It should never be said of her that she was inappropriately dressed for her position. Everything should be quiet and yet—and yet—cunning planner—she meant to have the distinguished, inimitable something about her clothes that would mark the woman of good taste in the art of dressing well, and give a dim idea of studied plainness which every well-dressed woman knows is purchased at far greater price than the more showy garment. Once she paused beside a lovely creation of point lace whose pattern was faintly outlined in the tiniest possible ruched ribbon of pale pink, like a dream of roses in winter frost, and examined the pattern, while the wax-cheeked bridesmaid who wore it graciously held out a wilderness of pink roses before her unnoticing eyes, and surveyed her staringly from under her thick auburn eyelashes. She studied the lace carefully and wondered if she could achieve its like for the garnishing of one of her gowns with a collar and handkerchief of fine point she possessed, and some of that delicate ribbon work. How effective it would be on black!
Weary at last of the long strain she turned to go back. She would just see that gray suit again to be sure how the white chiffon was arranged under the gray and silver lattice and the exact shade of the canary colored breast knot of soft satin, and then she would go home for that clay. She was too tired to do another thing, and really she had accomplished much. She must have a sample of her own gray silk before she could get the outer material. What a blessing that the gray silk waist fitted her beautifully. All the better that it was plain. It would make a most delightful lining. Of course the skirt must be remodeled but that would not be difficult with a good pattern. She could do the underpart all herself and not have a dressmaker till she was ready for the outside. Ah! perhaps she might even accomplish this one gown alone entirely. She was sure she could do all the particular parts if she gave herself up to it, and that would leave more money to pay for the other things, for the dressmaker would have much to do and she must go to a very good one to have her linings made, and perhaps to a tailor for some things. She must economize all she could.
Thinking which she arrived before the gray gown.
Then from above her, somewhere on another floor of the great store and floating down through the open rotunda, came soft, sweet, swelling music, like angelic voices from afar.
It seemed to come nearer and surround her being and float about her naked soul and bathe her in its restfulness.
In a distant gallery there was some newly invented instrument, by whose mechanism a thousand harps and voices seemed to be set free at once and soar aloft in blended harmony.
The melody was familiar. It had been dear to her when it first came out. She knew the words. Each note spoke to her heart now. It had grown tiresomely familiar during her stay in this part of the world, by the constant grinding of it out by the poor wheezy street pianos and hand-organs, as if a common barnyard fowl should attempt the thrush’s roundelay. But now the song seemed to come to her with new significance.
Last night I lay a sleeping,
There came a dream so fair,
I saw the Holy City
Beside the temple there,
I heard the children singing
And ever as they sang
Methought the voice of angels
From heaven in answer rang,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
The burdened woman looking up, startled suddenly from her intricate busy plans for earth, realized almost with a sort of mingled horror and longing that there was another world than this. Would what she did now and here affect her happiness there? Would these poor paltry dresses count? Would her trouble be over ever?
Her throat choked up and she stood leaning against the glass case unheeding the people who passed and looked curiously at her absorbed, listening face.
When the music was over she went home.
Chapter 4: Her Rival Disclosed
That night she dreamed a single dream the whole night through. The scene reminded her of the background of some posters. There was a sky of clearly defined blotches of inky blue and dead white, with strange angels outlined against it. They seemed to be constantly warning her against something, at command of heavenly music that floated above, now soft, now clearer, as the need became greater. And she below, was striving to obey, with anguish in her soul. Gradually the face of her husband appeared a little way off, glad, gay. He was talking with a throng of beautiful women and evil men. Then it became clear that the danger was to him, and the angels were bidding her save him.
With all her soul dragging her down in heaviness she sought to get nearer to him and to attract his attention, but his expressive eyes rested on all faces but hers. He did not see, or would not recognize her. Her soul longed for one loving smile such as he used to give her in the old days when they were in a company of friends and could not speak save with their eyes. But now he would not look. He seemed to be another being and yet the same. At last she could lay her hand upon his and then she thought he surely would look, and she poured out pleading words into his ear of warning and entreaty. But he shook her off with anger, passed on from her grasp, and with a cry which seemed to rend her heart she awoke to live the whole scene over again.
Out from a night thus spent she went to her task, with white face and set lips. That gray dress should be bought to-day and begun.
She wasted no time in looking that morning. But as she sat waiting at the counter for a package which she wished to take home with her, a woman, tall and elegantly gowned, moved slowly down the aisle and stopped close beside her to examine an exquisite piece of lace that was being displayed.
Some sudden memory made Mrs. Winthrop look up at her face, and there she saw before her the one who had sat beside her husband in the park but a few days before.
Her heart fairly stood still to think that that woman was beside her. A great wave of hate and horror rolled over her and threatened for a moment to take away her consciousness, but her self-control that morning was tremendous, and she compelled her eyes to look steadily at the one who had won her husband from her, perhaps, but who, after all, was but a woman, another like herself. She would see what it was that had attracted. Oh, if she could but find out who she was!
And as if in answer to her wish came a smiling saleswoman, saying: “Good morning, Mrs. Sylvester. Is anyone waiting upon you?”
Miriam, quietly waiting for her package, sat watching her supposed rival as she tumbled the laces about ruthlessly as though their yards were priced in pennies instead of dollars, and at last ordered home two pieces that she might the better decide which suited her. As she moved away the smiling saleswoman said, “Let me see; the number is 1820 is it not? I cannot remember anything this morning,” and the proud lady bent her head and smiled condescendingly in reply and then swept by and was gone.
Mrs. Winthrop turned feverish eyes to the busy pencil that was rapidly writing down the address and noted carefully the name of the fashionable square where Mrs. Sylvester lived. Then she gathered up her packages and started home, her knees trembling under her as she walked and a quiver ran through her as if she had faced her worst foe.
Suddenly she stopped in the street and a light broke over her face. There was a rift, just a little rift in the dark clouds over her head. And now she knew that down deep in her heart she had harbored a fear which she would not let be put into thoughts even,
