第55章 Chapter XX(1)

We do not live wholly through ourselves. What is called fate is but the outcome of the spinning of other individuals twisted into the woof of our own making; so no life should be judged as a unit.

Ruth Levice was not alone in the world; she was neither recluse nor a genius, but a girl with many loving friends and a genial home-life. Having resolved to bear to the world an unchanged front, she outwardly did as she had always done. Her mother's zealous worldliness returned with her health; and Ruth fell in with all her plans for a gay winter, --that is, the plans were gay; Ruth's presence could hardly be termed so. The old spontaneous laugh was superseded by a gentle smile, sympathetic perhaps, but never joyous. She listened more, and seldom now took the lead in a general conversation, though there was a charm about a t te- -t te with her that earnest persons, men and women, felt without being able to define it.

For the change, without doubt, was there. It was as if a quiet hand had been passed over her exuberant, happy girlhood and left a serious, thoughtful woman in its stead. A subtile change like this is not speedily noticed by outsiders; it requires usage before an acquaintance will account it a characteristic instead of a mood. But her family knew it. Mrs.

Levice, wholly in the dark as to the cause, wondered openly.

"You might be thirty, Ruth, instead of twenty-two, by the staidness of your demeanor. While other girls are laughing and chatting as girls should, you look on with the tolerant dignity of a woman of grave concerns. If you had anything to trouble you, there might be some excuse; but as it is, why can't you go into enjoyments like the rest of your friends?"

"Don't I? Why, I hardly know another girl who lives in such constant gayety as I. Are we not going to a dinner this evening and to the ball to-morrow night?"

"Yes; but you might as well be going to a funeral for all the pleasure you seem to anticipate. If you come to a ball with such a grandly serious air, the men will just as soon think of asking a statue to dance as you. A statue may be beautiful in its niche, but people do not care to study its meaning at a ball."

"What do you wish me to do, Mamma? I should hate the distinction of a wall-flower, which you think imminent. I am afraid I am too big a woman to be frolicsome."

"You never were that, but you were at least a girl. People will begin to think you consider yourself above them, or else that you have some secret trouble."

The smile of incredulity with which she answered her would have been heart-breaking had it been understood. No flush stained the ivory pallor of her face at these thrusts in the dark; Louis was never annoyed in this way now. Her old-time excited contradictions never obtruded themselves in their conversations. A silent knowledge lay between them which neither, by word or look, ever alluded to. Mrs. Levice noted with delight their changed relations. Louis's sarcasm ceased to be directed at Ruth; and though the familiar sparring was missing, Mrs. Levice preferred his deferential bearing when he addressed her, and Ruth's grave graciousness with him. She drew her own conclusions, and accepted Ruth's quietness with more patience on this account.

Louis understood somewhat; and in his manliness he could not hide that her suffering had cost him a new code of actions. But he could not understand as her father did. Despite her brave smile, Levice could almost read her heart-beats, and the knowledge brought a hardness and a bitter regret. He grew to scanning her face surreptitiously, looking in vain for the old, untroubled delight in things; and when the unmistakable signs of secret anguish would leave traces at times, he would turn away with a groan. Yet there was nothing to be done. He knew that her love had been no light thing nor could her giving up be so; but feeling that no matter what the present cost, the result would compensate, he trusted to time to heal the wound. Meanwhile his own self-blame at these times left its mark upon him.

For Ruth lived a dual life. The real one was passed in her quiet chamber, in her long solitary walks, and when she sat with her book, apparently reading. She would look up with blank, despairing eyes, clinched hands, and hard-set teeth when the thought of him and all her loss would steal upon her. Her father had caught many such a look upon her face. She had resolved to live without him, but accomplishment is not so easy. Besides, it was not as if she never saw him. San Francisco is not so large a city but that by the turning of a corner you may not come across a friend. Ruth grew to study the sounds the different kinds of vehicles made; and the rolling wheels of a doctor's carriage behind her would set her pulses fluttering in fright.

She was walking one day along Sutter Street toward Gough from Octavia. The street takes a sudden down-grade midway in the block. She was approaching this declension just before the Boys' High School when a carriage drove quickly up the hill toward her. The horses gave a bound as if the reins had been jerked; there was the momentary flash of a man's stern, white face as he raised his hat; and Ruth was walking down the hill, trembling and pale. It was the first time; and for one minute her heart seemed to stop beating and then rushed wildly on. Whether she had bowed or made any sign of recognition, she did not know. It did not matter, though; if he thought her cold or strange or anything, what difference could it possibly make?

For her there would be left forever this dead emptiness. These casual meetings were inevitable; and she would come home after them worn-out and heavy-eyed. "A slight headache" was a recurrent excuse with her.