His voice shook, and in that moment Mary felt nearer to him than ever
before.
"Oh, Gordon," she said, "I'm a horrid little thing. I've been jealous
because you took Constance away from me. But now I'm glad you--took
her, and I hope I'll live to dance at your--golden wedding." And then,
most unexpectedly, she found herself sobbing, and Gordon was patting
her on the back in a big-brotherly way, and saying that he didn't blame
her a bit, and that if anybody wanted to take Constance away from him,
they'd have to do it over his dead body.
Then he wrote the check, and Mary took it, and in the knowledge of his
munificence, felt the relief from certain financial burdens.
Before he left her, Gordon, hesitating, referred gravely to another
subject.
"And it will be better for you to have Constance here if Barry goes
away."
"Barry?" breathlessly.
"Yes. Don't you think he ought to go, Mary?"
"No," she said, stubbornly; "where could he go?"
"Anywhere away from Leila. He mustn't marry that child. Not yet--not
until he has proved himself a man."
The blow hit her heavily. Yet her sense of justice told her that he
was right.
"I can't talk about it," she said, unsteadily; "Barry is all I have
left."
He rose. "Poor little girl. We must see how we can work it out. But
we've got to work it out. It mustn't drift."
Left alone, Mary sat down at her desk and faced the future. With Roger
gone, and Barry going---And the Tower Rooms empty!
She shivered. Before her stretched the darkness and storms of a long
winter. Even Constance's coming would not make up for it. And yet a
year ago Constance had seemed everything.
She crossed the hall to the dining-room and looked out of the window.
The garden was dead. The fountain had ceased to play. But the little
bronze boy still flung his gay defiance to wind and weather.
Pittiwitz, following her, murmured a mewing complaint. Mary picked her
up; since Roger's going the gray cat had kept away from the emptiness
of the upper rooms.
With the little purring creature hugged close, Mary reviewed her
worries--the world was at sixes and sevens. Even Porter was proving
difficult. Since the Sunday when Roger had saved her from the fire,
Porter had adopted an air of possession. He claimed her at all times
and seasons; she had a sense of being caught in a web woven of kindness
and thoughtfulness and tender care, but none the less a web which held
her fast and against her will.