No one who knew Stephen Cranbrooke well could say he did anything by halves. In the days that followed his arrival at Mount Desert, Max Pollock saw that his friend was lending every effort to the task of establishing friendly relations with his wife. From her first half-petulant, half-cordial manner with him,--the manner of a woman who tries to please her husband by recognition of the claim of his nearest male intimate,--Ethel had passed to the degree of manifestly welcoming Cranbrooke's presence, both when with her husband and without him.
As Max saw this growing friendship, he strove to increase it by absenting himself from Ethel, instead of, as heretofore, spending every hour he could wring from the society of other folk, in the light of her smiles. His one wish that Ethel might be insensibly led to find another than himself companionable; that she might be, though never so little, weaned from her absolute dependence upon him for daily happiness, before the blow fell that was to plunge her in darkest night, kept him content in these acts of self-sacrifice.
But, as was inevitable, his manner toward them both underwent a trifling change. His old buoyancy of affection was succeeded by a quiet, at times wistful, recognition of the fact that his friend and his wife had now found another interest besides himself. But he was proud to see Cranbrooke had justified his boast that he "could be fascinating when he chose;" and he was glad to think Cranbrooke at last realized the charm Ethel, apparently a mere bright bubble upon the tide of society, had to a man of intellect and heart. "It was as I said," the poor fellow repeated to himself, trying to find comfort in the realization of his prescience; and when Ethel, alone with him, would break into paeans of his friend, and wonder how she could have been so blind to the "real man" before, Max answered her loyally that his highest wish for both of them was at last gratified.
Then the day came when there was question of a companion for Ethel in a sailing-party to which she had accepted an invitation--and for Max was destined an emotion something like distaste.
They were sitting over the breakfast table,--a meal no longer exclusive to wife and husband, as had been agreed, but shared by Cranbrooke with due regularity,--when Ethel broached the subject.
"You know, Max, I was foolish enough to promise that irresistible Mrs.
Clayton--when she would not take no for an answer, yesterday,--that _some_ of us would join her water party to-day. It is to be an idle cruise, with no especial aim--luncheon on board their schooner-yacht; the sort of thing I knew would bore you to extinction--being huddled up with the same people half the day."
"It is the opening wedge--if you go to this, you will be booked for others, that's all," said Max, preparing to say, in a martyrized way, that he would accompany her, if she liked.
"Oh, I knew you would feel that; and so I told her she must really excuse my husband, but that I had no doubt Mr. Cranbrooke would accept with pleasure. You see, Mr. Cranbrooke, what polite inaccuracies you are pledged by friendship to sustain."
"I _will_ go with pleasure," Stephen said, with what Max thought almost unnecessary readiness.
"Bravo!" cried Ethel. "This is the hero's spirit. And so, Max dear, you will have a long day to yourself while I am experimenting in fashionable pleasuring, and Mr. Cranbrooke is representing you in keeping an eye on me."
"You will, of course, be at home to dinner?" said her husband.
"Surely. Unless breezes betray us, and we are driven to support exhausted nature upon hardtack and champagne; for, of course, all of the Claytons' luncheon will be eaten up, and there are no stores aboard a craft like that. Will you order the buckboard for ten, dear?
We rendezvous at the boat-wharf. And, as there is no telling when we shall be in, don't trouble to send to meet me. Mr. Cranbrooke and I will pick up a trap to return in."
Max saw them off in the buckboard; and, as Ethel turned at some little distance and looked back at him, where he still stood on the gravel before their vine-wreathed portal, waving her hand with a charming grace, then settling again to a _tete-a-tete_ with Cranbrooke, he felt vaguely resentful at being left behind.
The clear, dazzling atmosphere, the sense of youthful vitality in his being, made him repel the idea of exclusion from any function of the animated world. He almost thought Ethel should have given him a chance to say whether or no he would accompany her. Was it not, upon her part, even a little bit--a _very_ little bit, lacking in proper wifely feeling, to be so prompt in dispensing with his society, to accept that of others for a whole, long, bright summer's day of pleasuring?
This suggestion he put away from him as quickly as it came. He was like a spoiled child, he said to himself, who does not expect to be taken at his word. Ethel well knew his dislike of gossiping groups of idle people; equally well she remembered, no doubt, his frequent requests that she would mingle more with the world, take more pleasure on her own account. And Cranbrooke,--dear old Cranbrooke,--of course he was ready to punish himself by going off on such a party, when it was an opportunity to serve his friend!
