The Inner Flame. Burnham Clara Louise
good-bye. Eliza was beyond speech.
While the visitor entered her waiting car, and sank with relief among its cushions, the mourner stood, her back against the closed door, and her eyes closed.
Restrained drops ran down her cheeks in well-worn ruts, and occasionally a spasmodic sob shook the slight form.
Pluto came to her feet, his short tail stiffly outstretched and his half-closed eyes lifted to the sightless face. In the long silence he rubbed himself against her feet in token of forgiveness.
CHAPTER IV
PHILIP SIDNEY
The Fabians had given Philip Sidney a pressing invitation to spend his first week in New York with them. When he arrived, however, and announced himself at the house, through some misunderstanding there was no one there to receive him save the servants.
A comely maid apologized for the absence of her mistress, saying that Mr. Sidney had not been expected until the following day; and showing him to his room she left him to his own devices.
Emerging from his bath and toilet, he found Mrs. Fabian not yet returned. It was but four o'clock, and he decided to go to the Ballard apartment and attend to his errand there.
Eliza had been doing some sweeping, the need for it goading her New England conscience to action. Her brown calico dress was pinned up over her petticoat, and her stern, lined face looked out from a sweeping-cap.
There sounded suddenly a vigorous knock on her door.
She scowled. "Some fresh agent, I s'pose," she thought. "Too sly to speak up the tube."
Broom in hand, she strode to the door and pulled it open with swift indignation.
"Why didn't you ring?" she exclaimed fiercely. "We don't want – "
She paused, her mouth open, and stared at the young man who pulled off a soft felt hat, and looked reassuring and breezy as he smiled.
"I did ring, but it was the wrong apartment. There was no card downstairs, so I started up the trail. Is this Mrs. Ballard's?"
The frank face, which she instantly recognized, and the clear voice that had a non-citified deliberation, accused Eliza of lack of hospitality; and she suddenly grew intensely conscious of her cap and petticoat.
"Come in," she said. "I was doin' some sweepin'. The first – " she paused abruptly and led the way down the corridor to the shabby living-room.
Phil's long steps followed her while his eyes shone with appreciation of the drum-major effect of the cap and broom, and the memory of his fierce greeting.
"I don't wonder Aunt Mary died," he thought. "I would too."
Meanwhile Eliza's heart was thumping. This interview was the climax of all she had dreaded. The usurper had an even more manly and attractive exterior than she had expected, but well she knew the brutal indifference of youth; the selfishness that takes all things for granted, and that secretly despises the treasures of the old.
The haste with which she set the broom in the corner, unpinned her dress, and pulled off her cap, was tribute to the virile masculinity of the visitor; but the stony expression of her face was defence from the blows which she felt he would deliver with the same airy unconsciousness that showed in the swing of his walk.
"You're Eliza Brewster, I'm sure," he said. "My mother knew you when she was a girl."
The hasty removal of Eliza's cap had caused a weird flying-out of her locks. The direct gaze bent upon her twinkled.
"I wonder if she'd let me paint her as Medusa," he was thinking; while her unspoken comment was: "And she never saw his teeth! It's just as well."
"Yes, that's who I am," she said. "Sit down, Mr. Sidney. I've been expectin' you."
"You didn't behave that way," he replied good-naturedly, obeying. "I thought at first I was going downstairs quicker than I came up, and I'd taken them three at a time."
His manner was disarming and Eliza smoothed her flying locks.
"The agents try to sneak around the rules o' the house," she said briefly.
"So this is where Aunt Mary lived." He looked about the room with interest. "We people in God's country hear about these flats where you don't dare keep a dog for fear it'll wag its tail and knock something over."
The troublesome lump in Eliza's throat had to be swallowed, so the visitor's keen glance swept about the bare place in silence.
"I see she didn't go in much for jim-cracks," he added presently.
Eliza's lump was swallowed. "Mrs. Ballard didn't care for common things," she said coldly. "She was an artist."
Phil comprehended vaguely that rebuke was implied, and he met the hard gaze as he hastened to reply: —
"Yes, yes, I understand." An increase of the pathos he had always discerned since learning about his great-aunt, swept over him now, face to face with the meagreness of her surroundings. "Did Aunt Mary work in this room? I see an easel over there."
"Yes, she worked here." The reply came in an expressionless voice.
"Poor Aunt Mary!" thought the visitor. "No companion but this image!"
Eliza exerted heroic self-control as she continued: "I've got the things packed up for you – the paints, and brushes, and palette. The easel's yours, too. Do you want to take 'em to-day?"
"Would it be a convenience to you if I did? Are you going to give up the flat immediately?"
"In a week."
"Then I'll leave them a few days if you don't mind while I'm looking for a room. I haven't an idea where to go. I'm more lost here than I ever was in the woods; but the Fabians will advise me, perhaps. Mrs. Fabian has been here to see you, I suppose."
Eliza's thin lips parted in a monosyllable of assent.
"What a wooden Indian!" thought Phil. Nevertheless, being a genial soul and having heard Miss Brewster's faithfulness extolled, he talked on: "We hear about New York streets being canyons. They are that, and the sky-line is amazing; but the noise, – great heavens, what a racket! and I can't seem to get a breath."
The young fellow rose restlessly, throwing back his shoulders, and paced the little room, filling it with his mountain stride.
Eliza Brewster watched him. She thought of her mistress, and the pride and joy it would have been to her to receive this six feet of manhood under her roof.
"She wouldn't 'a' kept her sentimental dreams long," reflected Eliza bitterly. "He'd 'a' hurt her, he'd 'a' stepped on her feelin's and never known it. He walks as if he had spurs on his boots." She steeled herself against considering him through Mrs. Ballard's eyes. "He's better-lookin' than the picture," she thought, "and I wouldn't trust a handsome man as far as I could see him. They haven't any business with beauty and it always upsets 'em one way or another – yes, every time."
Her eyes wandered to the mantelpiece whose bareness was relieved only by three varying sized pieces of blank paper. She felt the slightest quiver of remorse as she looked. She seemed to see her mistress's gentle glance filled with rebuke.
She stirred in her chair, folded her arms, and cleared her throat.
"You can leave the things here till I go, if you want to," she said.
Phil paused in his promenade and regarded her. Her manner was so unmistakably inimical that for the first time he wondered.
Perhaps, after all, she was not just a machine. And the same thought which had been entertained by Mrs. Fabian occurred to him.
"Twenty-five years of faithful service," he reflected. "I wonder if she expected the money? She's sore at me. That's a cinch."
Phil's artist nature grasped her standpoint in a flash. The granite face, with its signs of suffering, the loneliness, the poverty, all appealed to him to excuse her disappointment.
His eyes swept about the bare walls.
"Where are Aunt Mary's pictures?" he asked. "Was she too modest to