Free The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington Page B

pleasant eyes, and it struck me that if—if one were in the Sheridan family”—she laughed a little ruefully—“he might be interesting to talk to sometimes, when there was too much stocks and bonds. I didn’t see him after dinner.”
    “There must be something wrong with him,” said Mrs. Vertrees. “They’d have introduced him if there wasn’t.”
    “I don’t know. He’s been ill so much and away so much—sometimes people like that just don’t seem to ‘count’ in a family. His father spoke of sending him back to a machine-shop or some sort; I suppose he meant when the poor thing gets better. I glanced at him just then, when Mr. Sheridan mentioned him, and he happened to be looking straight at me; and he was pathetic-looking enough before that, but the most tragic change came over him. He seemed just to die, right there at the table!”
    “You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place?”
    “Yes.”
    “Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling.”
    “No,” said Mary, thoughtfully, “I don’t think he is; but he might be uncomprehending, and certainly he’s the kind of man to do anything he once sets out to do. But I wish I hadn’t been looking at that poor boy just then! I’m afraid I’ll keep remembering—”
    “I wouldn’t.” Mrs. Vertrees smiled faintly, and in her smile there was the remotest ghost of a genteel roguishness. “I’d keep my mind on pleasanter things, Mary.”
    Mary laughed and nodded. “Yes, indeed! Plenty pleasant enough, and probably, if all were known, too good—even for me!”
    And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie.
     
    Edith, glancing casually into the “ready-made” library, stopped abruptly, seeing Bibbs there alone. He was standing before the pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem, musingly inspecting it. He read it:
    Fugitive I will forget the things that sting: The lashing look, the barbed word. I know the very hands that fling The stones at me had never stirred To anger but for their own scars. They’ve suffered so, that’s why they strike. I’ll keep my heart among the stars Where none shall hunt it out. Oh, like These wounded ones I must not be, For, wounded, I might strike in turn! So, none shall hurt me. Far and free Where my heart flies no one shall learn.
    “Bibbs!” Edith’s voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she came into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her coat.
    Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed by the poem. “Pretty young, isn’t it?” he said. “There must have been something about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can’t believe the poem did it.”
    She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a low voice: “I don’t think it’s very nice of you to bring it up at all, Bibbs. I’d like a chance to forget the whole silly business. I didn’t want them to frame it, and I wish to goodness papa’d quit talking about it; but here, that night, after the dinner, didn’t he go and read it aloud to the whole crowd of ‘em! And then they all wanted to know what other poems I’d written and why I didn’t keep it up and write some more, and if I didn’t, why didn’t I, and why this and why that, till I thought I’d die of shame!”
    “You could tell ‘em you had writer’s cramp,” Bibbs suggested.
    “I couldn’t tell ‘em anything! I just choke with mortification every time anybody speaks of the thing.”
    Bibbs looked grieved. “The poem isn’t THAT bad, Edith. You see, you were only seventeen when you wrote it.”
    “Oh, hush up!” she snapped. “I wish it had burnt my fingers the first time I touched it. Then I might have had sense enough to leave it where it was. I had no business to take it, and I’ve been ashamed—”
    “No,