Chapter 10. Patty And Corinna

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_ CHAPTER X. PATTY AND CORINNA

Patty had come straight to Corinna after a conversation with Stephen. She needed sympathy, and she had meant to be frank and confiding; but when Benham left them alone in the lovely room, which made her feel as if she had stepped into one of the stained glass windows in the old church she attended, her courage failed, and she forgot all the impulsive words she had learned by heart in the street.

"I am so glad," said Corinna sweetly. "I went to see you after luncheon to-day, and I was very much disappointed not to find you at home."

"That was why I came," answered Patty. "Your card was there when I got in, and I couldn't bear missing you."

"That was right, dear. It was what I hoped you would do."

Turning back to the fire, Corinna stooped and flung a fresh log on the Florentine andirons. Then, without glancing at the girl, she sat down in one of the deep chairs by the hearth, and motioned invitingly to a place at her side. She was determined to win Patty's heart, and she wanted to be near enough to reach out her hand when the right moment came. That moment had not come yet, and she knew it, for she was wise from experience. There was time enough, and she felt no impulse to hasten developments. She was strongly attracted, and since her sympathy was easily stirred, she wished, without any great desire, to help the girl if she could. The only way, she realized, was to watch and hope, to play the waiting game as far as this was possible to her active nature. For, above all things, Corinna hated to wait; and this potent energy of soul, this vital flame, had given the look of winged radiance to her eyes.

"You are always so happy," said Patty breathlessly, as she leaned forward and held out her hands to Corinna as if she were the fire. "Everything about you seems to give out joy every minute."

"You dear!" murmured Corinna softly, for admiration was to her nature what sunshine is to a flower. "I am happy to-day--happy as I thought I should never be again. I am so happy that I should like to take the whole world to my heart and heal its misery." Then she added hastily before the girl could reply: "You came just at the right moment. I have wanted a talk with you, and there couldn't be a better opportunity than this. The other night I tried to join you after dinner; but Mrs. Berkeley got all the women together, and I didn't have a chance to speak a word to you alone. You looked charming in that scarlet dress. Your head is shaped so prettily that I think you are wise to cut your hair. It makes you look like a page of the Italian Renaissance."

"Do you really like it?" asked Patty, and her voice trembled with pleasure. "Father hates it, but men never know."

Corinna laughed. "Not much more about fashions than they know about women."

"And that isn't anything, is it?"

"Well, perhaps they'll learn some day--by the time I am dead and you are old. You look so young, you can't be over eighteen."

"I'll be nineteen next summer--at least I think I shall, for nobody knows exactly when my birthday comes."

"Not even your father?"

"No, he guesses it's in June, but he isn't perfectly sure, and he hasn't any idea what day of the month it is. He gives me a birthday gift whenever he happens to think of it."

For a minute Corinna gazed thoughtfully into the fire. "It is queer the things men can't remember," she said at last. "Now, my father always forgets, or pretends to, that I've ever been married."

"Then I needn't be so surprised," rejoined Patty brightly, "when mine forgets that I ever was born!"

"Oh, he doesn't forget it really, my dear. He adores you."

"He is an angel to me," answered the girl with passionate loyalty. "I've never had any one else, you know, and he has been simply everything. Only I do wish he wouldn't have that tiresome Miss Spencer to live with us."

"But you ought to have some one with you."

"Not some one like that. She doesn't know as much as I do; but Father thinks she is all right because she lets her hair turn gray and wears long dresses."

Corinna's laugh was like music. "It takes more than that to make a virtuous mind!" she exclaimed, but she was not thinking of Miss Spencer.

"Do you know," said Patty, leaning forward and speaking with the earnestness of a child, "I doubt if Father ever looked at a well-dressed woman until he met you."

Was it natural ingenuousness, or did the girl have a deeper motive? For an instant Corinna wondered; then she returned merrily: "Certainly he wouldn't look at me when Mrs. Stribling is near."

"Yes, he admires Mrs. Stribling very much," replied Patty gravely, "but I don't. She isn't a bit real."

Corinna's gaze softened until it swept the girl's face like a caress. "I hope you won't mind my calling you Patty," she responded irrelevantly. "It is so hard to say Miss Vetch, for I can see that we are going to be friends."

"Oh, if you will!" cried Patty breathlessly, and she added eagerly, "I have never had a real friend, you know, and you are so beautiful. You are more beautiful than anybody I ever saw on the stage."

