under the
influence of sun and blue sky. Alone among the great cities of the
world stands New York for contrariety and contrast. Its architecture
is as various as its citizenship, its manners are as dissimilar as
its accents, its moods as diverse as its climate. Awnings appeared,
straw hats peppered the streets like daisies in long fields, shadows
moved, days lengthened, and the call of the country fell on city
ears like the thin wistful notes of the pipes of Pan.

Brought up against a black wall Joan left the Roundabout, desisted
from joy-riding, and, spending most of her time with her mother,
tried secretly and without any outward sign, to regain her
equilibrium. She saw nothing of Alice and the set, now beginning to
scatter, in which Alice had placed her. She was consistently out to
Gilbert Palgrave and the other men who had been gathering hotly at
her heels. Her policy of "who cares?" had received a shock and left
her reluctantly and impatiently serious. She had withdrawn
temporarily into a backwater in order to think things over and wait
for Martin to reappear. It seemed to her that her future way of life
was in his hands. If Martin came back soon and caught her in her
present mood she would play the game according to the rules. If he
stayed away or, coming back, persisted in considering her as a kid
and treating her as such, away would go seriousness, life being
short, and youth but a small part of it, and back she would go to
the Merry-go-round, and once more, at twice the pace, with twice the
carelessness, the joy-ride would continue. It was all up to Martin,
little as he knew it.

And where was Martin?

There was no letter, no message, no sign as day followed day.
Without allowing herself to send out an S. O. S. to him, which she
well knew that she had the power to do, she waited, as one waits at
crossroads, to go either one way or the other. Although tempted many
times to tap the invisible wire which stretched between them, and to
put an end to a state of uncertainty which was indescribably irksome
to her impulsive and imperative nature, she held her hand. Pride
steeled her, and vanity gave her temporary patience. She even went
so far as to think of him under another name so that no influence of
hers might bring him back. She wanted him to return naturally, on
his own account, because he was unable to keep away. She wanted him,
wherever he was and whatever he was doing, to want her, not to come
in cold blood from a sense of duty, in the spirit of martyrdom. She
wanted him, for her pride's sake, to be again the old eager Marty,
the burning-eyed, inarticulate Marty, who had brought her to his
house and laid it at her feet with all that was his. In no other way
was she prepared to cross what she thought of as the bridge.

And so, seeing only her mother and George Harley, she waited, saying
to herself confidently "If he doesn't come to-day, he will come to-
morrow. I told him that I was a kid, and he understood. I've hurt
him awfully, but he loves me. He will come to-morrow."

But to-morrow came and where was Martin?

It was a curious time for this girl-woman to go through alone,
hiding her crisis from her mother behind smiling eyes, disguising
her anxiety under a cloak of high spirits, herself hurt but
realizing that she had committed a hurt. It made her feel like an
aeroplane voluntarily landed in perfect condition at the start of a
race, waiting for the pilot to get aboard. That he would return at
any moment and take her up again she never doubted. Why should she?
She knew Martin. His eyes won confidence, and there was a heart of
gold behind his smile. She didn't believe that she could have lost
him so soon. He would come back because he loved her. Hadn't he
agreed that she was a kid? And when he did come back she would take
her courage in both hands and tell him that she wanted to play the
game. And then, having been honest, she would hitch on to life again
with a light heart, and neither Alice nor Gilbert could stand up and
flick her conscience. Martin would be happy.

To-morrow and to-morrow, and no Martin.

At the end of a week a letter was received by her mother from
Grandmother Ludlow, in which, with a tinge of sarcasm, she asked
that she might be honored by a visit of a few days, always supposing
that trains still ran between New York and Peapack and gasolene
could still be procured for privately owned cars. And there was a
postscript in these words. "Perhaps you have the necessary eloquence
to induce the athletic Mrs. Martin Gray to join you."