So Max put his discontent away, and, mounting his horse, went off alone for a ride half around the island, lunching at Northeast Harbor, and returning, through devious ways, by nightfall.
Restored to healthy enjoyment of all things by his day in the saddle, he turned into the avenue leading to their house, buoyed up by the sweet hope of Ethel returned--Ethel on the watch for him. Already, he saw in fancy the gleam of her jaunty white yachting-costume between the tubs of flowering hydrangeas ranged on either side the walk before their door. The lamps inside--the "home lights," of which she had once fondly spoken to him--were already lighted. She would, perhaps, be worrying at his delay. He quickened his speed, and rode down the avenue to the house at a brisk trot. The groom, who, from the stable, had heard the horse's feet, started up out of the shrubbery to meet him. But there was no other indication of a watch upon the movements of the master of the house.
"Mrs. Pollock has not returned, then?" he asked, conscious of blankness in his tone.
"No, sir; not yet. Our orders were, not to send for her, sir, as there was no knowing when the party would get in."
"Yes, the breeze has pretty much died out since sunset," said Pollock, endeavoring to mask his disappointment by commonplace.
He went indoors; and the house, carefully arranged though it was, with flowers and furniture disposed by expert hands to greet the returning of the master, seemed to him dull and chill. He ordered a cup of tea for himself, and, bending down, put a match to the little fire of birch-wood always kept laid upon the hearth of their picturesque hall sitting-room.
In a moment, the curling wreathes of pale azure that arose upon the pyre of silvery-barked logs was succeeded by a generous flame. The peculiarly sweet flavor of the burning birch was distilled upon the air. Sipping the cup of tea, as he stood in his riding-clothes before the fire, Max felt a consoling warmth invade his members and expand his heart.
"They will be in directly," he said; "and, by George, I shall be as ready for my dinner as they for theirs."
In one corner of the hall stood a tall, slender-necked vase, where he had that morning watched Ethel arranging a sheaf of goldenrod with brown-seeded marsh-grasses,--a combination her touch had made individual and artistic to a striking degree. He recalled how, as she had finished it, she looked around, calling him and Stephen from their newspapers to admire her handiwork. He, the husband, had admired it lazily from his divan of cushions in the corner. Cranbrooke had gone over to stand beside his hostess, and thence they had passed, still in close conversation, out to the grassy terrace above the sea.
Now, why should this recollection awaken in Max Pollock a new sense of the feeling he had been doing his best to dispose of all day? He could not say; but there it was, to prick him with its invisible sting. Then, too, the dinner-hour was past, and he was hungry.
He went out upon the veranda at the rear, and surveyed the expanse of water. Far off, between the electric ball that hung over the wharf of the village, and the point of Bar Island, opposite, he saw a bridge of lights from yachts of all sorts, with which the harbor was now full.
He fancied a little moving star of light, that seemed to creep beneath the large ones, might be the Claytons' boat on her return, and, after another interval of watching, called up a wharf authority by telephone, and asked if the _Lorelei_ was in.
"Not yet, sir," was the reply. "Probably caught out when the wind fell. Will let you know the minute they are in sight." With which assurance Mr. Pollock was finally driven by the pangs of natural appetite to sit down alone to a cheerless meal.
There was a message by telephone, as he finished his repast. The _Lorelei_ was in, and Mrs. Pollock desired to speak with her husband.
"We're all right," Ethel's voice said, "and I hope you haven't been worried. They _insist_ on our going to dinner at a restaurant, and, of course, you understand, I can't spoil the fun by refusing. _Couldn't_ you come down and meet us?"
His first impulse was to say yes; but a second thought withheld him.
He gave her a pleasant answer, however, bidding her enjoy herself without thought of him, and adding: "Cranbrooke will look out for you and bring you home."
It was quite ten o'clock when they arrived at the cottage, Ethel in high spirits, flushed with the excitement of a merry day, full of chatter over people and things Max had no interest in, appealing to Cranbrooke to enjoy her retrospects with her. She was "awfully sorry"
about having kept Max from his dinner; "awfully sorry" not to have come home at once, but there was no getting out of the impromptu dinner; and, of course, they had to wait for it; and she was the first, after dinner, to make the move to go; Mr. Cranbrooke would certify to that.