"Or in the movies?" Corinna's voice was mirthful, but there was a deep tenderness in her eyes. Was the girl as shallow as she appeared, or was there, beneath her vivid enamel-like surface, some rich plastic substance of character? Was she worth helping, worth the generous friendship that Corinna could give, or was she merely a bit of human driftwood that would burn out presently in the thin flame of some transient passion? "I'll take the risk," thought Corinna. "A risk is worth taking," for there was sporting blood in her veins. While she sat there in silence, listening to the artless unfolding of the girl's thoughts, she appeared to be searching for the hidden possibilities in that crude young spirit. So often in the past the older woman had given herself abundantly only to meet disappointment and ingratitude. Why should it be different now? What was there in this unformed child that appealed so strongly to her sympathy and tenderness? Not beauty surely, for Patty was merely pretty. Charm she had unmistakably; but it was a charm that men would feel rather than women; and of all the feminine varieties that Corinna had known in the past, she disliked most heartily "the man's woman." Was her impulse to help only the need of a fresh interest, the craving for a new amusement? The heart of life she had never reached. Something was missing--the unfading light, the starry flower that she had never found in her search. Now at last, in a golden middle age, she told herself that she would build her happiness not on perfection, but on the second best of experience. She would accept the milder joys, the daily miracles, the fulfilled adventures. And so, partly because she liked the girl, and partly because of a generous whim, she said presently:

"You shall have a friend--a real friend--from this day."

Patty who had been gazing into the fire turned on her a face that was as sparkling as a sunbeam. "I would rather have you for a friend than anybody in the world," she responded in a voice so caressing that Stephen would not have believed it belonged to her.

"I am sure that I can be useful to you," said Corinna, for the gratitude in the girl's voice touched and embarrassed her, "and I know that you can be to me. How would you like to come every morning and help me for an hour or two in my shop? There isn't anything to do, but we may get to know each other better." After all, she might as well show a fighting spirit and see the adventure through to the end.

Patty's eyes shone, but all she said was, "Oh, I'd love to! It is so beautiful here."

"Do you like it?" asked Corinna, and wondered how much the girl really saw. Did she have the eyes and the soul to see and feel beauty? "I have some good things at home. You must come out there."

"If you'll only let me sit and watch you!" exclaimed Patty fervently.

"As long as you like." A smile crossed Corinna's lips, as she imagined those large bright eyes, like stars in a spring twilight, shining on her hour after hour. How could she possibly endure their unfaltering candour? How could she adjust her life to their adoring regard? "How long has your mother been dead, Patty?" she asked suddenly. "Do you know--of course you don't--scarcely anybody has ever heard it--that I had a child once, a little girl, and she lived only one day."

"And she might have been like you," was all Patty said, but Corinna understood.

"Do you remember your mother, dear?"

"Only a little," answered Patty, and then she told of the spangled skirt and the silver wand with the star on the end of it. "That is all I can remember."

She rose with a shy movement and held out her hand. "Then I may come to-morrow?"

"Every day if you will, and most of all on the days when you need a friend." Bending her head, she kissed the girl lightly on the cheek. "Do you like my cousin Stephen?" she asked suddenly.

A look of scorn came into Patty's eyes. "He is so superior," she answered, with a gesture of complete indifference. "I don't like superior persons."

"Ah," thought Corinna, watching her closely, "she is really interested, poor child!"

After this the girl went out into a changed world--into a world which had become, as if by a miracle, less impersonal and unfriendly. The amber light of the sunset seemed to envelop her softly as if she were surrounded by happiness. It was like first love without its troubled suspense, this new wonderful feeling! It was like a religious awakening without the sense of sin that she associated with her early conversion. Nothing, she felt, could ever be so beautiful again! Nothing could ever mean so much to her in the rest of life! In one moment, almost by magic, she had learned her first lesson in discrimination, in the relative values of experience; she had attained her first clear perception of the difference between the things that mattered a little and the things that mattered profoundly.

The every-day world had faded from her so completely that it seemed a natural incident--it caused her scarcely a start of surprise--when she met Stephen Culpeper under the Washington monument. He had evidently just left his office, for there was a bulky package of papers in his hand; and he greeted her as if it were the merest accident that had taken him through the Square. As a matter of fact it was less of an accident than he made it appear, for he had declined to go home in the Judge's car because of some vague hope that by walking he might meet either Patty or Gideon Vetch. Since the evening of the Berkeleys' dinner the young man's interest had shifted inexplicably from Patty to her father.

"You looked so much like Mr. Benham a little way off," said Patty, as he turned to walk back with her, "that I might have mistaken you for him."

"If you only knew it," he replied, laughing, "you have paid me the highest compliment of my life."

She blushed. "I didn't mean it as a compliment."

"That makes it all the better. But don't you like Benham?"

Patty pondered the question. "I can't get near enough to him either to like or dislike him. He is very good looking."

"He is more than good looking. He is magnificent."

"You think a great deal of him?"