The letter was handed to Joan across the luncheon table at the
Plaza. She read the characteristic effusion with keen amusement. She
could hear the old lady's incisive voice in every word and the tap
of her stick across the hall as she laid the letter in the box. How
good to see the country again and go through the woods to the old
high place where she had turned and found Martin. How good to go
back to that old prison house as an independent person, with the
right to respect and even consideration. It would serve Martin right
to find her away when he came back. She would leave a little note on
his dressing table.

"No wonder the old lady asks if the trains have broken down," said
Mrs. Harley. "Of course, we ought to have gone out to see her,
Geordie."

"Of course," said George, "of course"--but he darted a glance at
Joan which very plainly conveyed the hope that she would find some
reason why the visit should not be made. Would he ever forget
standing in that stiff drawing-room before that contemptuous old
dame, feeling exactly like a very small worm?

The strain of waiting for Martin day after day had told on Joan. She
longed for a change of atmosphere, a change of scene. And what a
joke it would be to be able to face her grandfather and grandmother
without shaking in her shoes! "Of course," said Joan. "Let's drive
out to-day in time for dinner, and send a telegram at once. Nothing
like striking while the iron's hot. Papa Geordie, tell the waiter to
bring a blank, and we'll concoct a message between us. Is that all
right for you, Mother?"

Mrs. Harley looked rather like a woman being asked to run a quarter
of a mile to catch a train, but she gave a little laugh and said,
"Yes, dear. I think so, although, perhaps, to-morrow--"

"To-day is a much better word," said Joan. She was sick of to-morrow
and to-morrow. "Packing won't take any time. I'll go home directly
after lunch and set things moving and be here in the car at three
thirty. We can see the trees and smell the ferns and watch the sun
set before we have to change for dinner. I'm dying to do that."

No arguments or objections were put forward.

This impetuous young thing must have her way.

And when the car drove away from the Plaza a few minutes after the
appointed time Joan was as excited as a child, Mrs. Harley quite
certain that she had forgotten her sponge bag and her bedroom
slippers, and George Harley betting on a time that would put more
lines on his face.

There was certainly more than a touch of irony in Joan's gladness to
go back so soon to the cage from which she had escaped with such
eagerness.

There had been no word and no sign of Martin.

But as Joan had run upstairs Gilbert Palgrave had come out from the
drawing-room and put himself deliberately in her way.

"I can't stay now, Gilbert," she had said. "I'm going into the
country, and I haven't half a second to spare. I'm so sorry."

He had held his place. "You've got to give me five minutes. You've
got to," and something in his eyes had made her take hold of her
impatience.

"You don't know what you're doing to me," he had said, with no sign
of his usual style and self-consciousness, but simply, like a man
who had sat in the dark and suffered. "Or if you do know your
cruelty is inhuman. I've tried to see you every day--not to talk
about myself or bore you with my love, but just to look at you.
You've had me turned away as if I were a poor relation. You've sent
your maid to lie to me over the telephone as if I were a West Point
cadet in a primitive state of sloppy sentiment. Don't do it. It
isn't fair. I hauled down my fourth wall to you, and however much
you may scorn what you saw there you must respect it. Love must
always be respected. It's the rarest thing on earth. I'm here to
tell you that you must let me see you, just see you. I've waited for
many years for this. I'm all upheaved. You've exploded me. I'm
different. I'm remade. I'm beginning again. I shall ask for nothing
but kindness until I've made you love me, and then I shall not have
to ask. You will come to me. I can wait. That's all I want you to
know. When you come back ring me up. I'll be patient."

With that he had stood aside with a curious humbleness, had gripped
the hand that she had given him and had gone downstairs and away.

The country round Peapack was in its first glorious flush of young
beauty. The green of everything dazzled under the sun. The woods
were full of the echo of fairy laughter. Wild flowers ran riot among
the fields. Delicate-footed May was following on the heels of April
with its slight fingers full of added glory for the earth.

There was something soft and English in the look of the trees and
fields as they came nearer to the old house. They might have been
driving through the kind garden of Kent.

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