# The Blue Window/Chapter 29

THE papers made the most of the sensation with which Sally had provided them. Winslow's sensitive soul squirmed as he read the headlines. He suffered tortures. Hildegarde's flight had been the final blow. Yet he had faced the newspaper men with an impassive front, and had told his story artfully. He had hinted at his own dissatisfaction with the engagement before Sally ran away. One gained the impression that it had been he and not Sally who had first wanted to break the bonds, but that a sense of honor had restrained him.
Sally was furious. "It isn't true. That's why I hate it," she told her young husband. "I deserve punishment. But not this."
"The man's a cheap cad. If you say so, I'll go down and make him eat his words."
Sally shook her head. "No, it would simply be nuts for the newspapers and beastly for me. But if you want a chastened wife, you have her. Henceforth I shall be a Griselda. As meek as they make 'em."
Merry kissed her. "I don't want you meek. You know that."
He had just come back from Round Hill. Louis had sent for him. "I need you," he had said, "I don't want to break in on your honeymoon."
​Sally had protested, "But he is breaking in."
"That's Louis. Selfish."
"I thought you loved him."
"I do. But there's somebody I love better," his golden eyes were close to hers.
She sighed with delight. "You aren't sorry then that you married me?"
"Sorry?" he held her close. "I wish I could make you feel the gladness."
It was due finally to Sally's insistence that he went to Round Hill. "There's something back of Hildegarde's leaving Louis. I want you to find out."
So Merry had gone, and had returned with the whole story. Louis had admitted that he and Winslow between them had driven Hildegarde to the wall. "We had common sense on our side, of course. Money makes for happiness in the long run. But perhaps we went the wrong way about it."
Carew's complaining voice had gone on and on justifying himself, wailing over Winslow's demands on him. "He doesn't dare put the screws on too tight. I've told him if he pushes me too far, I'll broadcast the whole story! That he wanted Sally and couldn't get her, and that Hildegarde wouldn't have him. He hates having fun made of him. And he'd be the laughing stock of our world if they knew. I've got him on the hip . . . but of course that doesn't pay my debts. I'll have to give up some of the antiques, and Anne and I will go again to Paris."
Merry, relating all this to his wife, had added, "Louis' affairs are in a dreadful mess. Winslow will straighten them out, I think, and there will be no open ​break between him and Louis. Neale has changed a lot. Do you remember when we saw 'The Gods of the Mountain,' Sally? Well, he makes me think of that—only it's the other way around—as if something alive had turned to stone."
Sally shivered. "Think if I had married him."
"I refuse to think of it."
He described the house at Round Hill as he had found it. "Everything is in confusion. It gave me a queer feeling to see your wedding presents. Winslow is having them repacked, and your mother is superintending the job."
"She blames everything on me," his young wife informed him, "she told me so over the telephone yesterday. She says that her heart is broken and that I've done it." Sally was silent for a moment. "Louis will mend her heart for her," she went on presently, "it's inevitable. They will console each other for the sins of their rebellious daughters. The situation would be tragic for me, if I hadn't had it all my life to contend with." The red blood came up into Sally's cheeks. "Merry, if ever I . . . have a daughter . . . help me to show her how to grasp at the fine things, not at the shoddy and tawdry ones. . . ."
"Please God . . ." his voice broke, he swept her into his arms.
Late that night as they started upstairs, Sally said, "Do you thing she will marry Crispin?"
"Hildegarde?"
"Yes."
"I hope so."
She was smiling down at him. There was no shadow ​between them of the past. Her candle was lighted, and it illumined his world. Following her up the stairs, he forgot that in his dreams there had ever been any other woman carrying a candle.