"I couldn't think more," he responded with young enthusiasm. "Every one feels that way about him. He stands for--well, for everything that one would like to be."

"I've heard of him, of course," said the girl slowly. "Father has been fighting him ever since he went into politics; but I never saw Mr. Benhem close enough to speak to him until the other evening." She raised her black lashes and looked straight at Stephen with her challenging glance. "All the men seemed so serious, except you."

He laughed and flushed slightly. "And I did not?"

Though her manner could not have been more indifferent, there was an undercurrent of feeling in her voice, as if she meant something more than she had put into words. He might take it as he chose, lightly or seriously, her look implied--and it was, he admitted, a thrilling look from such eyes as hers.

"You are nearer my age," she rejoined, "though you do seem so old sometimes."

A depressing dampness fell on his mood. "Do I seem old to you? I am only twenty-six."

Her inquiring eyebrows were raised in mockery. "That is too old to play, isn't it?"

"Well, I might try," he answered, and added curiously, "I wonder whom you find to play with? Not your father?"

"Oh, no, not Father. He is as serious as Mr. Benham, only he laughs a great deal more. Father jokes all the time, but there is something underneath that isn't a joke at all."

"I should like to talk to your father. I want to find out, if I can, what he really believes."

"You won't find out that," said Patty, "by talking to him."

"You mean he will not tell me?"

"Oh, he may tell you; but you won't know it. Half the time when he is telling the truth, it sounds like a joke, and that keeps people from believing him. He says the best way to keep a secret is to shout it from the housetops; and I've heard him say things straight out that sounded so far fetched nobody would think he was in earnest. I was the only person who knew that he was speaking the truth. They call that a 'method', the politicians. They used to like it before he was elected; but now it makes them restless. They complain that they can't do anything with him."

"That," remarked Stephen, as she paused, "appears to be the chronic complaint of politicians."

"Does it? Well, Mr. Gershom is always saying now that Father can't be depended on. It was much more peaceable," she concluded with artless confidence, "when he let them manage him. Now there are discussions and disagreements all the time. It all seems to be about what they think people want. Have you any idea what they want?"

"Does anybody know what they want--except when they want money?"

"Well, some of them would like Father to go to the Senate," she returned naively, "and some of them wouldn't. Do you think that Mr. Benham would be better in the Senate?"

"I think so, of course. But you mustn't judge, you know, by what my thoughts happen to be."

"I'm not judging. I hate politics. I always have. I want to get as far away from them as I can."

He looked at her intently. "And where would you like to go?"

"Into the movies." Her eyes sparkled at the thought. "At least I wanted to go into the movies until I saw Mrs. Page this afternoon."

"Mrs. Kent Page?" he asked in astonishment. "My Cousin Corinna?"

"Yes, in the old print shop. Isn't she adorable?"

He smiled at her fervour. "I have always found her so. But what has she to do with your change of ambition?"

"Oh, nothing, except that she is lovelier than any actress I ever saw."

They had reached the house, and while they ascended the steps, the sound of the Governor's voice, raised in vehement protest, floated to them through the half-open door.

"He must be talking to Julius Gershom," whispered Patty. "It is always like that."

"I don't care a damn for the whole bunch of you," said Vetch suddenly. "You can go and tell that to the crowd!"

"Well, I'll come back again after I've told them," Gershom replied in an insolent tone; and the next moment the door swung back and he appeared on the threshold.

At sight of Patty and Stephen he attempted to cover his embarrassment with a jest. "Your father and I were having one of our little arguments about a Ladies' Aid Society," he said. "He is beginning to kick against too much ice cream."

"Well, if you argue as loud as that," replied the girl with imperturbable coolness, "it won't be necessary to go and tell it to the crowd."

In an instant she had changed from the sparkling elusive creature Stephen had known into a woman of authority and composure. What an eternal enigma was the feminine mind! He had flattered himself that he had reached the end of her superficial attractions; and in a minute, by some startling metamorphosis, she was changed from a being of transparent shallows into the immemorial riddle of sex. She might be anything, or everything, except the ingenuous girl of the moment before.

"We must learn to lower our voices," said the Governor in a laughing tone. His anger, if it were anger, had blown over him like a summer storm, and the clear blue of his glance was as winning as ever. "I've been looking into the matter of that appointment Judge Page asked me about," he added, "and I think I may see my way to oblige him."

"If you are free for half an hour I'd like to have the talk we spoke of the other day," answered Stephen.

"Oh, I'm free except for Darrow. You won't mind Darrow."

He turned toward the library on the left of the hall; and as Stephen entered the room, after a gay and friendly smile in Patty's direction, he told himself that the man promised to be more interesting than any girl he had ever known. _

Read next: Chapter 11. The Old Walls And The Rising Tide

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