"I don't need any certification, dear," said Max, gently; but he did not smile. Cranbrooke, who sat with him after sleepy Ethel had retired from the scene, felt his heart wrung at thought of certain things that never entered into Ethel's little head. But he made no effort to dispel the cloud that had settled over his friend's face.
By and by, Cranbrooke, too, said good-night, and went off into his wing, and Max was left alone with his cigar.
The day on the water had verified Max's prediction that it would prove "an opening wedge." Ethel, caught in the tide of the season's gaieties, found herself impelled from one entertainment to the other; their cottage was invaded by callers, their little informal dinners were transformed into banquets of ceremony, as choice and more lively than those of their conventional life in town. The only persons really satisfied by the change of habits in the house were the servants, who, like all artists, require a public to set the seal upon their worth.
Max, bewildered, found himself sometimes accompanying his wife to her parties; oftener--struck with the ghastly inappropriateness of his presence in such haunts--stopping at home and deputing to Cranbrooke the escort of his wife. To his surprise, he perceived that Cranbrooke was not only ready, but eager, on all occasions, to carry Ethel away from him. But then, of course, this was precisely what he had wished.
And Ethel, who lost no opportunity to tell Max how "good," how "lovely," Cranbrooke had been to her, was she not carrying out to the letter her husband's wishes? He observed, moreover, that Ethel was even more impressed than he had expected her to be with that quality of "fascination." Cranbrooke's mind was like a beautiful new country into which she was making excursions, she said once; and Max, after a moment's hesitation, agreed with her very warmly.
At last, Maxwell Pollock awoke one morning, with a start of disagreeable consciousness, to the fact that this was the eve of his thirtieth birthday. Occupied as he had been with various thoughts that had to do with his transient relations to this sublunary sphere, he had actually allowed himself to lose sight of the swift approach of his day of doom. Now, he arose, took his bath, dressed, and without arousing his wife, who, in the room adjoining, slept profoundly after a gay dance overnight, went alone to the waterside, with the intention of going out in his canoe.
Early as he was, Cranbrooke was before him, carrying the canoe upon his head, moving after the fashion of some queer shelled-creature down to the float.
Max realized, with a sense of keen self-rebuke, that the spectacle of his friend was repellant to him, and the prospect of a talk alone with Stephen on this occasion, the last thing he would have chosen.
And--evidently a part of the latter-day revolution of affairs--Cranbrooke seemed to have forgotten that this day meant more than another to Pollock. He greeted him cheerily, in commonplace terms, commented on their identity of fancy in the matter of a paddle at sunrise, and offered to relinquish the craft in favor of its owner.
"Of course not. Get in, will you," said Max, throwing off his coat; and, taking one of the paddles, while Cranbrooke plied the other, their swift, even strokes soon carried them far over toward the illuminated east.
When well out upon the bay, they paused to watch the red coming of the sun. Beautiful with matin freshness was the sleeping world around them; and, inspired by the scene, Max, who was kneeling in the bow, turned to exclaim to Cranbrooke, with his old, hearty voice, upon the reward coming to early risers in such surroundings.
"Jove, a man feels born again when he breathes air like this!"
Cranbrooke started. It was almost beyond hope that Max should use such a phrase, in such accents, at such a juncture. Immediately, however, the exhilaration died out of Pollock's manner; and, again turning away his face, he showed that his thoughts had reverted to the old sore spot. He did not see the expression of almost womanly yearning in Cranbrooke's face when the certainty of this was fixed upon his anxious mind.
The two men talked little, and of casual things only, while abroad. As they returned to the house, Cranbrooke made a movement as if to speak out something burning upon his tongue, and then, repressing it, walked with hasty strides to his own apartment.
The day passed as had done those immediately preceding it. Calls, a party of guests at luncheon, a drive, absorbed Ethel's hours from her husband. When she reached home, at tea-time, he had come in from riding, and was standing alone in the hall, awaiting her.
"How nice to find you here alone!" she cried, going up to kiss him, and then taking her place behind the tea-tray. "Do sit down, and let us imagine we are back in those dear old days before we were overpowered by outsiders. Never mind! The rush will soon be over; we shall be to ourselves again, you and I and--how stupid I am!" she added, coloring. "You and I, I mean, for he must go back to town."