"He was always crazy about her, wasn't he?" Millicent wanted to know.
Emily, in a cool and impertinent voice, supposed so. Was Millicent watching her to see if she would flinch?
Of course he was in love with Ilse. What wonder? Ilse was so beautiful. What chance could her own moonlit charm of dark and silver have against that gold and ivory loveliness? Teddy liked HER as a dear old pal and chum. That was all. She had been a fool AGAIN. Always deceiving herself. That morning by Blair Water... when she had almost let him see... perhaps he HAD seen... the thought was unbearable. Would she ever learn wisdom? Oh, yes, she had learned it to-night. No more folly. How wise and dignified and unapproachable she would be henceforth.
Wasn't there some wretched, vulgar old proverb anent locking a stable door after the horse was stolen?
And just how was she to get through the rest of the night?
Chapter XV
I
Emily, just home from an interminable week's visit at Uncle Oliver's, where a cousin had been getting married, heard at the post-office that Teddy Kent had gone.
"Left at an hour's notice," Mrs. Crosby told her. '"Got a wire asking if he would take the vice-principal-ship of the College of Art in Montreal and had to go at once to see about it. Isn't that splendid? Hasn't he got on? It's really quite wonderful. Blair Water should be very proud of him, shouldn't it? Isn't it a pity his mother is so odd?"
Fortunately Mrs. Crosby never took time to await any answer to her questions. Emily knew she was turning pale and hated herself for it. She clutched her mail and hastened out of the post-office. She passed several people on the way home and never realized it. As a consequence her reputation for pride went up dangerously. But when she reached New Moon Aunt Laura handed her a letter.
"Teddy left it. He was here last night to say good-bye."
The proud Miss Starr had a narrow escape from bursting into hysterical tears on the spot. A Murray in hysterics! Never had such a thing been heard of... never must be heard of. Emily gritted her teeth, took the letter silently and went to her room. The ice around her heart was melting rapidly. Oh, why had she been so cool and dignified with Teddy all that week after Mrs. Chidlaw's dance? But she had never dreamed he would be going away so soon. And now...
She opened her letter. There was nothing in it but a clipping of some ridiculous poetry Perry had written and published in a Charlottetown paper... a paper that was not taken at New Moon. She and Teddy had laughed over it... Ilse had been too angry to laugh... and Teddy had promised to get a copy for her.
Well, he had got it.
II
She was sitting there, looking whitely out into the soft, black, velvety night with its goblin-market of wind-tossed trees, when Ilse, who had also been away in Charlottetown, came in.
"So Teddy has gone. I see you have a letter from him, too."
Too!
"Yes," said Emily, wondering if it were a lie. Then concluded desperately she did not care whether it was a lie or not.
"He was terribly sorry to have to go so suddenly, but he had to decide at once and he couldn't decide without getting some more information about it. Teddy won't tie himself down too irrevocably to any position, no matter how tempting it is. And to be vice- principal of that college at his age is some little bouquet. Well, I'll soon have to go myself. It's been a gorgeous vacation but... Going to the dance at Derry Pond to-morrow night, Emily?"
Emily shook her head. Of what use was dancing now that Teddy was gone?
"Do you know," said Ilse pensively, "I think this summer has been rather a failure, in spite of our fun. We thought we could be children again, but we haven't been. We've only been pretending."
Pretending? Oh, if this heartache were only a pretence! And this burning shame and deep, mute hurt. Teddy had not even cared enough to write her a line of farewell. She knew... she had known ever since the Chidlaw dance... he did not love her; but surely friendship demanded something. Even her friendship meant nothing to him. This summer had been only an interlude to him. Now he had gone back to his real life and the things that mattered. And he had written Ilse. Pretend? Oh, well, she would pretend with a vengeance. There were times when the Murray pride was certainly an asset.
"I think it's as well the summer is over," she said carelessly. "I simply MUST get down to work again. I have neglected my writing shamefully the past two months."
"After all, that's all you really care about, isn't it?" said Ilse curiously. "I love my work but it doesn't possess me as yours possesses you. I'd give it up in a twinkling for... well, we're all as we're made. But is it really comfortable, Emily, to care for only one thing in life?"
"Much more comfortable than caring for too many things."
"I suppose so. Well, you ought to succeed when you lay everything on the altar of your goddess. That's the difference between us. I'm of weaker clay. There are some things I couldn't give up... some things I WON'T. And as Old Kelly advises, if I can't get what I want... well, I'll want what I can get. Isn't that common sense?"
Emily, wishing she could fool herself as easily as she could other people, went over to the window and kissed Ilse's forehead.
"We aren't children any longer... and we can't go back to childhood, Ilse. We're women... and must make the best of it. I think you'll be happy yet. I WANT you to be."
Ilse squeezed Emily's hand. "Darn common-sense!" she said drearily.
If she had not been in New Moon she would probably have used the unexpurgated edition.
Chapter XVI
I
"NOV. 17, 19...
"There are two adjectives that are never separated in regard to a November day... 'dull' and 'gloomy.' They were wedded together in the dawn of language and it is not for me to divorce them now. Accordingly, then, this day has been dull and gloomy, inside and outside, materially and spiritually.
"Yesterday wasn't so bad. There was a warm autumnal sun and Cousin Jimmy's big heap of pumpkins made a lovely pool of colour against the old grey barns, and the valley down by the brook was mellow with the late, leafless gold of juniper-trees. I walked in the afternoon through the uncanny enchantment of November woods, still haunted by loveliness, and again in the evening in the afterglow of an autumnal sunset. The evening was mild and wrapped in a great, grey, brooding stillness of windless fields and waiting hill... a stillness which was yet threaded through with many little eerie, beautiful sounds which I could hear if I listened as much with my soul as my ears. Later on there was a procession of stars and I got a message from them.
"But to-day WAS dreary. And to-night virtue has gone out of me. I wrote all day but I could not write this evening. I shut myself into my room and paced it like a caged creature. ''Tis the middle of the night by the castle clock,' but there is no use in thinking of sleep. I can't sleep. The rain against the window is very dismal and the winds are marching by like armies of the dead. All the little ghostly joys of the past are haunting me... all the ghostly fears of the future.
"I keep thinking... foolishly... of the Disappointed House to-night... up there on the hill with the roar of the rainy wind about it. Somehow this is what hurts me worst to-night. Other nights it is the fact that I don't even know where Dean is this winter... or that Teddy never writes a line to me... or just that there are hours when sheer loneliness wrings the stamina out of me. In such moments I come to this old journal for comforting. It's like talking it out to a faithful friend."